August 24th Quince Mil Area Day 21

The day in Qince Mil started cloudy, but was sunny later. 

After breakfast at 8:30 Eric, and Jun, our driver, went off looking for a blacksmith or repair shop to get the LWB Land Rover spring fixed as the rough road the previous day had taken it’s toll on the Long Wheelbase Land Rover, one of the rear springs had several cracked leaves (repair usually just involved taking the leaf springs apart and welding the broken ones together). 

Meanwhile Uisden and Oscar plus me (driving), set off in the Short Wheelbase along the Puerto Maldonado road, surveying with the detector on the short pole. The road state deteriorated a lot, initially just stony from around 20 km, but then became deep rutted, so progress was pretty slow. My experience driving a Land Rover during fieldwork in the UK came in very handy along this stretch.The geology we noted as we went along, mainly Tertiary red and grey silts and sandstones (expected possibly to be hosts to U mineralisation) but all registered with low radioactivity. Eventually we managed around 50 km along the road. We also collected 5 water samples for analysis back in Lima on the way back. What was striking all day was the transformation of the scenery, instead of rocky and semi-barren mountains. Instead as we descended, we were driving through semi-tropical greenery, lots of trees and vegetation.

As I was driving the Land Rover all day, not many opportunities for me to take photos. I just managed one or two of flora and fauna around Quince Mil. A moth at the hotel, and a lizard in the undergrowth and nearby a flower. It is a point to note that we actually saw very little wildlife on the whole as we travelled through Peru.

We must have found somewhere to eat during the day, but I don’t have a note of that. So we ended the surveying still in the mountains as the map below shows.

We arrived back at Quince Mil around 18:30, jsat as it was dark. At the hotel we were informed  by the others that the LWB Land Rover springs had been fixed during the day.

Again, I have no note of eating in the evening, but we must have found somewhere, maybe at the hotel.

Only a few photos today – I was too busy behind the wheel! They are all referenced in the text above but can all be found here