11th April

Here's the next bit of my story - I STILL haven't got around to finishing it!

D

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Sorry about not finishing the story last time, but it was a choice of doing so and missing my flight home or saving the best bit for last. Hmmm .. what would you have done?.  This isn't quite finished but its nearly there ....

So here goes for the next instalment. We'd left it where our kit was covered in petrol and we were about to settle in to our zero star hotel with no electricity, a dodgy roof and hot sulphurous spring water on tap. It was a bit weird having hot water running freely outside the house and knowing that we could fill this enormous bath, with the most enormousest tap you've ever seen with as much hot water as we liked, as often as we liked - I wondered who was paying the gas bill?

Next morning, we rose to petrol flavoured muesli - yummy!! The petrol had got through the plastic .. as it had done for all the food it had touched. We went off the breakfast idea and went to play with the car. It started! Yippee!! But had less power than my old Citroen 2CV. We "drove" it down to the bottling plant - was great going downhill but it couldn't quite handle anything that approached level. Needless to say, it died. Muggings was charged with driving whilst David and Romi pushed - if you've never been at altitude, you won't appreciate the significance of this. At 11,000 feet, even walking is hard work, but pushing a ton and half of vehicle is astoundingly stupid!! Anyway, when we got to the next bit of down, Dave and Romi leapt in the back and screamed "keep going, don't slow down", even round the hairpin bends. Bouncy bouncy we went careering down to the bottling plant - what DandR didn't know was that I couldn't slow down even I'd wanted to, because, with no engine, there weren't any brakes!!! Anyway, we got there, a little quicker than otherwise we might have, but didn't have enuf whizz to get into the plant. No problem said Albero, who promptly disappeared to get an appropriate "machina" to tow us in .... I'm not sure if you've ever seen a Hilux being towed by a fork lift truck, but I can assure you, it's a VERY funny sight!!!! 

It turned out that the alternator was f*****, well, broken anyway. Johnny went off with Romi to radio head office (phones don't exist up there) who relayed the message to the car hire company, with appropriate phraseology to encourage a fast response. We all agreed that another day at Chusmiza was a Good Thing, to give us an extra day acclimatisation - we had three days contingency planned in our schedule to allow for "hiccups" - I knew that project management course would come in handy. So, Romi and I spent the rest of the morning sniffing wrappers (isn't that illegal at home), washing tins in the hot stream that was running outside the building, clothes, ruck sacks etc etc etc. Meanwhile, David went off to fill our drinking water containers from the mountain stream.

A new car turned up in the afternoon. We transferred petrol from the old car to the new, changed all the tyres (the old car had better ones), and waved goodbye. We then had a bath, ate tinned something with packet rice something and worried about the leaking roof as the torrential rain threatened to wash us back down to the bottling plant. We also decided we wanted candles and went to a shop we'd spotted. On the way, we gave a lift to locals going home and were given candles in return. Thought we'd go to the shop anyway. Well, I'm having trouble finding the words describing this place - it was an old wooden shack that you stepped down into. Inside it looked like it had been abandoned 20 years previously - the shelves were empty and kind of at odd angles on the wall; there were bits of plastic, wood, paper and rope in various piles around the place; everything was filthy and ancient. And there, sat on a bench in the middle of this rubbish tip was an old man, fast asleep! We woke him and asked for candles. He shuffled off around to the otherside of the counter, removed an old oily hat and other detritus (by sweeping it all onto the floor) in a vein attempt at tidying for his customers (clearly the only ones who'd been there for months) and produced three from the counter drawer - he sold us two - the other he wanted for himself. The whole thing was surreal and like something out of Lord of the Rings. And very sobering. And so to bed.

Next morning, we packed and jollied ourselves along for the next part of our adventure to climb another 2,500 feet to our next destination in the wilderness. All set, glasses on, sun cream on, water at the ready, map firmly planted into David's incredible map absorbing and storing brain, DM behind the wheel, key in the ignition ... off we go! Only, no we don't. The one thing that was missing was electricity in the car's battery. Three people have instant sense of humour failure. So ... improvise, adapt and overcome. PUSH. Which we did for a while but to get to the nice steep down hill bit, we had to go steeply uphill for a short way. No chance. Half an hour later, three exhausted and breathless people once again agreed that pushing a car at attitude is a quite insane thing to try to do. So we toddled off back to the bottling plant, cap in hand.

The guys there were incredible. They were only too happy to help us again. Having explained the problem, they said, if our battery was knackered, they would let us have one of theirs and would invoice the hire company for it! At their lunch break, Albero knicked the battery out of the fork lift again, which we carried up the hill (a good 20 minute walk) - another totally daft thing to do at altitude. By this time we were deeply paranoid that we'd left the lights on, or the radio or some damn thing ... and David and I both rather sheepishly admitted that we'd played with the radio, even though neither of us managed to make it make any noise. So we connected the new battery and zap ... on went the headlights. Albero grinned and immediately thought "stupid tourists left the lights on". The dialogue over the next few minutes went a bit like this:

A: "Turn them off"

D: "they are off".

A: "No they're not ... ah that's it"

D: "They're off now?"

A: "Yes"

D: "But I didn't do anything"

A "OK, no need to turn them on again"

D "I didn't"

A "Yes you did ... and now you've turned them off"

D "Watch my hands ... I'm doing nothing!"

A and D and D and R "huh?"

The lights had developed a life of their own and were merrily turning themselves on and off!! It turned out the control relay had developed mental problems and had lost control. Immediate surgery did the job - we whipped it out and agreed not to do any night driving! At last, we could leave. Thank the Virgin Mary for that they all said - leave!!! So we did. As we made our way out of the valley, I wondered what the locals must have thought of us as they saw two white lights flashing on and off all night, gradually getting dimmer ... that part of Andes has a reputation for UFOs ... did they think we were really aliens communicating with the Mother Ship? If we were, they didn't seem too bothered ... perhaps they were an alien community ... the shop was certainly not of the kind that I'm used to!

Time for Geysers - the Puchuldeeza Geysers. Sounds like a gang from a Spanish re-work of Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, starring Vincento Jonas!! Hola Geezer! Anyway, the journey took us on up to about 14,000 feet through the mountains where we saw maybe 15 or 20 big birds of prey circling near the road in the thermals. They looked like Condors - graceful and quite awe inspiring, set against mountain scenery that varied in colour from palest yellow grey to the deepest and richest reds, set against the darkest blue skies I had (up until then) ever seen. Wow!

After a long drive down the usual rock strewn dirt track (that we were coming to accept as a standard A road) we got to a white and yellow plain in a valley, surrounded by mountains and, probably, volcanoes. It was striking and very beautiful. The plain was dotted with small steaming holes, some filled with boiling water and some just gurgling. We saw a few geysers erupt from a distance - we waited close to a big one for a while to see it go off but the wind was very cold, in contrast to the sun which was scorching, made worse by the fact that I had badly burnt the backs of my legs where I'd missed with the sun cream. So on we went to Enquelga.

On the way, we came across many places where the road had been washed away and we had to detour into the desert to get across rivers and streams. But we came to one spot where the road appeared to have crossed the river to continue against a cliff, only it looked like the river had washed the whole road away and that we'd have to drive down the river for a while. David and I were SURE there was no road but Romi was equally sure we WOULDN'T have to drive down the river. Without hesitation. I leapt out to survey the obstacle - as you do when off roading. I waded into the river and disappeared up to my knees. Hmmm, I thought, well that would only be up to the sills on the car - that'll be OK - if we don't open the doors <GRIN>. And on I went down stream aiming at a possible exit point I had spotted. About half way across, I heard 'beep' beep' to my left - the car wasn't supposed to be to my left, it was supposed to be behind me. Romi had convinced David to have a look at the road on the other side of the river and there they were, on a perfectly serviceable rock track ... and I'm up to my knees in cold rushing water. Who's a silly boy then! Romi's feeling smug, David's amused.

Enquelga. 12,600 feet up. A small village of mostly Adobe (mud) huts, on the Altiplano. Populated by Aymara people who mostly tend Lamas, Vicunas and other stretched sheep like animals. However, the CONAF (a government department that manages the national parks) refugio was more substantial with three dormitory rooms, bathroom and kitchen. Complete civilization (and boy did we appreciate it later, on as you will see). We asked the CONAF man about our route for the next day and he told us that the road we'd just come across was impassable - "no", we said, "we've just come that way", "no no", he said "it's totally impassable" ... etc etc etc. It took some time but we eventually persuaded him that we HAD actually performed that seemingly impossible task .. for a local to say the road was impassable is quite something so we guessed we'd done alright and that we might pass an elementary exam in off road driving. David and I just looked at each other and grinned: there was alot more to come. The electricity came on at about 7pm and went off again at about 9. We cooked and went to bed - bed time was getting earlier and earlier, driven by availability of light - up with dawn and bed with dusk type thing, which none of us minded one little bit!

So the next day's adventure is planned - drive up to the high point, the Salar de Surire. A huge salt lake almost 15,000 feet up, very isolated but heavily populated with flamingos and very little else ...

I've not quite finished the last instalment. Can you wait?

See ya soon

Dan.

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