pequeño artists: 3 life lessons learnt while biking down a mountain

So last Saturday we embarked on a rugged mountain biking adventure. Well not so rugged, for most of the trip we cycled down the main road.

Our journey began with six of us jumping into a taxi fit for five people including the driver. We had our bikes strapped to the top of the car with a rope which Zach (another volunteer at Seeds) was giving the grand responsibility of holding. We were all set. Yet in hindsight there were perhaps a few things we should have checked before we began our journey arriba.

First life lesson...ensure that you have a full understanding off all the details
I think in all the excitement of gearing up for our biking bonanza we forgot to verify some fairly important details. One key piece of information we probably should of confirmed before we left was the exact track in which we were meant to cycle down to get back to Huaraz. When we got to our starting destination the taxi driver had pointed out to Zach the track he thought we were meant to go down. But we soon discovered that this track "wasn't in the brochure". It resembled more of a winding sheep trail than a cycling track. So we quickly back tracked up the mountain where we made some phone calls to see what the next step in our master plan was. After confirming that we were to travel down the main road we also learnt that the taxi that dropped us off was meant to stick around and follow us down in case anything happened. Well that part of the plan didn't quite work out. Regardless we started our decent towards Huaraz.

Second life lesson...check equipment before you depart.
Half way down trouble struck when Carmen who was visiting from Lima discovered that her back tyre was flat. I swapped with her for a little while and tried to ride her bike to a spot where we could safely stop and attempt to repair the damage. I don't know if it was the flat tyre or just the seat but that bike was not comfortable (my bottom paid for it later, every time I went to sit down). Raff (who was visiting from Canada) came to the rescue with his bike pump and all seemed to be fine and dandy until he pull the pump off the tyre and the valve came with it. Whoooosh went all the air Raff had just worked hard to pump into the tyre. AHHHH. What were we to do?

We flagged down a maxi taxi and to our surprise inside was two other guys from the same hostel where we borrowed the bikes from. They were also meant to be biking that day but both of their bikes were broken so they were making their way back home. We explained our situation and it turns out that one of them - Ashley is a mechanic and a bike enthusiast. He patched up Carmen's bike in no time and we were off again.

Third life lesson...always wear sunscreen
I had put on sunscreen before I left home but obviously not enough as I think the sun burned through several layers of skin on the back of my legs. I have some very attractive tan marks now thanks to my shorts and the knee pads I was wearing.Not to mention the lovely pealing that comes hand in hand with a bad skin burn.

All in all we had a great time, the fresh mountain air, the gorgeous snow capped peak vistas and some good stories to tell the grand kids in time to come :)