Winter and summer

Europe is currently having the coldest winter in years and England has experienced the worst snow problems since 1991. Here, on the southern hemisphere, the summer sun is gazing.

Still, I have serious problems with figuring out when it is winter and when it is summer here, south of the equator. Now some smart guy will think: "what a stupid idiot, winter is june-july and summer is december-january". Well, if it was that easy I wouldn't complain, would I?

Travelling south along the Peruvian coast, the summer days can get really hot at this time of year and visiting beaches are pleasant (if you remember to bring your sun screen). However, a few hours inland you encounter the Andes and there, in the mountains, they have currently winter.

Normally, the climate in the Andes is defined by wet or dry seasons characterised by great temperature variations in day/night. In the high-altitude regions, they refer to the wet season as "winter" and here is where it starts to get confusing. This has little to do with summer/winter seasons on the coast. You can also go a step further and identify different types of "micro-seasons", resulting in that this region has six seasons, of which two are different winters. I don't know why but it sounds strange to a person from the unpretentious north Europe, where winter is cold and summer is hot. In addition, Peru's third terrain-type (the Amazon rain forest) have only two seasons (wet or dry) and if it is close to the Ecuator, it may only have one (always wet).

I lost you yet?

I don't know if this blog entry has any useful point but if you ever wanted to board a night-bus in the winter and wake up where it is summer, Peru is your destination.