Quito, Ecuador via Peru to Uyuni salt flats in Bolivia, a little cycle, simple. Except, we have no support vehicle, we have to carry all our equipment on the bikes, there is the small issue of the Andes in the way, the majority of the route is at an altitude of 3000m + with passes over 4500m, temperatures below -15, wild rabid dogs, living off only guinea pigs, 3 day stints without water or food, off-road, waist deep rivers, no nail polish for Amanda and only 3 weeks to plan due to Will's inability to decide on which adventure would be 'challenging enough'. If you would like to support us, please visit the fundraising page on this blog. We are supporting a fantastic charity called SOS childrens villages which helps children all over the world to be brought up in a family environment which we have been lucky enough to take for granted.







Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Day 11 - Ingapirca to Cuenca - That last 10ks!

Distance Cycled: 71km
Total Cycled to date: 396km

In order to meet our grueling schedule we had another 71kms to cycle today.

After a quick visit to the Ingapirca Inca ruins (what a waste of time that was!), we had a climb to a pass of over 3500m on a rubble track. This took over 3 hrs and we pushed the bikes all the way, not fun. Then a long decent down to 2400m with a stop half way for some fried pig. But again the killer was the last 10kms which were HARD. Lots of traffic, rain, very dark and legs just would not go any further after the big climb in the morning. If we could finish each day 10kms earlier we would be fine but the last stretch is always painful! Note to self: Its more important to enjoy it than to complete the target kms! Agreement with Amanda to take it a bit easier ;)


Note on the dogs. There are a lot of dogs on route and they seem to dislike bicycles. This makes for a great game of who has the largest balls. Amanda's original strategy was to stop and scream whenever a dog started barking. She soon realised that not only did stopping enable the dogs to catch her but the show of fear just encouraged them even more. For me, its a case of who's scarier. Amanda often comes round the corner to find me locked eye to eye with a dog, growling and bearing teeth (both of us that is). If that doesn't work you have to shout a lot, wave your arms and pretend to throw stones at them. Its a real case of man-o-man, great fun! I haven't lost yet, apparently I'm more scary than the dogs...



PS beard is long...








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