Odds and ends

Lima: The Aeroclub del Peru, which we found by accident last trip, seems to have moved, as we could not find it this time.
La Paz: Most will know that I have a taste for rum or ¨ron¨in Spanish. Well it goes beyond the liquid to ice cream. The best ¨pasas y ron¨(rum and raison) ice cream that I have ever tasted seems to only exist in Bolivia and maybe only in La Paz. Now that I am here for a while, I am trying to get as much as possible!
The last 2 days have been a whirlwind of meeting new people and gathering art supplies for us to take to Aucapata for the art project. Yesterday finished with a search for chicken wire, house paint, and masonite.
Jim

First Days at IMIF

Well you can imagine how meetings go with 5-6 new people and 2 languages. We met at the offices which are down the street, at 10am and met Ernesto, Lucy, and an old friend Ivonne (a Dentist which we met last trip to La Paz) as well as Yumey. There was a lot of questions and joy had to tell them her vision of the three weeks we were to have in Aucapata. For those that don´t know Aucapata and a number of surrounding villages high in the Andes and many hours by bus or truck from La Paz have been receiving dental care and breakfast program for chidren in schools through the IMIF headquartered in Halifax and Lima. Joy sponsored the idea of sending and art student to the area to teach art in the same schools. Now it is Joy´s turn. She (and I ) will spend the next three weeks in Aucapata trying to mix art and dental health. The first day we didn´t quit until 7pm! This regular working must be for the young!
Jim

Lima

Folks:
I believe that I left you as we were checking in with the young lady at the Hostel España in Lima. It was nice to see that security for the ceremonial changing of the guard at the Legislative Palace had been reduced. There were 5 very bored riot police, about the same number of guys with automatic weapons, no armored vehicles, and the public was allowed inside the gate. The ceremony has lost some of it´s military significance and format and now is a band and drill display. The last time we saw it the President actually took the salute. This time ¨nada¨. We did manage to find a ¨Churra¨(pudding filled deep-fried good thing) which made my day. We visited a very nice museo in the old national mint. The history of currency was educational. After watching a wedding and having a good night we were up and in a cab for the airport at 0430. Flew to Cusco with one airline (because the others rip off tourists and then changed) and arrived safely at El Alto airport obove La Paz (at 4000meters) to be greeted by Yumey, the executive director of the Ivor Mendez International Foundation (IMIF) and an old friend Paz, a delightful man, and the only safe driver in all of La Paz. They quickly got us bunked down in the Hotel Torino (5 stars minus 4.5 and therefore just our kind of spot). Although we had a chance at our old room (that we had the last 2 times) we decided on a new and better room and it is great!
Security is higher right now as the disabled have been demonstrating for a payment of some sort for about three months. The roads are now blocked by riot police and a metal barricade a block from Plaza Murillo in all directions including the block on which the Torino is found. I got $ from the safest ATM in La Paz as a dozen police watched. I had to ask them to get out of the way (permisso) so that I could get in.
Joy is much better although neither of us are operating at 100% at 3800 meters.
Jim

Huarez 2

On our last day before taking the bus to Lima, we decided to take a tour to a lake in a national park up in the mountains. As with most tours there are always stops along the way that you have to put up with before getting to the place that you want to see. This resulted in a looooong day tour. The main excitement occurred high in the mountains within the national park, when the road was blocked by a dumptruck being loaded with dirt by a crew of men. Although he was tempted the bus driver did not try to go by and we were off-loaded and had to walk the last 20 minutes (up-hill, Fred). Apparently the driver of the truck had left the vehicle to go to the little restaurente by the lake. I learned some new Spanish words!
One observation of a difference between the coast and the mountains in Peru is the variation in cabs. Along the coast most cabs were moto-taxis or a very short and yellow vehicle (think shortened Ford Festiva). In Huarez, the cabs were almost all white toyota station wagons and much easier to handle for 2 larger folks with packs.
On Friday we took a 0930 bus for Lima. Most of the better buses went at night and we wanted to see the views. And the views were worth it. In the high country there was a desolate landscape with no trees, although very green with a short grass and many cattle and sheep. The down-hill went on for at least and hour and a half switching back and forth with a convoy of five gasoline trucks behind us. There is a real art to passing slower traffic on this kind of road! In Lima, a quick taxi ride got us to our favourite hostal in Lima; Hostal España. Not much has changed from the old art to the skulls from indigeous graves, that meet you in the lobby. What had changed was the lovely 20 something young lady at the desk happily feeding her 2 year old while signing us in.
Jim

Huarez

Definitely a beautiful spot surrounded by snow-topped mountain peaks. Unfortunately Carnavale hadn´t run it´s course yet and our first day was ¨water war Tuesday¨! Mobs of young people, male and female, coursed up and down the streets (even closing the main street) hurling water, either in balloons or without. Although they try to avoid the tourists, the old, and the indigeous folk in traditional outfits, secondary casualties are a result. At the same time fireworks are going off all over. The police, and they had brought in extras, showed a lot of restraint, allowing the hi-jinks to go on. Police here are about 50% women wearing snappy uniforms with big guns. Anyway the fun ended when God decided to enter the event with lightning, thunder and a down pour.
We spent the next few days in Huarez resting so that Joy could get over a cold, we could get a flight to and from La Paz and catching up on blogs. We were successful at all. Few hints for folks: debit cards are the best way to access $ here in SA, and domestic flights cost next to nothing (unless to a tourist destination ie: Galpagos or Cusco) and flights across borders are expensive.
Jim

My Big Blunder

I must apologize to Joy in public. I had suggested (decided) that our next stop should be Chimbote,farther down the coast. On the map it looked like a good move. Unfortunately in my wisdom, I had not read either of the guidebooks we had with us until we were on the bus. Turns out Chimbote is the place you do not want to stay in Peru. It is the largest fishing port in Peru and smells like it. In addition it is apparently a very dangerous place to stay. After I confessed to Joy (she is still working on forgiveness), she said that we would just take the next bus out of town towards Huarez but probably stopping in Casma. Well we got a rather beat up small Mercedes bus that was going to take us to Huarez via a short-cut over the Corillero Negro to Huarez in the heart of the Cordillero Blanco, the highest mountains in Peru and second highest in South America. The description of the dirt road climbing from Casma to the pass at over 4000 meters was not encouraging,but of we went after agreeing that life had been pretty good to this point. Fortunately the book was out of date and the road was paved 2 lane road except where rock slides had narrowed it to one or less. It is hard to describe to climb into and above the clouds and the vertical drops that just go down forever. Amazingly there were people living up there on the edge of these cliffs. I would have taken video but my eyes were closed most of the way. Thank goodness for night as we rose. Then we saw the lights of Huarez below us when we were still almost 50kms away. The downhill, twisting back and forth on hairpins, went on interminably,but we finally arrived safely in Huarez and got touted into a hostal by Johnny who wanted us to take a tour the next day. I needed a few days rest!
Jim

Peru vs Ecuador

There are some changes almost as soon as you go over the border. First is an architectural quirk relating to industrial buildings in Peru.All have walls and guard posts allong the wall. Didn't notice any of that in Ecuador. Also there is the sudden appearance of motocycles converted to three wheels to carry paying passengers. They seem to have various names ie mototaxi. Those are fairly harmlessobservations but the other big impression Peru makes and which I had forgotten was the road-side garbage. It makes the little dumps along the West Montrose Road at home look positively spotless.
In Chiclaya,we took a trip out to LLambeque to see a fantastic museo dedicated to a pyramide tomb created 1700 years ago for a leader of the Moche culture (the Mochicas). Housed in a spectacular building with marvelous displays of the finds and how the tomb may have been laid out.A truly great museo that must not be missed. I must be retaining some of the hard-earned Spanish as I understood most of the displays. We went to another museo in the same town but it tried to cover too much and did so without any continuity.
Jim