Written by: jade
Friday, August 15, 2008

There are hamsters on the menu.

The question marks are upside down ¿

People are herding sheep up the main drag.

Your room looks like a military line-up of empty 2 litre water bottles and you´´re still thirsty.

There are condor on the clouds. And vultures on the roadside.

You buy your $5 watch and feel proud and out-doorsy.

Your socks are not to be left in the open air.

The girl who sells you a soccer ball is wearing a large green iguana.

Ladies in bowler hats and wide, woolly skirts are selling you the world´s best avocados for 30cents each ... and a bunch of roses is $1.

The 'supermarket' is all outdoors, undercover of cheap plastic sheets that crack and whip in the mountain winds like limp sails on a harbour of spectacular horrors. The Veggie section is radiant with the gloaming of real fruit ... fruit that glows with the true colours of tomato, of strawberry, of apple ... colours we have forgotten back home. The carrots, potatoes, corn and grains come in more varieties than even I have metaphors for, and look like they were each grown gently and quietly in the bosom of the soil, and show the creases where they were made. The meat section made a few of the team a little pale. To say the least. Cuts include pig face, pig jaw, chicken guts )in assorted varieties), cow feet, offal sausage and who dares to imagine the rest.. all attended meticulously by flies.

Girls on Top 2008 have arrived! Let{s skip over the 3'day transit out of Sydney via Buenos Aires )nice day at the market and delicious lunch overlooking tango dancers and treasure sellers) ... shame about the lack of movies, audio, lights or vegetables on the flight... it was a passage to forget. But here in the mountains we are getting aclimatised )read fending off the bone's having headache of first days over 3000m, a few waves of nausea, some close encounters of the porcelain type, and cases of sudden fatigue, sunburn, inability to do simple sums like... if I buy one bottle of water for 3 Peruvian soles, and another one for 3 Peruvian soles... how much... weird ideas of humour and extra long confusion when trying to be decisive with a menu)

Everybody has so far admitted that it feels a little weird to have suddenly jetisoned ourselves out of blue'sky Sydney, Townsville, Melbourne and Berkely and arrived here... just like that! Shopping in the markets yesterday was frenzied and furious and I do believe I saw a pretty high degree of awareness that we were not in Cansas anymore at the food market too.

Today I stayed in bed until 3pm nursing the evils of a headcold and Sydney flu that has amplified its attentions here at 3000m in Huaraz. The team made 2km ascent of the devilishly steep, but twinkly rewarding Churup mountain to see its aqua lake. For the first time at altitude they seemed to do well, but you might not have thought so at first, seeing Girls on Top draped in various defeated poses around the furniture at our hotel at 5pm this afternoon. Onward and Upward Girls!!

The weather is clear. Blue, hot, dry wind and we have missed a nasty rain spell... off on a baby trek tomorrow to get a bit more practice before we head out into Huayhuash for the real deal on Friday.

Stay tuned ... Jade x

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