PowerCycle

07/08 Its only happened once before but I ran into a water shortage issue that messed me up a bit. Actually, it just kept me from being able to have coffee in the morning so I guess it wasn’t too bad. There are two roads that end up taking you eastbound–I took route 3 that heads south before cutting back east again. From another bicyclist’s blog I knew there would be no villages but I figured there would be somewhere to get water. The other way heading east out of the city passes through villages but they kept writing that the roads were really, really bad and I’ve had my fill of those for a while.

To say there were no places to get water isn’t quite true. Along the road there’s often an irrigation ditch with water flowing along to the farms and whatnot downhill but you never know what else is mixed in there. I skipped the ditches thinking there would be something a little safer. There wasn’t and it wasn’t long before there wasn’t even a ditch.

The paved road leaving the city was a surprise but 24 km later I ran into the construction crew responsible for paving it. The road after this point was a mix of pavement and dirt but after another 10km it was all dirt (hard-packed which wasn’t bad at all). When I finally reached the “top” I’d climbed 6000 feet and was at 14,000 feet altitude.

Now the fun began. I only had half a bottle of water left, my stomach was upset and had been all day, there were no places to get water, the sun was an hour from setting and it was damn cold. The icy wind was the biggest problem–at one point I thought I was going to get frostbite on my fingers (my armpits and warmer gloves fixed that).

There were still scattered areas of construction which made finding a camping spot tough so I kept riding. The landscape was also very barren with almost no “hidden” areas to pitch the tent away from the road. Twice I came up on someone holding a stop sign for the construction areas but I told them I couldn’t hang around so I just went through. I’m sure they understood. The road was in very good shape for dirt and the climbs were very gradual so I just chugged along looking for a spot. Finally I found a place by some rocks but unfortunately not out of the wind (or hidden completely from the road). The view from up on the hill was incredible and I had a nice sunset to end the day.

Since I only had a tiny bit of water I used a little for oatmeal and ate a bunch of cookies. Sleep came fast. The next morning it was animal crackers and more cookies for breakfast. I’d been hoping for frost on the tent I could use for water but that didn’t happen. I only had to ride for maybe 2-3 miles before I found a small lake that didn’t look like it had been contaminated by anything unusual so I filtered a bunch of water. It was on the other side of the lake that I spotted some deer. That was an amazing sight and made the trek up into the barren hills worth it. First time since California that I’ve seen deer. They may have saved my Canon SX20IS from being left in Florida (couldn’t have taken the picture without its 20x zoom).

There was a huge downhill into Ocros where I found a hostel and a place to eat. I can’t find any beer to celebrate not dying of thirst in the mountains though.

I’m under a bit of a time crunch because I booked a flight to Florida on July 20 from Cusco. I should make it there on the 16th but I was thinking I was going to be in Ocros in one day so I’m already a day behind.

Update: Turns out the deer were not deer after all. They are vicuñas, relatives of the llama. Thanks for correcting me Christina.