the end of the Peru holiday

 My short holiday in Peru comes to an end today, and it has been fun, although sitting here in multiple layers of clothing in Cusco and still freezing cold, I am certainly looking forward to getting back to the warmth of Panama!

I did go back over some old ground on this trip: a second boat trip around the Ballestas Islands; and second views of the Inca ruins at Sacsayhuaman and Pisac.  I saw more trepanned and elongated skulls, and more Inca mummies.  But I also saw a number of new places.  Arequipa is a great city (as is Cusco despite being too cold - and too touristy), the Colca Canyon is impressive, the floating islands tour on Lake Titicaca is a massive tourist shopping trap - to be avoided - and the Inca ruins at Ollantaytambo are not to be missed.

My favourite sites of this trip though were rather unexpected.

This is the active Sabancaya volcano, seen from the 4,910m pass at Patapampa, on our way to the Colca Canyon.  It was cold, of course, but the early morning sun was glistening off the snow on the rocky ground, and then with the bonus of this volcano ... absolutely stunning.

Also stunning were the salt pans, or Salinas, at Maras.

Extremely salty water from a spring has been channeled into a series of hundreds of ponds - each owned by a local family - from which (once the channel is temporarily blocked) the water is allowed to evaporate and the remaining salt is collected and sold.  The process takes only a few weeks.  It was one of those rare places that made me go "Wow!" - out loud - when the bus turned the corner and the salt pans came into view.

Finally, there were two small village churches - at Chincheros and Andahuaylillas - with amazing painted ceilings and walls, although unfortunately no photos allowed in either place.

Huacachina - is this what tourism means?

Huacachina is a small oasis in the southern sand desert of Peru, apparently a once tranquil place where one could bathe in the lagoon and wander amongst the peaceful sand dunes.  But then it began to develop into a more active tourist destination, with backpackers coming in to go sand-boarding down the dunes, zooming around in noisy dune buggies, peddling around the lagoon in garish plastic boats, and partying all night on cheap pisco sours.

I spent a night there as it is on the route going south down the Peruvian coast, and it sounded nice despite the dune buggies.  I did find the odd nice corner such as this mini-lagoon a dune away from the main one:

There were moments of tranquility (between passing dune buggies).  It truly was a beautiful setting.

However, the presence of so many temporary visitors leads to much more consumption locally.  Not just in whatever fuels those awful buggies, but in the acres of plastic bottles and bags that people seem unable to do without these days.  When I travel I carry a water bottle with me, fill up from the tap, and add a chlorine tablet - and sometimes a neutralising tablet to get rid of the chlorine taste, but not always.  As far as I know these do no direct harm to the environment, although there is of course some environmental impact in their manufacture and packaging.  But - despite this also being cheaper than buying bottled water - no-one else seems to do this.  With the result that the above mini-lagoon looks like this if you walk a little further down:

(with dune buggy on the sand dune behind, grrr!).  & the yellow-crowned night heron I was so pleased to see was surrounded by plastic waste:

I used to have hope that we could sort out our environmental problems.  I started giving to Greenpeace some 35 years ago and they are still the main beneficiary of my will.  I am mostly vegetarian (100% vegetarian at home, and mostly so when I travel though will eat meat to avoid inconveniencing people), for environmental reasons as I do like meat, I always use public transport (have never owned a car), and I try not to consume more than I need to - although I do recognise the negative impact of all my flights around the world, of course.  I will continue all this for the rest of my life, as I would feel selfish and irresponsible to live any other way.  But sadly I no longer feel sure that it is worth the effort.  The world's population keeps on increasing, we keep on consuming more and more, and finding more stupid ways of using up finite resources whilst churning pollution into the environment (bitcoin??  using more energy to 'mine' the coins than most countries use in a year - so that people can use them to evade taxes and other obligations or to gamble on their value?).  I no longer feel much hope, and sometimes even wish that some deadly new disease could sweep the planet and wipe out half the population.  As I say, I will continue to try to keep my own contribution to the damage low, but knowing at the same time that there is probably no point.

Peru - and thinking about Senegal

Straight after my assignment in South Sudan I had another in Peru - so with two weeks' leave still to use up by the end of the year I thought the easiest option would be to stay on in Peru, and visit a few places down in the south of the country where I haven't yet been.  But life is never that simple.  My new boss - still learning the trade, I guess - made a mistake with her calendar as a result of which a meeting had to be scheduled - in the UK - for mid-December.  Straight after my Peru assignment.  So instead of travelling around Peru I was in the bitter cold and snow of the UK, reminding me once again of the need to put off my return 'home' for as long as I possibly can.

By the time all this happened it was too late for me to think of some alternative holiday (somewhere I could have gone directly from the UK, perhaps?), so I used up my remaining air miles to fly back to Peru once the UK meeting was over.  I had an afternoon in Lima to start with, so treated myself to a meal at Maido, currently ranked as the eighth best restaurant in the world.  I didn't go for what the restaurant is famous for, however - the 13 course tasting menu at $130, or even more if you have the recommended drinks with each course - but just one of the cheaper main dishes from their a la carte menu.  A kind of seafood risotto with a seafood omelette draped over it, accompanied by a glass of 'vinmuth' (wine steeped overnight in herbs).  It was nice but did not make me feel like I was in a world class restaurant.  But I'd really gone there for the experience: arriving rather before 7pm in order to get the one slot that cannot be reserved in advance; having all the staff call out 'Maido!' (Japanese for welcome) as you walk in; and watching the guy next to me go through the first few courses of the tasting menu.

I have no idea what he ate as the food was beautiful but unrecognisable (little colourful blobs on equally colourful bases), although I overheard bits of the extremely long descriptions of his first two courses, especially the instruction that the second course be consumed in one mouthful as it was designed to explode in the mouth...  Dining at Maido was an enjoyable experience but also a valuable lesson, as I left 30% of my one dish - not because of any issues with its quality, but because I was already full.  I realised that my decision on where to retire will not need to take any account of the availability of top quality dining opportunities as those are wasted on someone with as small an appetite as mine.  As long as I can buy good quality (preferably cheap) fruit and vegetables I shall be happy food-wise!

I've been thinking a bit about retirement recently, as my contract in Panama comes to an end on 3 April.  Luckily I do have an option within my current organisation, as my old position in Senegal has become vacant and I would be eligible for a second posting there.  I was disappointed that the East Africa position was made available for locals only (ie for Kenyans, as the job is based in Kenya), but then intrigued and confused about the possibility of returning to Senegal, taking a weekend of deep thinking before deciding to send in my application.

Those of you who know me may be surprised that I didn't jump at the opportunity to apply to return to Senegal, which I loved so much.  In part it is through fear that it won't be the same second time around.  I won't get to live again in that beautiful apartment, my friends have all departed, the management team in the office has changed...  Also, just the fact that I've already been there.  You've seen how busy I've been during my time here in Latin America, squeezing in trips to every corner of the continent in any spare moment - but I've already seen all those corners of West Africa.  In the end, however, it was this factor that encouraged me to apply.  Whilst I've loved every minute of all the travelling I've done here, it does take its toll.  I never have time to rest, I never have time to build a social life, I never have time to listen to music or read a book - and I realise that I need to re-learn to do those things.  The main alternative I had in mind to applying for that post is early retirement, which I could afford to do if I chose to live somewhere cheap like Nicaragua.  But I was a little scared of this option - what would I DO all day??  An hour a day working to regain my fitness, perhaps, another hour reading a book, maybe a third hour online, reading the newspapers and commenting on friends' facebook posts ... but then what?  So I'm hoping I am successful in my application for the Senegal post.  An opportunity to return to a place that I loved (the local music and culture will still be there even if the apartment isn't), where the work feels very worthwhile - and where I have more time to myself, to learn to relax again in preparation for the future.