History of the Ship

Part II - The Great Trek

FOOTSTEPS OF THE YAVARI

In September 1999 a 12-member Anglo-Peruvian team set out with 15 llamas to search for and identify the exact route over which the YAVARI was carried. The train ride from Arica to Tacna across the coastal desert has changed little. From Tacna (550m) the route, which is documented, crosses the Atacama desert, the world’s driest, before climbing the foothills of the Andes to Tarata (2,000m+). From Tarata to Puno (3,810m), of which nothing is written, there are three principal mule trails – one via Pizacoma, two via Mazo Cruz. The expedition team divided into three groups, each one with an Aymara speaker. Interviews were carried out along the routes with overnight host families, with whom the teams stayed in favour of camping wherever possible. The altitude, cold and wind made conditions very demanding at 4,200m to 4,850m. The trek was completed in three weeks, during which much was learned regarding pre-vehicular travel and transport. However, although one woman did remember her father speaking of the ship, history preceding the Chilean occupation (1880-1929) appeared to have been largely obliterated from memory. Conclusion: In view of the fact that the original journey took six years, and involved many muleteers and porters, it was likely that all three routes were used.

The Trans-Andean Expedition 1999 was led by Jonathan Gillespie-Payne supported by a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship and sponsored by: Robert Fleming Holdings Ltd., SCANDA (Sportswear); Satphones – Star Communications & Maritime Services (International); Inca Kola and Bachelor Foods. PESCA (Proyecto Especial de Camelidos de Sud America) lent the llamas and the Regional Government of Puno provided general assistance.

Six months later, the contractor, hopelessly defeated by the task, was fired, leaving pieces of ship scattered between Tacna and Puno. Outside events seemed to conspire against the project as grumbling muleteers, an earthquake, a ‘peasants revolt’ and the threat of a second invasion of Peru by the Spanish, brought the expedition to a halt. Five years on it received fresh impetus. Requests were sent out for more muleteers and “1000 Indians” to help with the task and by 1st January 1869 enough pieces had arrived for the keel of the YAVARI to be laid. Despite fatalities within the team, the British engineers and local workers painstakingly rebuilt the YAVARI, bit by bit. At 3pm on Christmas Day 1870 the First Lady of the Lake was launched. The amazing journey from the heart of Empire Britain to the spiritual heart of the Inca Empire was finally complete. The Yapura since renamed BAP Puno followed in 1873.

The YAVARI, then 100ft long was powered by a 60 horse power (HP) two cylinder steam engine which, for want of more conventional fuel, was fired by dried llama dung…. She was also equipped as a two-masted sailer.

From Arica to Tacna 186ft.(550 ms) above sea level, the packing cases travelled the 40 miles (64 kms.) on one of the oldest stretches of railway in South America. In Tacna the 2,766 pieces weighing a total of 210 tons were unpacked and arranged in order of how they should arrive at Puno on the Lake. Local muleteers and porters, who were to carry the crankshafts, competed for the work. The route, though only 350 kms in length,   would   take   them    across    the 

moonscape of  the driest desert in the world, mountain passes higher than the highest European peaks and the sub-zero windswept wastes of the altiplano. Notwithstanding, the winner quoted a delivery date of six months. Buoyed by this prospect, the British engineers who were to help re-assemble the ships, went on ahead to build a jetty, slipway and machine shops in preparation.

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