The wonderful thing is that these floats were all hand-made by the children of the class.  I imagine that the children had a great time creating these floats together under the guidance of the teacher.  Simple but clever device was used.  I was very impressed.

This fiesta recalled me to my high school days.  We made a big paper doll of our class teacher after school in order to cheer for our team at the PE day.  Its hands and legs didn’t move.  It wasn’t illuminated either.  But even now, XX years after that day, we still cherish the memory when we gather together.     

These children will cherish the days of creating these floats together in the future.   

On our return that evening, we found Tarma having fiesta again.  You could see the letters “SR” on the photographs, which is the abbreviation of “San Ramón”.  This fiesta was the one for the San Ramón School. 

“A fiesta for one of the schools from THE San Ramón where I was bitten 15 places!  It is a surprise as San Ramón is in quite a distance from Tarma!”, I thought first.  Actually there is a school named San Ramón in Tarma. 

Each class made their own float mostly illuminated so that they reminded me of Nebuta Fiesta in Japan.  On each float was the children of the class and they looked very proud and enjoying the fiesta.

Telipogon sp. 

This reminds me of Protea. I wonder what this is.

*****

This is Oreocallis grandiflora.  It is in Proteaceae so no wonder it had reminded me of Protea.  This genus with 1 species in South America (Ecuador and Peru).  Ruiz and Pavón called this “Embothrium emarginatum” and it is in the first volume of “Flora Peruviana et Chilensis”, 1798.

Saul, the guide shouted for joy.  He found several flowers of Telipogon ariasii.  To be honest, I hadn’t known the genus Telipogon at all until this moment.  I loved it at first sight.  The width of the flower was about 4.5cm.

The name of this orhid was named after the surname of Manolo, Arias. 

This is Masdevallia eumelia, which was named after Manolo’s Mother, Eumelia. 

The newly discovered orchids are named after the person who had found it, or the person whom he/she loves, or the person whom he/she respects and so on.  I saw the orchids which were named after Manolo, or his brother, or his Mother, or his Father, or their surname, or Saul, the guide.

Saul said to me, “We might find new species, really”, and I dreamt of new species, Masdevallia mayumii.  Unfortunately we didn’t find one.

Epidendrum sp.　　

I was surprised to know this was an Epidendrum, with these plump leaves.

I saw a hummingbird in this cloud forest, too. 

I noticed something which moved so swiftly similar to cicadas.  Eventually I recognised it as a hummingbird and thought, Ooh!!!  I pressed the shutter of the camera and then took one step forward.  When I tried to see it through the finder again, there was nothing but tree branches.  It had disappeared leaving only the buzz.

Can you see it around the middle of this photograph?

The cloud forests are like these.  There is a small corner in the Princess of Wales Conservatory at Kew which reproduces a cloud forest, but I could not get the image of it.  I now understand what the cloud forests are, by experiencing it in Peru.  

Nearby was this Fuchsia sp.  Among the genus Fuchsia, a few are from New Zealand and Tahiti, but almost all are from the South America.  I heard that they are probably from Peruvian Andes.