This was our first rest day in six, the previous five all being quite challenging riding on "mixed surface roads". We have been heading west and now north in Peru towards the Cordillera Blanca which is part of the Andean Mountains, and they have now come into view. Eventually we will travel west to the Coast then north to from Trujillo to Punta Sal and onto Ecuador.
On our rest day, I was determined to actually rest, as it was tempting to ride to a high lookout nearby, but I did not do that and I am not sure that anyone did. Last night, I had arrived here first and the others soon after with Jeff being last on his bike. Right outside the front of the (very good) hotel, was a new road-hump as there are everywhere in Peru, and he caught his bike stand on the end of it, tipping the bike on its side again, with his foot trapped under the frame. I was the only one present, but with a local man, managed to get the bike off him. However he had damaged his shoulder again, the one that had had such major surgery from other accidents on other rides in Africa and Europe. This was his sixth tip-over that I can count for this trip and he was in real pain, but managed to stand up. JC took him to hospital for an X-Ray, and it appeared that both the cartilage was torn and the bone was actually broken from the day before when he had crashed in the drain in front of me. So the decision was made to drive him overnight to Lima, and fly him home to Japan tomorrow. JC went with him to the Lima airport in a hire car and should be back the next day for our Team Dinner.
During the day, we walked down the hill to see the Square or Plaza da Armas as they are called in pratically every small Peruvian town. There were hundreds of young people in the street celebrating a Catholic Festival which actually runs for a fortnight. They were all dressed up in local costumes and dancing in the street with oompah bands playing their drums loudly. We walked to a nearby church, where they were singing mass for three hours then headed to a nearby hill which is an Ancash (previous to Incas) archeological ruin called Parmacayan, but it was closed until 10am so we returned later.
The main square was small and very well kept, in fact Huaraz is a very tidy town for Peru. It has all the normal Government State and Municipal buildings around it plus a small museum to the Ancash people who occupied from about 1200 BC and came down from the Bering Straits land-bridge as did the American Indians. Of particular interest were the hand tools, weapons and more importantly the ceramic pots, which were beautifully decorated. The museo was crowed with groups of school children who were all very intersted in the stories told by their teacher. Some were however, more interested in why the gringos were in the museum too!
As we walked back to the hotel, I passed a small fa mily hair dresser and went in to have my hair cut back to the scalp which was fun as she spoke no English at all, however the word "zero" was well understood and I had a very good hair cut for less than three dollars.
We eventually made it to the top of the Ancash Hill and ruins from where there is a glorious view of the mountains all covered in snow. One is Huscaran which my friends from ANU climbed all of those years ago.
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