Day 343 Sunday 18th August Cabana to Yungay 225km

It is important to Carry lots of Cash, as “cash is king” when something goes wrong, I split my money into three hiding places, on this trip I had some hidden under the bike seat, some was in my toiletry bag and the 3rd I thought I had hidden inside my file in between all my  papers and Passports, but when Tex organised a washing machine (sadly he used Stay Soft instead of soap, and sadly a power-outage messed with the cycle) he asked me if I had a load of washing and I gave him my smelly stinking laundry bag with all my socks and underpants, and, my 3rd stash of cash, which was washed when he dumped my entire bag into the washing-machine. I dried it on the floor overnight.

There were only 2 options for dinner last night and we chose this little restaurant, which for 1 month in a year is decorated according to the season as its Christmas decorations were still up. The power went out and we ate in candle-light, a Tuna Salad that consisted of bags of onions, a dressing of tuna-tin-oil and vinegar, yes, no tuna, unless the other guys dished better and got some tinned tuna, this dish had me floating at the ceiling around 4h00 as the gas it produced was in the Hindenburg Range. We also got chicken, again with rice, again.

I bought some wine from a little shop as the variety of warm drinks at our restaurant were rather limited:

This morning we each had a bread roll with an egg (no butter, and last weeks bread roll,)  and a cup of instant coffee with Evaporated milk, at the same little restaurant as last night. I went to the Pharmacy after BF, and with the help of Google Translate, bought Foot Powder and filled my boots with the entire contents, all of this while there was some repairs to Mills’s fuel line which has been giving problems for 2 trips now, it was finally fixed by greasing the connector with Vaseline and then with lots of muscle it was clipped-in properly after a thorough clean, all in the foyer of The Flea Inn.

We did not have to go far today, but we knew it was going to be slow-going., Proff Google made us wise.  We had 25% of the ride on gravel today, (fighting through the dust made from the road construction trucks coming towards us,) then 25% on good tar, going down and up a pass, and then, just when I thought it was going to stay good tark we turned left and the tar gave way to patches of pot-holed old tar and sections of gravel, so the going was very slow.

Tex took some video, click below:

We passed a little village and stopped to re-group and ate some Empanadas (pie with vegetables and a hint of beef filling, with a dough similar to bread, not Puff Pastry.)

All the little houses around the square were painted:

My favourite Photo of the day:

Yes, the arch-angle pulled in as well:

Click on the video below, this guy drives from village to village and sells groceries, vegetables and live chickens, and when he sees people he shouts over his loud hailer what he has for sale, groot geraas.

IMG_2344

After we dropped down into the gorge we started following the river, the landscape was dry and I felt very alone a few time after stopping to take a photo as there were no other vehicles on the road.

We did not have lunch toady, we stumbled onto a vendor selling iced Coke and fruit, she also made fruit salad which she put in her box-deep-freeze which she served ice cold. We sat there and Peens scared the children (his pants does not fit properly so sections at the back were exposed, plus he has a tear along the one trouser leg, and with his helmet removed his hair did stand-up and to the left, he did look like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, (but a larger version) but he bough the kids sweets from their mom selling the sweets, and for the kids this whole experience of 6 bikes arriving, a funny man with wild hair, half exposed, and looking rather “worse for wear” handing out sweets was very much the same as when we were  kids and our parents took us to the circus.

And then the little tunnels started, well over 30 of them, some tunnels had a gravel road going through them, some were long and other were in short sections, one after the other with flashes of light as you rode through the one and then immediately into the next, and the next.

Then all of a sudden Pie stopped his bike, and not at any photo-worth-spot either, it was to celebrate that his bike had reached 100 000km, the most of any of our bikes, (remember we are on our 2nd bikes) but less than the total distance of our trip, which is at 105 000km. The reason is that 3 x  KTM 990’s were shipped to London in 2012 from South Africa, and Pie and Tex’s bikes were shipped from the USA, but when we arrived in the UK the container from the USA was not getting released for another 2 weeks, so Pie and Tex rented BMW’s and rode with us, and only in Spain did they turn around and returned to the UK to get their bikes. Pie’s bike was also towed for a while in Russia after he burnt out his clutch trying to tow our back-up vehicle out of the mud, plus it was also towed from Finland to Saint Petersburg Russia as our back-up-vehicle-driver was meeting us there, so Pie’s bike has 5000km less than out trip total. (Tex never rode Central America so he is still far from clicking over to 100 000km.)

What a place to reach 100 000km, on a dusty road, in the Andes mountains, right in front of a tunnel that was so significant in today’s ride.

We saw this South Korean couple in Ecuador and saw them again today, they are heading down to the bottom of the continent, just like us, but they just have more tine than us I guess.

Below is a fruit I have never seen, you suck the flesh from a green pip, rather tasty, but not much flesh.

Below was a rather long tunnel, and it had a “Middle mannetjie” (it has gravel running down the middle which is very dangerous to cross,) see how far the tunnel runs along the river:

There are lots of small-scale artisanal mining happening for Coal along the river:

And if you die they burry you here, obviously it is difficult to dig a grave here so they just plaster and cement you in on top of the rocks:

The minute Danny Boy arrived with his Rally Car Rental, Peens loaded all his “furniture” inside the car and then he was traveling light and could race us to each point and win, most times, as Pie is also very competitive and sometimes won with his pannier on. Just Joking, Pie would never be competitive.

I dont think I will do this when DadAss reached 100 000km :

I enjoyed my bike so much these last 2 weeks, I fear I will have to tell my dear lovely wife that DaddAss needs to come to South Africa eventually after the reach the end of Continent number 4, I think I need to teach my son-in-law to ride Adventure Bikes, so we can have Snowflake, my white 990 I used from London to Singapore and then he can use DaddAss???????

Our town tonight is a big town and we have a real hotel, with hot water and wi-fi, there is a Receptionist that speaks English and it has a restaurant where the locals come to eat, there is even a bar, Lekker Lewe.

I dont know where we are going tomorrow, my planning has been hi-jacked, but I have to admit, the fact that we did not head for La Paz but had 8 extra days in Peru was the best thing that could have happened as we would not have given Peru justice if we stayed on the main coastal road. it has taken us 15 days to travel the distance done by other over-landers and bike-tours in 4 or 5 days, so lets see where we end up tomorrow, we can turn West and head to the highway anytime, and we only need to be in Lima on Wednesday evening.

Have a Good One

Fleisch