Puddles

There is nothing like watching Wimbledon to make you feel British. So we were very pleased to discover that the tournament is broadcast across the continent. Of course, what makes you feel particularly British is watching Wimbledon put the covers on with rain lashing your windowpane. Given that I got sunburnt while climbing El Peru mountain on Wednesday- our way of celebrating an undeserved day off for a mysterious holiday called 'Pope Day'- the chances of rain didn't seem high. The average rainfall for Cusco in July is about sixteen drops, or so I have been told. So it came as a bit of a surprise to wake up on Friday to a steadily intensifying drizzle. Having spent the last five months basking in mid20s temperatures and golden light we didn't even know where our waterproofs were. Except for Chris's waterproof trousers. We knew exactly where those were because I had forbidden him to pack them when I did the Great Rucksack Cull in January. I felt a bit bad about that for a moment.
Cusco is not a city you should visit wearing white trousers, ever. Outside the historic tourist centre the roads are still unpaved, which means dust. Great clouds of it had been drifting over us while it was sunny, and now with the addition of the unexpected rain the dust and water have combined to leave huge puddles of thin hot chocolate all over everything. Where there is no hot chocolate there are great rucks and gouges out of the roads for cars to drive through, so that crossing every road results in a thorough soaking.

Apparently all of this is caused by either by the El Niño weather phenomenon or his less known sister La Niña, which bestirs itself every few years and makes rain where it should not. I wouldn't mind really- it made my pictures of the Incan ruins in the Sacred Valley look quite brooding and cloud capped. It is summer in England after all, and you can't expect to miss out on greyness and puddles just because you happen to have flown to the other side of the world. But I do mind. I mind quite a bit because last week we booked a trip to Machu Picchu and for a day of it we're going to be on bicycles.

I recall once riding my red bike across a tiny bump on a shallow downwards incline in Richmond Park and hitting a stone. I recall distinctly the sensation of flying over the handlebars and of lkanding on my knees and face simultaneously, grazing my chin on the concrete path. It hurt forever, it seemed. Then there's my friend Carl, who arrives at work by bike, often with a terrifying story of some perilously close near miss or with a bit of actual bike or leg missing. My own personally favoured arrival at Machu Picchu would involve being carried in a sedan chair by strapping men in loincloths. Bicycles would come somewhere near the bottom of the list. But cycling down a mountain in the rain? Forget it. Unfortunately it's paid for now and they don't do refunds so keep a weather eye out next week and do a little rain dance back home on my behalf. And if someone could also send Chris's trousers c/o the British embassy I would be much obliged.