World Run II / Reports

The map shows the position of which the pictures for the day are taken (if any). The start and finish markers are placed at the first and last valid registered position. This is not nessesary the actual start and finish position, if GSM or GPS signals was not available.

Goto: 2011-06-23 2011-06-25 Chile West

2011-06-24:

11
Distance today: 0.0 km (Accumulated: 26693.0 km)
Elapsed time: 00:00:00
Country: Chile West

[2. day of waiting at the Chile-Peru border]

A drive to 4400m. altitude !!

For unclear reasons its not forbidden to take the support-car across the border to Bolivia; and from there is shouldnt be a problem to take it into Peru; from where we a'la Kafka' were hoping to drive to the other side of the Chile-Peru border, a few hundred meters from where we was stopped by authorities yesterday. But via a 700km detour twice over the Andes Mountains.

- That was the plan.

The reality had it a bit differently cut out' for us:

As we during the late morning made our way up the winding road in direction due East from the Pacific Ocean and toward some of the highest mountainpasses in the Andes Mountains and the Bolivian border-regions, we begun to hear rumors. Rumors about strikes in Peru at the Peru-Bolivia borders. We tried to keep spirits high and put faith in hope that probably it would work out somehow.

A few amazing sceneries later (see pictures) and after enjoying some close encounters with very un-afraid flocks of lama's on the narrow mountain road - the car refused to go any further ! At 3900m. it had begun to struggle a bit on the steeper climbs, and from 4000m. alt. and upwards first black and then white smoke added to the drama of the high-Andes landscape; unfortunately ofcourse the smoke came from our car.
Finally it couldnt draw much forward speed at all and we realized that it was time to take a break, access the situation and after an hours debating, having to make the decition of heading down the mountains again to atleast save the car. If the engine burnt out we would be truely "stuck in Chile"; and that high up in the Andes Mountains !

Its fair to say that we were not in best spirits when we at late sunset reached back to the border-city Arica, still on the Chilean side.
If nothing else I think this goes to illustrate that around-the-world runs like this second one requires a lot more than the running itself.

Tomorrow we will try the next plan of a solution, untill we find something which works. The options now is first to try to find a helpfull chilean citizen who will go with us to the local legal office and take over the ownership of the car for a few days so we can get it across the border (its legal for chilean citizens to take cars across). If not that, then its a matter of quicly selling the car and hoping to buy a used car just across the border - With still about 500km of desert ahead and since I am now closer to Equator its no solution to run unsupported into the desert, if I wish to come out alive.

The first solution should take 3-4days if it works.

Meanwhile its a matter of trying to make a positive out of a substantially negative situation (as the task sometimes is in life :-)
... And with now 28years of competitive longdistance running and well above 100 000km of training in the legs, besides the 1½ runs around the world, then I must try to see this as a welcome oppotunity to take a moment to rest the legs. The 5-6days it appears to take wont disrupt the time-scedule of the run, a timescale which is balanced in reguards to climate and rainseasons across the N. and S. American continents; and it can be used to take a closer more 'tourist style' look at the local culture as well as to update the website and make a review of the research I have on the route ahead.

NB: Thanks for the emails with support. Not least to my friends in Russia back from world run one ! "Spaciba :-)))"