The driver of an ancient Chevrolet crams in the fishermen's belongings. Hardly anyone can afford their own car they split the cost of the two-hour trip across the desert to the bountiful mussel beds of Independencia Bay.In the car they eat their second breakfast, rice and fish. Also galetas de agua powdery, salted biscuits made of water and flour. They are cheap and filling.A large part of Peru's black population lives in this area, their ancestors brought from Africa to slave in the cotton fields.
Today, every other person is unemployed; and working wages are meagre. People live by catching fish, by diving for mussels and octopuses, or by toiling in the large fish-meal factories on the edge of town. Those who are too young or too old to struggle for a living out at sea try to survive by cleaning shoes, by working as labourers or begging.As the sun rises, more and more cars, buses and lorries come out of the desert and into the small harbour in which the fishermen's high-sided and brightly coloured boats are anchored. Normally, there are about 70 here; in El Ni?ears, there are more than 600.The fish-rich ecosystem off the coast here is fed by the cold Humboldt current. On its way from Antarctica, it travels along the Pacific coast of South America, 200m below the surface, and hits the coast of Peru In the equatorial region it heads off west. The steady trade winds from the south-east exert such force on the sea that the cold, nutrient-rich bottom waters are churned up to the surface, bathed in sunlight.There, a giant floating water meadow forms in the sea: phytoplankton.
The microscopic algae feed the shoals of anchovies and sardines which make Peru one of the world's leading fishing countries. Also feeding on these shoals, however, are dolphins, sharks, turtles and the vast colonies of seabirds and sealions that populate the coast and the offshore islands.But the Pacific Ocean just off Peru is also the cradle of the climate phenomenon known as El Ni?This occurs irregularly every five to 10 years, and usually around Christmas time. Mussel divers call it corriente del Ni?"current of the Christ Child".During El Ni?the south-east trade wind dies down, the upwelling of the cold bottom water decreases and a warm, nutrient-poor layer of water moves from the north across the Humboldt current.As a result, the food chain shatters. Only a few plankton float in the water, the fish can't find any food and either die or leave for deeper, colder waters And as they disappear, so do their predators.
Within half a year, huge flocks of birds have been reduced to just a few animals. Only occasionally will you see sealions, emaciated and weak, sitting on the cliffs. The beaches are littered with animal cadavers; dead sealions with teeth bared; turtle shells; birds with contorted heads. Empty crab shells shatter underfoot.El Ni?as dramatic consequences for most Peruvians: with the disappearance of the shoals, trawlers don't go out for the catch, the chimneys of the fish-meal factories no longer smoke. People lose their jobs.In countries all around the Pacific, the weather plays up the harvest withers or heavy rain washes away fertile soil. But for the divers of Pisco, El Ni?eralds a brighter period just around the corner: fan mussels like warmth.Juan Mendoza has experienced many such years After the big El Ni?f 1982, he was able to buy his own boat. Now he's urging his team to work harder: there are too many strangers in the harbour.