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Published: September 29th 2010
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Awesome Fun for a Sore Arse
It had been a restless night’s sleep. Some kind of fiesta was happening because the BANG of bottle rockets had carried on well past midnight, as had the howling of the city’s many dogs. Then, just as it seemed the city had finally gone to sleep, the roosters started up. Whoever said that roosters crow at dawn is full of shit because these cocks started up long before the grey light of pre-dawn.
We were picked up by the tour company’s shuttle bus at 6AM. The Boss and I had moved our bags into Kyle and Tahlei’s room and left the keys and a note explaining that we had checked out but would be back to pay that evening. The guy who booked our tour told us that, for $50 each, we would have a guide, bikes, lunch and transport provided, the start of the ride being a good three hours away by car. With that in mind, we had all bought breakfast the day before to eat on the bus. What he failed to mention was that though they were picking us up at 6AM, our first stop was a cafe around the corner
(which they clearly had some sort of deal with) and we spent the first hour there, so we didn’t get on the road until 7AM.
I slept most of the bus trip until we got in to the highlands, at which point the quality of the road made sleep impossible. We were dropped off 40km away from the town of Yungay - our destination - on the slopes of Huascaran, Peru’s highest mountain at 6768m.
The first 15 or so kms were by far the scariest. We were at around 4700m altitude - more than twice Mt Kosciusko (the highest mountain I’d ever been on before) - and the road was just a series of bends on sand and rocks, occasionally marked with crosses. It was great fun but it took all of your concentration. It was also a massive strain on the hands as you were constantly squeezing the breaks, making it one of the few times in my life that I’ve felt disadvantaged by my missing middle finger tip.
We had a few breaks along the way, most were to get some photos, although one was because our guide Carlos (who told us to call him “Charlie”) had
The Glacial Lakes
We ate lunch by the banks of the far one. a flat.
We hit a plateau where two glacial lakes were situated and Charlie took us off-road to try the bikes out. Though the strain of the rocky, swerving road had seemed tough, having to actually pedal to get along at that elevation was exhausting. We were all sweating like mad and needed to stop at least every few hundred metres for a few minutes just to get our breath (and yes, eating a kilo hamburger only a week earlier probably says a lot about my general level of fitness).
The gradual rise just before the second glacial lake, where we were due to stop for lunch, proved a little too much for the boss. A combination of a lack of food, altitude and the fatal mistake of stopping, saw her doubled over and contemplating a spew. She pushed through and after stopping for a feed she felt much better.
The ride from the glacial lakes to Yungay wasn’t as steep or with as many turns but it was still pretty intense. As Kyle said at the end, “there was no point on the whole ride where you could just relax and enjoy the scenery.” The biggest difference however was
the change in altitude. The air was noticeably thicker and it had a direct and very obvious affect on the wildlife. Where higher up it was all small shrubs and grass, as we descended we came across farms and huge Eucalypts - it smelled like home.
Just before arriving back in to Yungay we stopped in the old city. It had been Yungay until 1970, when an earthquake had seen a huge chunk of the glacier break off from atop Huascaran, causing a land slide that completely buried the city and killed around 20,000 people. Charlie told us that it had taken 8 minutes from the time of the earthquake for the land slide to destroy the city. He also said that there had been a circus near the town that day which a lot of the children were at, so they survived but were left orphans.
Cycling in to Yungay, we were curious about their decision to rebuild the city literally next door to the old city. They had done a fantastic job - it was a pretty little town considering it had only been around for 40 years - but did no one in the town at any
point ask the question, “what happens next time there’s an earthquake?”
A series of flats to Charlie and Kyle on the way down the mountain meant that we were half an hour late getting in to town and so missed the bus. There was a second bus due to arrive half an hour later. An hour and a half later it arrived, just as Charlie had organized a cab to take us the hour and a half back to Huaraz. A small argument with the cabby regarding payment ensued, we got on the bus and stayed out of it.
After a shower at the hostel, Kyle, Tahlei, the Boss and I went for a feed at a local Chinese place then the Boss and I boarded the bus for Lima. After a day on a bike seat riding down a rocky mountain path, the prospect of sitting down for 8 hours back to Lima was daunting. But we pretty well slept the whole way.
(Short aside - I was particularly impressed with the gents’ toilets at the bus station. The ladies’ was a tiny room with a toilet and a basin. The gents’ was an equally tiny room with a
toilet and, instead of a basin, a urinal. So you could take a crap while someone simultaneously pissed, but neither of you could wash your hands.)
Arriving in Lima early the next morning, we got a cab for the airport, paid the $31 departure tax and boarded our plane. Next stop, Santiago.
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