The Northern Sierra - Lions, jaguars, and bears. Oh my!

*Too-clever-for-their-own-good hostel computers have thawarted our image uploading. We'll try and get some pictures to accompany our words in the next day or so.

Found a computer that is not to clever for us so here is a link to some of the photos

We had a fantastic time in Quito, what with a comfortable bed, delicious pancake breakfasts, undemanding strolls around the old town and a full 11kgs of laundry - we felt [and looked like] like bona-fide tourists. All good things have to come to an end however and after our last over-the-top breakfast we packed up our things to begin the process of leaving Quito.

Leaving a large city is always a bit of a drama for us. First of all there's getting out of the hotel which presents a number of challenges for the bicycle traveller, especially as there is always at least two flights of stairs and a few narrow doors involved which makes for multiple trips. One person has to stay on the street and keep an eye on the bikes [even though we have secretly hoped they would get stolen numerous times on the trip, losing our wheels would be a hassle]. The street watching person is usually Anna, as she is a better watcher and is terrible at carrying heavy things. Ben usually gets the job of carrying all the bags and bikes down the flights of stairs, because he is a bad watcher and can actually carry the bikes, rather than just dragging them or pushing them down the stairs, Anna-style. All stairs throughout the continent seem to be covered in glossy tiles which make them a bit hazardous to everyone but moreso when you have metal cleats in your shoes. Anna made a tactical error with her shoe purchase and her cleats stick out someways beyond the soles of her shoes, making her transit accross such tiles very much like skating on ice. She has taken to wearing her helmet when walking up and down hotel stairs to avoid cracking her head open [again] when she inevitably slips.

So after 20 minutes of too-ing and fro-ing and huffing and puffing and "Have you checked under the bed?" and general scene-making we were off. Well, we didn't have a map really and we had half read a blog describing a cycle lane that took you out of the city but didn't pay attention to where it was, so there was lots of over slow cycling on the footpath and direction-guessing at intersections. We found the cycle lane eventually but without knowing exactly how it took us out of the city we had no choice but of follow it as it zig-zaged accross town to encompass every park and scenic neighbourhood, which was pleasant but not exactly good for making progress. After two hours of cycling we were still very much in Quito and only 8kms north of where we started. Then the cycle lane ran out. After a bit of blank looking around hoping for a sign saying "north" we gave up and asked a security guard which way to the Panamericana norte, which thankfully was straight ahead, but unthankfully accross some sort of elevated motorway-roundabout, then up a large hill on a 8 lane motorway. This would usually strike fear into the hearts of the most seasoned cyclist but as we trained by cycling to work last year in Auckland's traffic this was a piece of cake for us. Vehicles screaming past mere centimetres from our handlebars? No problem.

We carried on our merry way along the motorway for another 20kms or so, getting the occasional wave from passing policemen. We have never experienced any trouble from riding on motorways and in fact find it sometimes less stressfull than more minor roads, as there is usually less people wandering onto the road and less vendors [and buses] to avoid. Also the lack of traffic lights means we aren't forced to stop, which can sometimes bit a bit shifty on the edge of town. We rejoined the city bypass at the biggest intersection we have ever seen and stopped for lunch at a toll booth at the top what appeared to be a canyon. As we munched on our jam sandwiches we peered down into the canyon and realised that the road appeared to go all the way to the bottom, and then all the way back to at least the height we were at now on the other side. It could possibly go even higher as there seemed to be only hills as far as the eye could see. There was at least 1000 metres of downhill followed by the same uphill in the next, say, 5 kilometres. All this when we had already done 25kms through Quito just to get to the city edge, and the guidebook said the equator was only 15kms away. 15 kms from whereeeeee, we moaned. Clearly this was going to be way harder than we had been envisaging.

Surely enough, within 4 minutes of starting we were at the bottom of the canyon-gorge-bottomless pit, and about an hour later we had managed to regain about 200 metres. There was a medium sized town just over the first lip and as we pulled up for an emergency ice cream it started to rain. It was already almost 3pm and 40 kilometers to the next town, so the guidebook was consulted on what amemities existed [other than ice cream] in the town we were in. In an unsual stroke of good fortune Quito zoo was located 3kms from where we were, and was reported to be the best zoo in the continent. When faced with choosing between cycling uphill in the rain, or going to the zoo, the decision was clear. Within the hour we had found a hostal, changed and biked to the zoo gates, where a mathematical error on behalf of the cashier got us in for free.

The zoo was great, as we hadn't gone to the Amazon we thought we would never get to see the jungle animal but here they all were - jaguars, Galapagos turtles, monkeys, some sort of bear, tucans, condors, armadillos, and other more out-of-place things like lions and kangaroos. It was a great couple of hours and made up for the fact that we had cycled less than 40kms that day. We had a meal that night from the restaraunt below our hostal [potato soup] and cooked some quinoa porridge for breakie in our room the next morning.

The next day we were determined to at least make the equator, about 35kms away. Of this about 30kms was straight uphill, which took most of the day. The road was in great condition though, as it has been everywhere in Ecuador and we usually had a wide shoulder for our cycling pleasure which we took full advantage of wobbling everywhere at 4 kilometres per hour. The views of the surrounding countryside were great though, with neatly tended farms as far as the eye could see. We learnt that much of the worlds roses are grown in Ecuador and there was big greenhouses everywhere. This was clearly one of the wealthiest areas in the country as well, with every second vehicle that passed us seemingly a late model ute or SUV. Ben was getting depressed that everyone in a third world country seemed to have a truck less than five years old yet he couldn't afford one himself. When you're travelling on a bike at 4kmph its easy to get bitter at nice cars.

But just when things were looking down the road suddenly slanted downhill and we zoomed towards the equator monument. After a few false alarms with the wrong statue we completed our heroic arrival at the equator, a mere 7 and a half months after we left Ushuaia, 50-odd degrees to the south. After waiting for our sweat to dry we listened to a local guide give a presentation on the equator and brought the dvd she was selling, before taking jovial pictures of us standing on two hemsipheres.

It was only 5kms from there into the town where we celebrated with bad hamburgers and a beer.

Other, equally ambitious days followed. 35kms, mostly downhill but one large uphill that coincided with heavy rainshower. We cycled into Otavalo, where had planned on being two days earlier at lunchtime, ate fried chicken and chips for lunch and spent the afternoon wandering around the textile market, the oldest, biggest and most famous in South America. Panama hats were purchased, they fold into tiny little packages perfect for travel. Despite the name they are from Ecuador. We regretted our earlier purchases as the stuff here was the nicest we have seen everywhere. Alas, when on a bicycle one cannot buy too much, and we are already carrying a hammock from an impulse purchase in La Paz. Ben has lugged it thousands of kilometers and we have not used it once.

We decided here that with time running out that it was important that we spent a significant amount of the remainder of our trip relaxing and not cycling, ideally on a beach. A Carribbean beach, to be precise. With that in mind we cycled another couple of days to the border of Columbia, crossed effortlessly and vowed to bus from there to the beaches at the other end of the country. We spent a night and day in the border town of Ipiales as there is a famous cathedral straddling a gorge nearby which had been recomended to us. It was pretty cool and we also saw guinea pigs being roasted on sticks for the first time nearby.

We have always thought bussing was breeze compared to cycling but we are constantly proven wrong. Ben met an American girl at a fried chicken takeout place who told him that her bus had been robbed at gunpoint a couple of days ago not far from here. We spent a productive hour afterwards armed-bandit-proofing our baggage so that our valuables were as dispersed as possible. We considered such security measures as putting our credit cards in our shoes, as bandits would never look there. We were also warned not to catch night busses near the Ecuadorian border but due to poor time management accidently did that. Thankfully the bandits must have taken the night off as we made it through unscathed. Every other part of that ride was totally action packed though, with salsa music at full blast and chronic overloading unaided by someone putting a horse saddle in the aisle which the whole bus had to climb over to get out. Every town had a stop with half the bus getting on and off, people arguing over ticket prices and people trying to hawk chicken kebabs through the windows. To descibe the terrain as mountainous would be an understatement, there was probably over 7000 meters of up an down in 300kms. The scenery was amazing. At the tops of the passes it was freezing cold but at the bottom of the valleys it was boiling, tropical and humid.

Phew. Anyway, we arrived in a town called Popayan at about midnight last night and are resting a day here. It is apparently a world gastranomic capital, so Anna is happy. This morning we tried some Colombian coffee which was so strong it nearly gave us a heart attack. It's Bens birthday in a couple of days and we are hoping to go to some thermal springs in the mountains in the Zona Cafateria before continuing our bus-slog to the beach!

The Ecuadorian Highlands

A rare flat section of road in Ecuador.

More photos here

All our fast-forwarding through the north of Peru and the south of Ecuador really got us moving along, it was weird to move so quickly through a country after so much time in the Peruvian and Bolivian Andes.

We spent a day in Guayaquail, the largest city in Ecuador before catching a bus back up into the highlands. That day was characterised by constant sweating as the temperature soared past 38 degrees with 100% humidity. After all our time in the mountains and then the desert we were completely unprepared for heat and spent most of the day looking for ice creams or air conditioning. After intially planning to spend another night we got lost trying to find the place we wanted to stay but accidently found the bus station (complete with air conditioned mall) so flagged it and arranged to leave our bikes in the company offices for the day instead and got an evening bus for 4 US dollars each. Anna had her first coconut cream ice cream that afternoon and decided that Ecuador was a definate step above its neighbours in the local food stakes. Ben saw iguanas, which he rated as the most interesting inhabitants of the city.

Iguanas. Ben likes.

The bus that night was driven by a man with complete disregard for human life, on very steep, windy roads in the mountains he was passing all other vehicles with reckless abandon. He even managed to pass a bus that left an hour before ours, 3 hours into the 4 hour trip. Thankfully most of the trip was in the dark and fog so we couldn't see the vertical drops off the side of the road. Eventually we were dropped off on the side of the road on the edge of Riobamba and rode to the first hostal we saw and booked in for two nights, once again thankful to be alive!

Volcano number one.
The summit is the furtherest point from the centre of the earth.

We spent a day reacclimitasing to the altitude in Riobamba, in which we tried the local dish, whole roasted suckling pig at the city market. There was a whole hall dedicated to roast pig and of course the moment we stepped in everyone was touting for our business. Like the savvy travellers we are, we stood there looking completely confused before walking to the closest stall, where the lady was offering us a free sample. It was fatty and yummy and before we knew it we had two plates of it, complete with an onion salad and boiled corn. Somehow we managed to order a fresh blackcurrent juice to wash it all down which was awesome, much better than Ribena. While it tasted great a few hours later it returned with a vengence in the form of an upset stomach which lasted two days. Just our luck really, but we still think it was worth it.

'Smokin.

Our plan was to cycle along the "Avenue of Volcanoes", a route through the Ecuadorian highlands between Riobamba and Quito that was (as the name suggests) lined with numerous volcanoes and is renowned for is scenery. The first mornings riding began ominiously with a 25km uphill with some of the steepest gradients of the trip. The road took us over a ridge at the base of our first volcano (whose name neither of us can remember) whose summit is the furtherest point from the centre of the earth, thanks to the earths' bulge at the equator. About 10kms into the ride we were both ready to catch the next bus to Quito with many phrases like "to hell with this!" being bandied about on our rest stops, which were nearly every 10 minutes. The only thing that really kept us going was that Ben had brought Anna some new bikes shorts in Lima and to justify that purchase we really had to keep riding. It was probably worth it as on the other side of the valley we could see another volcano with smoke billowing out the top. If we hadn't been so puffed it would have been awesome. All in all it was a tough day, as was the next one and the one after.

Sunset from the roof of our country lodge.

On day 3 of rollercoaster hill riding we were grinding up another steep hill in granny gear, with no shoulder for our riding pleasure and 6 lanes of motorway to contend with when a ute drove past slowly with the driver waving madly at us. Nothing unusual in that, but he pulled over in front of us - actually just stopped in the middle of the lane as there was a big dropoff from the road - introduced himself an offered us a lift to the top of the hill. Well, after Patagonia we vowed to never turn down an offer of a ride again and even though it was only 1pm, and we had only done 20kms, Anna was unhooking her bags an climbing in before Ben even had a chance to respond. It turned out that Manuel had a farmstay just outside of town that was used by climbing groups for acclimitisation and suggested as we had nowhere particular to stay in town that we stay with him. In return he gave us a discount and included breakfast. For a few bucks extra he threw in dinner. We agreed and by 1:30 we were lounging around reading our books in the garden surrounded by 16 Andean peaks. We didn't quite know where we were and really weren't too worried about it either. Manuel worked as a guide on the local volcano and when we were settled in he popped into town to run some errands, leaving us alone on the farm. We were still alone 6 hours later and were wondering where the hell our dinner was. Ben resorted to rummaging through the kitchen and found an egg to fry up in our room for afternoon tea. Eventually our host returned and cooked us a locro de papas (potato soup, we pretty much eat one of these every day) with local cheese and fried chicken on rice. We had some coca tea when as when we leave the mountains soon we won't be able to get it any more.

The next morning after a great breakfast of bread, eggs, cheese, yogurt, granola and coffee we pushed our bikes back to the motorway and zoomed downhill towards Quito. For the first 25kms there was a motorway under construction, with at least 6 lanes being added. This had mostly been sealed but was not open to traffic so we enjoyed what could be the largest personal cycleway we have ever seen coupled with a great downhill to compensate for all the crappy uphill of the previous 4 days. All good things come to an end though and as we approached Quito the uphill returned and the cycleway stopped. We had no map other than what was in the guidebooks so had to take some educated guesses about which motorway would get us into town, before the motorway abruptly ended and we started out 2 hour free-for-all through the southern suburbs-slums. Not wanting to stop and being on a general downhill gradient meant we were guilty of several traffic infringements an were even whistled at by a policeman for running a red light. We were hardly alone though, every vehicle was flaunting the rules at every opportunity so it was a case of joining in of never making it. We frequenly found ourselves overtaking buses in the fast lane of the motorway, swerving out to avoid manholes with missing lids in the middle of lanes and being cut off at high speed by the same bus we just passed.

The best bit - another volcano, gentle downhill, personal bike lane.
It didn't last.

Old Quito. Apologies for the lack of rotation.

Ben, post-haircut.

We made it into the historic centre eventually and in one piece by about 2pm - way past our usual lunchtime due to the high stress of the morning. We checked into a cool hostal which has a shower so wonderful it is a strong contender for the greatest shower of the trip thus far. We did our first proper laundry in a month (since Cusco) and have had a great time walking around the historic old town. Ben finally got a haircut after the customs officer in Ecuador struggled to recognise him. The hairdresser literally sheared him as one would a sheep. We treated ourselves to a Sunday brunch in the hostal kitchen with an extravaganza of pancakes with bacon, fried banana and maple syrup (Ben) and fresh fruit, yogurt and maple syrup (Anna). We have nearly clocked up 6500kms with no pancakes so it was good to remedy that horrifying statistic. From here we are planning to head to the equator, apparently a mere 15 kms away, so probably an actual 40kms!

Lima & Trujillo: Where we did not ride our bikes and went to the beach.



Beaches are awesome. Local fishing boats lined up ready to go. We tried ceviche (raw fish marinated in lemon and chilli)here for the first time, it was eye wateringly hot.

More Photos here

Lima was a huge city, and with twice the population of NZ living in one place it was definately busier than what we were used to. Peruvians insistance on using the horn instead of the brakes and indicators did not stop here either so the whole city rang to the sound of 10 million horns and car alarms (no exaggeration). With its reputation for being a bit dodgy we only explored the more well-off suburb of Miraflores but still had plenty to see and do, mostly ogling western-style supermarkets, malls and fast food chains. Our hostel was right accross from the main park which was great to sit in and people watch, or to find tasty treats from the street vendors. Our hostel breakfast was taken in a cafe with outdoor seating fronting the park which was great but also quite posh, we had to put on our number one clothes just to eat there. Our trusty polar fleece pants looked a bit out of place here.

Our one excursion outside of Miraflores took us to the National Museum to have a look at the pottery from various preColumbian cultures. It took us over 2 hours to walk there alongside two very busy arterial roads and by the time we found it it was 20 minutes until closing. Fortunately we don't know anything about ceramics and Anna was more interested in the building, which she described as 'big and angry'.



The Peru National Museum.



It was obvious that cycling in Lima was an activity bordering upon suicidal. When we tried to book our bus tickets to leave the travel agent told us that the road had been blocked by protests and that we could not leave today and would have to wait. One more night in Lima was required. We learnt today in Trujillo that this was a load of bull as another kiwi we met here left on the bus that we wanted and was blisfully ignorant of any strike and arrived without trouble.

Upon arriving in Trujillo at 8am after an all-night bus we went toward the centre of town and checked into the first hostel that we came accross. Turned out we lucked into a good and cheap one that had all the things we love - internet, warmish showers and cable tv.

The ruins of Chan Chan were our next stop. This town was built by the Chimu people around 1300AD. The whole city covered 28 square km and was the largest pre Columbian city in the Americas and the largest adobe (mudbrick) city in the world. Being made of mud, piles of sand were all that remained of most of the city but a few areas have been restored and brought back to their former glory (minus the gold flakes and paint). The outer walls were up to 20m tall which is quite a long way to stack up mud. The inner walls had intricate reliefs that represented pelicans, fish and fishing nets. The tax office area had the best carvings. We caught a local bus there for S1.50 each after the guidebook said that it wasn't safe to walk/bike. Turns out it would've been fine. More likely to be struck down by sunburn than robbery. We also splashed out and hired a guide as the place was pretty big and what we were looking at was hardly self-explanatry.

In front of the original Chan Chan reliefs. One of the benefits of hiring a guide was that we could get lots of photos of us together.

Temple of the moon.

The beach was our next stop after being way to hot amongst piles of mud bricks. It was great to dip our feet in the water to cool off, after not seeing the ocean since Puerto Montt in January. It was still suprisingly cold given how far north we are. The local fishing fleet are boats made from Totara reeds similar to those at Titikaka but with a cruved front like a surf ski. There were a few locals offering rides but you got quite wet even though the surf was small so we did not fancy a ride and possible hypothermia.

This was as close as we came to surfing on the reed boats

Fishing vessel or tourist craft? Not bad for a bundle of reeds. This was funny as the girl sat down a bit too soon and the guy couldn't pull the boat into the water. Not like we were trying it ourselves, though.

Lifes beachy here. We have decided that we could get used to this so are accelerating our trip for the Caribbean beaches in Columbia where the water is warmer.

Tonight we will catch another bus to Guayquail in Equador to skip the remaining desert and bandit country. Northern Peru and Southern Ecuador are two areas that many cyclists have warned us of so we are giving the who area a complete miss. In Guayquail we will be in the middle of where the worlds' bananas come from so we may have to try a few from the source to see if they are better than the exported ones. Our hopes are high for a banana smoothie extravaganza. From there we head back into the mountains to the Ecuadorian highlands where we cycle towards Quito and the equator!

Nazca to Lima: Sand dune hilarity, desert cycling.

We left Nazca the following morning with 15 litres of water and a full bottle of sunscreen, armed and ready for our first ever ride in a proper desert. After leaving town and rejoining the Panamericana proper for the first time since Chile we cycled an easy 20kms through an increasingly dry landscape towards the area containing the Nazca Lines. Despite constant enthusiastic peering we couldn't see anything from the road so paid S1 each to ascend the roadside lookout where you could see a couple of small figures. The lookout itself wasn't exactly a picture of structural integrity so we didn't linger, but did purchase a useless keyring from the stalls below.

The Panamericana. No corners, no water, no worries.

We had counted on it taking two days to reach Ica, a major town and our next target and we were hoping to manage about 100kms that day before camping in the desert. Our plan had a hidden flaw (how unusual!) in that we thought the road would be perfectly flat, after all we left the mountains the other day, but it slowly dawned on us as the afternoon wore on that we appeared to be surrounded by large hills, if not in fact mountains, on all sides. We started climbing in the late afternoon before Ben got a puncture and we were force to stop and repair it, and have a chocolate mint biscuit break. Whilst we were snacking a woman and her son on a motorcycle stopped to see if we were ok and to generally be nosy about what we were doing. They were quite unbelieving that we had cycled there from Nazca, let alone Bolivia and they hadn't heard of Ushuaia. Before they rode off they said the hill-mountain looked worse than it was and it would only take us an hour to reach the top, fortunately for us they were correct. We rode down the other side and past a small village before pulling off the road and behind some sand dunes to camp.

Camp 100m from the highway, surrounded by dunes. Quite cold once the sun goes.

Camping in the desert was great, it was just like being at the beach but with no water. The sand was soft and warm and got everywhere, the stars were bright at night and we were fast asleep the moment the sun went down at 6:30pm. The next day we battled a headwind all day but made it to Ica where we celebrated our triumphant desert crossing with an ice cream from the first modern supermarket we had seen since February.

The oasis.

We headed 2kms out of town (only taking a single wrong turn) to the desert oasis of Huacachina, where we camped lagoon-side for two nights. The highlight of our stay was a dune buggy - sandboarding trip into the surrounding dunes. The buggy ride was hair-raising and we are flat out hopeless and sandboarding, taking a less technical sliding-down-on-our-stomach approach.

Ben amongst sand.

With the sandboard.

Sandboard in action. Frankly, this was terrifying.

Continuing north the following day we headed to Pisco, home of Peru's famous cocktail, the Pisco Sour. The town istelf was 80% destroyed by an earthquake a couple of years ago and some local cyclists and the Lonely Planet warned us that it can be a dangerous place. Despite this we decided to take an alternative 'scenic route' into town along the coast (turned out to be a row of fish processing plants) and  resulted in us getting completely lost in the wrong part of town. Out of desperation we went to the police station to ask for directions, he rounded up a couple of boys who had bikes and ordered them to escort us to the safer area around the CBD. Naturally we were standing out like sore thumbs in this neighbourhood with lots of people looking at us strangely so these boys thought it was the coolest to be:
a) asked to do something by a policeman, and 
b) be associated with the gringo circus freaks everyone was staring at.


We were worried they were going to rob us.


But they didn't and they couldn't have puffed their chests out any further or cycled any faster, at least 25kmph on bmxs, so we gave them a tip and stayed in the first normal looking hotel we saw. 

Adaptive reuse, or "LAUNDRY ALWAYS PERVAILS". Earthquake damage in Pisco.

After that experience we caught the bus to Lima the next day, after a unexpected taxi ride to the motorway junction from the bus station after it turned out the bus didn't come into town. We had 4 people, 2 bikes, a large spare tyre and all our panniers all crammed inside a stationwagon going 80kms an hour down a motorway. While we were waiting for the bus we were entertained by a large chicken-rooster which had taken up residence in the drivers seat in another bus. No one seemed to find this unsusal except us, we think it might have been the drivers pet. 

When we arrived in Lima it was dark and we had to bike about 4kms to the hostel we were staying in. Thankfully there was a great cycle lane and little traffic. We met a local cyclist on this route, he was very excited about us and said that the metal rods he was carrying was for making racks as he was heading to Ecuador tomorrow to go cycle touring. We think thats what he was saying anyway. After about 5 minutes of conversation Anna noticed he had a huge machete taped to the frame of his bike. She nervously asked him what it was for, he said he needed it for Ecuador as its very dangerous there, as are the suburbs of Lima. He then proceeded to pull a taser from his pocket and demonstrate it, all while cycling along. It was hard to tell what was more scary, hearing the Ecuador was dangerous enough to justify taping a machete to your bike, or that we were cycling though Lima in the dark with a stranger carrying a machete and a taser.....We quickly said our farewells, swapped facebook info whilst cycling and staggered into our hostel for a well earned rest.

The Nazca Lines

All smiles in front of our plane before the flight.

**Additional photos here.

We organised a flight over the Nazca lines for the following morning, choosing the smaller plane the flew closer to the ground so you could see the lines more clearly and one that did multiple swoops over each image so you could get that perfect photo. It really was a great flight, Ben took heaps of photos and enjoyed it, Anna found the small swooping plane a bit much and lost some breakfast over the monkey, the spider and during the landing.

The Hummingbird as seen from our plane. The lines were much smaller than we expected.

Cusco to Nazca - What goes up, finally comes down.

Effortlessly gliding 3kms downhill into the desert. World's highest sandhill beyond.

**As always, more pics can be found in Piscasa, here

After spending a week longer in Cusco than planned waiting for Anna to get her stitches out and for our travel insurance to pay the hospital bill we prepared to hit the road again. Due to our recent medical mishaps and the fact Anna still had a ridiculous-looking bandage on her forehead we decided to abbreviate the difficult ride out of Cusco by taking a bus through the first 300kms through the mountains. There was no large towns on this route and at least three mountain passes over 4000m with valleys at 2000m in between them, making it one of the most challenging (and demoralising) sections of hill climbing anywhere in the Andes. We organised for the bus to drop us at the town of Piquio, in a valley one 4000m pass and 150kms from the desert town of Nasca. Ben had read on another cyclists' blog that there was only 600m of climbing from here to the pass, before an exciting-sounding 3000m downhill. There was also a reserve at the top for Vicuña, an endangered relative of the Llama which we thought might make an interesting campsite.

Thats a Vicuña crossing the road.

This all sounded like a reasonable and sensible sounding plan, which of course meant it was doomed to fail and immediately did. From the moment our local bus lurched over the first hill Anna began to feel pangs of motion sickness, which only worsened as the bus continually plunged from one valley to the next through a series of impressive switchbacks. The situation was relieved slightly with an emergency iceblock but not before the very loud spanish-dubbed movie started playing on the in-bus entertainment system. The movie of choice was "Problem Child", followed immediately by "Problem Child II". We cannot recomend these movies.

Lunch in an unknown town was a welcome break. We had thought a bus travelling a mere 300kms would only take 3-5 hours but after 4 hours we were hardly half way. We made a poor decision picking our lunch destination, going primarily on price. It was the standard two course deal, the first being the familiar unknown-meat soup, but we didn't recognise any of the second course options. With the waitress waiting we got flustered and just pointed at two different options, Ben ended up with beans, Anna ended up with unknown pureed something. We couldn't even tell if it was animal or vegetable, but she's a good eater so she ate it anyway. Six hours later when we were still on the bus she was vowing never to eat unknown food again. We watched another spanish language movie, this time a sassy Jean-Claude van Damme number before the very loud Peruvian folk music was played for 3 hours. Anna escaped to her ipod, Ben learnt Peruvian folk songs. A strong contender for our worst bus experience ever.

We assembled the bikes in the dark and walked 20 meters to the closest and probably only place to stay in town, where our 10 year old host showed us to our room. Anna was up all night reliving her lunch, Ben slept like a baby. Ben walked next door in the morning to pick up eggs and bread for breakfast which we covertly cooked in our room despite there being a sign telling us not to (such disobendience!).

The climb out of town was not 600m.

Well, technically it was, but it was followed by a 600m descent and 1200m climb. We could see this bad news unfold before us as the road snaked all the way down to the bottom of the valley before snaking alllllll the way back up the other side. We tried to be optimistic "...Well, at least the road doesn't seem to go all the way to the bottom of the valley.." (it did) and then "..According to my altimeter we should be almost at the top.." (we weren't). As we climbed a couple of local boys hopped on their bikes and rode with us but eventually they fell behind and thunder clouds began to roll in. Switchbacks continued up as far as the eye could see. It started raining heavily, Jackets and rainpants were hastily pulled from the bottom of our bags where they had been carefully stowed away as we thought we were going to the desert. A man pulled over to tell us there was heavier rain ahead and there was a place to stay a mere 40kms away. We had cycled 40kms in 7 hours up to this point. About 4kms later we passed a toll booth, rode another 200m, climbed through a fence and over the lip of a small hill and set up the tent for the night.

That road sign really says it all.

As soon as darkness fell the temperature plunged below zero, for the second time that day we had to dig around at the bottom of our bags for cold weather gear, sleeping on all our clothes and with hats on. Anna still had an upset stomach from the bus ride and unknown meal from the day before but after a couple of sub-zero trips outside the tent decided that the time had come for emergency medication to prevent further trips. We woke up in the morning to the tent covered in ice.

The sun immediately started melting the ice causing water to drip into the tent. We were sleepy and it took a while to realise that the water was dripping inside the tent, onto our down sleeping bags. Anna shoved her jacket on top of her sleeping bag to catch the water, but eventually it overflowed and went all over her thermarest, under her sleeping bag and generally everywhere. We had a full-blown wet-down disaster on our hands. Wet down takes ages to dry and looses all its warmth-giving potential so the life of our sleeping bags was at stake here. Giving up all attempts at stealth we spread our stuff out everywhere around the tent to try and dry it out. The bright orange sleeping bags could been seen from everywhere in the valley.

The local endangered camelid, as viewed from our tent. We woke in the night to the sound of nearby hooves, we hope it was just these guys.

We had a terrible breakfast of porridge with no milk and was just beginning to pack up our bags when Ben looked up and said "Umm, there's a farmer walking towards us with a gun..." which there certainly was, he was about 20 meters away and walking straight towads us. We tried to think of some spanish apology words whilst shoving our stuff into our bags faster than we have ever done before. Anna managed to get in "We're very-sorry-sir-it-was-raining-I'm-sick-it-was-cold" before the man laughed, told her to relax and asked where we were from, where we were going and how cold was it last night in the tent. After a bit of small talk he carried on walking further into the field. Still have no idea what the gun was for.

After having a sit down for 5 minutes to recover from the heart attack the gun man gave us we noticed we were about to receive further visitors. A giant herd of llamas was a mere 10 metres away walking straight towards us. Are llamas dangerous? Do they bite? Will they stampede and crush us to death? These were all questions in our minds as the llamas moved closer. We chose to play dead (it works for bears doesn't it?) and very, very slowly reached for the camera. We figured they could probably smell fear, and we were still sweating fear from the gun incident of 5 minutes ago. They passed without incident however, their owner strolled past at the end and wished us good morning as if this happens every day.

"No sudden movements, just very carefully reach and get the camera out..."

An hour later we reached the top of the pass and started our descent of the Andes. Thank. Bloody. God.

The summit.

As you would expect the 3000m downhill was awesome. Annas helmet rubbed on the cut on her head so she did the whole downhill without her helmet on. It was probably the slowest downhill ride ever as a result as she was super paranoid about crashing. As we got lower the landscape got drier, we cycled past the world's biggest sand dune, had tuna sandwiches for lunch using a can of tuna we brought in Patagonia before xmas and rocked into Nazca at about 5pm. After stopping to ask for directions we met a man who had passed us in his truck coming down, he spoke perfect english with an American accent after living in Hawaii for 10 years. He took a photo of us, thought we were crazy and gave us great directions. We stayed in a nice room in a hotel right on the plaza.

Anna followed doctors orders and removed her bandage only to find there was at least 4 stitches the doctor had forgotten to remove. We couldn't believe it! For now we decided to leave them in and maybe deal with it in Lima, only a week or so away.