Blogging again

I did say that I was going to stop writing a regular blog, but I've found that the habit of writing hasn't left me now I'm back in the UK. So indulge me I'm going to start again!

Winter

The days are so short now, a trueism I know, but the weather has been cold, clear and sunny which is my favourite winter weather.

There's a quality to the light that seems different to other times of year, golden afternoons with the buildings bask in the glow. From Waterloo bridge, the London skyline reflects the light, the glass of the city glittering, a modern counterpoint to the traditional shine of St Paul's dome . The Houses of Parliament look at their best, the honey stone and golden light combining to suffuse the buildings in warmth, their gold leaf highlights brilliant in the fading day.

And the mornings? It's dark for so long but eventually the light filters in the trees standing stark against the blue sky, in places mist hanging a few feet over the earth like an ethereal blanket. It's beautiful to see through the train window but deceiving because if you step outside into the lovely picture, you find it's hostile. The mist works its way into your bones enfolding you in a clammy chill. Beautiful but dangerous and elemental, unaware of us or any living thing. The sun's rays finally burn it away.

The leaves are all gone now, autumn is a memory, Spring a future hope, the midwinter solstice is upon us and Christmas is a beacon to cheer us in the short days.

I think on reflection that now I'm back in the UK with the majority of my friends here, that I'm going to put the blog on ice until I go somewhere interesting next year. Thank you to all those who have made kind comments about enjoying reading it and I'll let you know if I go live with it again! But to sign off, here are some of my favourite photos to finish with:

Macaws feeding on Colpa 1 (eating clay with minerals in it) in June:

"Drunken hacienda owners" in Pisac for the Festival of the Virgen del Carmen in July

And in the next post there's a load of archaeology for those who like that sort of thing!

My Favourite Bits of Archaeology

3000 year old sculpture from the Chavin ruins near Huaraz (I have no idea what we were up to then!)



















Moche Temple Art, a northern coastal civilisation that flourished in the desert around AD 100 to 700 (Imperial Rome to Saxon)













The fortress walls of Kuelap, a Chachapoyan fortress in Northern Peru. This is half of one side. (Around 1100 AD, or William the Conqueror and his sons here).












Inca terracing, a true wonder of the world and contemporary with the Tudors in the UK. Below is Choquequirao, a royal Inca site built in a classic position on a ridge at 3000m with a commanding view of all it surveys. Why build there? The views, the sacredness of mountains, to show they could? Who knows, but they are breathtaking in their execution and position.

So goodbye then Peru

That's it then....I'm back in the UK, touched down on Wednesday and have been adapting, reacquainting myself with "normal" life here.

But perhaps not quite it. Towards the end of my time in Peru, I started to think about those things that I've enjoyed and those I haven't and those things I missed from home and those I didn't. So here they are in no order of priority....

Top 5....things I missed the most

- The Archers. Yes it's true, and what's worse after two months I gave in and subscribed to a daily email to tell me what was going on! However, I cannot begin to describe the joy of coming home and hearing it live again!

- My garden in the summer. Not all the time, but every now and then I'd see some lovely plant and I'd think, I wonder what's in flower in my garden at the moment. And I missed messing about with plants

- My clothes and shoes. I know it's shallow but 5 months with 3 tops to choose from that are vaguely suitable for a city, and a choice between walking boots and trainers is a hard thing for a girl to cope with. Especially when you're going to nightclubs and watching petite Peruvian girls swan past in their weekend best.

- The sea. Every time I got to the sea (which was only twice) I did some extended deep breathing to try and fix the smell of salt air in my lungs until the next time. The mountains made up for it, almost!

- Films. I love going to the cinema and I've missed it.

Top 5....things I didn't miss

- Earl Grey tea. Odd this, because I'd have thought it would have been in the previous list but in fact not, although now I'm home I'm drinking buckets! Manzanilla (camomile) y Canela y Claro (cinnamon and clove) were good substitutes.

- TV. Not at all

- Hello, Ok, Heat etc and the whole focus on celebrity gossip

- The Royal Family

- The British summer


Top 5 things I found hard

- Spitting in the street, sorry it's just yucky

- Tripe and heart as regular items on the menu

- So much poverty and unemployment

- Being stared at a lot

- Having continual stomach problems for the last month! It really brings you down at times but would never stop me going back!

Top 5 things I loved in Peru

- Music, both the traditional and the latin. The depth and range of music across the country is incredible and everyone seems to know lots of different types and be really interested in it. The sound walking down the street is incredible with every shop blaring out latin music on the radio or CD player. Life here is quieter and feels a bit dull in comparison.

- Processions, see previous posts for paeons of praise to processions in Cusco, but every time I saw one I felt that I was getting a little insight to Peruvians and their culture and it was always fascinating.

- Colours, the colours of the clothes, vivid hues against the ochres of the dry landscape. The intense blues of the mountain skies. The range of greens in the rainforest. All of it fabulous.

- Making new friends, both Peruanos and Gringos, I have been so lucky in the people I have met and have added new friends all over the world. It was an unexpected bonus and just shows how many nice people there are out there if you just talk to them.

- The archaeology, it's a dream, there's so much of so much variety and I'm just getting the hang of the timeline!

- A cheat...a sixth, but I couldn't leave them out - Pisco Sours and Ceviche! To die for....

And this blog. Now I'm back should I stop or carry on? I don't know. I've enjoyed writing it, but I'm not sure that every day life in the UK will need quite the same level of writing up. Although perhaps I should write in Spanish for my Peruvian friends! I'll let you know and if you have strong opinions let me know.

What all Gringos always need

I think after almost five months in Peru and Ecuador I am in a position to comment authoritatively on what traders feel that a Gringo or Gringa must always need, here's my top 5 in reverse order of popularity:

5) Dollars
Money changers don't seem to have realised yet that ATMs give Soles and Dollars and therefore it is just possible that a gringo might have the right currency already and not need to change any!

4) Jumpers
"Amiga, amiga - it's baby alpaca!" Apparently every item of clothing in Peru that's made of alpaca is from baby alpacas....which makes you wonder what they do with the wool from the adults. Surely no one's embellishing the truth!

3) Finger puppets and postcards...... And it's no good saying things like "I'm too big", quickly you'll find that the seller has a response "Buy them as a present then". Just say No and keep walking.

2) Pizza This is particularly true in major tourist destinations like Cusco and Arequipa. It turns walking round some plazas and alleys into a real test as you are bombarded on all sides by people trying to persuade you that their restaurant is best. What you really need is a neon side above your head saying "This is the shortest route to the place I am going and I have already eaten. Thank you for your attention!

1) Taxis
All taxis always think that a Gringo walking down the street must want a taxi, the low level version of asking is a subtle beep to let you know they're free and there's a gradual scale up to drawing up to a halt by you, winding the window down and saying "Taxi?". To which I'd love to reply one day, "Yes I know you're a taxi because the car is the right shape and colour, you have a taxi sign on the top and I HAVE EYES!"

Confused or Confundida?

The good news for me is that my return visit to language school in Cusco has seen my teachers telling me how much I've improved while I've been away and how pleased they are with my progress. It's a pleasant contrast to my memories of learning French at school where I never enjoyed it and always felt I was rubbish at it.

However all the nice words don't mean that I'm anywhere near perfect and increased speed of speech has led me into some interesting situations recently where I've used the wrong word....for example the Lonely Planet Latin American Spanish phrase book warns you against false friends such as thinking that "Embarassed" is "Embarazada", actually it means pregnant. However, I've got some more to add for any learner Spanish speakers out there.

Despierta / Abierta - Awake / Open. How they laughed when I described the time I woke up, as the time that I opened....

Peine / Pene - the first one is a comb, the second one penis. Quite important not to muddle them up but at least it amuses the teacher when you inadvertently use the second instead of the first

Tomar - to take a drink or to take a bus or other form of transport. But I've learnt the hard way that you cannot use it in Peru to describe taking a person, as it means something rather more sexual! Fortunately the response of the person I was talking to, was to fall about laughing and some time later when they could breathe again, they explained my little mistake!

Fortunately my mind has blanked out any other recent incidents but as a public service if more occur I'll let you know.

Another Sunday another procession

Ahh, aren't they sweet. It's a fair bet that if you go to the Plaza de Armas in Cusco on a Sunday morning, there will be something going on. I can´t work out if processions are such a way of life here because everyone wants a chance to demonstrate their marching, dancing and singing ability or if the fact that there are so many processions drives the continued vitality of traditional music and dance.

One fact is certain as a Peruvian you learn to march. To my eyes there's something faintly surreal about seeing a very smart 12 year old girl in knee high white socks, kilt, red jumper and matching red hair ribbon, with her white glove clad hands proudly holding the school banner.....goosestepping. But it's the smartest form of marching here and much appreciated by the local audience.

So on Saturday we saw a religious procession for San Pedro Nolasco y la Merced. The best bits of the procession for me were the little angels above, the army band playing out of tune at the back and ambling along with little discipline and the overall sense of community with people calling to their friends and chatting and waving as they liked.

On Sunday it was a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Salesiano, the foremost private boys school in town. The whole town seemed to be taking part, another excuse to march and wave at your friends?
- Attendance ranged from Peru Rail to the Ministery of Agriculture with their machines and trees! The female driver of the tractor and plough decked out in white and green ribbons was especially popular

- For onlookers it was a chance support their friends and children and to call out insults, this last one particularly favoured by groups of male onlookers

- Then the groups of students in order of the year they finished school. First was 1937, just the one gentleman with his sash proudly round him and supported by his daughter. He received huge applause. Then a jump to 1952 and every year thereafter. 1962 had a group of dancers with them which the crowd loved, especially the men with huge energy, flashing cowboy style costumes and great skill

We watched until 1970 but after two hours slipped away to other pursuits. I know they finished because last Sunday we were passing through the Plaza de Armas on our way to Sacsayhuaman and were waylaid by the procession to celebrate Tourism Day. Every company involved in tourism took part and there were lots of incredible indigenous dance displays.

Sadly I'll miss this Sunday's activity as we're off to the Sacred Valley to nose around the Inca sites there, but I'm sure if you're in town there'll be something to see!

More photos

As I have access to a CD drive at the moment here is a photo I'm really pleased with. Just in case you don't know it's a condor, taken at the Colca Canon a week or so ago.

Retail Therapy - Peruano Style

Over the last week or so in Cusco I've done quite a bit of shopping in the real world, not tourist land!

Sorry if that sounds a bit snobbish! Me, I'm not a tourist, I well I am but not one of those only here for 10 days tourists, I've been here ages!! after my time in the north of Peru, which is much less touristy than the south, my return to Cusco was a bit of a shock, for example in the area that I stayed for the first few days there are no Peruvian restaurants at all, i.e. those that Peruvians eat in, only those that cater for tourists. However, we decided to stay in an apartment for this final month and so looked for somewhere to live for the month. We've landed on our feet it being low season now and negotiated a good rate (the equivalent of 9 pounds a night) for a double room and private bathroom with a big kitchen and dining area. In theory it's shared, but in practice I don't expect we'll see anyone else very often. There are over 10 apartments in the complex and there's only one other resident! The apartment is in real Cusco, just behind the central market and of course now I need to cook, hence the retail experience.

Yesterday we went to the market for the first time and it was great fun. I wonder if supermarkets could learn something from it. The fun came from either
a) all the interaction with people rather than shelves
b) having lots of time
c) the diversity of food on display and the desire to see it all

The central market is huge and just like the supermarkets at home has big signs to show you where all the sections are - fruit, meat, vegetables, flowers, dry goods. The differences are many. Each stand has a stall holder and if it's a woman she often has a pre school child, the good news is her neighbours will step in to hold or watch the child if necessary (so a good child care environment!!). To know the price you need to ask and if you want you can try and haggle, sometimes it works, sometimes not. The fruit and vegetables can be bought ripe or unripe - ripe is perfect, the avacado has to be eaten to be believed. Every exchange is an opportunity for pleasantries and banter. I recommend it and I hate food shopping at home!

Buying meat is not for the faint hearted. No plastic in sight here and if you faint at the sight of blood you're in trouble. "How would you like your chicken madam? Whole, half or quarters...." When I got the half chicken home I found that included in the price was the heart, liver and kidneys still attached. I showed true stoicism and did not rush screaming from the room but merely asked if there was a Peruvian dish that these could be used for. The answer was no not really because the hearts are a bit small. Fried heart is a delicacy here.

I've also been down to another market which sells everything (and I mean everything) other than food. Piracy is alive and well and it would be a brand marketeer's nightmare seeing their brand ripped off and copied....However, realistically almost no one in this economy can afford real branded goods (possibly real Nike shorts 90 soles, fake ones 15 soles, not a hard choice to make if you're taking home 200 soles a week). Again lots of interaction with people and lots of choice. Perhaps there's something about dealing with the person who's living it is, which means you generally get more interest and more help than from some of our great shop staff! Anyway enough moralising and just a thought that when I get home I'm going to try and find some markets because I think I will miss the!

Galapagos Photos

What do sealions dream of?












A pensive blue footed booby

Peru revisited

Wow, over a week has passed since I returned from the Galapagos and already that feels like an age ago. Last Thursday I flew back from Quito to Lima as I'm going back to language school starting next Monday for another month. It's been good coming back to Peru. For some reason I found Ecuador hard work, my fault I think not the country's but being back in Peru is nice and familiar, I can use the currency without thinking about it, I understand the odd ways that some things work and just generally find it easy to be here. After three months here, it was difficult to be somewhere else new and be motivated to work hard to get on with the country. Some time I'll have to go back and give Ecuador another go and focus on the wildlife because I think that is what really stands out about it, not just the Galapagos but whale watching on the coast, birds in the cloud forest and lots of rain forest.

When I finished language school the first time at the end of July I had accomplished what I originally wanted to do, i.e. be able to have a conversation with someone, but my ambition had changed. I wanted to be able to talk more fluently. After a couple of months travelling, I have forgotten some of the grammar that I was taught but have a bigger vocabularly and more than ever I want to improve. At the moment I'm stuck at the self correcting stage, i.e. I say something, realise it's wrong and correct it, which makes my conversation a bit stilted to say the least! I decided to ask work to extend my sabbatical by a month and they kindly said yes. I felt it was better to return to the same school as I really enjoyed it and knew the teachers, although I'm concerned that I'm going to be scolded for bad habits I've picked up in the interim!!

So it's back to Cusco, starting on Monday next week for 4 weeks. I met a friend in Lima and we travelled down to Arequipa in the interim. I visited here two years ago and hadn't originally intended to come back but I'm glad I did. It's a very pretty city, white stone with palm trees in the Plaza de Armas, gorgeous colonnades and cathedral and fantastic weather. It tends to be around the mid 20s here most of the time in the dry season with bright blue skies and views of snow capped mountains from all round the town. The last two days we spent on a trip to the Colca Canyon. The main reason for going there is to see condors flying close up and we certainly did. At one point I counted 9 in the sky at the same time, soaring with little effort on the thermals out of the canyon off to the altiplano (high plain) to look for food. But the thing that I enjoyed the most on this trip was the walk we did in the afternoon round the pueblo we were staying in. Just two of us and the guide and it was incredibly tranquil. It's a very beautiful valley with lots of terraces for agriculture, deep river gorges, high snowy mountains and volcanoes and spectacular views. We were walking towards the end of the day and met lots of people coming home from the fields, either bringing their animals home from pasture or from ploughing. The bullock is the main ploughing machine here and they amble along in pairs with the farmer following carrying his wooden plough over his shoulder.

Tonight it's another long bus journey, around 14 hours and no doubt some "interesting" films to look forward to! It's amazing that it's ok to show a bus full of people including children lots of violence but never anything resembling sex! I'm looking forward to being in Cusco again and in one place for a month, not having to repack every two days.

The Enchanted Isles

It's one of the names that the Galapagos are given locally and they fully deserve it. I don't know where to begin in telling you how wonderful it was. As a start perhaps if I say that you are told to go no closer than 1.5m or 4 feet to the wildlife, but it's ok if they voluntarily come closer than that to you, as examples I have:
- a video clip of a sealion moving down the beach between members of our group
- photographs of pelicans diving into the sea to fish, landing mere inches from the heads of people snorkelling (they were incredibly accurate and never hit anyone)
- photographs of a penguin catching fish as he swooped underneath me and lots of turtles tranquilly sculling past

It is just amazing how unafraid all the animals are. One day we were looking at giant tortoises and a vermilion flycatcher came and sat on a branch nearby. I took a photo from about 3 metres away in case he flew off but I have some much closer than that because he basically held his own photo call with us no more than 1.5m away and when we moved to look at another tortoise, he came too! We quite often had to change where we were landing because some sealions had decided that the steps put in for tourists were a good place to sleep and a good place to get into the sea from.

Our boat was incredibly comfortable and the crew couldn't do enough for us, it was a bit like being royalty! We had our feet hosed down every time we came back aboard, as every effort is taken not to transfer any material, even sand, between islands. Dry towels were provided to wrap yourself in as you got out of the water after snorkelling and once back on the boat the chef and his mate would appear on deck with hot drinks and snacks. It was very luxurious. Due to our original boat having engine trouble we were upgraded to the Sagitta and the 11 of us had the run of the ship (she's normally for 16). The only difficulty sometimes was finding each other as we had a dining room, a bar, a library and the after deck saloon to sit in!

Our guide was called Fausto Rodriguez, if you´re thinking of going to the Galapagos I'd recommend him. He works for a number of companies but also leads his own tours, www.beautyexpeditions.com. He really made the trip for us with great information and always giving us a realistic assessment of what we might see. The pessimistic side of my nature used to think well perhaps when he'd tell us we'd be snorkelling with turtles or seeing giant tortoises, but he was right every time!

My favourite moment? Too hard to say but I can say that my shortlist of favourite things to watch would be:
- frigate birds following the boat, I watched them for hours, they fly effortlessly and with amazing grace
- penguins catching sardines
- turtles gliding
- eagle rays "flying" under water
- dolphins playing in the bow wave of the boat
- sealions surfing the waves off Floreana (I'm not kidding, they behave just like surfers and they're not fishing, it's for fun)

And besides all that we had beautiful sunsets, incredible geology and the most laid back mellow time. It has been the most expensive thing I've done on this trip but I wouldn't have missed it for the world, it has been a unique experience and I'd encourage everyone to save up and go.

The scariest moment of the trip so far

It wasn't the downhill minibus ride from the pass near Huascaran at break neck speed with sharp, sharp curves

It wasn't the bus journey from the Ecudorian border to Zumba

It wasn't even the taxi journey in Quito last night from the bus station to the hostal (although I did think I was going to die)

It was the moment in Cuenca, two days ago, when the hairdresser took the wrapping off my head and it looked like she'd bleached my hair peroxide blonde! Fortunately it was only highlights and not my whole head but I sat there in disbelief as she towel dried it and my hair got lighter and lighter. However, she then put more stuff on it and turned it a sort of ash blonde. My assumption post hairdresser is that to get her regular customers' hair blonde she has to bleach it first, since they all have dark brown or black hair, not strictly necessary with mine but I didn't know to ask, since I've never seen a hairdresser do that before.

Then she cut my fringe (which was my original reason for entering a hairdressers) and despite my best efforts to stop her she cut it too short! Still at least in a couple of weeks it will be the right length again....

So I guess the moral of this story is either:
a) don't go to the hairdresser when you're abroad
b) interrogate the hairdresser before you let them touch your head!

Still by the time I get home at the end of October it should be nicely long again!!

Happy clappy land

Ok before we get to that, I wanted you to see the fab four (sorry I know it's a bit dark, but it was cloudy, what can you do!) - Louise, Fernando, myself and Rob. I met these guys by chance in the hostal of a slightly loco woman in Trujillo and it was a match made in heaven. We were all going the same way and travelled together for the next week and a half with lots of laughs and fun. Thanks guys for a brilliant time, I miss you all.

Ok, back to the plot. I got off the bus after a day and a half of travel in Vilcabamba, "famed" (well National Geographic wrote about it) as the valley in which everyone lives for ever...over 100. It is an exceptionally pretty setting with lush verdant valley, banana plantations and tropical plants set against high brown mountains. I took myself to the Madre Tierra hostal as recommended by some people I met in Lima. On arrival they put a fruit drink in my hand and soothed all my concerns away before showing me my room. I stepped gratefully into a very hot shower and then ambled down for lunch. Some time later I had a fantastic massage in the Spa, rose petals laid out on the floor to create a path, jacuzzi before hand, it was bliss.

Then dinner, I'd bumped into an American girl earlier and we ate together, she proved to be the flakiest person I've spoken to on this trip, so that was hard work. Then we were rounded up by the owner to watch 10 minutes of fire dancing, v.skilful but not totally my cup of tea (for any Americans reading, this means it's not something I'm interested in!). Then the owner told us all about the UFO sightings in the Vilcabamba and Loja area and how they are planning a landing but US agents are coming to the area to foil the whole thing....And so to bed, fortunately a good night's sleep with no extra terrestrial visitors to disturb me.

The next morning I wandered in town and it felt a bit surreal, it's not quite like being in South America! A lot of foreigners have moved into the area and it shows, somehow it felt more like a movie set than a real life South American town. I'm sure that's not fair and there are lots of people leading ordinary lives but there's something different about this place. Perhaps it's the place to go if you want the climate and the isolation but don't want the hassle of South America!

I caught up on Internet and email a bit and then wandered back to the hostal and decided that although people rave about the area, it wasn't for me and I'd go off to Cuenca, the next big city in the morning! Which is where I am now and will be for a couple of days before I go on to Quito, a week tomorrow I'll be on my way to the Galapagos....yippee!

Ecuador or bust

So Louise and I decided to go across the Peruvian/Ecuadorian border at a place called La Balsa. Our guidebooks both referred to it as a back route, with lots of changes of transport but spectacular scenery and given how far inland we were it seemed the quickest way to go.

After a good night's sleep on the floor of Rob and Fernando's room (Chachapoyas was full that night and we changed our plans at the last minute to stay another night) we set off "bright" and early at 6am. First leg in a private taxi for 3 hours to get us to the tarmac road at Bagua Grande. We went along a spectacular river valley where the rocks were folded and stressed in ways that showed how violent the formation of the landscape was here. And then we were in rice paddy fields and coffee country, with cows that looked like they'd come from India (same breed) and people strolling round in flipflops. Just like that out of the mountains and cloud forest and into lush farmland.

At Bagua Grande we got into a shared taxi for the one hour to Jaen, we had the privilege of only the two of us in the back, the standard is 4. The rest of the car was loaded as normal, 2 rather stout gentlemen in the front passenger seat and a campesino (country farmer) in the boot. At Jaen a motorbike rickshaw transferred us to a collectivo for the 3 hour journey to San Ignacio. We were the focus of much interest at the bus terminal as obviously gringos don't travel this way a lot. Still it seems fair, we stare at people and they stare at us! One brave idler asked questions and was keen to have my autograph, so I signed for him....I'm a star in Jaen!

We quickly left paved road behind us after Jaen and gradually climbed into the mountains again until we reached the surprisingly large town of San Ignacio. This time the motocycle rickshaw had to go up a steep hill and with two large gringos and very heavy bags it couldn't do it in first! So the driver pushed with one leg....

The final leg to the border, 1.5 hours in a shared taxi to La Balsa, it used to be a raft but now there is a bridge. However, the border was shut for lunch and siestas, which wasn't a problem because there was no transport on the Ecuadorian side until 5:30pm. Some very cursory form filling and we were through and to celebrate had rice and chicken for lunch (the very standard food everywhere).

The bus for the Ecuadorian road looked like it was from a zoo, open sides, bench seats and bright pictures. The road was incredibly rough and so it was slow progress. Gave us lots of time to discuss the presence of two cockerels on the bus and the over representation of cockerels in the chicken population (as generally demononstrated every morning between 4am and when you give in and get up). Cockerel fighting is legal and you see "coliseos de gallinos" in most towns round here.

Finally into Zumba around 7pm, the less glamorous side of travelling. The best we could do for a room was a hostel where we didn't wash in the bathroom because we'd have been less clean afterwards and the beds were damp!

We left town the next morning on the 5:30am bus, grateful to be gone and at 11:30am I got off in the hippy heaven that is Vilcabamba!

Culture Vulture (2)

Now don't skip! Read 1 first....

The night bus to Chacapoyas was hard work! The road was definitely not paved all the way which we all experienced through the bumps and we did a lot of going uphill round wiggly bends! We arrived at 5am in the morning and obviously the town was still asleep. We shouldered our packs (the last time mine was weighed it was 18kg!) and set off through the silent, whitewashed streets to find a hotel. We headed for the Plaza de Armas and all felt immediately that we liked this town, it just felt good. The Plaza de Armas (in Peru the main square is always the Plaza de Armas) was lovely, palm trees and a fountain in the middle. A teenager on a bike stopped to ask if we needed help and gave us directions to the hotel we were looking for.

At the Hotel Vieja the receptionist was all courtesy and friendlieness despite the silly hour and very soon Louise and I were in the nicest room either of us could remember for a while. Big, full of character and with two warm cosy beds. I was so overcome with pleasure that I put my head on the sheets and stroked them! Later when we'd all slept and showered we met up in the Plaza de Armas and were just discussing what to do when we were approached by Carlos. It was a masterpiece of salesmanship. He introduced himself in a quiet and professional way and outlined what he could offer in the way of trips to Kuelap (a major ruined city of the Chachapoyan culture). It was exactly what we were looking for and after some questions and a discussion over lunch we signed up. If only it was always that easy!

The next morning saw us up bright and early and off for our 4 day trip. It was fabulous, we walked in spectacular valleys, saw amazing monuments - including figures that look a bit like Easter Island figures, but are actually tombs high up in a cliff with mummies inside - slept in a secluded cabin in the Valle de Belen, in a house in a pueblito, went to a village fiesta (where we were the main attraction!), spent a day pretending to be cowboys and eventually ended up in Kuelap. We packed so much in that it felt like a week and we had a fantastic time. One of the interesting things is that as I have got further away from the standard tourist route the travellers I encounter are more varied and more interesting, as well as the 4 of us we had in the group: two Basques, Glenda and Josephba; a Swede, Eric; an Italian, PierLuigi; a Swiss, Sandro and our guides Janet and Carlos and cook Juana. It was a lovely polyglot gathering of people that mainly spoke in Spanish and a pleasure to travel with all of them.

Back to Chacapoyas and it was time for everyone to move on, Eric and Sandro into the Amazon, the Basques, Roberto, Fernando and PierLuigi to go home and Louise and I to make it over the border into Ecuador....but that's a story for another day!

Culture Vulture (1)

Hola all, seems an age since I last posted and lots has happened, for a start I'm now in Ecuador but more of that later.

I left Huaraz on a night bus to go to a city called Trujillo on the coast. I had rather hoped that it would be far enough up the coast to escape the grey fog that is a feature of the Peruvian coastal winter (something to do with the cold air from the sea, courtesy of the Humboldt current, hitting the coldish coast and ... not really sure, but basically you end up with grey mist all winter, possibly slightly more depressing than English winter drizzle but there's not a lot in it!). Anyway it wasn't sunmy, although it did clear sometimes in the afternoons.

Trujillo is famous for the fantastic archaeological sites in the area, apparently there are over 100k known sites in Peru and lots more as yet unrecorded! I was really keen to get a good guide here, one with lots of information and Lonely Planet came up trumps as it described a hostal run by a Peruana (Peruvian woman) and her English husband who are both guides. Casa de Clara was memorable - great chocolate cake - and despite sleeping in something that resembled a shed on the top floor of the house, comfortable.

Michael White, Clara's husband, is a great and enthusiastic guide. He's lived in Peru for 15 years or so, doing various things and it was a joy to be shown round by him. In the morning we visited the Temples of the Sun and Moon, which are Moche temples built over hundreds of years as they were refurbished and redecorated. We walked round one of the temples which was substantially damaged by the Spanish conquistadors when they washed away a lot of it to loot tons of gold and silver contained within the structure. It's made of adobe brick so water destroys it, which is posing interesting challenges for the archaeologists in protecting what they uncover from El Niño. It is an amazing structure and even more breathtaking is the art on the walls of the temple which is gradually being uncovered, and in combination with the ceramics that this culture produced, it is enabling archaeologists to understand more about this culture. From our point of view it was very blood thirsty with human sacrifice - as a prisoner, the good news was that you were going to participate in a very important ceremony and have a portrait made of you in ceramic....the bad news was that you were going to be executed! If you're interested in seeing some photos, this site has them and more information: http://www.huacas.com/index.html

In the afternoon, we went to Chan Chan, an enormous site from the Chimu civilization, after the Moche and then conquered by the Incas. It is basically an enormous area on the outskirts of the city of melted adobe palace. There are 9 palaces/compounds from different periods and we looked round one. It was vast and complicated. Once it was highly decorated but it was hard to imagine how people lived there. They've only found one wooden post which would support a roof and from that have decided that some key areas had roofs but most of it didn't. It is a very dry area - 0.6mm rain per year (or it could be 6mm I forget now but very little) - so I suppose it's possible to live with no roof, just difficult for us to imagine.

The other great thing about my time in Trujillo was meeting up with some like minded people who were travelling the same way as me. They were Rob (Roberto in Spanish), Louise (Louisa) and Fernando, the first two from London and Fernando from Nasca in Peru. After 5 minutes of meeting in the hostal we'd "clicked" and I spent the next week and a half travelling with them, which was constantly funny and pleasurable. Amazing how many "in jokes" you can develop in that time.

We moved onto Chiclayo the day after all the sites and the day after that went to a world class museum in Lambeyeque nearby. This the Lord of Sipan museum, which is effectively Peru's Tutankamum. It is just amazing, we spent half a day going round it. The Lord of Sipan was a Moche leader whose tomb was found undamaged in 1987. The most incredible objects in gold, turquoise, coral, silver and other materials have been found and are well displayed in the museum. In the same funerary monument they have found other high status burials and have established that some of the figures depicted on ceramics are not mythological as anticipated but were real (they can match the pictures of headresses and costume to those found in graves).

Although this is such an important museum it is not that visited by gringos (foreigners). That became obvious when a visiting school group of teenagers asked if they could their photo taken with us (after a lot of giggling and whispering!). It's a shame that everyone heads off South, because this deserves to be on the standard tourist route.

We left Chiclayo the same night (this was a speedy bit of travelling as Rob is a teacher and so had limited time in Peru) to go inland to Chacapoyas....more in the next post.

Plodding round the Cordillera Blanca

I have just come back from 3 and a bit days walking in the Cordillera Blanca and at the risk of sounding "over the top" I think it is the most beautiful landscape that I have ever walked in.

The direction we did it in, you walk up one valley for the equivalent of two days (day 1 is a half day and you cross a pass midway through day 3). The lake in the picture is part of Day 2's walk, which is just incredible. As you go up the valley different peaks come into view, snow capped and looking like implausible icing sugar confections. Because the Andes are geologically young they are very steep and jagged and I think that gives them some of their allure. Day after day of bright blue sky might do it as well.


The peak here is called Alpamayo (apologies to anyone who can spell it correctly). It was voted the second most beautiful peak in the world last year by Mountain magazine! Goodness knows what the criteria are in a mountain beauty contest! This is its unphotogenic side but I still think it looks pretty incredible. From this vantage point we could see three different snow clad peaks. Alpamayo is over 6,000m tall, which in this part of the world is not unusual! (There are no mountains in Europe over 5,700m and a good way to make a Peruvian laugh is to explain that at 1600m Ben Nevis is the UK's highest "mountain").

Not sure what our altitude was when we started walking but campsite 1 was 3,790m, campsite 2 was 4,250 and on day 3 we went over the Punta Union pass at 4,750m and were pleased to be camping at 3,700 again! The second night was very cold, we were all in bed by about 7:30pm because it was the warmest place to be! Night 3 we made it to 9pm....

I'd love to do another trek in this area, but the longer ones include more passes (one a day) and longer days, so I think a spell of getting properly fit might be in order before trying it!

On the final day we had a very short walk to catch a collectivo (a private minibus that works a particular route and takes as many people as it can find) which then drove up to a pass over 4,800m and down the other side. The driver must have had racing blood because he seemed determined to get down as fast as possible which made for an exciting descent!

We changed collectivos in Yungay, a town with a sad history. In 1966 the old town was destroyed by an alluvio - something to do with an earthquake causing a nearby lake to burst its banks - practically the entire population died. The new town is in a slightly different location but despite its beauty this is a very unstable area, most of the towns in the valley have suffered at some time.

Our new collectivo didn't go as fast but made up for it by stuffing people in, when real seats ran out small stools were deployed in the tiny aisle and one lady's barrels were used to sit passengers on. Potential passengers who attempted to point out that the bus was full were quickly persuaded that there was space for them too!

We arrived back in Huaraz at about 5pm and I gratefully made for the shower in my hostal and attempted to remove all the dust from myself, the water ran brown for a while. I leave Huaraz today though I'll be sorry to leave the mountains. Down to the coast for a few days and then into Ecuador.

Drains vs Machu Picchu

One thing that I've noticed as I've moved into different areas of Peru is that the guides to non Inca archaeological sites can't resist telling you how the civilization they are telling you about is:
a) very important
b) better than the Incas because....

So far on this trip I've been to various Inca sites in and around Cusco, to the main Wari site near Ayacucho (around 800 AD to 1100 AD) and to Chavin (2000 BC).

Sadly the Wari site is not that excavated yet as it hasn't attracted much foreign money for archaeology and so although it's possible to see that it covered a big area, the actual ruins are a bit dull! Lots of rocks in a desert rocky area...you need a really good imagination or a really good guide to help you see what's there and on the day I went both were lacking!

Now I have to say in my uninformed and biased opinion that Chavin is incredibly impressive because it is so old. What remains is a cut off pyramid and a square in front of it. The guide was very keen that we should understand what good engineers they were and made us look down various holes at the drainage system that kept the whole area dry during the rainy season (the archaeologists are trying to make it work again, no luck so far) and peer through ventilation ducts inside the pyramid which got the air to circulate. At the site you can go into four galleries (corridors with rooms off them) which means going down steps and inside the pyramid where you can look at the stone roof above your head and contemplate the fact that 3,000 year old engineering is keeping the other two floors from coming down on you. But I beg to differ with the guide's suggestion that the Incas didn't know how to do stone roofs and therefore were not as good as the Chavin civilization! They built buildings in a totally different style and the materials they used were appropriate for them! Attached is a picture of a Chavin sculpture, afraid I couldn't turn it round for some reason!



So I'm not turning into an Inca apologist because I'm sure they weren't the "best" culture in Peru, just the last and the most famous (probably because they were immediately pre Conquest) but I have to say that I like their style and I particularly like their fascination with mountains and their propensity for building in incredibly difficult places with great views (who went out to find the sites I wonder and how did he decide where the next one should be?).

So if you're ever in Peru of course you should go and see Machu Picchu and the other famous Inca sites, they're incredible, but find time for some other cultures as well, you won't be disappointed.

Peruvian Music

You're out there thinking pan pipes aren't you?

Well I guess it's the obvious first thought but not for me now. Peruvian music is a very odd mix indeed. You do hear local music of the pan pipe variety and it can be very good or really awful, not often average! I do now twitch if I hear the opening of El Condor Paso, Guantanamera or La Bamba, all particular favourites of tourist "entertaining" musicians. Another version of local music is something I don't know the name of but it sounds very similar (to me) to Chinese music, quite high, thin and a bit tortured at times! This can be popular on buses. From Cusco to Andahuaylas (9 hours) they played it non stop.

As you might expect the clubs and shops are fond of Latin American pop, "Gasolina" is currently playing throughout the continent. You hear some Salsa and Merengue as well but the unexpected favourite is 80's British pop! You'll be in a club they'll have just played "Te Amo" or something similar about love and the next track on will be "Come on Eileen". You think I'm kidding, I'm not and I have witnesses! On the bus from Ayacucho to Lima the musical soundtrack was early to mid 80's "classics" all remixed to the same drum machine beat. I think I might be scarred for life!

I wonder if it will be the same in Ecuador?

¿Do you know the way to Lima?

Apologies a theme of cheesy song titles seems to be appearing! I left Ayacucho yesterday after the usual bus chaos. There seems to be some sort of unwritten rule which says that although all the seats on long distance buses are allocated and although there is a limit on how much luggage people can bring, there will be a great deal of pushing and shoving to get everything loaded. Also all the people going on the bus will stand outside it until the bus driver starts to edge forward as if he is leaving, at which point all the people will try and get on the bus at the same time jamming the doorway and shouting at each other. It's very entertaining to watch when you've arrived early for your bus and are peacefully waiting for it! Gives you something to do...

I´m now in Lima, which is wearing its winter time cloud cover, yesterday was a bit broken but today is very gray. However, I was surprised yesterday to be really pleased to be getting here. Most people when asked say, oh Lima, it's horrid and scary and gray and previously I would have agreed.

Sadly there's not much that the city can do about the gray bit as that's just winter time weather, but most tourists come in the winter because it's dry in the Andes where the major tourist attractions are. I think the horrid and scary judgements are probably a bit harsh. Most people come to Lima first, get picked up at the airport, experience some extremely hairy taxi driving, go through some very poor sections of Lima at night and it's their first experience of Peru. They decide that it looks dangerous and there's little attractive about it. After a couple of months here, it doesn't feel so different to the rest of the country just a big city and we're all more careful in big cities (seen the signs telling you to watch out for pickpockets in Piccadilly Circus?) At this point in my travels it's quite nice to be somewhere you can go to the cinema and hang out if you want to.

My hostal is entertaining called "Flying Dog Backpackers". I have no idea why. It's scruffy but clean and run by laid back, cool guys who are really helpful. It's also incredibly well located in the centre of Miraflores, which is a very nice part of Lima. So time out in the big smoke is proving more pleasing than I expected, but I'm looking forward to getting back to the mountains next week.

A long and winding road

Why think of a good title, when you can pinch one off someone else?

Last Sunday at 5:30am I was at the bus station in Cusco to get my stuff loaded on to the bus for Ayacucho. It was the beginning of a marathon bus journey, 22 hours to be precise! Now the distance from Cusco to Ayacucho as the crow flies is not actually that far but there are several reasons why it takes so long:

1) The bus is not that fast when it's running and during the early part of the journey it stopped twice - they managed to run out of petrol 20m from the gas station they wanted to fill up at, which resulted in lots of running about with buckets of fuel and hoses; the second time I don't know what the reason was but when they took the cover of the engine off inside the bus the whole thing filled with smoke! That took about 30 minutes to fix

2) The road is only tarmaced for the first four hours and once it gets dark the bus driver only has his headlights to follow the quite narrow, "afirmada" road.

3) The Andes are very tall, steep mountains and so the road spends a lot of time zig zagging up the mountain only to zig zap down the other side into a new valley, and repeat.... a lot

The plus side of all this is that you get lots of time to talk to your neighbour ( I was lucky I had two during the journey, one was an economist and one a lawyer, both working with rural populations, so we had interesting conversations. My Spanish was slightly pushed by the economist when I was trying to explain the role of the Queen in the British parliamentary system and how it works given we don't have a written constitution! I hope I haven't completely confused him).

You also get to look at the spectacular landscape and see country life going on. Basically it seems that the further you get from the towns the poorer it is, I guess because people can't sell things at market easily. The lawyer said that the land is fertile and v.good for producing potatoes but that transporting them to market is very difficult for people. And realistically I don't seem how you could farm this sort of land in the commercially intensive way that is normal in more developed countries, I have a nasty feeling you'd lose all the top soil.

The last half of the journey was in the dark (because we're reasonably close to the Equator the sun rises and sets at around 6) and bizarrely I found it easy to sleep all night and wake up when we got to Ayacucho. Why can't I do that on planes?

However probably my abiding memory of that journey will be 22 hours of a music form that seems very close to Chinese. To my unappreciative ears it sounded whiney and piercing! Fortunately it wasn't on very loud, but it was on the entire time.....

Tomorrow another bus journey, but this time just the 8 hours from Ayacucho to Cusco.

Choquequirao

Or "Cradle of Gold" as the translation goes. This apparently is unlikely to be its original name but is one given to it locally and used for time immemorial. Once it gets on a map that's it.

What is she blethering on about I hear you asking yourselves. Ah yes, I've just come back from a 5 day trek to an Inca site called Choquequirao. Like Machu Picchu it is built on a ridge with spectacular views on both sides of the site. It has fewer uncovered high status buildings but is likely to have been a royal site (archaelogists have different theories) and may have been a country estate. It has vast quantities of unbeliveably steep terraces, more of which are still being uncovered and it will be some years before the entire extent of the site is known/revealed to the eye.

The other major difference to Machu Picchu is that the only way in and out is on foot or if you're feeling terribly lazy on horse/mule back (although even then you have to walk some of it because it is very steep and rocky). This means that the site is quiet, when we were there, on average we could see about 10 other people on the whole site versus the several hundred a day at Machu Picchu.

The trek itself is part of the whole experience, we walked a loop, 2 days to get to the site, a day at the ruins and 2 days to walk out. It's tough and there's lots of straight up and down and very narrow paths with extremely sheer drops, but it's an incredibly rewarding trek. The Apurimac valley is spectacular with jagged, snow capped mountains fringing it and a great green river thundering through it. The valleys that open off it are a little gentler with farms dotted about and a subsistence way of farming that was last used in England before the second world war. Horses, mules and feet are the methods of transport through the valleys. Oxen are used to plough, or on very steep slopes, manul ploughing. The local people speak Quechua first and Spanish second (or not at all). People are polite, welcoming and shy. When trek passes trek, every member says "Buenas Dias" to every member of the other trek, so a little chain of acknowledgement ripples through the lines.

I wondered a week or so ago if after this trip I would want to come back to Peru, would I have "done it all". After this trek I know I will come back, there are so many amazing places in the Andes and by walking you see them slowly and you get a little taste of a way of life and a strong culture that is different to ours.

School's out for summer

Well I've officially had my last day of school. After four weeks I know what I don't know and that's a lot! It's been really good fun, hard work and frustrating at times but I can now talk to people, albeit slowly. I have a lot of grammar in my head but it is hardly intuitive yet, which leads to a lot of thinking and self editing when I speak. The number of words I know has gone up exponentially though and sometimes when a new word is described to me in Spanish I can understand what it's meaning is (sign language helps as well). I wish I understood the grammatical structure of English better as it would make understanding grammar in a new language easier! There are 3 forms of past (that I know in Spanish) and I think they all have English equivalents that I use without thinking about it!

I guess one measure of progress is that previously when I've been in South America I have carried my phrase book at all times. Over the last few weeks I haven't bothered to carry it at all and I've donated it to the South American Explorers Club, so it can find a useful home with someone else. I have however now got a medium size dictionary which was essential for class and which I will be carting with me over South America.

What I need to continue to do is talk Spanish a lot and I am a bit concerned that I won't as the international travellers language is English. But I really appreciate the effort that all those who speak other languages have put into learning them.

Now off to walk up some steep hills for 5 days to an Inca site called Choquequirao - pictures and itinerary are on the Chaska Tours site.

Last Saturday it was the fiesta of the Virgin del Carmen in a couple of places near here. Lisa and I (a fellow student) caught the bus over to Pisac and spent the afternoon having lunch and watching the procession of dancers and bands. Inadvertently we sat in a great place to see as all the dancers came round the square in front of us.

It was an amazing sight, over twenty groups of different dancers with specific costumes and different dances. All apparently from the same small town and surrounding area. I can't think of anything similar in the UK. It was a riot of colour and sound and only one of three days! We also experienced the Peruvian attitude to health and safety (there isn't really one). At various points arrangements of fire crackers were let off, mainly to make a noise I think. We were far to close to one early on, along with a load of locals. Unfortunately there wasn't really anywhere to run away too as the crowd was too big but we copied others and turned our backs to the explosion, shut our eyes and put our fingers in our ears! We learnt our lesson and stayed well away from the others that we saw!

Some pictures finally - a local market and the Plaza de Armas in Cusco

Niños de calle

Or street children in English.

Yesterday I was having a little contemplative sit in the sun in one of the very lovely squares that exist in Cusco. Inevitably that means that a slow trickle of people will approach you to sell something. It's quite a gentle sales technique, you say "No, gracias" and on the whole they leave you alone. The children tend to be more hard core and ask why you don't want to buy, the other day a girl selling finger puppets said "Why not" and I said "Because I'm too big". A minute later she was back "But you could buy one as a present!"

However, yesterday was Sunday morning and lots of the tourists were off visiting the local markets in outlying villages, so it's a slow sales time. A boy approached me and asked if I wanted postcards, I said no and he didn't ask why not. He sat down and asked me where I was from (this is also quite common with people who want to practise their English doing the same), so I told him England and he then checked a load of English facts with me - capital city is London, prime minister is Tony Blair - is he a good prime minister - currency is pounds. Did I live in London, no I live in Southampton next to the sea. He thought that the sea must be really nice, a good place for thinking, I think he was around 12 or 13.

So I asked him where he lives. He lives in an institution for street children, he goes to school there and has to pay something towards it and buy his own clothes and shoes. His mother lives in a pueblo (village or small town) in the countryside but can't afford to feed the family so he came to the city (this is a reasonably common story for street children). He is going to school for another year or so and one day he would like to go to university, it is possible to go to public university part time and work to pay your way. He asked me if I believed in God and I said no and he said that he did but sometimes he found it hard to understand the reasons for things.

He wasn't self pitying but he knows he has a tough life and that in other countries it would be different. So I bought some postcards because I wanted to give him money but it was better all round that it was a commercial transaction. Then he asked if he could ask a question. Of course I said yes. He wondered if I had some old shoes that I didn't need, his feet were visible through the sides of his shoes. Unfortunately I don't as I only have sandals and walking boots with me, but I wish I had. So we said goodbye and I wished him luck and off we went to our very different lives.

50% of this country lives in poverty (UN definition less than $1 a day to live on per person) and the longer I am here the more I recognise that the only real difference between people in developing countries and the wealthy nations is an accident of birth.

Parties in Peru

Last weekend I was lucky enough to go to two parties. On Friday it was Eduardo's (the father of my family) cumpleaños - birthday to you and me. The house is an "interesting" design and the integral garage converts into a good party space with easy access into the kitchen and sitting room (all the internal walls are glass!). So the car was taken out and chairs were put all round the room. Some slight differences to parties at home....

- the only drink anyone brought was rum, the choice was rum and coke (cuba libre) or coke on its own, good thing that I like rum and coke then

- you need a good party coat in Cusco as you're likely to be wearing it all evening. The houses are not really built for insulation despite the fact that it's often freezing at night and in this case the garage door doesn't fit that well

- all the men sat together and all the women sat together, men only asked their own wives to dance

- and the most surprising thing for me! When food was served at midnight, the women all went up first, filled up their plates and took them to their husbands. Fortunately as a foreigner with special status I got to serve myself at the same time as the women. Single men were last of all.

The party on Saturday was a bbq, started at midday and went on to midnight. Highlights were more rum and coke, the men building an earth oven to cook the potatoes in and also taking control of the bbq, flames and all. It must be something about male nature that as soon as cooking involves fire and building it's their job!

This weekend there is talk of an outing to a local fiesta, leave at 4pm and come back at 4 or 5am - no sleeping possible. I'll let you know what happens if I go, still trying to work out how much clothing I would/could wear!

Being at school

Okay two weeks in now, so I think I have a feel for how it's going and can describe a typical day! For most of the first week, my head felt like it was going to explode with all the new information that I was taking in and trying to understand. I was with one other person for the first week and a half and she had a bit of a headstart of me, so I felt like I was working hard to hang on to her and not slow her down!

At the end of week two, I just feel tongue tied! Mainly because I am now aware of the mistakes that I am making when I speak, so I'm constantly self editing as I speak and stopping as I search for the correct ending for the verb in the correct tense. I sort of know...pasado perfecto, imperfecto and simple, futuro popular and simple, present and sort of sort the conditional (plus all those little phrases, pronouns etc that make speech understandable. At the moment we're focusing on improving my vocabulary and speaking correctly and more rapidly! The last two days I've been in a group of one, good but hard work for four hours in the morning.

Homework takes anything from 30 minutes to several hours, depending on how dedicated I'm feeling. Language at home with my family is entirely in Spanish (apart from me explaining why have a bread brand called Bimbo is funny!) and there have been days when I haven't spoken English to anyone. I'm also getting there on my aim of having a conversation, though they're verys low at the moment.

And finally I'm sure you'll be interested to know that my reading age in Spanish is infant! Not quite Janet and John but easy fairy tales.....and I need the dictionary for that!

Peruano transport

Having been in two places in Peru now, I thought you might be interested to hear about Peruano (Peruvian) transport.

In Puerto Maldonado one of the first things that strikes you is the huge number of motor bikes. They are mostly of the trail variety (as most of the roads are dirt) and all the drivers wear some form of helmet (it's a new law and everyone conforms rather than pay on the spot fines - however you don't need to do your strap up and you can wear anything that resembles a helmet, e.g. a hard hat). Most of the bikes that you see are actually taxis and they come in three varieties
- a bike, where the passenger rides pillion (no helmet is required for passengers), women often ride side saddle
- a tuk tuk with soft cover
- top of the range a tuk tuk with hard cover

There are some four wheel vehicles but not that many and no cars. I think the reason is that the only road into Puerto, over the Andes, is a really tough road, it's dirt and extremely rutty, so to get cars in would be extremely expensive.

In Cusco, the roads are also populated pretty much by taxis, but this time they are cars, they come in a Smart car type version and a pretty standard saloon version. The fare is set at a standard two soles (40p) for any trip within town. They offer a really good service except that you don't really want to pay any attention to the driving and other vehicles as it's very bad for your nerves! There are few sets of traffic lights and I think the idea at junctions is that it's like the States in terms of who gives way to who, but it's hard to tell because I haven't worked out a pattern yet. The thing to do seems to be to drive as fast as possible, to brake at the last possible moment and to try and squeeze through any available gap!

So far I've only seen one taxi accident, where in a slow moving queue of traffic, the front half of the queue had totally stopped and the taxi at the front of the second half gently drove into the rear light of the car in front until the sound of breaking glass brought the first driver out of his car! I was late for school and couldn't wait to see what happened next!

Counting things other than parrots

So we didn't just count parrots, we also counted mammals to understand how the population is recovering now that hunting is not allowed in this particular area any more. The lodge is part of a conservation concession granted to private individuals with strict controls over what can be done there. In this case this has meant that local people now respect the fact that the land "belongs" to someone and do not log it or hunt on it.

Another way of counting, is to walk a 5km path/transect very slowly and quietly and record everything you see. If this is done often enough population estimates can then be made. Here's a bit about the first one that I did.

"You set off in the semi darkness to get to the start of the transect in time (6 to 6:30am). We walk along in single file, 2m apart trying to walk as quietly as possible and going slowly 1km/hr. I follow Alan who has the machete to clear the way and to "defend us" if necessary! We walk listening for anything that will indicate mammals - Alan hears something and whistles for our attention. We all freeze mid step to listen and then quietly catch up to see what he's spotted - capuchins feeding or spider monkeys flinging themselves from tree to tree or tamarins sitting in the sun grooming each other. Towards the end we get noisier as tiredness sets in and then eventually we get to the end. We've walked for 4 hours and seen no one, heard no manmade noise of any kind except our own and yet we're only a little way into the forest.

We rest at the Brazil nut concession hut, wash our faces in the stream and eat fresh lemon cut from a tree. As the tiredness leaves our feet we start back down a "quicker" trail and walk fast to get home in an hour or so. All of a sudden Alan stops, he's seen spider monkeys, obligingly they swing in plain view and then with a few death defying leaps they crash away through the treetops. On with the march and then stop and listen to jaw clacking and grunting - we sniff the air - white lipped peccary are close. Then an adult crosses the trail 100m away followed by a baby.. Another adult emerges and ambles towards us, about 10m away he becomes suspicious and sniffs for a while. A bit of eating, a bit more sniffing and then he scents something and with a cry of alarm leaps off the trail. The others don't react and we wait for them to clear the trail before going on. Soon it is obvious that we are walking through the group (they often are in groups of up to 50) as the noise increases on both sides of the trail. Adults grunting and jaw clacking. Babies squealing and making "bleah" noises. Alan becomes concerned that if they panic they could run into us or become aggressive. He gets us to stand next to a log and then bangs a tree hard with the machete. All around us alarm calls go up and there are the sounds of much blundering about, gradually quite returns and we go on.

The end of the trail is in sight, my feet are sore and I'm very hot as it's now 11:30. We step out of the shade of the forest into the sunlit clearing around the lodge, returning heroes full of stories to tell, sightings made and dangers avoided!

Counting Parrots

So for all of you who asked, how do you count parrots, here is the answer.

Every morning we monitored 3 colpas (local name for a clay lick that is used by parrots, macaws and parakeets to eat clay) in 2 shifts. When the birds were feeding, we counted them every 5 minutes (literally, 1, 2, 3 etc) and if there were big numbers, two people did it and compared numbers. The birds here are very cautious due to hunting and so seeing long periods of feeding was rare, 15 minutes was good. I was lucky enough to see 32 red and green macaws feed one morning, which was amazing. One thing I have learnt is that biologists in the field have a lot of patience, it is a long slow haul to collect data! They may also suffer from ulcers as the sense of anticipation every morning - will the birds arrive, will they feed - is really strong.

Here is my memory of one morning, which is reasonably typical.

"We are up first, the moon has set and the air around us is black. In the torch beam you can see water droplets, humidity is at its highest for the day around 98%. We grab a cup of coffee and leave the lodge in silence, down to the boats. Into the canoe and we paddle out into the current. I sit in front and use the torch to look for eye shine from caiman in the beam. As Alan paddles I pick up reflections, mostly moths but then at last a caiman under some branches. The morning mist hangs low over the trees and the torch beam shows it thickening in front. The trees drift by in vague silohuette as the river flows thickly past. Light begins to appear and objects become clearer. A dog starts to bark and as we round the bend a campfire glows bright on a sandbank. Figures in the dark and a torch beam stabs out across the river to find us. We glide past keeping our distance on the other side of the river.

Around another bend and Alan points the bow at the bank and paddles hard to take us alongside a fallen tree. We ground and step out into ankle deep water, making fast the canoe to the tree. We climb over the flotsam on the beach, put the mosquito net up and get in. There is just enough room for two of us on camp chairs inside. We start taking data at 5:45 but the mist is still thick and we see nothing. Around 6am Alan hears the first parrot and shortly after another species, by 6:15 we have recorded 6 different types an average start to the day. We still cannot see very well but periodically get the telescope focused and see some perched birds . Eventually the mist lifts a little and then the boats start to come past. Perhaps because it is a Saturday but it is busy with several boats coming down river, each time the birds fly away in alarm (a flush) and if they return come back to the tops of the trees. At last some quiet occurs and the birds start to think about moving down to the colpa. Some dusky headed parakeets do a fly by to check it is all safe but it is too late for us today. The lodge boat outboard can be heard coming to pick us up and save us the 45 minute upstream paddle. As the boat arrives the birds flush and we pack up.

The early morning light makes the trees glow and seem especially green. The mist has gone and the sky is a perfect blue. With the light breeze created by the boat movement and the warmth of the morning sun the river is an Eden. The trees fringe it in serenity, the darkness of the forest hiding its treasures - brilliant macaws and parrots, enchanting tamarins, athletic spider monkeys, musician wrens and all of the diversity of this incredible place. At this moment it is a paradise of wonders."

The rainforest experience

Well it was incredible. I think I am only going to realise how incredible as time goes on. It is amazing how quickly you adapt to something as "normal". So being 7 hours upriver by fast boat (fast versus the local boats that is, because our boat had an outboard rather than a home made "peke peke" engine) and in the middle of untouched forest, in temperatures around 30 with 70 to 98% humidity feels normal by about day two!

We stayed at a lovely research station, in a little clearing about 500m from the river. We found out the hard way that rain forest is not all flat. Between the river and the clearing were a set of extremely steep steps, after 2 weeks I was still puffing by the top and in the heat, it meant that even if you were relatively unsweaty when you got off the boat, when you got to the top of the steps you needed a shower again! Around the lodge has been planted local grasses and plants, many of which look like overgrown house plants to us. Someone speculated that it was where house plants come to die! Also papaya trees to encourage in local mammals, like the tayra, a bigger version of a weasel. Rabbits eat the grass and ocelots eat the rabbits and the humans get to see the ocelot (well sometimes, we did not sadly). The lodge is designed to keep you in the shade all day and to maximize every breath of air to keep the conditions as unsweaty as possible. The showers were of course cold, which was actually very refreshing although I always had to take a deep breath before sticking my head under. We were well looked after by the kitchen team, Gladys and Ghisella, who worked miracles to give us different food every meal - some interesting local things, purple maize soup for example.

I could go on and on, so I am going to break it up a bit and post in chunks. I do not think I will be able to put photos on but I should be able to link to some that the others are going to put up.

Babies, flying and heat

I had forgotten just what a long way it was to get here (over 24 hours from my front door to my hotel in Lima) and was forcibly reminded why babies and flying don´t really mix! There was one about four rows in front of me (a baby that is) and it cried for nine hours, or that´s what it felt like!

However, I was collected from Lima airport by the dapper Senor Gonzalez, who had everything under control and delivered me safely to my hotel. Then after a much needed sleep, it was up at 5:30am to go back to the airport to get the flight to Puerto Maldonado. The flight was spectacular with clear views of the Andes, which was great. Then the start of the rainforest, stretching away, it seems like for ever. Lots of cumulus cloud over it, formed by evaporation from the forest, it forms a cycle, evaporates, forms cloud, falls as rain and so on.

Puerto Maldonado is a very poor town and so the culture shock has hit home a bit. I met up with one of the others on the trip a Catalan called Pere and he has it worse I think, as he´s not been to Peru before. He asked if this was the poorest place I´ve ever been and I think for a big town it may be but I have seen similar before. Most of the roads are dirt and the houses are mostly built from wood. The children in their school uniforms are inevitably spotless. As you´d expect it´s hot and humid and I´m therefore sitting in the Internet cafe (which is full of Peruvians and no other tourists) and sweating (I´m sure they´re all mightily unimpressed by la gringa). But I´m sure the parrots are going to be worth it! One more day here and then off to base camp on Sunday.