A PROPER UPDATE OF GLORY
Phase One Complete of the Motortaxi Junket: Updates as follows - 1000km traversed, over majestic mountains, trecherous torrents and mighty Andean passes. Clutches burned out - 2, batteries replaced one, injuries, minor. Day 0: Wednesday - Huancayo The event set off has been delayed four days due to lack of papers. Picked by the organisers to be at the very forefront of the set-off procession through Hauncayo, number one of 63 teams. Only team to make it from the start grounds to the procession set off for ten minutes, parade of one baby!!! Union Jack flying high. Met the mayor of Huancayo, awarded a medel type thing and led procession from town hall (one team crashes after 700m). Start delayed due to lack of correct papers. Day 1: Huancayo - Pampas 50km
Set off with minor hangover to Ayacucho. 4am start. Lose convoy within one hour, as one teams battery packs up. Press on though rainstorm. Sent wrong way by locals and lose transmission after being chased by a dog over a ravine. Clutch burned though going up mountain. Get towed by motorbike up mountain, and then four tonner. Deserted at the ridge where we push bike two miles to desolate rural farmstead on the S3.
No one stops to help. Cold sets in. Hope fades, whereupon an Amry Major from the Peruvian commados stops and commandeers a taxi to ride to Pampas the next town and send for help. Mechanics arrive within two hours. Towed on motorbike to the crest of the range at 42oo meters, then we are set loose, and coast 21km downhill without power to the town, overtaking traffic as we go. Over next few hours, Mechanics fix our clutch for free and we give them our team t hirts, a bob marley cd, and bits and pieces for the kids. Incredible few hours. Meet the only Frech speaker in Pampas, who invites us to stay on his dairy farm that night. Wife cooks us Cuy (Guinea Pig!) and we retire for the night. Fantastic day one!
Day 2: Pampas - Ayacucho 200km
Take leave of the family of Carlos, we set off in good spirits. They follow us to might sure we find the right passge through the valley. Betsy, our mototaxi, climbs admirably to 4200m, whereupon clutch gives out again. Towed for 2km until rope snaps. Potato truck appears on the horizons, and we mount (!) the entire mototaxi aboard and hitch a lift to Huanta, 120 km of rolling and beautiful mountains. Get the beers in and get reasonably inebriated in back of truck, taking in the fantastic countryside. Great pictures! Pay them a little more to get to Ayacoocho. Spirits low. Why does it keep breaking? Eat appalling pizza and comtemplate our lot. Fall asleep watching shoddy French Leon film rip-offs.
Day 3: Saturday. Ayacucho - Uripa (Halloween) 200km
Spend half the day in a mechanics who identifies the problem after some time. Lifan, the bastards (manafacturers of the mototaxis) put the clutch together incorrectly, and problem is rectified. Press on at 2pm for Andyalas. Mototaxi hits irregularity in the road and loses control. We jump to safety at 30 km per hour, and watch hopelessly as our mototaxi flies of the cliff. The end???
After discerning we have no major injuries we inspect the vehicle. It fell 20ft-30ft off the side, obliterating a cactus patch. Pith helmet caught on a cactus. Gas is pouring from the tank all over the baking engine. Despite this, we climb down to switch off the tank. Roof bent in, and steering bar on the right turned through 30 degrees. Two buses stop to help us, with the aid of rope to pull Betsy to the road. Danny tries bike. Steering is bizarre to say the least, however the bike works still. Maybe just maybe...
Bike is fine! Danny gets used to the steering and we ride over a collosal Andean Plateau. One the way down, stop at a farmstead. Old man says his wife is in dire need of medical attention, and is suffering from a bad heart. A quest! We ride frantically down the mountainside to the next town Orcos, and get to the hospital, dispatching aid to the farm. Night sets in, we eat and decide to ride on, after a minor infraction with a cheating git of a gasoline pump engineer. Down in the valley the air becomes warmer. At every hamlet we are chased by packs of angry dogs, Danny weaving through the towns awful potholed roads as Sacha fends off the hoards with a meter long club (the ´dog swotter´). In the more rural parts we see huge spiders the side of dinner plates migrating across the roads, which freaks Danny the mildly arachophobic the hell out. Betsy hits 300km. No room at the inn in Chincheros, where we find several teams parked up, we press to the next town, Uripa, to find a small inn and sleep for the night.
Day 4: Uripa to Cusco (450km)
Set off at 7. Danny peeved over lose of pith helmet overnight theft from taxi.
We push to Andyhaulas, over taking several teams and picking up a local hitcher lady who directs us and gives us bread for the ride. Eat in the city, and drive five hours to Abancay, stopping to donate fuel to stranded team. Race a horse and rider down the valley and mildly avoid a suicidal hen. At bottom of the valley hit tarmac, spirits high. Danny seen in pressup position kissing the ground. Ride to Abancay. Drunken police officer warns us over local drug trafficing and terrorist activity and offers to sell us his guns. Town a bit of a let down. Impossible to withdraw money, and we are impatient. Night sets in. We undertake, foolishly, tired another night journey. Leaving town at 7ish. It´s a five hour climb to the mountain top between the town and Cusco, Lima`s second city. Danny swaying through tiredness, we stop frequently to avoid fatigue. A stop at 1130, Danny collapses into a slumber whilst Sach stands guard for ten minutes.
Rain starts. Confusion over the distance to Cusco. Bike starts struggling. Storm brews and evolves into a thunderstorm of frightening proportions. At 4150m, at midnight, lightening flashes all over hill side. The cutaways on the sides of the ground start to collapse into the road. Hypothermia sets in for me, as I´m drenched through entirely, poncho ineffectively against the relentless torrent of icy water, and start to lose feeling in extremities. Boots filled with water. Make it through the toll at the pass, yet five minutes later, the bike dies in a hamlet. Impossible to restart. Fuel problems??? We start to be surrounded by barking dogs, who sensing our growing fear, approach closer and start growling menacingly. Danny is so cold he can barely get off from the rider position as Sacha waves his club. As if by a miracle, bike starts and we race off, flying down the hill, at 60 km (top speed so far). We slow considerably after we hit a immense pothole and take to the air. We are waved through a police checkpoint, whose officer seems genuinely concerned for our wellbeing. Cusco appears at 3am over a minor pass, our concerns are abated. We follow a taxi driver to a hotel. Stumbling and unable to move our legs in any sort normal manner, we arrive at our room and lapse into a deep sleep.
Day 5: Cusco
In the morning we are fatigued dangerously, and we decide to stay and recover in Cusco for the day. Gotta get Betsy serviced, we arrive to her to find she won´t start. Push the tuk tuk through dangerous traffic two km to the mechanics street. Change battery in the rain, and fix the kickstart. We dump the functional bike back at the hotel and get to the Plaza. We make it to the highest Irish bar in the world (of course) and find another few teams. Getting slightly battered over extortionately priced Guinnesses (but entirely worth it, as it´s Danny´s first in five weeks), we met up with another team, Kirsty (Bubbles) and Georgina (Ian Fleming Grand-Niece!!!), mates from the practise days in Huancayo. They lost their taxi three days ago, over a cliff and into a raging and flooded river, losing all their belongings. We get reasonabñe drunk with team in the night and retire to the hotel, fersh, spirits high and ready to set off to Puno and Lake Titicaca the next day.
Day 6:
Breakfast, then off to the Plaza to write this. Time is midday, we´re off to find the girls to make surre their got their documentation sorted, and we´ll be setting off for PHASE TWO in approximately two hours.
Tune in next installment for the further adventures of SACHA AND DANNY: 633 SQUADRON RIDES TO GLORY AND LA PAZ, THE HIGHEST CAPITAL IN THE WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
