Monthly Archives: November 2006

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