TUNKA TUNKA

The only way I know to check out rumored energy sites is to go visit them. It often takes a lot of energy. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don't. I can't say Tunka Tunka was a winner.

Its pronounced either Tunka Tunka, or Tanka Tanka. Every time I hear someone pronounce it, it sounds like the other. I'd write it down one way, hear it pronounced the other way, rewrite it, and then reverse it again. I give up. However its pronounced, until the road there is improved, it ain't worth going to.

GETTING THERE: There are three roads from the highway circling the lake and the only one worth traveling on is the one from the border town of Desequedero. As of 1998, the other two, looking on the map like "short cuts" from Puno, are god awful and worse.

WHAT'S THERE: Not enough. The story that enticed me out there was that the site had a unique type of Chulpa that was bee-hive or cone shaped, coming to a virtual point at the top, a fortress, caves with rock paintings, and most intriguing, an underground room shaped like an Andean cross and accessed by a hole in the ground, covered by a large stone.

Needless to say that was inducement enough, so off I went with a group in tow. There were three roads from Puno to get there so we chose the shortest route. Bad choice. It was three hours of torture for the vehicle and occupants. Sort of like being inside a washing machine during the agitate cycle. For those of you not easily dissuaded, the best route of a bad lot is to go to the Peru-Bolivia border town of Desequedero and take the Bolivia-Peru Hwy heading for miles and hours(days?) to the Pacific Ocean. About 45-50 min on this fairly good dirt road will get you to the fortress, appearing from the road like a mesa, off to your left. There is some sort of sign at the village along side the road. Our heroic guide Ernesto then informed me that the rock paintings were another two hours, which locates them well beyond nowhere.

The local we encountered had never heard of the underground chamber and of course neither had Ernesto, so that too was a miss. It's also quite possibly the local took one look at these dusty and disheveled tourists and decided we weren't worthy of visiting the chamber. At any rate, the fortress was impressive in that it encompassed a huge area and consisted of natural steep buttes on two sides and a series of seven massive walls on the other two. The rock walls were crude but very well fitted. Rising out of the altiplano it was an imposing, easily defended site. By the crudeness of the fortress walls I judged it was probably built by Pre-Incan tribes (Aymara) in defense against the Inca, who history and the present day Aymara proudly tell us never conquered them.

There were none of the round style chulpas so prevalent at other sites, and only one square one. There were several Beehive or cone shaped style chulpas. These were unique in my experience and checking them out was one of the considerations motivating this particular adventure. But unlike other styles I had experienced elsewhere, these seemed to actually be burial chambers and nothing more. In fact, one still had bones in it. I felt no particular energy, not even when sitting atop the beehive cone. On the other hand, after being shaken apart for three hours, perhaps my sensors were so shot I couldn't have felt one of Zeus' lightning bolts. Nuff said.

Suffice it to say, this group will have the distinction of being the only one I ever take to Tunka Tunka -or Tanka Tanka -or is it Zonka Zonka--who cares?