South-America (6).

The roads were wretched in the Andes, stones, stones and stones again. Sighing we bent over the nth puncture. First- despite the heat in the cacti covered valley- we quickly put on our long trousers and something with long sleeves, because the moment we stood still we were beleaguered by millions of small "gnats" the biting little mosquitoes. Longing we looked up, we saw the mountain pass road winding further upwards. At the altitude of about 3000 meters we knew that these little bastards were not here anymore.
Looking back we saw the altitude of the pass - 4250 meters which we had passed 2 days before. A descend, here mostly about 2000 meters lower at a length of 50 to 60 kilometres, it nevertheless took us a full day, toiling with cramped hands because we had to use the brakes, evading stones, repairing the punctures, when the climb went up to an altitude of 4000 metres.
We climbed on, with toeclips fastened, and firmly pedalling. " Bang" the pedal got loose, I jumped off the bike, and began to walk, and looked out for a place between the rock faces where we could lay down the bike. Henny, who saw that I had dropped behind, came back. "It is the same story again", I sighed. Furiously he threw his bike on the narrow strip of roadside. Ever since we had left Brazil we were bothered by these broken springs in the chain wheel. A new chain wheel that was sent to us gave the same trouble, clearly a production failure. Henny had already many times opened the chain wheel, straightened a piece of the spiral spring and made new hook with it. But we knew, the spring became dangerously shorter, and what then? To turn it into a fixed-wheel bicycle, as we had to do in Uruguay, that is not a picnic in these high passes and with day-long descends. And there were quite a few ahead of us, before we reached Lima the capital. There, we hoped, the mail had brought us the good springs. Carefully, disassembling the chain wheel over a large piece of plastic, so as not to loose balls and precious springs, we succeeded again in bending a hook on the spring.
Que barbaro" I heard the women sometimes shout on the way; how terrible - but we experienced not so much difficulties with climbing the slopes, they had a light inclination - especially above 3500 metres, where the cars, as a matter of fact, coughed through lack of oxygen, upwards crawled. We were completely used to the thin air as well as to the cold. At the top of the pass, hail and snow began to fall down. Road menders who were repairing the road - throwing more stones on it - beckoned us, we could shelter under their truck. Surprised they pointed at our shorts. A man with the earflaps of his tsjullo down, poncho around him, showed his trousers. "I have three of them, one on top of the other" he pointed smilingly.
And so it went on 11 times up and down between heat and cold, cacti and snow, mosquitos and lamas, from 2000 m to 4000 m. In a snowstorm we continued climbing, gasping for air. The 4% slope seemed like 15%, but we then had almost reached an altitude of 5000 m. At the coffee break the Multi fuel Stove would hardly burn. This last climb in Peru beat the lot, the pass was at an altitude of 4843 m, higher than the Mont Blanc! The railway track, the highest in the world, also ran across it. We heard, that even oxygen sets were available in the train.
Of course we had to throw a few snowballs and we then started the descend, half frozen with the cold. Sweaters, pyjamas, we unpacked and put on all our clothing and wrapped towels and socks around our hands. At 4000 m we stopped a while to warm up. At 3500 m was a coffee shop and we became a little warmer. At 3000 m there was occupation again and we were in a ravine, where it was already very warm. At 2000 m the asphalt began and we shot down at a speed of 40 km/hour, unprecedented when you have descended for weeks at a speed of 6 to 10 km/hour. Looking back we saw the Andes frighteningly high. Had we come all the way from there?
"Look", I said surprised to Henny, when I took the plastic jam jar out of the panniers, "it is entirely hollow." All the plastic containers were hollow shaped because of the great pressure difference now that we were at sea level again.