Into the Amazon Basin

Well, the road was definitely not all downhill, and definitely not finished. I´m now at the halfway point, Quince Mil. It´s a shack town in the jungle. The heat has been cranked up here, and so has the biodiversity. I already saw a parrot or something similar just sitting on a roof, among other birds of paradise. Butterflies are so numerous they´re almost a nuisance.

Peru is making a major investment in this trans mountain/jungle highway to Brazil. They really want an overland trucking route to connect the oceans. I´ve never seen such a professionally executed project. Maybe this is only interesting to me in a world domination way, but I think this is really cool, and want to sell my photos to The Economist. All the construction workers cheer me on, and they have all sorts of jobs, even down to a bunch of guys swinging machetes in the woods.

The road definitely wasn´t all downhill, what a joke. I read this in Lonely Planet shortly before leaving Cusco (thanks Justin!), so it wasn´t a surprise. There were three mountain passes, the first was 4100m and took me two days. I made friends with a van full of construction workers and they let me skitch their van about 2km almost over the second one, but it wore out my arm first.

The third one I cheated, it was 4700m high, and had an armed guard stopping people and asking if they had the balls to drive over it, etc. In the last town before it, Tinke, some gnarly weathered Quechua woman talked up how crazy it was, so I ended up deciding on a bus. When I went down to ask about the bus, I was stupid enough to get in some kid´s car and completely misunderstand the price of the ride. I thought he said S/7.50, but it was S/150 ($45). Cierte almost sounds like cientos I guess. Oops! Ah well, made his day for sure. He was not afraid to cross the centerline on every curve, so it was a pretty exciting ride, I have some crazy movies of his racecar driving.

I couldn´t belive there were pueblos up there around 4700m!! These people live in houses made of rocks on top of rocks with no electricity. I´m completely baffeled how they survive or even get water, unless they hike up to the snow.

The driver dropped me in Marcapata, which is a tiny town on a tiny flat spot in the mountains. From there it´s been downhill in the mud. I would have never made it uphill, my bike barely works when the chain oil has been replaced with mud. I would have never made it without a road bike, and I would have never made it if the road through the mountain platau was not brand new asfalt. If I had attempted this one year earlier I´d still be out there, cussing and dehydrated.

Got much more to write once I get to Puerto Maldonado, gotta get on the road now.