Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Welcome to the jungle

25/09/2012 – La Merced, PeruWelcome to the Jungle – G’n’f’R

When your best mate travels halfway around the world for a week you get a feeling that things are pretty good and balanced on this planet. In my case Damo was heading over for my birthday and a quick look at Peru.

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We didn’t have a long time so we decided to head into jump a bus over the andes and into the Jungle from Lima. It is a relatively short journey of 8hrs, and we took an overnighter. The pass at the andes is 5,000m, we didn’t even notice it and woke up in a beautiful warm land of greenery and insects.

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We arrived in La Merced early at about 8am, and came across a restaurant and tour agency. Straight away we were in a van heading into the jungle on a day tour.
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Our first stop was to a one of the villiages of a local tribe, the Ashaninka. They look wicked in there native dress and retain their indian lifestyle on the edge of the jungle.
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We were welcomed with a song and dance,
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and then were introduced to their per snake
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and cheeky monkey
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and they let us play with there toys. A very friendly folk.
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Next stop was a swim at some local waterfalls
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and more animals, this one a boa constrictor
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some kind of jungle kitten, pretty cute now, but not sure in a few years.
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and to finish up we took a very short ride down the amazon in the titanic, before the drive back to La Merced playing drinking games all the way.
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For the night we headed to the old German colony of Oxampampa. Famous for it’s pork and beer.
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It is a strange place. Apparently the guys who lived at Oxampampa were not Nazi’s fleeing from there crimes.
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We got bored in Oxampampa and so headed back to La Merced. We had a number of hours to kill before our bus so went to see the sites.
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We came across various witch doctors. One of whom was offering a treatment of black guinea pigs.
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And man it really can rain! No wonder Lima is so dry, all the water is here.
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We held out until bus leaving with beer and cards.

A very nice few days just kicking about and not doing much. After this we headed to Huacachina for some crazee sandboard action, and were witness to a riot/protest on the highway back to Lima.

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A common way for the locals to protest is to block the road with bricks. The police come out very heavy headedly and we had to close the windows to keep the tear gas out of the bus. Fun fun fun and games.

Laters.x.brad

reporting from Duncans Flat, Lima

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