Put to the Test

It wasn’t all smooth sailing, however, as I had to stop to repair a puncture…

It was here where, the wind having dropped, I got a real sense of why the locals call this wilderness ‘el silencio’ – I could see for tens of miles in every direction but there really wasn’t a sound to be heard.  The locals find this disconcerting but, as you can imagine, it’s bliss to a phonically-besieged Londoner!

Finally reaching the village of Acombambilla, I asked some locals where I could stay for the night and was promptly invited to one of their homes!  Seeing the size of the house and the large family that had to fit in it, I quickly suggested that I pitch my tent in the garden.  A decision that made sense at the time. The first calamity came as, preparing for bed, the owner of the house came out and turned on the sprinklers for her vegetable patch – she was quickly in fits of laughter as I politely protested at the water hammering down on my tent!  It wasn’t until I tried to go to sleep that I realised their manic dog was also going to make life interesting for me, first by barking continuously and then trying to join me in my tent!  As such, I didn’t get to sleep until late and was then rudely awakened by their cockerel well before sunrise, the chicken coop being only feet from my head!

Needless to say, despite a rice and potato breakfast, I was not full of beans that morning.  The following ~700m climb felt somewhat interminable – some days your legs just don’t have it in them.  So, I was relieved to find a nice hospedaje to relax, over the other side in San Juan de Jerusalen.  The owner of the hospedaje also ran a shop so he was very much the trader and enquired about the price, and whether I would sell him, most of my pieces of kit!  He was disappointed to hear that I was going to need my stove and water purifier for the next six months!  After a refreshing night’s sleep, I woke to a completely cloudy sky for possibly the first time in my trip – it would appear that the seasons are showing signs of changing…

I headed out up the final climb of this section, fully expecting to get rained on.  Fortunately, however, the worst I got was a very light drizzle as I made my way up the fairly nondescript valley to Abra Llamaorgo.

I was somewhat overjoyed when I eventually made it to the top of the final pass after what had been a fairly knackering 10 days…

All that was left was a speedy (but careful) descent down to Huancavelica to find a comfy bed to crash on!  That afternoon there was a festival in town so I had to clamber out to see the colourful dancers parading through in all their finest…

After a good long sleep, I headed out to explore the city and hunt down the usual provisions (bread, jam, avocado, tomatoes, honey etc).  The beauty of being in a developing country is that they still know how, and make the effort, to fix things!  So, with the stitching going in several places on my (only pair of) shoes, I was able to take them to a ‘renovadora’ one morning, who did a very neat repair job.  There’s a definite satisfaction in making the most of what are otherwise perfectly good shoes.  Back home, I would have had to return them to the shop where I bought them and probably get a new pair.

This was a fantastic route – at times pretty challenging – but well worth it for the spectacular scenery alone.  I feel like I’m really starting to get the hang of this touring lark – my increasing experience generally feeding back with better decision-making.  It did begin to dawn on me over the ten days of this route, however, that I’d definitely like to share these experiences a little more with others.  I’m really glad that I’ve taken on these more secluded routes over the last couple of months and tested myself, but I think the time’s right for a slight change of approach and to get onto slightly more well-beaten paths.  That should give me the best opportunity of meeting other cyclists and perhaps finding some riding partners from time to time.  Moreover, my best part of a month off the bike has left me somewhat behind schedule so a more direct route towards Bolivia will help to get things back on track.  I had been thinking of heading down towards the Cotahausi and Colca Canyons and then on to Arequipa, but the routes there and between them are tricky, not just in difficulty but also being somewhat indirect, so I’m going to make a bee-line for Lake Titicaca instead and hopefully make my first border crossing over into Bolivia towards the end of this month or the beginning of October.