At last I have caught up on the blog as far as Cusco!

I want to call this very long blog ” The Long Road To Cusco ” as it was about 1,300km from where I left the desert coast road.

This is a continuation of where I ran on from Violets house, the old lady in the mountains you might remember. Read that posting again > HERE

I also think this blog is too long for one posting so I am going to divide it up into about three postings, all subtitled: ” The Long Road To Cusco ”

I will post these over the next week or ten days… As always with catch up… Photos to follow.. Thanks for your patience.

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After leaving Violets house that day I ran on for a couple more days, stopping to talk as always to so many people on that rocky trail towards Acos. It´s funny but few people really know how far it is to the next town or village, some people hardly even know where the places are that I am running towards, everyone just assumes I am going to or from Lima.

One night I stopped at a place called Baños Colpa and it as a welcome change from cold showers I get everywhere. Here in this area is a thermal hot springs area and the local hotel had a hot tub with the thermal spring flowing in and out. The tub was a bit grubby but I still had a good soak for the two nights I stayed there.

I celebrated my 18,000th kilometre just before a mountain pass that was 4,780 metres above sea level, just about 16,000 feet. I wonder will this be the highest climb of the run, I think so, pity about the 220 metres, 5,000 would have been rare climb.

THE HIGHEST CLIMB OF THE RUN SO FAR! 4,780 MTS OR 16,000 FEET ABOVE SEA LEVEL

Next morning I had a very late start as the commute service was not the greatest. The collectivo, a battered mini van arrived around 1pm. There was only one space left, and that was on top of the roof! This was perhaps the most dangerous thing I have ever done in my life, to travel on the roof of that mini van as it drove over that rocky, narrow road, with little room to spare.

UP ON THE ROOF OF THE COLLECTIVO WAS PERHAPS THE MOST DANGEROUS THING I HAVE EVER DONE...BUT FOR THE OTHER LAD, JUST A NORMAL DAY!

The edges of the roads were soft and just one wrong turn of the steering wheel and the whole van would have tumbled down the mountains. I was that desperate to get going, I just jumped up on the roof beside another man while a cop car looked on.

HERE IS WHY... LIVING ON THE EDGE!

Eventually after an hour and a half of chugging through the mountains we made it to km 117 where I had finished yesterday, just 33km up the road.

That day was a disaster. A tough 13km only, mostly due to the late start. I was running towards a copper mine, a place called Chungar. There mine was partially on the main road and the heavy equipment drivers always honked and waved. One or two stopped to give me oranges and water. I decided to try my luck and see if I could sleep on the compound, so approached the security guards who went to great trouble to track down the human resources manager, a man called Luis.

ONLY HUMAN..... THANK YOU LUIS!

Luis told me that health and safety laws prevented him from allowing me to sleep on the compound. He told me to wait, so I did and was freezing as I stood there waiting. Luis eventually came back about half an hour later and told me there was an accommodation trailer just outside the compound and I was welcomed there that night. I reckoned he was checking out my site. Luis sent someone off to the canteen to get me some food. I think it was supposed to be for my breakfast as well as dinner but I as so hungry that I ate it all before having a long hot shower.

I have been told that many of the mines here in Peru are owned by foreign companies. It seems that Peru doesn’t have he expertise to operate them and is loosing a fortune to places like China that come in and plow away much of the countries riches. It may surprise many people to know that Peru is in fact a very rich country, with so much natural resources, gold, silver, nickel, gas, petroleum, it´s just mismanaged.

I had run into the compound that night and finished at km 130 which was at the security guards hut. Then I was driven around and around, so I didn’t know where I was.

Next morning Luis and the big boss patiently drove me around for ages as they were not sure where my finishing marker was. They brought me to a different km marker 130 but I knew for sure it was not where I finished as my km 130 was right at a security hut and this one wasn’t.

CONFUSION!

Eventually I learned that that was another older road as the road had since been rebuilt. Fair play to the men, once they understood my mission statement they ere very patient and in all spent a good half hour bringing me a further kilometre back out of the site to km 129 and I ran the extra kilometre.

Just outside the mine I saw another altitude sign, it was around 4,600 metres above sea level.

THE SECOND HIGHEST CLIMB SINCE MERRION SQUARE NORTH!

That day was a lovely Sunday morning. I ran on some trails and mountainous rocky roads, up and down some switchbacks across fields full of shy llamas.

I THINK THE LLAMA IS A BEAUTIFUL ANIMAL - CUTE AND GRACEFUL

It was a glorious day. I finished with 41km in a small town called Santa Barbara de something or other.

There was just one hotel, a small grubby place adjoining a restaurant.

RESTAURANT ADJOINING MY HOTEL WHERE I CAMPED IN THE ROOM!

I heard the old lady saying she could not rent me the room as she had no water. It was freezing outside, ” Stuff the water I said.. I will just camp in your hotel! ” Well not exactly camp, I just treated it as though I was camping.. No water, so what, it beats the alternative of sleeping outdoors. There is never any heating in these places, so as soon as I finished my dinner it was to bed fully dressed under the standard two blankets.

A BEAUTIFUL TRAFFIC JAM!

This entry was posted on Monday, June 18th, 2012 at 1:58 am and is filed under jogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.