End of the Line – Good Byes to a Great Field Season in Peru

1 August 2011 – Final Dispatch from Arequipa, Peru

Now, after more than six weeks trawling the Peruvian Andes in search of palaeoclimate clues, we’re out of time. More than that, rather exhausted, too. Since we left Ampato, Matt has gone back to Tacoma, leaving Kurt and me to visit potential calibration sites near Coropuna. The objective of that ongoing work is to refine the cosmogenic surface-exposure method for the tropics, thereby improving the precision of new and existing datasets. It’s therefore a very high priority.

Many hours of rough driving over destroyed mining roads brought us finally to an isolated copper mine north of Coropuna. There, having waded through piles of bureaucratic red tape and caught a wretched cold from a forlorn security guard, I spent a few days exploring potentially suitable lava flows, while Kurt went off in search of palaeoindian lithics and rock shelters. It’s a fine spot, with amazing volcanic features and stunning views of Coropuna, and boasting more viscacha (a type of Andean rodent/rabbit/monkey mix) per square meter than anywhere else on Earth. It’s too early to say whether this area will prove useful, but the search itself certainly constituted a worthy adventure.

With our last samples collected and bagged, these last few days have been a whirlwind of tying up loose ends, such as returning the vehicle, shipping 100 kg of stones back to Lamont, and eating as much as possible. Arequipa is a lovely city, and a fine place to call base camp, but with so many chores to be done it was with a great measure of relief that we climbed onto the plane again at the foot of Volcan Misti, bound for Lima and, ultimately, the northern city of Huaraz. I could go on for pages about the splendours of that place, tucked up in the stupendous Cordillera Blanca, but I shall save it for another year. As for now, I shall swap icy peaks, tents, and blue skies for the record-setting heat of urban New York, while Kurt heads back south to Arequipa for a while longer to complete archaeologic lab work there. This has been a fantastic season, our most successful yet – I hope you’ve enjoyed following along from a safe distance.

Gordon