¡Vamos con Diosito!

The first part of the road to W. was scenic but quite uneventful as our driver took us in a very considerate manner to our lunch destination. Lunch was quite uneventful, too, if one doesn't count an encounter with the world's most smelly crouchy-loo. They told us, as we were about to leave, that the landslide had been cleared and that there was no problem to proceed. This did not match what people said in the next village, though - but what we were told in that place didn't match what we were told in the village thereafter, and so it was altogether difficult to come to a conclusion as to the shape of our remaining journey. Time and space, however, eventually helped us to discover the truth, which - in short - was that several landslides had been cleared several times but, as they had not finished their sliding, had closed the road again. And when we arrived at the place of multiple slides an enormous bulldozer had been parked precariously on what had once been a road, one wheel hanging over the abyss, another tucked very firmly into a heap of gravel and boulders. One chap was picking at the heap whereas some eighty others (excluding women and children) were watching him. We watched as well and then decided to go back to a close-by village and hang out (and we were not the only ones).




We hung out sufficiently well enough for some two hours to miss for a further half an hour that small cars had been allowed to cross the landslide area - a fact held against us a little later with much bitterness by our driver. Another half an hour was spent on discussing how to proceed and when we were ready to leave we found the road closed again. The driver was getting very upset at this point because he was meant to be back in Cuzco to do a job at 6 o'clock in the morning and we were still an hour and a bit from the research station. Meanwhile some trusty trucks were send upslope to flatten the new material that had come down and much to our delight the road was opened once more. Crossing himself vigorously our driver uttered "¡Vamos con Diosito!" more than once and off we went over bumps and humps. We reached the other side after what felt like some seriously long three minutes. We felt quite victoriously for a short while but for our driver the worst part of the journey was yet to come, as he drove up and down a muddy dirt track in the dark towards the other side of the Andes, just to return on the spot and do the whole tedious drive back to Cuzco without even a break. Having schlepped our equipment down the hill the day ended with a good supper in what must be one of the most stylish research stations and then with a sudden generator switch-off at nine o'clock which left very little choice but to stumble to bed in the dark.