South America Archive

Village Life

… following on from yesterday’s post I stopped for a couple of days in the small town of Santo Tomas.  I found it quite an interesting place, it had a bit of a Wild West feel.. something to do with the artfully crumbly buildings, and the hats. Situated in a valley at 3660m (12,010ft) the climate felt pretty nice, and sufficiently benign to support some proper tree growth. The first proper trees I’d seen for a …

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On from Espinar

It’s been a while so I think I will split this into two posts… one today and one tomorrow. When I last wrote I was in Espinar and planning a slightly easier route for a while in the hope that it would help me get rid of the lingering chest bug… but there was still the matter of a 4700m pass to get over in order to get away from Espinar and find that mellower …

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Onwards and Upwards…

.. at last. I was able to leave Chivay after just over 2 weeks of convalescence so to speak. Still not 100% and with a persistent chesty cough I decided I was going anyway. I did however take it easy on the first day, just cruising gently back up the valley of the Rio Colca, back to Sibayo at just under 4000m and 36km away. As I cruised slowly up the valley I met an …

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Onwards… perhaps

Hopefully this will be my last post from Chivay. It has been two weeks and I feel at something of a crossroads. Yesterday I went for a short spin up the valley on my unloaded bike, just to see how I was… I was OK, but not brilliant. My chest is still bit tight and I have periods of feeling really tired and weak. Whatever that infection was it really screwed me over. Morale is …

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A little bit more Chivay

One is still in Chivay. It’s been a week now. The last couple of days I have been navigating the apparent chaos of the Peruvian rural healthcare system, and, having found my way around it I’ve been really happy despite ending up with a large, and somewhat painful needle in my arm… not to mention being told I must not eat any cuy (guinea pig) for the next few days…..!  Now, I’m generally shy of …

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Chivay

… not unexpectedly, some street photography from Chivay. It’s a lovely little town and so far being forced to stick around hasn’t been a chore, rather the opposite.. although I am having periods of low morale as the days tick by and I still feel weak and chesty…  But as always when I spend a bit of time in a place the place seems to make time for me. There are some friendly folk around, …

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Arriba…

It was a bit of a late start leaving Arequipa… one last leisurely coffee then a chase around the steep suburbs above the city in search of a ferreteria selling stove fuel (‘ron de quemar’.. essentially ‘rum to burn’ – otherwise known as meths.. at least in the UK), by which time it was lunchtime and made sense to enjoy a set lunch from the cafe adjacent to the ferreteria. It’s a steep climb out …

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Arequipa… part 2

We delayed departure from Arequipa by a day to spend a little more time exploring what is a rather wonderful town. There are a ton of riding photos and stories from the road to come tomorrow, I have my feet up in Chivay today, but this set I think are best kept separate from those… so without further ado….. oh no, wait… before that – a couple of recommendations in particular if you’re heading this …

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via Arequipa

Hitting the road tomorrow so now seemed like a good opportunity to sling up a quick post with some pics. In Arequipa at present in the south. I had thought I might go north to begin with but the wet season seems to be lingering much longer up that way (it’s an el Niño year)… and purely by chance an old riding friend happened to be flying into Peru from New Mexico earlier this week …

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Patagonia

I’ve been  thinking about Patagonia an awful lot recently, and not just because it’s a damp, grey January… There is a little place inside my heart that has Patagonia in it.. I can feel a tug there every time I think about the place. In 2016 I feel as if I must deal with some unfinished riding business in Central Asia .. so I think that’s what I’ll do this year by way of a …

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some salt with that?

I’m just uploading some material to youtube for business related reasons but while I was at it I thought I would upload & share this.. In Bolivia I met a Canadian cyclist, James. We teamed up to cross the harsh landscapes of the southwest.. including a couple of days riding across the Salar de Uyuni at almost 4000m altitude. Quite a surreal place. We’d spent the night on the small rocky outcrop known as “Inca …

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Sixty Degrees of Latitude – a reminder

It’s time I gave my book another plug I think. It has been receiving some lovely feedback from buyers, so thank you if you have a copy… and if you haven’t it is a beautiful book printed on a very heavyweight lustre paper that would make a very nice addition to your book shelf if you enjoy travel.. or photography or cycling… or even if you don’t. One chap with a copy said this about …

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Sixty Degrees of Latitude – a preview

A few weeks ago when I first wrote about A Boatbuilder’s Story I also mentioned I was working on another project.. as that other project now nears completion I can present a preview I think. It is not a travelog about cycle touring in South America, neither is it a diary. It is simply a photo essay. The draft introduction, still subject to change, says it all.. A journey by bicycle following the Andes from …

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I see dead people…

“I see dead people“…. sadly if you asked me to come up with a movie quotation off the top of my head then that would probably be it… nothing so special as “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine…”.. or even, hehe, “search your feelings Luke, you know them to be true….“. It was those words whispered by Cole in the Sixth Sense that were …

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