The good, the bad and the soggy

It rained heavily for the first time on my trip on the way out of La Paz. The wind was blowing strongly from the left and the horizontal torrential rain turned to sleet and then hailstones. It was like a bad day on the hills in Scotland. My tried and tested waterproof jacket and trousers came out, my Orkney paniers kept the rain out as always, and some new waterproof gear got a first test. Some did better than others. My SealLine bag that I got in La Paz for just such an occasion kept my sleeping bag and fleece liner nicely dry. My ´Gortex´ Endura gloves soaked in water like a sponge. The 'W' letter of the 'Waterproof' written on them got washed off in the heavy rain. Luckily I also have a pair of unlined Gortex mits which do keep the water out, so I´ll be putting those on top in future. They were in reserve for the particularly cold days. My Lowepro camera bag leaked water and now my SLR is as dead as a dodo. 5kgs of camera and lenses on my bike and no use! Arse! I´ve emailed Nikon in Argentina to see if they can sort it. There is no Nikon vendor in Bolivia, so I´ll look for a temporary replacement until that gets fixed. It´s fairly cold most of the day at 4,000m, so I´ve found a hotel with a heater (most do not have one) and have left that on with the camera close to it to get the best chance of drying it out. Given that I switched it on before knowing that there was a problem means that I´ve probably shorted something inside, but fingers crossed, perhaps a day in a warm dry room will put that right. So, one extra day in Oruro to see if I can get that sorted out.

Heading to the Salar De Uyuni

I got my bike back from the workshop today. They drilled out the bit of the sheered bolt that was stuck in the hole in the frame that the rear pannier attaches to. A new bolt has now secured the panier back to the bike frame. The frame now rattles just slightly due to the bolt fragments inside it. So, all good to recommence the journey south tomorrow. The next big landmark en route is the Salar De Uyuni, the large salt flats in the south of Bolivia. It´s likely to be 7 days of cycling to get there.

I´m feeling good after a few days in and around La Paz. There are plenty of decent restaurants to eat in, and the 400m climb out of the city early tomorrow morning is not looking so bad now that I and my bike are in good shape. La Paz is the most hilly city that I´ve walked up and down. There isn´t a flat bit of pavement for more than 10m. The pics below are taken from an area on the ouskirts of the city centre, about a 30 minute walk, where I got my bike repaired. I´ve skipped the typical Spanish city centre Plaza De shots, those are in La Paz to be seen, but what sets the character of the city is the dramatic hills all around.

  

I took the opportunity to do some Christmas shopping in the Alpaca shops and send that home. My new schedule puts a question in my location for Christmas this year, quite probably somewhere in Argentina, but that remains to be decided. Anyway, some of the things to do for then have now been done. I´ve never before been prepared so far in advance.

Simply Chicken

The World´s Most Dangerous Road. They say.

The 38 mile long road connecting La Paz to Coroico rises to over 4,600m just outside La Paz and drops to 1,500m at Coroico. In 1995 the Inter-American Development Bank declaired it the world´s most dangerous road. It´s now a popular way to cycle, I did so yesterday, and managed not to join the recorded 18 cyclists who have so far dropped off the edge of it to their doom. I went with a group as that has the benefit of getting a bus back up the hill since the route down was something of a tangent to the direction that I am going in.

7-10-2010 The start of the WMDR

7-10-2010 The group going along the WMDR

 7-10-2010 A stop at the waterfall for the bus to catch up with us

7-10-2010 Monkey Business at the bottom of the WMDR

7-10-2010 Parrot business at the bottom of the WMDR

The Parting of the Ways

It´s Sunday 26th September and I´ve decided to go solo. The split from the group is something that I´ve been considering for a while as I find the Bike-Dreams speed is really the fastest practical speed to cycle the shortest and most scenic route from the equator to the southern tip of South America, but I am a tourist on a bicycle, and I want to stop and take in the sights of the countries as I pass through them, not simply whiz by. I had been persevering with some sightseeing en route with the set schedule which resulted in coming in after dark some days - the agreed cycling finish time. The approach day into Puno on lake Titicaca yesterday had 11 people on the support trucks rather that cycling the full day, for various reasons but principally in order to make it in time to visit the islands. For me, I´m here to cycle through, not to sit on a truck, but more so, I´m here to also see the sights of South America. Therefore the only option was to slow down which meant leaving the group to hurry on ahead.

Tomorrow I head for Juli on the shores of lake Titicacca and the following day I will cross the border to Bolivia at Copacabana and head for La Paz.

With no support truck available each day now, the bike will be fully loaded and some non-essential gear will be couriered home to lighten the load once the couriers reopen tomorrow morning.

It was sad to leave a good group of travelling companions, but the overriding feeling is one of freedom to explore and that is very welcome.

There will be links to a lot more photos added once I get to a location with a quicker upload speed, and for those who I did not pass on my email address to, it is: mrnormanmacdonald@hotmail.com.

Photo of the day, Trujillo to La Paz

4-10-2010 The bolt which held the rear pannier in place which knocked the rear wheel out when it sheered when descending the hill into La Paz. A pain in the arse. Literally.

4-10-2010 Heading into La Paz

4-10-2010 The view of Titicaca from the $6 per night hotel in the morning

3-10-2010 Cycling along the shores of the Small Lake

3-10-2010 Fully loaded. Except for beer



2-10-2010 On the Isla Del Sol, Titicaca

2-10-2010 Sunset on Titicaca from Copacabana

1-10-2010 Heading into Boliva

30-9-2010 Can you spot the health and safety issues?

29-09-2010 The shores of the big lake, the Peruvian side of Titicaca

21-09-2010 Machu Picchu

19-09-2010 My bum is happy to be back on the smooth road for the ascent into Cuzco

17-09-2010 The route taken down the mountain  

14-09-2010 Llamas on the hill

10-09-2010

09-09-2010 Michiel through the dust

08-09-2010 Nico on the uphill and Rachel hot on his heels

06-09-2010 The front of the church is pretty. The rear has a political slogan that read Alcalde painted it. God and politics mix here.

05-09-2010 It´s dangerous out there on the roads

30-08-2010 Setting up bush camp

27-08-2010 Full moon camping on the concrete.

On my way

Two Dutch fire engines accompany the entrants. Some are seasoned cyclists on a lengthy race, others, tourists on bicycles. All on their way to Ushuaia from the equator or getting on or off at a stop on the way. Amongst them is one 69 year old Dane who is very familiar with the saddle and two Scottish diabetics who are shooting up along the way and talking English in a manner that no one else understands.


I started at sea level in Trujillo and am now at 3,200m in Huancayo. The route is through the Andes, so it is up and down each day. We have pedalled past the highest point on the trip at 4,800m en route from Trujillo to Huanuco. The last 600m of that got my heart thumping against my ribs, and my lungs rasping for air like a 70 year old. A non-Danish-cyclist 70 year old that is. The Danish One does not rasp in such a way. The view from the top was spectacular. The colours of the Andean rock layers curved with pressure over time in the stong but cumulus blotched sunlight was startlingly beautiful. I would show you a photograph but I did not carry my camera that day. It´s a big old SLR that I´ve brought and weight on the bike was of consideration that day, therefore the 5kgs lighter that I was meant that the picture is in my head and not on the web page. Other pictures will hint at the beauty.

My most used phrase of the trip so far: Tiene Loperamide por favour? Yes, I´ve got one of the synonymous stomach bugs of South American travelling. The timing of the start of my shits was unfortunate. Just before commencing the 4,800m climb. My soft but manageable poos left the playing field and on came something altogether more wattery. In Scottish-Dutch footballing terminology, it is the 89th minute, nil-nil and there is a free kick on the edge of the 18 yard box. The manager takes Marco Van Basten off the pitch and brings on Frank McAvenny. Watery indeed.

So the hills are big but the downhill stretches are a suitable reward for the uphill efforts. A typical day involves the ascent of a Munroe. The big days involve two an a half Munroes of vertical ascent. I´ve not tackled one of those just yet, but they will be a test of the thighs and also of the available daylight. Sunset is at around 6pm and there is not much time to spare following an 8am departure on days when the ascent is of that scale. The breakfast cereal is not something to linger over, so a sharp departue is of no trouble. The soup to welcome us into camp each day is however very good. Perhaps it is a strategy employed by Bike-Dreams to ensure a sharp departure and a quick arrival.

The route on from here is to Ayacucho, the city of blood my guide book tells me, and then on to Cuzco, the city of bloody tourist hawkers. My second visit to Machu Picchu will ensue from there. I was told in 1996 that the mountain on which the site is set was subsiding at a rate of one cm per month and they were worried that it may collapse. Mountains are not the sort of thing that you can underpin. I guess it must have settled as, of today at least, the mountain still stands with the final outpost of the Inca civilisation still there on top. Hopefully it will hold out two more weeks as I´ve paid my cash for the trip and my insurance will probably have a subsidance clause.

Dogs, dogs dogs eh? Why do they dislike cyclists so much? What in the name of Darwin is natural selection up to getting them to chase bicycles? We´ve had two bites in the group so far, and each day we all use a variety of techniques to fend the hounds off. I find a verbal feck-off to be stress relieving but alltogether useless. Slowing down to be less interesting works well with the non mentally ill dogs that are not dead set on sinking their teeth into your ankle whether you are moving or not. Thankfully rabies is very uncommon but the inconvenience of going for a shot post a bite is certainly an annoyance, so I may take the extreme step of spreading the breakfast cereal on my lower legs to reduce the liklihood of the dogs biting.