hey guys! This isn't Pete but I thought it was a relevant share here.

My son and I were talking the other night about how we have to watch out for our hiking partners, and the effect things like heat/cold/dehydration are having on them. We didn't talk elevation, because it's not something we deal with where we hike here in Ontario, but this is perhaps a timely reminder as we follow Pete through the Andes.

Long, but interesting, and very sobering.....

HAPE at 10,000 feet is very unusual, but people vary markedly in their reaction to altitude. HAPE is much more likely at 15,000+.

My take away from the video was the utility of the Inreach, and the nice low key helivac by the NPS. Yea NPS! (an old retired NPS geezer couldn't resist that.)

The mantra is "climb high, sleep low". Ascend gradually.

well, I thought that I had escaped the altitude problems. No such luck.

Dream on ... this is Peru.

We decided to take our Jeep to the cloud forest in the eastern Andes. Eastern Peru. This involved using the road between Cusco and Quillabamba. In case you ever decide to become "Quillabamba-ed" yourself ... let me explain that NO western visitors go there. we were it.


On the positive side ... the road quality was generally good. OK ... one piece of good news!

But this road goes straight up, and straight down. There are many twisting curves, but the rate of climb is huge. Starting at an altitude of 9515 feet on the western side, you cross over at 14150 feet, then descend into the jungle town of Quillabamba at 3300 feet. The return journey is WORSE. by the time you have acclimatized at the 3300 foot level, you must ascend and return back over the Andes, climbing almost 11,000 feet of altutude change (from 3300 to 14150 feet) in 2 hours of driving. At the top of the Andes ... I was literally gasping for breath and praying for the road to start descending.

While this sounds problematic .. the altitude is NOT the principal problem. The top of the mountains are shrouded in heavy mist, rain and fog. There is no guard rail. If you go over the edge, you will fall hundreds or thousands of feet. The road is slippery and the curves are tight.

Peru has decided to make the experience into a "sporting chance". Peruvian drivers are truly impatient and reckless ... they will pass on double yellow lines and blind curves. The trucks and buses cannot fit into the curves, and also stay in their own lane. GOING UP we passed one large semi-truck that had jack-knifed and blocked most of the road. GOING DOWN we had a very near-miss with a large truck that veered into our lane on a curve ... approaching us head-on at a good speed ... I have no idea how we missed each other ... we both swerved hard ... literally a hairs breadth between our Jeep and that truck.

Welcome to Peru.

Does it look like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkAT99SwCwk

Some nasty and dangerous roads there. Be very careful and expect the other drivers to do the worst thing possible!

Finally made it out of Peru. But not before Peru took its final revenge. The main road between Peru and Brazil connects the cities of Cusco and Rio Branco. This road rises to a peak elevation of 15,530 feet (4735 meters) above sea level. However, there is not a single sign to warn travelers about the dramatic elevation change. We toughed it out and made it actoss, but my wife had serious symptoms from the altitude. On the Brazil side, the road drops down through a tremendous elevation change to the low jungle of the Amazon. Peru needs to wake up, and put some warning signs on the road ... giving visitors a real heads-up.

The State of Acre in Brazil was a big surprise to me. I was expecting a vista with Amazon forest and rivers. But what you actually see .. is green pastures, horses, and a lot of white cows. The farmers have cleared most of the tropical forest, and replaced it with grass. If this trend continues, Acre will look more like Missouri (USA) in another 10-20 years. There are still large groves of tropical forest, but the farmland is bigger. Please keep in mind, this is just the view from the main highway. But the trend is not good.

On the roads in Peru we saw large logging trucks, carrying logs that are 6-8 feet on diameter. These were old-growth trees ... maybe hundreds of years old. Its a real tragedy to see this process in action. If Brazil and Peru dont get serious about protecting the Amazon, they are going to lose a very precious resource.

Thanks for the feedback from readers here. I agree with your thoughts ... the risks on the roads were very real in Peru. Yesterday, three Brazilian tourists were killed in a head-on collision on the road that comes from Cusco (Peru). Last week 3 people were killed descending the Andes. Same thing. Head-on collision. I have no doubt that Peruvian motorists are responsible. Their driving is insane. We drove the same roads. We are grateful to God that we are in one piece. We had two very-close-miss incidents with trucks in Peru.

We have driven a across the main highway through Acre, the state of Brazil closest to Peru. I expected to see a lot of tropical forest (rainforest), but I saw only some small groves. The southern part of Acre has become a "tropical Missouri", or a "tropical Iowa". Its just farmland, with horses and white cows. Some farms have isolated tropical trees, some have preserved the trees in small groves. But most of the land is agricultural.

In southern Acre, I saw no tropical tree with a diameter greater than 2-3 feet. All the really big trees have been felled or burned. That is a tragedy.

In eastern Peru, we did see very big trees ... remnants of the old rainforest. Some farmers have kept these trees alive.

But as I mentioned, Peru has very active logging. They are felling the big trees. We saw 3 different logging trucks, all carrying logs with big diameters.

The question is ... why do they need this wood? One possible answer ... the transcontinental railroad. Peru and Brazil have approved the project, a railway line across S. America. Train tracks need a lot of steel and a lot of wood. I have no positive proof, but the connection is possible.

I don't really know, but I'll wager that much of the demand for that tropical wood comes from the developed countries. i doubt that much will go into railroad ties, which are often nowadays made of concrete, not wood (at least in the USA, not at all sure about Peru).

Bacpacjoe ... mentioned teamwork. It was vitally important 3 days ago. I got "hit" by the extreme tropical heat in the Amazon Basin. The combination of high temperatures and high humidity can impact the body quickly. I was affected by heat exhaustion and heat stroke ... it developed very quickly.

For us,the big problem was that we just arrived from the mountains of Peru where the climate is vastly different - and cooler. I spent 3 hours in the ER in Brazil, while they pumped IV fluids back into my body. Its no fun. My wife did a fantastic job of getting help, and getting cold water onto my body ... fast.

As a practical tip ... if you go to extreme tropical climates, keep some plastic bottles handy ... filled with ice-water. Just take some empty Coke bottles, fill them with water, and freeze them in a hotel refrigerator overnight. In an emergency, pour the water directly on the victim's head. Its a life saver. I am OK now, but recovery took a couple of days and lots of electrolytes.