Get in the Van!

From Lima it was a race to Cusco. My sister and my Dad would be joining us for two weeks and they were arriving in Cusco in 6 days later. With a little cushion we were giving ourselves 5 days to drive 700ish miles.

You may be saying to yourself, really 5 days to drive 700 miles, that doesn’t seem really that far and 5 days seems like plenty of time. And I say to the voice in your head, have you ever driven a 33-year-old van in another country? Was that country Peru, and will you at some point in this journey be driving from sea level to 14,000 feet, and then making most of the drive at 14,000 feet? Well if you answer yes to both these questions, you weren’t for a second questioning allowing 5 days for this journey. Besides, the only time Dolores really threw huge fits was when we put her on a deadline.

We had planned on leaving Lima early in the morning to start this drive, but sometimes because of really good pisco sours, early in the morning turns to 2 in the afternoon. Lucky for us the roads were in super great shape and we made really great time. We pulled into Paracas National Park, a beautiful desert butted right up to a beautiful ocean, with plenty of time to find a camp spot. As soon as we started exploring the park, George realized it was like a playground for big kids. He drove the van entirely too fast, up steep hills, down steep hills, at one point he looked at me and said, “This is like snowmobiling – we can go anywhere!” To which I replied, and was barely audible over the noise of our silverware, pots and pans rattling behind us, “Yes, except you’re driving our house.”

We found what we were looking for right as the sun was setting. The next morning we drank our coffee with our feet dangling off the cliff edge and watched the ocean wake up. I did yoga and George went on a run. It was the kind of morning that we imagined we’d have everyday on this trip, but as it turns out these types of mornings are treasured as they don’t happen all that often.

We had found a road out of the southern part of the park and since we’d driven mostly south for about 12,000 miles we didn’t see any sense in changing suite at this stage in the game. Somewhere along the way, I’m still not sure if the road went away completely or if we just lost it. Either way we found ourselves about 3 hours into the desert with multiple tire tracks all going different directions, none of them matching up to our GPS and none looking like they were going the way we wanted to go. So we went with what felt good, and came to a steep rock face in the track that Dolores couldn’t negotiate, so we took a different track that lead to the right. We were about to follow it down the steep hill that it brought us to when it occurred to us we might want to see where it went. As we crested the hill on foot, we found it descended down a steep (too steep) hill that if we would have started down we would not have been able to make our way back up, and the going down part wouldn’t have gone smoothly either. About that time we saw a motorcycle that looked like he knew exactly where he was going, we took to his trail and yet again found ourselves at a hill that we thought we should explore on foot. Yet again, a hill too steep and too off camber for Dolores, but from this hill we could see the road on the other side of the valley. It was just a matter of how we got to the road without tumbling down a steep sandy mountain-side.

By this time we understood the game of making your own road so we headed back to the first track we encountered that had the steep rock face. George took Dolores off track and about a quarter mile around the steep rock face. From there we only had a mildly steep hill to make our way down and back to the road.

After driving on the road for about 30 miles we reached a spot where the wind had created a huge sand dune across the road. There was a small crew of road workers making progress at making it passable, but we still needed to go off road to get around it. As George floored it into the sand up the small hill it was only a matter of time before we were stuck, thankfully this had happened before and we knew exactly what to do. Ha.

George jumped out, aired the tires down, grabbed our shovel and dug out in front of our wheels. As he dug the few of the guys from the crew came over to help out. On three, three tough Peruvian men and I pushed the van free. I’d like to think that without me this wouldn’t have been possible. Back on the safety of the road, George gave himself enough room to hit the off-road patch with plenty of speed and with a huge roar Dolores railed through the sand and on to the other side of the dune.
After that it was onward to the Nazca Lines and then a climb to 14,000 feet where we would sleep a cold the night with Vycunas wandering all around.

We pulled into Cusco with a day to spare and used that time to wash all the windows and make sure Dolores was extra tidy, after all she would have to be to be a home for four for two weeks. Stoke was high for Dad and Ash to #getinthevan!

We picked Ash and Dad up at the airport in Cusco and hit the road right away headed for the Salinas del Maras. We were excited to explore as much of Peru as possible with them. As we pulled around the corner and the hillsides terraces with salt pools came into view I mentioned we’d be staying here for the night. Ashley, my beloved sister said, “Wait, we’re staying here tonight?” Yes, yes we are and I’m rather excited about it.