Happy Birthday Dad!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! Sorry I'm not there to say it properly in person, but I owe you a treat when I get back. Miss you!

Arrived in Huaraz this morning, at 6.30am. Had a pretty uncomfortable journey and didn't get more than a few hours' sleep (including some wierd dream about Jennifer Aniston losing her nice-girl image and her youthful looks and developing skin like wrinkled leather...), but I'm grateful I got here at all. Stupid me was convinced for some reason that my bus left at 9.30pm, but it was only arriving at the bus station at 9.25 when I looked at my ticket, which was for the 9.00 bus. I'd missed it. Thankfully, the nice guy at the counter (after laughing at me for being a stupid gringa) found me a place on the 9.30 bus.

My last week or so in Trujillo was more of the same really. Sandboarding at the weekend was interesting. I think our guide was hungover, or maybe just a bit useless. He didn't introduce himself or bother to ask our names, and we spent the 40 minute journey to the dunes listening to the old fat taxi driver cackle as he took the piss out of our guide and flirted with some other girl that came along for the ride, seemingly to take publicity photos. The taxi driver had a big scar on his arm. I reckon he probably went a joke too far one night and rubbed someone up the wrong way. We stopped in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by rocky mountains and lots of sand, under the burning sun. Facing us was a very steep and very high sand dune. Guide dude just handed us each a board, and started climbing up the sand. I guessed we were supposed to follow him. Not easy. I eventually reached him where he'd stopped, panting a lot. Nicky had stopped for a break about half-way up. He put my board down and gestured for me to get strapped on. It was only at this point, on the edge of a 50m near-vertical slope, did he think to ask how many times we'd been sandboarding before. It took the camera girl to suggest that we go from a little lower down to start with. We were both pretty useless, much to the amusement of the taxi driver, and Nicky gave up after about 3 goes so it was just me wobbling down the sand and trudging back up again. Hot, sweaty and sandy, we called it a day after only about an hour and a half.

It was sad to say goodbye to the kids in the Benificencia. Though the blow was lessened by the fact that some little blighter ransacked my purse and stole my money! I only discovered what had happened later in the evening. They didn't take much, perhaps 30 soles (8 pounds or so) in notes, including one fake note that someone had fobbed off on me the other day. I know they're poor but that's just cheeky! I decided to let it go, and didn't let it stop me giving out sweets the next - my last - day. But I did leave my bag in a box with the teacher's stuff, thinking it would be safer. I got home feeling a bit sad at leaving them but grateful for the experience, only to discover when I looked in my purse that the little bastards had done it again! I'm not trusting anyone from now on!

On Thursday Nicky and I visited a really interesting mueseum of pre-Inca ceramics. No it didn't sound very interesting to me either. But, with a guide to point out the points of interest, I reckon it was worth the 7 soles entry fee. The small room held over 1000 pieces from different pre-Inca civilizations. Apparently, in the absence of writing, ceramics were the language of the people in those days. Though at first sight they seem like a load of drably coloured and primitively decorated pots, it turns out that loads can be learnt about the culture of the times from the designs of the pieces. Sculpted human faces and figures demonstrate the presence of such diseases and abnormalities as cleft-lip, leprosy, blindness, Downs syndrome, elefantitis, thyroid abnormalities, some gruesome sexually transmitted infections and some awful-looking disease that eats away at the face. Sculptures of faces with beards and of people of African and Asian origin indicate the presence of non-native peoples way before the Conquest. Native Peruvians can't grow beards! Feeling proud of ourselves after a morning of culture, we hit the beach for the rest of the afternoon.

Huaraz seems like a pretty town. I found my hostel (a $5 a night cheapo) and my dorm easily, and woke up the only other resident in there, a friendly German girl on a break from her job in Lima. We wandered out for some breakfast, past the indigenous men pushing carts full of whole plucked chickens, and the women, children in tow, selling bread and juice from their little mobile stalls. I was hoping to see some traditional Semana Santa celebrations, but it seems that the most important event of Semana Santa - the procession reliving Jesus walking to the crucifiction site with his cross - happened in the middle of the night last night. After the German girl (still don't know her name!) left for her tour, I started what I thought would be a mission to find a company offering the 4-day Santa Cruz trek leaving tomorrow. But two other gringos wanting to do the same thing wandered into the first agency I tried. The agency seems professional - they have nice photos at least - so I'm leaving tomorrow at 6.30am with two hairy Slovakians.