SOUTH AMERICAN ADVENTURE
Across Peru in 1982 by Volkswagen Bug
Photographer Tony Hutchings’ antidote to the monochrome pall that has hung over us this past year is to relive an epic South American road trip. Earthy reds, bright blue skies, towering Andean backdrops and a Volkswagen Beetle – all perfectly preserved on vivid Kodak Ektachrome
“It all began in 1980, when I visited the Munich studios of filmmaker Peter Mahringer,” explains London-based photographer Tony Hutchings. “I saw a film about the Andes that showed how majestic, spectacular and isolated that part of Peru still was. After returning to London I decided to leave my studio to experience it first-hand.”
With the images from Mahringer’s film still swimming in his mind, Hutchings began voraciously to consume National Geographic articles on the area. He bought a copy of the South American Handbook – a near 1400-page guide first published in 1923 – and meticulously cut out the sections pertaining to Peru.
“I considered using public transport, and although there was an efficient coach network from city to city, it offered little opportunity to stop in between,” says Hutchings. “There was no better option for dealing with the rough Andean roads than a secondhand Volkswagen Beetle, with its flat floor and bombproof air-cooled engine. I managed to find a 1967 Brazilian-built example for around $2000.”
The South American Beetle – or Fusca – varied in many ways from its German cousin, not least visually. The cars that left São Bernardo do Campo carried on until 1972 with Europe’s 1958-’64 body style, with its thick door pillars and smaller windows, as well as the more attractive sloping headlights of the earlier generation. When production first began in Brazil in January 1959, around 60% of the parts were shipped over from Germany; by the time Hutchings’ example rolled off the production line, just four of the thousands of components were imported. But at its heart, the Käfer was every inch as reliable, rugged and practical as anything on the road.
Ahead of his journey, each corner of the little sky-blue Beetle was packed with camping gear brought from the UK, supplemented by provisions gathered in Lima. Detailed road maps were stuffed into the glovebox, while the rest of the car was filled with jerry cans of petrol and tins of food that would last the journey without spoiling. Plus, of course, his Hasselblad 500C/M camera: “I set off south along the Pan-american Highway towards Paracas, a coastal reserve known for its abundant wildlife, including seals, birds and, rather worryingly, vampire bats. The only animal I saw at night was a splendid silver fox, looking to catch some of the rodents that had been attacking my food supplies.”
Hutchings set up camp and explored the area on foot for several days. When it came time to continue the journey, the Beetle had become completely bogged down in deep sand. The roads around Paracas were quiet, and night had begun to fall when he spotted the first vehicle of the day, a Toyota Land Cruiser carrying a Chilean couple. Mercifully, his fellow travellers took Hutchings to their hotel for the night, returning the following morning to drag the stricken Beetle from the sand using a length of rope.
“The Pan-american Highway was a driver’s delight in 1982,” says Hutchings. As the road followed the coast through the desert, it would occasionally snake down to cross a verdant river valley fed by waters flowing from the Andes – the peace broken only by the air-cooled clatter of the flat-four. Hutchings left the Pan-american Highway at the white volcanic city of Arequipa, steering the Beetle onto the unmade roads towards Chivay and the Colca Canyon, setting up camp near Cabanaconde.
“A friend in Lima had told me about a place called ‘Cross of the Condor’,” recalls Hutchings. “At 8am, the birds leave their mountain roosts and glide to the desert 60 miles away. In the evening they return, using strong thermals of hot air rising from the sunlit sides of the canyon.”
From the Colca, Hutchings took the Beetle on a circuit of Peru’s highest extinct volcano, the Nevado Coropuna. An enchanting mix of ice caps, glaciers, peat bogs and rolling pastures, the 13,000ft (4000m) Altiplano proved to be the Beetle’s first big hurdle. The thin atmosphere threw the air-cooled lump out of tune – all 3,350,000 Brazillian-built Beetles retained carburettors throughout their production run.
“The car started to struggle, and I was beginning to worry that my four jerry cans of fuel wouldn’t be enough,” explains Hutchings. “It was necessary on the ascent to have the windows open, because the drop in atmospheric pressure caused fumes to be drawn into the car.”
After a torturous drive over rough, rocky roads, Hutchings and his Beetle limped into Carman Alto, where his handbook clippings indicated there was an Inca site. “A man stepped forward and asked what I was doing there, and when I mentioned the ruins he said what was left wasn’t worth seeing. The fields were too rocky to pitch a tent so I slept in the car, only for a boy to tap on my window a few hours later and say: ‘My mum says it’s not safe, follow me.’ I was led to a small house, where I slept on a bench.”
Back on the road, and with the boy’s words ringing in his ears, Hutchings camped well away from the dirt road on the Altiplano, where temperatures plunged to -15ºc at night. “There was no problem,” says Hutchings, “until I tried to start the Beetle. With a frozen battery and 50% less oxygen than at sea level, I wasn’t going anywhere. To my amazement a shepherd appeared, complete with llamas. He seemed equally amazed and asked where I was from. When I told him, ‘England, a long way away, across an ocean,’ he asked where my boat was.”
With the help of the shepherd, Hutchings managed to push the stranded Beetle back on to the dirt track, where he had no option but to wait for another passer-by. A lorry appeared after three hours and the two were able to bumpstart the Volkswagen, which by that stage was running low on fuel. Fortunately a local had a petrol store in his yard, and a bucket and funnel with which to fill the Beetle’s tank.
Hutchings’ good fortune was short-lived. Not long after getting back on the road the following day, the Beetle’s engine died on the road to Orcopampa. With no time to set up camp before
the sun set, he was forced to pull his coat tight and spend the night in the car. “Sleeping in the Beetle wasn’t easy,” he recalls. “I decided to eat plenty of honey, and as it got colder I set up the camping stove in the footwell – not a great idea given all the fuel I was carrying! I had completely forgotten to use my emergency silver body bag.
“I was eventually woken by a loud knock and opened my eyes to what appeared to be the interior of an igloo-shaped freezer bathed in bright sunlight. The roof, windows and windscreen were coated in a couple of inches of icy frost, and as I wound down the window, pushing out the ice, my visitor said, ‘My God, I thought you were dead!’ He kindly walked with me to a mining camp around five miles away, to which we then towed the car. The points were pitted, and I made a temporary repair.
“I stayed the night, and for my next stop they recommended I asked for the mayor of Andahua. The first person I spoke to was, in fact, the mayor, and I slept on the floor of his loft – at least it was warmer than the Beetle!”
From Andahua, Hutchings once again pointed his steed skyward, beginning another epic climb on the way back to the coast, eyes fixed on the fuel gauge until there was little more than fumes in the tank. By the time he coaxed the Volkswagen to the summit, the pair had reached 13,000ft (4000m): “I was then able to freewheel most of the 60 miles towards the sea, taking in changes in scenery from snow-capped mountains to arid, barren desert hills.”
After meeting with friends at Nazca Airfield and on the home stretch back to Lima, Hutchings eventually found a yard where cars were undergoing repair. “To call it a garage would have been a stretch,” he smiles. “The mechanics were very confused when I told them in my best Spanish that I was having trouble with my bananas. Eventually, with lots of laughter, they realised I had confused platinas – points – with plátanos – bananas. After arriving in Lima the windscreen wipers were removed – a local custom due to the region’s low rainfall – and I began planning my journey north.”
Hutchings’ route took him towards Ancash in the Cordillera Blanca, an area that juxtaposed spectacular scenery with a tense atmosphere, the roads punctuated by military roadblocks and checkpoints. “I managed to gain entry to Laguna Parón by giving the guards some beers, and pitched my tent in the glow of the Beetle’s headlights at the edge of the lagoon. The view in the morning of the lake, with the snow-covered 19,000ft (5885m) peak of Pirámide de Garcilaso at the far end, was stunning.”
Later, 16,500ft (5000m) above the Lagunas de Llanganuco, the Beetle finally met its match: the engine could breathe no more and whimpered to a stop, forcing Hutchings to retrace his steps. A few nights later, after waking to a spectacular view of the Laguna Querococha, the Beetle again refused to start: “It was late afternoon before another vehicle arrived, a Volkswagen camper driven by a German couple, who said that to camp in view of the road was madness.
They asked if I was armed before showing me their pistol. Using a short rope they got me back on to the stony road and started the engine, but not before both headlamps were smashed.”
The following day Hutchings found someone in the town of Yungay to repair the Bug’s headlights and share the town’s bleak history. “He explained that an earthquake had buried the town in 1970, killing around 20,000 inhabitants,” says Hutchings. “He had been away for a couple of days. When he returned, he had lost his entire family and all of his friends.
“Leaving that still sad place, I continued down the Cañón del Plato. The views were beautiful as the evening light flooded up the valley from the west, but the road to the coast was 90 miles of bone-jarring corrugated track, and I couldn’t find any speed at which the shaking would lessen. Finally back on the Pan-american Highway, I looked in my mirror to see a condor soaring in my slipstream off to one side, rather in the way seagulls shadow cross-channel ferries.”
Hutchings and his Beetle had been in Peru for almost three months, and in order to get a new visa it was necessary to leave for three days, after which a replacement could be issued. “I went to Ecuador,” he explains. “At the crowded border the guard who inspected my passport held it up. ‘We’ve got one!’ he shouted, ‘an English!’ Everyone fell about laughing. Then the guard said, ‘You have to go, the car has to stay here.’ The bureaucracy in Peru was such that when you buy a car you have the documents of the original owner – okay unless you want to take the car out of the country. I eventually found a lorry driver who would keep an eye on the Beetle while I crossed a bridge teeming with people and the peculiar sight of trucks laden with bananas creeping from Peru to Ecuador and trucks laden with bananas creeping from Ecuador to Peru.”
After some negotiation, Hutchings established that if the Ecuadorians would give him an exit stamp, then the Peruvians would grant him a new three-month visa. “But, as ever in my adventures through South America, there was a catch,” he laughs. “The head of customs on the Ecuadorian side explained that an exit stamp could be arranged, but it would be both a complicated and very expensive procedure. “How expensive?” I asked in his office. “$20,” he replied. I quickly produced a 20-dollar bill, then he flicked the date wheel and stamped my passport with a smile.”
Hutchings has produced a fabulous photographic book recounting his travels. Peru 1982 features 168 images from his 9000-mile trip, printed across 220 150gsm silk-coated pages. Just 350 limited-edition, signed and numbered copies are available, priced at £39 in the UK. See peru1982.com