19, as in Twenty Nineteen

After we left you last time our evening took a couple of unexpected twists. Firstly, a couple of French cyclists with whom we’d shared Christmas at the hostel showed up to the same camp spot as us after 7 gruelling hours of pedalling. We’ll take our one hour of leisurely driving any day... We had a lovely evening eating popcorn and chocolate making great use of Westy Rick’s Tardis like interior space.

The second twist was a little more… unnerving? Jenjen was outside in the dark, watering the grass so to speak, when she heard a stick crack round the other side of the van. She didn’t think much of it since we had neighbours, but she noticed a reflection from her head torch in front of the van, which then became two gleaming eyes looking back with a dark, big cat shaped silhouette. Not like a large house cat, but a big cat, waist height on the back. It looked away and slinked away into the bushes. Was it a dog? Maybe, but it didn’t come running over with its tail wagging like every other dog we’ve met. Were the French cyclists secretly Warecougars and it was a full moon? Maybe! We will never know.

We still can’t get over how quickly the scenery can change during a day’s driving.

We have a very strict morning routine, it starts with waking up when we wake up. Next step, Steve checks the solar controller to see how the battery did overnight. Then he checks it again when the sun moved 3mm in the sky to see how much power it is generating now, then again when the clouds move over a tiny bit. Again, and then again, and then again, again. Then, while Steve is checking the solar controller again, Jenjen puts the coffee on and packs the bedding away. Steve very occasionally brushes his teeth, Jenjen always washes behind her ears. We then scratch our heads and decide what today has in store for us, and Westy Rick does his suspension stretches as documented in this photo.

We’re starting to see lots of intimidating characters around these mountain villages. They hang around on street corners with an air of menace, much like the mafia. Risking our very existence we manage to get a couple of photos unnoticed, but please keep this between us since if we’re found out and they manage to catch us we’re sure it won’t be pretty. We think that the hats mark the ranking within the mob, but this requires further investigation.

13,000ft, that’s a long way up! Over 1/3^rd of the way between you and the highest aeroplane you’ll probably ever see in the sky. But there we were, camping in the cold and hiking around bothering Llamas. I think the rules here are similar to those for sheep in Wales, look but don’t touch.

The prettiest one was very shy, someone hasn’t been following the rules…

The trees up here are weird, they’re growing at an altitude at which you wouldn’t usually find such large flora. Perhaps because they spend so much time in the wet clouds and therefore lichen grows on everything, these trees seem to shed their bark keeping themselves colourful and gnarly.

Strange Ecuadorian tradition, burning manikins on New Years Eve. What we learnt was that they burn manikins of unpopular characters such as celebrities, politicians or perhaps the neighbour who can’t stop that damn dog from barking. What we found was manikins being sold in every shape and size such as Homer Simpson, The Mask and Toad. It all seems a little…. Witchlike.

Sidenote: Mannequins are used for displaying clothing, and Manikins are used for medical simulation purposes. We decided this tradition falls closer to the latter, in a disturbing way.

Our high altitude travels continued and we made ourselves at home in an area of grassland not far from the Pan-American Highway. The road which we’re meant to be driving but rarely find ourselves on because of our short attention span. There is no way we can describe to you the sounds of the night time here, but we’ll write it down and try our bestest. The most concise description is “3D Bing Bong Symphony”. Ok, that doesn’t help at all. Hundreds of probably frogs, maybe aliens, in every direction were making loud and randomly timed Bing or Bong noises. It all came together to make a crazy and creepy song. See, we told you we couldn’t describe it properly.

This is how we review photos, you can see the stress seeping from every pore.

About time we got some exercise so we make our way up to a national park so we can put on outdoorsy cloths and fit in with the active people. We already have the messy hair, greasy faces and stinky feet to fit right in without the days of traipsing through the jungle. It feels great to be prepared! We hike for the grand total of less than an hour, that’ll do for the week.

New Years Eve comes around, the last day of 2018, and we are driving towards the Peruvian border through the middle of nowhere. More manikins, some tied to cars, others doing a terrible impression of South Park. They are everywhere.

And here is another tradition, one you probably won’t read about anywhere else as we are the pioneers, the pathfinders in this strange world below the equator. Men dress up as women, hold ropes across the road to make you stop and dance for you in exchange for some money. We encountered 5 of these, and being the good sports that we are, did not stop for a single one. But why we hear you cry.  Well, over our travels we have encountered at least 30 instances where someone is holding a rope across the road, always with the hopes that you will stop and they will ask for money. But once you’ve stopped you feel vulnerable, someone can stand in front of the vehicle and it’s tough to get moving again. Some of these “road blocks” are manned by half a dozen guys and who knows what will happen if you don’t want to give them money. So we instantly learnt the easy option, just don’t stop. Keep on rolling through and they will drop the rope. With the dancing men we didn’t exactly feel threatened… it was more just a matter of taste, or lack thereof.

Continuing our way over the mountains we encounter severe fog and those kind of roads you see on “Mental Mountain Redneck Truckers” and “World’s Most Extreme Badass Crazy Dangerous Roads” except now it’s live albeit slightly less dramatic without the intense music, frequent advert breaks and overly excited narration.

We decide that following a bigger and heavier vehicle means surely nothing can go wrong for us. If they make it through, and don’t slide off the edge then we must be fine! Sometimes we watch closely, and sometimes we stay waaaaaaay back. Despite the mud, landslides, rain, fog, oncoming trucks and constant distraction of the spectacular views we made it!

Dam. That’s what we stayed next to, and the attendant who managed the water levels came storming out of his hut to have a stern word with us for parking on the property. Only joking, he gave us a tour of the dam and insisted Steve take a photo of he and Jenjen on the dam but only after donning his hard hat. Why Steve wasn’t welcome to be in the photo who knows, so we took our own. We gave him a beer as a thank you for letting us camp and he brought us out a Papaya in return.

And so that was the end of 2018, we celebrated at UK time so we didn’t have to stay up too late… Our drive to the border the next morning was highly entertaining, instead of transvestites lining the street there was just people passed out in ditches, against walls, in front of houses, everywhere. The road was also littered with the remains of those poor innocent manikins, charred blobs of what was once Dora the Explorer, Mickey Mouse or even perhaps Sonic the Hedgehog.

The border crossing into Peru was the quickest and most relaxed of all we’ve done thus far. After landing the van in the middle of the hamlet, a man whom Jenjen diagnosed as being drunk staggered over and asked for our vehicle import paperwork. We reluctantly hand it over, and he thanks us and staggers away. Confused, we walk to migration where a sobre man in an actual uniform watching YouTube videos takes our passports. Before stamping them he looks out the window and the drunk guy nods in approval that we have followed the “process” before we are stamped out of Ecuador. The Peruvian side was equally relaxed and we end up giving someone a lift to the next town. What is it with borders and giving lifts? This is why we don’t stop unless we have to. At least he was in men’s clothing.

Every valley seems to have a different climate despite being of similar altitudes, the one we found ourselves in for our first night in Peru, and our first night of 2019 was semi-arid with a huge and incredibly fast flowing river cutting through the centre of it. This river eventually flows into the Amazon River. After a local family managed to squeeze into a tiny motorbike powered dumper truck we had the beach to ourselves, well for a while. Every now and again a couple would ride down on a motorbike, see us and leave again. Apart from one especially horny couple who rode round and hid in the bushes.

You know how when you cook dinner…

And then you come to put the other half of the lettuce back in the fridge but a giant maggot worm motherfucker falls out?

Traffic is significantly less of a problem here than it was in Colombia but it still exists.

By far the most common mode of transport here is a frankentrikemobile. An entirely separate branch of automobile evolution from the cars you know and love. The separation of the two branches has been estimated between 100-150 years ago although the missing evolutionary link remains missing.

Crazy canyon roads, interesting town names.

You are probably concerned that since we have left normal life to bumble around in a van our brains might be beginning to fade away, what little we ever had anyway. But don’t worry, every time we find ourselves arriving at a village our daily puzzle begins.

It shouldn’t be difficult, getting from the main road in to the main road out but believe us, this consumes every last molecule of gray matter left inside our airy skulls. First challenge, one way roads. Most road in villages are “una via” but only half of them are signposted. Next challenge, markets randomly spring up blocking whole sections of the town, and guess what, the only escape road when you stumble upon this market is one way, the wrong way. The roads are too tight to turn around, the next road has a truck parked across the road and the next is dug up for maintenance. Then suddenly you find yourself back where you began and now you get to start all over again. Except now you’re facing the wrong way and the truck has moved to block another street, but you won’t know which street until it’s too late.

We hear of a crazy hike you can do along a cliff edge, but first we have to get the keys from the local tourist office. Once these are obtained we scoot on up to what is now our very own, locked and gated, private camping spot high above just about everything else. Our only neighbours are a terrifying puddle of mosquitoes.

Across the valley is Gocta Falls, the 4^th longest waterfall in the world. Apparently it was 3^rd but then they found a bigger one somewhere. It’s tough being a competitive waterfall.

Before it gets too dark and creepy we head on down to see the ancient ruins, “Pueblo De Los Muertos”, or “Town Of The Dead”. A series of buildings and graves along a cliff edge dating back around 1000 years. When we say cliff edge, we aren’t exaggerating. The walk along skirts past the walls and we are in full knowledge that the path has very little supporting it underneath. One slip and it is a good few seconds of wishing you were Buzz Lightyear.

Jenjen manages to resist some urges, but let’s be honest, at this stage who could blame her if she hadn’t?

Danger zonnneeee.

A long ways away in another part of the cliff are a collection of weird sculptures, blobs with little faces. There are others scattered around too some that have been broken open.  The next morning when we hand back the keys we find out what is inside these blobs, ancient mummified corpses all tied up so they fit inside the blobs better. And there’s a couple that have been “recovered” on display at the tourism centre. Gross!

Our engine continues to rattle like a bag of nails being washed on heavy load, aggressive spin cycle while falling from an aeroplane. They call it “Pinging”, or “Pre Ignition” but we can’t yet find the root cause. Is this what a spark plug should look like? Who knows something we can’t figure out? Investigations continue. There’s always something broken.

Because we love nothing more than to spoil you, we’ve tripled your weekly dose of Steve and Jenjen selfies to fill you with extra New Years warmth and happiness and possibly a touch of resentment or a little sick in your mouth. Happy 2019!

Go ahead, stalk away you creep.