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Date: 16th October - 18th October 2006
Next morning we packed up our tents ready for our Journey on to Huaraz and I had to carry that damn chest again down the stairs man it kills the old shoulder muscles. Just before lunch time we stopped at some more ruins, this time they were Sechin ruins who were around a much longer time ago between 1500BC and 100AD. This was an ancient tribe who worshiped the mountains. The site was a big temple with engraving on the outside showing the glory of a battle they had fought in and won, there was a lot of decapitation and the collecting of eye balls which was quite gross, they kept them as trophys hehe. After looking around, as we were still the cook team, we put out lunch (which was nice ham we picked and turkey slices) and chopped all the tomatoes, cucumber and lettuce with the help of Russ and Pete again. After that we had a cool drive up the mountains, it was a feast for the eyes with spectacular views although of course we were going up into altitude again so we were drinking lots of water to combat the on coming headaches, as usual it affected me the worse :(. Huaraz is a really nice little town although in 1970 it was hit by a massive earthquake which killed over 70 thousand people! and considering the population is only 140 thousand now that was a massive proportion. Here we were actually staying in 2 hostals next door to each other, Mel and I were in Hatan Wasi and Rusty was next door in Joe´s place, they were both really nice and it was fantastic to have our own toilet, warm shower and soft bed after camping for almost a week. We had a short tour of the town with Mike before splitting up to get some grub, we went to this Bistro place with Deb, Felix, Ness, Pete, Brad and Mandy. I had a pepper steak, Mel a Thai Curry and Russ Steak strips, it was mega nice. Next day the 3 of us along with a load of others were booked on a tour to see the ruins of the Chavin temple that is underground. We left at 9 and had a 4 hour drive to get there we also stopped to look at a really picturesque view of lake Kerachota surrounded by mountains one was snow capped and shaped like a hand. Alot of local kids wanted photos with us three and the our irish mates at this photo stop by the lake it was so funny must have had about 20 photos with them, we all felt special haha. Our tour lady also told us a bit about the place that there are 666 glaciers around but they are all melting at a much faster rate that they used to, the highest temperate in the region until 5 years ago had been 25 they have since recorded 33, they are now having problems with water flowing down..... global warming is definetly kicking in and here the effects are being felt with a heavy blow! On the way we also passed through a tunnel going through the mountain, it had a huge Jesus statue on the other side to protect the people passing though, it was quite high at 4,516 metres, one guy on our bus passed out as we reached this height :(.
These ruins were again really good, the Sechin people existed at the same time as the Chavin people and there is currently a debate in Peru over which culture is actually the oldest. It has a huge centre square which the water was controlled to flow around, they believe the priests used to do this to control the people as they
worshiped the Puma, and the rushing water sounds like the Puma moving, fast would mean angry and displeased and slow would mean the opposite. The big undergound bit was fantastic it was huge and had loads of tunnels, was quite exciting walking around, it reminded me of the maze from Alien Vs Predator, and yes guess what I banged my head, I have already started amazing the people on the tour of how many times I bash it hehe. Just before the drive home we stopped for something to eat and I tried Guinea Pig (sorry girls), it wasnt too bad except you got the whole head with teeth and all the guts too...yuk! The drive home seemed long but they put the mummy on in spanish hehe! That night when we got back we went out for a night out in this cool pub called the X-treme bar. There is writing all over the walls and we added our Jersey mark, Mel also put a pound note behind the bar hehe. This was a mad night, we played giant jenga with drinking penalties and again there was dancing on the bar not to mention climbing on the ceiling beams hehe!
Next day Mel and I were booked on the white water rafting tour, there was 12 of us on the tour but no Russ as he just wanted to take a chill day around the town. Mel was feeling really rough from the night before and was close to being ill oops! We were split into 2 groups with a boat each and got taught all these comands, forward, back, left back, right back and rockside. Me and Pete were at the front of our boat and were told we would have a lot of work to do, we also had to help pump the boats up which was fun. Man it was great fun, we enjoyed every second although it was hard work and the water was a little cold. I also covered Mels legs in mud to protect them from the sun hehe :) We worked well as a team and although the boat got thrown around a bit we never got into too much trouble. We also stopped at this one point where there was this swimming challenge where you had to jump in and get across the current to touch a rock, it was bloody hard and only a few lads were brave enough to try it, only one suceeded though and touched the rock and that was me hehe shamon! Once we completed the grade 3 rapids we continued on through the grade 4 rapids which were harder but still a good laugh. Once we had finished we walked up a hill and had a short wait before we went to a little restaurant for something to eat, the guy there overcharged us and we had to help sort it out, he had charged some meals twice. That night we slept like rocks as we were so physically shattered!
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