Daily Report May 15 and 16, 2006

In Ecuador we were received by the regional consul whose prepared documents facilitated the border crossing considerably.

The unit sent by the Ministry of Defense to escort us through Ecuador was in no way inferior to the forces in Columbia. However, it was remarkable that this task force had been trained for special assignments on water, land and air. At any rate, it seemed that way to us civilians from Central Europe. The emblem on their berets and vehicles showed a masked fighter with crossed weapons. We could safely assume that these guys were usually assigned quite different tasks and knew what to do in extreme situations. We were also accompanied by a motorcycle and a service vehicle from the automobile club.

Because we arrived late at night, a scaled down photo session took place in front of the military academy in Quito.  Everyone including our main person of contact, Matthias Ebert from the German Embassy, went out of their way caring for our team. Much to our suprise, Mr. Ebert brought Indian food to the photo shoot. It was a welcomed change for the involuntary sandwich brigade.

Ecuador impressed us with its scenic variety. The scenery alternated between high mountains and volcanos, low lands, rain forest and desert, all representing South American landscapes.

Unfortunately, we lost time in Ecuador as well, due to the fact that we were again travelling in a military convoy; this time we had to act. After checking with all our country coordinators we decided to postpone our entire time schedule, including all subsequent media events, by 10 hours. This meant a lot of work because the next event locales Lima, Arica, Copiapo, Santiago and Mendoza had to be rescheduled at once. We thank everyone involved for the sometimes stressful reorganization.

The 10-hour time shift, however, also meant that our calculated time buffer in regards to breaking the record had melted down to a negative three hours.

It must have been a bizarre scene when at one of the busiest borders of the entire journey (Huaquillas) 10 heavily armed soldiers, all dressed in black,  jumped out of their vehicles and accompanied us to all our dealings with the border authorities – in front of about 2,000 people. There was  lot of hustle and bustle.

The Peruvian side of the border was, probably due to the impression our friends made, a little stressed. We were approached by police officers who questioned us while simultaneously being on the phone. They were talking with the other countries’ security forces and a few minutes later we were greeted by a commander who told us that all (!) police stations and checkpoints had been informed of our convoy.

Let me ask you: have you ever been greeted, applauded, and encouraged every 50-100 km by police officers, over a course of 2,800 km? Thanks to Peru for its friendliness and  help.

In Peru, the Panamericana Route is the only complete north-south connection, running along the westernmost part of the country almost entirely through desert regions. It led us along breathtakingly steep coast lines and dunes trying to reclaim the road, over passes and through arid valleys, through a country which had much more to offer than we could take in, a country with gigantic rain forests.

When we arrived in Lima, the Goodyear RunOnFlat technology was put to the test. Alpha 3 all of a sudden lost a great amount of air in the midst of the 10-lane traffic chaos of downtown Lima. The tire was flat a few moments later. To save time and to take our tire partner’s word for it, we decided to keep driving all the way to the university. End of story?

„While being honked at by other drivers and totally unconcerned by the rolling cameras, a fully loaded Touareg with a total weight of 3.5 tons drives 20 minutes with its flat tire, without any problem, a little to the side maybe, going about 60-70 kmh over city freeways and through on of the biggest cities in the world, all the way to the scheduled event. Ingenious.“

A nice reception had been organized at the “Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina” (UNALM) by our country coordinator in Peru, Thomas Gruederich, and Mr. Javier Coello from UNALM. UNALM had produced 1,500 l biodiesel just for us and received us on campus with high rank officials of the German Embassy, the rectorate, students and the press.
 
Everything had been very well organized and the vehicles were fueled up while the speeches and press conferences were still in progress. Right after the reception we went to the local VW partner as our vehicles were in urgent need of axle repairs – axle measurements in order to get a grip on the continuing brutal tire wear caused by massive axle displacement. It is absolutely incredible what the tires had to withstand so far.

Countless drops into pot holes as deep as wells did not help with the tire wear. But axles which create tire alignments that can not be found in the strangest of repair manuals sooner or later destroy the best tire technology. At times, 8 mechanics and or crew were working on the vehicles in order to get the job done as soon as possible. Then it was back on the endless road south towards Chile.

ECUADOR

PERU

Lima: at the UNALM Campus