Jan 2 2009 REVISITED Re: Dec 31 2008 It Started and Ended with Potatoes

To all those who have secretely muttered something along the lines of ´lucky bastards`while reading this blog, you´re going to like this entry. 

To bring you up to speed our mission was to get to Cusco to get to Machupicchu, Peru. That was going to take about 3 days from the coast.
So first day (Dec 29), we drove up and up and up on a really good highway. We reached our elevation peak of 4800m at which we stopped for Kim to take a picture of Paris. To not waste time she decided to run back to the van about 20m away. When she arrived she had the biggest head rush of all time and was heavily panting. That did not go away she had a horrible night and the next day she felt a huge migrain and now understands, she says, why people can´t come to work when they have one.
On this day, day2, we entered a town (Ayachuco) where the paved road unexpectedly ended and gave way to a winding dirt road. We were told it would be for about four hours, little did we know it was going to be for the next two days... 370 km of dirt road with sharp curves, steep up and downhills!!! So needless to say day two ended on a dirt road in the dark in some little village. Exhausted.
We didn´t know where we were but we stayed in somebody´s driveway that didn´t have tire tracks so we figured we wouldn´t be in the way. This was in a small, small indigenous village called Airabamba Baja. Pay attention, this is important.

And so we began December 31st. We woke up in the van heard some kid outside, he was startled when we came out and several localsfolk were admiring the van. ¨Que bonito el carro!¨ they would say.
A couple of the townswomen said come over for breakfast just down the road. And we did. And it was incredible! There we were in a little adobe (mud brick) house with many guinea pig and little kids running around accepting steamed cowmilk with oatmeal, cheese and baked potatoes for breakfast. We shared a lot with the family, learned about their way of living and we explained ours and our trip. We felt bad about not being able to finish all the potatoes they put on our plates, but it was A LOT of potatoes really. And really, how many baked potatoes can you scarf down first thing in the morning? No biggie. It was an amazing experience and an unexpected one but it was time to hit the road, so we gave them a few gifts of appreciation and were on our way. We returned to our van Paris. She started, then stalled and never started again. We tried to be cool but really we were freaking out cuz we were in the middle of nowhere with a van that wouldn´t turn on! This had happened to us before in California and I was afraid it was the relay switch. So the town didn´t have a mechanic but it did have many eager taxibuses willing to ¨tow¨ us to the next town.

And so with a single rope Paris was hauled to the next town. The trip was one for the books because we only had a bout 2m clearance to the back of the ¨tow truck¨ which of course had no working brake lights so it was a lot of close calls. On the downhills he would untie me and I would go in neutral downhill. We did a whole mountain face just on neutral and the little brakes we have left!

We arrived to the next town and fortunately the mechanic really knew his stuff and we were on our way by noon. High altitudes do funny things to your car. About four more hours and we FINALLY made it back to paved roads we were so extatic. We vroomvroomed our way up other mountains all the way to Cusco.

We arrived in Cusco at about 10 o clock at night and it was raining and very very busy with the whole new year looming. Now Cusco is a very touristy town with lots of nightlife and streets as narrow as Paris I´m not kidding. Add new yars buzz and rain to that? It wa sperfect chaos. And in these roads taxis were running in both directions such that if two were going up and one was coming down, the down guy lost and had to reverse outta the way. We didn´t know where our resereved hostal was but we did give a local a ride so he could help us. We finally arrived at the said hotel and it was sketchsville. We were guided to a overnight parking lot in the rain and taxied our way back to the hostel, hotel whatever you wanna call it. They let us into our room and we didn´t say it but were both thibnking it. THIS PLACE SUCKS. There was a knock a t the door and I thought it was to give us our towels ( I can hope right?) actually it was the owner lady saying she lost our reservation she thought were somebody else so we were out. Fine I said I´m not gonna fight to stay in the place but for your mistake the least you could do is let us leave our bags here while we find another place. Actually, she said, the couple with the reservation is outside waiting to get in. Well, I thought, it´s not their fault so fine we put our bags in the office with Kim guarding them.

And this was the icing on the cake: The same owner lady that had said sorry no space actually had the nerve to say "Well, I can make some space in the office for you too, so that you're not offended". Yeah thanks lady I'll pass. "Oh well no problem the place next door should shve room but just for one night then you come back here tomorrow!"... The nerve...

Now let´s recap here people. It´s 11pm on new year´s eve we´ve been travelling uphill on dirt for three days,we´re very wet , very cold from the rain and have no place to stay. Earlier that day I asked Kim how she wanted to end the year. To which she replied ¨happy¨. And I thought to myself I just wanna end it with a nice place to rest my head. HAHAHAHA!

So at 11:07pm I´m out on the streets in the rain looking a place, any place that has a aroom available for that night. Place is filled with young tourists laughing and begginning their shennainags and there I am deperate for a place while Kim´s alone in a crappy hotel office guarding hte bags waiting for me to get back.
Before midnite we were in another place that was not great but at least quiet. And Kim is very very upset. I tried my best to cheer her u. She said how she missed home and Sage and Diesel. That is how we ended 2008.

That ended kind of gloomy. I forgot to mention that after midnight I went down the streets to a street vendor I had seen. I asked for "dos jot dogs (2 hot dogs)" And he gave me this strange, technichally a hot dog but yummy nonetheless sandwiches. Then as we were eating them in the room we realized it even had frrench fries in it(!). So Kim made the observation "we started the day with potatoes and ended the day with potatoes".

The next morning we went for coffee, found a new hotel and had a laugh at the previous day. What more could we do?

Now it´s January 2nd we´re about to hop on a train to Machupicchu and have seen many amazing ruin sites today already as a warm up. This year´s been filled withadventures too but that´s another entry.
Until next time!
Kim + Ricardo