Mollendo is a busy port, in Peru second to Callao in commerce, though far behind in other ways. It has really no harbor at all, in spite of a small breakwater recently built; the rollers and surf often look a bit awesome and the barrel is frequently called into requisition. Rarely the sea is so rough that passengers are carried on to the next port, whence they may return at their own expense. Seven or eight miles north is an excellent quiet haven, among the best on the Pacific, Matárani, to which there is much talk of transferring the port, especially since most of the business portion of Mollendo was destroyed by fire, April 2, 1912. From the Matárani Bay the railroad journey would be nearly twenty miles shorter and the ascent to the top of the bluffs would have a one per cent lower grade. It is hoped that the transfer will not long be delayed.
The tariff for disembarking at Mollendo is higher than at other ports, four-oared boats being generally used. For one passenger it is S.1; if there are more than three in one boat, 60 ctvs. each: children under twelve, 30 ctvs. Parcels of ordinary size or small trunks are 50 ctvs. each to the mole, and as much more to the station: large trunks 70 ctvs. and 60 more to station. With much baggage for several passengers a bargain for the whole may be made. The boatmen are liable to ask double what it is worth or what they are willing to accept. Peruvians generally pay one-half or one-third as much as strangers.
Mollendo is not an attractive place, between May and November subject to a fine mist or drizzle, and having little sunshine. It is, nevertheless, a health resort, but the most melancholy one it was ever my lot to visit. Yet many persons are benefited by coming from the greater altitudes of Arequipa and La Paz, even though the place be damp and cheerless. With an hour to spare one may stroll around the town or along the beach where the waves are rolling in from Australia or other remote region, or may climb the rocky promontory to watch the high breaking surf.
After leaving the station the train for several miles hugs the sandy shore, then turning away soon begins to climb the bluff, here about 3000 feet high. The face is irregular with steep slopes cut by many cañons. The road winds along up one of these, then on the face of a projecting slope, the car having first one side toward the sea, then the other, and heading in turn towards all points of the compass. At Tambo Station about 1000 feet up, there is a pretty view down into the Tambo Valley, its level floor green with sugar cane and other agricultural products. Women from below stand by the car windows with fruit and other edibles to sell. The ever changing prospect is a continual source of pleasure, especially near the close of the wet season, when the upper half of the slopes is quite green, mostly with bushes of heliotrope all in blossom. At other times there is only sand, not a particle of verdure, but many black sticks, some day to be rejuvenated into glowing life. It is a long and devious way to the edge of the plateau, where a sudden change is experienced. The green if any is left behind, a sandy desert is before, though the dampness, in the winter, continues. The gradual change from the gray mist to the bright desert sunshine if observed is most interesting, and then to look backward upon the gray cloud from which you have emerged. Here, perhaps, you have your first view of an absolute desert; no wells are useful, and for the stations along the track, even for Mollendo itself, water is piped down from near Arequipa, 100 miles distant. The plateau is covered with deep yellow sand and scattering stones, some as black as coal. Here is the desert you have dreamed of: no sage-brush, no blade of grass relieves the burning sand. Not that the sand burns here, but in some sections it is hot indeed. The monotony is relieved by graceful gray sand dunes from three to twenty feet high, crescent-shaped, moving slowly along at the rate of sixty feet a year. In the distance are variegated hills, gray, red, yellow, brown, and white, and the great mountains, El Misti and Chachani, with snow caps varying in dimensions according to the time of the year and the character of the season, Pichu-Pichu, a long range slightly lower. Some of the stations have a glint of green, a small oasis in the desert, others not a sign of verdure. Vitor is quite a little place with a hotel kept by an ancient Belgian, a neat, comfortable little establishment, used as a health resort for persons with weak hearts, for whom Arequipa is too high or Mollendo too damp. It is a starting point for those who would ride across the desert to the Vitor Cañon close by, the Sihuas Cañon beyond, and the Majes Valley still more remote, at the head of which Mt. Coropuna, 21,000 feet, is situated; ascended for the first time, July 16, 1911, by Miss Annie S. Peck and party. A railway is soon to be constructed between Vitor and the Majes Valley, which will open for increased traffic a fine agricultural and mineral section, the products of which are now brought by trains of burros across the desert. A little above Vitor the train enters the hills and presently passes along the edge of the fine Vitor Cañon, the floor of which is 500 or 1000 feet below. Trains of llamas may be seen, ancient ruins, a suburban town, Tingo, then if darkness has not fallen comes an enchanting view of Arequipa on the verdant slope of the great volcano El Misti, with Chachani and Pichu-Pichu also in the background.
Arequipa
Hotels. Morosini Parodi, Grand Hotel Central, Royal Hotel, Hotel Europe.
ON THE SOUTHERN RAILWAY OF PERU
RELIGIOUS PROCESSION, EL MISTI AT THE RIGHT