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Published: April 4th 2013
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After a great four days in Cusco, the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu, we are bitter about an opportunist Theif that made off with Straymono's man bag, as we were loading the motos right outside the Eco Inn Hotel. He put his bag on his moto and was distracted momentarily and this bloody low life whipped his bag away. We were a few blocks from the hotel when it dawned on him that he was missing his man bag!! And he remembered a fellow sorta lurking around the motos. We went back to the hotel and there went even any hawkers around, I think they were off dividing up their wind fall, as he had been to the ATM the night before to draw money for the next few days....the big Bugger was that he has lost all the helmet video footage on an SD card that was in the bag. Lucky he had his passport in his jacket pocket.
During our stay in Cusco, we were fortunate to be invited to Juan Carlos's parents home and studio. His father is a very famous painter and many of us dug deep and purchased some of his original work.
Now
A Robber is lurking
Somewhere here is the Robber even with Don on duty!! I have a recap of the next day, written from the viewpoint of Howard's A Bumble, his DR650 that has been on the back of the truck since Cusco...take it away A Bumble.....
Last night my boss Howard came down to kick my tyres and see if I was alright, and he mentioned he wasn't feeling well and thinking about calling a doctor. I thought, harden up and take a concrete pill. Here I am with a seeping head, a busted left fork seal and a tired arse, you think I haven't taken a metal pill? Anyway, he wasn't looking too good and shuffled away.
Next thing you know a whole group of the bosses come down and I hear them talking that he has seen the doctor who has told him to take about 3 days off riding me. They were going to put me on the back of Rosco's truck. It was something to do with altitude and respiratory problems and had been given a jab in the butt. I thought, what comes around, goes around, sometimes he's been a pain on my butt!
So Rosco, Barry, Radar, Scratch and others I think, put me
on the truck. Quite a nice view I must say. In the truck, is Rocky Bear, Rosco's mate, who I got talking to also overnight.
In the morning Rosco took me to the front of the hotel in Cusco where the bikes were parked on the footpath to be loaded. In front of the truck I saw Straymondo's bike and saw this nefarious guy hanging around. At that time my boss was mucking around with the pannier unlocking it with the key that also had the ignition, and managed to lose it putting everything into the truck! So I was distracted and didn't ACTUALLY see the nefarious guy take Straymondo's man bag with all his money, cards, identification and memory cards of all the video and photos he'd taken of the trip. Thats what happened from what I heard.. I asked Rocky, but he hadn't seen anything either as he was still on the front seat and couldn't see over the dashboard.
Anyway, we didn't know this until 10 minutes down the road when Straymondo realised and Rosco brought him back to the hotel leaving my boss with his bike. No joy there.
We finally got going.
There was a bit of sorting out in the front of the truck Rocky told me. Rosco wanted Howard to hold Rocky on his knee for the whole trip so he could see out the window. Howard didn't think it was a good idea and told him so. He Compromised by Rocky being seatbelted by suitcase handles from the back to have magnificent view between the seats through the windscreen. So perfect Rosco took a photo of Howard and Rocky together. Charming.
We were following Raymond for awhile, and he was riding slowly, not himself of course considering what had happened.
We went back the way we came through the gorge 140 kms then turned off on the Arequipa road, and shortly it became ripio as we climbed. Then where it was close to the Rio Tinte Mine, a huge one, it was quite good as they had financed the road. Rosco had been there the previous year and it had expanded enormously since even then, both the roading and size of the mine.
We climbed to 4700m and stayed at least that high for about 4 hours, or it seemed like that. Our highest was 4826m
Look what's in front of us!!
The mountain between Cusco and Chivay. which is higher than Mt Cook as the boss has mentioned.
By this time it was quite dark, cold at 2 degrees with snow, rain and hail coming intermittently.
We came to a dam and shortly came upon Radar, Barry and Don at the side of the road. Radar had another nail in his rear tyre, the second of the trip! He is like Uri Geller, attracted to metal! He wasn't too well and had just been over the bank where Barry was at the time we arrived.
The idea was first to take me off the back for Radar to ride and put the KLR one on the truck, as we were still well over 4,000m, but Howard had lost the ignition key and the spare was with Terry some kilometres up the road. So the wheel was taken off. Barry appeared up the bank to help not looking well and Rosco took over and with a bit of help from everyone, the new tube was fitted and we were on the way again.
We carried on through great scenery, sometimes with lovely toy like houses with small pens still high up in the mountains
Radars second puncture!!
We are about 4,600m here, so it took many men to repair the puncture. where living would be harsh at best, miles from the nearest dairy still at 4700m. There were a few instances of winding switchback roads with Howard and Rosco taking photos of Radar and Barry riding carefully onward, as we descended to our destination of Chivay.
We led Radar followed by Barry to the hotel, but then wheres Barry? Another vomiting incident I heard, with Radar holding on for the room key to their room.
Later Scratch was another casualty which meant a shortened 8 at the team dinner.
So tomorrow is another day off for me although Dr Rosco is giving his medical opinion opposing the real doctor and Liz's orders of 3 days. We shall see, but the boss is looking better and the altitude descends after seeing a condors tomorrow which should see an improvement in the whole teams medical condition.
Overnight Straymondo's problems continued with the shower leaking soaking his clean dry clothes, and suffering vomiting all night.......
Rosco picks up the day from Chivay to Araquipa. We woke to an absolutely beautiful day, except that it wasn't so good for Barry, Scratch and Straymondo, as the dreaded Bum Snake got them
The bloody culprit !!
Radar is collecting these and will visit the scrap dealer when he gets home! during yesterday's ride and they were no better today.
We left Barry and Scratch at the hotel and we took the 65 km loop road around the Colca Canyon and back through the dreaded dark dusty tunnel, lucky there was no other traffic. We had adiversio and during that Rodrigio had a spectacular spin land the V Strom spat him off. Lucky no damage to bike, but his pride suffered a bit, sorry it was too quick to get a photo!!
We all arrived here in Arequipa, and as Rocky Bear was now sick of Howard continual yabbering and asking all the time "who is singing that song" as he listened to my music over the past two days, we have taken his A Bumble DR650 off the back of the truck and he will have to ride it to Chile in the morning.
So until the next Blog, un abrazo, Rosco.
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Gae Shaw
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Cusco and Machu Picchu
Funny I have just read a book on theses places nd so this blog took me right there. Fantastic.