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Published: October 7th 2008
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On the road
Views as we travelled to Arequipa Hi folks, well it was an eventfull day yesterday, Terry had his pocket picked, Sheena stepped in a hole, Clare is down with D´s and V´s and to top it off we are stuck in Arequipa.
In the morning yesterday Terry, Sheena, Clare and I went to the markets. Along the way Sheena managed to find a hole in the path, we are all being watchfull but she missed this one, it is very common for covers to be missing from the pavement, the one that claimed Sheena was perfect foot size and about 2 feet deep, Sheena managed to step right in it, luckily she ended up only with a bruise but it was a reminder to all of us to watch out.
The market was great, all sorts of foods including frog juice, apparently it is good for you, and as far as I can work out it involves blending the live frogs in the tank and then drinking it - there are many foods I will try but not frog juice. We found guinea pigs, ducks, chickens, turkeys rabits and dogs for sale. People were putting a finger in the cage of a large guinea pig,
Colca Canyon
Very reminicent of Tiger Leaping gorge in china at home it would be thought of as pating but here it is was feeling the meat!
After the market we were outside and heading home, we had been warned to watch for pick pockets but boy they were good - but not good enough. Terry was just in front of me when a women dropped her cardigan and he stood on it, she started talking and pushing Terry, meanwhile a guy with a raincoat pushed up behind Terry and quickly stuck his hand in Terries pocket. This all happened in seconds, I yelled at Terry ´Check your wallet´ and he then found it was missing -shit, luckily I had seen the guy and pointed him out. We had the bastard cornered so he dropped it and said you have dropped your wallet and then he did a runner. It happened so fast and if I had not seen it from behind he would have got away with it.
At the market we had Empanadas, which actually tasted very nice, a significant point is that Clare had a different one to Terry and I. Terry and I are fine but Clare had a very bad night with fevers
Parrots
Green andean parrot and both ends going. We have started antibiotics as it is a bad one. She seems to be improving except for the total lack of energy. Lucky for us we are stuck in Arequipa for an extra day which is the next story.
There is a strike on in Peru, all roads out are blocked so unless we left before 2 this morning we would not be able to get out. Dont quite know what it is about and dont really care as it suits. It will cause us to have a 10 hour bus ride tomorrow though. We were supposed to stay in Porto Inca tonight but apparently there is not much there so we will just drive through it.
I need to let you know that our search for the rare SA pigmy tree dwelling elephant is over, it will stay rare. I blame Terry for this as when we reached the amazon he said he still wanted to see elephants and giraffes in the wild. As these things go it degenerated into the search for the rare SA tree dwelling pigmy elephant and the short necked giraffe. We believe we have identified the rare short
Preincan irrigation
Stone map of irrigation scheme from 500 plus years ago necked giraffe - it is masquerading as a llama so we are happy we have seen that one but the elephant remained elusive - it is important to know that no one has proved it does not exist but remains listed as ´rare´. As you can imagine this search entertained us a lot, with many comments about the amount of crap that could come from on high if we found one. The howler monkeys have been known to pee and crap on people in the forest, so we started thinking of the elephant and its habits when found, lucky for us we did not find it.
Well that is enough for now. I will go and check on Clare.
Ian
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