What happened…

Andrew writes: Amanda got peed on by some guy in Huancane. That was probably the lowlight of Peru I think. We rode all day from Juliaca, on a busy road, surrounded by garbage everywhere. Again, maybe this is why people had been saying what a dump Juliaca was. Then when we arrived in Huancane, there was some sort of parade/festival going on, because…Peru. We found an hospedaje, but there were speakers being setup in the nearby plaza – hundreds of speakers. It was going to be a long, loud, night.

The next morning we blearily rode out at down and had an “interesting” ride along the lakeside. At least I thought we were going to be alongside the lake; after a little while, we started cycling up into some hills far, far, from the lakeside. The paved road turned to rutted out potholes on a rough dirt surface. Up, up, up, we went. It seemed like the road we were following wasn’t the same one that we had mapped out. It’s tough out here sometimes the road exists, and other times it doesn’t. Eventually we just decided to pull the plug on the alongside the lake, near a town that I can’t recall the name of. While we were setting up camp, I lifted a rock and wouldn’t you know it; scorpions! In the “old days” I think we would have been scared and maybe even considered moving, but not the new and improved letsridebike.ca team. A few people came and checked out our campsite on their way home from farming the banks of the lake. Beautiful stars tonight.

Amanda writes: It’s true – a man almost peed on me. It was one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever experienced in my life. He was really rather embarrassed even in his drunken state. I’ve never actually seen a grown man grab his penis outside of his pants because he’s trying so hard to make it to the bathroom and squeeze it with all his might to try and stop the urine from coming out and aim it away from me. He proceeded to piss all over his pants while I screamed in more of alarm than being scared. I just walked away after he moved his liquid ejecting penis toward his family room instead of the bathroom and felt badly for the clean up required in his family room. It was weird yet fitting for the lousy hotel. Putting that really weird encounter aside, we met some lovely and interesting teenage girls in Huancane.

As we were meandering through town trying to find a hotel and trying to get past the parade, we were surrounded by a group of teenage girls. Literally surrounded. They were so curious about not only the cycling, but the life of the gringo. They were great at asking so many questions. The usual questions of course, do you have kids, how old are you, where are you from. They were amazed I was so old and I’ll take that compliment that they thought I was younger. They asked me to take off my sunglasses so they could see my eyes. As I removed them they let out a big sigh of ‘oh they’re so nice’. It’s funny I never think of my brown eyes as special. I like to call them chocolate brown or whiskey brown and Andrew refers to them as pooh brown. So then I told them I have a 15 year old niece which they also thought was really special. They were so curious and asked so many questions I loved it. Then we proceeded to have a 10 minute photo session where all the girls wanted their picture with me. Once the kids opened the door to pictures, then the adults wanted pictures with me too. So we finally pulled the plug after about a half hour and continued toward the pee hotel. It was really fun to meet such curious kids and I was reminded that we really are lucky to be traveling the world.

The aerial view of our rides:

Today’s Photographs