The Desert and Ocean, Northern Peru

Except for the land around the river valleys, coastal Peru is a desert - an extension of the Atacama Desert of Northern Chile more than 1000 kms to the south. Rain is rare, perhaps once every few years. And yet, for a desert at sea level and so close to the equator, it has a remarkably cool climate with low cloud being the norm.  The cold, northward flowing Humboldt Current, which lies only a short distance off shore, is responsible for this apparent anomaly.  This current, while it gives sustenance to one of the world's great pelagic concentrations of biomass, also sucks out every bit of moisture from the eastward blowing air that passes over it.  By the time the air makes land fall it has been desiccated and chilled.  Not until you go up in altitude by 1000 meters or more is there reliable sunshine.

Man Against Desert:  a Standoff

The cold ocean waters and the much warmer terrain at elevations above 1000 meters combine to produce steady, strong afternoon winds that rake across the Pan American Highway.  Many parts of the road we drove over would be rapidly buried in sand if left alone.  At one point we saw a group of men doing a Sisyphean task - trying to move sand from one side of the road to the other by throwing shovel fulls of it up in the air and letting the wind carry it across.  More often than not it seemed that the wind was blowing against them.

In spite of the dryness of the desert, water from the el Niño rains are a major threat to the Pan American.  Rain in the Cordillera to the east can quickly become a flash flood moving at a ferocious velocity as it is channeled down to the lower elevations.  We saw areas where whole sections of the road bed had been completely undercut by flooding from the recent intense el Niño.  Further north, in the town of Chiclayo, it seemed that every square foot of paved road had been destroyed by a flood that had swept through the town.

Life along the Road

We often passed small, simple mud and thatch structures that people called home.  Most were close to the Pan American, the only road running north-south through Peru.  and a lifeline of commerce, of food, and of the necessities of life. Perhaps this child's father was off working the sugar cane plantations, the major source of livelihood in this part of Peru.  Or perhaps the woman lived alone with the child whose father had come and gone, taking his pleasure where he could find it.  Life on the road is never easy.