| Jeff Poulter & Graham Tillotson: 29th September 2004 |
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Machupichu to Puno
Well, the 29th September is a day I'd like to forget. It started well as
we left Ollantaytambo with blue skies at 8.30 heading for Puno. We rode
back along the sacred valley in sunshine and turned off at Pisaq for the
road to Lucre. Bad news: it was dirt and it had been raining overnight
so it was a mud bath, lots of deep ruts and fathomless potholes full of
water. So after a dozen km of this, I was in the process of berating God
in a most stout fashion about the quality of this road when it suddenly
changed to wonderful, smooth, new tarmac. Truly a miracle worthy of a swift
sainthood, whaddya reckon? We then made excellent progress for perhaps
50km until Graham pulled over with yet another rear wheel puncture. He
has the worst luck, it's his sixth. At least it wasn't desert and 110 degrees
so it could have been worse as I set about removing the wheel. I had changed
the tube and was just in the process of tightening up the rear wheel when
the heavens opened (that God again) and it hailed upon us unmercifully.
They hurt, sodding great hailstones the size of golfballs ... then it thundered
rain. Of course, all the tools were out; our discarded warm weather clothes
were out, the lids off all the boxes so that, within seconds everything
got soaked. This was not good news just as were to climb onto the Alto
Plano, the world's highest, thus coldest, road. It sure were high and it
sure were cold. After another 150km we stopped at a restaurant, frozen
and wet. We stayed there for a couple of hours warming up and drying off.
It was only an additional 15km to a town that at least was marked on the
map so we decided to head there and find a room for the night and dry everything
out. It was a pit. The next town, much larger, was 185km away. As we were
both warm at that point we made the worst decision of the day and decided
to try for Juilanca.
Where did that snow come from !!!
The Alto Plano is, more or less, dead straight so we thought that we would make good time. In the event we did but at some cost. It was fearsomely cold, colder even that Prudhoe Bay. There was snow at the side of the road and, with all our heated kit, we should have survived but our gloves and boots were wet through so the chill factor and latent heat of evaporation combined to make life dearly uncomfortable. Worse, we then encountered more heavy rain, in the the middle of nowhere, no shelter. Me feet was numb, as was de bum and fingers had gone awol a long time previously but there was no point in stopping in that desolate place so we ploughed on. Then it got dark, about fifteen minutes earlier that it should so that when we finally, finally entered the surrounds of Juilanca we could see bugger all. The roads were rutted and potholed and everywhere was flooded - and there were no street lights. The local moto-taxis and pedal taxis have no lights no reflectors and are all painted matt black with stealth bomber add-ons. So we did the only sensible thing a worldly-wise traveller would do under the circs: we hailed a passing pedal taxi (like one of those old-fashioned ice cream seller's bikes with the box at the front and an articulated single wheel at the back, only the passengers are the ice cream) and commissioned him to pedal to the hotel of our choice and we would follow. This bloke accepted the challenge with relish and assumed that because we had engines, he had better put a bit of welly into the pedalling. He was good but more importantly, fearless, so he whipped in and out of traffic assuming that we could follow with ease. No, Jose, we may be cold and wet but we're not dead yet and following you would accomplish the triptych in jolly short order. So, on a pedal taxi, he waited for us. We have no shame but at least we live to tell the tale.
We rock up at this town's equivalent of the Ritz and drip all over their reception. Sod the expense, we need hot showers and heat. Our room has all our belongings, literally everything which had been packed, hanging around drying off. It's more likely to make the room wet. We reckon that tomorrow we'll try to find a laundry because they have dryers. There's simply no way of wringing wet fleece enough, for example, so it will dry out overnight in an hotel room.
Ah! the joys of adventure travel. But we have only 45km tomorrow to Puno which is an interesting town on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Maybe it won't rain tomorrow? Enough of my moaning for one email. I hope that you are warm and dry and well tucked up in bed with a cup of hot cocoa and a good book. I just wish I were there!
Jeff 29.09.04 |
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