Over the hills and into the big city

Heading away from the desert that is the Peruvian coastline, we were

excited to get back to the mountains. Back to the cool crisp air and

the greenery. We were even excited to see the snow!! (i know after the

winter that Canada has just experienced, you are probably more than

willing to send some of the white stuff our way) But never the less we

were excited.

We climbed slowly up the irrigated valleys as the hills got steeper

and steeper and the villages got smaller and smaller. We crawled

slowly over the 4200 meter pass as it was nearing dark and cloudy and

rainy so we chose to pull off the road and spend the night rather than

pushing through to Huaraz, a city nestled in the valley.

In the morning we awoke to a beautiful sunrise illuminating the

massive peaks of the Cordillera Blanca, the second highest mountain

range in the world after the Himalayas! It was the perfect treat after

a long tiring drive the day before. We spent the morning gazing out

across the valley and feeling a little bit at home.

A small house on the road up

The view we woke up to in the morning... Could be worse

The road into the Huaraz valley and the Blanca range in the back

Our campsite for the night. Perfect

Hillside... farms?

To keep the tar warm for working on the road they carried it around in wheelbarrow fires.

Heading back down to sea level

We got into Lima to spend a few days. I saw this amazing van on a run around the Miraflores area. The perfect hippy bus.

Watching the paragliders off the cliffs of Lima

Checking out the skaters in the park

Looking out over the Lima water front. I never thought spending a few days in a city of over 10 million people would be so pleasant!

I also would really like to send out a huge thank you to everyone who has donated. It has seriously kept us going with our van which keeps throwing us curve balls but never the less keeps on trucking. We really, really appreciate every penny that allows us to continue living our dream!

Salto Fraile (Jumping Priest)

This Priest was at least 65 years old!!!!!


Untitled from Shona Rubens on Vimeo.


The legend goes that a lovelorn priest jumped from these rocks to commit suicide rather than to face a life of celibacy without his true love. These days men dress up as Priests and jump off the cliff in order to entertain passers by and earn a few Soles in tips. If you ask me its pretty nuts to jump into that rocky mess! And this guy truly was pretty old! But good for him I guess...

Inka Kola

We finally left the friendliness of Ecuador and headed into Peru. Its

amazing what differences an imaginary line can create not only with

people but with landscapes as well. As we crossed the border we drove

from endless green banana plantations into desert... like serious

desert. And it began right when we crossed over the bridge that

separates these two countries. As Ecuador is on the up and up with

their new president (or so we were told by the people) Peru seems to

be slipping into disarray with an election in a couple months and only

the option to choose the slightly lesser of two evils. Some people are

even removing their money from the banks in fear that the new

president will freeze all their assets to divide equally among the

poor. In a world where Inka Kola rules over Coca Cola it seems

slightly like an upside down world.

That being said, as in all the other countries we have found amazing
beauty, even within the sandy desert of Peru's western coast.

A sign in the glass... It was too cute to let me pass it by without a
picture

One snapshot from the cool city of Cuenca, Ecuador where we spent a couple of days. Thanks to Christian for showing us around!!

Leaving Ecuador... the very official Aduana station... 5 kilometers before the border

Its official!

Surprisingly there are some amazingly white sandy beaches on the coast. We began to think we were back in Mexico!

We stopped for Easter at the surfer's haven of Mancora, rented a surf board for a few hours and enjoyed the sun we had been missing for the past month! Easter is possibly the biggest holiday in Latin America and the Peruvians were out in full force!

Some of the simple dwellings scattered through out the desert. This was possibly one of the more luxurious ones.

More desert shacks

I wonder if they can hear the highway from that location?

Sand... Sand... and more sand... 1300kms to be exact.

There were some amazing rock formations along the drive

The scenery really was beautiful. This is on the road heading up to Huaraz in the mountains. Actually the Cordillera Blanca, the second highest mountain range in the world!! More to come on that epic section in the next blog.

Just Cant Wait To Get On The Road Again

We headed out of Quito and only had to turn back once to get a last

minute touch up to our axle. Our next stop was the town of Ambato

where we had been invited by Kim and Xavier of the Pichi VW club to

spend some time in their town! Its always awesome to experience towns

which you would otherwise not go to and be greeted by some friendly

faces, this time it included nearly half the VW club!

One of the girls treated us to a classical Ecuadorian song upon our arrival. It was great to see our little travel guitar getting well used by a classically trained guitarist!

How many Ecuadorians can you fit in a Vanagon? This time it was 12 but with room for a few more!

A small sampling of Xavier's wicked car collection.

Xavier very kindly gave us a van of our own for the dashboard. We were delighted to name it Bellita after Bella, the 1978 Combi of our friends Sarah and Marc who we travelled with through El Salvador!

On sunday we headed to Banos, a popular getaway town for the locals. On the way we stopped at the market town of Salasaca and watched the women bringing their goods in from the surrounding villages

A couple of the amazing waterfalls in the area surrounding Banos.

Heading to the waterfalls on a crazy cable tram with Kim and Xavier

Im not quite sure what "Motorcycle mountain bike horses" are... But I'm pretty sure I want one.

Back on the road, driving through some of the beautiful countryside of the Ecuadorian Andes

Get 'Chur Motor Runnin

Great news! The parts finally arrived on Wednesday ( just 9 days after

arriving) so we could get down to work and get Kumu back up and

running again.

Transporting our engine Ecuadorian style to get out a broken bolt......

But before the engine could be put back together, all the parts had to be cleaned- and there were a LOT of them.....

Still cleaning.....

Diego torquing the engine bolts after the painstakingly long FULL day of putting the pistons back in the engine. Note Shona serenading the group. Its definitely NOT all work and no play with these guys...

Thus, after 3 full days, the moment of truth came- turn over the engine to see if we did everything properly. Sure enough, started first try. YEAH Diego!

Thanks to Buddha and the "Catso" VW club in Quito for hooking us up with Diego and his gang to do the repair - and of course for showing us a great time while we were here.

Diego and his gang... L->R Diego, Joselito, Christian, Santi.

Fixin' cars isn't the only thing Santi's good at.

Thanks very much to these guys for working so hard and putting everything else aside to get us on our way as quick as possible. They did a great job, and welcomed us into their home (the garage) in our time of need. We owe these guys big time.

Disfruta el momento

Disfruta el momento. Enjoy the moment.

When you are living and sleeping in the cluttered, smelly confines of
your mechanics garage, one may think that is is difficult to really
enjoy the moment. I have to admit, there are times when my heart aches
to be on the road with Kumu eating up the miles like she knows how,
just the two of us, exploring and drinking in all that South America
has to offer. That being said we ARE living in our mechanics cluttered
yard and we DONT have a working engine so like the old saying says,
"When life throws you lemons, you make lemonade". I LOVE making
lemonade.

We have definitely been making the most of things here in Conocoto, a
suburb of Quito. Surrounded by new friends, we have been learning
about their country and enjoying some of their past times. Our new
friend Juan, owner of the local VW club has been overwhelmingly
helpful. Not only did he help us realize a truly important part of our
trip by taking us to the Mitad Del Mundo (equator) he has taken us to
meet his friends, introduced us to the rest of the VW club, forced me
into singing karaoke, danced up a storm and most importantly taken us
to an insane national football (soccer) game (see below for more
details on that crazy night!!

Meanwhile, Diego, our trusty mechanic has gone over countless options
with us about our engine, finally settling on ordering parts from the
United States to be sent to a friend in Miami who would Fed-Ex them
here ASAP. He has taught Andrew many of the ins and outs of our water
cooled Vanagon, while keeping us informed on the local Ecuadorian
news. Diego and his wife Paulo kindly invited us to their children's
school to watch them in their pep rally and race around the block.
The other two mechanics, Santi and Jose, have been endlessly patient
as Andrew slowly talks to them in Spanish (which is improving
drastically day by day with these guys).

We are now regulars at a nearby internet cafe and have enjoyed many
walks up to the square testing out all the different Panaderias
(bakeries), and I have now officially seen all three original Star
Wars movies!

All in all, if we have learned anything from this trip it is to go
with the flow, for many times the best times are those not planned
days in advanced, but rather the ones you stumble upon unannounced and
unprepared.

The middle of the world!!!! After driving over 32000 kilometers we
made it to this huge milestone!

Watching the crazy goings-on in Diego's Garage. Putting a new ( okay, still old, but newer than the old one) body on a newer chassis.

Hey mom's! It could be worse!

Sophia (Diego's oldest) getting ready to cheer her heart out at the school pep rally

Diego and his kids Sophia, Martina and Juan-Diego after the rally

Which brings me to the soccer game. We watched two teams from Quito play in the National League. There are some pretty huge supporters from both sides, but we were on the "Liga" side. We started off the evening joining all the Liga fans on a long parade to the stadium. During the parade some crazy fans paint bombed the police! Spraying them head to toe in bright red paint!! We thought that might be the end of the night right there, but surprisingly nothing came of it, except for arresting the perpetrators, and the parade went on as planned.

Graffiti on the way to the stadium "I only want to live".

As we were parading the Liga soccer team drove through in the team bus, it was crazy to see the fanatical fans pounding on the bus and cheering them on.

The parade down one of the main streets

To give you a little perspective on the crazy fans here is a little video of the Liga team coming into the stadium! I think the Liga team fans were the crazy ones as on all sides of the crowd the police were lined with their full face helmets and big shields! The other team had hardly any police. We didn't sit down the whole game, and the Liga fans didn't cease chanting and cheering for one second throughout the whole 90 minute game!

At the end of the game, we tried to head out early and avoid the crowds. However, because there is so much animosity between the teams, they had to let out the other team first while penning up all the Liga fans for about 20 minutes so there wouldn't be fights after the game! We were right up front near the doors and the line of police when people started yelling and pushing, singing a chant that basically said "hey police, when you get home your girlfriend is going to be in bed with another man!"
Our friend Juan suddenly started urging us towards the mens bathroom and a girl in front of me anxiously said, "cover your face and mouth, they are going to spray gas!". We hustled into the bathroom and I looked back to see a night stick raised in the air. I held my breath for a few seconds before they opened the gates and the antsy crowd rushed forward, all problems evaporating into the night.

As for the engine status: right now we are just waiting on the parts. Turns out we had some burnt valves and needed to get them machined so they would make a proper seal in the cylinder heads. Andrew is busy cleaning the engine and we were just informed that the head gasket set coming from Miami will arrive tomorrow morning or evening (depending on customs) and we hope to be on our way by Wednesday or Thursday!