The interview isn\u2019t going terribly well.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve travelled for four days to Argentina\u2019s mountainous north-western corner to talk to a man whom I thought might be the world\u2019s loneliest pensioner. It turns out that he\u2019s not as lonely as I was led to believe, but we\u2019ll come back to that.<\/p>\n
This sun-cured, septuagenarian llama farmer is called Don Roberto Placa and he lives on the slopes of an 18,400ft (5,600m) mountain bang in the middle of nowhere. From the broken plastic chair outside his low, sparsely-furnished home, he can see four volcanoes, a shimmering salt desert and, in the distance, against a space-black sky, the jagged spike of the Cerro del Hombre Muerto – the Dead Man\u2019s Peak.<\/p>\n
The nearest village is three hours away, along a frost-shattered, quake-cracked track that winds through a Dali-esque landscape of glassy walls of lava, sudden-death ravines and toxic lakes of arsenic.<\/p>\n
They call this place La Puna, from the Quechua word for \u201cbadlands\u201d, and they say it\u2019s the place God gave the Devil to show off his landscaping skills. Curiosity as to how, and why, anyone can live in this disturbingly beautiful yet hellish land is what brought me here – but as I mentioned Don Roberto is being wilfully obdurate.<\/p>\n
He was born on this wind-scoured slope and has lived here for 74 years, he says. Since his parents died, he\u2019s been alone, but life is \u201ctranquilo\u201d.<\/p>\n
The thermal variation here is the highest on earth, with temperatures ranging from plus 30C to minus 30C in the space of a single day. It must be tough dealing with that, I suggest.<\/p>\n
Don Roberto shrugs. \u201cIt\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
What about the pumas? I ask. Yesterday, a German explorer told me how he\u2019d found one of Don Roberto\u2019s elderly neighbours – he lives just 55 miles (88km) down the road – bedridden with a broken hip, half-starved and dangerously dehydrated, while a pair of mountain lions waited patiently on his doorstep for him to expire.<\/p>\n
\u201cPumas?\u201d sniffs Don Roberto. \u201cPussy cats.\u201d<\/p>\n
And so, in one of the most dramatic landscapes on earth, continues one of the world\u2019s most humdrum interviews.<\/p>\n
What about food? I ask. \u201cWhen I run out I go hungry. No problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
Health? \u201cI pray to God and within three days I\u2019m better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Loneliness? \u201cPeople drop by all the time,\u201d sighs Don Roberto. \u201cJust eight weeks ago I had a visitor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Storms, earthquakes, landslides and volcanic eruptions? \u201cI make offerings to Pachamama for protection,\u201d says Don Roberto, referring to the Inca goddess.<\/p>\n
He leads me around his garden. Watered by trenches dug in the turf from the glacial stream nearby, it sprouts guava, potatoes and avocados.<\/p>\n
Don Roberto shows me his pear tree. \u201cFrost-proof,\u201d he says before bending with the suppleness of a yogi to dam a channel with a slab of obsidian.<\/p>\n
Does he have a radio? No.<\/p>\n
TV? No.<\/p>\n
Doesn\u2019t he get bored? Don Roberto gives me a wearily incredulous look. \u201cBored?\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t have time to get bored.\u201d<\/p>\n
His daily routine involves tending his garden, praying to God and looking after his small herd of llamas, some of whom are \u201cin the meadow, over the back,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
By \u201cover the back\u201d he means a 22-mile (35km) round trip on foot over a 15,000ft (4,500m) pass that\u2019s regularly closed by blizzards.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a dangerous hike,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot really,\u201d replies Don Roberto.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s time to play the trump card, the last resort of the inept reporter. It works like this: you make an irresistibly attractive hypothetical proposal in the confident expectation that the interviewee will reject it. His justification of that rejection will then reinforce the story.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo if the government offered you a brand-new, centrally-heated, air-conditioned apartment in the city of Salta – a two-day drive from here – with running water and a flat-screen TV, would you take it?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n
Don Roberto looks at me like I\u2019m an idiot. \u201cOf course I would,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
And there\u2019s a reason why this seemingly indestructible old pragmatist would jump at the chance to escape. He\u2019s not as alone here as he makes out.<\/p>\n
Behind his house, stands another, but in his laconic description of his 30 years of solitude, Don Roberto hasn\u2019t once mentioned his neighbor. When I ask, he gives me a look as dark as the storm sweeping in from the Chilean border. He will not discuss the neighbor. The interview it seems is terminado.<\/p>\n
That night, in a cold diner in the dusty hamlet of Tolar Grande, 88 miles north, I learn the truth.<\/p>\n
Don Roberto\u2019s neighbor is his sister, confides the waitress. No-one remembers why they fell out, but they haven\u2019t spoken in 30 years.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s nothing in Pachamama\u2019s book of spells it seems, that\u2019s more powerful than a family feud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The interview isn\u2019t going terribly well. I\u2019ve travelled for four days to Argentina\u2019s mountainous north-western corner to talk to a man whom I thought might be the world\u2019s loneliest pensioner. It turns out that he\u2019s not as lonely as I was led to believe, but we\u2019ll come back to that. This sun-cured, septuagenarian llama farmer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2677,2059,665,3436,3227,3584],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6074"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6074\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}