Everything going well

Posted by Javier on 20 November 2009

Everything is going well here in the southern route. We left the Amazon about 10 days ago, after climbing from 200 m to 4725 m of the Pirihuayani Pass, from a very nice jungle to the glaciers of the Nevado Ausangate. It has been very rainy, so the route was very muddy, there were several landslides and consequently also many road blockings. We were delayed quite a bit, stuck in the middle of nowhere, but it was a very interesting and authentic nowhere.

We planned the climb, with a resting day to acclimatize in the beautiful Marcapata at 3100 m. However Asa got serious altitude sickness at 4000 m the next day. It was pretty scary to see her collapsing for a while, almost without breathing laying in the sideroad. Instead of taking a transportation to climb the pass and rest in the other side, she decided in the middle of her crisis to go back down to get acclimatized again. We went back to my dismay, but it is important for her to ride every meter of the route. It is also important for me, but I tend to be more flexible in potentially nasty situations. I have got  altitude sickness some years ago cycling solo in the Himalayas, in a pass of 5300 m. It was awfull and scary, since I was spitting blood in the night, aside from having an awful headache, a black looking toe, and general weakness. The Indian Army was taking care of me until I recovered.

Asa managed to climb the next day, and we were rewarded by the view of several glaciers just in front of us at the same height. Also we were rewarded by the sight of  llamas, alpacas, vicuñas, condors....Since then we were a bit in a hurry to meet the deepeei crew in the Titicaca lake. We were riding for about 500 km at 3500-4300 m constantly. Of course we are used now, but anyway the human body is not made to these extreme heights. To keep our average of 75-100 km per day we have to make much more effort than normal, but it is going well.

I have been suffering diahrrea for about a week, after leaving the jungle. The hygienic conditions up here are not good: the people are extremely poor, many villages don´t have electricity or sewge systems, the water coming from the pristine Andes is really unsafe to drink after passing the frequent villages... I believe  I got giardia or any kind of worm, so after taking some strong antibiotics I am well again. We were resting (more or less) when meeting the deepeei crew in Puno for 2 days. Today we left Puno and are currently in Ilave, a surprising city. It is called the capital of the Aymara nation, and I thought it was a joke or an exageration, since in the map is a tiny place: it is in the middle of a cold highland where there are just sheeps, some few cows and llamas. However we must be missing something of the picture, because this is a bouyant city, full of aymara people spending their money, nice restaurants, internet everywhere, happy people in the streets. Their relative wealth cannot be related to tourism, I think we are the only foreigners around. I will spend the rest of the night trying to research why the place is so unexpectedly alive and nice, in the middle of a very poor region. I am interested in this kind of stuff, it keeps me bussy :).

Tomorrow we will cross to Bolivia. We have designed a tough route with several passes over 4000 m in scarcely visited areas until reaching Salar de Uyuni, potentially one of the highlights of the trip. Later we will head to Chile and Argentina, but we still have no idea about which route we will take. We use to let the daily encounters and happenings of the trip deciding our fate, no sense in planning much in advance, it is usually for the birds.

Take care out there.

PS: No photos, since I am barely taking a single one. I lost about 800 photos (ouch!!) from Venezuela and the Amazon, so I got a bit discouraged. Anyway the main reason for this laziness is that I have discovered I love filming, I don´t know what I am going to do without MY :)  PANASONIC after finishing the trip :) .

6 comments. Tags: Javier, Titicaca lake, altitude sickness, Andes, deepeei crew, Asa. Location: Ilave, Peru