South American Tour: Hurcho, Peru 1965

Tuesday, January, 11 1965 Hurcho (WAH-choh)

Up at 7:30. Ship was still anchored out in bay. The sea is quite rough and it is cold for the tropics. We are sleeping under one or two blankets each night the ship is quite a distane from shore. The thick fog keeps coming in and obliterating the shore and the ships on hared around us then it lifts for a while and then falls. The Captain said at breakfast there was a mix up. (Par for the course in S.A.) He had been told in Lima that lighters and stevedores would be available for unloading today. However, there was an early morning conference in passengers lounge and the schedule was to unload and load another Norwegian ship today. There is no channel deep enough for freighters to come to the docks and I don't believe the docks would be strong enough to hold a ship of this size in rough weather. There is a large plant here that makes fish meal for fertilizer and stock food. The product is shipped out in 120th burlap bags. Most ships can't handle it because the odor permeates other cargo and results in damage claim and there are millions

of firas who live off the product. We, the Finnertys and Margaret decided to go to town a small rowboat sized craft came for us at 9:30. It was powered by a Briggs-stratton motor and makes about 4 miles per hour. Tariff: 100 soles ($4.00 American) for 5 people. Then a special taxi to the main part of town for 5 soles ($.20). It wasn't much of a town - mostly narrow streets. 3 foot sidewalks, street stands and small dirty shops. We tried to buy colored picture postcards at some of the places. I was sure there was one in town. Most shop keepers didn't know what we were talking about "color tarjeta postal" we finally settled for black and white foto prints in a camera shop which were the size of a postcard. Unique a town of 25,000 where one cannot buy a postcard. We walked around the town for 2 and a half hours and decided we had enough so we started bargaining with taxi drivers. The first four wanted 10 soles so did the fifth but he reduced to five and we went to the docks. The water taxi that brought us ashore was there so we boarded it and returned to ship. Had lunch and took a nap. Invited Captain and Chief Engineer for cocktails. The Steward made pisco punch for Millie discovered she had picked up a real sunburn in the water taxi this PM. If it fits ship's schedule we will go to town tomorrow and take taxi (colleativo) to Lima which is 132 KLM (80 Miles) on PanAm Highway. fare: 1.00 American.

Wednesday, January, 13th 1965 - Huacho, Peru

Nice Day, partly cloudy. Everyone including the Capt. is confused we expected the stevedores to start loading cotton on our ship at 8 am, but they are still working on another ship. There was a possibility that the ship would leave without taking cargo. The decisions are made in Bergen, Norway. Anyway, our motor trip to Lima is out. Around noon word came that loading would start at one and it did apparently. There is only one full crew of stevedores in the town (share the work in reverse) to handle the cargo on shore, place in on small four wheel dollies, tow in by tractor to end of dock, unload with help of winch and boom and pass to 4 men in lighter. Then tug comes and tows lighter to side of ship, stevedores deck crew operate ships winches and boom to pick up cotton from lighter and transfer to one of five holds of ship where stevedore had crew pack it away. They were handling bales of cotton weighing 5-600 pounds each. There are 8-10 lighters working. I would estimate there are between 75 and 100 stevedores supervisors and checkers in a full crew. In the late afternoon, Hazel Lewis and Marian Peake returned from trip to Machu Picchu. They hired taxi in Lima for trip to Huacho paying $15.00 for ride. At 6:30 PM Ray and Alice Mortin returned. They had some trouble with plane connections and had to buy tickets on airline other than the one which they had already paid for. This was from Cuzco to Lima. To buy the tickets he had to go back into town of Cuzco. At Lima he was able to secure full refund on unused tickets as girl admitted the plane had been oversold. Its a good thing Ray speaks Spanish fluently. So he can shout at them in their own language. All four were supposed to rejoin ship in Ilo but agent told them they could pick it up at Huacho and they left Lima right away.