The Long Way Home

Today, driving into Leimebamba I have to stop, and go for a little walk, as the cuteness of this little town takes me by surprise. Hardly any cars on the streets, a few people walking around going after their business, a lovely relaxed atmosphere.
After that I want to continue to the local Museum. I am not really a museum person, but friends had highly recommended this one, exibiting Chachapoya mummies. Lets go!
School's out, so there are a lot of small children going home, not really paying attention to the traffic, which is not much more than me and some TukTuks. The road is narrow, so I drive slowly. And suddenly on my left there is a TukTuk speeding past me, and scraping on the left side of Lola. I honk, he just speeds up and continues driving. I honk some more, to no avail. So, Lola can run! And even though it is going uphil, steeply, and I am normally really gentle with her on steep inclines, because she easily breaks out in sweat, now I put down my foot, race her up the hill, overtake that idiot, drive a little on, then put Lola across the street to block the traffic. Now of course he has to stop. I run to his TukTuk, try to open his door, which he has locked. Now the poor man did not know, what hit him, I was fuming with anger, not that he has hit my car, this can happen to anyone, but that he was running away. I was shouting at him (with my very poor spanish), "you broke my car, and drive away. Don't you have any balls!" Well, it pays to watch some spanish series to learn the most important vocabulary, after all.
To make a long story short, TukTuks were piling up, I was only getting the tiniest bit of support from the driver driving behind us, but he very soon got impatient, all of them did, and they urged me to unblock the road, which I promised to do, once my idiot went out of his vehicle and inspect the damage with me.
Once we inspected the damage I found there was not much done, just AGAIN! my newly fixed indicator light and some scratches on my side and bumper. Fixing this would have probably cost him a week's earning, so I let him off the hook, but telling him, I was very angry that he just wanted to wiggle himself out of his responsibility. (Who knows, how this came across in spanish. My series didn't cover the vocabulary necessary for this kind of conversation). In the next bigger town I will look for somebody who can fix my light cover. Oh no! Not workshop again!
Why mixed feelings?
Because there were this anger about this accident but as well such big joy!
It got quite late after the museum, for me to look for an overnight spot. This search was particularly difficult being in the mountains, very steep road with a lot of curves and potholes, one-way all along, forcing me to pay a lot of attention to the driving and oncoming traffic. I actually love these kind of roads, but that's beside the point. And then I found this majic spot, on the top
of the pass, off the road, a bad track up toward the top, (hail to my 4WD) and then .... the views.... I am up at 3600m, when walking to the top I have the most glorious 360 degrees views over the Andes. Happiness and joy!!!! the first time during my long way home through South America! Now I know, I have arrived back in my traveling mode! It has "only" taken me four months. But now, ElisaLolaRexelby are on their way again!Read more