Betsy's Back but We're in Jail

We woke Benjamin, the mechanic, at around 7:15, it turned out he sleeps in the back of his workshop with his wife and child. We then spent a further 15 minutes banging on the door of the friendly neighbour who had Betsy locked in her courtyard. Benjamin and his apprentice Roni got to work. They replaced the shitty original clutch with a quality Peruvian model. They straightened the wheels that the The Adventurist's crappy mechanics failed to do, they readjusted the brakes and rebored the screw threads of our losely hanging exhaust. We felt deeply unimpressed by the original Cuzco 'mechanics' who were supposed to have rebuilt poor Betsy. We should have guessed when one, Victor, really struggled to show us how to change a tyre...

At just before midday we were off. Another friendly neighbour of the mechanic, to whom we had been chatting all morning, offered to show us the road. He led us for 15km back to the Huancarama (remember it's pronounced Wankarama) fork. None of us had the heart to tell him we had covered the route twice yesterday.

So we drove back up the mountain. Betsy's new clutch worked a dream, but she still struggled to get out of 1st for much of the climb. We passed many bemused villagers who looked like they had never seen a mototaxi loaded with gringos traverse their mountain roads. As we passed through one village a group of kids came charging after us, imitating the wild dogs we passed earlier (with less barking). A random Peruvian stopped us to borrow a pump, he told us in fluent English about the fantastic 4 months he had spent in Ipswitch. On the way down the road turned bumpy, but Betsy was strong and we ploughed on into Huancarama this evening.

We are now sitting in the only hotel in town. Moira has already branded it a prison block, and I concur. The rooms have only barred windows facing the corridor, there is no water and the toilet came preused. Avi says the room reminds him of his childhiid bedroom(!), and Moira has threatened a bad TripAdvisor rating, the owner will be scared (once she's explained what 'The Internet' is).

Tomorrow we plan to leave at 5am in order to hit Andahuaylas by lunchtime and gain some ground on the others. Maybe Avi and Moira can catch their flight? The saga continues tomorrow...

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