We ended up heading to San Marcos up and over, turns out mum natures tears had just as much input this way and we had just doubled our mileage to “make it easier” whose dumb idea was that.
Regretting my decision to take this way we were committed so we slowly climbed up the greasy mucky hills laded with ruts and rocks.
This soon cleared out after about 25 km to a better gravel road, the clouds started dispersing and the temperature climbing despite us climbing in elevation.
For a few brief moments the sun even made an appearance before hiding back behind the fluffy sheets but this was enough to liven our inspiration and dry the road out to no mud ...and no dust .... WOH HOH.
More cool glacial cuts
With the tables turning in our favour thing were looks up, and up .... and up which took us to the beginning of the mining scheme 4000 meters above normality, I will add at this point all regrets were long gone and safely thrown out as we would not need them again.
Taking a few wrong turns through the myriad of roading a mining grader driver flags us down and says.....no pase (no way through) and kindly directed us to a road on the opposite side of the valley ...... oooops, but the road in the distance was way better than the one we were on so that was cool.
Getting to the summit at 4600 meters the whole place opened up and there is a monster mine sitting there at 4500 meters, there were massive trucks, D9 hitrack bulldozers and massive excavators shifting Peru from side of the valley to the other.
Look in the picture you will see the small trucks
These are the beasties
Each load from the dump trucks would be a house lot by volume sending rocks 1 meter in diameter racing down the slops ... just incredible to watch.
Our road continued right through the mining area, we had to stop twice at the cross roads which were wide enough to land a 747 on, given the size of the vehicle here we gave them right of way.
Finishing our impromptu and unexpected mine tour we finally hit the super highway, a well maintained tarseal road leading to the mine wide enough for the big machinery to pass no problem .... what a treat.
The rain had set in again big time so was a timely wash for Maya who was doing her dirty girl appearance ... well sortof.
Just a little further down the road the rain momentarily stopped so we stopped beside a lake which took away and gave back in the one place.
Breath taking scenery and a snack stop .... what a location, we were joined by some mining guys in a 4x4 water tanker, their interest in Maya and our travels sparking a great conversation.
New Zealand ..... no one would know the difference in this pic.
How cool is this!!!
See the cool wave effect on the rock
After filling our minds with scenic overload and our faces with food we hit the road again as the rain crept back in, intermission was over ... back to the movie at hand ... riding to La Union.
Reaching nearer the base of the valley we spotted a small waterfall so we detoured and had a nosy.
Beautiful wee valley
Finally making it into La Union almost dry we settled in for the day.
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