Hola Beast Crew

FANTASTIC NEWS!  Greg is a published author!  Please read all about the  first leg of our journey from the UK to Australia by buying and downloading Greg’s e-book online by going to www.escapeartist.com/e_Books/Beastly_Adventure/Beastly_Adventure.html. A big thank you to Sue Beverley of Escape Artist in Argentina for getting Greg signed up and for John and Annette for introducing us.

You can also read about the first part of our South American adventure by getting yourself one of the June issues of Land Rover Monthly.

The 40oC heat of the plains of Argentina and the altitude of Bolivia and Peru took  their toll on our poor little Beastie and we have been trying to resuscitate her at the lower altitudes of Peru for the past 2 months.

Uyuni - Potosi – Oruro – La Paz – Copacabana – Puno – Uros Islands – Amantini Island – Taquile Island – Puno – Arequipa – Cuzco – Aguas Calientes – Machu Picchu – Cuzco – Arequipa

16th March - 20th April 2007

The road, if it could be called that, to Potosi was a potholed rutted gravel track that weaved its way up through hills.  The Beast came to a spluttering stop at the top of a hill.  We were still travelling with the three motorcyclists and Pete’s sister and brother-in-law.  Greg and Trent had tested the compression on the valves whilst in Uyuni and had discovered that the engine was missing on one or two of the valves.  That meant we had yet again burnt out some valves in the engine and the engine would be coated in a layer of carbon from unburnt fuel!  So when the Beast came to a stop again, we looked at the oil pressure – a big fat 0!  We whipped the oil filter off and replaced it with a new one and the Beast started straight away.

After an arduous trip to reach Potosi were only 10km from getting to a nice warm hotel when we came across a waving bearded cyclist, Harris.  We stopped and chucked his bike in the back.  Our trip that had taken us 8 hours had taken him 3 days of hard and wet cycling.  We all spluttered into the highest populous town in the world, Potosi, at a breathtaking 4,000m.  Potosi is famous for it mines, the Cerro Rico which towers over the city.  The mine has been producing gold, silver, tin, copper and zinc for the past 460 years.  We went to visit the mine and were given some very attractive yellow overalls with head lamps.  We were taken to the miner’s market where we were encouraged to buy supplies for the miners: these included coca leaves (to cope with the 4,200m altitude), lamps, shovels, picks, alcohol and of course dynamite!  It was amazing to be handed a stick of dynamite along with all the ignition gear that can be bought for less than 50 pence.  The mines were a series of tiny corridors which are still excavated by hand.  The life expectancy of most of the miners is not more than 55 due to the amount of dust generated during the excavation process.

We managed to catch a Copa Liberatadores football match (the south American equivalent of the European Cup) between Real Potosi and Maracaimbo (a Venezualan team).  The Venezualan team were struggling to cope with running at altitude and many of them had to be hauled off the pitch with an oxygen mask strapped to their face.  Walking at 4,000m is an effort so we admired their strength to play a full 90 minutes running around a pitch.  FIFA has recently decided to ban all matches over 2,500m which excludes all of the Bolivian teams…their president Evo Morales has been protesting strongly!

We said sad goodbyes to our travelling partners as we all headed off in different directions; Pete, Chris, Nuno and Tati headed off to Sucre, Jackie and Trent back to the UK and Jason headed north to cross over to the KTM garage in Chile.  We followed Jason north and we were stuck in Oruro because of miners blockading the international borders and blocking the road to La Paz.  They were protesting because they wanted to reopen a gold mine whereas the local villagers did not want the mine reopened. Road blockades are a constant problem in Bolivia and sometimes the miners throw dynamite at cars that don’t obey the blockades.

After being stranded in Oruro for 5 days, we said goodbye to Jason and headed north to La Paz, the highest capital city in the world at 3,600m.  We visited the witches market where you can get any treatment for any ailment including keeping evil away from your house by hanging a llama foetus over your doorway.  We met a Canadian, Dave who had Greg’s type of alcoholic tendencies an after little persuasion we encouraged Dave to join us on our trip to Arequipa. 

On our way out of town, Alexis overshot the turning to the border and asked some policemen if she could perform a u-turn at the intersection they were standing. They agreed, moved the police cones blocking the road so we turned around only to be stopped immediately by another policeman who insisted that we had performed a very illegal road traffic manoeuvre and we must go with him without delay to the police station.  He tried to climb into the car on the driver’s side and was eventually persuaded that he couldn’t sit on Alexis’s lap and instead had to sit on Greg’s lap (as Greg was no moving) all the to the police station.  With blood boiling as the police man took all our documents off us and walked off quickly in the direction of police station, we staggered after him, through the police parade ground and straight up to the front desk where the chief of police looked disapprovingly at the young officer, asked us if we knew the rules of the Peruvian roads (which we replied innocently “no”) and then told us we could go.  The young and very lazy policeman quite obviously just wanted a lift back to the station!

Beast was becoming more and more difficult to start in the mornings and we had to use an ethylene based starting spray to get her kickstarted, which is sprayed directly into the air filter… not great for the engine but essential if you want to get moving!  We headed towards Lake Titicaca, the highest freshwater lake in the world.  We stopped in Copacabana on the shores of Lake Titicaca and bumped into a Scottish backpacker that we had met in Brasil, Ross.  We persuaded Ross to jump in the Beast and accompany us to Arequipa as well.  We crossed the border and were hustled by the Peruvian police to “donate some money to help them paint their offices” – a bribe to cross into Peru in other words.  We left them with a Uruguayan note stating that it was a huge amount of money (about 10 p).  We drove down through the Peruvian countryside avoiding llamas, pigs and children that insisted on running across the road in front of us.

We spluttered into the hectic town of Puno where motor rickshaws tried to squeeze between us and the pavement on all sides.  We, with Ross in tow, organised a tour out to the strange Uros floating islands located about 3km off shore on Lake Titicaca.  There are several theories as to how they ended up out on these islands one of them being that they were forced to work for the Incas and fled out onto the lakes on reed boats which over time gradually became islands.  Reeds have to be added to the pile every few months and the reed islands can be several metres thick.  We then carried on further out into the centre of Lake Titicaca to the Amantani island where we stayed overnight and experienced the remote lifestyle of the Aymara people, ate potato and quinoa soup, climbed up a breathtaking 4,200m asl hill on the island and went to an island dance where we all got dressed up in the local costumes.  A slightly contrived but interesting overnight stay on this remote island showed how stuck in time some parts of the world can be.  On the way back to Puno we stopped at Taquile island famous for its weaving.  The men weave floppy hats that indicate whether they are single, married or hold an important position in the village.  We headed back to Puno where we met up with Dave again who had headed off for a few days to the ancient Tiahuanaco site (pre Inca) and then we kickstarted the car back onto the deserted road to Arequipa. 

We were warned that the police in Peru are notorious for flagging down overlanders and trying to get bribes with false speeding tickets.  We were stopped by some stray traffic police on a deserted road and simply asked if we were safe or having any problems.  We carried on weaved through towering volcano ranges scarcely covered in moss and grass, drove through a snowstorm and chugged our way down to the glittering city of Arequipa.  Arequipa is overshadowed by 3 immense volcanos which have recently given up their secrets of the ice queen, Juanita who was sacrificed to the Incan gods at the very summit of one of them at nearly 6,000m.  Whilst we were staying in Arequipa we were woken by an earthquake that hit 4.5 on the richter scale rattling the room.  It was only after that that we found out that Arequipa is in the shadow of El Misti, the most dangerous volcano in the world.  If the peak blows it is likely to wipeout the entire population of Arequipa, nearly 1 million people.  You can see why the Incas used to make such horrible sacrifices.

A fellow overlander, Bob Morley, who fell in love with a girl and the city recommended a garage for us to go and get the Beast overhauled.  We drove her spluttering into the garage where she was tenderly overhauled by the Meza Rivieras.  The valves were burnt out (like in Russia), affected by the altitude in Bolivia.  According to local mechanics, you need to advance the timing by 2 degrees for every 1,000m that you ascend.  They could have told us that earlier – not after we had ascended 5,000m!  The engine was taken out of the car and cleaned up completely, new valves were ordered from Lima and head gaskets made up in Arequipa. 

Whilst we were waiting for the valves to be whittled to size and the engine rebuilt we decided to visit Machu Picchu to take in Hiram Bingham’s great discovery.  We flew up to Cuzco, ate our first glorious English breakfast (with Heinz baked beans) in nearly a year and organised a tour to Machu Picchu.  We caught up again with our Bolivian motorcycling travelling partners, Nuno, Tati and Chris and another swiss motorbiker Guido.  They decided to see if they could make it along the railway and backroads to Aguas Calientes.  Our bus tour took us up past the amazing Inca ruins of the agricultural area of Pisac and the military base at Ollyataytambo (where Francis Pizarro was slain by the Incas) and onto the only access to the area, the Machu Pichu express train.  Early the following morning we staggered out of bed at 5am to try and catch the early bus up to the summit to watch the sun come up.  Unfortunately we missed it and had to stagger around the site trying to take in the unbelievable stonework and buildings clutching to the walls of the mountain.  Strangely we bumped into Ross that we had taken to Arequipa and Alexis was persuaded to climb up Waynu Picchu, the mountain that appears in the back of all photos… no mean feat it has to be said as it took 1 hour of weezing and complaining (from Alexis) to struggle up to the top!  What a stunning location the Inca kings decided to locate their sun temple and no wonder it took so long for it to be rediscovered by the western world!

We managed to catch up with Guido who had lost the other motorcyclists when he decided to ditch his motorbike and walk along the railway line whilst they caught the train!  Greg decided to celebrate his birthday with Guido until the very early hours of the morning and managed to miss the 5.30am train back to Cuzco.  He had to sit hung over, newly 33 years old and very tired on a bench all day until they would let him get on the next rain back.

We flew back to Arequipa, to find the car still in bits and sitting on the bench.  We wouldn’t have minded but we had a flight booked out of Quito to meet Alexis’s parents in Costa Rica.  The mechanics slogged their guts out, put the engine back in, reconnected all the tubes and electrics and we were just about to set off for the Nazca lines when the carburettors and fuel pump stopped working!  The head gasket also blew.  We are thinking of buying a nice little house in Arequipa….We are never destined to leave Peru!

Notes on Bolivia:

• The capital of Bolivia is La Paz which is the highest capital in the world at 3,600m.  The airport is located at 4,200m.
• Just outside of La Paz in the most dangerous road in the world.  You can  cycle down the 60km road in an hour on your bicycle.
• At the Potosi mine, 15,000 miners work the shafts.  It is one of the highest mines in the world at just over 4,000m.
• La Paz has an army of balaclava wearing shoe shiners.  Apparently they are all trying to pay their way through school and don’t want to be recognised.
• Bolivia has a navy boat that floats around Lake Titikaka on exercises even though Bolivia is a landlocked country.

Notes on Peru:

• The capital of Peru is Lima.
• The money of Peru is the Sole (/S) and the rate in April 2007 was £1 = 6 Soles.
• The minimum wage in Peru is /S 450 (US$130/£75) per month.
• The term Inca actually refers to the king of the Quechua peoples.  Incas is a false classification of the Quechua people.
• The Incas (Quechuas) did not have a written language.  They actually used to send messages by knotted pieces of string called quipu.
• The Incan empire spread from the Colombian border to the middle of Chile and into Bolivia and Aregntina.
• Hiram Bingham made the scientific discovery of Machu Picchu in 1911.  All the artefacts he discovered were taken back to Yale University and have not ever returned to Peru.
• Machu Picchu means old mountain.
• It is possible to walk the route of the old Inca kings and messengers along the Inca trail that leads to Machu Picchu.  Only 500 people per day are allowed to walk the route.  Fresh fish used to be run from the sea to the Inca king in Machu Picchu along this route.
• Lake Titikaka is located at 3,812m above sea level, with an average depth of 107m and covers an area of 8,372 km2.
• The 3,000 Uros people of the 43 Uros islands are thought to have escaped the taxation of the Incas who forced them to work at the mines in Potosi and Oruro and they moved to Lake Titikaka where they lived on reed boats before creating reed islands which they have lived on for the past 400 years.
• There are large S signs in earthquake zones which in case of earthquakes are the places you should run to in order to have a fighting chance of the building not collapsing on top of you