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Published: October 11th 2010
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We were up at 7AM and for the first, and last time, we had breakfast at Intiquilla. A few pieces of stale bread and coca tea, I was glad we didn’t bother getting up early for it on any other day. We went out the front at 7:30 and waited in the street for our transfer.
At 7:40 a young Peruvian guy holding a piece of paper approached us.
“Joseph Frost?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m your transfer.”
He walked us down to the closest street, where we looked around expectantly for the bus which was to take us to our mountain top destination. But we kept walking. And walking. Apparently “transfer” has a different meaning in Peru.
After 20 or so minutes we got to the bottom of a huge hill where our “transfer” pulled out his phone and made a call. He hung up and pointed to the top of the hill.
“Up there,” he said.
“Of course it is,” said the Boss.
We got to the top of the hill and there found a couple of buses loaded with tourists and bikes strapped to their rooves. There was no room left for the Boss or myself but we were assured another
The Group
The Boss in the foreground was on its way to get us and in the meantime, we were given our bikes to try out.
Mine went fine but, as is the way in South America, the back brake was on the right hand side. Being that it’s the brake most often used and I am weaker in that hand due to the lack of my middle finger’s top third, I asked if I could have the back brake changed to the right hand.
“It’s impossible,” I was told. So I showed them my finger and two minutes later the back brake was now on the right. Our bikes were stacked on to the roof of one of the buses and they took off.
We were picked up at close to 9AM in a minivan driven by a middle aged Peruvian man who had brought along who seemed to be his mother and grandfather for the ride. In the back were two Brazilian guys named Flavio and Willian who spoke next to no English and were to be two of our travel companions for the coming days.
Three hours drive (including a brief tea and toilet stop) later we were dropped off on a paved road
Small Peruvian town
Our first stop, where we reloaded the bus. at a height of somewhere over 4000 metres. We joined a large group who were already on their bikes, waiting for us. The group consisted of two Swiss guys, a Frenchmen, an Italian couple, two Americans and a group of about 10 English guys. We strapped on our helmets and gloves and took off down the mountain.
Compared to the ride down Huascaran of a few weeks before, this was a breeze. The paved road made for a smooth ride and also allowed us to get up a fair bit of speed. I expected for the 10 or so English guys, being a big group of mates in their mid 20’s, to have some macho competitiveness with each other. Not that I didn’t think the Boss or I could keep up, I just figured it would be safer to stick to the back and stay out of it.
Turns out I was dead wrong. They hugged their handbrakes tighter than their mothers and the Boss and I almost led the way, with only the Swiss pair in front of us (this was to be the trend for the entire trip).
After an hour and a half of descending we made
One of the locals
"Hold on to the camera!" The Boss said, as he came over to look at his photo a small, impoverished town where we loaded the bikes back on to the buses and climbed in, roadwork making the next 45 or so minutes next to impossible on a bike. We got out again at another small town and continued, this time on flatter terrain with a dirt road and the sounds of the wild around us. Loudest was an eerie screeching sound that I couldn’t place.
Less than an hour later we made our final stop of the day, a town called Santa Maria. We had lunch of soup and a beef with rice and fries and were told that, though we had just spent the day riding with this group, we were in fact part of a different group, as were Willian and Flavio. We were sent to the hostel where our group was staying and told that dinner was for 7PM at the same restaurant.
Our hostel was a basic little building where the Boss and I (contentedly expecting dorm room accommodation) were shown to our double ensuite. The shower was cold but after a hot day of riding, that wasn’t really a problem. With our gear in place and happily settled in, we went out
for a wander to the nearby river.
We were joined by Rich and Sarah, from England and Wales respectively, who had both come to South America because of a mutual friend who had decided to go to Bolivia rather than Machu Picchu and they weren’t sure they’d see him again. Jess and Nicola were a couple of travel agents from Sydney who had quit their jobs and come travelling in South America - we bonded over a shared love of Newtown’s awesome $6 Thai restaurant and commiserations at its unfortunate closing. Maya was a plucky, if slightly know-all, girl from the Netherlands. Willian, from Brazil, didn’t speak much English but he was always keen to join in with whatever the group was up to and always had his cam-corder handy.
We found the river quickly enough but the banks were too steep to get down to it. We walked away from town, following a dirt road, hoping to find a spot to get down to the river. Soon enough we came to a bridge and found on the opposite side an abandoned town - well almost abandoned. An old lady sitting in a store said “hola,” and an old man
sat out the front of a building and refused to acknowledge us with so much as eye contact. It was creepy, the creepiness being exacerbated when Willian and Maya went for a walk up in to the hills and a small child carrying an axe ¾ his own size came out of nowhere to follow them in to the hills (we all survived, thank God).
One of the small mysteries was solved whilst in the town - the eerie screeching sound I couldn't place before I finally was able to put my finger on - cicadas. Whilst in Australia they make the low humming sound of a baritone, in South America it's very much the glass shattering sounds of a soprano.
After heading back to town we had a beer in our room and played cards before dinner - which consisted of soup and chicken with rice and fries. Breakfast was set, at the same restaurant, for 6AM. Early night.
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Aussies por el mundo
Kyle Sullivan and Tahlei Watson
"looking for prostitutes"
Woow that ghost town is spooky.