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Got back to camp around ten. We began to break up camp ready for the long trek back. It's midnight before we reach Cuzco, struggling along dirt road in clouds of dust behind crowded lorries.
As we unload the cameras a man arrives with his wife and kids in a beaten up pickup. He's a shaman. Goes to the site office to ask for permission to go on site to do prayers. As the wind gusts dust off the great mudbrick mounds, he explains that this is one of the fine churches and several old hostels with picturesque courtyards and wooden stairs. On one side a great old family house with a rickety service wing stretching back 30 yards behind the courtyard as far as the open space where Cajamarca's last Inca building stands: The Ransom Room. From the 17th century the story has been told that here Atahualpa was held in chains; and here he made his famous offer to ransom himself by filling the room full of gold as far as he could reach with his hand.
We took an early flight back from Cajamarca in a twenty seater. Despite an emergency landing at Trujillo we made it back to Lima in time to pack for the flight to Europe. We are in our favourite Lima base, a small friendly hotel, scarcely more than a private house, overlooking the Pacific shore. The sun has broken through the pall of smog over the sea. It has been a good shoot.
Now for the Amazon in September!!!
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