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NERUDA IN MACHU PICCHU
Luis Nieto Degregori

On October 20th 1943, a loose article appeared on the front page of the El Comercio newspaper in Cuzco, alongside some news about the world war, giving an account of a visit to Lima by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. The illustrious guest had visited the government palace the day before, where he had conversed with President Manuel Prado. His visit to Peru formed part of a tour of several countries on the Pacific coast, after leaving his post as his country’s Consul General in Mexico.

A week later, on the evening of Tuesday 26th, the train from Arequipa took Neruda and his wife Delia del Carril to Cuzco. Their travelling companions were the poet Esteban Pavletich, who was Press and Advertising Director of the Government Ministry at the time, and Uriel Garcia, Senator for Cuzco. That same night, in a ceremony held in the Provincial Council’s town hall, Mayor Oscar Saldivar declared Neruda an Illustrious Guest.

A few days later, on the morning of Sunday 31st, cultural institutions and artists’ and workers’ trade unions of Cuzco paid a multitudinous tribute to the author of Residence on Earth in the Municipal Theatre. The address was given by Luis Nieto Miranda, a poet from Cuzco who had met Neruda while he was exiled in Chile and with whom he shared a communist militancy.

«Pablo Neruda, this is your home» was the title of the poetic speech that Nieto read that morning, from which we shall extract a few lines: «You have asked me to welcome this combating poet, this heart made of the morning’s armoured steel. Look at him, there you have him».

Neruda was greeted with a standing ovation which lasted several minutes. The poet then began reciting two of the Twenty love poems as well as Spain in the heart and Residence on earth, among others. After reading for an hour, he bid the public farewell with his «New love song to Stalingrad» which was still unpublished at the time.

The next day, Monday 1st of November, Neruda and his wife boarded the train to Arequipa as part of their return journey to Chile. Several representatives of cultural institutions and local trade unions were at the train station to see him off.

The Cuzco press did not give an account of the poet’s trip to Machu Picchu, but it can be easily assumed that it took place between the Tuesday of his arrival in Cuzco and the Sunday when tribute was paid to him. The photograph shows Neruda with Uriel Garcia in the Inca citadel. Among the material recording the creation of Canto general (General Song), it was reported that Neruda had a copy of Luis E. Valcarcel’s «Tourist Guide to Cuzco» in his library.

These two apparently insignificant facts take on a new dimension when bearing in mind that according to those who have studied the life and works of Neruda, his visit to Machu Picchu had a decisive effect on expanding Canto General to the whole of America rather than limiting it to Chile and its history. Uriel Garcia and Luis Valcarcel are the pillars of Cuzco indigenism. Besides, they are both the most knowledgeable people as far as Cuzco’s prehistoric past is concerned. Back in 1922 Garcia had already published his book The City of the Incas. Archaeological Studies, whilst Valcarcel published his first studies on Machu Picchu also during the twenties and, in the early thirties, conducted the first archaeological excavations in Sacsayhuaman.

As mentioned by his biographers, Neruda was therefore accompanied by the most appropriate people during his visit to Cuzco, who introduced him to the Inca past, one of them personally and the other through his book «Heights of Machu Picchu», written in Isla Negra in September 1945, two years after the visit to Cuzco. The first issue appeared five years later in Mexico.

During his visit, the poet apparently referred to Cuzco as «the sacred uterus of America», as mentioned in the fifth issue of the magazine Garcilaso. «Machu Picchu has a marvellous and unique natural framework. It will be etched in my mind throughout the pilgrimage of freedom and awareness that I have embarked on across the promising lands of our continent».

TESTIMONIES AND OTHER VISITS

1943
«Before arriving in Chile I made another discovery that would add a further dimension to the development of my poetry. I stopped in Peru and climbed up to the Machu Picchu ruins. We rode up on horseback. There was no road in those days. From above I saw the ancient stone buildings surrounded by the very high peaks of the green Andes mountains. Torrents flowed from the citadel, eroded by the passing of centuries. Masses of white mist rose from the Wilcamayo river. I felt infinitely small in the middle of that stone centre; the middle of an uninhabited world, proud and eminent, which I belonged to in some way. I felt as though my own hands had worked there in some far distant period, digging ditches, flattening rocks. I felt Chilean, Peruvian, American. In that rugged highland terrain, among those glorious, dispersed ruins, I had found a profession of faith in the continuation of my song. That was the birthplace of my poem «The Heights of Machu Picchu».
Pablo Neruda. I confess that I have lived. Memoirs, p. 229.

«Neruda returned to Chile by plane, making prolonged stops on the way. One of his stops was in (..) Lima, Peru, where on October 21st he made a very important speech in which he called to mind the Liberators of America (Sucre, Bolivar, O’Higgins, Morales, Artigas, San Martin, Mariategui) and referred to Cesar Vallejo as «one of the leading lights of America». While in Peru he also visited Cuzco and Machu Picchu. The remote capital of the Incas caused such an impression on him that it prompted him to write a magnificent poem, one of the first of Canto general and the moral fibre of his new American outlook. Neruda was mesmerized by the monumental stone citadel. A friend accompanying him undoubtedly expected a historical phrase when he asked him what he thought of it. All the poet had to say was «What a great place to eat a roast lamb!» – a phrase criticized by fools because perhaps they would have preferred some Napoleonic line like «Soldiers, from the heights of these pyramids» etc. However, the emotion that Neruda felt in Machu Picchu of having reached the hub of America was so overpowering that he avoided the issue with an ironic phrase, in the most traditional style of the Chilean «roto» (member of the poorest class).
Emir Rodriguez Monegal. The immobile traveller, introduction to Pablo Neruda, p. 112.

1966
«For a long time now, Peruvian writers, among whom I had many friends, were applying pressure so that I would be awarded an official decoration in their country. I must confess that I had always thought decorations were rather ridiculous. The few that I had been awarded were placed on my chest in an indifferent or routine manner, as a reward for roles performed or for consular duties. On one of my travels through Lima, the great novelist Ciro Alegria, author of Los Perros Hambrientos (The hungry dogs), who at the time was the President of Peruvian authors, insisted that I should have a decoration bestowed upon me in his country (...). Furthermore, architect Belaunde, President of Peru at the time, was not only an avid reader of my works but also my friend. Although the revolution that violently ousted him from power and forced him to leave the country later resulted in a Peruvian government unexpectedly open to changing historical trends, I still believe that Architect Belaunde was a thoroughly honest man, committed to somewhat unrealistic tasks that finally set him apart from the terrible truth, separating him from the nation that he loved so deeply. I agreed to receive the decoration, not for consular services this time, but for one of my poems. Besides – and this is no trivial matter – there were still some open wounds that needed healing between the people of Chili and Peru. Not only should athletes, diplomats and statesmen try to triumph over the blood lost in the past, but poets even more so, since their souls have fewer boundaries than others».
Pablo Neruda, op. cit., pages 433 - 434.

1970
« A few days later, I received a letter from Neruda: he was returning from Europe by ship and wished to stop briefly in Lima to offer a recital for the benefit of earthquake victims. He expressed his wish to stay in my home if possible and, apart from the recital, he wanted his visit to be strictly private. He wanted to enjoy the Lima cuisine and reserve a night for dinner with close friends, to eat some of those superb river shrimps that could only be obtained in a few restaurants in the city (...). I have also given a partial account of Neruda’s visit to General Velasco in Lima (...). The truth is that the poet was enchanted with that conversation and the invitation to lunch. In turn, General Velasco had a curious but completely typical reaction. «What a sensible poet!», he told Sergio Larrain when he met him at a ceremony two or three days later. He repeated the phrase a couple of times, looking amazed and pensive: «What a sensible poet!».
Jorge Edwards. Adios poeta (Farewell poet), p. 211.