August 14th Lima Day 11

Dull morning again and despite being Saturday, the emphasis must be on getting equipment ready now it has arrived.

So, while Uisdean went off to Signal office, I drove (SWB) Land Rover to the IPEN building to start unpacking and setting up. After unpacking and checking all the bits and pieces, I then started fitting up the SWB Land Rover. The way we intended to work was with a gamma radiation detector mounted on a small tripod, attached to the roof rack of the LR. I’d prepared a tripod in the UK, so it was initially a matter of attaching it to the roof rack, which with the help or IPEN staff was achieved in the morning. As I started to sort out the wiring and setup of the electronics inside the vehicle, it became clear that more wire, plus some nuts and bolts, would be needed (and electrical connectors but unavailable in Peru, I had been in contact with UK to get some sent out urgently), so a member of IPEN staff was sent off into Lima to try and acquire these. Here is a preview picture of the tripod mount and detector, as initially mounted, taken a couple of days into the fieldwork.

By now I was getting to know the guys at IPEN, and they invited me to their ‘club’ – ‘Association Gouadalupe’ for lunch (I had to take them all in the L:and Rover) – and the journey involved a lot of pointing plus shouts of ‘derecho’, ‘recto’, ‘izquierda’ (they didn’t speak much English) so I was weaving about the road in response, before arriving safely thank goodness. The place had a sort of canteen and I remember nothing about the food – so it must have been ok.

Back at IPEN after lunch, it was just a case of carrying on with setting up the equipment in the vehicle, before heading back to the Sheraton at 6:30pm (where I left the Land Rover) with two of the IPEN guys, who persuaded me to have an evening meal back at the Association Gouadalupe. While there, I seem to remember playing several games, one of which was to throw things into the mouths of model frogs? There was drinking of course (though what I can’t remember, it’s all a bit blank) now, and I didn’t get back to the Sheraton until midnight (I presume by taxi)!

So ended another day in Lima with no photos either …..