(We took no photos today…oops)

The day started with Megan feeling better, 24 hours post stomach sickness. Last night, we had talked with the owner of the hostel (who is also a taxi driver) and asked if he could drive us back to the route around 8am this morning. Our plan was to rejoin the route, but bypass about ~1500 feet of climbing since we were still recovering from stomach sickness and malnourishment. We thought the hostel owner had agreed to drive us himself, but we think some things got lost in translation…oops!

We woke up early, packed our bike, and headed to the restaurant downstairs for huevos y pan (sounded like it would be easy on our recovering tummies). It also sounded good - and it’s rare for something to sound good when you’re nauseous! The clock was slowly creeping toward 8am and the hostel owner was nowhere to be found. We got in touch with his colleague, who said he was in another town (~2 hours away). But, she said he was looking for a taxi driver for us. We waited for 30 min or so and a taxi rolled up. Luckily, a young woman who spoke English helped us converse with the driver and orient him to where we wanted to go. We think we were overcharged, but we tried our best to negotiate. It’s a learning experience. 

Like all big pieces of luggage, the tandem got strapped to the roof of the car and we were off! We ended up driving our exact bikepacking route, which means we didn’t miss any of the views/landscape - lucky us! Kudos to the taxi driver who didn’t even know he was doing us a favor. We asked him to let us out at a small tienda, which was on a paved road and about 27 miles from the town of Marcapomacocha, where we wanted to sleep that night. We woke up to a flat front tire, so when the taxi driver dropped us off, the first thing we did was change tubes. (We do have a patch kit; we just need to summon the energy to patch the tubes one night). The hand pump was taking awhile, unfortunately. A young woman at the tienda asked what we were doing, and we told her we were putting air in our tire. It was a long shot, but we asked if she had a bigger pump. “Sí.” “Sí?!?!” We were shocked. Bike pumps seem to be in hidden corners around here. Sure enough, she walked over with a normal size bike pump, and within a few minutes we were putting our wheel back on the bike. Lucky us!

With the front tire fixed and the bike packed, we were off: first descending and then a short climb on pavement, which would have typically felt easy but felt brutal today. Turns out, we both were still not feeling good. We felt weak and out of it (and Megan still felt nauseous). Perhaps we were too optimistic about what we could accomplish today. When we reached where we were supposed to turn on gravel, we opted to stay on the road. It would be two miles longer, but the road gave us the option to bail if 1) we still weren’t feeling good, and/or 2) weather came in (it was raining and thundering in the distance). We kept biking on the road until we reached another ascent. We’d had enough. We pulled over and stuck out our thumbs, hoping someone could take us to our town for the night. We waited for awhile and were unsuccessful, so we decided to just keep rolling and make forward progress. That is until we decided we reallllyyyy couldn’t do it anymore. We pulled off again. 10 minutes later a big truck pulled up. They weren’t going to Marcapomacocha; they were going to Lima. But they could drive us up the hill to the turnoff. Yes! We hauled our bike into the huge truck bed and hopped in the truck. It was a short ride but a fun one. It felt like we were mutually benefiting from the experience - us from the ride, and them from the story of picking up two American girls on a tandem. We had a moment inside the truck where we thought: we could just go to Lima. But we decided to just stick with our plan. When we got out of the car, one of the men offered us his blanket since it was “frio.” Very generous of him, but we don’t have room for that! 

We continued biking about 10 miles on gravel to the town. The bumps were the hardest for Megan and her nausea. Luckily, the storm in the distance had moved away from us, but it looked like we were in the middle of multiple storm systems. Just keep biking. Luckily, it was smooth and rather flat (which is atypical in the Andes!) to town. We reached town, and 15 minutes later thunder crackled and it started to rain. What perfect timing! The town was beautiful - situated at 14,500 feet, right on the shores of a lake. There were people in the street playing volleyball - the sound of their cheers and grunts echoing through the plaza. When you first roll up to a town, it can feel deserted. There are often lots of seemingly empty and run-down buildings, as with this town. However, as you get to the heart of the town - the plaza - you realize it’s a living, breathing, thriving community. 

We got ourselves our nicest hotel room yet, with a private bathroom (cold shower), full bed, and TV! We laid in bed and watched YouTube as it stormed outside - it was GLORIOUS! We didn’t see a restaurant in town and the tienda didn’t have much dinner food so we asked the tienda owner who promptly got on the phone and then asked us what we wanted (eggs and bread). The next thing we knew, a woman came in the store and bought eggs and told us to come by her place at 7pm. She also was convinced we wanted rice not bread as it was dinner not breakfast, but we let this one go. Later, at 7pm, we walked to the place with the instructions of the women, not knowing what to expect? Would it her living room and kitchen? Turns out, it was a local restaurant so we felt better about that. However, Megan’s tummy still wasn’t feeling good. She managed to eat some soup and eggs, and then called it. Her stomach was grumbly all night. 

We are so happy to have made it to our destination for the day, and grateful to the people and good luck that helped make it happen, whether they know it or not: our hostel owner who got the taxi (he didn’t need to do that), the taxi driver himself, the girl with the bike pump, and the skies (that waited to open up until we were warm and watching YouTube in bed).