We take our boards to the worlds largest salt flat: Salar De Uyuni. in southwest Bolivia, near the crest of the Andes, 11,975 feet high.
Our 4th pass out of Abancay, Peru 13,120 ft. Yeah, we don't skate down hairpins we skate up them.
Skating in Hail + Rain, it hurts
The boards surely took a beating but still went strong.
As you can see the climbs are not straight up the mountains. Very windy and unpredictable you never know what is around the bend...
Paul and Aaron pushing through the clouds.... the worlds largest salt flat: Salar De Uyuni. in southwest Bolivia, near the crest of the Andes. Near 12,000 feet high.
Nice flat plains to the town of Sicuani, Peru.
Just climbed out of the Ghost town of Negromayo where we were starving and all we could eat was cookies and waffers. We stopped because we felt a bit sick and I had to take a poo.
I really like this picture. The emotion on Paul's face is of determination and exhaustion. Skating until dark we made it to the top and did a gnarly downhill run in low light conditions and then had to stop because the pavement turned bad.
The salt basically shrunk our shoes 1 size. Made our rain pants turn into cardboard.
Some truck driver really liked us. We just got done with bombing a hill in which the driver followed behind us to watch. He was stoked. We took a picture with him and then he took one of us. Day 13 of skating.
Hahah what a mission leaving Cusco. 1st we end up climbing a fence to the Cusco, Peru airport and have to lay on the ground as security passed us. We climb out over the fence and then skated through nasty mud.
High elevation skating with many steep up and down hill segments. It was one of the most enjoyable skates.
Adam Colton (me) during sweet sunset 14,000 ft...
Catching sun in the morning by a stream on Aaron's and my mission to Arequipa. Arequipa is the capital of the Arequipa Region in southern Peru.
Day 5 of our skate nearing the town of Santa Cruz which puts us 1 more day from Nasca where we start our climb into the Andes. As you can see mountains are appearing...
Sweet Road...
Dogs were a major issue on the trip. Every dog we skated by wanted to eat us. Many times we had to try to kill them before they killed us. So we ran at them with our boards, threw rocks anything to keep the snarling beast at ease. The last thing you want when pushing your brains out up a hill is a dog freaking out at your heels.
2nd day into the trip, we sit on a bench outside the WONG grocery store just after we stocked up on food.
This was part of the climb out of Nazca. Our 1st pass into the heart of the Andes. The pavement was sticky and the road went on forever. It took us 2 1/2 days to complete this pass, haha running out of food and water at times.
Aaron gave his harmonica to the lady and her daughter.
Probably some 100 +miles outside of Lima.
Friendly cops right outside the town of Santa Cruz. They were stoked.
a bar.
Paul walking to see the Inca ruins.
little girl with a broken arm.
Aaron and Paul waking up in the morning on a giant sand dune Day 2 of skating.
The town of Huallhua in the morning. Getting high up.
So for about 15km the paved road disappeared and there was a hard packed dirt road with so many pot holes and ruts leading down to Pucuio. Close to the city there was a hard right turn, locals were walking on the inside of the turn which had the best route with the least amount of bumps, but we had to take an alternate route which lead us into a huge pot hole bump. Aaron did not make it. The wound was deep and painful.
I will always remember this. Out of food and limited on water because we cut yesterday early due to fog and spent 15 hours in our tent constantly munching and eating our food supply. The next day we struggled. Where is a town??? We ran into some construction workers who said there was a town 4km ahead. Well, we had this huge long never ending hill in front of us. We did this hill on empty stomachs in dire need of food. It was a hard hill. I will remember it.
Paul Drafting Aaron at 12,000 ft...
100km slight downhill all through a headwind. Yeah, pushing downhill at times sucks. On our way to Abancay, Peru.
NO Privacy. This is pretty normal taking a crap and everyone can see. We had a lot of conversations while taking craps and wiping our butts.
Aaron sun tanned a little bit too much yesterday and paid for it.
Our highest Altitude we skated, 14,851 ft. I was sooooo stoked to reach this height. IT felt amazing. Who knew this skate to Arequipa would be so epic.
Stretching and yoga were a very important part of the trip. Most of the time in the morning or at some point during the day we would have a bit of a session.
7th Pass. Bad pavement on our 6th pass for a bit but the pavement finally turned good. 4,312 meter of 14,145 ft this pass was beautiful.
Sure this picture looks pretty, but you can't feel the massive head wind. Long straight away & slight uphill nearing Oruro, Bolivia.
Adam Colton- Salar De Uyuni Salt Flat. in southwest Bolivia,
still healing...
Night is slowly approaching on our 2nd day of the 13,448 ft climb out of Pucuio, Peru. Beautiful clouds and rain are about to roll in.
I actually had frost inside my tent, it as nuts and I love it.
Setting the right settings on my camera to capture the rainbow was hard but I got it.
This is a typical town we survive off of. This town is not even on my map. We got lunch at this town. I ate some good soup with sketchy meat.
Paul is ready for battle with his 'Hoses'.
We climbed for a long time and came to a series of high elevation, 12,000 ft lakes and small up and down hill segments.
Paul Screaming.
Beautiful morning. Hard to see but over Paul's head to the right a bit are flamingos eating.
Everytime we see a tourist we say, "Have you been to Negromayo." They say, "No." We say, "What!!! You totally got to go, it is so awesome." Well, folks. Negromayo was our hope. We were out of food and in need of some good nourishment, a restaurant. Well, Negromayo is as about as a ghost town as you can get with people living there. We spent 1 hr talking to locals to find the store and when we did all there was, was a dried out nasty deer leg sitting on a bench, a horrible bag of cookies and a lot of waffers. This picture is of Aaron feeling like total crap after pigging out on waffers and cookies on an empty stomach. And yes, we still have more climbing to do.
Saltwater.
Getting some speed Aaron screams because he is afraid and wants his mom.
Aaron climbing, 7th pass 14,145 ft
