Week 1 - Weds and Thursday

Hello, everyone.

I hope you are all doing well. I just shot you an email the other day, but I figured I’d update you all on my first visit to the project site.

Before I do that, yesterday (Wednesday) I spent the day in Lima. I was at the office for most of it. One of the admin assistants in the office, Max, helped me out on Wednesday. He’s a jack of all trades and does everything from help with accounting paperwork and copying reports to escorting gringos like me around town. Max is a pretty short fella, perhaps 5’5” or so, is very helpful and outgoing, and smiles a whole bunch. Like on my flight in, though he speaks little English, and vice versa for me with Spanish, we hit it off and were able to shoot the bull pretty well, my handy pocket dictionary never too far away. He likes to mountain bike and it looks like I might have a cycling buddy if I ever get a chance to do any riding while I’m down here. There was also this new gal that started at the Lima office yesterday. Her name is Celine. Get this…she’s Dutch, studied in France, worked in the UK the last five years, is pretty fluent in Spanish and she and her boyfriend moved to Lima two weeks ago. They don’t know anyone in town. That takes some ghoulies! With all those language backgrounds, she has one of the most intriguing accents I’ve ever heard. Very neat to listen to.

I made it to the site this morning. Pretty uneventful trip on the way down. Saw a few pacelines of cyclists riding in the middle of the PanAmerican Highway. Although I think they’re nuts, keep in mind that our idea of a highway is not the same here. The best I can describe the PAH is 93rd in St. John, Rt 2 in Valpo…maybe Hwy 98 in Panama City, basically Eldridge in Houston or 202 between Redmond and Fall City…picture that, now picture motorbikes and donkey carts along the sides. Travel is pretty slow to say the least. Another thing that isn’t the same is the country side. They have what are called “shanty towns” out here. My dad built a shanty at the old house in St. John. That little thing could pass the Peruvian seismic design code! These shanties have no running water, no electricity…some only have three walls, others no roofs…rags used as shirts and pants strung up on clotheslines only to get covered by the windswept desert dust that seems to have no beginning and no end. Here a few, there a few more. Pretty shocking. Dogs running around, dodging the oncoming cars or one of the many tour buses zooming by.

On the way down, Ernesto, my driver, wanted to stop for some desayuno (breakfast) along the way in Canete (pronounced Can-yet-A). Canete is pretty much a shanty town. I didn’t get anything but a pack of cookies and an OJ…he got…remember this is breakfast…fried duck, potatoes and refried beans with a coffee. He scarfed it down, so it must have been pretty good. As we were leaving, a delivery boy came in through the open air entrance and handed a plastic bag to the lady behind the counter…all I saw were two yellow feet sticking up out of the bag…must have been a replacement duck for the one Ernesto just finished!

Upon arriving to the site, I realized that there was not a single thing green for miles around. Nothing but that seemingly endless desert to the north, south and east…the Pacific Ocean giving reprieve to the west. Big and/or vast. That sums up the land area and terrain for the project. Nearly tabletop plateau precipitates some 500 to 700 feet down to the Ocean. Haul and access roads keyed in to the cliff sides…huge level working platforms a quarter mile long and one-thousand feet wide interrupt the natural sloping ground and are strategically placed to allow construction at the site. The primary soil type at the site is not so much sand as a conglomerate of sand, gravel and cobbles cemented together by what appears to be a sodium or calcium-rich binder. This material will likely greatly impact the pile driving work that I am involved with. Regardless of standing up high on the cliffs or down low on the beach, you feel small and far away from everything. The sky is different in some way at the site. Looking up gives the impression of a dome encompassing all that can be seen around you. The white fluffy clouds are so much higher than what I am used to seeing. They seem to be much lower back at home. Pretty strange, but very nice. The sun is intense, but there is the occasional respite as lower clouds and haze temporarily fill the sky. It’s never too clear…always some sort of blur to get in the way. For example, up at the top of the cliffs, looking east, you can see just a hint of the snow-capped mountains way off in the distance. On a clear day, I imagine a sure postcard image and memory.

Lunch was served in a mess hall. Quite good. I had a pork chop, some rice, mixed veggies and some of Nihal’s left over Indian food that his wife sent with me on Monday. Good stuff. After dilly-dallying around with paperwork and other BS, we made our way home…passing more shanty towns and Nihal and I talking about just how amazingly wonderful life is in the US. We pull into our “5-star” hotel…El Christopher Columbus Grand Hotel…to be greeted with 1.) No working internet in my room, 2.) A smoke detector with a low battery (chirp chirp chirp), 3.) and the rancid smell of dead fish flooding the hallways. I let the front desk know about the smoke detector and within five minutes an attendant was knocking on my door to fix it. He fixed it alright…popped the cover, took the battery out, threw the cover back on and started to leave…I say ‘hey, senior, fuego aqui” as I point to the hallway and shrug my shoulders. El senor replied “Tu fumas? (Do you smoke?) I said nope and he put his thumbs up and left. I couldn’t do anything about the fish smell…I think I’m used to it as I cannot smell it anymore. I’m in a town called Chincha Alta, or Chincha for short. Hustle bustle town, quite dirty and from what I gather, pretty shady. Some of the construction crew stays in Chincha…some have been here for 3 months or longer. None of them venture out after work for a beer or dinner…day or night. Lovely. My bald butt can only sit on a couch and marinate every once in awhile. Hopefully I can find something to do so I don’t become a complete sloth. I’d be bouncing off the walls tonight if I wasn’t so stinking tired.

That takes me to where I am now…it’s 9:30, Thursday night and I’m shot. Time for sleep. I’m trying to think of the best way to do these posts/pix…for now, I copied the address to an ftp site. Click on the top link, and it should take you there to where the pictures are at…if not, click the bottom link, and enter the login and passwords copied below. Open up the .pdf files…the other file is a mix up. I may get a blog site or something like that on the internet that’ll allow you all to check directly…I’ll update periodically and put pictures up…will keep you posted.

Take care,

Scotty