We awoke, again to the sound of the marching band. This time they were no longer practicing but carrying out their parade in celebration of some religious festival that I don't remember the name of. They were a group of five, colourfully dressed and obviously dedicate marching along the streets with the trumpets, tuba and drums pounding out the same song over and over. It was funny and quaint to begin with - but as the hours rolled on got a little monotonous.
After lunch we set out for the walk back. We passed through a local village where the guide showed us the church where the celebrations ( or commemorations ?) were in full swing and a health centre. He noted that the health centre was run on donations mainly, but said they were frustrated because the medicines etc that were donated were often not appropriate for the types of problems that the locals were having. For example heart and diabetes medicines had been donated, but sat on the shelf until their use by date because the locals are healthy and fit from their farm work, on the other hand a very common need is for simple dressings etc for the appauling domestic violence that is apparently a result of the frustration and boredom (and therefore alcoholism) that is rife in the communities. He said that the tour company we he represented used its profits to try to help these people at a basic level and told us that the "basic" lodgings we had had were chosen to help the villagers directly rather than the larger, profit driven lodges elsewhere. We also visited a small musuem of indigenous handcrafts and household implements. Where we donated generously and unbegrudgingly paid double the normal price for our bottled water, probably out of the new guilt for our relative affluence.
Lunch was at a beautiful man made rock pool they called the "oasis" - it was very crowded with tourist groups, but was quite peaceful and serence. We noted how expensive a visit to a place like this would be anywhere else and wondered how long until it became a "club med" or wealthy person's health spa.
The climb back up to Cobanaconde was steep and unrelenting - although it was not as difficult as we had been lead to believe and took only about 2 hours. Jo decided to take a Mule up rather than ride - after this the mule replaced the elephant (or was that sea otter) as her favourite creature and she has decided to get one for her back yard and to take her to work along the linear park.
The night was in Cabanaconde - we had a very basic dinner in a small restaurant after which we left the rest of the group watching a "friendly" international game of socer between Peru and Columbia on Television with the proceeds going to the victims of the recent earthquake.
The shower was heaven after the days walking and we slept very well.
