Give life a break and see what happens

In late October we joined a group of senior missionaries to visit a national park about 100 kilometers north of Lima. After taking about three full hours on the Pan American Highway North to get out of metropolitan Lima, you begin to see the country side. This is what it looks like:

The most striking feature about Lima and coastal Peru is how absolutely barren it is. What would a place look like if it didn’t rain at all (not just infrequently, but never)? That’s much of coastal Peru. However, with just some almost imperceptible changes in topography that lone and dreary place becomes this:

Coastal Peru always has lots of mist and clouds, especially during the winter, but still nothing grows. But here in the Lachay National Park, due to a unique confluence of topography and wind, moisture in the air is trapped and concentrated and falls as heavy dew on the ground. Still no rain, but enough moisture to support life, and given the chance life will take full advantage. 

The place is full of interesting vegetation, all oriented toward taking advantage of dew, and with vegetation there are animals. There are snakes and foxes, although we didn’t see any, and some odd-looking rodents of which  we saw a few, but there are lots and lots of birds.

We enjoyed walking around (on dirt rather than concrete), taking in the green and watching the birds. Here are some pictures. November is the beginning of the dry season so it wasn't as green as it would be during Peru's winter months.

Petroglyphs in one of many caves left by ancient inhabitants of the October 2017 era. 

Abundant life includes bugs and other critters (and flies that took advantage of some open windows in our  parked van and which we battled all the way back to Lima)