Decker Trip - Panamerican Highway 1966

Nov 27. For breakfast, we didn't have any bread or anything, so we had some rice, and I sweetened that up real good too (the kids couldn't eat it hardly). I figured sugar would give us energy, so we went on that for the rest of the day. It's desolate country up there. You don't go through any towns or anything. We drove all day without hitting a town until about 4:00 in the afternoon when we finally found a place where we could get some bread. But we had already split up the can of tuna between us. And that was our subsistence until we got here to Puno.
We got to Puno about 6:00, gased up, and came to the Hotel Turista--which is probably the most expensive place in town, but the only place where we could park a car in front. So we're parked here and we've had supper here--very [  ] and very expensive and not too plentious, but at least it's been a good meal, and we're thankful that we've gotten this far and have been able to find this place to stay overnight.
On the way here, after leaving this morning about 9:30, we saw lots of llamas, and even saw one little baby suckling. And we saw some wild geese and some flamengos and other birds in the salt marshes. And the kids want me to say that from Aticua to Canana we did see seals and sharks in the water.
The road from Arequipa is fairly poor most of the way until you get to 100 km from Puno, and then it gets quite a bit better. You can't go more than 30 mph on any of these stretches with the trailer the way we have it. After our springs broke and we fixed that, we decided to take more weight out of the trailer, so we put the heavy suitcase and the duffel bag into the car (which is probably 70 pounds less weight in the trailer).

I must add that, besides passing probably the worst stretch of road we've had on the whole trip yesterday, we also had one of the worst night we've ever had. We were camped out on this plateau at about 13,000 plus feet. It was a beautiful spot with the mountains around us, but it was extremely cold. It was starting to drizzle a little just as we were getting ready for bed and the kids were shivering, and we were all kind of sick with soroche and headaches, so we decided to all sleep in the car. Judy and Cory slept on the seats, and we let down the top and closed all the doors and opened a couple of the side windows so Judy and Cory could have a little bit of air, and the rest of us went up on top. But it seems like this stretch of road is used by trucks mainly at night because all night long these trucks keps rolling by and waking us up. Sometimes you'd think they were going to hit the car. But you can sure appreciate why the Incas worshipped the sun, because it sure is nice to get the sun warming things up in a hurry after the cold night. The top of the trailer had about 3mm of frost on it in the morning.
Right here in Puno it's not too warm either. We're probably close to 12,000 feet, and we're going to spend a cold night. But at least we're in this yard and we're going to put the camper up. Jeany and Gordie are going to sleep in the car, and the rest of us in the trailer. So we should have at least a better night than last night (we won't have the trucks waking us up every few minutes).
The soroche affects you--you notice it after being down along the coast in Peru--the minute you step out of the car you kind of notice that you're dizzy. You don't have your sense of balance hardly. I look under the trailer and get up again and I feel like I'm falling over. And of course any little exertion just about wears you out so that you can't work too fast. But I guess we're getting a little used to it, and we're down a little further now than we were yesterday.
Today we passed over the highest part of the highway here in Peru, and that was probably 15,000 feet. The car did very well. After I set the timing up, we came plugging along... Of course, the grades are very slight up towards the higher parts, but still, the car had plenty of power, for which we are thankful. One town here, just before getting to Puno, was an exception to this. This had a very steep climb going out of town. We didn't make it the first time, so we had to back down the hill onto somebody's plot of ground there, and I set the timing forward again and we tried it again and made it over. But it was a very steep little climb.