Tuesday 24, 2009

Hello All
Om Sunday, we got a taxt to Samaipata, a small village 100 km from Santa Cruz. The ride was one of the scariest of my life. Our driver attacked the winding mountain road at top speed, passing all vehicles whether he could see around the curves or not. He wore a seat belt. We had none available. Miracle or miracles we arrived safely.

We booked into a terrific hostel (one of our nicest rooms because it has no television, no air conditioning and it has three windows and a balcony!) We have to pay a 25% surcharge because of Carnival. I told the owner I thought we should get a discount for having to put up with the non stop shinanigans! Anyways we´ve had three days of drunken partying, loud loud music from many different bands playing at the same time, (all different tunes) and constant water fights, paint ball, foam spray, and fire crackers.

Yesterday, to avoid some of the mayhem, we took at taxi 10 to 12 km up a mountain to Le Fuerte, a large preinkan ruins. We spend an interesting couple of hours touring the site (it´s a UNESCO site), five hundred remains of building and a gigantic carved rock surfact. Then we hiked back to town. Although I found the hike long and tiring, I loved the cliffs, the path, the foliage, a soaring condor, flocks of parakeets and the quiet!

Today, I did one sketch and painting from one of the decks in the hostel. Then I did a second quarter sheet painting a bit up the mountain looking down on some clotheslines, tiles roofs and the mountains in behind. I was often surrounded by at least a dozen kids. I gave everyone canada pins. At the end there was just one little girl so I gave her a set of paints, paper, and brush etc. She was thrilled.