Sent: Saturday, October 20, 2001 9:52 PM
Subject: more inca news
Hi
| more time today, sat , we have driven over some splendid mountain roads with hairpins and shear drops only millimetres from the road edge! We were confrontd by a local 4X4 on the wrong side of the road on one hairpin and just managed to brake enough to only clip his rear wing, he didnt stop! |
| We are OK.Car is reasonable I suppose. |
| We had to have the lower rear shock mounting brackets welded back on and the whole of the back suspension raised to stop the rear axle bashing the chassis cross member! |
| The social side is great, everyone mixes and we seem to have dinner with different crews each night. They all have their own exiting adventures to tell. The only problem is that we have to be up at 5 every morning to get on the road before 7 and make progress. |
| Some days we have done more than 500 miles! We arrive at the hotel hot dusty and knackered. A bath or shower is the absolute priority, usually accompanied with a cold beer from the fridge bar. Then down for dinner. |
| It is mostly buffet, lots of steak, pasta, trout, pizza. There is a lot of fresh fruit, water melons, kiwis, oranges and pineapple. |
| We were glad to leave Bolivia, the people are very poor and they are not motivated to do anything to help themselves. The roads are terrible! At one hotel I offered a porter boy good money to clean the car, he was full of promises but the next day he had not done it. They prefer to sit around. |
| The Brazilian boys are the complete opposite and will work hard to earn cash. |
| Peru is a mixture, in the smaller towns the people are great, but in the bigger towns they are unfriendly. HERO have had a lot of problems with lost hotel and excursion bookings in Peru |
| We are on our way to Inca and then Lima. Soon we will be able to put our feet in the Pacific! Then we have a small plane trip over the Nazcar Lines |
| What about the rally? Well we got so many penalties with our delays in the first week that we are not competitive now. We are still doing the off road regularities - no we dont need a coat hanger yet Dave and thanks Liz we have plenty of spanish speaking waiters here to contend with! |
| Will write again when we reach the coast, or even Chile. |
Ted and Judy
| Back to part 3 | Back to the articles page | On to part 5 |