I headed down to the small town of Vichaycocha, where the locals were obviously continuing the Independence Day celebrations and were generally blind-drunk! Repeated knocking on the Hospedaje door yielded no answer but the kind shop-owner opposite had an upstairs room that he offered up. I sat with him and a couple of his friends in his shop for a while. Thankfully, one of the friends was from Lima and considerably less drunk than the others, which made his Spanish far easier to understand. It can be tricky sometimes in the Sierra (mountains) understanding the Quechua-accented locals, even more so when they are slurring their words!
The next day, surprise surprise, was a long climb up past a large lake…
It was getting chillier as I got higher, and increasingly overcast too (although this photo appears to capture a sunnier moment)…
Once at the top, it was a fairly flat ride (for once!) across a plateau, alongside mining irrigation canals. Although I didn’t really see the mine itself, this area is heavily mined and there was a fair bit of HGV traffic for a few miles. I finally made it off the busier road and into a much quieter, uninhabited area.
It had been a long day – possibly the chilliest so far too – and I was almost out of water. I was either going to push on to Yantac, where I ought to be able to stock up, or I had to find a water source. The difficulty being that, having been in a mining area all afternoon, I couldn’t really trust any of the sources that I had come across. Fortunately, just before sunset, I reached a large lake with some suitable flat ground nearby and quickly made camp.
It had been cloudy most of the afternoon but, after a brief hail storm whilst I was cooking dinner, the skies cleared and treated me to some beautiful stars…
I wasn’t going to hang around long taking pictures though – it was a bit perky at 4600m! Something that was confirmed the next morning…
I had to go down to the lake to clean my pots and gather fresh water – something that required breaking the ice on the surface that had formed overnight!
What a champ! Remarkable equanimity in the face of adversity.
epic as always Campbell!!!
just can’t get over those star photos! please tell me your somehow taking super long exposures with the theta! rather than the milky way just staring right at ya!
keep up the adventuring dude!! and watch out for those rock throwing cows!!
Yep, the Theta photos are 60s exposures but the stars are really bright to the naked eye! Thanks, dude!
Mate, another cracking read and inspirational stuff! Loving that you are hanging with the locals so much – are you restrained enough not to drink too much of the local brew! Your chat up lines must be very good to get dinner and a bedroom for the night at people’s houses! #respect