Terremoto

Right now we are in Trujillo, a coastal town in the north of Peru.  Last night, around 6:45, Ben and I were sitting in bed reading.  He looked at me and said, ¨Are you doing that?¨

¨No, are you?¨ I responded.

¨No…did you feel that though?¨

¨Yeah, and there it goes again.  Is it an earthquake?¨

¨I don´t know…¨

A bit of a pause, followed by:

¨Do you think we should go outside?¨ I question.

¨I don´t know, but I´m going to put on my shoes,¨ was Ben´s stellar reply.

Shortly after, the room stopped shaking.  We went back to reading.  It was about 12 seconds of confusion, but really minor.  Lucho, the friend we´re staying with, was out riding his bike and didn´t feel it.  I think if we had been doing anything other than sitting still we wouldn´t have noticed it either.

About an hour later we went to dinner with Lucho and Marcus, a Swiss cyclist.  To our suprise, the earthquake was all over the news.  Up until then we didn´t know if it had been imagined.

It was not just in our heads.  I wish it had been.  This morning, the death count in Ica is up to at least 250 and will probably rise.  Last night they were reporting two earthquakes, one second apart and both off the south coast of Peru.  One was reported at 7.6 and the other at 7.4.  Now the news is reporting one epicenter and a magnatude of 7.9.  Either way, many people have died and it caused a lot of destruction.

Through pure luck, we´re in the north and not in the south right now.  Peru is a very seismically active area.  This is not the first major earthquake they have experienced, and it will not be the last.  The biggest in modern times was in 1970.  Whole towns in the mountains were destroyed.  Lucho, our host here in Trujillo, was telling us last night of his rememberances of that day.  He was 5 and he remembered the earthquake and then the aftershocks lasting the whole night.  Everyone slept in the streets while the buildings fell down around them.

I don´t tell this story to scare anyone, so please don´t try to evac us from South America!  It´s just to say that while this earthquake was bad, there have been worse. 

Side story with a note of irony – the South American Explorers (SAE - a travelers org we belong to) planned an ¨Earthquake Awareness¨ event last night at 7pm in Lima.  Talk about relevant!

Anywho, all is well with us.  Thanks to everyone who contacted us with concerns.  It´s nice to know people care!