Sometimes routine cannot be avoided, it disguises the
passing of time and blends hours into days, days into weeks and before you know
it Christmas comes around again. Well our current route is wake up, drive crazy
mountain roads, drink a couple of beers and go to sleep. Tough life, eh?
When we’re up in the clouds, higher than people live we feel
it is safe to steal a little of that luscious mountain water without fear of
contamination and the unpleasant results that accompany this ill-advised
consumption. So we stop to wash dishes, fill our water tank and wash our faces
thereby contaminating the water for the poor souls downstream. Stuff flows
downhill as they say.
Those who follow our highs and lows closely will remember
the sad demise of Flop. Out of desperation, Steve bought a slightly too small
pair of Flip Flops to tie him over for a while. But just days later, when about
to don this footwear to hop out the van finds that another Flop has gone
missing… What the Flop, for Flips sake.
So what will Steve do until his parents arrive with
supplies? Wear his Flip Flips of course.
You may notice above that the jump leads are out, this isn’t
as the less faithful of you may assume to restart Westy Rick but yet another
incidence of Good Samaritism by our very selves. A modern Jeep was parked up on
the edge of a crazy cliff road, and had a feeble pair of wires wound into his
battery terminals hoping for a jump start. We obliged, but only after pulling
out less likely to start a fire electron transferring devices. He then followed
us down the mountain for 15 minutes, until we both had to stop for an oncoming
truck. Steve waved him past since we felt we were holding him up, but he just
waved back and didn’t move before hopping out of his car. We set off before
realising that he needed another jump start, and every time he stopped the
vehicle must die... We waved back as we continued on our way the not so Good
Samaritans.
Slow progress was made that day, we ended up camping in a
desert like valley. Steve thought it might help the engine issues if he fed
water into the engine to clean up the pistons like he saw on a youtube video.
It didn’t help, biggggg surprise. 
Our only neighbour was a GIANT centipede with whom we played
the “can we pick it up with a stick like a child game”. Yes, yes we could. By
we, we mean Steve, obviously.
The routine continues, yaawwwnnnn.
You won’t believe this but it’s true so you better believe
it. We last filled out propane tank in Guatemala, two and a half months ago.
There is no gauge on our tank, we have no idea how long it lasts or how much is
left. Every dinner is a victory, every coffee successfully brewed a massive
relief. We find a gas company on iOverlander that can fill our type of tank,
and send a few messages back and forth with the lovely English speaking Belgium
man who works there. We are all set, the next day we will finally fill our
tank. So just one more night to get through, but halfway through dinner… the
flames go out. Remember Ace Ventura with the slinky? It was EXACTLY like that.
Fill time, what a happy time that was despite our coffee
deprived state. The Belgium helped so much, even guiding us to the best place
in town to restock groceries afterwards. We even got to wear hard hats! If
you’re wondering, yes Jenjen the builder can fix it.
Within ten minutes the weather turned from lovely sunshine
to absolute crazy monsoon. It was incredible, the streets flooded, people
running for cover and a couple of taxis crashed into each other just metres
ahead of us. We drove up beyond the town and in our attempt to turn around on a
small back lane, someone who shan’t be named managed to drop a wheel into a
ditch. What an idiot the Steve who shall not be named must be. The mud was like
grease, a thin layer of clay like slime prevented any traction and one wheel
spun helplessly as the rain helped sink the front tyre deeper and deeper into
shit creek as it is now known. The belly of the beast was wedged firmly against
the rocks.
Recovery attempt 1. Rocks under the wheel to get us moving
backwards rolling off them. Did not work, rocks chewed up and spat out.
Recovery attempt 2. Sand Ladders pulled off the roof and
stuck under the spinning wheel, Steve bouncing up and down on the bumper. We
managed to crawl back 2 feet before the spinning resumed.
Desperate recovery attempt 3. Steve threw a big heap of
rocks just ahead of the front wheel, hoping that the soft stream wouldn’t
swallow them all as Jenjen drove forwards onto them and up back onto the road.
Somehow it worked, the van was free with no damage after just an entire
miserable soaking wet hour.
Our camp spot felt like coming into land at an airport
except the bar service was help yourself and the cabin crew were wearing less
makeup.
A high ranking mobster, we wonder what is kept under that
hat…
Is that the actual Speedy Gonzalez?!
Google sometimes sends us on “shortcuts”. And through more
funny towns with funny bushes.
We’ve been extremely lucky with the police, before crossing
into Mexico we assumed we would be pulled over every 5 minutes for an
“infraction” which could only be easily solved with a bribe. Stories of this
were everywhere but we’ve been extremely lucky. We got away with going the
wrong way up a one way road by lying about our departure date from town, a huge
display of impressive ignorance avoided trouble when we were caught
insuranceless in Nicaragua and our speeding ticket from Panama remains in the
glove box. All our experiences with the police have been positive.
But this was different, a couple of police talking to a
local saw us coming, dollar bills in their eyes they gleefully signalled we
must pull over. Here we go. A slow swagger up to the window, sunglasses still
on, Mr. Po-Po asks for our documents one at a time giving each a thorough
inspection. Then he starts asking for a document whose name we don’t
recognises, so out comes Google Translate. Ah, Steve remembers reading about
the technical inspection that older Peruvian cars must undergo (although
looking at the state of some of the vehicles it makes you wonder..). What Steve
had read was a warning on iOverlander about a policeman who had managed to
procure a bribe from a traveller who didn’t have this document but had later
found out too late it isn’t required for foreign vehicles. A quick translate of
“This isn’t required for foreign vehicles, officer” and we could tell this
wasn’t new information for Mr. 5-0. His buddy swaggers over too, they have a
quick discussion then realise they haven’t checked our passports, so out those
come. Do we have stamps for entry? Is the vehicle stamp correct? Yes and yes.
Reluctantly and with great sadness in their eyes we are waved on, free to go
and in full possession of our Peruvian Soles.
Camping outside some ancient ruins we continue our trend of
towering over the little ant like people in the towns below. We are woken up at
6am by the sound of a motorbike. Then again by another, and then a Tuk-Tuk.
Before long we realise we are surrounded by people getting dropped off and
hanging out all around the van. Awkwardly we make our coffee, get changed and
pull down the curtains before quickly moving up to the next car park. Later we
walk back past to find some sort of official looking meeting going on in the
very spot we were obstructing so perfectly. The man in blue is crouching unknowingly
in the toothpaste spit we washed down the sink… and I think Steve peed pretty
close to those people sat on the left…
We can’t get enough of these Andean stereotypes.
If you were a dog, our wheels would hold smells that would
blow your mind. We’ve seen at least a dozen in the act, and seen many more
times wet patches signalling the marking of a dog’s territory. We finally
managed to photograph one leaving his mark, just like the youth spraying
graffiti on trains hoping to spread their tag around like it somehow means
anything to anyone.
We have with us a cheap and cheerful drone mainly to
entertain Steve. He can be seen here documenting out lovely campsite in the Eucalyptus
trees hidden from everyone, perfection.
Most of the houses up here are made from adobe, which is
Spanish for mudbrick which is incidentally exactly what it sounds like. Mud
packed around straw with logs for balconies and it all comes together to make
quite impressive dwellings.
Our route took us over the most insane mountain descent and
climb we have ever done. Hairpin after hairpin (over 50 in total) took us down
one mountain before crossing a river and climbing all the way back up again.
Just look at it! Madness.
We were very happy there was a new bridge here… We don’t
mind houses being built out of mud and sticks but perhaps bridges should be
steel and concrete. Like the third little piggy?
Managed to avoid running over this GIANT spider, if only to
prevent damage to the van. He was the size of a postcard, but we prevented him
becoming one.
Some content looking sheep out for a rip.
More of the same. Wait, are the wheels tight? Is that knock
a steering link about to let go?
Uh oh. And we was backing up, backing up…
Is this the moon?
These ruins are a staggering 4000+ years old, just beside
the road open for anyone to climb around on. There a number of openings that
you can crawl down into if you’re brave/stupid enough. We’re enough not the
former that being the latter didn’t matter.
We started the next day at a hot and dry 1,600ft driving the
moon like Canon Del Pato (Duck Canyon). The scenery was incredible, impossible
to describe and apparently too much to capture properly with the camera as
well. But we tried, and that’s what counts isn’t it? This road snaked through
the canyon for a couple of hours, with tunnels everywhere, waterfalls gushing
into the river and birds of prey riding the thermals (even a Peregrine Falcon
fighting with a Vulture). It was like a different world, or the moon.
And where did we end up? Eventually, at 13,700ft just below
the snow line, camping by a glacial lake in the shadow of giant snowy peaks (apparently,
we couldn’t see them through the clouds).
12,100ft gained in a day was quite the shock, from Flip
Flips, sunglasses and a vest to thick socks, a woolly hat/toque and gloves.
And just before we closed the curtains for the night, the
fog cleared we got a whole ten seconds of clear skies. What a sight!
We set an alarm for at least the 5th time this
trip so we could get a reasonably early start on a hike along the glacial lake.
We know you’re thinking, what kind of a holiday involves so many damn alarms
but it’s OK, we’re tough and determined like that.
We cross many rivers, some small, some large and Jenjen even
managed to pretend she is keen to climb towards the glacier in the distance. 
Interestingly (subjective, we know) the colour of a glacial
lake changes with the quantity of “rock flour” contained within it. Rock flour
is created by the slow movement of glaciers grinding against the mountains and
gives those fancy lakes their teal colour. The lake from earlier had a good mix
of rain water and glacial water, but the lake we found higher up was a much
higher concentration of glacier water fed from a waterfall over the back. You’d think that would make it even prettier
but quite the opposite, it was a murky green and obviously freezing cold as it
was freshly melted ice sitting at 14,000ft. 
Just so that he could say he did, not because it made any
sense, Steve went for a swim.
Like a pig in…
Deciding not to spend another night freezing our proverbial
bollocks off, we headed back down to civilisation and joined an incidental VW
camping club. Brazilian Kombi, German Transporter and our Canadian Vanagon. A
day of unwinding, chatting, cleaning, restocking and getting sunburnt followed.
Now it’s time to make up some miles, Steve’s unruly parents
arrive tomorrow so we must make tracks to Lima else he’ll get in all sorts of
trouble is he isn’t at the airport in time. Down into the desert we go, goodbye
mountains.
