Category Archives: Trip to Peru to paint the orchids in their natural habi

22/8/2006 to 5/9/2006 and thereafter

Trip to Peru, the 2nd day No.2

Trip to Peru--2nd day

Ticlio, 4818m 

We drove A20 north-east towards Tarma.  The mountains got closer to closer.  These mountains are not the mountains you can see even in Japan.  Much higher.  Mt Fuji, the highest mountain in Japan is 3776 metres (12388 feet).  These mountains along A20 in Peru are more than 4000 meters (13123 feet) – 5000 metres (16404 feet) in elevation. 

Not surprising when you find out that the highest mountain in Peru, Huascarán is 6768 metres (22205 feet) in elevation, which is nearly 3000 metres (9843 feet) higher than our Mt Fuji.  En passant, the highest mountain in the UK is Ben Nevis in Scotland which is 1345 metres (4413 feet) high.  The highest mountain in Wales is Mt Snowdon, 1085 metres (3560 feet) and the highest in England is Scafell Pike, 978 metres (3209 feet).

Among these high mountains occasionally cross the railways, though we hadn’t seen any train then.

“Please stop the car at Ticlio pass.  I would like to experience the thin air there in 4818 metres (15807 feet) in elevation.”

As soon as we arrived there, I got off the car.  Indeed you would notice the thinness of the air immediately.  You would feel very weak.  I wanted to take photographs there, but what I could only do was just to press the shutter, with my body leaning against the car.  Nothing else.  I got in the car immediately after that, as if I was escaping from something bad. 

Maybe with some psychological effect, I started to feel sick, although I had been completely fine until I got off the car at 4818 metres.    

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By the way, the railway occasionally crossed with the road is from Lima to La Oroya (3750m, 12303f) and there it is divided into two sections.  One line goes south-east to Huancayo (3271m, 10732f).  Another line goes north.  This railway is said to be the one which runs in the highest place in the world.  Construction started in the late 1800s and took 40 years to complete.  The main purpose of this line is to transport copper and zinc from mines in the Andes and also fruits of the earth and it runs once a day or so.   
 

Trip to Peru, the 2nd day No.1

Trip to Peru--2nd day

Saul

Lima is about 154 metres (505 feet) in elevation, whereas today’s destination, Tarma is 3070 metres (10072 feet) in elevation.  It will take about 4 hours by car.  We need to pass the area around 4818 metres (15807 feet) in elevation.

Manolo’s mother, Eumelia suggested we shouldn’t have breakfast.  What?  We didn’t have supper last night and now, we should not have breakfast? 

We departed at 8 am.  We dropped in at one of PeruFlora’s nurseries in Lima and continued to travel to Tarma.

Lima is a city on the sea, however, the mountains are very close as well.  Moreover, the mountains which surround the city are not like the hill-like mountains in England but really proper mountains.  However, those mountains are like sand mountains which children would make using a bucket full of soil and sand and stones.  On there cacti grow.  They are also sand colour with a dust.

This photograph is of Saul, who guided us for next 10 days.  Without his nice smile and help, we would not have enjoyed this trip this much.

 
 

Trip to Peru, the 1st day

Trip to Peru--1st day

We left Heathrow at 7.25am on 22 August for Madrid by the Iberia, and then changed plane to Lima.  We arrived at Lima at 17.35 on the same day.  Time difference is 6 hours.

Our day to Lima got longer as we had to be at the airport 2 and a half hours to 3 hours before the departure time due to security alert which had been enforced less than 2 weeks before.  I was relieved to be able to take camera and electronic items to the cabin with us, although we were still not allowed to take liquid with us.

The distance between Madrid and Lima is a little bit shorter than the one between Madrid and Narita.

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We understood that Mr Manolo Arias from PeruFlora was going to meet us at the airport in Lima with a flag which had my name on, but we couldn’t find one.

‘Where is he?  I can’t find him’, I was looking around the flags with other people’s names on one by one.  Whilst I was looking for MY flag, people waiting for somebody else were looking at me and wondered if I was the one who they wanted.  Once they decided I wasn’t, they returned to their conversation with their friends.  It was somehow a tense moment of an odd mixture of curiosity and expectation.

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Eventually we met Manolo and introduced ourselves.  He drove us to his house.  Once we stopped with the traffic light, there came people who were selling sweets, souvenirs and so forth.

We got tired with our long journey from London so we went to bed early without evening meal on the day.

 

 

Why Peru?

Trip to Peru to paint the orchids in their natural habi, Trip to Peru--1st day

I went to Peru to see and paint the orchids in their natural habitats from 22 August 2006 to 5 September 2006.

I had not thought about going to South America before.  So why Peru?

The RHS (Royal Horticultural Society, www.rhs.org.uk) created a new bursary called “The Dawn Jolliffe Botanical Art Bursary” in July 2005, thanks to Mr Brian Jolliffe.  This bursary is to assist a botanical artist to exhibit at one of the RHS shows, or to travel in order to paint and/or draw plants in their natural habitats.

Dr Henry Oakeley, the chairman of the RHS orchid committee, mentioned about this new bursary.  I got interested and applied.  I am really glad to become the first awardee of this new bursary.

I chose “Peruvian orchids” as my theme.  There are two reasons; 1) I have painted a series of Encyclias, which are the orchids from Middle to South America, and 2) I was at that time planning to paint Masdevallias, which are also orchids from that area.

I am going to write about my trip to Peru.

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You can read about the RHS bursary here: http://www.rhs.org.uk/learning/education/bursaries.asp

You can also read the RHS bursaries newsletter No.2: www.rhs.org.uk/learning/education/documents/BursariesNewsletter12.pdf