07/02 Funny story about the name of this village. It seems that there’s a Santa Inés Baja a couple miles before here. As the raging blizzard was howling around me, temperatures were hovering around freezing and the gusty headwinds were threatening to blow me off my bike I stood at the junction wondering if this was the Santa Inés on my map. Visibility was low so I decided to follow the sign and ride down toward the lake hoping I’d end up at the right place. 30 seconds later it became clear this road wasn’t heading toward a place that reportedly has 3 hostels. I know 3 hostel village roads and this wasn’t one of them.
Santa Inés Alto was indeed on the other road and I tracked down the only hostel in town (there are no side streets so it wasn’t hard–it’s at the tienda on the south side, no signs, S12 for a single). No showers and the room is just a bed but it’s dry and I have plenty of baby wipes left. There are a couple decent places to eat and a couple small stores.
Pucabamba should probably be reclassified as a ghost town. When I left this morning there was a restaurant open but I think the guy that gave me the OK to camp behind the school is the only person living there. His name as it turns out is Fortunoto Quisje and he was very friendly although he mistook my lack of understanding Spanish as a hearing impediment and kept yelling at me. I don’t know what the temperature got down to last night but it was just a bit too cold in my tent to sleep very well. My skinny Thermarest just doesn’t cut it if it drops much below freezing. I hate to buy an air mattress again but it’s not going to be any warmer in Bolivia and it’s getting to be the middle of winter.
Yes, I got caught in a blizzard today. 
It was pretty cool (no pun intended). It started off with just a few flakes that I was kind of excited about since I hadn’t seen snow since Alaska. After reaching the lakes it started coming down hard and I prayed to every God out there that it wouldn’t turn into rain The wind was brutal for a bit but it settled down and I just rode on. After a while I did have to stop and put something on over my shorts and socks because the snow was melting on my legs and getting my feet wet.
I doubt I’ll be breaking this record… ever. Rode up to the highest drivable pass in the world according to the ITMB map for Peru– 16,597 feet (5,059 meters). My visit was short lived because it was damn cold up there and the wind was brutal. I might have spotted the tire tracks from my friend Hanna who rode through a few weeks ago. She kept going on that road toward the town of Lircay but from her email that route wasn’t recommended so I headed back to the junction and kept going toward the lakes.
Laguna de Choclococha and the area coming down from the pass was absolutely beautiful. I’m really glad I got to see it before visibility dropped. There are supposed to be condors around the lake but I didn’t see any. If they eat rabbits there are plenty of those hopping around. It was kind of surprising to see so many snow-covered mountains in the area but they sure looked nice. Its been snowing non-stop since I got here at 3pm (9pm now) and there’s a good bit of it on the ground. Tomorrow might be interesting.
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