Cordillera Blanca - The High Andes

The Cordillera Blanca - the high Andes has 24 peaks over 6,000 Meters

Sorry I have been out of touch for a while friends...have cycled up from Huaraz into the Cordillera Blanca Andes. We have been doing lots of uphill cycling and hit 4,950 M last Monday which is well higher than I have been before and especially on the bike...

We have been bush camping and sometimes staying in small villages for the last week or so. We camped out at 4,200 Meters on Sunday night and the temperature dropped from a pleasant 32C to -14C after dark! Everything froze solid -even bottles of coke... Thanks Damo for the Northface Snow Shoe sleeping bag which kept me alive.

There is lots to report over the last 2 weeks and hopefully a few nice photos too.

Camped here (above) and only met one Tarantula but he was shy like myself and got away before I could get him to pose!

Ewald, our mechanic forgets to take his bike off the roof-rack again!

Surf Mecca - Huancayo

We dropped down to the coastal town of Huancayo about a week ago. Its a surfers paradise and myself Mick, Bene and Andre (one of our Dutch friends) managed to catch a few waves.

Attempting to demonstrate "the pop" after a few too many Pisco Sours in the local in Huancayo ... and the following day catching a few waves with Mick Bene and Andre.

We also attended a party at the ´´Casa del Cyclistas´in Trujillo which is a famous outpost for (mainly lone) bikers on the South America trip. Lucio, the proprietor and Perus best cyclista hosted us at a party to celebrate his 1,000 th guest. We all became friends and Lucio donned his gear the following day and cycled with us to Huaraz over the next 4 days.

Lucio and Didier (DJ) lying down pose outside the Casa de Cyclistas in Trujillo

Carreras de los Gringos

We stayed a night in the small market town of Caraz for a night and decided to liven the place up a bit. The local form of transport is a 3 wheeled 125cc motorcycle taxi that can hold 2 passengers behind the driver - a bit like the tuc tucs in Thailand. So I organised ´Carreras de los Gringos´a 3 lap race around the main plaza in town. We found 3 likely young lads who would be up for a race and lined up at the traffic lights on the Plaza de Lármes, Caraz. The locals didnt know what was happening but soon turned out in large numbers with the roars of the 125 cc engines and screeching of brakes. We tore around the plaza with the Gringos hanging out on the corners to keep the outside wheel on the ground. It was great craic until the cops turned up to interupt the fun and the drivers had to bolt for side streets to avoid losing their licences. We managed to talk our way out of spending the night in the local slammer by buying the cops a few beers and explaining to them that its an old Irish tradition to race donkeys around the square when you visit a new town. We hope to repeat the race in other towns and get a bit of a league going!!

Camping has been a mixed experience... The first campsite was a little copse of trees beside the paddy fields but it was a very bad choice. There were lots and lots of sand flies and mosis. I escaped reasonably unscathed with about 50 bites. Some of the guys were so badly bitten that their legs swelled up and they got very sick for a few days and couldn´t cycle. The next campsite was on the banks of the Rio Santa high up in the Andes where the air is so thin that a Mosi cannot even take off let alone carry a payload of haemoglobin so that was much nicer. We swam in the river (washed) and saw some great shooting stars.

The serious climbing then started with 2 days of over 5 hours climbing before lunch. This took us up over a 4,900 Meter pass. Our reward was a 70k off-road downhill on Wednesday afternoon (I kid you not. We had to take breaks to get the feeling back in our hands. On an unfortunate note, Andre had a bad tumble and wrecked his right forearm and muscle... he accepted the 17 stitches with his usual good humour but he will be off the bike for a couple of days...

Len Spratt (my Canadian roommate) celebrates making it over yet another 4,000 M pass

We are off at dawn in the morning to climb 2,400 Meters back up into the peaks. We are already at 2,100 here in Huanaco. I have mounted a camera on the front of the bike so with a bit of luck, I will be able to upload a downhill video at the weekend.

On the road, you know this is where I like to be...

Ciao for now, Sean

Quito to Cuenca Week 1

From Quito to Cuenca

Finally the serious business of cycling South started. We headed along the Pan-am highway staying in the towns/villages of Latacunga, Guamote, Riobamba, Incapirca and then the city of Cuenca in the Southern Equadorian Andes.

The Pan am varies between being a perfect 3 lane motorway near Cuenca to little more than a dirt track in the mountains - yet it is the lifeblood of the Andes. It winds like an economic artery through the centre of Equador. A few miles away from the road is like a step back in time - the people rely on small scale agriculture to survive. Living conditions are much as I imagine they would have been in country villages in Ireland in the early part of the 20th century.

The towns along the roadway are all involved in servicing the trucking (and tourist) trade that passes along the highway. And the attitude and perspective of the people in the road towns is quite different to the people of the country villages. In Guamote, the locals were very friendly and genuinely interested in finding out what we were about whereas the 'road people' were more interested in sizing us up to see if they could scam a few $.

Anyway, photos tell the best story of the week to date...

Firstly a country bus fills up at the gas station... I counted 25 on board and they seemed happy to pose for the photo...

The ride from Latacunga to Riobamba took us over a high mountain pass on the shoulder of Cotopaxi volcano. It was 6 deg C and we were not expecting a wet wintery Irish day. The climb took us up to just over 4,000 Meters for the first time.

But the next day, we were back in the sunshine. This is where we stopped for lunch just off the Pan am on the way to Guamote.

Benedicte prefers the sunshine!

These 2 little kids wandered over the hill with a couple of pigs in tow. They were more than happy to share lunch with us and we were able to send them on their way with a bag of goodies.

Below is the Temple of the Sun at Incapirca. This is the most important Inca settlement in Ecuador built in the late fifteenth century when the Inca expanded their empire into present day Ecuador.

Trust the Paddies to find the local pub in the village of Incapirca... we shared a bottle of Zhumir with the locals - its a bit like peach schnapps mixed with Poteen. Nice though.

Below is the magnificent cathedral of Cuenca.

The Start @ Mitad Del Mundo 8th August

THE START...

Well, we are on our way... the race started at the Mitad del Mundo (Middle of the world) which is the name given to the monument marking the Equator. The 18 riders were sent on our way by the vice minister of tourism for Ecuador who blew up a bike tube ( the bike equivalent of popping champagne!). The first day was a relatively easy 60km spin out to the monument and back for the official start.

BIKES LIE STRADDLING THE EQUATOR

"Were not that heavy!"

QUITO

Quito is a crazy city of 2 million people which has a name for being a bit dangerous for muggings etc. However, I reckon you have much more chance of being milled by a car, bus or truck. The locals are completely crazy drivers - more of that later.

First impressions of South America are crowded, polluted and ridiculously cheap - Myself, Mick and Bene who are doing the race with me went for a 4 course meal in a local restauant in Quito and I handed in a $20 bill - I got 15 dollars and a handful of change back!

THE BASILLICA

Also, there dont seem to be any rules - anything goes. We visited the Basillica - a fabulous 200 year old cathedral which is a magnificent building currently being renovated. They charge $2 to visit, a substantial contribution here. For that, you get 'access all areas'. We could climb the builders scaffolding and we were literally hanging out of the top of the spire on the outside with the builders. check out the photos.

"Texting the girlfriend - look at the width of his scaffold

a 2 by 1!"

This is the view down from the spire - on the outside. Mick has a good grip of my jacket! Note the yellow taxi below...

This is what the inside of the roof of a cathedral looks like.
Note the construction details of the arched ceiling features

And inside - sun streaming through stained glass windows

Saturday at 7am the race started - South for 11,000km to the Fin del Mundo in Ushuaia, Argentina. The start was a 500 vertical Meter climb out of Quito. 500 Meter climbs are the bread and butter of mountain biking. However, this involved negotiating the busy and polluted streets and there is 30% less oxygen in the thin air...we have only been here for 3 days and it will take a week to acclimatise to the altitude. It was difficult. The traffic on the Pan American Highway South was absolultely crazy - it makes Roman teenagers look like grandad out for a Sunday spin. The road was covered in roadkill. The road is a 3 lane highway in either direction but not a motorway - so there are uncontrolled junctions all the way along it with trucks pulling out into 3 lanes of traffic moving at ridiculously high speeds. We came across one serious accident - a truck had come down a steep hill which meets the 6 lane highway at a T junction but his brakes had failed and so he simply drove straight across 6 lanes and turned over. Miraculously, he didnt hit any cars but we did not stop to see what condition the driver was in...

The road is completely crowded with all sorts of old cars and trucks that are long past their sell by date and is just a big cloud of black smoke which is not so nice to cycle on. Fortunately, we only have 1 more day on the highway and then we head off road - I cannot wait...

Bananas displayed in the market at Latacunga where we are staying tonight