still on the 22nd so very behind. Rode ever higher with a fabulous pampas Grass Valley with very remote farmstedlets and alot of loose cows and horses which we looked down on. eventually make it up to Conacoucha at 4100m We have Creole soup at about 3. slogg off again to camp in the Hills passing a shallow lake bordered by our first herd of llamas and full of floating nests of black birds. We had been battling a serious headwind all afternoon and we swooped down into a very Barren wide Valley, the wind mostly too strong to ride against, Sheltering for bread and bananas in the little triangular stone wind blocks that Shepherds make in the middle of nowhere and battling on to the only buildings in Valley which look like a highways Department Depot with a lot of fencing around it and a massive Lorry Park ,dogs and officials in Orange coats. Very knackered and dispirited we fend off a savage looking dog and out of desperation ask someone in an orange coat and a walkie talkie if there were any rooms to be had. Yes he said in the hotel. Good God. We understood that there would be none around. It turned out to be a real highlight which had loomed out of the dusk to save us. We were taken to a large abandoned room to chain our bikes up and then across a rectilinear system of concrete paths inhabited by rabbits and strewn with disused industrial bits bordered with giant metal tubes and half lorries. With the wind flattening the occasional pampas and the temperature dropping like a stone we entered something that looked like a large battery chicken house . made of painted tongue-and-groove on the outside and painted tongue-and-groove on the inside and ( wall thickness four centimeters. i measured it) it turned out to be a 16 room dormitary presumably for truckers every two rooms shared bog and shower. Two helpfull women took us in and started showing us a room then moving us to another and then taking out broken things such as heaters and replacing them with better ones. But when they left they didn’t work anyway, nor did the lights and we had to go to a different shower as the one next to ours didn’t work but the loo did .it was very clean and very dilapidated and obviously the remains of a shattered dream of riches. Then there were a roaring outside as the generator started up and all the electrics came on. We had a decent shower and sprinted around semi naked and freezing and very alone in the corridor and repaired for supper. The two original officials in orange came to see if we were okay and they turned out to be ambulance drivers and Mountain Rescue blokes. One was on his mobile but seemed to be talking about us. He then handed it to me and asked me to speak. Baffling ,but it turned out to be his son who was learning English. Susie is amazingly good at talking to strangers and they started making sure we got what we wanted. There were actually only two dishes left. The other four or five people in the restaurant where old Council workers I think but everyone was part of the hilarity. one of the drivers showed me a picture of that bloke from Back to the Future and asked if it was me. I did my ham impression. Susie had bistec and I had chicken Allah Milanese.beef with egg on top on top of chips and rice
and mine chicken with egg on top on top of chips and rice. Perfect.