Get Ya Motor Running...

That´s been the theme since we last bloged on here. We´ve had so many problems with the three taxis that I couldn´t begin to list them all. The event itself has had a fair few problems too which all means that our adventure must end here in Puno on the shores of lake Titticaca.

We´re all gutted that we couldn´t go all the way to Asuncion but work and flight comitments meant we had to call it a day.

To fill you in on what has happened over the last few days, we had to get the taxis serviced in Cusco on Tuesday so we spent the day checking out the city and organising an escape plan to gat us to our flights in Paraguay. On Wednesday we drove through a raging lightning storm over some of the best roads we have seen all trip to some hot springs where we managed to blag a spot for the night staying in one of the bath houses.

Good roads again today so we ploughed on from the springs to Puno with a slight detour to nowhere and a bust wheel or two we finaly made Puno.

gotta go and get food and a beer so we´ll check ion later.

Limping into Abancay

Two out of the three taxis are bust up pretty bad right now so for the third day running we´re at a garage waiting a few hours for them to be fixed.

We´ve been over countles passes over the last few days each one colder than the last, each one followed by a scorching valley complete with cactus and heat ripples. The constant cycle of hot, cold, hot, cold is made bareable by thw awesome views. we´re quite filthy now having camped for four nights running, with the machanical delay we may have to camp again tonight, hopefully we can keep up the run of great camping spots as we´ve camped in some crackers so far. Gotta go pick up a taxi, so for now it´s adios.

And They´re Off...Sort Of

Today is the day we finaly leave for Asuncion. We´re yet to be allocated our Mototaxis but that should happen this morning. As there has been a delay with the taxis and paperwork the teams will be leaving in three groups. The first early this morning, the second later today and the third may be as late as tomorrow. We are in the second group so we should be off this afternoon.

Good times.

Huancayo

Wé had a good (7 hour) bus trip from Lima to Huancayo. The scenery was fantastic but we weren´t too impressed with the movie the forced on us - a girly flick about chasing dreams of ice skating glory!. We arrived in Huancayo at about 3pm. Gav and Neil had already sorted hotels so that was nice and easy.

We´ve spent the past two days now running around Huancayo buying jerry cans and plastic sheeting (the afternoon rain is stupidly heavy!) and we also seem to have become the proud owners of fake biker jackets and a cowboy hat with gold skulls on it. The locals are caught between shock, horror, interest and amusement. This isn´t a tourist town so a sudden influx of more than 100 Gringos has been amusing. We´ve had a go on the Mototaxis and it´s safe to say that they´re not safe. Apart from haing rubbish steering and brakes, they might just have enough power to get us to Paraguay. The timescale is now silly but we´ll have fun trying. We´ll try to upload some photos but this seems to take ages out here.

Catch you all soon.

Si and Phil

Good Morning Lima

Woke up this morning at 05:30 with a stinking cold. Went up to the roof of the hostel to watch the city wake up and check out the view, it was stunning. We´re not staying in the relative safety of the Miraflores area of the city although we did get a suicide taxi ride out there for lunch last night. We opted to stay near to the train station so that we could roll out of bed and straight onto the train this morning (we all know how that went). I´t´s a bit grottier over this side of the city but that´s the way I like it ,´til I get mugged that is!

We´ve sorted a bus to Huancayo for Saturday morning so we´re going exploring today, prob have a look and see if we can pick up the last few bits before the main event.

Funny thing about all the set backs is that it feels so right that things have gone wrong, this is exactly what we signed up for and we´re loving it.

 

Do The Trains Ever Run On Time?

Nice flight to Lima with great views over the mountains, took a bit longer than we thought it would but there you go. Our taxi ride from the airport was crazy! Must have had about 10 near misses along the way. When we got to our hostel there were riot police outside holding back a massive (ñot quite) crowd of about thirty old men and a dog. The worlds worst demonstrtion!

Turns out that we may have some Mototaxis indeed, but god giveth and god taketh away. The train to the start in Huancayo has been cancelled for some unknown reason that Google translator could not decifer. Not sure how or when we´ll get there now but this is the sort of thing that we signed up for so bring on the adventure! 

Sao Paulo So Good

Landed in Sao Paulo after a 10 hour flight with not alot of sleep and a big ol´ 5 hour flight to Lima ahead of us. All is good although a bit tired.

Taxi for two?

Soooo, to taxi or not to taxi? This is no longer a question. The only real question being will there be a taxi at all? Honda have pulled out of the junket leaving the adventurists blagging vehicles from wherever they can. We'll have to see how that pans out eh?

At Heathrow right now, one beer down and ready for the 14 hour flight to Sao Paulo, bit of a wait then it's off to Lima. S'all a bit real now! Unfortunately the hotel in Lima is not as we've yet to book one, it'll be fine right(bit of a team moto there). We'll sign off here as the flight is gonna go without us. See y'all on the other side.

p.s. are we there yet?