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.