Last week in Peru

Hi everyone,

Tonight we leave Peru after 2 months of travelling this great country. We still have another 3 weeks of our holiday to spend in Argentina and Uraguay.

Since our last blog a week ago, we were going to travel north to the beaches but we were told the weather was not good, so we headed to the Cordilleo Ranges where the snow capped mountains are white all year round. We travelled by bus for 8 hours through desert, beaches, mountains, farming land and snow areas, to a place called Huaraz. This is a beautiful town and full of hikers, trekkers and mountain climbers. In 1970 there was a tremendous earthquake which killed 70,000 people in Huaraz and the sourrounding districts. It is so sad to see the devastation of entire towns and villages. One town called Yugay was rebuilt further down the valley but the original town has been left as a huge cemetry with 18,000 people buried under the stone rocks and rubbish. You can see the remains of an old bus sticking out of the ground and the tops of palm trees that were buried also.

We spent one day horse riding starting at a little village called Olleros and continuing on for four hours into the high mountains through many rural farming villages. The weather started off fine and sunny but as we climbed into the higher ranges, the wind was blowing directly off the snow capped mountains and glaciers and luckily we had our coats and warm Peruivan hats.

This was a fantastic day and was followed by a picnic in the nearby pine forest with our guide.

Another day was spent at the ruins of Chavin which precede Muchu Picchu by 1,500 years. This site was the original place for Peruivan culture.

We also visited many pottery factories and would love to bring some home in a crate.... maybe another time.

We finally caught up with Harry Hilderbrand. Harrys father is the chemist in Benalla and Harry is the second in charge of Markham College here in Peru. He has been living here in Peru for 11 years with his wife and new baby son and we spent the morning talking of his experiences organising the students at his school who raised money and helped rebuild the villages effected by the earthquake in 1997 which killed 500 people in the town of Chinca, south of Lima.

We have visited many wineries here in Peru. Some of them still use the old method of stamping the grapes and use equipment that is over 500 years old to process the wine.

Until next time, hope you are all well and we look forward to seeing many of you next month.

P:S. We have been receiving a few Facebook messages on our email, but unfortunatley our Facebook is down at the moment and we cannot reply. Please wait till we get home and we can fix things up.

Love to you all. Maxine and Robert. xxxxx