Day 55- Sabbath Sacrifice

Last day of our northbound journey and our last day with “Albie” We were hoping to find a mechanic who could use the parts or something like that…still no such luck. 

The Lord didn’t forget us though and the bishop of the ward where we attended church today offered to store and take care of the car for us while we figure out a permanent solution. It also worked out as he doesn’t have a car, (so he has room to store it, AND he will be able to use it if needed). We had to leave in a hurry and couldn't say a proper goodbye as we had a bus to catch, so that we can catch our plane in Santiago. 

Yes our plans have changed slightly.

Day 54- Some Beach, Some where

Maybe you have heard that country song, well that is exactly how I felt!

We wanted to go to the beach yesterday Friday, but couldn’t so we went today, but not before getting into a fender bender. This is where I censor a lot of what I want to really say. Lets just say this guy was being less than bright and trying to prove a point by passing me on the right and cutting me off, unfortunately he wasn't the best of drivers and he hit my passenger side front corner. I was pretty livid. The Traffic Police came, and then I got a feel for the corruptness in their ranks. From the moment they arrived they were on the other guys side, they weren’t allowing me to fully explain what happened and kept mocking me for not being able to express well (I suppose that traffic vocab was a class I forgot to take in school). To make a long story short, they were apparently going to write us both tickets and take our licenses if we didn’t come to some agreement between us. He kept insisting that I pay for the repairs and that would be good, I told him that I would be willing to if I were at fault. When we finally got to it, I paid for half of the repairs, (way more than I should have) but I was getting frustrated with them, the situation and this man who wasn’t going to be honest with me. He bent the corner of Alba’s fender and broke a plastic piece but Alba is tough and didn’t receive any real damage.

Here it is directly after...

Here is my temporary fix, the plastic part had rattled loose and was lost.

Here is what we have been looking for for 2 months, a sunny beach.

Niki Strutting her stuff! also a nice view of the big homes right on the small semi private beach, no one else there except some fishermen.

My camera was on the wrong setting, sorry, here are some cool rock formations, just past it was a house with a party going on...

The fishermen pushing their boat into the water to go fishing!

Reaching the Ocean.

Us still white as can be, after a couple hours on the beach!

I couldn't resist getting off the road and taking a shot of Alba in the sand near the water, This was our last off road venture!

Day 53- Last days with Alba

Its been a rough couple of days, finding out that we are going to have to part ways with Albie, and other happenings that have made the last couple of days unpleasant. I will only discuss what is necessary and leave most of the details out. The shipping costs would amount to at least $3000, just to ship it out of Guayaquil. We were working with a good company but we just can’t afford it. We haven’t been able to find a place to store the car, and it is nearly impossible (very expensive and time consuming) to nationalize a vehicle for sale in Ecuador. So we are out of options. We spent much of the day trying to figure out if we could ship it, that didn’t work so we went and ate dinner and walked around the riverside, did some shopping and ate some icecream, that always seems to lift the mood! We stumbled upon a duo of Tango singing and playing Argentinans. At an outdoor concert, He was quite the crooner and the pianist could really play!

We were also directed to go visit the Iguana park, which is also the Simon Bolivar Park. We walked in and didn't see anything... actually we walked right up to this guy and didn't see him until we came back.

Day 47- Peru into Ecuador

Well its been a long road to get to Ecuador, It seems that Peru was much larger than we planned for. Here are a few pictures, some that even Niki took.

This is the Inca King in Cuzco, a picture we took on the way out we thought! it took us an hour because of some protests.

The next day we got to another city and the mountains looked like this.

this is a picture of the fields...

We made it to Nazca; the place of the lines in the dessert, this is two hands...

This is a tree, the roots are gathered towards the top the branches towards the top, sorry the observatory tower was put there, upside down

We found, or rather it found us, I like the other's bumber and snorkel, but overall I ours looks better.

This is the patch...maybe this shouldn't be published...

But there is a bit of good news... The Land Rover is driving much smoother now. The culprit: the front driveshaft was not properly maintained and the universal joints had deteriorated beyond service. The bad news is that it came apart on a mountain road and beat up the transmission fluid pan. Fortunately we were going downhill, and not very fast. so we lurched to a stop and I removed the front drive shaft and we coasted to the next town. for some strange reason Land Rover's (or at least ours) won't move in high gear without the front drive shaft so I have had to engage 4 wheel drive to move. As stated though the vehicle is much smoother now! A local mechanic patched the slight leak and sent us on our way. Now we are in Ecuador!

Day 45- On the way North again

Day 45- Cusco to Lima- 400 kilometers of steep windy mountain roads, 40 minute construction stop. Snow storm, literally a blizzard on July 4^th! We made it to a little town, called Piura.

I discovered that I have some bug bites from Machu Pichu! There are hardly any street signs, so we have to stop and ask everywhere, where we are and how to get where we are going. They have plenty of Save the Environment and such, but hardly any that indicate distance to the next city.

Day 39-41- Cusco and Machu Picchu

This may be the post that gets the most reading because of the location, but I ask you to make sure you see what its taken us to get here and don't forget that there are so many more things left for us to do, Honestly Machu Picchu is the highlight of our trip. It was a long, pleasant drive through south eastern Peru, very nice views and we got to see the people doing their work, farming as they have done it for centuries, except for the automobiles. It truly is beautiful country, We both mentioned that it would be a nice place to live, Niki adds it would have to have plumbing! We got into Cuzco found a hostel that hooked us up on the tour info and got us booked for the next day! We bought some paintings and did some hiking... We could feel the altitude difference, so we drink the mate de coca, or coca leaf tea when ever we can, usually in the morning helps.

Tuesday @ 4:20 am we got up, and got in a 2 hour cab ride for Ollantantambo, had breakfast with coca leaf tea, hopped on a 1 hour 40 minute train towards Aquas Calientes (Hot Waters), where we got on a 30 bus ride headed to the top of the mountain. I kept asking Niki if that mountain was it, and she kept telling me no, I guess I was excited like a little child!

On the train we made friends with the couple sitting across from us, they were newlyweds from Venezuela! We exchanged info so that we can go 4 wheeling with each other when we visit!

On the bus we ascended for a long time, I couldn't help but noticing that the view kept getting better and better with each hair pin turn. It was getting intense, I won't show all 120 pictures here, but i will add a few for your enjoyment!

Day 38- Peru, Bolivia and the Loophole

So apparently tourists (Bret and Niki) cannot buy a car in Chile and drive it into Peru. We got to the border and they turned us away. So we decided to drive over to the Bolivian border, since they didn’t have the same restrictions. We got in! Triumph #1, don’t tell our mothers, but we had to drive at night AND sleep in the car that night and it was freezing! 

 This was the view we saw when we awoke!

So we went into La Paz, Bolivia, stayed the night filled the car up, got cash, found the church and some food. 

Its a big city, and this is only a small view...

Before I forget, we had not planned on going into Bolivia, so we didn’t plan for the $270 visa fee, (maybe we should have stayed longer in Bolivia?) We were about $30 USD short. So we walked around trying to sell some uneeded clothes, namely shoes, yes Bret and Niki sold shoes in order to gain entrance to Bolivia. Long story short we asked about 50 people until we were led to the right group where they were very interested. Even though they haggled us down $5 for my Asics we made it. The only problem we had after that was to pay the toll to get to La Paz (the roads are in terrible shape, I kept wondering why we were paying to drive on such terrible roads, I would hate to see the roads otherwise!). The gateman let us by and we went to get cash, there was however no ATM’s. So we had to sell some juice to a thirsty looking couple, and returned to the toll guy. Then we prayed that we would have enough gas to reach La Paz. None of the gas stations accept credit cards, its not even an option, not until we got into the very downtown part of La Paz. The Lord was definitely watching out for us!

We went to church and were impressed that they had a piano player (male no less). We enjoyed the meetings, surprised that they building had Wifi (so we took advantage of that!), and then planned out our trip to Peru. We were both nervous that they weren’t going to let us into Peru, but honestly it was simple and easy, way easier than at the Chile/Bolivia border. We were both extremely pleased to get into Peru. The roads here have speed bumps, (speed reducers) at nearly every 5 km, so that added at least an hour to the travel time. 

We have had the awesome chance to see some Nephite ruins, see the timeline, that totally corresponds with Book of Mormon dates!

The top says that "the capital of the Tihuanaku empire, in its clasical period constituted a densely populated centalized state. Consisting of a select group of superior artisians and agriculturists who created a diverse products resulting from diferent ecological levels."

So the chronology says that this particular civilization started in 1580 B.C. hmmm interesting- lasted until 1200 A.D.

Here is a view from the ground up to the restored parts of the pyramid, they aren't even 1/4 done, but it still looks cool. There was a pool in the very top where they would watch constellations from the reflection, pretty ingenious! This part represented to them the life before earth.

This is a view of the main temple, it may have been very similar to King Solomon's temple, as the Elders told us at church before we left... I will let you decide... it has an outer courtyard, a main entrance gate and as one guide told us, represented man's time on earth. 

A third underground temple, represented the afterlife, I didn't get a photo of that...sorry!

Here is another view of the Earth temple, with modernish steps, you can at least tell the size of the walls here.

We have driven around the whole southern coast of Lake Titicaca (120 ish Km) to get to Puna, Peru…although not highly recommended, provides us with a nice stopping place before going into Cuzco manana! We are in Peru, Triumph #2!

Our view westward going towards Puna, Peru from Bolvia.