Day ten...

Today, it´s Holy Grail day. We headed off at first light into the deepest canyon in the world (almost). Actually the deepest canyon in the world is in the sea, and the next deepest one was the valley next door - Cotahauxi - another three day´s drive that we didn´t have time to reach. But this was jolly deep anyway, and at only 163 meters less than the next valley, it´s pretty darn close...

And it´s pretty darn deep! You don´t really get an idea of scale until something moves down there - a tiny blip of a bird navigates the channel between the hulks of cliff, and circles upwards. And slowly it dawns on you that this little sparrow isn´t actually a sparrow, it a dirty great condor, with a wing span of about two meters! And the sun rises, and the cameras click, and the condors swoop. It´s really rather special...

That afternoon, we headed out on mission number two. To find the source of the Amazon. Now, I suspect we might not be the first, but we donned our adventurer hats (all proper adventurers wear [Tilley hats](index.php?mode=teamwebsites&name=karmakola&page=tilley), don´t you know) and set out from Chivay, up a rotten road pitted with holes and boulders, past deserted villages where the conditions were so harsh that even the hardy Andean folk has given up trying to eek out an existance. But the wildlife had not - we spotted Andean fox, alpaca, vicuna (orange deer-like beasts) and lots of rabbity rodents. Here, sunshine played across a landscape covered with tufts of wild grasses and bright green birds flitted about like something out of a Disney film. As we reached a saddlepoint, a huge mountain loomed into view, at its base a lake filled with flamingo. This, my friends, is the source of the Amazon. Mighty Mismi mountain. Rain that falls on this frozen peak runs down to form the trickles, then streams, then rivers that feed that mother of jungle waterways. Granted, we might not have been the first. But we were the only ones on that fine November afternoon. We might not have reached Asuncion in a mototaxi, but we didn´t get stuck in the beaureaucratic quagmire either. We drove a motorized sofa 2000km across the most challenging roads I´ve ever encountered, and found the source of the Amazon. And I´m rather proud...

And, my friends, the adventure continues... like all good stories, you´ll have to wait until next time to find out. But it´s going to get hot and steamy...

Day nine...

5am under that gargantuan Andean sky was not quite so romantic. It was, in fact, bloody freezing. Numb fingers gingerly packed up the tents and we shiveringly set forth. Within the short scramble across the scrub back to the highway, perhaps 100 meters at most, the Magical Tricycle of Destiny seemed to run out magic entirely. It was a contrary little machine. Having shed spokes and grumbled up hills since day two, this morning´s display of mechanical malice was an epic one. Not only did the chain fall off, but it spewed out a couple of spokes which jammed in the gear cogs and also pierced the rear wheel. If you´re going to puncture a wheel, the rear right is the one you really don´t want to puncture... it´s the one connected to all the drive system bits and it´s a real bugger to change. Matt and Charis drew in sharp breaths and sat down at the side of the road to start work... and even when I pointed out that this was really a rather marvellous place to break down, what with all the mountains and sunrise and all, it didn´t seem to improve their mood.

Within an hour the boys had patched the bike up and we limped onwards to Santa Lucia. We also noticed that my mototaxi had developed a rather alarming rear wheel wobble, so two vehicles were now in dire need of a wheel worker to get us back on the straight and narrow. Although the district captial couldn´t muster a wheel worker for us, they did supply us with lovely fish and chips (standard Peruvian breakfast), so we decided to take our chances on the open road and head onwards.

And what an open road that was - an endless stretch of frozen desert called the Salinas, bereft of life, save a few alpaca and a few lonely dogs that sat patiently by the roadside, glowering at us through beady orange eyes with thick, dreadlocked fur. And the wind. Oh, the wind! It slowed the bikes from forth gear to second even on the flat, stinging our cheeks like tiny razorblades. The effort required to keep the handlebars straight against such elemental forces was huge - like wrestling mother nature. And it went on, and on , and on. A sign at the mirador (viewpoint) read 4,800m - a dizzy height with little oxygen, which we were crossing on a glorified lawnmower with a wind-catching canopy and the horsepower of a My Little Pony. But the view over cobalt blue lakes and chalky mountains was incredible. We paused to rest our aching knees and shoulders at about 3pm, snuggling down into a concrete run off gully at the side of the road  to shelter from the wind. As we chewed on choclate bars, I pointed out a creepy crawly in Pete´s beard, which the vets identified as a tick. Several more were located in the gully which made us leap up rather swiftly and investigate our many layers for evidence of bitey bloodsuckers... That afternoon, I also discovered Grenadines, a citrusy fruit that looks like an orange but is filled with mucosal slime and pips, which are absolutely delicious.

Off again into the wind, and eventually the salty no-man´s-land came to an end and we dropped down through a gorge, emerging to a horizon filled with a line of emense volcanoes. It was breathtaking. Speeding along the tarmac we soon reached a junction and turned off the main highway towards Colca Canyon - and abruptly ran out of tarmac. It wasn´t so much breathtaking as utterly crushing - our pacey progress slowed to a 15kmph crawl over sand, gargantuan potholes and tyre-eating rubble. Chivay was still over 75km away, and the sun was sinking...

And then the chain fell off the Magical Tricycle again. And then it got a puncture. To keep it company, Pete´s Wobbly Express also threw its chain - I´m delighted to report that little KarmaKola was the only vehicle that held it´s own on this perilous path. We past llama farms, remote outposts in the desolate landscape, and eventually we saw something that made all our hearts sing. TARMAC! Glorious, new tarmac, with bright yellow markings. We stopped and bailed out onto the road, hunkering down to kiss the black stuff in celebration. And at that exact moment I glanced up to see the Magical Tricycle of Destiny disappearing over the edge of the road. TAXIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII! I yelled, and we all jumped up and watched the little dust bucket drop neatly into a meter deep ditch. It was a lucky escape. I should probably point out that mototaxis don´t have anything as advanced as a handbrake...

We struggled to pull it out of the ditch more due to giggling than a lack of muscles. In truth, you can lift these machine singlehanded, which is probably why we struggled so much with the wind. The good road lasted all the way to Chivay, another 50km of shiveringly beautiful scenery which disappeared into shadows, and then the welcoming lights of the village which was visable for a full hour as we desended down from the 4800m plateau, hairpining down the mountain in the pitch black. That night, we snuggled by a pizza oven, sipping mulled wine and commending ourselves on perhaps the hardest day to date. After three days solid on the road, a good feed, a hot shower and a clean bed felt like heaven :)

 

Day eight...

Drawing back the creaky steel gates of the hostal parking, we snuck off into the chilly morning at 5am, watching the world wake up as we packed in the pre-dawn miles. At eight, we pulled off the highway at a patch of green hillside for a picnic of coffee, porridge, boiled eggs and banana sandwiches. It was one of those moments that make the trip worthwhile - a pocket of campsite contentment nestled on mountain ridge that stretches across a continent: we felt like the kings of the world.

Speeding southward under the hot sun, we sadly waved goodbye to the Screaming Camels in Juliaca - in order to connect with their flights they had to hot-foot it across to Paraguay by bus, or pay the price. So four became three... we stocked up on cake, cash and wine, and trundled off into the twilight towards Arequipa. We drove as far as we could before the sun sank below the horizon, then scouted out the leigh of a cliff to make a wild camp. Obscured from the highway´s traffic by boulders, we pitched up at 4000m - three occassionally reliable mototaxis, two tents and the four of us. A last battalion of optimism and adventure, on a mission to the source of the Amazon, via the deepest canyon in the world (almost). We dined on macaroni cheese and cakes, washed down with lots of red wine to keep off the substantial wind chill, before snuggling down into blankets and sleeping bags under the gargantuan Andean sky. Who needs paperwork, anyway.

Day seven...

After a day of waiting and wondering in Cusco the paperwork had still not arrived and prospects for crossing the border looked ever bleaker. There was no point heading to Puno until it did - a fairly mediocre industrial town with little to recommend it. It was time to get creative: we needed a new challenge. Out of the hat of adventure, we rustled up a new plan: to head south to the deepest canyon in the world (almost) and to discover the source of the Amazon!

Sadly, this meant saying goodbye to my team mate and the jungle-bound Caustias Perdidas who were heading north on a longer timeframe, but it meant joining forces with The Magical Tricycle of Destiny, Screaming Camels and the Wobbly Express, three smashing teams that were up for a bit of mountainy adventure. We trouped out into the fray of mid-afternoon traffic - busy, dusty and dire. But soon we´d left the hubbub behind and were swooshing down almost empty highways of glorious tarmac. The way from Cusco south is a gentle meander through a wide floodplain punctuated with livestock, fields being ploughed by hand and kids playing in the afternoon sun. Utterly blissful. We pulled up in a tiny hamlet about 100km south of the city, where a grubby looking hostal housed neat dorm beds bound with floral linen and woolley blankets. That night we dined under the stars, a campstove supper of beanfeast bolognaise, corn chower and coco tea, washed down with chilled Cuscquenas. The adventure was back on. For now...

Day five...

Up, up and away from Abancay by 6am, onto the tarmac for the first time since day one, and into the rain. Thick, freezing drops sliced across the sky and under the flimsy mototaxi canopy, slapping persistently at my face and pooling on my lap as I climbed upwards out of the valley and into the clouds. Within an hour, my fingers were like icicles and the clever ventilation holes in the crotch of my waterproof trousers served as a handy inlet for the water that collected on my lap. I looked jealously at my belongings, cleverly sealed in watertight Aquapac cases. I am going to give them a big shout out here as not only have they kept all the dust off everything on the dirt roads that we´ve ripped up to date, but they are an absolute miracle in these conditions. And if they ever invent an Aquapac bodysuit, I´m gonna be the first in line! 

We stopped at 9am to brew up hot coffee and supernoodles, and to distribute biscuits among the shepherds who collected to see my curious cooking contraption. The climb up seemed neverending but by midday we successfully negotiated a series of huge gorges and the road finally began to flatten. And we picked up pace, setting a new top speed of 55kmph.

The long, flat valley that took us into Cusco around 4pm was more populated than any road we´d taken to date, with tarmac fringed by schoolchildren, roadside stalls and pockets of dwellings. In UNESCO style, the quaint cobbled streets of Cusco gave us a final rattle as we desended to Hostal Familiar, a cute courtyard with tiny rooms and intermittent electricity that would be home for the next two nights.

Now, you say - isn´t this a race? Can you afford to have two nights in Cusco? Well, there´s the hitch. Sadly, as well as a few delays with getting the mototaxis to the start line, it´s also become apparent that none of the little beasties have the correct paperwork to leave the country. The front teams arrived at the border yesterday, only to discover that they were unable to enter Bolivia, but also unable to re-enter Peru. After spending a night or two on a mattress on the immigration office floor, they bade their mototaxis farewell and headed off to finish their trip on public transport.

Such is the lot of the pioneer. On tight time schedules, many of the teams have been forced to abandon ship in Puno,  the last major city before the border, while others are waiting there for the correct paperwork to emerge from Peru´s deepest, darkest beauracratic corridors. This had been scheduled for tomorrow, but the latest scoop is that it´s still not been issued from Lima, and the weekend holiday now means another three days delay until Tuesday.

So we used our best cunning, and headed off to sip *calientitos*, mugs of steaming pisco tea, before treating ourselves to a feast of sushi, steak and cocktails. It felt like the last supper - would this be the end of our mototaxi mission?

Day four...

Although they had lots of Pisco in Chinceros they didn´t have much tucker, so after a night of grumbling bellies we set off around 6am to find a mechanic for our wobbly front wheel. The first hour was magical - columns of smoke rose from mud-brick houses, cats and dog sleepily soaked up in the morning sunshine and we trundled through scenery vaguely remeniscent of Switzerland. Uripa town provided a handy breakfast stop with a mototaxi mechanic to realign our spokes while we pàtched up the inner tubes from our previous punctures, and got back on the road by 9am.

The route ahead had been much debated by the front runners. I guess this is a small benefit of the staggered start - texting ahead to find out which roads were utterly terrible, and which were just mildly awful. Heads up today was that roadworks ahead closed the road between 1pm and 5pm, or there was a boulder-strewn option to the north that had already claimed several tyres. We opted for a nice long lunch in Andahuaylas, with cold beers and strong coffee, before heading over the next pass towards the men at work.

Emerging from the steep, wooded angles of the morning, the horizon opened up and we traded green pines for a patchwork of brown fields, gradually dulling to a mottled grey as we approached 4000m. Blue skies turned black as we reached the top and within minutes a monumental hailstorm blew in, pelting us with tiny white beads that stung your eyes and thighs as they bounced earthward, while slashes of lightening decorated the sky - a sky under which we were the only prominent feature on the large, rather exposed, horizon.

It took us until 4pm to reach the roadworks, time enough to brew up, scoff biscuits and exchange stories with the trucks that were waiting to cross. At exactly 5pm, we got the green light and plundered down from the pass, eager to make the most of the fading light. We had another 80km to reach Abancay, but only enough light for about 30km. By 6pm, we caught our first glance of the city, a puddle of twinkling lights glinting in the distance like a scene from Tolkein. But distances can be deceiving - it took another three hours of weaving in and out of the mountain´s curves in the dark before we finally pulled into the hotel parking lot, and claimed the day´s prize - a deliciously hot shower.

So today, my big shout out is to [Icebreaker](index.php?mode=teamwebsites&name=karmakola&page=icebreaker)- their toasty clothes made from merino wool came into their own on these chilly climbs. And despite wearing them constantly for days on end, through fierce Andean sun and ferocious hail, they were still pong-free. I did give them a rinse in the hot shower though, and they were ready to wear again by the following morning... a legend for travellers with small packs and tight timescales!