I left Cococabana after two liesurely breakfasts at 11:30am...about an hour behind schedule with the hope of making Desdagauda...a very sleazy border town before dark. I was nervous about the road conditions, no map, passing thru immigration and most nervous about my where I'd be sleeping that night. I'd heard nothing good about the border town.
Entering Peru was also easy and everybody was freindly :)
The weather was nice and the roads were great...smooth asphalt and very little traffic. Once in Peru a nice lady drew me a crude map but I had no idea of mileage, my spanish is work in progress...worse case i'd get a little lost but I was in no hurry.
I stopped in a very small town...to make sure o was still heading towards Chaca Chaca (where i had to turn to the east). The man immediated beakoned a young man named Carlos who spoke a little English.
I ended up staying for over an hour while his Mother cooked a meal for me...
His family is very poor, they live a single room house. I was afraid to eat the food but I was also pretty hungry...I ended up eating all the different kinds of potatoes but avoided the egg. I did give them a small amount of $ ($3) so I think they were surprized and pleased and not too offended i did not finish my meal. I am constantly impressed with the openess & generousity of the local people I have met.
I was escorted out of town by 3 teenage boys on bikes...as we neared a decent climb I said 1,2,3 (in spanish) and tried to out sprint them to the top...Heras would defend the honor of his village and beat me handily...I should have waited just a bit longer to attack! ;)
Sprinting at 13,500ft is not to be rccommended :)
I rode on really enjoying the countryside as well as the friendly villagers...lots of friendly waves, hello's, good days and how are you? etc:)
After about 50km a guy on a motor cycle passed me a few times and then indicated that something/someone important was up just ahead...a few minutes later I met a couple of fellow adventure cyclists...Paulina & Santiago from Argentina.
It was great to meet my "brother in arms" and we discussed upcoming road conditions, routes, bikes. It was great to learn there was a hostel in Desaguarda (even though it was bad!) and that i only had 20km of flat riding to get there. They were totally hard core...notive their HUGE packs they were carrying...they had been travelling for 2 1/2 months and were looking forward to spending 2 years (!!!) explorering South America by bike.
I took a short video so they can speak for themselves...they were both very cool people :)
I was able to give them a map good maps are VERY tough to come by in this part of the world.
I was sad to see them leave and did for a bit regret having a travelling companion...especially a good looking one like Paulina :) and rode on to Desaguarda...that bloody antiplano wind came on like clockwork at 4pm and I spent the last 1.5 hours struggling into a growing headwind.
About 45min later I was struggling along past a group of about 20 villagers playing volleyball...they beckoned me to stop and play but to be honest I was a bit intimidated. I was thinking close to the border meant increasing danger but i didn't want to wimp out so i rode back and joined them for about 5 minutes of spirited play.
No comments:
Post a Comment