Day 4

Hugo picked us up at 9, heading for the airport. Turned out that the flight back to Lima was delayed by 1.5 hrs. So we spent the time with coffee and making phone calls to the people we were scheduled to meet in Lima in the afternoon. Eventually the airplane arrived and again we had a spectacular flight.
Sr. Figueroa picked us up at the airport in Lima, and somehow we were just a few minutes late for our appointment with Deputy Environmental Minister Eduard Durand, who is in charge of the government's special climate change agency. Turned out that Sr. Durand was busy and asked us to return at 6 p.m. which gave us a little bit of time to pass by Hotel Senorial to dump our suitcases and freshen up a bit.
A little before 4 p.m. we entered OSINFOR (Organismo de Supervision de los Recursos Forestales y de Fauna Silvestre), the new Peruvian agency in charge of the rain forest, and the bold program to prevent deforestation. Its predecessor - no names - was dissolved, partly due to all the corruption.
Environmental minister Antonio Brack has put forward a plan to stop deforestation in just ten years. A bold plan, but OSINFOR's boss Dr. Richard Bustamante couldn't really explain how it would be done. Especially since there are only some 60 rain forest police...
In the evening, we decided to get a taste of the pollo de brasa of Lima. An upscale version of KFC. And of course a trip to the favorite grocery store, Vivenda, for some treats.

Day 3

Woke up early. Had a wonderful breakfast at the hotel - we were the only guests and treated as royalty.
Hugo and Kate picked us up at 9 and we went to the nearby town of Yungay (that suffered badly in the 1970 earthquake and mudslide). We had an appointment with Miluska Ordonez and Alcide Vilela from NGO ITDG - Soluciones Practicas. We had just started the interview when we could hear police sirens, a marching band, fireworks and people chearing -- another independence day celebration passing by on the main street.
Miluska and Alcide took us along up to Hashao, a small farming village that they are helping when it comes to e.g. water management. We met with a couple of farmers and enjoyed the tremendous views of Huascaran, Peru's highest peak.
Both Copa and Hashao are in the Cordillera Blanca, where you will also find the glaciers. Across the valley is Cordillera Negra, and as the name implies - no glaciers. We convinced Hugo to take us across to visit another village, where we met with Don Alejandro who could tell us about the hardship with less and more erratic rainfall, frost and new pests. He also showed us his "cuy farm" - just like most people in this valley he was keeping guinea pigs that is known as a delicious treat. Some folks say it tastes like duck!
But our late lunch just had to be trout!
In the evening Jon wanted to do some work at the hotel, and I went along with Hugo and Kate back to Huaraz to finish the interview with Kate for the profile on the life of an anthropologist. As darkness fell, Hugo drove me back to Carhuaz, and while his English is about as bad as my Spanish, we had an hour of intense language course on the way back.

Day 2

Early morning wake-up. Taxi to the airport to catch the LC Busre flight to Anta, a small airport in the Cordillera Blanca. The airplane, a twin-engine propeller plan, seating about twenty people. As we arrived we could see North American anthropologist Kate Dunbar and our faithful driver Hugo waiting. A dear reunion.
Hugo took us to the hotel in nearby Carhuaz, where we could dump our luggage. We stopped at the city square in Carhuaz to have a taste of what we were told was the region's best ice cream. Hundreds of people, dressed in beautiful folklore dresses were gathered in the square - partly to pick up a monthly government check. Great footage. But one of the women got really upset with Jon's video camera, and thought it'd be suitable with a small token for the trouble. When he didn't immediately reached for his wallet, she slapped his arm several times. Could have turned ugly!
After finishing our ice cream cups, he headed up the mountain side to Copa Grande, a small farming village that sits at the foot of the beautiful, but rapidly retreating Copa glacier.
Marco was away for the day, he plays in the local band and had a gig playing as a nearby village were celebrating their independence day. We met with Marcelino Cruz, the former president of Copa to talk about the changes in farming and climate. Marcelino is only 34, but in his lifetime he has seen the glacier retreat about two kilometers up the mountain, he told us.
Walked down the dirt road toward the small market, as we were witnesses to a tremendous thunderstorm. Thunder claps echoed between the mountain peaks. Beautiful and some astonishing sounds!
Caught in the rain we returned to the room Kate rents in the Cruz' home to do additional interviews.
Before dusk, Hugo drove us to Huaraz, where we first visited Kate's apartment, and then had a great meal in a restaurant at Plaza de Periodista (yep, the Journalists' Plaza).

Day 1

We arrived shortly after midnight. Sr. Rafael took us on a nightly ride through Lima, passed by several Las Vegas-looking casinos and late-night hang-outs. Checked in at our Hotel Senorial in the heart of Miraflores.
After a few hours sleep, we met with our local producer Sharon Stevenson. The plan was to do some b-roll video - but the haze (or fog?) didn't really allow it. Spent an hour or so on the beach walk, along with paragliders and off-work Limanites.

Leaving Anta

This little snippet of video is only modest quality, taken with my little Webby cam, but it shows the ability to get little clips online pretty quickly.

This was shot at the Anta airport, in north central coastal Peru, as we were getting ready to fly back to Lima. The flight was considerably delayed, which wreaked havoc with out tight schedule. However, when we arrived in Lima, it turned out that the government minister we were to meet was unprepared to meet us - despite earlier communication to the contrary. He kindly agreed to meet later in the day, which gave us a couple of hours to catch our breath and get more work done that day.

This little snippet is just before all that pressure, as we were leaving our Cordillero adventures.

WiFi!!!!

Claes: Four days in Bagua, with no WiFi. Amazing adventures, doing fine and will update blog as soon as we are back in Lima.

Where Have all the Glaciers Gone?

Jon: It's hard to summarize the overall meaning of the trip to Peru with Claes. Certainly, environmental change in that amazing country, was our key story. But we also covered civic violence over resource exploitation, and the booming cuisine scene in Lima. Over the course of two weeks, we recorded 30 interviews, 24 hours of audio, 16 hours of video, and close to 700 photos. For me, the trip was as much a luxury escape from Los Angeles, school, and the weekly drill of my life. The circumstances weren't luxurious, but getting away was. For Claes, this trip shows how he earns his bread and butter. There were so many stories that we followed, but I am only posting this one video as an overview of what we accomplished.