Up and away pretty early as no breakfast, through town without too
much bother. Geert’s truck connected with bus on the way out of town, which was
the first contact we have seen with his truck no damage done. Hax has had some
contact with a van giving him a nudge I think in Lapaz but surprisingly there
has been no other contact despite the push and shove road rules. We stopped for
breaky and fuel at San somethingorother, a little town about 50km down the road.
It seemed to take a fair bit of negotiation to order eggs from the roadside
restaurant. The lady running the place had her bambina in a fabric sling. These
slings are carried by many of the women, generally of very colourful fabric
that is wrapped around the shoulders and neck, and can carry very heavy and
large loads at times. The only way to be sure that she had a baby in there was
to ask, as the baby is completely wrapped in the fabric. She was happy to let
me take a photo of her and her baby, but did say something to Geert about me
that Geert refused to translate, I can only guess the translation, possibly a
challenge to my masculinity I suspect.
We climbed up to a plateau at about 4500m altitude. This was an
enjoyable road that climbed to this large plane high plane. There was a range
of vegetation as we climbed as usual, but was dominated by tussock type grass,
then we stopped at a large lake that made it difficult not to draw comparisons
with NZ with this looking very much like the McKenzie country, but of course on
a larger scale and at an altitude that exceeds Mt Cook! Down the other side as
we travelled west, and into dry dessert once again. It was cold and I was
feeling very sleepy and about to pull over for fear of falling asleep when
Geert passed us and directed us over to roadside stop where we could admire the
view of the three volcanoes that surround Arequipa. These guts do look
particularly active. El Misti is a perfect volcanic cone and erupts every
500years apparently (It last erupted 500years ago). Down from this high point then
a right hander to the lunch spot. This road had a fair bit of carnage on it. We
passed two trucks that had gone off the road into banks with serious consequences
and one van that had gone off the road (on a dead straight stretch). We had
sandwiches, while Geert told scary stories of road ahead with tales of hidden
corners, chicanes and blind corners. With this pep talk we progressed
cautiously but none of it came to pass. This was actually a fun road that climbed
up to the highest part of our trip at 4910m. Of course there was a trinket
market here so given that this is probably the highest sealed road pass in the
world, and no doubt the highest roadside market we had to purchase a few
things. It felt right to support these hardy soles that are up here selling
their wares. Took photos of the 7 volcanoes visible from here, one of which is
the start of the Amazon River. After a bit of time congratulating ourselves on
how well we have acclimatized, winded down to the Colca valley with a loss of
about 1500m in 20km or so, past Chivay to a small village with a nice eco hotel
(not sure what qualifies it as an eco hotel). Geert had become anxious to keep
moving so we could get to the hot pools. A quick change and off we went to the
hot pools for a soak. We soaked for about two hours. This is a very nice
location, with canyon walls, clean hot pools with a bar, so we ordered cervesa
and pisco sour without leaving the pool. When it did come time to leave the
pool I felt particularly heavy, not sure if it was too long in the pool or too
much Pisco. Dinner at the hotel then early night. We are all a bit tired.
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