On the way to Lima and Beyond

After the dusty roads, we can't see much from within the Tremelody, hence a joint effort from the 3 children to clean the windows... and even, the mirrors. This is on the way to Lima, the 28th of August...a 12 hours journey !

A little pause for lunch and a run outside near a field of Artichokes, of which Peru exports loads. These fields were endless, property of a big business, as we had the opportunity to discuss with one of the workers. Harvesting starts in July and from then on, they cut every 3 days the mature artichokes. We see a bit further people handpicking them.

A pause in Lima. Here is the view on the magnificent bay. We settled in a nice cafe for the French lesson while Stephane deals with an electrical problem on Tremelody. There was a black out 2 days ago, and we'd love to be able to use our fridge, waterpump and lights again !

Later on, we visit Minka, a fairtrade cooperative of craftgroups from all over Peru. They have an incredibly varied range of products exporting to the UK (with Traidcraft), Germany, Japan, France, Italy and more ....
For 4 years, they have developped Touristic tours with the communities, and we will do one of them. We will visit 3 communities of craft people from the 5th of September.
We go through the details of our trip and then visit the offices with Kusi and her assistant Diana: export departement, quality cheks, and a shop . They are a dynamic and driven team who will organise around 75 tours this year. Well done

We are not too keen on staying in this big city ( especially as the next day is a bank holiday and everything is closed) so we head to the south.

We stop at the Laguna Huacachina (above) and climb up the huge dune ( genre Dune du Pilat) where people also sand surf. Romane manages to lose a shoe in the sand...! After a nice break around a swimming pool from a nice hotel ( loved it ! nice to have a taste of luxury sometimes !) we drive to the Nasca Lines, an amazing site.

La Cordillera Blanca

Here is a scene of the lovely valley which leads us to a fabulous lake ( below ) : the Laguna Llanganuco. It's green, full of streems everywhere and birds. We give a lift to an old couple who is going to harvest their field a kilometre further up. Locals often ask for a lift, especially in remote areas. The road is steep : we have to go 1500 higher than Caraz. We decide with Stephane this must not be very far from paradise.
But, to come back to reality, we have a puncture 10 km before arriving at the Laguna. Tremelody's tyres are exhausted by 20 hours or so of bad roads, and we'll have to change 2 of them the next day.
The Laguna Llanganuco, blue or green wonders Thomas.. ? something in between, with a touch of white in it... divine ! but high, at 3800m : the children will all feel altitude sick, esp. Thomas during the night.
We manage to find a taxi that takes us even further up. We can see a fair bit of the Cordillera Blanca at 4 800 m, as if we were at the top of the Mont Blanc ! I may be chauvinistic, but I must admit I have never seen something so beautiful; we will return to do the trecks one day !
One night at the Laguna (pic.), but the next one back in Huaraz, a buzzy little town 3 hours down from here, at the cozy "Creperie Patrick", owned by a Frenchman who has been here for 22 years. Big excitement for Thomas : they do the "crepe au Nutella". Poor Thomas has suffered from Nutella deprivation for 10 days !
Fortunately, Patrick will tell us where to find some, and Steph will buy..... 7 jars of Nutella; now, Thomas is safe (from hunger, I mean) !

On the way to Caraz : nice views

100 % Peruvian chocolate exists and, thank God, it is the only one you can find in this country !

Caraz

A lovely little town just at the foot of the Cordillera Blanca. Very lively market. The costume you see here we've seen consistently in the mountains, whether in Ecuador or in Peru. The costume is more or less the same throughout the Andes, but the hats vary greatly. You can see different types in this picture. Romane bought one of the lovely coloured skirts. Of course, we had no idea how to wear it ( first I wanted to wear it, but it was far too short !) : you have to put lots of layers, at least 3. Anyway, everybody had a good laugh !

From the garden of the hotel were we are, at 2300m, you can see the Cordillera Blanca, towering 3000 m higher !

On the way to the Laguna Llanganuco, we go through a charming very green little valley.

Chan Chan

We stopped in a lovely little seaside resort called Huanchaco, in the garden of a nice hotel.
It is quiet at the moment because it is the time of the Garua, this fog accompanied by a cool weather (still 20 C).
It doesn't bother the children who still hop in the pool of the hotel and have a very good time.
They also play with the peacocks who live there

This is Chan Chan an old palace and place of cult of the 7th century, which belonged to the Chimu civilization.

Thomas has well understood that this is serious business.
After all, there might well have been some human sacrifices.

On dirait un peu Tintin et l'oreille cassee non ?













Here is Romane playing on the sand dunes of this very dry part of Peru, where you can find quite a lot of oil wells. Some say it is not the safest part of Peru because of narcotrafics.



We head for the Cordillera Blanca inland, but this is a place you learn to deserve : 8 hours of bad dusty track, full of holes and rocks

The rocky landscape is worth it : ocres, beige, red rocks, canyons. The tunnel are just holes in the rocks and the bridges seem a bit precarious.

Anyway, I can now safely say that Steph is ready for the camel trophy, no doubt !

This land is very poor. We come across two men mining coal on the open air, alone in this deserted land.
We manage to find a tiny place to spend the night, were lovely and curious Mums (some very very young ) pop in for a chat in the camper.
Everywhere we go, Tremelody has a great success and we are envied ! 10 months holidays, you can feel in their eyes they would never even dream of a week holidays!

Benevidos a Peru !

This is the hectic Ecuador/Peru border, in the middle of a town, in the middle of the market... how to you get the Tremelody through this ? You go dead slow and try to avoid the many many stalls.



















First sight of Peru, rice fields, so green.















The north cost of Peru is mostly a desert and the sea is cold, except this very north bit, Zorritos, a lovely little fishermen village.



















Incredible : the sand beach is infested with hundreds of coward little crabs. They so comic when they hurry into their hidings! We can't believe how fast they move. Water is at the perfect temperature and we spend most of the day in it, even Romane who was bitten by a jellyfish twice.

Typical Ecuadorian pictures

Puerto Bolivar in front of one of the huge ships exporting Ecuadorian Bananas ( 4 million tons a year, not bad !).
















Soup, chicken and rice, the typical, one dollar meal.

Aren't they beautiful, my chickens?

With all that humidity, it's the paradise for parasites, that develop even on electric wires !

Well, if you're lucky enough to have a bike, then share it, either with you friends or with your family. We've often seen a family of three including a baby, or even sometimes 4 on a bike!

A Fairtrade banana plantation

As we reach El Guabo, the cooperative of 500 little banana producers, we have in mind that this is not the typical plantation in the area.Indeed, most people working in the big plantations we see are well known to be amongs the worst off : they have very low salaries, no rights ( they are mugged if they go on a strike) and use so much pesticide that they have, at best, bad rashes, and, at worse, lose their fertility or give birth to ill formed babies.



Just to say how pleasant it is to meet people who are full of ideas and energy and seem genuinely proud of their work. They have just launched the Banana Tour, which we took around the plantation, guided by Elizabeth, a producer herself ( here she busy on her mobile). Roberto, on the right was acting more like a PR person, taking pictures.





The banana tree is amazing : first it s a plant and not, in fact a tree because it is cut down to its roots once it has given its one lot of bananas and starts it all over again, which, in fact only takes 10 months.
There is also something quite extraordinary which we don 't experience in our temperate climates (exept for the leeks perhaps !) : it's harvested all year round.




Here is Romane taking the fruits to the washing and packing station. Bananas are picked usually twice a week in these small plantation ( 2 hectares) : the days they have a planned space on a ship leaving for Europe from the neary harbour : Perto Bolivar.



Here, Romane is taking the bananas to the washing and packing station on a rail. It's easy with one pack, but usually, they go by 25 !
See, the're green. They will ripe on the way to Europe (2weeks) and once arrived. So, from the plant to the plate, its around 3 weeks




The fruits are then cut in the neat little packs we buy and washed in water + an organic product ( this plantation is organic) to stop the banana packs dripping from their scar.

They are then paked in boxes of 18 kg.

An organic plantation requires twice as many people ( 2 instead of one per hectare of land) to crow a crop, partly because of weeding.

Now, it s all ready to go ( who's packing here?), with this little label right at the bottom of the box, that makes all the difference : here, no children work, the worst pesticides cannot be used (even if it's not organic), workers have decent wages, and most importantly, people decide for themselves about their future.

At El Guabo, they decided to use the Fairtrade premium ( the premium paid on top of the price of the banana to the cooperative in teh Faritrade system, to be used collectively) to give each producer a box of basic food each month and to each child a "back to school " voucher.

We found this first experience of "fairtrade" tourism very heart warming and left happy by this encounter. Elizabeth was a charming guide and we had a lovely welcome from the owner of the plantation, who had lunch with us. We were both as interested as the other to share our experience... I think it is a positive shock for them to realize how many people support Fairtrade

El Guabo has already had a great success in just the first 2 months of their Banana Tour ( fortunately, they have trained 15 guides !), people coming from Swizerland, Germany, Holland... so there must be something ot it.

Life on the move

Thomas is never so happy than when he listens to music, especially his favorite CD : Melopie, ( a initiation to music for children) which, by know, he can sing by heart!















Back to school ( in Machala, 15th of August), in the street today. Indeed, it's too hot in the Tremelody this morning (30C). The girls manage to concentrate, even at a corner of a road. But there is no overdose : 1.5 hour of school per day is fair, isn´t it ?

Manon is proud to present her new pencil case.













Sleeping near the Police station is often the best spot when no capsite (90% of the time) and in a big town.

On the way to the beach by boat, nice !

On the road to the coast

We found that shops are well guarded in Cuenca and, generally, in the south. Indeed, we were told by old Ecuadorian people, they were "ladrones" (thieves) in the south.
Here is an exemple, altough normally, you have a tiny gate through which you talk to the shop owner, very much like a prison !
The scenery on the way down is very contrasted. It gets greener and warmer as we go down, but they are, suddenly, dry patches.











It´s getting hot by now and we stop in a tiny village were we spot some outside tables
but it is a strange restaurant : we are told there is nothing to drink here, except Coca! The area looks deprived. But why is Stephane feeling so happy today ?
Because, up to know he has managed never to bump the Tremelody on the "topes", these terrible traffic slowing devices, twice as narrow and double as high as the London ones, but most of all, normaly not signposted. This one, nicely painted, is an exception.

More on Cuenca (continued)

The town of the hats especially the famous "panama" hats. The girls had a hell of a good time trying all the hats while we were buying some.

Panama hats of good quality don´t come cheap. How come so many women are wearing them around here ? Because they are the ones who actually make them.