Today was the day of two fried eggs for breakfast; two punctures; two busses deciding to overtake straight towards us (as Vic knows I'm all for a game of chicken but not of this variety); two bikes not allowed to go into the lunch place (Ant ate his lunch on the street!); two dubious looking blokes looking like they wanted to steal stuff from our bikes; two 6ish year old boys on bikes insisting on racing us (I took one of them on- "vamos Alex vamos" I shouted, and won oh yeah... No mean feat on tired legs and loaded bike!!); two more lakes than it said on the map (Ronsil would not be proud); two times the gradient we were expecting; two towns that look promising on the map actually having no source of food; two open but not open hostals (guarded only by a pig! Literally!); two toilets that don't work; two ladies spending an hour trying to break into someone's (fairly unsecure) room because the key stopped working... Just open the window dudes, its only a padlock!; two tearful episodes from me (sorry Ant); two almost tearful episodes from Ant (glad its not just me!); and two very very exhausted and exasperated cyclists!! Oh Peru, what an adventure you are challenging us with!
OK so there were some amazing views on route and we definitely experienced some more of "true Peru" but man today was tough.
We started out OK, in fact revitalised and strong, especially after finding a brilliant breakfast place of eggs potatoes and rice, but the day took a turn for the worst when we were about to leave and found a massive metal spike in Ant's rear tyre. The breakfast people were friendly and the man was fascinated by our bikes and tools and couldn't wait to offer to help us pump it up (well if you insist!!). On the road again and Ant singing his "on the road" song (Thanks Metallica and "turn the page"!). The traffic on the 3S was less today (Saturday) despite the occasional kamikaze bus which made for slightly nicer cycling. We even managed to keep our heads high (and my cycle strength really high, definitely starting to acclimatise) when we turned off the 3S towards the 4 (yes 4!) lagoonas up the steep 10-12% gradient (which was thankfully tarmaced and not gravel as we'd expected). After about an hour Ant's back tyre played up again, but this time we were very grateful of the excuse to sit down and fix it... The 12% starting to take its toll.
So we reached the 'top' and the plateau around the lakes at around 3700m, which again turned out to be a Peruvian version of plateau, that involved "Box hill" sized ups, followed by "Leith hill" downs that lead us to a conversation about how fast we recon we could get up there if we were transported to the North downs now and who might we beat back at sea level. It was an amazingly beautiful sight, mountains and lakes, but by this point we were shattered and our moods had been slightly shaken by the extremely poor dwellings beside the lake. It's a "tourist route of the 4 lakes" yet the villages besides the lakes are incredibly poor with nothing touristy in sight except the view. So poor that one guy tried to grab my pannier off my bike as I rode passed. Put us (me especially) on edge somewhat. For some silly reason we had envisaged the villages as being lakeside picturesque places with food and views a plenty... And actually if they decided to make something of tourism this place would be epic and probably wealthier for it, but people seem very settled in their farming ways.
Something that seems fairly common here, there is a contentment with the status quo that makes most people amazingly lovely and happy and Peru incredibly relaxed, but this is matched by an apparent lack of drive to change anything or make things better. Perhaps peoples' lives are simply so tough they don't have time to think about anything else, but we were struggling to understand all the opportunities missed, especially as the desire for wealth is there (3 sneaky opportunist and thankfully unthreatening theft attempts so far). In fact they're even blasé about stealing things (thankfully ... Touch wood!)... " I shall walk passed you and if you happen to be distracted I will take something, but if not then I won't bother". Like I say this gives the country an incredibly relaxed and happy feel, but gets us thinking, especially compared to our recent trip to Vietnam where it is all go and everyone's hunting for opportunities and working all hours to further themselves in whatever way possible.
So feeling slightly sad that this beautiful place was so poor, and missing the hills and luxuries of home, we settled for lunch of fried trout and cold pasta, with the locals in a mud floor restaurant, that had absolutely no mod-cons... Except an enormous flat screen TV of course! Guard Ant ate outside watching the bikes and then we were on our way to the next 3lakes. Each one a good hard climb up, then down to the next. Exhausted and ashamedly in need of a little bit of comfort (a store that sold anything other than Inca cola and sweets would have sufficed) we plodded along heads down, hoping that the departmental capital of Yanocoa might yield a clean bed, hot shower, working toilet and fried chicken.
I'm pleased to say that after some failed attempts to find the owners of the 5 hostals in the town, we eventually found one that delivered on two of these things: we had an almost lovely hot shower outside (together for solidarity) perched over a malfunctioning loo, and found a chicken al la brasse restaurant...man they roast chicken damn well over wood fire here!
We even found a store to finish the meal with a can of beer for me, milk carton for Ant, peach yoghurt, and water.
Today was a very tough day, physically not the most challenging, but mentally extremely draining. Perhaps we'd been too spoilt by the luxuries of Cusco and have to settle back into the swing of things, or perhaps we've stumbled across one of the poorest areas of Peru... Possibly a mix of both. Either way we will use our evening to get our heads together, sleep well, and remind ourselves that this is why we are cycling and not hopping a tourist bus from one attraction to the next... We actually get to see the country, as tough as that may be, this is our adventure.
So bring it on!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment