We left totally refreshed the next day and carried on our adventure further south and through the Cajas National Park. The drive was beautiful into the mountains and we stopped at a lake at 3980m and decided to stay there for the night. We ate our lunch of chicken feet soup (see the video), got wrapped up warm and went for a walk around the lake. It looked like a lovely stroll but as we got into it we walked through boggy fields filled with amazing flora all around us, it was so diverse, from huge cactus that looked like they had been shot from space to coloured grasses to strange peeling red and orange trees.

It was like walking through the set of Labrynth or being on a different planet. The walk was a tough one even though it was only 4km, the altitude and the strenuous track totally wiped us out. After all that thin, chilly, fresh air and climbing in mud and puddles we were ready for a brew when we got back. Luckily and amazingly at the carpark there was a small place to stay for the night with bunks and a small kitchen which we could use. We had bought a cooked chicken for dinner before we went to the national park so we whipped up what we had rolling around the (non-working) fridge and had carrots, instant mash and leek sauce with our chicken which warmed us up perfectly with our cups of tea and we watched the sun disappear over the mountains. We slept so well in the silence and made a pact to get up in the morning and sit with a coffee and enjoy the scenery, but when we woke up the cloud was hanging over our heads and the spray was all around so we ate breakfast and enjoyed the view out of the window and then hit the road. Peggy was not a happy bunny and jumped and juddered on and off most of the way. She eventually calmed down and we dared to stop for shopping and we purchased something we have been ‘going to’ for almost a whole year….a fire extinguisher and a traffic cone!!! BUT, the real treat was something Alex insisted on…an electic hob. My argument (being the practical one) is that we rarely have electricity but as we NEVER have gas anymore then why not, at least then IF we have access to electricity we can make a cup of tea at least! It is so hard to manage without gas, more so for the fridge. We can buy milk to have cereal for breakfast and salad to eat for lunches and dinner but it doesnt last more than a day or so and as we are such foodies it just kills us not to cook! Anyway, I agreed to the electric hob and we got back on the road to Vilcabamba where I had found an eco-lodge that allowed camping so we had a plan of where to stay. We survived the perilous road to the lodge and got parked up on a terrible angle but without the fridge to worry about we just made do. We met the owner who was a lovely lady and she offered us some of her homemade coffee and told us her neighbour sells her baking if we wanted anything. We snapped up the coffee offer and went and picked up a banana cake and we looked at the trails and made a plan to walk the next day as the lodge is on the edge of the Podocarpus national park (named so after a tree that only grows in that area!). Morning came and we got up bright and early to go on our stroll. We took a coffee with us and made a friend along the way who came with us and saved Alex from walking face first into the weirdest looking spider we have ever seen!!! (Sob sob, whose pic we no longer have. She was a lovely young beagle and the spider was WEIRD!) We walked along the river and picked coffee beans as we walked and chatted about getting across the border and into Peru. We had a nice morning until Alex went for a shower and electrocuted himself! Alot of the showers have electric water heating heads strapped to them in all manner of fashions but this one was such a health hazard it got Alex twice and he spat his dummy out (understandably) and demanded we leave that very second! We edged our way back out of our tiny angled spot and down the terrible road All with Alex in a foul mood) back to the town and hit the road to the border…which turned into the worst road we have been on yet! As we hadn’t bothered to buy a road map we had been using the tiny map of the whole country in the lonely planet as our directional map. I had (wisely) read about all of the things that we would like to see and made a route based on that. Bearing in mind that the lonely planet is a basic guide and doesnt ‘recommend’ driving around South America it tells you how long the buses take but makes no reference to the roads at all. Anyway, I am clearly making excuses for my decision as it turned out to be the worst one I have ever made!! We left Vilcabamba around lunch time and looking at the map we had 200km to cover to the border town which is no problem if Peggy is having a good day. The road started as a stripped road, seemingly either prior to tarmac or if the tarmac had been removed and was bumpy but not so bad…it quickly turned into a total mud bath. The road had been completely dug up down to the mud and with all of the heavy machinery coming and going moving the ‘road’ around it was hell! The traffic was a nightmare and we were stopped every so many kilometers to wait for a digger to come through the one way road and we were stopped for an hour at a time. When we were able to drive it was so slow and painful with death defying drops at one side of the thin dirt track with our wheels spinning and dragging us off our path…Its beyond words how difficult the drive was.

It took us hours and hours to get to Zumba, the border town. Of course we almost ran out of fuel as electrocutions and the hell road on its own would not be enough for us to handle in one day! We eventually reached a small village and asked for fuel and they sent us another 15km to someones house to ask again. We knocked on the ladies front door and she came out with what can only be described as a milk jug and began to pour fuel into Peggy. As the night dropped around us the road got thinner and thinner and ended up a one lane track with drops that made me dizzy to the side. We were climbing and climbing and it was pitch black and I lost it. I was almost having a panic attack about the drops, about the possibility of bandits (after being scared in Colombia), about not making it to Zumba and I was sure we were going to drive off the edge and die. I have never panicked like that before but I could not control it. I think I scared Alex to death and the poor thing had been feeling terrible all day. He just kept going and got us to Zumba and we stopped at a petrol station for the night. Alex thinks it was the homegrown coffee that had made me a little paranoid as I was so out of charachter (and partly because he had fallen out with the lodge for nearly killing him with the shower). He had looked after me all the way and driven us through absolute hell and all feeling like death. As we stopped he slumped on the bed and looked awful. After an hour or so he was violently sick and just collapsed into bed and fell asleep. I laid awake and watched him all night worried sick that he was terribly ill, I couldn’t think what on earth had made him so ill and we were so far out in the middle of nowhere I had no idea what I would do if he did get any worse!

Luckily he woke up feeling better and we filled up with fuel (and made friends with the security, the fuel attendants and decorators of course) and carried on on our way, rather embarrassingly leaving a trail of sick on the forecourt as the waste pipe had been ripped off on the arduous journey! We left waving at our friends and hoping and praying that the road would improve, it certainly couldn’t get much worse…could it??

Find out what happens next on our travelling wedding adventure!