Project VELAIA

Time to leave! We had seen enough of Huaraz and especially in the mornings we’ve almost always had beautiful weather, so we could enjoy the stunning view to the surrounding 6000+ m giants. But we had come here for cycling, right? So, let’s cycle again.

Our target was another crossing of the Cordillera Blanca on 4800 or 4900 m altitude near Pachacoto and the Nevada Pasto Rury. The main road upwards along the river towards Lima lead us in 4 riding hours to Pachacoto where we took a left turn and started cycling up the Pachacoto river. These kilometers from Huaraz were OK for cycling, nothing that would make you enthusiastic, but good cycling. Quite some mad dogs still and many (crazy) car and bus drivers torturing their vehicles through this pothole street. Industy had settled here and gone again, leaving a big environmental mess behind, what a great contrast to the untouched regions of the Huascaran National Park ahead of us.

After an hour or two on the gravel road leading us from Pachacoto (read Pajacoto) towards the park enty named Carpa we decided to call it a day and have some workout of a different kind: Having pitched the green tent in the green countryside 50 m from the road and put on some more insulation promising clothes we started to walk around and sling for a while in this empty place. A nice spot to sling was only 150 m away, namely the drop to the river north of our campsite.

Our technique got better and better and so did our slings. The ones we had built just consisted of a leather patch and two shoe strings, but I had found a website with loads and loads of slinging material, instructions how to build them, how to sling, history about slinging and even small movies of people slinging: www.slinging.org

I tried some Greek style slinging as demonstrated in this shortclip on YouTube:

 

The following morning an early start brought us to the gates of the Huarascan National Park pretty early. We paid the obligatory entrance free without cyclist-discount to get into the park, refilled our water bottles and started a relaxed stretch of cycling through a wide valley. Being inside the national park we found some nice farms at the bottom of the valley while slowly climbing upwards ourselves. A caravan of tiny looking cattle crossed the valley like small ants carrying ant-eggs – a nix mixture of black and white. Slowly they progressed while we went up one s-curve after the other, progressing slowly vertically.

A shepherd came down with a group of 80 sheep and four dogs. He must have been close to the end of his life – maybe 60 or 70 years old, a life spent in this magnificent environment, between the mountains and valleys, always caring for the wellbeing of the animals and moving them to new places where they can find the precious green that keeps them alive.

The huts they’re still living in are really basic. A round fundament of nature stones, built into the uneven hillside, covered with layers of insulating and water resistant grass. A small canopy allowing to sit outside even when it rains. And a mind-blowing view on the valley and the snow and ice covered mountains on the opposite side.
I have to admit that this style of life has something to it. Tempting. Probably until recently there hasn’t been a road, no traffic, no tourists. There’s still no electricity, no tab water and similar excrescenses of modern life.

We, too, continued in our down to earth style of travel, resting here and there for a short slinging or stone throwing session or to photograph what would be a major tourist attraction in other countries: cave-paintings from long time ago just beside the trail!
Further and further we climbed up towards the 5000 m mark and when we had almost reached the top of the pass we took a turn right towards the Nevada Pasta Rury, towards a tattered old man, one of a few glaciers still remaining but having a hard time, like a veteran from a time long ago with a colleague or friend dying every day, getting lonelier and lonelier.

There we cycled, first. But after 2 or 3 km of cycling the car gravel road ended and we had to start pushing our bikes over the bed of this old man who had already retreated to higher, cooler regions and left nothing but a gray and black solitude behind, just an idea of his once so great times when his white veins of ice filled the valleys like water the body of a river and even more glorious times when the giants of the Andes were at his feet like principes to the feet of their king.

Next to a small lake I had to rest, I took the sling and painted nice circles onto the water surface. We tried to catapult the stones over this probably 70 to 90 m long lake and succeeded! Really amazing … and depressing if you pick up a stone with your hand and realize that without this cool tool, the sling, you can only throw 40 to 50 meters!

Now we reached the bottom of the glacier, a massive lake on 5000 m altitude with the ice flowing right into the water and massive pieces of ice crushing into the blue lake every 30 minutes. Still 2 or 3 hours of sunlight left we went for exploration of the nearby area. The bikes were parked 6 or 7 m above the lake surface, so even if a giant piece of ice would crash into the water and start a big wave we wouldn’t lose anything, especially not our lives while camping there later on during the night.

Equipped with the DSC-H5 (Elmar) and Canon Digital Rebel XSi (me) we went for a shooting session and found an icicled ice-cave leading inside the glacier, wonderfully mirrored in the lake in front of it. Only ice, rock in all colors and water. We jumped over the drain of the glacier lake in the knowledge that probably a few months before all the places we walked now, had been covered by tons of deep blue ice, hundreds or even thousands of years old.

When it got colder we fled into the rapidly pitched tent to avoid hypothermia … something you should take serious if you’re on your own and far away from help. Every 20 minutes or so we heard the rumbling from the glacier that was communicating with us through clicking noises all through the night and didn’t have a clue what would expect us the next morning …

Notice: There are high resolution sattelite data available from Google Maps, so click the link title of this article and scroll to the end of it to see the included Google Maps applet. You can zoom in and see the houses, trails, river crossings and a lot more. Check out the border barracks of Visviri for example.

The clouds of the previous evening had been gone in the morning. We put the sleeping bags in their little protection and compression sacks, rolled the Thermarests and put the tent in it’s green bag to protect it from the dust of the road and the hardships of the day.

After 1.5 hours of cycling we reached the town of Charaña (pronounced charanya with the “a” pronounced like the ‘oo’ in blood). A lot more had we expected. At least we found a somewhat reasonable small shop with hundreds of different items and easily spent our last money there, about 20 €. Probably the biggest deal for the young woman owner of the show with her small, 1 year old boy.

We tried to get on the Internet but asked the owner of this small, 3 computer cybercafe for the speed and whether it’d make more sense to postpone the visit to the other world, to the world of NOW. He explained we should get NOW later on in Chile. That saved us a lot of headaches I guess.

So now we’re at the border, ready to get a 90 days tourist visa for Chile and have our luggage checked to protect the country from diseases. Diseases for their vulnerable mono culture growing food industry that is. All the cyclist coming here know that the Chileans don’t want that stuff, so we, too, had been prepared and didn’t buy any fresh fruit or vegetables.

In the early afternoon we started following road I-123 down south. The road follows the Chile-Bolivia border pretty close as you can see if you zoom in on the map. The Chileans were just upgrading the road to a new level and I guess in a year’s time it’ll be sealed. That was the first part only, then it got worse, in parts really sandy.

The colors from the evening sun got softer and softer and put the area into a nice yellow-orangish mood. With a wonderful view onto distant 6,348 m high Parinacota volcano we continued cycling. But the winds got harder, so hard actually that occasionally we had a really hard time staying on our bikes!

We decided to pitch the tent at a place where they were just upgrading the road. We put it right behind some little hills for wind protection. But then the wind changed direction and we had already put big stones on the leashes. The tent got deformed heavily while we were packing our stuff inside. The bikes got fixed to the head and foot of the tent both for the protection of the tent and bicycles.

We had dinner inside and a small dessert: Chocolate. The latter one we had every evening these days, not very healthy but calories. It came in the same silver foil as the chocolate in Peru, probably imported. We had bought a whole box for 4€ containing about 20 units. To get it the previous day we had to bargain with the woman. First she didn’t want to sell it to us at all, but then she realized she could make profit from the sale

While we had dinner the lamas went on their way home to the paddock. I didn’t see anyone bringing them there, so I guess for them it’s a routine and they profit from the paddock because the stone walls give them protection from the cold winds and by sitting side by side they won’t get cold at night.

Early morning, still above 4000 m of altitude. This is when we think today will get an easy day. Only downhill, down to 3500 m, to the town of Putre

The very sandy ground brought us a good nights sleep. We later met the 3 French again who had tried to sleep up here, too, but didn’t succeed and had to go down to Putre and get a hotel there. We on the other hand were used to this high altitudes as we’ve been cycling above 3800 m since Lago Titicaca.

I was in a nice photo shooting mood, so I went around the campsite and took these pictures. Up here on the altiplano there’s basically no media, no trouble, just a few people and a few more animals living mostly in peace, not like in the latest James Bond movie with all the violence.

Straight down towards Putre. That’s what this sign suggests, when the road in front of us is diving down into the valley. But fast we couldn’t go because of a steady strong headwind blowing towards us from the coast. What we had hoped that it would get an easy ride took us hours!

The internet or ciber coffee in putre (note, coffee, not cafe!). The signs are actually made from wood, not just cheap painting. But they should have rather put some more time and money into the hardware as I got so upset with the slow computers that I didn’t go there again the second day and especially not the third day, when we had found out that the public library has much faster computers and internet and even for free!

We were forced to spend some time there because the bank was closed over the weekend. We had arrived on a Saturday. All the hostels and hotels were booked out. Strange, no tourist season.

Elections, that’s what brought the people here from very remote areas. So on Sunday the roads were crowded with indigenous people and also more Western looking locals.

“HAY PAN” indicated that they had bread. Sometimes self made but also very often only bought from a bigger bakery.

In our hostel, which we had found after a 3/4 hour search we could negociate a good price and had some friendly company from many French, Swiss and even Ozzies and Kiwis. But nobody stayed for the same period as we did. And everyone was surprised that we had just been there to relax, not to explore the area with salt lakes, volcanoes and national parks.

We were surprised by the fast speed with which the other travelers went out to explore and came back from exploration. Too fast for us. We want to experience the size of a big salt lake by riding slowly past it. How big appears a 40 km wide area covered with NaCl for you if you’re passing at 80 km/h. Can you really appreciate it?

Info Putre: Wikipedia (english) (deutsch)

Weiße Felsformationen stechen hervor

Wir hatten uns in dieser Ortschaft eingedeckt, da wir nicht wussten, wie weit es zur darauffolgenden sein würde – und sicher ist sicher! Noch eine kühle, bolivianische Cola für umgerechnet 20 Euro Cent getrunken, konnte es weitergehen. So sahen die Wege aus, wenn wir nicht die viel zu grob geschotterte “Straße” fuhren.

Viel Spaß auf engen Pfaden

Und hier nun die Verpflegung Station am Mittag: Vier Frauen aus einem ansonsten ausgestorben wirkenden Dorf, die mit ein paar Styropor-Behältern und jeder Menge isolierenden Wolltüchern aus Eigenproduktion die Vorbeireisenden mit Nahrung versorgten. Das heißt, viel Verkehr gab es hier nicht wirklich. Das Geschäft lief gut, wenn alle 10 Minuten einmal ein LKW seine Staubwolke mit sich brachte und anhielt.

Imbiss Stand an der Hauptstraße

Denn das Klima war trocken, Sonnenschein, dünne Luft. Da zog jedes größere motorisierte Vehikel seine Staubwolke hinter sich her. Wir Radler durften entweder Staub inhalieren oder mussten kurzzeitig anhalten … denn Luft anhalten und zugleich weiterfahren, daran war in diesen Höhen wahrlich nicht zu denken!

Steinerne Dorfkirche auf Bolivianisch

Plötzlich fanden wir uns in einer sehr skurrilen Felslandschaft wider, die sich über mehrere Kilometer unserer Fahrstrecke hinzog. Nur für die Straße wurde richtig Platz gemacht, selbst wenn sie sich noch immer in Schlangen-Kurven durch die Felslandschaft zog. Prima Klettermöglichkeiten für Entdecker aller Couleur gab es hier und ich nahm mir natürlich alle Zeit dafür – eine willkommene Abwechslung zu den langen Stunden im Sattel.

Skurile Felslandschaft am Abend

Das Zelt wurde mit prima Ausblick, windgeschützt und mit Sichtschutz vor den Blicken der ab und an Vorbeifahrenden errichtet, direkt neben einem Wegstück der ehemaligen Straße. Mit fast allen verfügbaren Spannseilen gesichert und “ruhig gestellt”.

Bei der alltäglichen Camping-Routine

Danach hieß es nur noch Kalorien bunkern und die überwältigende Landschaft und Atmosphäre auf sich einwirken lassen:

Der Blick zum Rande der Hochebene

Camp inmitten der Felsen

Beim Nachverfolgen der Route bin ich diesmal auf einige Probleme gestoßen. Die Karten-Kacheln bei Google Maps waren leider nicht höher aufgelöst, so konnte ich den Weg nicht gut verfolgen. Ich hoffe, dass ich im nächsten Beitrag wieder Witterung bekomme. Bis dann.

“La Paz, wo bist du geblieben?” … so oder so ähnlich hätten wir am Morgen singen können, denn weg war sie, die Millionen Metropole. Untergetaucht gewissermaßen unter einen Teppich samtweicher Wolken.

Ãœber den Wolken

Trotz des Erstaunens über das plötzliche Verschwinden von La Paz kullerten wir nicht einfach von der Strecke, wie es dem folgenden Genossen en route passiert ist. Die gelben Männlein sind übrigens Straßenarbeiter, die dem verdutzten LKW-Fahrer beim Abfüllen des restlichen Treibstoffes helfen. Könnte ja geklaut werden.

Nebenbei eine an uns gerichtete Frage: “Habt ihr Wasser?”. Wir überlegen kurz, wofür die Männer wohl Wasser brauchen könnten und kommen zum Entschluss, dass es wohl nicht für den Eigenkonsum ist. Zudem neigen sich unsere Reserven der Erschöpfung; in nicht allzu christlicher Manier teilen wir also diesmal nicht.

Neben der Straße

Unsere ständigen Begleiter auf der Hochebene: Lamas. Dies sind die domestizierten Tierchen, die nicht gleich abhauen, wenn man sie mal schief anguckt. Nach uns gespuckt haben sie übrigens nicht, zum Glück.

Vorbei an den Lamas

Jetzt die Herausforderung des Tages: Geradeaus, schnurstracks geradeaus. Zig Kilometer weit immer geradeaus. Kurven waren bei dieser Etappe Mangelware und sehnsuchtsvoll ersehnten wir uns eine jede schon Kilometer vorher herbei.

Ewig lang gerade aus im Hochland Boliviens

Die Schotterpiste oder pista de grava compactada, wie man auf Spanisch sagen würde, war technisch äußerst anspruchsvoll zu fahren. Selbst mit den breiten 2 Zoll Schlappen, die aufgezogen waren, “schwammen” die Räder manchmal geradezu im Schotter und Sand.

“Hinter dem nächsten Hügel wird es bestimmt besser”, sprachen wir uns Mut zu. “Jetzt aber wirklich hinter dem nächsten, garantiert!” Und wieder nicht. Dazu noch ein Platten am Hinterreifen des Mountainbikes.

Kleiner schwarzer Punkt = Elmar eine Minute voraus

Gegen Abend endlich Besserung. Zwar immer noch schnurgerade Strecke, doch wenigstens ein paar Wolken, ein bisschen Abwechslung wettermäßig. Weiter radeln wir mehr schlecht als recht durch Schotter oder auf engen Pfaden neben diesen. Radfahrer aus der Region haben diese Alternative erschaffen auf dem Weg ins nächste Dorf, zur Arbeit, zum Markt (mercado) oder zur escuela, Schule zu Deutsch.

Wir genießen diese Radwege, erstellt von Radfahrern für Radfahrer. Ein Hochgefühl diese mit 20 km/h entlangzuflitzen, scharfe Kurve links um einen Busch, dann gleich wieder Ausweichmaneuver nach rechts um einem Sandfeld auszuweichen. Action, hurra!

Kampiert wird diese Nacht 200 m entfernt von der eh schon wenigst befahrenen Hauptverbindungsroute der Region, die in Deutschland locker als größtes Bundesland durchgehn würde … flächenmäßig.

P.S. Der erste Teil der Route im Karten-Feld unten ist hoch aufgelöst. Hier ist wirklich jeder Kuhstall zu sehen. Bei der Auflösung macht das Nachverfolgen der Route bei Google Maps richtig Spaß.