Downhill maniac

Sunday May 25th

Today we tackled some of the adventure challenges that Huarez offers. Specifically we went trekking, ice climbing and downhill mountain biking. The walk and the climb were OK, but the ica wall that we climbed wasn't that impressive looking. It was as big and steep as they prmised, about 14 metres nearly vertical, but it was all dirty looking and didn't really make for good photographs.

You climb the ice wall using ice picks on each hand and crampons on your boots. So you put in the right ice pick, the left ice pick, the right toe, and then the left toe. However I had forgotten about the broken toenail I had sustained playing beach volleyball the week before, so when I began climbing it was right ice pick, left ice pick, right toe, and then aaagh. It was quite painful and so I struggled up the wall. I made it about 90% of the way before I had to give up. And I couldn't do the second one. I was pretty disappointed, but what can you do. If I had remembered to pad my toe I probably would have been OK.

After this and a walk back to our bikes, it was time for downhill mountain biking. The road we were biking down was pretty hairy, there were some steep bits off the side, and the beds were quite sharp, but it was really the fact that the road was so stoney for the fist half. It took a while to get used to how much punishment the bike, and me, could take. But after about 15 minutes myself and Kenlo had it sussed so we took off. We were doing pretty well in keeping up with the guides at this stage, so it then turned into a race. I think it was fairly level.

But then we hit a much flatter road and that is where I took off. I was just using standard cyclign positions, tucking down for downhills, taking corners at low angles etc, but they said I was like a maniac down the hill. I didn't think so, I was being quite careful to make sure I slowed around any blind corners. Anyway I guess I'd have beaten the rest, including the guides, into town by about 10 minutes except I got a puncture about 4 k from home and had to wait 8 miuntes for my support.

We all enjoyed Chilli heaven so much the previous night that a load of us went back again this night. It was almost as good (but never quite, I think its the fact that this time there are expectations where as the previous night there were none).