About a week before the
now infamous Peru earthquake, I was in Peru courtesy of our client company Grenville
Gold Corporation (GVG.V). I was a guest of Grenville President Paul Gill and Chairman
Len De Melt. Along with me on the trip were newsletter writer and analyst Leonard
Melman, Geologist Brian Slim and Bob Moriarty. Our wonderful Peruvian driver and
Grenville assistant Jeff Leopard was behind the wheel through much of our adventures,
and I do mean adventures. I'm just now fully recovered from the trip after about
three weeks and have gathered my thoughts to pen this article, although I wasn't
there more than three fully days.
Needless to say, after seeing the four contiguous Grenville past producing mines,
Silveria, Germania, Pacacocha and Milotingo, I became a Grenville shareholder without
any hesitation, which is rare for me. Although we are paid purveyors of information
on The Opportunity Show, I rarely take a position and I always take a fee for producing
the program along with host Troy Duran. Yes, Grenville did renew their contract with
us after being off the air for about 6 months, but I became a shareholder just before
they returned on the air, before the deal was a deal again, before it had been discussed.
I was excited. There was excitement with some of the men on the trip with me. Their
properties were something to behold. I invested.
Paul Gill, Len De Melt
and company have assembled what I believe are world- class properties, previously
producers and bound to produce again. They claim to have as much as 40 million ounces
of silver in the ground. Now I'm not a geologist, I'm a broadcaster, but I could
see and feel the excitement. The stock is tightly held with about 40 million shares
outstanding. I came in at about .62 and it has since fallen back to about .53 which
may mean that further potential bargain opportunities may exist before the fall hits
and many gold stocks could trend back up along with possibly Grenville. I knew that
both Mr. Gill and Mr. De Melt both had a great track record, especially with companies
like Norsemont Mining (NOM.TO) in the past when they had their meteoric rise in the
market. I felt the excitement that these two had about the Grenville properties and
again, I became a believer and a risk taker in the volatile times.
In another life, I'm a fine-art and travel photographer and I managed to snap
away about a thousand photos with my Canon 1D Mark 2N which I bought specifically
for this trip to Peru. Some of these photos are posted on both The Opportunity Show
and InvestDeep websites courtesy of our webmaster, Con Mara. I had about 30 gigs
of memory with me and I wound up shooting 15 gigabytes, large resolution photos which
I've turned over to the Grenville Corporate office in Vancouver, BC, Canada. I've
also posted a few on one of the stock photography websites that I host my images
on, that would be www.worldofstock.com. I've only posted a few, but I'll be placing
several dozen more photos of Peru, including images of Lima and San Mateo where the
mine sites are, as well as my own photography website, www.ellismartin.com. Talk
about self-promotion. Oh well. If I don't do it, who will?
Our driver, Jeff met us all at the airport after arriving near 11pm on a Lan Chile
flight from LAX along with Leonard Melman from Nanoose Bay, British Columbia. It
was a great flight and I highly recommend that particular airline for flying out
of Los Angeles to many countries in South America. The food was fantastic, there
was a great choice of movies and I even had a chance to brush up on my barely passable
Spanish with an interactive in-flight tutorial. But I digress. Jeff's English was
slightly better than my Spanish and we all did just fine. His driving his superior
considering that mayhem exists all over Peruvian roads as a norm. You really must
be a rally car driver to survive on those streets, highways and off-road terrain
which passes for mountain roads.
Our caravan of quad cab
Toyotas and Jeff's small SUV took us up around 17,000 feet to the Grenville aforementioned
properties in San Mateo. I hadn't seen blue sky like that since I'd been in the Southern
Rockies of New Mexico and their were incredible snow-capped Andes mountain peeks
to behold once we reached the top. By the flight of the condor, it was about an hour
away. It took about 3 hours or more hours to get to the mine site. We were up at
altitude for 5 hours and the return trip was another 3 or four hours. I didn't do
so well between the altitude and constant motion of the vehicles, along with the
pollution on the road to San Mateo. There are no pollution controls in Peru. None.
None in much of Latin America. I'm convinced that no matter how tough our pollution
controls are in the US and Canada, especially where I live in California, it won't
mean diddly do if all of Latin America, much of Asia and India
and let's throw in Eastern Europe and Russia don't control their emissions. Stop
blaming me for so-called global warming. How about the moose in Norway!! They are
the real culprits, belching and spewing methane gas by the thousands and thousands
of metric tons. But again I digress. It is so much less polluted in Los Angeles than
just about anywhere below 5,000 feet in Peru. As I said, I didn't do so well. At
52 I was definitely one of the younger individuals on the trip visiting from North
America. I was the only one who took advantage of the oxygen available for use if
we need it at 3 and a half miles up. You can't walk that fast without the lights
going out a bit at that altitude. At least I can't. No one else seem to have any
issues with it. But after a five minute sniff I seemed to be fine. But not fine enough
to venture too far inside the actual mines. After walking into a mineshaft for about
25 feet, I had an immediate vertigo attack and had to run out of the opening. There
is a word for people like me, but I'm afraid I can't use it in the article. Let's
just say, I'm not the go to individual for guided tours of mineshafts at altitudes,
not anymore. Not in this decade. But I did get a few shots of one of the mineshafts
and a thousand others of the Lima, the majestic Grenville properties high in the
Andes, including Lake Pacacocha and some fantastic photos of the local Incan culture.
Five hours at high altitude!! When I lived New Mexico in the 70s and 80s, I frequently
traveled up to 12,000 feet, but that was then. I live at sea level here in Los Angeles
and sometimes climbing the stairs can be a bit too much, and I appear to be in tremendous
shape.
I've never quite seen
such majestic mountain beauty. Peru is the third largest country in South America
and we only went to San Mateo surrounded by a few days in Lima, never making it to
Machu Picchu or the Amazon River. But from what I saw, there is just so much to behold.
It seems that in addition to gold assays and silver, there is copper in them there
hills. From our experience on the roads leading up to the mine sites, I would say
that it might be possible to truck out about 20 tons of mineral a day. I'm no expert
of course on this being a journalist and photographer, but it does seem doable. The
resources are there. I don't remember us coming close to hanging off of a cliff or
anything like that. But I saw the excitement with the analysts and geologists along
with me and that was enough to make this trip to the sky worth the nausea that I
later experienced roadside on the way back to LimaÉ.in front of my comrades
and locals driving by on the highway. I became an investor before I returned to Los
Angeles, using Skype to make a trade from the Marriott Hotel in Mira Flores, Lima
where Grenville put me up.
Our driver Jeff kept up from getting killed. People pass on the highways there
two columns at a time and from both sides of your car. If there is a traffic jam,
no problem!! Our driver felt free to cross onto the other side of the road against
oncoming traffic to find an alternative route. We got to play chicken at least once
that I can remember with one of the many busses traversing along the Andes mountain
roads. That was amusing. Our driver won, much to my amusement. I may have been ill
from the altitude and motion, but I was not afraid of being killed in the car, unlike
one of my compatriots in the backseat who shall remain nameless. That was amusing,
only because I knew how good a driver Jeff is. If I hadn't, I too would have been
holding onto whatever hair I have left on the top of my head.
For a Peruvian winter, the weather was quite mild with temperatures in the mid-60s
during the day and not much cooler at night. In the mountains, it fluctuated between
the mid fifties and mid 60s depending on whether or not we were in sunshine.
The Grenville corporate
office in Lima is in the Mira Flores district and within steps from the ocean. Whenever
I'm near the water I'm always feeling great and that is certainly the nicest area
in Lima, with a host of fantastic world class restaurants. We ate well at all times.
Look forward to extremely informative interviews with Grenville President Paul
Gill, Chairman Len De Melt, The Melman Reports, Leonard Melman along with The Opportunity
Show host Troy Duran. They can be heard on all of our current roster of stations
as well as being posted right here on this website, in our podcast section. One final
note about the earthquake: I had a felt a tremor the first day after I had arrived.
It was very light and I was surprised to feel something outside of my home turf in
Los Angeles. It was telling though. A week later an 8.0 quake struck just 90 miles
south of Lima shaking the entire region. While we are sorry that there was great
loss of life and property in the heaviest hit area, Lima basically escaped serious
destruction. We recently had a 4.5 here in Los Angeles at 1 in the morning. I hope
that's it for now, but one does gamble when living in such a high risk quake area.
We have little control over mother earth indeed.
Thanks to Paul Gill and Len De Melt for a great trip. I hope to enjoy the ride
coming up this fall.
About a week before the
now infamous Peru earthquake, I was in Peru courtesy of our client company Grenville
Gold Corporation (GVG.V). I was a guest of Grenville President Paul Gill and Chairman
Len De Melt. Along with me on the trip were newsletter writer and analyst Leonard
Melman, Geologist Brian Slim and Bob Moriarty. Our wonderful Peruvian driver and
Grenville assistant Jeff Leopard was behind the wheel through much of our adventures,
and I do mean adventures. I'm just now fully recovered from the trip after about
three weeks and have gathered my thoughts to pen this article, although I wasn't
there more than three fully days.
Paul Gill, Len De Melt
and company have assembled what I believe are world- class properties, previously
producers and bound to produce again. They claim to have as much as 40 million ounces
of silver in the ground. Now I'm not a geologist, I'm a broadcaster, but I could
see and feel the excitement. The stock is tightly held with about 40 million shares
outstanding. I came in at about .62 and it has since fallen back to about .53 which
may mean that further potential bargain opportunities may exist before the fall hits
and many gold stocks could trend back up along with possibly Grenville. I knew that
both Mr. Gill and Mr. De Melt both had a great track record, especially with companies
like Norsemont Mining (NOM.TO) in the past when they had their meteoric rise in the
market. I felt the excitement that these two had about the Grenville properties and
again, I became a believer and a risk taker in the volatile times.
Our caravan of quad cab
Toyotas and Jeff's small SUV took us up around 17,000 feet to the Grenville aforementioned
properties in San Mateo. I hadn't seen blue sky like that since I'd been in the Southern
Rockies of New Mexico and their were incredible snow-capped Andes mountain peeks
to behold once we reached the top. By the flight of the condor, it was about an hour
away. It took about 3 hours or more hours to get to the mine site. We were up at
altitude for 5 hours and the return trip was another 3 or four hours. I didn't do
so well between the altitude and constant motion of the vehicles, along with the
pollution on the road to San Mateo. There are no pollution controls in Peru. None.
None in much of Latin America. I'm convinced that no matter how tough our pollution
controls are in the US and Canada, especially where I live in California, it won't
mean diddly do if all of Latin America, much of Asia 
and India
and let's throw in Eastern Europe and Russia don't control their emissions. Stop
blaming me for so-called global warming. How about the moose in Norway!! They are
the real culprits, belching and spewing methane gas by the thousands and thousands
of metric tons. But again I digress. It is so much less polluted in Los Angeles than
just about anywhere below 5,000 feet in Peru. As I said, I didn't do so well. At
52 I was definitely one of the younger individuals on the trip visiting from North
America. I was the only one who took advantage of the oxygen available for use if
we need it at 3 and a half miles up. You can't walk that fast without the lights
going out a bit at that altitude. At least I can't. No one else seem to have any
issues with it. But after a five minute sniff I seemed to be fine. But not fine enough
to venture too far inside the actual mines. After walking into a mineshaft for about
25 feet, I had an immediate vertigo attack and had to run out of the opening. There
is a word for people like me, but I'm afraid I can't use it in the article. Let's
just say, I'm not the go to individual for guided tours of mineshafts at altitudes,
not anymore. Not in this decade. But I did get a few shots of one of the mineshafts
and a thousand others of the Lima, the majestic Grenville properties high in the
Andes, including Lake Pacacocha and some fantastic photos of the local Incan culture.
Five hours at high altitude!! When I lived New Mexico in the 70s and 80s, I frequently
traveled up to 12,000 feet, but that was then. I live at sea level here in Los Angeles
and sometimes climbing the stairs can be a bit too much, and I appear to be in tremendous
shape.
I've never quite seen
such majestic mountain beauty. Peru is the third largest country in South America
and we only went to San Mateo surrounded by a few days in Lima, never making it to
Machu Picchu or the Amazon River. But from what I saw, there is just so much to behold.
It seems that in addition to gold assays and silver, there is copper in them there
hills. From our experience on the roads leading up to the mine sites, I would say
that it might be possible to truck out about 20 tons of mineral a day. I'm no expert
of course on this being a journalist and photographer, but it does seem doable. The
resources are there. I don't remember us coming close to hanging off of a cliff or
anything like that. But I saw the excitement with the analysts and geologists along
with me and that was enough to make this trip to the sky worth the nausea that I
later experienced roadside on the way back to LimaÉ.in front of my comrades
and locals driving by on the highway. I became an investor before I returned to Los
Angeles, using Skype to make a trade from the Marriott Hotel in Mira Flores, Lima
where Grenville put me up.
The Grenville corporate
office in Lima is in the Mira Flores district and within steps from the ocean. Whenever
I'm near the water I'm always feeling great and that is certainly the nicest area
in Lima, with a host of fantastic world class restaurants. We ate well at all times.