Visiting the farm of Venizio’s family in Peru was a fascinating insight into a different world. Here was a man who couldn’t read or write and scratched out a meagre existence by growing potatoes and corn on the land around his house. He was very proud of his family, and had a number of certificates on the wall that had been awarded to his young sons for achievement in study and sport at their school.
Venizio had probably never been more than fifty kilometres from his home. His whole world was the area around his house and his immediately local environment.
What a contrast to us who were looking in at him from the other side of the globe. Not only could we do that face to face, but the technology of Google Maps allows us to do that even from Australia. By backtracking our route from the site of the Inca burial towers, I was able to identify his house on the satellite view of Google Maps.
Could he ever imagine such a thing to be possible?
