The Earth + Nat

After the last few posts about bus drama, I thought I would write a bit about crossing between destinations on this enormous continent. In pretty much every country, buses are how you get around. They're no stinky Greyhounds either - the inter city buses here are on another level compared to pretty much anywhere else. Double decks, fully reclining seats, easy online booking, bathrooms, movies of varying quality and occasionally even food service. There are several reasons for this: in most countries, the local airlines are a shambles and not very cost-effective, trains are freight-only with few exceptions, and buses provide locals with a cheap way to transport heavy goods. In most places there would be a few locals packing large sacks and boxes of who knows what in the luggage bay next to my backpack for no extra charge on most bus lines. Argentina definitely led the way in quality, where I sometimes got hot meals on long hauls, but they were also insanely expensive. Chile was ...

After leaving the All Hands project, I was sorely (very sorely) in need of a break before I restarted my travels in earnest. What better way to relax that by hitting one of Peru's best beach resorts? I arrived in town and quickly got disoriented, which was quite an achievement as there are only about 5 streets. I was going to go to what looked like a party hostel, but stumbled instead upon a sandy campground. I had acquired a crappy tent from someone at All Hands so I was ready to take advantage, and for $4 per night how could I not? I think the town would be best described as Byron Bay without the hippies. It's warm day and night, with a thriving party scene and that delightful griminess that beach resorts inevitably have. The water was warm, and there was a nice point break to catch some waves on. Oddly these nice waves ran over the only rocky patch on the beach which was only waist deep below the surface at points, so you had to watch where you wiped out!  Unfortu...

For all my work at All Hands, I've been given a few seconds of fame to show the world what we're up to. Take a look!

So after extending my stay in Huarmey to the end of the project, I accepted another offer to travel north with the project to the small village of Puerta Pulache, near the northern border of Peru. This area was the worst affected during the floods. While Huarmey was also badly affected, their floods were caused by mud washing downstream from the hills, while in the north the rivers around the urban areas flooded and the currents pulled houses and roads apart. Holes, endless holes Why are we in this particular village? During the floods, the local secondary school was totally destroyed, which served not only Puerta Pulache, but kids from a group of hamlets in the surrounding area. With similar problems facing other schools in the area, local authorities ran out of money to replace it properly. They were able to put up a plywood temp school, but that won't survive the next wet season. All Hands has stepped in to provide a permanent set of classrooms for the secondary school...

Rise up Huarmey! While we work hard here at All Hands, we do get to play hard here and there. The town itself, though hardly a tourist destination even before the floods, is actually pretty charming in a way. It's a normal enough place - a thriving fishing town, an administrative centre for the province and a hub of local trade straddling the Panamerican highway. However, it is large enough to have secret places and discoveries, and a chance to immerse ourselves in a culture that is not at all oriented to the tourist dollar. Huarmey from the hills For starters, the people. They are an absolutely lovely bunch. These guys are still getting used to the presence of foreigners in their town, to the point that some people will openly stare at you in the street. Despite this, they are almost always super friendly to us. Of course, the fact that we are helping their town has a part to play in that, but you can tell the friendliness is genuine. It's little things: the exci...