Tilly Pitts Nasca Nightmare.

So after the news that 3 British tourists had died in a crash at the nasca Lines, the fact that we were travelling there one week later was never going to be great news for family back home.
Although it is strange that 3 British people dieing makes front page news in the UK but the 3 Peruvians that died in the same flight only made page 32 of the Sunday newspaper here.
So we got down to Ica where we were staying (see the previous blog) and we had an amazing day relaxing in the sun by the pool and then heading back to the beautiful oasis of Huacachina for drinks and food. After the Peruvian Police's attempts to turn this trip into another nightmare, the 30 degree temperature, sun, pool and desert oasis soon put all that behind us. Add to that the amazingly friendly staff at the Belle Sands Hotel and everything was back on track and we truely felt like we were on a summer holiday. We went to bed early, read for a while and then went to sleep for an early start to head down to the aforementioned Lines.
We had a quick breakfast and then headed back to the danger zone of the Peruvian roads. The journey down had been a chore due to PC Plod but this one was a different level of disaster thanks to the single carriageway, mountainous route and nowhere to bloody overtake lorries going at 30 miles per hour. It therefore took us 3 and a half hours to do a journey that should take about 2. Add to that the fact that we could not find the airport in Nasca (nothing is signposted in this country - not even speed bumps in the middle of major highways - yes you read that right speed bumps on roads that are an equivalent of the M1)and there was one very annoyed Mr Pitt sat in the front of the car.
We finally found the airport after Clare got out of the car to ask the poorest man in the world for directions. Not that these directions helped at all! Straight on and left was his answer to Clares much improved Spanish. We went straight and left and found ..........nothing. Clare then asked the second poorest person in the world the way - straight on and left he said. By this point we were not sure whether this was the answer to every question a tourist asks or whether they spoke a native Peruvian language and these were the only 2 words they knew in Spanish. Eventually straight on and RIGHT got us there. Well I say got us there- it got us to a place that was signposted airport, the fact that it looked like a field in the middle of a desert surrounded by a cobbled together wall would be a more accurate signpost. We looked at each other and it was clear that this is not a place that any kind of responsible parent would let their daughter go to. This is not the kind of place that any responsible adult would allow themselves to go to.
Imagine Heathrow airport built by people with no thumbs, no eyes, no co-ordination, no clue and no raw materials and you are still nowhere near what this place looks like. Needless to say - we turned around to go home again and stop off at the viewpoint in order to see the Worldfamous Lines from the safety of solid ground. But first we were all desperate for the toilet (well obviously Tilly wasnt but it was clear that she was desperate for a change by the smell that was now swirling around the hot and muggy car).
We looked for a place that would look clean enough to have an acceptable toilet and we kept looking and we kept looking; we passed 5 restaurants, 10 more restaurants, 53 more restauarnts and still each one looked like 4 sheets of cardboard held together by a plastic sheet thrown over the top. The food would have led to Peruivan Belly case number 6 for me and the toilets would not even be worth imagining. Finally we found a decent enough looking toilet at an Internationally recognised petrol station (safe enough surely).
On entrance to the toliet the smell was tangible, the number of flies made the room look dark even in the middle of the day and the walls, although brown in appearance had clearly once been painted white. The urinal was just about descernable at the back of the room as I clawed through the fly entrance curtain. I was desperate and there was no turning back now. As I was completing my much needed bodily function, I peered to the right and had I not already started my necessary deed, I would have run away as fast as I could.
In Peru, in the poorer areas, you are not meant to put toilet paper into the toilet but rather into the bin at the side of the toilet bowl. This bin is then emptied daily or hourly in the more up-market toiletries. However, This particular W.C. did not seem to think that daily emptying was needed, it also did not think that weekly empties were needed but rather a yearly waste collection would suffice. This had been the most sanitary appearing washroom in the whole of Nasca and now I was looking into a cubicle that resembled what Andy Dufrain has to crawl through at the end of Shawshank Redemption (apologies not for the graphic comments ((as I could never be graphic enough to re-produce this scene))but for the spoiler!). In England this place would have been shut down years ago, it would have had toxic health warnings - In Peru, it is the best of a bad bunch! After this unpleasant stop-off, what else could we do but go next door for chips!
Tilly was again centre of attention in the road side diner and yet another waitress went to pick up Tilly without asking. We could not really stop her as Tilly was alofted into the air before our eyes and the only saving grace was that she did ask before handing Tilly around the rest of the staff. The male manager seemed particularly taken by our smiling daughter as the waitresses took pictures of him holder this strange smiling giggling white baby.
Then came our trip to the viewpoint. I will have to stop calling it a viewpoint from this moment onwards as their is no VIEW and honestly no POINT to walking up the hill. You cannot see anything, you cannot make out what the lines are meant to be, you cannot see a monkey or humming bird or anything else the guidebook claims would be visble. You simply see a couple of big lines in what looks like the same desert you have been seeing for the last 6 hours of driving. The Nasca Lines may look spectacular from the air but you have to enter the airport of death first and other that this, the town is dirty, packed and poorly signposted and there is nowhere to eat or go to the loo.
Our journey home was the highlight of the Nasca trip as Ron's Rock VI blared out of the radio and 'We Built This City' could be heard echoing for miles around the baron desert wastelands of Peru.

The Pitts, policeman, pelicans and paracas

We finally made it to the end of the 10 week term and have been rewarded with 6 days off school. We kindly had a car lent to us by some friends from school and so headed off down south to search for sun.

The damp grey of Lima had soaked through to the marrow and we knew it would take a serious dose of sunning to get our bodies back to normal functioning speed.

We firstly however had to deal with my first experience of driving in this mad city. Lima, where the only rules of the road are that there are no rules. You can cut anybody up as long as you stick your hand out of the window, it seems that if you are female you are not allowed to drive without a phone attached to your ear, you are not allowed to check your wing mirrors - just go – and never ever think about checking your blind spot. On top of that, never use your indicators and in stead use your horn to let people know that you are about to veer into their lane, don’t worry about MOTs or emissions – as long as your car can go forward (however slowly) it is ok to drive and do not worry about how many men you have hanging out of the top of your lorry or out of the side of your bus – remember you can always fit more in there!

So with the rules of the road fully memorised we headed off. We started out at 5.30 in the morning to try and make the journey out of the city easier but the thing we forgot is that starting that early just makes you more obvious (especially with two very white people driving a car packed to the brim with Tilly’s stuff!). So we made it to an hour outside of Lima when the police called us over.

The police had set up a road block just outside the coastal resort of Asia and as far as we could tell – all they were there for was to make money! They pulled us over, saw we were tourists and then went through everything that they could possibly fine us for. We had our passports colour scanned, we had our driving licences, we had all the relevant car documents (thanks Jason), I had only had one beer the night before, we were driving well under the speed limit and so surely there was nothing they could fine us for – WRONG! Firstly they tried telling us that we only had a permit to drive in the city and we were outside of city limits (I pleaded ignorance and just spoke really quickly at him in English), he realised that this was a silly excuse and so rather than going for a more sensible way to fine us he said that we were to be fined for driving in the left hand land of a dual carriageway! I tried hard not to laugh, now knowing the police could make up any old excuse at all to fine you and so asked how much the fine was. Clare was conscious of me now communicating in Spanish when we were trying to plead ignorance and so gave me a quick poke in the ribs and the ignorance game continued. He pointed at a random fine in the booklet (400 dollars!!!!) even though the offence next to the fine did not match what he was saying we were now very clear that this was not an English type of pull over. We were not in control, there was no innocent until proven guilty and no ticket that we could then pay at the local police station. This man was like a Peruvian Judge Dredd – He was the law! I asked where we could pay the fine (knowing that tourists do not have to pay roadside offences as there is no way of tracking them down) he was well aware of this and said we had to pay now.
Whilst he was saying this, I snuck my wallet to Clare for her to remove as much money from it as possible (I think that is also what many husbands will say as their wives depart on yet another shopping trip!). But as we looked in, the smallest bill we had was a 100 soles (just over 30 dollars for those reading in England) and so this was going to have to be our bribe.
As I said, this was no English pull over and so bribery is always an option. I therefore slipped him the 100 under my licence. He looked at it, slipped it into his pocket and he handed back all of our documents. We were free to go.
The ignorance had not worked, Clare pleading “senor – bebita” had not worked, the fact that we had not done anything wrong had not worked and so money was the final option.
He then repeated my name another couple of times as if to scare me but actually I was just impressed the man could say Jonathan and then with a final reminder that we had to drive on the right hand side – we were off – free from the law and the seriously corrupt police that we had just passed. The only thing that made us feel better was that they were doing exactly the same to every car and I would imagine were earning more money than there pay packet gives them in a year.
Now I do not have a problem with people earning an honest living. There are millions of people in this country living in poverty, there are beggars, shoe shiners, sweet sellers, combi drivers, illegal DVD sellers, car parking men, watchy men, bodega owners, street performers, bag packers……. The list goes on and on. They are poor, poorer than an English person can even imagine (most ex-pats here just don’t think about it and just carry on enjoying their blissful, sheltered existence) but they all have one thing in common; THEY WORK HARD! This country thinks it is based on the rich people that live in their botoxed, bubble but it is actually supported by the poor people that work tirelessly and always with a smile on their faces and not due to plastic surgery gone wrong!. They are the real Peru, they are the foundations of what may eventually make this country powerful again but it could all be ruined by PC Pedro and his merry gang of thieves. The fact that tourists can get stopped and exploited will not exactly help the economy of this place. The tourist attractions I will rave about in this blog will not be enhanced by this behaviour and it will merely put people off coming here. It will make people think twice before they click on that Peruvian flight when they can go to the Niagra Falls, Uluru, Phuket for the same price and in the knowledge that they will not be exploited by crooked policemen.

Sorry- I feel that I have now ranted enough and am ready to continue with the Paracas tale (see the above blog)

Tilly Pitt and the Pizza Party

Just to keep people up to date with the adventures of Tilly Pitt in Peru - she is now gurgling mumbled nonsense regularly, putting anything and everything that she can grad straight into her mouth, grabbing random people's faces anytime they get too close and she is starting to eat food and what an eater she is! The All Great and Powerful Gina Ford warned that starting food could be a difficult job and finally she has been proven wrong. Tilly has taken to eating like her dad takes to ... well eating! She loves avacado, she loves peas, she loves carrots, she loves banana, she loves cabbage, she loves cauliflour- if it fits onto her incredibly colourful sppon then she is sure to open wide and let it in (Grandparents dont worry, although the blog is titled Tilly Pitt and the Pizza Party, it is just because of the photo - Not because we have started her on Pizza yet!)
Her swimming is also coming along nicely. She swam for 5 seconds yesterday. Well, when I say swam - Clare held her under teh water for 5 seconds. This ritual drowning then seems to be contragulated by the big 'gay'Peruvian swimming instructor. Now when I say gay - I mean big jovial and bubbly and in very much the old fashioned sense of the term. Even after a couple of months I have never seen this man stop singing, stop smiling or stop humming his version of childrens songs. He is the incredible smiling man and I am sure that he must get home and keep on singing to himself all day long.
This week also saw us venture to Bon Jovi but the excitement of that day will have to be saved for the next Blog!

Jonathan Pitt and the Incredibly Long Term

Phew! What a long and tiring term. 3 parents evenings in the last 3 weeks, a ten week term, 3 options evenings and multiple after school meetings on top all go to make me one officially knackered out teacher. The good news is that I still think that Tilly recognises me after I have hardly seen her over the past few weeks but then again I cant really tell as she just smiles at anyone and everyone anyway.
On their walk to the supermarket Tilly and Clare seem to have accumulated a group of random friends. The watchman on the corner is a regular (and he has to say hello as we pay him) but the others are a wonderful rag-tag group.
There is the old man at the bulding site who shouts at anyone making lude comments towards Clare, there is the lady with no teeth who takes a break from begging to shout out how 'Linda' (cute) Tilly is looking, there is the security guard from the fish restaurant that always stops to smile and talk to Tilly, there is the sweet store lady who runs over to say how smily Tilly is, there is the illegal DVD seller, the car parking man with the hunch back, the man who dresses like a woman and the Peruvian man that slurs his English as he asks us around for drinks becuase he has heard "English people love their beer". All these people get the same greeting - Tilly pulls off a huge smile and wiggles her legs incesantly. They love it and it all adds to the increasing group of people that stop Clare and Tilly on their travels around Lima.
The delay in writing the blog comes from the 3 month period without Internet and also the amount of work I am having to do in the Geography department. This week should see a turn around in the work (after I have finished my reports and coursework marking) and we finally have Internet thanks to the big dongle that we now have.
So chiao for now and hopefully the blogs will be back to becoming more regular again!