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Tuesday, 30.04.2002: Cusco - Chivay
We left Cusco at 6am - the Famoo truck was blocked in by loads of cars in the truck park. It was an all day drive from Cusco to Chivay. We actually went the long way round so that most of the drive was on tarmac roads. In one town we asked some police who stopped and checked us for directions and as a result ended up driving all over the place!! (Typical police!!)
Eventually we found the new road and managed to get past a roadblock due to Prue´s friendly persuasion! It was a fantastic drive through hills and lakes and no one had altitude problems!
But we still got stopped at another road block. There were huge concrete blocks across the road for absolutely no reason! We had no problems on our side and there were plenty of buses and cars on the other side, which had obviously had no problem getting that far either. So Darrell got out and had a walk round and then said we were going to dig a way through off the side of the road! So we all got out, the truck drove off the road and got to a place where we had to level out a large mound of mud and earth so the truck could get through!
All the locals gathered round as we got our one spade out and a small hand trowel, the rest used their hands and feet! For some reason the locals killed them selves laughing at Helen with the hand trowel getting stuck into moving mud!!! But the truck got through!!!
Well, minus all the mud flaps and with a broken last step which we use to climb into the truck! And it started hailing when we were running after the truck to get back on - huge balls of frozen ice which actually hurt when they hit you!! The other Kumuka truck caught us up so they benefited from our road building skills too! So we managed to beat the roadblock even though there was really no reason for having a road block!
Hail and Helen´s commentary about the road block
It was already dark when we drove over the 5000m pass - the highest pass on our South America trip and Prue was counting up the metres. We finally got to our hotel at 7-30pm after a very long truck day!
Wednesday, 01.05.2002: Chivay - Colca Canyon - Arequipa
Another early start at 6am. Graham, Aaron and Bridget all went out for drinking last night and Graham had a terrible hangover. We picked up Alex - our guide for the Colca Canyon and set off along a very bumpy, dusty road along the canyon. Graham was so sick, that we had to stop several times.
We had to drive through a very narrow tunnel - it was pitch dark and we all got nervous because this is one of the most active areas for earthquakes! When we got to the lookout point at Colca Canyon we all got off the truck and went walking along the canyon. It is the deepest canyon in the world with about 3000m. We saw loads of condors (the largest flying bird in the world) and also loads of eagles.
Colca Canyon
On the way back to Chivay we stopped to take photos of the ancient terraces in the Colca valley and then continued back up to the high pass on 4984m. This is the place where everyone builds small rock piles and makes a wish.
