Day 355 Wednesday 26th March Sicani to Putina Via La Rincon 401 km

What a tuff day. it started so well, the sun was shining and we got served the best breakfast we had so far on this Leg. We ate while Millsy was telling us about how he held Daniella after she was born and how chuffed he was it was a girl (they did not want to know before she was born.) Today is Daniellas 25 Birthday, congratulations to you Dani from all of your uncles. Then Tex told the story when Sarah was born and how Pie wanted to go into the Maternity Ward to see the baby and the nurse stopped them and said only the father may enter. pipe then told the nurse they need to see the baby to see who does she look like and then they will know who the father was. The nurse let them both in, she obviously had a good sense of humor.

Have a look at the box under the glass of the table where there are a few scattered colored stones, some tables have green and white, others red and white etc.

But then Murphy showed up, with his Whip, and the rest of the day and even now as I write from the worst hotel we have probably ever had, using a Hot Spot from Peens’s Local SIM card as our 3G Just stopped working half way through the day, the hotel has no Wi-Fi, or towels, (actually we were given only a toilet roll at check-in, and after I had a cold shower Rocky complained and towels were delivered, after I had used a T-Shirt to dry myself.

We are not in the town we planed to sleep, thanks to Murphy, but I need to explain that story and I am not sure the Internet is strong enough to add all the photos I have of today, so let me start with Last night and lets see how it goes. It is also already late and we managed to find this Hotel just before it got dark, Beggars Can’t be Choosers they say.

Last night we went for a stroll and looked for somewhere to eat, the locals stared at us as I doubt they get any tourist in their town. The streets were lined with Street Food, also lots of people selling Hardware and others selling stationary.

Below is deep-fried chicken necks, Mielie pips and black boiled potatoes

Cooked by this lady :

After breakfast we jumped on the bikes but Tex did not exit from the Parking garage, we waited, well, not Pie, he raced off into the Sun rise. Tex eventually walked out of the Parking basement and informed us he had no Clutch.

Sp some fluid was added and the clutch bled and it lasted a minute or two before the fluid was seen dripping out of the Master Cylinder. Luckily we have a spare, but sadly it was on Pie’s bike, and by the time we got him on the phone he was 31km away and had to turn around.

Pie arrived with the clutch master cylinder which was fitted in 10 minutes and we were off, but we had lost one hour in total.

We eventually left together and we had the road to ourselves, all the trucks and traffic turned off and this town, but as we were taking the back-road to “the highest town in the world” hardly saw another vehicle, we had lots of farmers on scooters and farmers on bicycles, by hardly and cars or trucks.

We spent most of todays ride running along the river and the train lines, with high mountains on either sides, with snow on their peaks. The area we were traveling through was dairy farming lands and we found a little place selling yoghurt and cheese they make, we stopped and soon three Bikers from Argentina stopped next to us. We discussed each others routes (they were going in the opposite direction,) and we gave them tips on Machu Picchu and they showed us photos of the floating islands at Lake Titicaca, and we were wondering if it was worth a stop, but now we knew we had to take a boat when we get there and go to see how these people live, constantly having to add new floating reeds to the bottom of their islands.

We passed many small little towns and in two of them we found them celebrating, closing off roads and just having a good-time following a vehicle playing loud music.

Then we turned off the quiet back road onto a very small little road, then Peens found a short-cut over a pedestrian bridge (video of this to follow tomorrow, taken by ………..yes Pie, as he was the 1st to ride over the bridge and then had lots of fun watching us get off the other side.

Then there was a gravel road section which was also not part of our plan but was part of the Short-Cut, which took much longer then the normal road we would had taken, but with less fun.

Here are some pre-lunch Photos;

For lunch we ate fresh bread we bough along the way and slices of cheese that Rocky cut for us, we sat on a bench looking at the world go round, not knowing that Murphy has planned for us to sleep in this very little dorpie we thought we would never see again.

The family of people who dies in accidents on the road build little Shrines for them next to the road, this was at a railway crossing, looked like here was an accident a while ago that costs lots of people their lives:

Note the snow on the mountains in the back.

This is a Graveyard ;

Then we started climbing to the highest Town in the world, at 5001m above sea level. Peens wanted to tick it off his list and we decided to go-see, turn around and sleep at another town with “lots of hotels” (he said) only 14kn away. To make it a town it needs to have permanent residents, I guess there are other settlements but the occupants rotate and work there for a few months then leave. This is a mining town and not only does it have permanent residence, it has a school and shops and lots of mud and chaos.

The town is situated at 5001m above sea level but as we went in search of a hotel Peens said might be an option (I knew we could never sleep in this mud pit filled with litter and people working at the mine and working to support the mine, total chaos, in mud, with taxi’s and trucks and support vehicles buying pumps and stuffs,) I saw 5025 on my GPS but by the time I had managed to slide to a stop we were at 5020m.

We Peens wanted to go and ask at the hotel if they had rooms for us, but all I could think of was “where would we park the bikes in between all the other vehicles and people all in the mud. so we decided to ride 14km to the town just before and find a room at one of the many hotels. And this is where it really “Went South” (out of shape, pear shaped, wrong, you pick one.)

At the pointy of turning around pie and myself thought it would be a good idea to go around the block, (bad idea, the other streets had no cement blocks and were rutted and muddy and washed out, I had a few very close calls.) Peens convinced the rest to follow him down a slippery slope. So needless to say we lost each other and discovered this when we arrived at the other town “with lots of hotels” 14km away. I told pie we got there 1st and that we should stop looking for hotels and ride back to the entrance to the town as there was no Cell Phone Network for data and could not communicate with the other group. Pie then saw a tap and decided it was a good idea to wash his boots that were only polished yesterday. Then it was a good idea to hose the mud off his bike while I waited at the one town entrance and the others waited at the 2nd entrance.

Look at all the rubbish just dumped outside the town:

We rode through the mine, it looks like the soil is washed and the stones separated and then the washed soil is pumped into dams. Will Google this tomorrow when Proff Google is not taking the night off.

I think it is saver if I post more photos and video’s of today in tomorrows blog as I guess things can only get better at Lake Titicaca, in spite of the name.

But, just to end the story, after we reunited with great difficulty and frustration we had no choice but to ride down the mountain to a much less painful 3800m and look for a hotel at the 1st big town, where we had lunch. I am greatful we did this as my head was really in pain at 5000m, but poor DadAss was really taking strain, very little oxygen for  the motor and she kept on cutting out, could not idle, and then it was a mission to start her motor again.

And with that it is off to room 301 where our new chef is preparing more bread and cheese with some red wine to wash it down. It is always such a surprise to taste the wine, never know if it taste like our wine or might it be the sweet red wine option they love to make here in Peru.

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Fleisch