Page 20 - 2010 AMA Spring

Trekking In The Home Of
£100 ARTICLE
Paddington Bear
Adventure training? Hill walking in Brecon anyone? Or moun-
warmly greeted by the kids, proudly showing off local dances and taineering in Peru? Luckily for eleven of us, representing 1 –
singing. Although our time at the Refuge was only short, it was long 4 MI Battalions, Lt. Hilton had organised a month long, truly
enough for LCpl Cooper to show off his football skill and Cpl Winks unforgettable expedition to the home of Paddington Bear. The
to dominate the volleyball court, a game traditionally played by Exped itself took advantage of the time needed to acclimatise to
females in Peru. We were struck by the opportunity that was given help build school accommodation in the Cuzco region, before
to these children, who without the help of Project Peru, had nothing. heading to the highly testing white peaks of Huaraz.
After mustering at Aldershot and being issued a mountain of kit, we met Carol for the first time. Carol is the highly eccentric head of Project Peru, the project we would be helping out with during our initial acclimatisation period. Project Peru is a UK based charity whose aim is to provide relief to vulnerable people living in the poverty that we were later to see for ourselves. During this meet- ing Carol enthusiastically outlined the adventure we were about to have, describing the warmth of the people along with the mission of the Project, whilst warning us of some of the unexpected treats that we may be facing, like eating guinea pig.
About twenty-four hours later we were driving from the airport, seeing the poverty that we had been warned about. Most striking- ly, we drove through areas that were extremely rich, contrasting
with the numerous small shacks, making up the slums of Lima.
On our arrival at Project Peru’s Lima Refuge, we were
After a very touching goodbye from the Refuge, we negotiated the Peruvian bus system to one of Project Peru’s satellite projects in the Cuzco area in southern Peru. From the densely populated, cloud engulfed slums of Lima, we arrived in the cloudless high vil- lages of the sprawling mountainous area.
We were lucky enough to arrive during the festival of St Peter and Paul, which entailed long speeches, lots of dancing and much homemade alcohol, all punctuated with the odd firework. Sadly our dinner of tripe soup was not the guinea pig that we had hoped for, but it did come from the cow that the village had sacri-
ficed in our honour. This was extremely hum- bling as almost all the houses in
the village were
made
Dave Brown
Arriving at the refuge below Ishinca, with Ranrapalca behind