Exploring the Cordillera Blanca

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BlueBull2007

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This thread will be where I record a series of trips exploring some of the highest and most spectacular mountain passes in the Andes mountain range in South America.  The area I am focusing on is the the Cordillera Blanca range in Peru forming the largest group of peaks over 6,500m high and in South America.

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I have a nice map, but still have to take a picture of it and post it up for you. There are a number of roads and tracks that pass through these mountains and it is my intention to explore all of them with a view to perhaps finding a road that is the highest in the world. Right now the highest road in the world is this one:

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Its called the Khardung La (Khardung Pass, la means pass in Tibetan) and is at an elevation of 5,359 m. Its located in the Ladakh region, Jammu and Kashmir, India. My local map shows around 4-5 passes all well over 4,500m in the Cordillera Blanca. There are also some roads that get up to altitudes well over 5,000m in places. I will have ride there with my GPS and check it out, if its high enough, take a photo and write into Ripleys believe ir not.  :mwink:

Warm up trip - 4 Days of familiarization.

Our first trip comprised the following riders:

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D, my better half, soulmate and long-suffering wife. She is the one who has to put up with these hairbrained ideas, and pick up the pieces when it all falls apart.


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And then there is yours truely: An rider of modest skills and way to much of a dreamer for his own good.  :deal:


D rides a BMW 650 Geen Sand and Im on a 800 Geen Sand lewensgevaarlik.

Day 1

Thursday 05h00 last week saw us doing final preparations outside our house.

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Two emplty condom packets testify that someone got seriously busy last night while we were power napping in preparation for the trip. Talk about a wake up call.  :angry4:


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We slab through Lima to the north and 300km up the Pan American highway, a mindnumbly boring stretch rip fraught with dodgey cops and the occasional overloaded vehicle.


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While we stop for fuel I figure it´s worth taking a pic of the nice soft luggage I won from the WD 2008 photo comp, special  thanks to Topbox. :thumleft: You can see I overdid it a bit strapping it down, but after having lost a tent, all my tools and a sleeping bag off the back of our bikes somewhere between Ermelo and Middleburg we don´t leave much to chance ;D Anyway its pays to enter the photocomp on this forum! The competition is fierce and the pictures great.


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We turn east into the mountains: 130km of twisties taking us up from 23m to 4,200m above sea level.


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I´m not fond of tarred roads, but this is awesome stuff; we scrape our pegs on the sharp curves and it feels great.


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Eventually we arrive at the mine where I work. The camp is at 3,985m the mine goes up to 4,900m. This is a view of part of the concentrator plant, some new civil work we have been busy with.


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The boys are busy with the secondary crusher-Lots of commissioning issues.


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One of our new toys: A fully refurbished 15 tonne underground dump truck.


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Here is a pic of drilling work inside a 4mx4m development adit going into the side of the mountain. Anyway enough of the boring mining stuff, this is a RR for crying out loud. Still, this is why I am able to ride so much up here - I have to work in places like like this, and that of course requires travelling :ricky:

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I humor our metallurgical engineer, and he rides with me up the side of a mountainside on the mine Kwat so we can "inspect the tailings dam". (apologies for the poor pic).


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We get some ways up an old track that services a electrical pylon installation, and its quite view.


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Its been a good day, around 6-7hours on the road. We turn in early after a couple of meetings with the management team in the evening. Work hard, play hard.
 
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