The road to know where and back (Day 2)

It seems day two of our adventure was not going to be any kinder to us. The one thing we were really hoping against happened.

IT RAINED OVERNIGHT!!!

This turned an already treacherous road into a nightmare. This road is challenging as it is with its constant curves and shear drop offs. But now the rain and this narrow road is turned into a mud skating rink. 

Our tires became caked in mud removing all sensible traction. It was very hard to climb up hill with your backend losing control and utterly crazy on the down slopes. It became so slippery that on the downhill sections the bikes would slid on there own with no proper way to stop them.

Here we are taking a much needed rest and evaluating the situation to carry on or return. But as all good troopers do we decided to carry on as now it became personal.

We finally arrived at a mountain village and all indications pointed to continue on the current road. But just to be safe I decided to ask a local if we were on the right road to the next town called Huaylas. He then proceeded to tell me we missed the turn off about a 100 feet back. My immediate response was turn off? What turn off? There was no turn off back there? But all the locals were adamant that the road was there, so we turned around and drove back the 100 feet. 

And yes there it was heading up even higher into the mountain. But it was very obvious why we missed it, as it looked like the road had not been used in 100 years. So conference time again to decide what to do proceed or turn back.

Once again being the troopers we were we decided to give it a try. Well it became obvious after just a few steep turns and the road literally vanishing into a mule trail that we were in trouble. In fact I had to stop to let these two mules walk by and I could see them saying to themselves IDIOTS....

After the mules past by I decided to try and climb the next slippery curve and both Fred and I went down launching me over the edge where I had to grab onto some bushes to prevent myself falling down the cliff. At the same time Pete went down with his bike as well and this became our final indication that our forward motion was done.

The only problem was now we had to do the whole slippery mud road all over again but in reverse. And once again we were going to have to overnight in the little village.

NO EXPECTATIONS