We seem to be re-planning the trip almost on a daily basis now.

Having taken our time coming through Central America (because we were enjoying it and we were avoiding the prolonged rainy season in Costa RIca, Panama and Colombia), we are now concerned about the rainy season we will hit in Bolivia. As many of the roads are unpaved, this may well mean having to not go to the Salar De Uyuni as the salt flats will be wet and the roads there un-passable (for us).

We may be considered strange as it seems from blogs we read that, unlike a lot of people who do this trip, we like deserts, and Peru is all desert on the West of the Andes, right up to the sea.

We left the Panamerican highway to get up into the high Andes for a few days from where we could try and plan our onward route.

After booking into a Hostel in Huaraz (Jo's Place) we met an American couple, Marshal and Megan, doing the trip on two bikes. They gave us some ideas for dirt road experiments in the area.

Then we had some beer, which is always useful at altitude.

The route we chose was over 50Kms (30 miles) of heavily potholed road, then 30Kms (20 miles) of 'affirmed', i.e. dirt, road winding up towards the highest peak in Peru, which looks good when not shrouded in cloud.

The dirt road climbed 1000 metres to just under 4000 metres, hair-pinning its way past villages until it reached a gorge that was the entrance to a National Park.

The gorge was lined with waterfalls, contained two lagoons, and a glacier could be seen. As we reached the second lagoon I noticed it was gone 13:00, it had taken us over 4 hours to get this far and there was another 8Kms of very steep twisting road ahead to get to the pass at the top, another 1000 metres higher.

Rain was also threatening, and neither of us fancied the dirt road down in the wet, so reluctantly I turned round as Jean gritted her teeth in readiness for the steep side drop offs, and we headed down. Very slowly.

The return along the potholed road seemed harder than earlier in the day, I was hitting far more than in the morning. Fortunately none of the really large ones, some were over a foot deep and the width of the road. Often we had to swerve to the opposite carriage way, not just avoiding on coming vehicles, but also the nutty minibus drivers who try and over take in the craziest places.

The minibus drivers are learning Anglo Saxon English now. They also need to realise that metal panniers can cause them damage. And that we have more power than them, so I can hold them on the opposite carriage way when they try and over take on blind bends, it keeps me amused.

In all the 160Km round trip took us 7.5 hours.

We both realised that trying to continue South over the mountains, on similar roads ahead, was not an option for us or the bikes. So we have had to re-plan our route to Bolivia utilising the Panamerican and the paved roads into the Andes.

Bolivia will now be done on a day by day basis, and if we have to back track to Peru to get to Chile, we will.

We were both shattered after the ride, so opted to stop a third night in Huaraz, which was no great hardship considering the view from our room at the top of the hostel, you can just see the highest peak in Peru peeking out from the clouds.

Time for a mini rant.
The straws for coke bottles are too short, again !