Day 1,083
Laguna Sandoval
Reaching Puerto Maldenado was a relief. We had had a few tough days and were ready for a mini break. Our hotel was opposite a pizza restaurant, a cake, empanada and coffee shop, and finally an ice-cream shop, heaven. After a day of rest and eating our fill we were up at 4am for a boat trip. We cruised up the Madre del Dios river then hiked a mile or so to sail around Sandoval Lake. We oohed and aahed over the 3 caiman, family of red howler monkeys, the flash of probably, definitely, maybe, a giant otter, a macaw and a big yellow bird we spotted. The guide was really good, knew his stuff, it made for a relaxing and enjoyable morning.
When we had booked we had chatted to the guy in charge about our plans for the days ahead. We mulled over rather than cycling, ‘Was it possible to take a boat for a few days?’ It was and it wasn't. Yes a boat could take us, just the small matter of border controls along the river, there wasn't any. He came up with a plan, he'd drive us to the nearest border crossing, we could leave Peru, enter Bolivia, then he'd drive us back to the boat, apparently some Germans who live in PM do it all the time. It didn't seem strictly legal to us and when he mentioned the cost we decided it was just way too pricey anyway. So back on the bikes for us, ah well a girl can dream.
We did have a new plan though, the border crossing he mentioned would save us several hundred miles of cycling. No map appeared to show the road, never mind where the actual crossing was, so we popped along to a very friendly migration office and were told, yes it's there. No motor vehicles can use it as there is no office to process vehicles and oh, you have to cross before your visa expires as you can't pay your fine there. So, we could use it as long as we crossed tomorrow, the race was on.
At 6.30 am we were off into the unknown. The town was full of military roadblocks and we rode around in circles for a few minutes until we finally reached the bridge out of town. It's a mini-version of the famous one in San Francisco, and the biggest bridge in Peru. We powered on, we were back on the superb inter-oceanic highway, so great road surface but virtually no traffic, awesome. We reached the tiny town of Mavila, and looked out for our unknown road. There it was! Dirt surface, but definitely a road. About 4 miles later we spotted border control, a mildly uninterested chap stamped our passports and we were out! Yes! We then had 7 miles in no-man's-land before we could enter Bolivia. We found the office but it was all locked up, it was a Sunday! After 3pm, did that mean we would have to hang around until tomorrow? People kept offering us lunch, then we realised that actually they were telling us the officer had gone for his lunch, phew! 30 minutes later he was back, and we were in Bolivia, what a relief, we'd made it! He did spend about 30 minutes looking through our passports, clearly fascinated by all the stamps. We asked if he got many cyclists through, ‘Nope, you're the first I’ve ever seen!’. The road less travelled indeed.
By now it was past 4pm and we headed along the road, looking for our first wild camp in the Amazon. Tom spotted a few tracks leading off the road. A quick exploration and we realised that these were not leading to a property but to Brazil nut trees. They use them to gain access to harvest the trees. Who'd have thought! After 60 plus miles, we had our home for the night and could relax, just us and several million bugs, biting away!
