In Chile Again...

Santiago is green and fresh from the winter rains, the oaks and maples along the Alameda are looking healthy and the parks and plazas bright with new grass. The air is crisp and relatively smog-free; it seems that spring is the city's best time of the year.

It also appears strikingly modern and sophisticated after being so long in Peru. When I first arrived here I felt I was definitely in Latin America; now it feels like being plunged into Europe. Big, modern buses run up and down the avenues and there are twenty private cars for every taxi - the exact opposite of Arequipa. People are more confident and relaxed, less friendly, less bothersome, and overwhelmingly whiter. You can sit and eat in a street cafe without *anyone* trying to sell you something or asking you for money.

I went straight back to the Hostal Bellavista, where I stayed in April, and found that once again it's inhabited by interesting people. Last night there was a bbq/farewell party for two Argentinian girls who have been working here since August - lots of wine, pisco and chorizo leaving me somewhat the worse for wear this morning. I talked to an English girl who's doing her PhD on the foreign policy of the Salvador Allende government - on Monday she gets to talk to Isabel Allende's stepfather - and a Chilean guy whose father procured foreign loans for Chile in New York during the Allende era.

Meanwhile, the trip Arequipa-Lima-Santiago, while squeezed into 36 hours and ultimately pretty exhausting, was surprisingly easy and incident free. I would have expected something to go wrong somewhere between bus terminals, airports, luggage transfers, passport controls, customs, currency exchanges and taxis, but it all turned out to be too easy. Am likely to head to Mendoza on Monday or Tuesday, giving myself the chance to find out whatever happened to my application for a Chilean working holiday visa on Monday morning.

And the half-term report...

Adding more countries to the list...

After what must have been my most comfortable 14-hour bus ride ever, I've arrived in humid, sea-level Lima for a stay of approximately 12 hours. Tomorrow I should be catching a flight to Santiago, and then hope to be heading pretty much straight away across the mountains to Mendoza, to make my first footfalls in the land of "cheboludos". Probably heading back Arequipa-wards through the NW of Argentina, then Salta-San Pedro de Atacama-Arica-Tacna. will see how it turns out. Am looking forward to good red wine, steaks and voluble, overconfident guys with long hair (the last one not really).

Inca Trail, Machu Picchu and all that...

(Semi)-ancient ruins, stairways into the clouds, towering jungle-covered peaks, orchids, giant ferns, gruelling climbs and helter-skelter descents. Yes indeed, the Inca Trail has it all, folks. As I'm sure this is a subject that has been done to death, I'm going to skip any further description and wait till I get the photos scanned so you can see for yourselves. I'm certainly not going to inflict any of the "magical, mystical" stuff that even the normally dry guidebooks indulge in as, quite frankly, I think that's all New Age bullshit.

Suffice to mention that the 1,000 metre drop down original Inca steps through dripping cloud forest in the dark on the fourth morning was pretty wild. Oh god, yes, and Lord of the Rings. Should really have been filmed there - I felt like I was in it the whole time.

For me, however, none of the archeological or natural elements could quite match the human spectacle of the trail. Of the 500 people allowed onto the trail each day, just under half are guides and porters. In my group there were 17 tourists (all of us young) complemented by 14 porters and two guides. The porters were all small, slight, Quechua-speaking men who rushed ahead of the group to arrive at the next campsite, set up the (two-person) tents and the cooking and dining tents, and prepare the next meal. The food was sumptuous - fish in coriander and tomato sauce, beef fillets, omlettes and pancakes for breakfast, soup with every meal - all served while we sat on stools round tables in the dining tent. To be honest, the food was probably better than many of the 10 soles menus you find round the plaza in Cusco. They even remembered to prepare a special vegetarian option for an Israeli girl at every meal.

All the ingredients and equipment were carried by the porters, including tents, tables, chairs, stoves and gas. Most of them were supporting around double the weight of the heaviest load carried by a tourist. I was close to defining the later category since, realising that the porters would be taking our foods and tents, I added in a novel, the Peru Handbook, my notebook, a small Spanish-Quechua dictionary, sandals for walking round the campsites and my sneakers for wearing after visitng Machu Picchu, in addition to my regular stuff. The rationale was partly that I may as well splurge on the home comforts - since it wasn't "proper camping", why not be able to take off my boots and have something to read in the evenings. Partly the opposite - an attempt to simulate the weight I would have carried on an independent trekking trip. Nevertheless, most of the porters were carrying about twice my pack plus some extra bits. The official weight limit for a porter is supposed to be 25 kilos (established in 2001), but one of my group noticed at the weighing station at the start of the track that one of their packs tipped the scales at 34.5 kilos, without comment.

The most notable thing about the porters' load, however, was the fact that they didn't actually have any packs. They assembled their cargo each morning in bundles with makeshift straps of rope or woven cloth, and hauled it all onto their backs. Forget the waist straps with which most packs distribute their weight onto the hips of the carrier, the porters didn't even have free hands, having to hold their bundles onto their bent backs as they headed uphill. And they didn't have shoes either, making do with sandles constructed from tyre rubber - "Goodyear boots" as I later learned they were dubbed.

Despite this, they all made rapid and sure-footed progress both up and downhill. On the climb up to the 4200-metre Warmiwañuscsa (Dead Woman) Pass on the second day, I was the first out of our group to the top, five minutes ahead of the next guy and two hours before the last few (some of the other guys in the group were I think stronger and fitter than me but my level of conditioning from climbing Misti and Chachani meant that I had less need to stop). Most of the way up I was following a porter who was carrying a 50-litre gas bottle roped to his back. I kept thinking he was tiring and I would overtake him, but eventually it was he who disappeared off ahead, and by the time I got to the top of the pass was well gone.

These guys get paid 100 soles per trip (about $30 USD). It's more than the subsistence they could get farming on their chacras, but wouldn't go far with a family to feed and clothe.

Arriving at the camp sites, feeling a little exhausted from the climbs and grumbling if our dinner was 20 minutes late, we were a little like mehm sahibs. Or, for that matter, like Inca nobles. Amidst all the trekking along the historic trail and the little lessons from the guides about how the runners or chasqui brought fresh fish up to Cusco from the coast, everyone seemed to be missing the irony that, 500 years later, they're still doing the same thing. The stone Incan buildings with their straw roofs might have been a little more comfortable than our tents, but they didn't have electricity or running water either. Being waited on hand and foot while we trudged along the trail, we were living the lives of Incas ourselves, while the porters were time-warped in the roles of their commoner ancestors. The irony deepens when you learn that the the current theory on the purpose of Machu Picchu is that it was a lower, warmer holiday resort from Cusco.

After packing up the tents on the fourth morning, the porters went as far as Wiñay Huyana before descending to Km 104 to catch the train back to Cusco. Did they ever get to go to Machu Picchu, I asked one of the guides. Sure, he said, sometimes people who don't want to carry their own stuff hire an "extra" porter, who goes with them all the way to Machu Picchu. And if they're never hired? Well, they can catch the local train to Aguas Calientes for 3 soles, and on every second Sunda entrance to the ruins is free for people from the department of Cusco. Plausible, I suppose. But it seem that, just as in Inca times, the commoners are denied entrance to the sanctuary.

The other highlight of the trip was the chaos that surrounded our entry to the trail. Given the limit imposed by the government of 250 trekkers entering the trail each day, everyone reserving a place has to provide their passport details together with a copy of their passport. This, one imagines, is to prevent agencies from overbooking and creating chaos at the start of the trail. Of course, some people cancel. The combined need of agencies to sell and of tourists to get on the trail means that their spots get resold. When we arrived at the stop for lunch before beginning the trek, it was revealed that 9 out of our group of 17 were occupying the places of cancelled reservations. Unable to show their own passport at the control post, they were given the names and passport numbers of cancelled people and told to invent a story about why they hadn't brought their passports with them. Lunchtime featured the somewhat surreal sight of people wandering around, mumbling to themselves, memorising their new identities.

By the time we got to the control post, even the people who were going to enter with our original passports were nervous. It felt like we were trying to cross the Berlin Wall or something. The eight of ous who were really us went first, then waited on the other side of the bridge from the control post. The first couple from the next group took a while to come across, as they concocted some story about how they had just got back from a rafting trip and hadn't had time to collect their passport from the hostel. After that it got quicker as the guides intervened and I think the control post people gave up in exasperation on realising that over half the group didn't have passports.

One of our group, a Norwegian guy called Runar, didn't even manage to get assigned a false identity, I think because the maximum group size is supposed to be 16, and we were 17 in total. The solution to getting him onto the trail? The guides distracted the control post people while Runar dashed across the bridge and walked five minutes down the trail.

A Canadian couple in the group had waited an extra few days so they could go with their own passports. An agency in Cusco had offered them the opportunity to go earlier if they stuck a false name and photo on their passport. They decided not to, as tampering with your passport is, um, generally not a good idea.

The sheer Peruvianess of this whole situation made it for me practically the most memorable aspect of the trip.

I become a lab rat...

A while back my friend Lenny (she who invited me to the wedding in Ilo) told me about the project she was doing for her thesis in pharmacology. She had a mysterious-looking vial of cream which she said was an experimental skin care product with a base of tuna (an indigenous cactus which grows wild here and has an edible bulb). With visions of possible miraculous rejuvenating properties, I begged to be picked as an experimental subject.

When recently she took me up on the offer, I found the reality was rather different. The cream developed by Lenny and her friend Anyi was to be tested for its sun-filtering ability, along with a gel developed by their pharmacological colleague Cristian. I had to go to the lab at the Católica University and sit on a stool with my shirt off while they shone a focused sunlamp onto my back and measured the time for my skin to turn red when protected by the various products. The reason they were so keen to have me involved was that the whole process is quicker and easier with someone who has pale skin.

For people who've studied an applied science for four years, though, they didn't seem to have learnt much about the rigurous preparation of an experiment. On neither of the two days that I went did they manage to make any successful measurements. The first time they discovered that the stand which supported the sunlamp was too tall, and I had to sit on a pile of textbooks on top of the stool so the light fell in the right place - which got pretty painful after 10 minutes or so. In addition, the holes cut in the boards placed across the lampshade to direct the beam of the lamp were too far apart, meaning that the light fell on different parts of my back, at different distances. The thing that most impressed me, however, was that nobody had brought a tape measure...

The next day I went back, to find that the helpful technician had lowered the stand and changed the position of the holes in the boards, and there was now an available tape measure. We readied for the experiment, focusing the lamp on my back while Lenny tried to draw circles around where the light was falling in order to mark the area to apply each cream. Unfortunately, none of the (biro) pens in the lab made an impression on my skin, and while Lenny was trying to draw the lamp started to get pretty hot. "Don't you guys have, like, a vivid marker?" I asked. "You know, the kind you normally find in a classrooom". All and sundry admitted that such a pen would have been a useful instrument.

As I was leaving the next day for Cuzco, I told Lenny that she'd have to find another subject. The semi-amusing epilogue to the story is that today when showering I caught a glimpse of something on my back as walking away from the mirror. Closer inspection revealed two perfectly circular burn marks, rather bright red, about halfway up my back.

And arrive in Cuzco again...

Without too many hassles, either, despite the 4:30 am arrival time from Arequipa. I spent the morning meeting and greeting people from two tour agencies here who had emailed us at Incaventura saying that many of their customers were interested in doing trips to the Colca Canyon. Hugo has been working with one of them for ages with his German tour groups, but rather surprisingly had never suggested a formal endorsement relationship with his own business...
I
The afternoon I ended up doing some translations for a guy who has an exhibition of pre-Incan musical instruments (copies and originals) starting up in Cuzco and wanted to have captions in Quechua, Spanish, English and French. I overheard him asking the guy in the internet cafe how to use the automated translator, and with horror informed him that I couldn't allow that. He was most grateful in the end and although I refused payment, did accpet his offer to come and see his exhibition for free and try some of the instruments when I get back to Cuzco - not sure if I'll have time though.

And tomorrow I'm off on the Inca Trail!! - am most excited. It's been overcast with spots of drizzle in Cuzco, and they say it's raining hard on the trail, but I'm not bothered. Would you believe that in six months I've seen half an hour of rain? That was in Arequipa in July, and it made headlines...

Anyway, I am *so* prepared. This evening I obtained six large plastic bags to wrap my clothes and sleeping bag in - yes, this is me we're talking about... I also have insect repellent, suncream, cap, woolly hat, rain jacket, thermal t-shirts and underwear, torch with spare American-made batteries, gloves and over-gloves, two spare rolls of film - you name it. PPPP, Dad.

It's even possible that the cloudy weather will make for better photographs - it's always difficult in Arequipa struggling with the fierce light contrasts. I'm looking on the bright side - no doubt will update when I get back here wet, bedraggled and tired.

This is not a story, just an update... Last weekend added another mountain to my repetoire - El Misti, at 5,825 metres. Quite different from Chachani, no snow or ice, but you start at 3200 metres, so it's quite a climb. Misti is a perfect volcanic cone mainly comprised of sand and ash, but is ascended by a zig-zag path up one of the rocky ridges running up the mountainside. Five hours walking the first day to base camp at 4500 metres; at 2:00 am the next morning we started the painstaking ascent to the summit. There's more time to get used to the altitude, but you're still very high and it's very cold. I and John, a trekking guide from Colorado who also lives in Arequipa, made it the summit while the other four - two American girls and a British couple - got to the crater. The crater is only 100 metres lower than the summit, but the last climb to the big iron cross at the summit is a killer. We saw the others arrive at the turn off to the crater while we were taking photos by the cross, then later went down and joined them. The crater is active, and quite fascinating, with smoking vents and big crusty sulphur desposits. One of the American girls was a volcanologist, so was in seventh heaven. The views from the summit were outstanding - a panorama taking in Chachani, Picchu Picchu, Lago Salinas to the the north, the ranges to the west and all of Arequipa. We went back down to base camp across the thick ashy sand, which was brilliant - running and sliding we descended within one hour the distance it had taken us six hours to climb. By 3:30 we were back in Arequipa and this time, despite being rather burnt and a bit coldy, I was more or less in one piece. By Sunday afternoon I was well recovered and enjoying a cigarette.

And the really amusing part is...

That on Monday I went and told Lisbet pretty much what I wrote in my post about the waterfalls of Sogay, and how it ought to be a tourist spot. Wednesday afternoon, she brightly informed me that she had "sold" it to two American tourists, and that *I* was to be the guide...

The couple had only one free day in Arequipa, wanted to see the Colca Canyon, but didn't have time to do the two-day trekking trip and weren't inclined to sit on a bus all day with 15 other tourists to do the one-day "conventional" sightseeing tour. Lisbet, apparently quoting me more or less verbatim, told them that there was "another trek" that could be done in one day, taking in waterfalls, views of the mountains, typical Arequipan countryside and no other tourists. They thought this sounded good, and ended up handing over the $20 each that Lisbet charged them.

When I found this out, I was rather horrified and panicky. I was not at *all* confident that I could find the way to the waterfalls again and told Lisbet there was no way I was going out there to embarass myself with two tourists who had paid $20 each. Lisbet took this in her stride. Chewing thoughtfully on her pen, she immediately started trying to think of people who might know the area and could go with me. Pretty much all the likely prospects were unavailable, but at that moment Rafael had the good fortune to walk into the office. Rafael works as a guide to the Colca Canyon and is from Cabanaconde. He said he more or less knew the town of Sogay, but had never been to the waterfalls.

Nevertheless, I thought it could work if he went with me. As the tourists didn't speak any Spanish, we could put on a bit of a charade, saying that Rafael was a local who had friends and cousins in the area. Then he could wander off to ask for directions at any point on the pretense that he was "saying hi" to somebody. Still a little nervous about the price Lisbet had charged, I insisted that she pack *plenty* of food for lunch. She in turn told me that under no circumstances was I to say that this I had only been once to the falls and that this was an experimental trip.

The next morning Rafael and I went to pick up the tourists from the hotel. Kathryn and René (he originally from Slovakia) were a pleasant American couple. I kept them occupied with small talk while Rafael tried to find a taxi that would take us to the place where kombis leave for Sogay. We weren't making a good show of it being a regular, smoothly-run tour when the first taxi driver refused to go any further after realising where we wanted to go and deciding it was too far. The Cruz de Characato, where the kombis leave from, is indeed a good way into the outskirts of Arequipa, but the second taxi driver was kind enough to not only take us there but also agree to come and pick us up when we got back.

The kombis in fact normally only run as far as the town of Quequeña, but Rafael convinced this one to take us to Sogay, to where we were the only passengers. By now I think the American couple were figuring out that this wasn't something we did normally, judging by the number nervous glances and expressions Rafael and I were exchanging. I tried to keep them as occupied as possible by bombarding them with titbits on Arequipan geography, history, society and politics, something I managed to keep up throughout the afternoon.

In Sogay, Rafael disappeared for a bit while I and the tourists ate apples in the shade of the plaza. When he returned he was looking confident, and I was certainly impressed when he strode ahead out of town, announcing that there would be a stop at a "natural bathroom" in five minutes. Rafael was a legend; we took pretty much exactly the same route we had taken on Sunday, stopping under the same shady tree for a rest and a drink, while he also proved a fountain of information about the various medicinal and narcotic qualities of the vegetation along the route, all stuff he knows from the Colca. Kathryn and René seemed to be pretty enamoured of the countryside, the cows and donkeys, and the fact that there weren't any other tourists.

The one point it went a bit wobbly was when we started to get deep into the canyon and the track began to run out; I was of the view that it was time to go down to the river, but Rafael insisted we had to swing up the canyon wall and take a route that would lead later back down to the river. Rafael later told me that the second person he had asked for directions in Sogay had told him to take this path, but clearly they hadn't gone that way for a while. I had explained to Kathryn and René that our worried-sounding conversation was a mild disagreement about which was the *quickest* way to the falls; I thought we should go up the river while Rafael thought it would be quicker to take the uphill path.

When the uphill path completely petered out and Rafael turned round sheepishly, I did some quick covering - Rafael was now in agreement with me that the river would be quicker; there must have been a landslide or something since he last came. We now had to go back down an extremely steep and slippery track, which Kathryn found rather testing. Luckily, the couple were pretty good-humoured and didn't seem to mind having a bit of an adventure. With a bit of further luck we found the path to the river on the second attempt, and from there it was all plain sailing. We had spent so much time faffing about by the river on Sunday trying to help people across that it was all familiar to me.

The one unexpected thing was that the river level had dropped considerably; arriving at the last river crossing I announced confidently that at this part everyone definitely had to get wet, before plunging in, crossing, and heroically liftng myself onto a rock on the other side. René, who came behind me, hopped across three successive stones about a metre away from where I had started to wade, without even splashing himself. Well, they had been completely submerged on Sunday...

We had lunch there on the rock, discovering that Lisbet had been true to her word and had packed an immense lunch. The tourists were surprised and impressed, and although I absolutely stuffed myself we didn't even finish two-thirds of the food. Afterwards we made the tricky climb/scramble down to the falls, just precipitous enough for Kathryn to be a little scared and for René to help her out a bit.

After a long walk back to the village in the fierce sun, our cover was completely blown when we had to admit that we had no idea where to go to catch a kombi back to Arequipa. A villager herding donkeys suggested the crossroads; when we headed down there a local woman tending her fields confirmed that kombis to Arequipa passed by there - but even the Americans understood when I asked her "¿con qué frecuencia?"

Fortunately a taxi passed by within five minutes; the driver apparently reguarly offers a "collectivo" service between the Cruz de Characato and the nearby villages. We stopped in Quequeña so Rafael could call the other taxi driver and tell him we were on our way. He was there within five minutes of our arrival at the Cruz de Characato and took us all the way back to Santa Catalina.

In the end I think Kathyrn and René were happy enough with their trek - they didn't complan a bit and in fact thanked me sincerely for the experience. I still think the trip could be converted into a regular one, taking in the petroglyphs near Yanabama and a stop in Quequeña, which is a beautiful little town. We just have to work on some reliable and economic form of transport.

The Waterfalls of Sogay

On Sunday we went on a trip to the waterfalls of Sogay, organised by the gymnasium at the Club Internacional, where Paola works. The nature of the destination was a mystery to me, but we followed the instructions to bring shorts or track pants and a change of shoes, plus food for a picnic. We bought a chicken, mayonnaise and celery, and spent the evening cutting the chicken and celery into the small pieces of exact form demanded by Paola.

The town of Sogay is about 40 minutes away from Arequipa, on the road to the Picchu Picchu range. On the way we passed through the town of Yanabamba and visited the ruins of its founder’s mansion. Nearby there are some rough cave drawings, supposedly dating from 2,000 years ago. For me the striking feature of this stop was the view back across the valley taking in Misti, Chachani and, its snow cap floating like a cloud in the distance, Nevado Ampato. Nowhere else around Arequipa that I know of can you see the three volcanoes in a row like that.

Sogay is a picturesque little village with a tiny church and plaza graced by a single palm tree. A pathway climbs out of the town through the green terraces and their irrigation canals. A very diverse array of people had come on the two minibuses, ranging from a trainer from the Club gym to an overweight woman in her sixties. This meant that we made tortuous progress up through the agricultural terraces on the way to visit some more basic petroglyphs and the ruins of an old mill dating from the early 18th century.

Eventually the younger people split off and we made our way out of the cultivated valley into the entrance of a narrow, steep canyon with typical high desert vegetation of brush and cactus, fig and yata trees near the river providing shade from the fierce sun. To get to the waterfalls we had to cross and re-cross the river, further splitting the group. There was apparently more water than usual, up to waist level at times, but it wasn’t particularly deep, cold or rapid by the standards of mountain streams. After a series of mini cascades there was a further tricky river crossing and a scramble up the precipitous side of the canyon to get to the main falls, plunging through a crevice in the narrow canyon. Only eight of us out of the 22 got that far.

This should be a popular tourist spot, and in most places would be. The walk passes through most of the kind of countryside you can find in the Colca Valley, and there’s certainly enough cultural, historical and archeological interest on the way. There are great picnic spots on the sunny spots by the river, and the steep, narrow quebrada has a spaghetti-western drama. And it’s all only 40 minutes from the centre of Arequipa. What’s lacking is a few discreet signposts so people can find their way to the waterfalls and avoid trampling local people’s crops or disturbing their cows. Some titbits of historical and geographical information wouldn’t go amiss either. This being Peru, however, unless there’s a whole oversubscribed industry erected around a destination, it doesn’t really get visited. People here have yet to figure out that if you make it easy for tourists to do things they tend to stay longer and you get more of their money anyway, albeit indirectly.

Note: you do need to wear boots or strong shoes. The rocks on the river bed are slippery, and there’s quite a bit of clambering over the steep, slippery sides of the canyon. Trainers don’t quite cut it, as Paola found out, with me having to help her over most of the tricky bits. It’s true that her fashionably-cut tracksuit did look rakish. But in the end it was my “ropa de gringo” for which I’ve received so much criticism for wearing around Arequipa, that held out the dust and mud better.

Climbing Chachani

“Step strongly” yells Alejandro. “This bit is really icy. You have to step firmly”. I take a step forward and push my foot down with all the strength I can muster. The crampons bounce and slip on the ice and don’t even look like breaking the surface. I stumble, slip, right myself, luckily reach a patch of snow where the crampons sink in, and grab onto a rock, breathing heavily. Alejandro is looking back at me with a frustrated expression. “No, step firmly!” he calls.

We’re crossing laterally the cap of snow and ice which covers the southern face of Angel, one of the mountains flanking the peak of Chachani, at 6,075 metres the highest of the volcanoes which surround the city of Arequipa in southern Peru. The slope seems to have an angle of about 45 degrees and has apparently changed from 90% soft, friendly snow when we crossed it the previous night, to principally treacherous, rock-hard ice and impenetrable frozen earth. My legs have turned to jelly and I’m struggling to even get one crampon in front of the other, let alone plunge their prongs firmly into the slippery bubbles of ice. I look to my right, down the slope into the ravine, recall that there is no helicopter available for search & rescue in the whole of the department of Arequipa, and wonder again exactly what the hell I’m doing here…

Like many tourists who arrive in Arequipa, I’ve been struck by the bit in the guidebook which says that the surrounding mountains are some of the “easiest of their height in the world to climb” and are “not technical”. A persistent little thought starts to germinate in my mind as I explore the cobblestone streets and historic monasteries of the “White City”. Maybe I could climb one of the mountains here? What a turn-up for the books that would be, I smirk to myself. In New Zealand, to even look at a mountain you have to be able to tie 27 different knots, pitch a tent blindfolded, and know the meaning of words such as “carabina” and “belay”. My father is just such a person, and spent years in his youth making tricky ascents in New Zealand’s glacier-riven Southern Alps and the Colorado Rockies. My older sister, a doctor and fitness fanatic, was one of the few in her group to make it to the summit of Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest peak, after weeks of careful preparation. My work colleague who sits in the next desk makes weekend trips to scale precipitous, dangerous Mts Cook and Aspiring and delights in quoting Ernest Hemingway’s dictum that “there are only three real sports: motor racing, bullfighting and mountain climbing; the rest are games”

I by contrast, tend to stick to recreations where I can’t directly endanger anyone else. A notable exception to the generalisation that males have strong right brains and are good with spatial tasks, on my very occasional trips to the rock climbing wall, I can never remember how to tie the figure-of-eight knot needed to secure the harness, nor even tell if it looks right. Hell, sometimes I get confused tying my shoelaces.

But - not technical...I imagine climbing a path up a steep hill, with a bit of snow at the top. I can do that; I’m fit enough. The altitude? It’ll be difficult, but I’ve been as high as 5,000 metres on the Bolivian altiplano, and didn’t have too many problems. Then I will have conquered a 6,000 metre peak in the world’s greatest mountain range, the Andes, shading the achievements of my more competent friends and family. I’ll be modestly smug, I figure.

After a trip to trek in the Colca Canyon, where we climb 1,200 metres from the bottom of the canyon to the rim in just over three hours, and consulting a couple of travel agencies, I’m convinced. Ulises, who specialises in organising mountain climbing trips, assures me again that you don’t need experience and the ascent is “not technical”. “Also, it doesn’t really matter how fit you are” he says. “More important is that you have a strong organism, to handle the altitude”. Sounds good. My fitness level has dropped a bit since I’ve been in South America, owing to lack of regular exercise and availability of cheap cigarettes. But my mother always said I had the constitution of an ox.

I choose Chachani (higher but less steep than neighbouring El Misti, what more could you ask for) and am so confident of success that the day before departure I think little of staying out to 4am drinking and dancing. The music and joie de vivre of the bars in central Arequipa are very seductive. After a couple of hours sleep I’m picked up by the driver and guide (both called Alejandro), we stop to collect the others in the group - two young Israeli guys - and we’re on the road.

The new asphalt highway towards Puno climbs through the desert in big sweeping curves. I chat with the Alejandros and the two Israelis, who are lean and fit-looking, fresh from their army service. With the altitude the landscape changes to puna, sparsely vegetated highland plains. After two hours we turn off the highway and pass groups of wild vicuñas, their big doe eyes watching us warily. We’re now on the other side of the Chachani massif from Arequipa, where the altiplano folds more gently up into the skirts of the volcano, allowing a 4WD vehicle to get to a higher altitude. The track gets steadily narrower and bumpier but Alejandro the Driver steers onwards and upwards in cavalier fashion, bouncing over the ruts, until eventually we stop on a flat bit where we see the beginning of a walking track zig-zagging up the mountainside. We unload the truck and pack the equipment into our packs. "My ice pick" says one of the Israeli guys, grinning and handling the unfamiliar tool. "Never thought I'd say that". Good to see that I'm among fellow amatuers, I think.

I'm determined to take the climbing easy, but after a while, not having been struck down by the soroche, I quicken my pace. Still a little worried about how fit-looking the Israelis are, I'm pleased to catch up with an Austrian woman in her fifties who is alone with her guide. If she can do it, so can I.
Less than two hours of easy climbing and we're at base camp. There's sweeping views over the bare altiplano; the sun reflects off vehicles making their way along the far-off highway and we see the resevoir from which Arequipa derives all its water. Along with us and the Austrian woman, a group of four French travellers complete the population of Chachani base camp for this night.

After making camp in the lee of a stone shelter (just as well Alejandro understands the idiosincracies of the tent construction) we start walking up towards the pass above us, to test our legs at altitude. I try and go slowly and deliberately, but manage to keep up with Alejandro. About a third of the way up, we notice that the Israeli guys have fallen behind. We stop and wait; Itzik stays sitting on a rock below while Oren eventually catches up with a pained expression on his face. He's struggling with the altitude; Itzik even more so. We carry on to the top of the pass; Itzik stays stranded about half way up, while Oren catches up after many rests. “Where is the oxygen?” he says in English “This is crazy; at home I go running in the desert with a 20-kilogram pack, and I’m fine. I enter in competitive races and come second, third. But here – I can hardly breathe”. Alejandro looks puzzled, and I translate Itzik’s comments. He smiles and nods. “Yes, it doesn’t really matter how fit you are” he says. “It’s more about your organism”.

We pick our way down through boulders of volcanic rock back down to the campsite, where Alejandro starts to prepare dinner - soup, barely digestible rehydrated potatoes and coca tea. In the interim the Israelis' condition worsens considerably. They're both prostrate with headaches and stomach cramps, and Itzik has started throwing up. Alejandro climbs back up to the pass to try and get a cellphone signal to call for help from Arequipa, but is unsuccessful. They'll have to spend the night on the mountainside - but won't be leaving the tent.

I crawl into my sleeping bag to try and get some rest, but discover a fact that I wasn't aware of - at 5400 metres it's almost impossible for the unaccustomed to sleep. I toss and turn, and after the sun goes down curl up against a bone-chilling cold. Inside the sleeping bag I'm wrapped in four layers, thick socks and a woolly hat, but the cold still penetrates. At 3:00 am Alejandro hardly needs to rouse me; we drink some more coca tea, secure our packs, and we're off.

We start up the path to the first pass, our headlamps lighting the way between the boulders, and now I'm genuinely excited; I'm on the way to the summit of a 6,000 metre mountain in the Andes! On the way up to the pass we pass the Austrian woman and her guide, walking slowly and deliberately. We're at the top of the pass in less than an hour, where we see the start of the snow, giving off a sinister gleam in the light of the moon and our torches. This is the bit where I start to feel out of my depth; the crisis of the Israelis' illness has meant that Alejandro hasn't had a chance to show me how to put on the crampons, and I have to sit there while he ties them. I'm not sure I could have done it anyway; there's a bewildering series of loops and cris-crosses.

Then we're onto the snow and, occasionally, patches of treacherous ice. Alejandro seems to know the mountain like the back of his hand, warning me as each stretch of ice approaches. "Step strongly here" he says. I try to follow his advice, but don't seem to have the correct technique. Technique! This whole climb was supposed to be "not technical". Still, I manage to stay on my feet, and after an interminable hour we're on the other side of the ice cap. "Wouldn't it be easier to do this by day?" I ask Alejandro. "No" he says. "It's better when you can only see directly in front of you. By day you can look down the slope to where you might fall, and you start to get afraid". Right, I'll take his word for it, I think.

The crampons are off for the next stretch, the long climb up the northern face of Fatima. As we start, Alejandro helpfully informs me that "the people who don't make it all the way to the summit, this is the bit where they fail". Thanks for letting me know that, I say. "Don't worry" says Alejandro. "I think you'll make it". About a third of the way up I'm starting to wonder. The track makes endless switchbacks and now the altitude starts to take its toll on me. My legs feel leaden and every breath is an effort. Time and again I stop, leaning on my ice pick and gasping, waiting for Alejandro to turn around so I can wave at him and yell "descanso!"

At some point in the climb the sky gets light, revealing the flanks of the surrounding mountains, like huge beasts crouching in the dawn. The sun appears over the peaks, preceded by the reddest sunrise I've ever seen. I should be awestruck, but everything seems like a personal affront. The surface of the mountainside is loose, shaley earth, and a step forward is frequently matched by a half-step slide backwards. I'm stopped from actually bursting into tears by the appearance of a fringe of snow at the end of the latest zag. It's the end of the steepest part of the ascent and now, I imagine, I should theoretically make it.

The stretch of snow across the front face of Fatima is mercifully short, and flat, and then we ditch the crampons on the other side, along with our packs. The final stretch to the summit of Chachani itself will be made unloaded, carrying only my camera.

The 40 minutes Alejandro says it will take seem more like 40 hours. Just when it seems that the succession of zig-zags and false ridges will never end, I see that Alejandro has stopped and is waving back at me. I drag my oxygen-deprived legs to the top of the rise and see that he is standing beside a simple metal cross. The summit! I pick my way through patches of snow and, gasping for oxygen, reach the cross.

I put away my camera after a finger-freezing three shots, just to prove I was there. The landscape is like an awesome 360-degree topographical map; incredibly, we’re looking down on 5800-metre Misti’s volcanic cone, and the other smaller mountains and hills are like folds in a ruffled blanket. I don’t feel triumphant though; I feel half-dead. Alejandro points out other mountains on the horizon, including 6300-metre Nevado Ampato, where the famous "mummy Juanita" was found in 1995, intact and frozen after being sacrificed to the mountain gods 500 years previously. Thirteen year-old Inca princess Juanita and her entourage trudged up to the summit of Ampato in sandals and without equipment, before she was fed coca and alcohol and wacked on the head with a small mallet to speed her journey to join the gods. It wouldn't have seemed like such a bad option, I reflect.

And we still have to go back. I've expended what seems like every ounce of energy in getting to the summit, and the next three hours are a nightmare; later I reflect that they're probably the most physically difficult of my life. The zig-zag track down from the summit is not too bad, nor is the short stretch of snow across the south face of Fatima. It's just that I'm moving with all the alacrity and agility of a wounded tortoise. On the descent of Fatima's steep northern flank I really start to hurt. Instead of the painstaking series of zigs and zags by which we climbed, on the way down we take the direct route. This should actually be fun, I think. The surface of the mountainside is loose earth and sand, and the descent is more skating than walking. But I have no strength left to brake myself, and have to choose between going very, very slowly, or sliding the whole way down on my backside. As it is, I take a couple of tumbles, before finally reaching the bottom, where I'm desperately hoping that Alejandro has discovered some new, gentle route bypassing Angel's ice face. But no. We have to go back exactly the same way, this time we're heading slightly uphill, and what had previously been mostly snow now seems to be almost entirely ice.

Every step is pure, glittering pain. And they're not even proper steps. The previous night I wasn't stepping quite as strongly as Alejandro would have liked, but now my paces are like those of a drunken duck. I flounder forward, crampons slipping and ice pick bouncing weakly off the frozen surface. And I realise Alejandro was right. By day I can see down the gleaming slope to my right into the ravine; to where I could fall if things go badly wrong. I calculate that the tumble wouldn't actually kill me outright - but a broken leg at the bottom of the ravine wouldn't necessarily be preferible.

A couple of times I actually stumble and fall; the spikes of the crampons catch and rip my trouser legs and I'm clinging precariously to a nearby rock At one point Alejandro actually has to physically help me over a tricky bit of frozen earth. He looks back at me and says: "Do you have a girlfriend?". I give him a puzzled frown and say "Well, there's a girl in Arequipa, but really, I only met her recently...". Why is he asking me? Does he want to know whom he'll have to inform that my frozen corpse is located at the bottom of a ravine on the flanks of Chachani? He grins back at me and says: "I have three - one each for Thursday, Friday and Saturday".

At some point long after all my physical strength has gone we come to a broad flat stretch of snow which I recognise as the last part of Angel's ice cap. On the other side is the top of the pass, from where we will descend to base camp. Dirt and boulders have never looked so beautiful.

Painstakingly I pick my way bck down to the campsite and collapse prostrate in the sun, joining the Israelis who are still extremely unwell. On the way down Fatima, Alejandro and I have passed the Austrian woman, still walking slowly and deliberately, and later one of the guys from French group, each with their guide. Three out of nine tourists have made it to the summit.

We pack up camp, me making the feeblest of contributions. As we descend back down to the point where the 4WD is waiting, everyone forges ahead of me, even the Israelis, who have recently stopped vomiting. I feel like I've been gifted a sneak preview of old age.

On the road back to Arequipa, blissfully leaning back into the seat of the 4WD, I comment to the Israelis "Look at that rock - it's in the form of a human face". They nod and shrug. It's only after a puma, a couple of llamas and several other human individuals have appeared to me in the rocky desert that I realise with detached interest that I've entered some kind of hallucinatory state brought on by exhaustion and dehydration. I give myself up to it, and within two hours we're back in Arequipa. The air seems unbelievably warm and sweet, a hot shower like manna from heaven, and my bed a blessed sanctuary. I swear never to go near another mountain again.

After a couple of days of a dizzying head cold and nosebleeds, I'm feeling comfortable enough to sit on the terrace of the Casa la Reyna hostel in central Arequipa and admire the view of Chachani's tryptych of peaks, snowy pavilions glistening in the morning sun. "I climbed that mountain" I say to my French room mate as we share a cigarette. "Do you want me to show you the route we took?"

Happy Beerthday Arequipa

The weekend was filled up with the celebrations of the 464th anniversary of Arequipa. A parade on Friday evening proved to be just a taster for the main event on Sunday, when the centre of town closed down for the massive, four hour in length "corso" or parade, featuring endless floats, marching bands, traditional dancers, beauty queens and other cultural displays from Arequipa, other departments of Peru, and other countries. If you didn't get there early (which I didn't) you didn't see much, having to crane your neck over the five or six rows of people along all the streets. Balcony restaurants along the plaza charged 25 soles minimum consumption as a condition of entrance.

On Saturday night we went out to La Fia, a big amphitheatre on a rise south of the city, to watch the music there. We drank handles of Arequipeña and wore foam-rubber hats in the form of a handle of Arequipeña, while the bands Los No Sé Quién Y Los No Sé Cuándo (Limeños) and Las Moscas Sexy (Argentinian) shouted "¡Viva Arequipa!" and incited the crowd to sing the Arequipan national anthem (yes, there is an Arequipan national anthem) on a stage crowned by a huge red and yellow Arequipeña sign. Looking towards the three-storey high Arequipeña bottle to the right of the stage, I couldn't help thinking of Duff beer from The Simpsons. If ever there was a case of a beer brand owning a town, here it is.

As I might have mentioned before, Arequipeña is rather insipid and has the habit of foaming out the top of the bottle after you take your first sip. Meanwhile, the hoppy, crisp Cusqueña is nowhere to be found in the Ciudad Blanca, except in its syrupy sweet dark form. More free-market neoliberalism, please!

The Death Road

So, I, today 13 July 2004, survived the Death Road. The "world's most dangerous road" is not just a tourist moniker for the route which drops from La Cumbre, above La Paz at an icy 4900m, to Coroico, in the lush subtropical valley 3000m below. It's been officially applied by the U.S. Department of Transportation in virtue of this road having the highest average casualties per annum anywhere in the known world.

Most people are well aware that this is due more to the approach of drunk and/or crazy Bolivian truck and bus drivers - periodically sending a busload of people off the precipitous edge - than to the intrinsically terrifying nature of the road. Nevertheless, it has great notoriety, and tourists flock to take tours down the road on mountain bikes and boast afterwards of their brush with oblivion. Of course, it's relatively safe for cyclists and their stats are a lot better - just six tourists have plunged to their deaths in the last five years. Still enough to put a shiver down your spine, though. I was nervous when I woke up this morning; I didn´t actually expect to die, but I did expect some adrenaline - a life afirming experience, in fact, from a glimpse into the abyss. I'd promised my friends in Arequipa I'd be careful, and avoided telling you about it, Mum and Dad, to avoid the paroxysms of worry.

In the end? Well, it was more endorphins than adrenaline, more sport than daredevil adventure. We covered the 64 km from La Cumbre to Coroico in about 2 1/2 hours, hitting speeds of 60-70 km/h on the first stage, a beautiful stretch of ashphalt lined with fresh snow, allowing us the chance to appreciate the gorgeous rock-and-ice towers plunging into deep canyons. The next two bits along the dirt road to Corocio - a narrow 10km stretch known as the core "Camino de Muerte", followed by a wider but still precipitous 32 km - involved some rough mountain biking, and sore hands from gripping the brakes, but one hardly felt the breath of the grim reaper. I suppose there were some sheer drops - keeping your eyes on the road you didn't really see them - but the road was wide enough for a cyclist to pick their spot, and with four guides and two 4WDs all hooked up with radios, there was ample warning of any oncoming uphill or downhill traffic, so we could easily stop and get out of the way. The only time I was truly scared was during the extended safety briefing prior to the start of the 10 km "real death road" stretch - if anything was going to make me fall off my bike it was the nerves engendered by the way that bit was talked up...

I'd promised myself that I'd be conservative; I wanted to make it back to Arequipa; if there was going to be a fast group and a slow group I was going in the slow group. Of course, that's not how it turned out - it turned into a bit of a race, and I had to be in the fastest of the three groups. The others in the tour were a typical cross-section of South American tourists - three Dutch girls, two Israeli guys, two Swiss girls, a Quebecois couple, an English girl, a Norwegian guy, an English guy and an Irish girl. On the ashphalt stretch from La Cumbre, I was the first rider behind the lead guide; on the 8km uphill ashphalt/gravel bit which followed, only the Norwegian guy finished ahead of me. As we hit the dirt downhill parts the three 6-ft Dutch girls took off at breakneck speed, along with the Quebecois guy; I and the Norwegian guy lost them on the wildest bits. It wasn't until three quarters of the way down that I got the confidence to really lean into the left-hand turns (towards the cliff side). In the end we all finished together, the second group was about a minute behind, and the third five minutes behind them.

As we dropped in altitude the vegetation got thicker and lusher, the sun got stronger, and about two-thirds of the way down we could feel warm, humid air rushing up from the valley floor. Apart from the sheer enjoyment of the ride, the real highlight was the incredible vistas - jagged snowy mountaintops still visible, canyon walls plunging into the rich jungly valley. We went through a couple of waterfalls and, lower down, a couple of streams; by the time we were finished we were filthy with dust and mud. In Coproico we adjourned to the Hotel Esmeralda for a buffet lunch and fnatastic hot showers, appreciating the stunning views back across the valley and mountains framed by tropical flowers in the hotel patio.

Riding back up in the tour company's 4WDs with our "I survived the death road" t-shirts, I couldn't help feeling we were frauds. That's not to say that the road is toothless - quite the opposite. In a truck or bus, it's truly a nightmare. The truly crazy-headed angelic heroes are the drivers of the heavy vehicles which frequent the route - and the passengers packed into them. On the way down we stopped for an upcoming truck and saw it come head-to-head with a minivan which had just passed us. On the Death Road, the rules are the opposite of everywhere else on the continent - traffic must keep to the left, meaning that uphill vehicles get to hug the mountainside, while downhill traffic has to pass by flirting with the precipitous cliff face. On this occasion the two vehicles met a really narrow bit, and the minivan had to reverse quite some way before giving a chance for the truck to pass - as it did so, we could see the left wheels of the van clinging to the very edge of the fragile shoulder.

There are people who do this every day. You see the mandarins being sold by the old indigenous woman on the street in La Paz at the bargain rate of 5 for 1 Boliviano (20c)? Most probably they've been brought up from the warm valley round Coroico by one of the heavily-laden lorries that chug up the winding route. Or perhaps the woman herself carried them up in one of the ancient and jam-packed passenger vehicles making the daily trip.

Unlike a fighter pilot or someone who taps burning oil wells, though, these drivers don't receive rewards commensurate with their risks. What does a minivan driver on the Death Road get paid? Probably the same pittance that Bolivian bus drivers get everywhere. The only extra reward for him and his passengers is an existential one, from frequently and calmly facing oblivion. How much that is worth when them and their children depend on this livelihood, I don't know. It's not quite The Wages of Fear.

For a tourist, it's the perfect product - we get the glory and the thrill of association with danger, without the reality. But that's on the backs of the hundred or thousands of local people who have tragically plunged to their deaths. When you look at it that way, it's perhaps a little ghoulish...

Notes from the Altiplano

Ok, in brief...

I got into Puno yesterday afternoon and straight away hooked up a trip to Lake Titicaca and a ticket to La Paz for the day after - I'm on a mission on this trip...

I fully intended to go to bed early and get plenty of rest, only it didn't work out that way. Will it surprise you to learn that I ended up winning a T-shirt in a drinking contest? How did this come to pass? Well, I wasn't going to miss the Peru vs Venezuela football game (heartening 3-1 triumph for the home team). Then a couple of Australians in the bar I was watching the game decided that a gringo couldn't possibly sit by himself with only Peruvians for company, and invited me over; later we were joined by a couple of Canadian guys. The bar guy had earlier mentioned that there was going to be a big party put on by Cusqueña at a place called Megadisco. Cusqueña is a much nicer beer than Arequipeña, and even people in Arequipa generally agree - but in a fashion that rather typifies Peru, it's virtually impossible to find Cusqueña in Arequipa - and of course Arequipeña is not sold in Cusco or Puno (though is very popular in Arica, go figure...)

I ended up going with the Canadian guys (who were complete dumbasses, in the most pleasant sense) to Megadisco. There was a huge party in full swing, and we were absolutely the only gringos there. It came to pass that a drinking contest was announced - three audience volunteers had to scull a litre pitcher of Cusqueña, a competition for girls followed by one for boys. When the male volunteers were requested, I made a dash for the stage, and although I didn't quite get there in time, the compere was keen to have a gringo in the contest, and dragged me up. I knew I was going to win; as far as I can recall, I've never been beaten in a drinking race. As it turned out I came a comfortable first; my prizes were a Cusqueña t-shirt and another pitcher of beer to share with my friends...

It goes without saying that I had already ingested a quantity of Cusqueña before the contest, and continued to do so afterwards. I'm not really sure what time I got back to my hotel, but it certainly wasn't long before I was being woken up to go to the lake...after bolting some breakfast I found myself in a launch with about 20 other tourists, feeling as my eyes had been painted on and wanting nothing more than to simply spread myself out on the floor of the boat.

The trip took in a visit to two of the floating Uros islands, which are entirely constructed out of the totora reeds that grow in the shallow part of the lake. Families live on the islands in reed huts, get about on reed boats, and make reed souvenirs to sell to tourists. I'm afraid this wasn't my favourite part of the trip. Apart from the intrinsic interest in islands constructed from the bottom up (and my level of intrinsic interest was rather lower than usual at that point), I found the whole experience rather cloying - each tourist being personally welcomed off the boat and onto the island, and the five or six kids forming themselves into a little group and "spontanteously" bursting into song (including a version of "Frere Jacques"). We were later taken to another floating island in a reed boat; each tourist was charged 3 soles. With over 20 people on board, those guys make a killing. It would take a taxi driver in Arequipa more than twenty trips to make that kind of money. Plus, Hugo says that on the islands regularly visited by tourists, the families don't live there at all - they live in Puno and head out early in the morning in time for the tourists. I don't blame them - I wouldn't live on a bloody reed island either.

Later the launch chugged on another 1 1/2 hours into the lake to visit the (permanent, 8 sq km) island of Traquile. This I did like. Although the top of the island, at 3900 metres, is significantly higher than Puno, the climate is much balmier, owing to its exposure to air originating from the hot jungle on the north side of the lake. It has an almost Mediterranean aspect, with lots of eucalyptus trees and wildflowers, agricultural terraces separated by carefully maintained stone walls. An Incan stone road runs from the jetty to the plaza de armas and steeply down to the main port on the south side of the island, passing through stone arches and offering stunning 360 views of the lake and the jagged, snow-covered Bolivian cordillera to the east. Like the villages and orchards of the Colca Canyon (story still coming), it reminded me more than anything of some New Age imagining of a medieval idyll.

I liberated myself of a couple of soles on the 2km road to the plaza, giving tips to a couple of the series of kids who were offering themselves as photo subjects as an alternative to selling their uninteresting woven braids. You'll see why when I get the photos developed. I'm not normally a sucker for the whole "cute children" thing, but I could already see the whole scene on glossy prints, and there's something about innocent-looking kids against a bucolic landscape and soaring mountaind which is a pretty universal heart-melter. Something to do with the collective aspirations of humanity, I think, though Stephen Pinker would no doubt pinpoint the response in a specific biological module which was adaptive at some time in our evolutionary past...

In the plaza we had lunch, while handsome dark-skinned men stood around furiously knitting. Apparently there are distinct traditional costumes for single men, single women, married men and married women. One's woolly hat is also an important part of one's identity, and boys start to learn to make their own at an early age. The casually rapid and elaborate stitching that I witnessed would have put many a maiden aunt to shame.

We got back on the boat for the more than three hour trip back to Puno. Everyone went back to their hotels while the Israelis went to complain; they claimed they had been promised that lunch had been included in the tour price...

I've just been to eat, so here I am now. This time I really and truly am going home to bed; tomorow I'm off to La Paz.

The Imbeciles manage a draw...

The Copa America got under way on Tuesday amidst fairly low-key festivities - at least in Arequipa - and near disaster for the home team. While all the local radio stations and newspapers speculate about the possible boost to tourism, the evidence of a major football tournament taking place here is currently limited to garlands being hung along the arcades around the plaza, plus a few Chileans and the odd Brazilian mooching around the bars and restaurants in the centre (Arequipa is home to the group containing Brail, Chile, Paraguay and Costa Rica).

Meanwhile in Lima, the tournament opened with Peru vs Bolivia. As I was eating dinner in the centre of town, my friends Cintia and Jackie came by to inform me that they were going out drinking to celebrate the fact that "Peru's going to win the championship", cheerily disregarding the fact that at half time an unconvincing Peru was 0-1 behind a Bolivian side hanging back but dangerous on the counter attack.

10 minutes into the second half, there was despair at my house as Bolivia went 2-0 into the lead, managing a bizarre goal when the Peruvian keeper Oscar Ibanez strolled out to collect a ball rolling towards the goaline, only to see the chasing Bolivian left back nudge the ball past him and shoot into the unguarded net from an oblique angle. While Hugo sat resigned and impassive, Lisbet hurled threats and curses at the television - "Imbéciles!; Inútiles!; don't you have any strength?; can't you take a shot?" - demanded the substitution of the entire Peruvian forward line and midfield, and announced that it was all typical as no Peruvian would ever amount to anything...

As the half wore on, Peru poured forward, as the entire Bolivian team seemed to have decided to defend from their penalty area; eventually a penalty was won and converted - 2-1. Before and after this moment Peru managed to squander about a dozen clear-cut chances, leading to much hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth from the audience in front of the TV, waking and upsetting 3 year-old Gerardo and the kitten. Finally, all manner of shots from six yards having been blasted over, midfielder Roberto Palacios twisted on the edge of the area and fired in a stunning volley to level the score. There was still eight minutes or so for Peru to miss several more opportunities to win and for the terrifying prospect to hover that Bolivia would break away and notch a third goal - but in the end it stayed at 2-2.

The post-match mood was one of relief and reflection - a feeling that Peru had got out of jail combined with the sense that they really should have won by four or five. At least, in the easiest of groups, their hopes are still well alive, and there's the example of Portugal - who lost their opening game as hosts and still made the final. Hope springs eternal...

Matrimony, long-lost cousins and penis-shaped ballons

Man, it just gets weirder. A little over two weeks ago, I was invited, along with my Israeli friend Itzik, to the "despedida de soltera" of Ana, respectively the sister and cousin of my friends Lenny and Mariela. The functional translation of that is "hen's night", although it sounds much more dignified in Spanish. Ana was to get married to Frank, a French guy she had met three years ago; they had decided to make it permanent after he had visited her for a month in each of the succeeding years.

Yes, I know that boys don't normally get invited to such events - Itzik and I were there in the capacity of, ahem, strippers...but before anybody finds themselves beset with disturbing mental images, don't worry, we didn't have to take (many) clothes off...

It was certainly an eye-opening experience that I don't expect to repeat - there were about eight of Ana's friends gathered in her living room, together with her aunt Miriam, who I suppose was there in some kind of technical chaperone capacity. The room was festooned with helium ballons decorated with drawings from the Kama Sutra, plus liberal quantities of penis-shaped ballons; everyone being required to wear one on their head or round their neck. It befell Ana to wear an apron which flipped up to reveal male genitalia, drink from a penis-shaped cup, and speak into a carved wooden penis "microphone"...certainly there was a quite disturbing abundance of false phalluses, mock members, or what have you...

After, and during, the consumption of a bewildering variety of impromptu cocktails concocted from rum, champagne, cream, honey and god knows what else, everyone was required to choose a ballon from the ceiling and act out the scene from the Kama Sutra depicted on it. Playact, that is. I have to mention that aunt Miriam was among the most enthusiastic in this respect.


Two weeks later (the weekend just gone) I found myself in Ilo, a town on the coast about six hours from Arequipa in the department of Morquegua. A port and summer vacation town of fog, fishing boats, dust and jacarandas, Ilo is where Ana's parents live and was the venue for the wedding. By this time Itzik had left for Cusco, but Mariela and Lenny absolutely insisted that I come. I reluctantly agreed to hire a suit and, surprising myself, found that I actually looked pretty good...

After a tiring journey on the Saturday morning we arrived in Ilo and I was introduced to the parents and to Frank. One of the reasons that Mariela and Lenny had insisted I come was that poor Frank had come by himself from France, without family and friends. It was necessary, therefore, that I be the "amigo del novio". Lenny explained this to her parents, having pointed out unabashedly that I had attended the despedida in the role of stripper (her father then introduced me to one of his friends as "el estripper"). In the course of discussing all this, there was a change of plans - I was to be the *cousin* of the groom - since Frank couldn't possibly without at least some family. I don't think anyone had asked Frank if he needed a friend, let alone a cousin, but there it was.

I should mention that Frank turned out to be a thin, rather pale guy with his hair in a bob - kind looking but clearly nervous. Ana is pretty and gregarious, but far more chilled than her certifiably crazy sister. Both around 27. The ceremony was a civil one, in a local club; the room was decked out in almost surreal "wedding cake" style was lacy tablecloths, thick white curtain and huge aquamarine sashes. I was introduced to all and sundry as "Frank's cousin", including to the compere; so it was that after the exchange of vows, when the speeches and photos began, it was announced that "Frank, too, is not alone tonight - his cousin has come". There were photos with the parents, photos with the siblings, and then, when it was time for cousins, aunts and uncle, I was dragged up with Mariela and aunt Miriam. I made sure the offical photographer took one with my camera as well - I had to record the moment, feeling rather like the unknown guy who pops up in the Manchester Utd team photo.

After that it went downhill a little - I managed to lose Mariela's ring from her 15-years party when I put her into a turn and the ring flew off her little finger, to elude much searching of the dance floor and surrounds. Nevertheless, we finished off the rest of the beer (oblivious to the internal curdling with the previously consumed champagne, strawberry rum, pisco sour, piña colada etc) and stumbled back to crash at Ana's place at 5:30 in the morning.

The next day, unsurprisingly, I suffered a substantial hangover. It was a looong bus ride back to Arequipa, the slightly splattered suit hung up in the window. I expect to get the photos developed shortly.

A bit on Euro 2004

Oh the drama and unpredictability of football...in short order Germany, Italy, Spain, France and England have been knocked out of the "Eurocopa", leaving Holland and three of the EU's "emerging" nations in the semi-finals (I include Portugal, as at last count they still had a slightly lower per-capita GDP than New Zealand). If it was a beauty contest, you'd be suspicious of a political stitch-up.

The highlights so far include the Czech Republic's pulsating, come from behind 3-2 win over Holland...and the Italians going into a furious sulk *before* the 2-2 draw between Denmark and Sweden which knocked them out. And how must it feel to be Greek right now, with the Olympics still to come in September? Male testosterone levels must be soaring there at the moment...

What will happen from hereon? Very hard to say. I'd love to see Portugal go all the way - they play fluid, eloquent football and deserved to go through against England (sorry, Gareth, if you read this). But they lack a bit of the ability to actually knock in the goals, so I have my doubts. On the basis of performances so far, you can't go past the Czech Republic, who have won all four of their games and scored ten goals - although they were somewhat less convincing against Denmark this afternoon. Then there's my perennial second-favourite team and perennial chokers, Holland. They're a bit lucky, having only actually won one game so far - but they've been unlucky in the past, and it could be their year. And of course anyone who's written off Greece so far has been wrong...so it should be pretty exciting stuff. I can't wait till Wednesday!

Down to the Majes Valley
Last weekend I had fun in a little town called Corire, about 3 hours down towards the coast from Arequipa in the startling green oasis of the Majes Valley. There's a relatively well-known petroglyphs site at a place called Toro Muerto in the desert near Corire,and I had been told it was also possible to see dinosaur footprints not too far from the town. My real motivation for going there, though, was to get out of Arequipa and have a little adventure on my own - away from the endless rounds of drinking, dancing, being stuffed full of the bewildering array of "typical Arequipeño/Peruvian" dishes and warnings to "never come here alone" in just about every place we visit...

I didn't manage to get off my ass and down to the bus station until about 3:00 pm on Saturday, and so after three hours up and down through the rocky desert accompanied by blaring but breezy salsa, merengue, cumbia and Latin baladas, it was dark by the time we got to Corire. A truly charming little town - extending no more than two or three blocks in any direction from the obligatory leafy plaza with a bustling market of fried food stalls and the usual assortment of goods and trinkets; plus a whole extra block devoted to fruit and vegetables. I checked into a hotel, had dinner and went for a stroll, feeling smug about being the one single gringo in the whole place. Until I arrived back at the hotel to find there were a group of ubiquitous Germans talking loudly outside my room...I asked at the reception about how to get to Toro Muerto and before I knew it was hooked up to get taken there the next morning by a guy called Marco Antonio, whose only qualification seemed to be that he was married to the receptionist.

The next morning he woke me up and said he would take me out in return for the cost of the petrol. After I insisted that I needed breakfast we found a comedor, where the options were adobo or adobo (a huge pork chop floating in a soup rich with onions - try digesting that at 8:00 am). We drove out into the desert until Marco Antonio's car refused to go any further, then got out and walked on, while he pointed out the various petroglyphs on the rocks - engraved drawings of llamas, people, geometrical designs and a disproportionate number of snakes. Marco Antonio certainly didn't have any specific guiding qualifications - he was unable to tell me which culture had done the drawings (I've since read they date from about 900 AD) and was in the dark about their significance. We wandered along looking at the drawings, him saying "What do you think this is then? An eagle? No, a condor you reckon? Ok, we'll go with a condor"

I actually preferred this, though, as it seemed a bit more like an exploration. Especially when we saw that a tourist minibus with the Germans pulled up below us and they got out, walked around and looked at a few rocks for 15 minutes, then got back in and drove away. We had climbed quite a long way further up the hill, and the drawings up there were definitely more impressive. We wondered about the petroglyphs - the most likely explanation for their existence is that the valley was on a trading route and people camping there drew them to entertain themselves. On the other hand, they would have involved painstaking engraving with the tools that were available - and when you're travelling a long and arduous route and stop to camp the night, you're exhausted, hardly in the mood to doodle. As Marco Antonio said, "you don't even have the energy to be with a woman" He said that during Lent local people make a pilgrimmage, wandering over the hills and further into the desert, starving themselves for three of four days.

It also seems that just about every part of Peru has its own buried treasure story, and Corire is no exception. According to Marco Antonio, after the Inca emperor Atahualpa was captured by the Spanish in Trujillo, llama caravans travelled through this part of the desert, laden with some of the massive ransom of gold demanded by the conquistadores in return for his release. A llama can only bear so much weight, and some of them were too heavily burdened and collapsed and died en route. Since loading their cargo onto the other llamas would have only compounded the problem, the Incan minions had to bury the gold there in the desert. A while back, a farmer whose land borders Toro Muerto supposedly uncovered a chest of gold accidentally while ploughing. Now he is said to enjoy unparalleled wealth, with a house in Miami and a new tractor every year.

Some people apparently believe enough in the veracity of this story to make regular nocturnal expeditions to dig up parts of the desert, trying to find the missing treasure. It's probable that some of them are the same "huaqueros" or "grave-robbers" who had been dynamiting the rocks and stealing individual petroglyphs to sell to foreigners. The petroglyph rocks have now been individually numbered to discourage this.

On the way back I took several photos from a hill of the striking contrast between the desolate, dusty desert and the striking green of the cultivated valley, which looked a bit like Holland turned subtropical. Earthen irrigation ditches bring water from the river and directly down from the mountains, and all kinds of crops are grown - including rice in the summer and wheat in the winter. By now I had run out of money, having underestimated what I would get charged for the petrol and stupidly imagining that there might be an ATM in Corire. I had to retain enough for my bus fare back to Arequipa and the taxi from the terminal, so I was going to have to miss out on going to see the dinosaur footprints. I had been told that it was possible to get to the dinosaur footprints by local microbus and walking, but Marco Antonio said I wouldn't have time, and I was inclined to believe him..

For lunch Marco Antonio took me to eat camarones at his sister-in-law's restaurant by the river and tried to marry me to the pretty waitress called Julie who sat with us outside the rustic wooden palings/dirt floor comedor while I scoffed the huge plate of camarones and we shared a (gratis) pitcher of sweet red wine. Excerpts from the conversation went something like this:

Marco Antonio: "Simón speaks good Spanish, doesn't he?"
Julie: "Yes, and he's also bien guapo"
Simon (blushes a little)
Marco Antonion: "What do you like about Simón?"
Julie: "His eyes...and his eyebrows" (for some reason, Latin girls seem to have a thing for my eyebrows...)
Simon (shifts uncomfortably)

Later, and in the context of talking about travelling...

Julie: "If I ever become rich, and have the chance to travel, the place I'd most like to visit is India"
Marco Antonio: "But you're already rica (when referring to a person, this effectively translates as "a babe"). Simón, don't you think that Julie's rica?"
Simon: "Yes, she's already rica" (Well, she was...)

As he drove me back to the hotel, Marco Antonio reminded me again that Julie was single. I made my promises to come back in a couple of weeks so I could get taken to see the dinosaur footprints, the valley of the volcanoes, the wine and pisco growing areas, to swim in the river, marry Julie, etc. etc.

I hopped on the Arequipa-bound bus, keen to sit back with a beer and watch Brazil play Chile, and we climbed up again through the desert to the pumping sound of more salsa and Latin ballads, until the familiar mountainous tryptych with Chachani at its centre appeared round a canyon bend and I knew we were almost home.

I've got a little "stuck" in Arequipa, but I justify the ease, comfort and slightly higher spending involved in this by pointing out that it's been the best place so far for meeting people in social situations. Apart from actually settling down and working (which I'm not quite ready to do yet), this is the best way to improve one's Spanish.

The centre of Arequipa is a ten to twenty block gridded oasis of stone streets and buildings of elaborately carved white volcanic stone and wrought iron, amidst the sprawling wider city. Sort of the South Beach to greater Arequipa's Miami. The little hatchback taxis nudge and honk their way around the one-way system and there's a very European feel; to me it brings to mind somewhere almost Italian.

There's a lot of tourists, though it's not yet quite the high season. At first I thought that Arequipa was a tourist trap, cut off from reality and where people are either irritated by the presence of so many foreigners, or are madly seeking to take advantage of them. It still may not be the real world (what is?), but I was wrong about the people.

Apart from the people I've met in bars (principally the girl I danced with on Friday night and her four or five female "cousins"), in a few days I've made friends with the guy who works in the place that sells espresso coffee (vanishingly rare in S. America), the girls who work at the internet cafe and their friend who takes salsa classes and is desperate to migrate to Australia, the three waitresses at the Quebecois-owned Mexican restaurant/bar (including an Ecuadorian girl who is also travelling around S. America and working as she goes to get together money to move on), the waitress at the "Irish" pub near the cathedral (not really an Irish pub at all but a normal local bar with a pool table, silly Irish name and an Irish flag on the wall), and the people at the adventure travel agency where I arranged the Colca Canyon trip, and who've just offered me some kind of job (but I don't think it's going to work out).

I know that sounds like mostly girls, and it is, but really I've been happy to talk to anyone. It's true that "las arequipeñas" are probably the most beautiful women I've seen, ah, anywhere outside of Spain, and that it's not unknown for them to want to meet foreign guys. Apparently, some of these are "malas" who will flirt or more with foreign men and then drag them round expecting to be bought things. I haven't met any such people so far; rather, pretty much everyone I've met has warned me about this. Yes, as a gringo male you do get more attention than you could expect at home, not being a representative rugby player, in a month of Sundays. But most of it is just smiles, and wanting to talk and/or dance. Which I think is pretty nice.

Although people in Chile are pretty friendly once you break the ice, and I had a really good time going out especially in Arica, on the whole there's just a bit more reserve and insularity. Chilean people I've met, both here and in NZ, also see to have this weird thing where they want to be friends for a while, then suddenly can't be bothered with you anymore. Or maybe that's just with me..

Here, there's just a little bit more alegria, and affectionate mutual piss-taking is the norm. I've thought about it, and concluded that the whole vibe is quite Spanish. There's certainly plenty of people who *look* Spanish here. Or maybe it's something Argentinian without the inflated sense of self-importance.

The centre of Arequipa is certainly extremely middle-class; people are well-dressed and look relatively wealthy, it's very clean (though there are no rubbish bins), and relatively orderly. So in that sense it's not the "real" Peru. But I realised on my last trip that in order to make a real connection with people - to really make friends - you need to have something in common with them, some minimal sharing of histories, aspirations and values. As it turned out, I had a lot more in common with some of the students from Guatemala City than with most people in Christchurch. So it is in Arequipa.

With very poor people you can converse, and they may be extremely friendly and curious, but there's a certain point past which you just don't have, and haven't had, the same life. It helps if you are sharing work with them, but even then you don't inhabit the same reality.

Of course I've figured out, you don't always have to make friends with people. It can also be good just to listen to people's stories and have an objective appreciation of how their lives are. Yes, the "journalistic" approach. Something I need to work on more...

Coming soon, a report on my trip to the Colca Canyon.

On the second day in Arequipa, we went to the musuem which houses the famous "Juanita", aka the "Ice Maiden" - the 13-year old Incan girl scarificed at the summit of the 6300m Ampato volcano and then preserved in ice for 500 years. In 1995 erupting smoke from a nearby volcano melted the ice cap and an archeological expedition found her and accompanying objects tipped out of their summit grave and sent a few hundred metres down the mountainside by the volcanic tremors. The visit to the museum was an hour long, involving a twenty-minute National Geographic video and a forty-minute guided tour through exhibits of various objects found with Juanita and other sacrificed children (to date eighteen have been discovered on mountaintops from Ecuador to Chile), then finally Juanita herself, housed in a glass case chilled to -20 degrees, hair, teeth and skin largely preserved, huddled in a sitting position and wrapped in a frozen blanket.

Lonely Planet describes the whole presentation as "somewhat reverential", which I would say is an understatement. The tour around the exhibits was ok, as the girl who took us was quite matter of fact, but the video, in reconstructing Juanita's last journey, made it sound as if it was the most wonderful privilege, as if someone had organised her a special birthday party. How do I convey the tone of it? Well for one thing, the word "sacrificio" was off limits - all the discussion was of an "ofrenda" (offering), anda woman at the front desk corrected me when I asked a question about the "sacrifice". As was pointed out both in the video and by the guide, the children "offered" on mountaintops were considered "chosen". Of aristocratic blood, they were brought up in Cuzco, lived with Incan priests from an early age, and grew up believing in their special calling. The Incan gods were belived to live in the mountains and volcanoes, and while offerings of artefacts were routinely made, live humans were reserved for times of difficulty and hardship, when it was thought that the gods needed to be placated.

From the artefacts found with Juanita, which included seashell necklaces, it is thought that she was sacrificed during a time of drought. Although remains have been found on mountaintops throughout the former Inca empie, the current theory is that all the sacrificed children were chosen acolytes from Cuzco, who were sent, often on very long and arduous journeys to the troubled spots. Sort of like a sacred and sacrifical SWAT team. Such chosen children would have believed, apparently, that upon their physical death they would pass to the other side and join the gods, themselves becoming gods.

The reality for Juanita is that she was a little girl who had to fast for a couple of weeks before the big day, then trekked hundreds of kilometres and up to the summit of a 6300-metre volcano (given the available clothing and equipment, an impressive physical feat for all involved), was given chicha and hallucinogens then, already half-dead from cold and exhaustion, was whacked over the head with a spiked mallet and bundled into a shallow grave along with some vases, blankets, dolls and bags of coca leaves. It had previously been imagined that she had been left there to let the cold usher her gently into the next realm. However, tests run at John Hopkins University established the rather cruder reality of the cause of death. With the benefit of this information, you can see the two notches in the side of her skull and note the partially collapsed eye socket where the blow fell.

The video interspersed comments from the archeologists with a reenactment of Juanita's last hours (accompanied by taciturn Inca nobles trudging up through the mist and silently performing ceremonies, leaving out the bit with the hammer). The female voice-over surged in tones of ecstatic awe as it reiterated how Juanita believed she was doing a great service to the nation and herself heading off to join the gods. Even on the face of the young actress in the reenactment, however, there were clear signs of suppressed terror. Maybe, like me, she couldn't help imagining what it would really have been like. I felt a few tears coming to my eyes as the voice-over waxed lyrical about the personal glory of becoming such an "offering". Quite an Orwellian moment.

Afterwards, Magdalena, a Swiss girl who had been on the tour with me, had a different thought. Why, she wondered, speaking about the eighteen bodies which have now been found, didn't they just leave them there? If the intention was that the dead children were gifts to the mountain, and we are so au fait with and understanding about that cultural practice, why do we insist on dragging them off the mountainside. The answer that occurred to me was that the Inca religon involved human sacrifice on mountaintops. Our religon is science, and museums are its temples, where other values tend to be sacrificed. Perhaps in the future people will find that quirkily barbaric as well.

Last Sunday in Arica people gathered in bars and living rooms to watch the "classico" of South American football - River Plate vs. Boca Juniors, the clash across the tracks and class lines of Buenos Aires. River won 1-0, with a goal in the first half, while Boca ended the game with 9 players and River with 10. Two of the sending offs were for double yellow cards, and one directly for a two-footed sliding tackle, while by the end of the game each side had three players with yellow cards. The referee has the reputation of being particularly officious, but I have to say that, apart from the second yellow card to one of the players sent off, it was all pretty richly deserved. For highly skilled players, the level of callous clumsiness wouldn't have been out of place indoors at the Queens Wharf Event Centre on a Monday night in Wellington.

Watch out for one Maxi Lopez, though. He was brought on by River as a replacement when Marcelo Salas limped off in the eighth minute, much to the disgust of watching Chileans. Bearing a striking resemblance to the bass player from Iron Maiden (like many of the players on both teams), he nevertheless seemed a class above anyone else on the field, and set up several goal scoring opportunities. If he isn't snapped up by a Spanish or Italian club soon, my name is Diego Maradona.

Well, I haven't really managed to keep up with the overwrought description of every day of my travels, have I. I just can't seem to keep up with a travel journal. Or perhaps the real problem is that I can't manage to be succint - the way it's been going is that I've been leaving out pretty much all the interesting bits, allowing me to maintain my standard level of verbosity regarding the boring bits. I have taken notes, though - and at some other time when I get off my weak-willed ass will try and write about the good bits. Meantime, the update is that, after two pretty lazy weeks in Arica I've made it to Arequipa, Peru. Man, what a beautiful place...snow-capped mountains hovering over stone monasteries and cobblestone streets. Not good prospects for catching up with any writing. There's volcanoes to climb and canyons to...ah, what's the opposite of climb? Plunge into? Condors to see too, apparently.

Just so I hold myself to account, I've left out half of what I did in Santiago, everything in Valparaiso and Viña del Mar, everything to do with San Pedro de Atacama and the trip to Uyuni in Bolivia, as well as my entire time in Arica. Plus other thematically organised entries I was planning on various topics. Qué flojo soy!

On the road to Bahìa Inglesa, I took a picture of a road sign where someone had scratched the leg off the 'r' on 'Ruta 5' so it read 'Puta 5'. Infantile, I know, but against the grey desert spreading off into the distance I thought it had some pathos. Later, walking back the other way, I saw a sign that had received the same treatment - only this time someone had come along and actually painted the leg back on the r.

Bahìa Inglesa is a curve of coarse white sand facing a big blunt headland, "El Morro", on the other side of the bay. The evidence of the summer rush only goes one block back from the beach, in the form of a couple of hotels and restaurants, and the little cabañas crowded together at each end of the bay - then the town disappears into the desert. On an overcast mid-April day, it was eerily quiet.

I couldn't have missed Connie's cousin's place, "Chango Chile" - it's constituted of a cluster of canvas domes right on the beachfront. One giant dome houses the restuarant/bar/reception area, while four smaller domes have beds for guests. I talked to Connie's cousin Alex and the three or four Chilean guys who work with him. They were friendly, if seeming a little anxious. The whole place has been there for only a couple of months, and I guess after some fairly major investmenmt they're keen to drum up some business.

The domes don't have anything to do with some kind of hippie ideal (I can see you snickering Dad). Rather, it was a design they liked after looking at a few different options. The frames were assembled by bolting together metre-long steel struts, which form a skeleton principally of hexagons, each dome ending up with five pentagons. They did this bit themselves according to the design, and cut out the specially-made fabric, which was put in place over the domes with professional help. The windows and skylights in the domes close with velcro.

The concept is quite daring. Granted, despite the suggestion of drizzle the first day I was there, as a rule it doesn't rain in Bahìa Inglesa. One thing they may not have counted on though is the level of chill that can creep in. When I was there some people came in for dinner, and they had to bring in the gas heater to warm the main dome, while Alex wandered round frowning, saying "It's actually colder inside than out...".

Alex has been in Chile for twelve years, and speaks the "huevòn, huevòn, huevòn" chileno patois with fluency. His best friend at school in San Diego was Chilean, and after school finished suggested they take off to explore Chile. Alex went along for the ride and never left.

I talked a bit to one of the guys, Marcelo, who brought out a pot of mate sweetened with cinammon sticks. He studied anthropology at university, and spent eight months living with fishermen on the coast south of Caldera for this thesis. Right now, he says, there's a vague possibility he could get involved in a community development/technology transfer project with some local organisation. But for the present he seemed content to cruise along working for Alex. Incidentally, his sister Gabriela finished her studies in agriculture at Lincoln University, currently worksin Christchurch and is living in Lyttelton...

While I was at Chango Chile, the big concern was to organise a photo shoot showing the domes and the bay with people enjoying themselves. The photos were to appear in a Californian magazine, and the deadline to supply them was about up. The only problem was that for the pictures they needed (a) sun (which came out the next day)and (b) some girls (who are not that abundant in Bahìa Inglesa in mid-April). There was some frenetic discussion following the appearance of "Mono", the proprietor of (the) restaurant down the street, to ascertain the availability of his (as it eventually turned out) stuningly beautiful French wife Sylvie and two of her friends to appear in the photo shoot.

After talking with everyone, Alex offered me a discount and I said I'd come and stay the next night there. I started walking back towards Caldera through the desert as the twilight started to fall. Though I was on the wrong side of the road to hitch, a truck driver pulled over and offered me a lift back to Caldera. He said he worked as a policeman in the area for twenty years and got sick of it. Now he is in the recycling business, which is what the truck was for. Dirty work, he said, but "buena moneda". I said something like, well, you're still doing something for the community too. He heartily agreed, and we talked some more about the development of tourism and eco-tourism in northern Chile.

I took a stroll in the plaza, cooked dinner and had a bottle of beer at the unfriendly residencia, and tried to catch up with my journal. I was starting to feel ok about being in a small town.