I am sitting in a musty little room in our hotel. We were dropped here after a wild ride from the airport through some very depressing suburbs. Many of the building appeared fortified and several of the factories had what seemed to be guard towers on the top of their walls. The city seems much poorer than Santiago, it is very polluted and many of the taxi-bus vehicles are falling apart. The horn works in all of them though.
Our hotel is on a quiet (that is a relative term) back street but has a big iron grill door at the front which is opened by reception. Again it is a first impression, but it doesn’t seem to be a safe or inviting town. Sue says she doesn’t think I am a good traveller and I think she may be right. We were meant to meet our tour guide today for a pre tour meeting but we are the only two on the tour at this stage. We have been given instructions on how to get to the Amazon Jungle and after we are finished there, we will meet our tour guide in Cusco, (4 days into the tour). We must leave soon and go see the changing of the guards at 1200 at the end of the street.

The changing of the guards was a classic exhibition of pomp and ceremony. The military band stood just inside the iron barred fence, facing the palace and played various tunes, one of which was probably the National anthem and one which started the same way of the Rocky theme. The guards marched in a way where one knee was lifted high while the next step saw the leg kicked above the head. At one point they played “el condor pasa” and condors were released from the tower and circled the palace. Very impressive. I am wishing now that I had read a little more on the history and politics of the country before visiting.Everywhere you walk in town there are police, however it doesn’t make me feel safe, it makes it feel like a police state.
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We have just had the inconvenience of having our city visitied by US Vice President Dick Cheney.

The hassle started a few days ago when there was a deafening sound out my office window and all of the windows were shaking. Looking out I saw an army blackhawk helicopter hovering above the building across the road. It flew off, did a lap of the city and came back again. This continued for well over an hour.

Last night the police started gathering in the city. At the last minute they revoked the permission for a protest march to walk from the Town Hall to the US Consulate and threatened to arrest anyone who attempted to leave the area. (And I thought that we were living in a democracy. Surely the deputy head of the “world’s greatest democracy” would be happy to see how actively we embrace the concept.)

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