19th went to look for a Sunday market in the old part of town undamaged by the two earthquakes that totally destroyed the rest of the town. it turns out to be a Sunday lunch brought in from the countryside. pachamanca. simple food wrapped in leaves and Shucks. Heat rocks and bury the food and cook for a long time it tastes earthy. Brilliant. 2 1/2 hour shorty run in the afternoon next to the main river. One of the overriding smells of Peru is burning plastic. They either throw it away , a term that should be expunged, on on the sides of the roads or anywhere really but if you are house proud you make a little pile of it on the road and set fire to it which does i suppose get rid of it .
20th. Bad day. My garmin went wrong. horrors. so I bought a new one. Did a run up to the other side on a tarmac Road culminating in going past the city dump. Disgusting! After being so careful about drinking were surely going to be killed by breathing. Returned and registered garmin in Virtual Kafkaesque nightmare eventually spoke to Jim on garmin chatline told me the device didn’t load maps at all when I had been told that the device had a map of Peru on it. Took it back to nice bloke who tried very hard and phoned up his head office and no money back just Goods to the same value and that’s how we now have a tablet to lug up the f****** Andies . which goes to show how expensive a garmin is. consollation supper with chicken and chips in a fabulous little dive. We had a quarter chicken spit roast and chips and salad each for £ 2 . my chicken was one of the best I have eaten and we had salad as it was coming in in such big bucket fulls that if the cook did have dirty hands he probably would have washed them on someone else’s salad.
the 21st. Here’s an end to the life that is Khushi Lad. Last spoiled breakfast and off via Bank as we are into a nobank Zone. Should be five days to get to Huanuca. Steady climb all day it goes from perfect. To too hot cycling weather during the day to minus 4 or 5 at night. The sun goes down at 6 and you had better have made Camp by then so we stopped at 5 in the middle of the Pampas just out of the site of the side of the road and we were wearing everything we had and in our sleeping bags by 6 and I realized that I had left my bifocal sun Glasses (which I strongly recommend to everybody) in a village 16 km behind and downhill . well when you lie in the cold and dark for 12 hours you have time to think and I decided to get a Colectivo back to the Village of cantac and try and get my glasses back . wake up to a frozen solid tent and bikes. Set off.
22nd. marvelous . first car picked me up_ a teacher . Ride in State into catac .immediately find sunglasses. Bought some remarkably perfumed honey and loaves of bread roles and had traditional bread, honey and bananas for breakfast squatting in the defrosting pampas. At some point we also had avocado mayonnaise baps which were remarkably good too. Is this boring anybody?
Keep writing, Jo. It’s lovely to read. Something weird seems to have happened to the entry for Sept 12, which is showing the same as for Sept 19/22. Or am I being thick?? Today I’m heading for India and SE Asia until Christmas, which will be an adventure, though it is difficult to leave Lewes on a 100% perfect autumn day. Buena suerte! Nick D