The antiplano is the name for the high desolate plateaus of Peru, Bolivia and Chile; and that's pretty much where we spent the day. From our camping spot last night at a little over 13,000 feet we drove all day at altitudes between 11,000 ft and our high point of 16,000 ft. And desolate it is, dry, dusty and cold. With the temperature at times as low as 35°F and never about 60°F. But - there are small communities and even individual family groups scattered all over the antiplano making a living from a combination of agriculture and rearing llama, alpaca, and sheep. Plus all these scattered little settlements are served by buses. The bus services are all the more amazing considering the quality of the roads, they vary from good black top to terrible gravel and broken pavement. On the bad sections of roads the buses travel at speeds of 40 mph whereas the roads restrict us to 10-15 mph. Anyone interested in building a vehicle for rough roads should come talk to the Peruvian bus companies for some hints on suspension design.
Late in the afternoon we descended into the town of Chivay along another of Peru's spectacular hairpin roads; from 16000 ft to 12000 ft in 15 miles.
The Chivay community have certainly worked out how to make tourism pay - at the entrance to the town is a gate and a man collecting 35 soles (about $14) per tourist for a 7 day pass. I guess you cannot blame them!
We made our way to the local hot spring baths through a throng of people laying flowers at the local cemetery (we saw this in other towns today, it must be some kind of celebration day - but we never did find out what). We spent a pleasant hour soaking in the clean looking hot water watching a bunch of young British tourists drinking beer in the pool and (to my mind) giving gringo tourists a bad name.
Camping
We camped in the parking lot of the hot spring baths about 4 km from Chivay. It was not obvious who to ask for permission, we got one of the tour group guides to ask for us - we think he asked the guy in the kiosk selling beer. No one troubled us during the night. Though the baths opened and started playing a radio at 5:15 am.
There is a charge of 35 sols per person for tourists to enter the town of Chivay, it seems like this last 7 days.
A few navigation and road condition notes.
From last nights camp the road continued as a good blacktop until 10 km before Yauri (also called Espina - especially on the signs in the front window of buses) where it turned into a bad, pot holed, gravel road. After Yauri the gravel road improved and reasonable speeds (30-40 mph) were achievable. Some distance south of Yauri, the road branches with the left branch signposted to Ariquipa and the right signposted to Chivay (remember this we will come back to it latter). We chose the left branch on the basis of suspected better road conditions and hence faster though longer travel. This road eventually joined highway 3S at Imata. At Sumbay we turned right (North) towards the settlement of Vischani and onto Chivay. The first 10-13 miles of this road are simply terrible, but then turns into good blacktop all the way to Chivay. The good road starts right at the point where the previously avoided turn to Chivay enters. Our conclusion - we should have taken the earlier right turn to Chivay.
