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Since i last wrote, the remainder of my time in Villa Maria was spent doing construction during the mornings and the same children time during the afternoon. we managed to reconstruct and recreate much of the childrens park, i even managed to mix cement and build a climbing tower! towards the end it has become very obvious how much the peruvians appreciate our being there and mucking in. And on leaving they and we were all very sad! we were given a cd of all the pictures that they had taken and we have had a t shirt made with all the relevant quotes and nicknames acquired during our time at villa maria.
so from Villa Maria, we left on Wednesday last week at around midday. after a taxi to miraflores, the rather upmarket area in lima where we were staying on the outskirts, we had a small meeting to explain and organise the activites and epedition for the next 6 weeks. I am sharing a tent with Alice and Thomas . we have also made some new groups for cooking, equipment and medical for the next 6 weeks. the cooking team has to organise, buy and distribute food for the whole expedition, equipment has to fix, buy and rent all the stuff we need. we will be using trangias like d of e!! and medical has to carry a huge medical kit with neck brace, splints and emergency first aid because we all take our own first aid kits. for the first trek which we leave tomorrow i am in the medical team so we have got of quite lightly i think!
we had two nights in lima, leaving on friday morning to take a bus to Pisco, which is a town of around 65,000 on the coast around 4 hrs from lima and the place where pisco sours comes from. in august last yr pisco was the closest town to the earthquakes that hit peru, epicentre 48km out to sea. over 50% of the town was flattened in the 6.8 - 8.2 richter scale quake. over 250 people were killed whilst in church and the roof collapsed and 100 others in the town. it happened in the late afternoon at around 6 pm when it was pitch black but upon the opening of the lithosphere (upper crust) a huge ray of light lit up the town for the 2.48mins of the earthquake so that it was like day. so now as you can imagine there is a very surreal atmosphere around the town. we stayed in the only hostel that there is now - it was a big backpacker town before, and just under 10% of the popn left after the earthquake. the only buildings that have been rebuilt are the banks and chain pharmacys. the hospital is under canvass and most of the town are living in sheds or tents in the garden or space where there houses were. our hostel had 3 floors and standing on the roof, we were the tallest building in the town. there was also a mini tsunami, 1 1/2 metres coverred around 500m in from the coast. Amazing how we hardly heard about this in england!!??
from pisco we left v early at around 6 am to bus to a small town called Baracas where we took a bus to the Islas Ballestas. We took a 20 person speed boat to the islands, passing a marking in the desert sand which looks rather like the nazca lines. it is in the shape of a candelabra and around 75m in height, there is no known reason for there being.... ideas of navigation, and pirating are the most beleiable as it is around 254km from nazca people. the islands are actually just big rocks, where we saw huge huge numbers of birds and penguins which are the 2nd smallest in the world. we managed to get really close to the birds and the best part was that we saw sea lions and so so many of them. at first we all got excited by one or two until we came to a cove where the beach was crammed with them. the males are enormous but there are many more females and we saw lots of babies too!
from Baracas we took a very cranky 2hr long bus to Ica, from where we got taxis to Huacachina, an oasis in the middle of the desert surrounding it. around 40 yrs ago it was where the very rich peruvians went on hols, now it is mainly a place for back packers. quite a strange place as there are no houses just hostels, restaurants and tourist info. we stayed in a really nice hostel with a pool and a few parrots. in the afternoon we went sandbuggying and sandboarding. we went out in sandbuggys which are like giant quad bikes with roll bars and they can take around 9 people. they go pretty fast and we took off going up and down the dunes/desert. such good fun and exhilirating! when at the top we got out sandboards which look exactly like snowboards and tried to sandboard down the dunes, which are at least if not steeper than ski slopes. this was much more difficult than it sounds and soon we all took to going down on our tummies, so that we could go much faster! we did around 1 1/2 hrs of this culminating in a slope similar to La Face!
After another early start from Huacachina, we drove to Nazca down the Pan american highway, (hich we have spent alot of time on so far!) through the middle of the desert, although never very far from the coast. when in nazca we took a plane over the nazca lines. i was in a plane with 2 others, Fred and Charlotte , and i was sitting next to the driver - not the obvious thing to do when i dont really like flying. anyway, the flight was spectacular. 35mins over the lines and we managed to get v close to seeing them as we had a really cool pilot. we saw the most famous hummingbird, monkey and spider as well as the tree, hands, whale, alien, flamingo and lizard that was cut in to two by the pan-am highway before they knew about the lines. there really is no explanation for the lines which are very large and around 30 cm deep. there are also a number of perfectly straight lines which cross the plateau (hence the idea that they are landing strips for alien ship.. cant beleive that personally) but they were only discovered this century so v wierd really.
From Nazca we took a bus to Puerta Inca which is a hotel on a beach. in nazca we bought all the materials we would need to camp on the beach like wood and chicken wire for a bbq. so we set up camp on the beach and watched the sunset after swimming in the icy cold pacific. dont know why it was so cold but totally numbing on the toes and arms... felt like the sea in scotland! we had a very slow but delicious barby of baked potatoes, meat, onions and peppers before having an early night in the tents. Only to wake up to the gorgeous sunrise out of the tent and an early morning swim! on the same beach was the hotel which we used for the loo which was v v expensive only rich peruvians there and they didnt look to pleased to see us all dirty and wearing the same clothes as the day before!
We then from Puerta Inca took a bus at around lunch time to Arequipa where we are now. 9 hrs in a bus but it did have films luckily so we watched the departed and blood diamond and arrived at the hostel we´re in now at 10.20pm so v v tired! today (tuesday) has been a day of preparation for our trek down and up the colca canyon, which begins tomorrow at 5 am!!! we have had to buy equipment, sort out tents etc and pack ...minimally! we should be trtekking aorund 8 hrs a day down the second deepest canyon in the world, cant quite beleive its over twice the depth of the grand canyon, but apparently a little less steep thank god!! we will finish on friday for a day of chilling out in arequipa afterwards...
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