British Complaint Man
We sit in the Millhouse Cusco travel reception as Juan the adventure trip coordinator rings to check availability for the eight of us to go quad biking.
“They have room” says Juan. We rock a clenched fist celebration and hiss “yessssssss” through our teeth. We have managed to book the entire group on a quad biking tour around the sacred valley in Peru. We message our travel buddies and meet them for a quick batch of empanadas and the illuminous yellow green hues of Inka cola. Immediately, I spit a mouthful of half frozen empanada onto the plate and send it back to the kitchen to be properly defrosted. Not a good start. For a while I worry about the dangers of ingesting frozen meat but the events of the day give us plenty to take our mind off food poisoning.
We are picked up at twelve thirty in a scabby minivan by a dark haired Peruvian man who takes us to the outskirts of Cusco. The interior of the van saw better days decades ago and the upholstery is patched together with tape that has lost its stickyness. The streets deteriorate from the cutesy touristic center to that of general dilapidation where the quad biking company’s office resides. When I say office, I mean the building in which the people employed there answer the phones and do whatever it is they do there (it’s not that clear). The driver gets out of the van and communicates to us that he will be requiring our passports as deposit for the quad bikes.
This prerequisite was not conveyed at the Millhouse office and half of us don’t have our identification. We have to hand over large cash deposits instead as our driver spends an age filling in receipts and generally dragging his Peruvian heels. Put out by this, we petulantly fill in our passport numbers “incorrectly” knowing this will empower us should something go wrong throughout the day. Upon entering the premises through a rusty door in the fence, the exterior yard is strewn with discarded scrap in such a manner I have to clamber between offending metal shards to get a receipt for our deposit. I picture myself auditioning for Peruvian Total wipeout, tetanus edition.
The driver steals an entire hour out of the quad biking experience but finally we depart with price lists of repair and replacement costs should we damage the quad bikes.
The van clocks up the miles as we travel deep into the Peruvian countryside. Farms become more prevalent as the hills and mountains begin rolling away from the bustle of Cusco center. Poverty remains but blends with the rustic buildings a little more seamlessly in the country.
We eventually arrive at a rundown set of buildings, in a town we never find out the name of. A number of quads are being sponged down by a number of locals who make the job of preparing the bikes harder than it needs to be. They start off slowly and quickly taper off.
On the opposite side of the road is a small child who has been locked out of the school gates and doesn’t quite know what to do with himself. He watches us and our increasing impatience. We all wait, not really knowing what’s going on.
Our groovy red quad bikes are in serious need of attention. Most have flat tyres and it looks as if they haven’t been used in a while. The locals crank up what looks like a custom built dune buggy and go to get fuel from the next village. This depletes more valuable minutes from our time and we are all starting to get seriously frustrated with the situation. Alba, our fluent speaker of Espanol tries to get some answers but the slightly hapless local is only trained in sponging, not customer service.
An ominous set of storm clouds move closer towards us and vicious lighting strikes explode over the city of cusco. There is definitely a storm brewing.
After what seems like an age, the loud roar of the buggy’s engines return. Sensing our increasing hostility the locals pick up the pace in sorting the bikes out… Of which we notice there are only seven.
“Where is the other bike?” we ask. Our guide informs us one of the quads is not working and two of us will have to share (BRITISH COMPLAINT MAN awakens from his slumber). Valiantly Kathy and Kiky sense the tension and dive in front of that bullet. “We don’t mind sharing” say the girls. I let the guide know we will only be paying for seven quads.
As the last drop of petrol is poured into the tank, we are told to start our engines. Six start and one splutters to death despite multiple attempts to get it started. Another pair have to share a quad despite warnings on the chassis not to double up riders (BRITISH COMPLAINT MAN is chomping at the bit). Eoin and Rachel have the good grace to buddy up, Rachel clings on for dear life with a trademark beaming smile.
I begin my tirade towards our guide but he expertly parries my outburst with some well chosen placation. I am diffused, and we begin the quad biking experience. You may have won the battle Mr. Guide, but you haven’t won the war. We depart three hours after being picked up.
Thunder cracks above us as we roll through the rustic streets of Nonametown. The buggy leads and we follow the off roader into the countryside. The sky buckles under the weight of its cargo and deploys a vicious cargo of freezing cold hail on top of us. The girls scream as the hail passes into painful leg territory and I wish I had worn trousers more than any other time ever.
When our guide is not looking, (and ignoring the single file directive) we weave ourselves between each other, overtaking where possible. We rip through a multitude of dusty villages avoiding cattle herds and large potholes whilst bare footed Peruvian children wave at our eight pack . My quad is annoyingly sluggish uphill and struggles to maintain any speed. One by one our pack overtake me. Downhill however, it flies like a demon possessed.
Away from our starting point the weather turns and we start to see the sacred valley at its best. Sprawling mountain ranges rise out of the horizon as the sun paints orangey hues onto snowy capped peaks. A steep descent enables the quads to enable some scarily fast speeds, the combination achieving an unmatchable exhilaration. Every view is a postcard.
The descent levels out and feeds into the narrow streets of Moray. The placement of the buildings only allows a single file configuration, but the state of the roads forces us to weave around exposed manhole covers and large packs of children who run out into the road. It feels like being on a movie set in which we are filming a getaway scene.
We park up the quads and the guide explains a little bit about the area. Nearby is a salt mine which apart from tourism for the Incan Terrazamenti de moray, serves as the main industry in the area. The residents of the town are out having a council meeting which we realise we have interrupted with our entourage of quad bikes. We skulk to the toilet and carry on trying not to interrupt further.
We begin another ascent with the roads now beginning to weave back and forth. The sun has begun to set and the light is beginning to leave us. A herd of donkeys laden with supplies stops our procession in its tracks and we wait as they pass.
On our final push towards Terrazamenti de Moray we are joined temporarily by the Grim reaper who buddies up with one of our nurse mateys. Testing her mettle, the reaper sends a drunken Peruvian driver in Alba’s direction. Narrowly missing the white car, Alba wrenches the steering column to the right, forced to career off the road. Trying to hold on for her life she manages to steer the quad into a field but the momentum is too much and the quad flips on top of her. This is the point in which I happen to turn around to see her bike upside down in the field. I ditch my quad and run to see what had happened. By the time I get there, Alba is crawling out from under the quad. Amazingly she is relatively unscathed apart from a graze on the leg from the bike. Visibly shaken, but heroically handled, Alba gets back on the bike and we all take it a bit easier en route to Terrazamenti de Moray.
Terrazamenti de Moray is a great warmup for Machu Pichu. The giant pit of seemingly carpeted concentric circles looks a spectacle as the guide kicks in with an explanation for its existence: A giant Ampitheatre or an agricultural laboratory designed for testing crop growth in the many microclimates Peru has to offer.
We don’t stay long and start a nighttime return back to cusco. The air steadily cools chilling any exposed flesh on show. Luckily the quad’s engine give off a lot of heat which transfers through the central column to heat our man and lady goolies. The journey feels exciting at night with our bike caravan creating light trails through the Andean mountains. Most of our quad’s brake lights are broken so we have to keep our distance for much of the return. The epic flashes of thunder and lightning make a reappearance, graciously putting on a show for us all. Variations of forked and sheet types compete to impress us in a special ‘lightning’s got talent performance.
Chilled to the bone we return to the office to get our deposits. We also have a thirty minute argument with the guide about not paying for the broken quad bikes. Little do they know BRITISH COMPLAINT MAN always gets his way.
BRITISH COMPLAINT MAN wins.