Saw a really awful accident in the centre of Trujillo yesterday lunchtime. Given the chaos in the roads all the time and the absence of traffic lights at many busy junctions in the grid-patterned city, I'd assumed that there must be lots of crashes. But this is the first time I've witnessed a serious crash so close-up.
Already the details are a little faded. Nicky and I had literally just crossed a street at a junction when I heard brakes screeching. I turned round just in time to see, right next to us, two cars and a motorbike coming from different directions collide. The battered yellow taxi (surprise surprise) was a mess at the front, but I think that was because it was so decrepit in the first place. They weren't going too fast, and the drivers and passengers of both cars were ok. The motorbike was toppled though, and both guys fell off. One, who may have been wearing a helmet, was ok, but the other guy, wearing no protective gear whatsoever, suffered a huge impact. To my relief he got up and staggered towards the pavement from which we were watching. But a few seconds later, with blood streaming from his nose and other scary-looking places (possibly ears), he collapsed into the arms of the other.
By this time a huge crowd had gathered with their hands over their open mouths looked a bit horrified. Nothing seemed to be happening very quickly, except the swelling of the crowds, but a few people did get on their mobiles to call the emergency services. An authoritative-seeming woman that I hope was a doctor or nurse strode through. A man carried a weeping young boy away from the scene. As Nicky pointed out, there wasn't much we could do, so we left. But for the rest of the day I couldn't clear from my mind those images of the immediate aftermath of the crash: of the injured man as he staggered away, clearly in shock but as if relieved to be able to get up, struggling to get it together; and then a few seconds later the vision of his face crumpling as he lost consciousness and his body gave way to his injuries. I just discovered today that he died in hospital.
On to more cheerful things. Nicky and I went to Cajamarca this weekend, a town in the lower Andes where the last king of the Incas, Atahualpa, met and was betrayed and murdered by the Spanish conquistadors. It's a charming town with lots of pretty old buildings and quaint plazas - and less taxi traffic. It's set in a wide lush valley between green hills scattered with peasant settlements. So there are loads of cute peasants in their traditional colourful layers and odd hats working the fields and walking their donkeys accross the mountains. We took a hike up into the hills to get to a set of Inca ruins recommended in the Lonely Planet, but after 5 hours of climbing without finding it (when it was supposed to take only four), it started raining hard. After getting very wet and miserable, we decided to give up and turn back. I felt very guilty because Nicky's never really been hiking before and had no rain protection, so she was very tired and absolutely drenched! Hopefully she doesn't hate me too much for dragging her up there! It was beautiful until the rain came. The next day we visited the natural hot baths (used by Atahualpa before he met the Spaniards), some funerary niches dug into the mountainside, an touristy Alpine dairy producing Swiss cheese founded by some German dude, and a nice botanical garden with noisy frogs and a guinea-pig pen. A very nice weekend away from the noise, heat, pollution and general stressfulness of Trujillo!
I have less than a week left in Trujillo. Four days in the Benificencia, and 3 in the other institution we've started visiting, a school for kids - and adults who haven't been able to leave - with special needs and severe learning difficulties. At first I wasn't sure how I'd cope, having no experience with such people. But they're just like other kids, except that they look a bit different, are slower, more difficult to understand, and some of them are about 40. They can be really cute, and it was really inspiring playing a bit of volleyball with them and seeing how much enjoyment they got out of sport, despite being barely able to catch a ball. I do feel sorry for the kids with less severe problems though. The spectrum of severity is so broad that some kids, who to me seem compus mentus but just a bit slow, are forced to do the same tedious colouring-in activities as others who make odd noises all the time and can barely coordinate crayon with paper. I say kids, but I'm actually referring to the group of adults, aged between about 16 and 40. Mentally, they're effectively kids I suppose. They behave loads better than the little mites at the Benificencia.
I'm going to Huaraz next Weds night, since schools are closed for Easter from Thursday and I only have to be in Lima for the start of my Macchu Picchu trip for the 11th. Huaraz is up in the Cordillera Blanca, the highest mountain range in the Andes. It claims to be the best place for hiking possibly in South America, so I'm hoping to get stuck in. Not sure if I'll attempt any summits, but apparently there's a beautiful 4-day trek with amazing views that rizes to 4,900m or so, so I want to try that. Need to get acclimatised for the Inca Trail.
This weekend though Nicky and I are going to try sandboarding and surfing, and hit the beach in between! Wahey! Hopefully it won't rain like it did yesterday. It's not supposed to rain here and it pissed it down for hours, so there's been a huge fuss about it in the papers and everything. How very British to moan so much about the weather.
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