August 25th Quince Mil to Puerto Maldonado Day 22

Once again cloudy in the morning, but sunny later. I have a comment in my diary ‘breakfast at 7:30 in old Quince Mil’, so I presume in a cafe of some sort off the main road. I did manage to take a couple around photos of Quince  before we left – find them here

After some discussion, especially after my report on the state of the road I’d been along the previous day we decided to try and get to Puerto Maldonado (around 240 km) on the day and camping on the route if needed.

We made an arrangement with the hotel and left behind spares and other equipment not needed immediately. Once ready, Uisdean, Eric & Jun set off in the Long Wheelbase LR with the aim of collecting more water samples along the road. Eric and I went to talk to the local police initially (though I don’t have a note as to why, but probably to ensure our goods left behind would be safe), so it was 10:00 before we really got going. I did manage to catch the ‘airport in use as a DC3 (already over 30 years old at this time) took off. We then drove along to the point where we’d reached the previous day, before starting the survey equipment again. We arrived at that point around 13:30 then surveyed until we reached Santa Rosa (just out of the mountains, marked with the red marker on the map below) around 18:15 where we had a meal at a local restaurant. I think we also met up with the other party here as well.

Now dark, but not on the zig-zag mountain roads now but tolerably straight and not so rough, so we decided to push on the Puerto Maldonado (not surveying) as the road was good enough to allow a decent speed (me driving again). We arrived at Puerto Maldonado after a good rive at 11:30 pm and stayed in the ‘Hotel Wilson’. I’m guessing it was a surprise for the hotel to have 5 people turn up out of the blue at that time of night (not much in the way of telephone communication so I don’t think we could phone ahead)! On the way the main light switch of the SWB Land Rover failed along with the heating (which we didn’t need now we were out of the mountains, at least for a while).

It’s worth noting that Puerto Maldonado is only around 200 m above sea level, and it is over 1,000 km to the sea! Also, it is only a few tens of km from the Bolivian border, so it is right on the eastern edge of Peru. We are now in the R Amazon catchment, on the edge of the vast Amazon tropical jungle. The temperature at night reflected this being rather warmer than the previous couple of nights!

Only a few photos around Quince Mil for this day thanks to me being at the wheel of the LR all day. Find them here