Over the past few days we have had torrential rain in the Sacred Valley - only at night in Urubamba but day and night in other parts of the Sacred Valley and in Cusco. My friend Sarah who moved to the centre of Pisac from the outer edges of Taray village on my advice, managed to come to Urubamba for the day yesterday but when she arrived she said the river level was up to road level and that some fields were already flooded. Here in Urubamba it was sunny as usual and we all went to the Chicharonia restaurant on the main road just outside Urubamba for the roast duck lunch as planned. We had a lovely time there, we all enjoyed the roast duck, and especially enjoyed sitting outside in the sunshine. We shared a litre bottle of fig wine that Alfredo had brought back from Cusco the day before and followed this up with a couple of bottles of beer. A one man band arrived, playing charango and pan pipes and played the songs I asked for and the four of us got up and danced, there on the side of the road, having a good laugh in the process.
Also in Urubamba yesterday was a festival of fruit with lots of vendors in the Plaza de Armas selling fruit of all kinds and even fruit trees and we bought pear jam and then sat in the plaza relaxing in the sunshine, enjoying the profusion of beautiful flowers everywhere - they keep that plaza pristine and full of colourful flowers and it is always a pleasure to sit there awhile. Later I accompanied Sarah back to the bus station and before she left we arranged to meet in the Plaza de Armas in Cusco on Tuesday.
Who would have believed sitting there in that warm sunshine how things would change drastically in the next few hours. I had an email from Sarah in the evening saying that on the bus journey back it was much much worse with houses under water and water on the road as well. I had another email this morning - it was lucky she was in the centre of Pisac because a friend alerted her in the night that the bridge over the river which is the road climbing out of the valley in the direction of Cusco, had collapsed - half of it suspended over the swollen river and the police station nearby had broken into two pieces. She escaped from Pisac on foot with just a backpack by taking the lane towards Taray and then crossing the bridge onto the main road, where she was lucky to find a collectivo which took her to Cusco. Had she waited until this morning she would have been marooned in Pisac because the main road through the Sacred Valley which is the only other way out became completely flooded. Fields of crops and all the houses on the side of the main road throughout the valley were flooded and those made of adobe bricks were undermined by the water and completely collapsed. We had 15 hours non stop torrential rain from yesterday early evening until 9 this morning which caused this disaster on top of two other nights torrential rain.
This afternoon after lunch Nohemy and I walked down to see first hand how the situation was in Urubamba. Just two or three hundred yards from the bridge which leads out of Urubamba towards Cusco the river had completely covered the road, with many houses that had already collapsed into the flood water. It was really sad seeing carts and lorries piled high with peoples furniture struggling through the flood water to drier land. The garage just past the bridge was completely flooded and probably the petrol had already been contaminated by the water because there was a strong smell of gasoline in the air. I took a few photos which you will see next week as I intend to download the latest ones to CD on Saturday. The restaurant where we were sitting outside in the sun yesterday was much further down the road so definitely would have been flooded terribly considering that the Casa Grande restaurant just outside of Urubamba on much higher ground was flooded up to its window cills. We would never have believed sitting outside in the sunshine yesterday that things could change so drastically overnight.
It isnt only the Sacred Valley which is affected either - Cusco is in a state of high alert as well, with drinking water contaminated, lots of landslides and adobe homes collapsing, rocks falling from mountainsides onto homes or the road below. Although traffic can still reach Cusco from Urubamba at the moment it is probably unwise to make the journey unless it is absolutely essential. We are all praying the rain will abate so that the river recedes. Nohemy said that in all the years she has lived in Urubamba she has never known flooding on this scale. We are certainly lucky that Urubamba is a lot drier because even Yucay has disappeared under flood water with adobe homes collapsing in the main street and this is only a mile or two away. They have a lot more rain in Pisac - in fact every time I have visited Pisac it has rained and if it is raining in the Sacred Valley it is raining even harder in Cusco.
Even today it seemed hard to believe that things were so drastic just outside Urubamba because after 9 am the sun came out and it was another warm sunny day in Urubamba as usual. Sarah has booked herself on a flight to Lima leaving tomorrow morning and will go to Brazil for longer than originally intended until her flight home on the 18th. So our plans for meeting tomorrow in Cusco are off. Alfredo made it to Cusco today mainly to check on the house there and will be back in Urubamba tomorrow. The three of us will wait until the weekend though before we go there again. Hopefully by then things will have improved.
I feel so sorry for all those people throughout the Sacred Valley who have lost their homes, or had their belongings ruined by flood water or the crops they have tended all lost in the floods and I hope the government will send some aid to alleviate their situation. Pisac and Qoya are the worst affected, Pisac being totally marooned with both roads out either flooded or inaccessible because of the collapsed bridge. It makes one wonder how long people will be marooned there. Pisac is always full of tourists. Listening to the news today, even the trains to Machu Picchu were suspended due to the flooded river. Even villages the other side of Urubamba are affected by the flooded river so we are lucky to have escaped the worst of it here in Urubamba.
