Hello once again. Time for another update of the adventures so far. I know it's been a few days, but I really hadn't done much to write about. We've settled back in Cusco now and back to the major project. One problem though. Whilst we were on Amantani, there was heavy rain in Cusco for a couple of weeks. Not only can you not make mudbricks (adobe) whilst it's raining (they need the sun to dry) but the rain also destroyed most of the bricks that were made already. Not good news and meant that the project was no further advanced from when we left. Given that we need to make 10,000 mudbricks (each weighing about 20-30kgs, they're much bigger than a conventional brick) and we would make only about 2,000 each week. We will be making bricks for the rest of the program and won't get a chance to start the building phase. Oh well, thems that breaks.

Making the mudbricks isn't as easy as I imagined. First you need to move a pile of dirt (needs to be clayey making this more difficult) spreding it into a layer up to a foot thick. 10t is about ideal. You then neeed to douse it in water, lots of it (it is clay after all) and turn the dirt over to mix it into mud. Once you have mud you then need something to give it strength so you need to liberally cover the mud with straw. Of course covering it with straw won't cut the mustard so you take your shoes off and stomp the straw into the mud mixing it all up. Again, more difficult than it sounds. Because the clay content is so high, the mud is very sticky and your feet get stuck every second step. After you've spent all day doing this, you now have mud. The next step is to load the mud into wheel barrows (adding more straw to stop the mud from sticking to the wheelbarrow) and move it to where the bricks are being made and emptied onto the floor. The mud is then put into a mold for the bricks called an 'adobeda'. It is not emptied directly from the wheelbarrow as one wheel barrow will make about 2 bricks and it saves time. The adobeda needs to be washedf with water to stop the mud sticking to it before the mud is put in. As your putting mud in the mold, you stomp on it with your feet to compress it and add more straw for extra strength. When the mold is full, you scrape the excess mud off and add water and straw to create a strong, smooth surface. After you'vde let thwem dry in the sun for 5 days, turn them on their side for another two and then stack them in a pile to make room for more bricks, and there you have it.

I know not all of you care about how to make bricks but given it's all I've been doing for the past week, and will continuie to do for the next 2 weeks, you should at least know what I was up to. Apart from that, very little has happened. We've been going out a lotr now that we're back in civilisation. It's great to eat out here as you can't trust the meat you get at the shops here (refrigeration is a luxury) and the food is so cheap (A two course meal plus a drink will cost on average $4 but can be as little as $1.50 - not bad eh). Friday night was a big one. We left the club as the sun was coming up and slept till lunch time. The night scene here is a lot of fun, with people from all  corners of the globe. I went to another soccer game in the afternmoon, Sporting Crystal 0, Cienciano (of Cusco) 1.

Today, however, was the highlight of our return to Cusco. We went mountain biking on what we thought was going to be a leisurely ride to a few Incan sites. It turned out to be a major downhill adventure with some awesome, rocky tracks, hairy descents and tibght switchbacks. Puts anything I've seen in Adelaide to shame. Not having ridden a bike for a few years, I took things pretty carefully, slowly gaining confidence as the day progressed. Others, however, went nuts and streaked ahead. It was mostly downhill all day but my butt is sore from the rocky roads. A lot of fun was had by all, a true adventure with more than one nervous moment (I only came off once and landed on my feet so was fine). Still hard work though.

The incan sites were great. The first was Moray, which is like a terraced cone descending into two valleys. Because it was fully enclosed with water draining in it, it was used for selctive breeding by the Incans. The surrounding hills protected it from the wind and normal elements so that it would be probably at least 5 degrees warmer at the bottom of the cone than the surrounding areas. As a result they could bring plants from the much warmer jungle and grow them at the bottom. After they were fully grown the seeds were planted in the next terrace up, slowly being exposed to more and more of the natural environment of the higher, cooler Andes. By the time they had reached the top terrace, the plants were fully acclimatised to the new environment and could then be grown regularly in the fields. A kind of primitive genetic engineering if you will. The next site was Salinas, an Incan salt mine. A spring bearing salty water came out of the side of a mountain which fed into a complex irrigation network. The side of the mountain had been terraced into over 4,000 collecting pools where the water was allowed to evaporate leaving salt. A huge undertaking and impressive to look at. To this day, they still work the salt mines and use it for table salt in the region. Both truly amazing works.

Well that's enough for today. May be a while until something else exciting happens. It's probably going to be work until the end of the program now. I hope everyone is going well and to all the Mothers out there, Happy Mother's Day.

Cheers

Ryan