Cemetery Dog, Buried City of Yungay, Peru

Dog at Yungay National Cemetery; Mount Huascaran in background (photo by Barbara Drake 2009)

Last Sunday, El Fotógrafo, El Híjo and I toured the cemetery above the buried town of Yungay, about 30 miles north of Huaraz. We were with a group of scientists and historians taking part in a glacier adaptation conference, and there couldn’t have been a more stark reminder of nature’s destructive potential than to wander about this picturesque yet oppressive site — a place where nearly 20,000 souls perished in minutes from a massive avalanche that trapped them in mud, ice and rocks on May 31, 1970.

Stuart of En Peru explains the catastrophe vividly.

We stood on the uppermost tier of the cemetery with Peruvian glaciologist Benjamin Morales Arnao, who explained how he happened to escape being buried alive that day (he had been watching the World Cup soccer match on TV with some friends earlier in the afternoon but decided to go for a drive in his new Land Cruiser), and then we were given 30 minutes to explore the cemetery.

Our mud-caked hiking boots trod over neatly trimmed garden pathways, past red and white and pink rose bushes that for all their fragrant blooms carry a whiff of death. The roots of those bushes reach deep into earth that was sown with the remains of 20,000 bodies — the worst natural disaster in Peru’s history. The devastation was so total, the Peruvian government refused to excavate. Everyone was buried where the mud and rocks had trapped them. That was nearly 40 years ago.

EF and I roamed the cemetery photographing white monuments, rose bushes, the rusted remains of a mangled bus. “I want to leave,” whined EH.

This dog appeared as we lingered at the park exit. There were some vendors there selling snacks and Inca Cola, and he obviously belonged to one of them. He was small and furry and definitely the most lively thing in the Yungay National Cemetery.

The dog plunked down in front of a mountain-shaped rock and stayed still for about one minute as I shot him in front of the twin peaks of Huascaran.