Bollocks!

The day did not get off to a good start. Lawrence, our expedition leader and liberal American thought best to set the scene by leading a group Yoga session. Worse still, there were promises of lots more during the trip! I was quite amused by the less than perfect setting of the building site amongst the foot hills of the surrounding mountains! I have to add at this point that, yes, I declined to participate. I took a couple of good photos though!

Today, being somewhat of a free day, left us with time on our hands. So in the afternoon we went on a hike of the local ravine at the bottom of the village. This walk offered up some great mountain views and gave us an opportunity to try out some very dodgy Peruvian engineering in the form of bridges over some death defying gorges.

We gathered on the edge of an overhang for a group shot. Everyone cuddles in close and I figure I'll stand at the back, out of the way. Only the rock which I chose to stand on as a final resting place turns out to be rather loose. It gave way as I applied pressure sending it tumbling down and over the precipice. The only thing to grab a hold of was a spiky bush which made regaining my balance rather tricky. I was just about getting there when my calamity became apparent to the rest of the group, who all screamed and lunged at me to grab a hold. They may have meant well but due to the shock of their screams, my startled instinct was to back away from them over the cliff! What followed was a bit of a give and take before being wrestled to safety and being allowed to regain my balance for the group photo! Phew!

It was a walk back along the gorge, over the dodgy Peruvian bridge and back to the house for dinner and drinks.

But not before we visited the local hot springs! This place was the equivalent of the local baths, only with all the blazing hot water provided geothermally! It was a good frolic with playful antics amongst friends, though being the stranger in town I just watched on. Afterwards, the bus seemed anxious about my disappearance as I was the last (by some time) to board. But their nerves were settled when I disclosed my newly acquired bounty of beers!

Bio Bio expeditions had kindly made us all some delightful Peruvian hats with their logo embodied on the front. Looking like gormless gnomes we started on the card games. The favourite of the night was Bullshit (where you lie about what cards you put down). Only after I involuntary uttered a British expletive upon seeing some obvious cheating (and the Americans loving quaint British swearwords) the game soon changed its name to Bollocks!

Knowing we were in for a long walk tomorrow we all retired early, after each and everyone had their fill of Bollocks of course!

Posted by Steve Eynon