The food: high quality, well presented and cheap. Not trying the guinea pig though.
If you're planning on coming back as a guinea pig, make sure it's not in Peru. They are well and truly stuffed.
The traffic lights are great. They tell both drivers and pedestrians how much longer they have to wait at a red, and how much time they have left on green. Our lights should do the same.
We should not copy their method of selecting a President. The elections were held last Sunday. First past the post system, whereby a candidate has to get 50%+ of the vote to be elected. If no-one does, the whole country comes back a month or so later to choose between the 2 candidates with the highest percentage from the first round. With 11 candidates standing there was always going to have to be a second round. The candidate coming first got 30% of the vote. As our tour guide explained: assuming this bloke wins the play-off, he will proudly attend his inauguration with a disapproval rating of 70%, which will rise during his incumbency. Voting is compulsory and there are no postal or absentee votes and no excuses for not voting. If you are away from home, you travel back to vote. If you are in hospital, they come in and find you. No vote, you get fined. So because we were in Machu Picchu for the Sunday vote, our tour guide gets fined because he lives in Lima.
The worst part of the process is the election slogans graffitied all over buildings and posters and billboards blighting everything else. Even on native huts in the middle of theAmazonian jungle. Insane
The people are very friendly, and the whole place feels very safe. We are all glad we're spending 2 weeks here. The kids are gorgeous. Laura, note the monkey!
And of course the animals are very cute.
Until next time.
So tell us; did Machu Picchu leave you - ahem - breathless? Chortle...
ReplyDeleteAnd stop banging on about the guinea pig offerings; I put it to you both that, if the signs are in English, it would be tastefully prepared for sensitive and delicate Western tastes so you will have nothing to fear. Come on guys; you know if you DON'T try it, you'll never hear the end of it!
Still not too much to report here; the ADFA 'incident' has spawned six - yep, six - different investigations/reviews, all of which will be conducted by external-to-Defence agencies and bodies so we won't be burying any findings; I suspect MINDEF will! What did Joh B-P say? Never commission an investigation unless you know the outcomes beforehand!
No doubt you've noticed the Canberra is cooling rapidly? Looking forward to that?
What are you doing for ANZAC Day? Would you like me to email you a short speech or something? You could organise a dawn service for your fellow Aussie travellers.
Incidentally, yesterday was the 150th anniversary of the first shots fired in the American Civil War - I knew you were dying to know that!
I&J