Published in the New Zealand Listener , November 2006.

Ica is a dirty, chaotic town of about 200,00 people in the Peruvian desert four hours southeast of Lima, where the course of the Rio Ica leaves a strip of green as it struggles its way though the rainless terrain. Orange-blossomed acacia trees and three-wheeled, Mr Bean-style taxis careering around the streets add flashes of colour to the dusty streets.

The surrounding area is rich in archeological remains of the ancient Paracas and Nazca cultures, and its vineyards are famous as the original source of Peru's national drink pisco, a grape brandy named after the nearby port from where it was first exported. The enormous dunes surrounding the adjacent oasis of Huacachina are also increasingly popular among backpackers wanting to try the novelty sport of sandboarding.

Heading out to Huacachina to try my hand at dune surfing, I have a taxi driver who wants to make sure I've appreciated the highlights of the area. Yep, done the museums and vineyards, I assure him. “And I suppose you've seen the seven-headed palm tree?” he asks. The what? I say, and he tells me a story which seems to have come straight off the pages of a magical realist novel.

The village of Cachiche just outside Ica, he informs me, is known for being the centre of witchcraft in Peru, and there grows a remarkable palm tree. Once upon a time it was a normal, erect tree, but under the influence of the diabolical rituals performed nearby it has become deformed, six times twisting its trunk and growing downwards into the sand, then surging upwards again and sprouting another crown.

One of the witches of Cachiche died in 1987 at the age of 106. She was known to have cured the stammer of a local boy, who later became a congressman in Lima. On her death, the witch prophesised that when the seventh head of the palm tree appeared, Ica would be wiped out. The prophesy was forgotten as time went on, but in 1997 (an El Niño year) torrential rains in the foothills inland from Ica flooded the river, which burst its banks and inundated the city with a tide of mud.

As the flood tide surged towards them, villagers in Cachiche noticed that the palm tree had grown its seventh head. They rushed out to chop it off, whereupon the rains stopped, and the tide of mud ground to a halt just before entering Cachiche.

So intriguing does this story sound, that I decide I have to check it out, and agree with my taxi driver that I’ll take a trip out there. After sandboarding the following day, I drag along two fellow travelers from my hostel on the strength of my retold version of the story. Unfortunately, I’ve lost the phone number of my taxi driver, but we hail another cab - in unemployment-ridden Peru, taxi driving is the most popular occupation, and you never have to wait long.

This driver assures us that he too knows about the seven-headed palm of Cachiche, and is happy to take us there. Heading out of town, we go over the main points of the story. “There was a 106 year-old witch, who placed the curse on the palm tree, right?” I ask the driver. No, no, he says looking a little shocked – it wasn't the 106-year old witch who placed the curse. She would never have done such a thing; she was a curandera, a good witch, who healed people.

The bit about curing the boy who became a congressman is true, our driver tells us, but in fact she was never associated with the palm tree at all. That was the meeting place of the bad witches, who performed human sacrifice in return for knowledge of the future. One of these witches, when she drew the short straw and was to be sacrificed, violently objected, and placed the curse of the seventh head as she died.

About ten minutes from the centre of Ica, we arrive in Cachiche, a poor, sleepy-looking collection of ramshackle houses and fruit trees with a few bored-looking people sitting around in the heat. We drive down the dusty path through the centre of the village, right up to the diabolical palm itself.

I have to admit, it's the strangest tree I've ever seen, looking rather like a static shot of one of those worms out of the movie Tremors, topped by the odd tuft of leaves. Our driver seeks out a local woman to recite the whole story for us, in return for a small tip and an Inka Cola for her daughter. She's clearly had a bit of practice, waving her arms about and launching into a poetic register as she narrates. She agrees with our current driver; the 106-year old witch wasn't the one who placed the curse – she was just a well-meaning curandera.

One thing everybody agrees on is that the palm was not always so twisted, but was once a normal tree and has been deformed by sorcery. We're taken over to see the knob of trunk where the seventh crown would sit, if it were allowed to grow. It bears fresh marks of an axe blade; nowadays, says the woman, the villagers make sure they lop off the seventh head as soon as it shows signs of growing back.

The taxi driver takes us around the corner, where we find a statue of the famous healing witch. Eternally grateful for the cure of his stammer, the local boy who became a congressman later returned to Cachiche to erect a statue in her honour. Looking nothing at all like a 106-year old woman, it's a golden, full-breasted Art Nouveau nymphet with a head of flowing curls. “She bewitched with her beauty”, says the statue's plaque.

Opposite the statue resides the self-proclaimed current witch of Cachiche, a friendly man in his forties doing a slow trade from his local store, a square cinder-block building sponsored in the lurid yellow of Inka Cola. He sends his son over to regale us with the story of the witch and the congressman's stutter, promising that afterwards he will demonstrate some real witchcraft.

The boy gives another dramatic retelling of the story in return for a tip. He also points out a nearby tree stump in which, if you use your imagination, can be discerned the forms of a bear, an ape and an elephant. Clear proof of supernatural forces at work, don’t we agree?

Back over at the store, we politely decline the proprietor’s offer of magical services, ranging from palm reading to tarot cards, in favour of three saccharine, almost-chilled Inka Colas from the puttering fridge. My fellow backpackers have a bus to catch to Nazca, so we have to head off again in the taxi, leaving Cachiche’s resident witch a little rueful that he couldn’t persuade us to part with a few more tourist dollars.

What really happened in Cachiche and just how did the palm tree get the way it is? What’s the real story of the 106 year-old witch? I suspect there’s no simple answer. In Peru the confluence of myth, historical fact, invention, exaggeration and dark rumour tends to be the irreducible reality. Like the deformed palm tree, the story twists and shifts the more you try and investigate it.