Jungle Boogie

And now for something completely different. Back in February when we decided that the Galapagos Islands were out of our price range this trip around, we agreed we would go to the jungle instead and spend a week catching piranhas and lying about in hammocks. Unfortunately this plan didn't work out in Ecuador because we had to high-tail it to the border, so when we found out that we could take a week off from our childcare placement and spend it doing conservation volunteering in the jungle for only $5 a day we leapt at the chance. And so we found ourselves on our way to Manu National Park, the Peruvian chunk of the Amazon rainforest.

We almost didn't make it. About 5 hours into the 9 hour bus ride the bus started to make a screeeeeeeeeee noise and then pulled over. It was then announced that the bus would be going back to the nearest town to be replaced. All the Peruvians got off and onto a sheep truck but we stayed put. Quite how the bus was functional enough to go back uphill but not continue downhill was never explained to us but there you go. If, as suspected, screeeeeeeeeeeeee means brake failure I'm glad of the delay as the last three hours of the journey were really quite hairy- a single track dirt road snaking down through forested ravines and with two wheels hanging over the abyss. The rainy season is over, thank goodness, but they don't do a lot of road maintenance in these parts. 12 hours later we reached the lodge.

Oue home for the next five days consisted of a large wooden 'bungalow' on stilts with a long trestle table and a kitchen, and a separate bamboo structure which served as a dormitory for the 20 or so volunteers and staff. If you can envisage a POW camp from Bridge over the River Kwai you'll have a good idea what the dormitory looked like, with mosquito-netted bunks a foot apart. Drying underwear was festooned from washing lines around each bunk. The noise of crickets was deafening. We were strictly warned not to eat in our sleeping quarters. Food means jungle rats and jungle rats mean snakes coming into your bed. After Cusco, this felt like another planet. No electricity. No meat (no fridge). Everyone went to bed an hour after sunset (that's about 7.30pm folks) and got up at dawn. We washed our hair ina waterfall like that Herbal Essences advert and learnt how to do massage. We ate chickpeas. There was a didgeridoo. In short, we had sort of joined a cult.

In the mornings we worked.This consisted of gardening, composting, and for the girls, skipping through forested glades picking medicinal leaves. For the boys, lugging boxes of rocks up a hill to make a path. Hooray for sexism. We also spent time on the jungle trails, doing inventories of jungle plants (medicine ones) and counting animals. We saw a snake! But mainly it was butterflies. They have some brilliant butterflies called Morphos which are metallic blue andkind of special. In the afternoons we did more hiking and tried not to get lost. Chris got to be in charge of a machete and combined with his hat, which looked less foolish in the jungle, he looked quite macho and Indiana Jonesish.
Back at the lodge in the afternoons we went and washed the filth off in the nearby watering hole and played with the pet monkeys, who were something of a pest. My newly acquired monkey bite is the result of trying to get the boy monkey, Chico, to stop rubbing his face and genitals all over my bedclothes. Sometimes we chased the tayra, a Peruvian weasel-thing that lives in the garden and ran off with a bag full of breakfast bread. Otherwise we read until dinner time, which was basically variations on a cauliflower theme. Meals were generally enlivened by grasshoppers and other large insects hopping onto your plate or the discovery of a tiny slug amidst the beans. As we ate by candle light you had to pay quite close attention to avoid accidental ingestions but on the plus side it added some much needed protein.
And thus the days passed in enforced relaxation and we admired the outstanding natural beauty of the Amazon rainforest, perspiring peacefully. And when this all became too relaxing, we hiked up to the nearest village and stocked up on cookies and a cold beer or swam in a river. It was wonderful, idyllic. I could have stayed forever- or at least until the start of the football season.

Llama bites

We decided to pay a visit to Cusco zoo. It's on the university campus and doesn't make it into any of the guidebooks, being the size of a teatowel and a little depressing in places, especially where bigger animals are concerned. There are two moth eaten spectacled bears, an ocelot sulking in a box and the birdcages aren't really big enough, but we were glad we went if only to ensure that the zoo made enough money to feed the animals for the rest of the week. On a cheerier note, the place had a fine disregard for health and safety. You can shake hands with the monkeys through the fence, I was allowed to handle (and nearly drop) a hefty tortoise, a big red parrot stole a child's lollipop and there was a ladder propped up against the wall of the bear enclosure. A toucan nearly savaged us when we tried to take its picture, as did a very angry ostrich. The star attraction of the zoo, we had been told, was the semi-tame llama who is allowed to wander around to keep the bushes trimmed. One volunteer told us that this llama tried to mount visitors but we assumed this was an urban myth.

It wasn't.

Llamas are of course fluffy and cute and this one was "semi tame", and I've already nearly patted a totally wild one on this trip so I figured this would be a cinch. Moreover, the llama seemed receptive to my overtures; it stopped grazing and eyed me as I approached, cautiously. It seemed docile enough. I gave it a nice pat. The llama was very soft. Job done.

If I'd left it there all I would have to show for it would be a nice picture of me and the llama, but of course I didn't leave it there. I thought maybe I could get a picture of me hugging the llama. It had stood still and been obliging before, and we were getting on great. So I moved in for a cuddle.
Nothing dirty. I just snaked my arm around its neck. The llama seemed OK with that too and then wandered off to the restricted area. Job done.

Now I made an error. I assumed that the llama and I were through so I turned back to the rest of the zoo. Suddenly there was a whoosh-gallop noise and I discovered that the llama had its front legs on my shoulders and was caressing the top of my head with its chin. I sorted of wailed and flailed my arms a bit and it backed off but nevertheless I was a little shaken at the narrowness of the reprieve and decided the llama and I needed some space.

Later the llama snuck up on a family group who were inspecting the toucan and sort of snorted at the child, who began to cry with shock. The mother decided the best course of action would be to slap the llama around the face. The llama seemed a little nonplussed by this and his ears went back and he squealed a bit. I decided to intervene, because I didn't like to see a llama being belted with a handbag, even a llama that had tried to have simulated sex with me against my will.

My intervention was masterful. The llama lost all interest in the handbag and instead began pecking at my shoelaces. One thing led to another and I am now sporting a beautiful llama love bite on my right calf. The bruise is about two inches long and quite a good shade of blue. I am of course being exceptionally brave.

Now there may be those who say that I was leading the llama on and that I deserve everything I get and you would of course be correct, but that llama was definitely giving off very mixed signals.

Smile like you mean it

June is festival season in Cuzco. Almost every day there are parades and processions and everyone dressed in their finest national dress and/or as gorillas clogging up the streets. The big one, Inti Raymi, takes place at the end of the month but before that we have Fathers Day. The kids at school are putting on a show for their dads. Unfortunately for everyone concerned, it's a dance show.

I don't know if you've ever tried to make a three year old dance against their will, but it's mighty tricky. My kids have perfected the art of starfishing, planting their legs into the floor and going rigid, with a shriek. The shriek is the worst bit because you never know if you've accidentally done serious damage. I recently got the shriek for almost a whole minute before I realised that I had my walking boot on the socked foot of the littlest child.

The required dances are not your average child friendly hokey cokey type affairs. The most partyish of the dances involves being given increasingly complex requests by singing drill sergeant. Head back! Tongue out! Arse out! Thumbs in the air! Penguin knees! Do a twirl! Try it (all actions at the same time, mind). I've had to dance like that every day for a week.

The other dances are traditional cuquenan dances, the peruvian equivalent of those awful country dances we learnt at school but with all shakira's best moves thrown in and everything sped up. The result is something called- i love this- Alcatraz. Herding half the class through this technical little routine, while simultaneously trying to stop the other twenty non combatants in the class from ripping each others throats out, has been tiresome. But of course there is always worse to come in these situations. The next dance, the Saya, is even more technically demanding although the kids have more opportunity to freestyle. The main problem with the Saya is that i am in it. Regretfully I am not a natural dancer. My sister has teased me for years that I dance like someone trying to wade their way out of a pond. Nowadays I use alcohol as an artificial enhancer but you can't really do that in a classroom and anyway I still look like a frog with electrodes attached. Nor do the cruel children help my self esteem.

teacher, move your hips. Move your hips teacher! That's your KNEES. You look really dumb.

Thanks, three year old, I knew that already.

'Copy Lucy!' shouts the teacher over the music. This is particularly ridiculous because she's dancing away herself, perfectly and effortlessly, while I'm suffering multiple dislocations and the agony of the damned. The kids, quite sensibly, refuse to copy me. They're quite good at the wiggly bits themselves and don't need any tips from the likes of me.

Smile! shouts the teacher. Smile for your dads! My own father is more likely to die laughing if he sees this particular routine and still the never ending music continues and we wiggle and wobble away.

Then the worst bit. The teacher says - you know, I don't think they'll manage on the day unless they have someone to copy. You don't mind, do you?

So this week my plan is to break my leg.

Election Fever

Those of you who don't necessarily follow Latin American politics (and frankly you should be ashamed of yourselves) may have missed the exciting presidential run off that took place this week in Peru. British readers may wish to skip the next few sentences as they contain information on an alternative type of voting which may be too complicated for you. To briefly summarise, in the event that no candidate gains a 50% majority Peru avoids the potential perils of a coalition government by compelling everyone to vote again having eliminated all but the top two candidates. I say compelling because it is in fact compulsory and furthermore in order to ensure that everyone votes reverently and soberly, they shut down all the bars from friday through to election sunday. Which is a bit of a pisser for us tourists, obviously.

Anyway, the run off was between two candidates from the opposite ends of the spectrum. On the right, a lady called Keiko Fujimori whose father, a previous president and sometime dictator, is in prison for 25 years for human rights abuses and possibly murdering his own citizens. The left wing opponent is a chap called Humala Ollanta, who the (controlled entirely by the right) media insist as portraying as a cross between Hugo Chavez and Voldemort. Oh, and he led a failed coup in 2006. All the polls showed a pretty much 50-50 split and the last few weeks have been pretty feisty on the campaigning front.

I mention any of this a) because it's educational and I thought it would be a departure from my usual fatuous drivel and b) because the general consensus was that if Ollanta got in he would immediately nationalise the entire country, throw out foreign businesses, sell Macchu Picchu to Chile (actually that was apparently a real life policy of Fujimori senior) and then to finish off, round up all the gringos and deport us. So we spent Saturday night hammering large crooked bits of wood over the windows in case of riots and then drank all the liquor in the house (in case looters broke in and stole it). And then guess what? Nothing happened. The socialist won, much to everyone's surprise, and immediately all my american housemates started worrying that their flights home would be cancelled. Those of us without imminent flights instead reasoned that the local currency would probably collapse and consequently when the bars re-opened we would end up with more rum cocktails to the pound. So while Peru was quietly reflecting on the momentous implications for the nation of this sway to the left, we just swayed around the garden with wine bottles. Politics and holidays, much like rum and sprite, just don't mix.