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Published: September 1st 2007
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local transport to Huaraz
Not the luxury express coach I had been promised. Colourful outside, cramped and uncomfortable inside My next stop was Huaraz, a mountain town known as the "capital" of the Peruvian Alps. This journey involved three buses and twenty consecutive hours of travelling time. At one of my bus changes, I noticed a family with a sheep in the bus terminal. This raises a couple of questions.
1. How did they get to the bus terminal? Trujilan was a large city, so I can´t imagine they walked from the countryside. Perhaps they took a cab. A sheep in a taxi? Imagine
2. They must have been in the bus terminal to catch a bus, since this is the primary purpose of a bus station!. Where exactly was the sheep going to go? In the luggage compartment underneath? Strapped to the roof? Wandering up and down the aisle of the bus? Or maybe it would have it´s own seat. The mind boggles...
On my third bus, I was seated next to a sun-weathered old gentleman with missing teeth and a battered old felt hat. He struck up a conversation with me in a mixture of Quechua and Spanish. Quechua is one of the indigenous languages, and is as different from Spanish as an arse is from
sheep in a bus station
how did it get here, and where is it going? an elbow (and yes, I can tell the difference). He kept swapping between the two languages, sometimes mixing words in the same sentence, and it was impossible to understand him. Plus I was getting a liberal spraying of saliva every time he spoke. I kept saying in Spanish that I didn´t understand Quechua, and he would nod sagely and say "Si, Si", and sit back in silence. Then after a brief pause, he would turn towards me and launch into another conversation in "Spanchua", whilst I wiped my face once more. But he was a friendly and enthusiastic old chap, so I persevered and threw in a few nuggets of Spanish when I thought I understood something. After the seven hour journey, whilst not fluent in Quechua, I at least knew the words for "mountain", "condor" and "hat"
I finally arrived in Huarez, a small city with little beauty or charm, but nestled in a valley of stunning mountains. Every building was ugly but functional, and many seemed unfinished. Huarez was near the epicentre of a major earthquake in 1970 which killed 80,000 people. It almost seemed as if the local architects thought "let´s not bother rebuilding with any
Beauty and the Beast
ugly Huaraz in the middle of gorgeous mountains type of style or charm, just in case we get wiped out again". As it happens, Peru suffered another major earthquake while I was there, but it was in the far south of Peru. Although I did experience an earthquake when I moved south, but that´s another story.
On my first day I took a tour to an ice cave. We went to fairly high altitude and messed around in the snow and ice. On the way we made a toilet stop, and there was a lady with a couple of Llamas dressed up with scarves and sunglasses. It was almost animal abuse, but at the same time they didn´t seem to bothered, and they sun WAS very strong, so the sunglasses were probably a good thing.
For the next few days I stayed in a mountain lodge an hour outside Huarez called "The Way Inn". It was a fabulous place surrounded by a trout-filled moat, and had a library, sauna, log-burning fire, and gourmet communal meals each night. Each night we ate like kings, and then all played Poker, Risk or other games by candlelight. There were some varied and interesting books in the library, such as
Laughs with a Llama
let´s have a caption competition with this one. What is this Llama saying? "The Beginners Guide to Beekeeping" and "How To Make Scented Candles". If you put two and two together, it would seem our host was planning to farm bees for their honey and then make candles with it. Whilst on the subject of beeswax, I have a couple of questions. How exactly do bees make wax? Like us, does it come from their ears? (Do bees even have ears?) And what on earth do they need all that wax for? I have a theory that inside each beehive is a miniature "Madame Tussauds" containing lifelike models of famous bees
The lodge was right in the heart of the mountains, so I spent a couple of days hiking by myself. Before my first hike, my host told me to beware of the local dogs. I´d encountered all kinds of scrappy mutts on my adventures so far. You walk close to their owners land, and they come up barking like crazy. But they maintain a respectful distance and just follow you along, barking all the time until you are safely away from their land. But I was told these mountain dogs are different. They attack, and they bite. A girl was bitten
Laughs with a Llama 2
They seemed to be enjoying the attention only last week, and had to be taken to Huaraz for a rabies shot. So, he told me the rules of engagement, should I encounter a canine threat.
1. Stare them down and show no fear. People who have looked away or meekly tried to back away have been bitten
2. Throw stones at them to scare them off.
3. If they still come for you, kick them in the face.
Now, I am a dog lover at heart, having grown up with a lovable hound called Kim for the first fifteen years of my life. So I was fine with the staring down, but the kicking was definitely out. Which left the stones.... Before leaving the lodge I carefully selected my ammunition. The criteria for my stones was that they had to be big enough to cause a small yelp, but not to bruise or break bones. I chose rounded, smooth stones rather than malicious, sharp ones, so that they would sting rather than wound. I think the technical term for my weapons of choice was "pebbles". So, with my pockets full, I set forth. Four hours later I arrived back at the lodge without even seeing
The Way Inn
A lovely lodge. The concrete cone on the right is the homemade sauna a dog, never mind engaging one in combat. I emptied my pockets of the stones and went inside the lodge for a nice cup of tea.
The next morning I set out for a seven-hour mountain hike alone. An hour into my journey, the path came close to a farm and two dogs rushed out to bark at me. Nasty, mangy fellas with a bark that meant business. Gums back, teeth out, bark on! I was busy staring them down whilst nervously patting my pockets. No stones!! I had thrown them out the day before. Damn, I was unarmed. Meanwhile their barks had attracted the attention of the dogs from the next farm, and faint barking was accompanied by two distant specks running towards me. The dogs had called for reinforecments! They were only two fields away, so I had to act fast, unless I wanted to contend with four dogs at once. There were no stones in the field, but there were a few rocks scattered about. I dug out the smallest one, about the size of a football, and hurled it shot-put style at the dogs. I was aiming wide, just to scare them. It landed heavily
mountains near the lodge
fabulous hiking, but beware of the dogs! in the earth and had the opposite effect! Both dogs came charging towards me, fangs bared. I couldn´t bring myself to kick even these savage mutts, so there was one option left. LEGGITT!! There was a stone wall a few metres away, so I ran and literally dived straight over it. My shoulders scraped against the stone, and I rolled into the next field commando style. Well, commando style would have been good. What actually happened was that I crashed into the mud face first, and ended up in a painful and inelegant heap on the floor. The wall was high enough to deter the hounds so I got up slowly and painfully and wiped the mud off myself with my sleeve. And looked straight into the face of a fierce-looking bull with large horns that was slowly getting to it´s feet. Luckily it was tied to a stake in the ground, and the rope was already almost taught. So I got to my feet and carefully edged around the danger zone. I climbed the wall on the opposite side, picked up some stones and continued safely on my way.
Who´d have thought hiking was a such dangerous pastime?
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Francoise
non-member comment
Can you take one home for me?
Pete, The photos with the Panda are just delicious.They look so fluffy and so glamourous in their own rights!...CAn you take one back home for me as a pet.? Nice to read you,I think you are a very good writer. Keep smiling.Francoise.