Shelterbox

Whilst we chose to support Practical Action because of the excellent, proactive work it does in supporting Peruvian communities, we also felt compelled to support another charity providing a very different kind of service.
Shelterbox's cause may resonate more with some of our sponsors, since they provide a flexible and immediate disaster relief capability. The output of the charity is beautifully simple and tangible - they provide a box.

In this box is a disaster relief tent for an extended family, blankets, water storage and purification equipment, cooking utensils, a stove, a basic tool kit, a children’s activity pack and other vital items needed by families displaced for whatever reason.
The charity is reasonably new, but already 107,000 boxes have been delivered to people who need them, be it in Sudan, Pakistan or Japan.

What we've arrived at is two great charities, one offering disaster relief to families who need any help they can get, and the other offering a brighter future for those living everyday in conditions that we are considering to be adverse enough to warrant sponsorship to travel through!

Remember all proceeds go directly to the charities. (Chris and I are funding the trip ourselves)

To sponsor our efforts and donate your money to Shelterbox, please visit this page: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/team/QueGuevaraShelterbox

Practical Action

One of the great aspects of doing charity roadtrips is the opportunity it presents to understand some of the work that the charities do.

The first of our chosen charities is Practical Action, and they've been chosen specifically because they are delivering projects in Peru, the country we are travelling through. Chances are that we will be driving through communities that either are (or one day will be) impacted by the very projects our fundraising is helping to pay for. I don't pretend to understand a great deal about the challenges faced in Peru, though clearly poverty, climate and geographical isolation will be three of the main ones. The challenges that will make our road trip so treacherous, are issues that impact communities daily, throughout their lives. Transportation, communication and the Andean climate are but three key issues - and Practical Action has projects in place to try to improve knowledge and capability in each of these areas.

Why not read a little more about:
community telecentres
dissemination of agricultural tips via podcasts
coping with the big Andean freeze  and
harnessing windpower

To sponsor ¿Que? Guevara with your proceeds going to Practical Action - follow this link http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/team/QueGuevara

Challenge 1 completed

Chris and Rich both completed the Bristol Half marathon yesterday. Chris in a mightilty impressive 1hr 39 mins and Rich in a seemingly (it wasn't) more leisurely 1hr 55mins.

From this we can conclude that Chris should be in charge of "running to the next village to ask for help", should we find ourselves stranded in the Andes mountains in the New Year!

I can take charge of waiting with the moto-taxi.

If you're impressed with our exertions why not offer some post-race sponsorship (see either the charities page, or the links in the right-hand margin)

Bristol Half Marathon

Only 3 days to go until the Bristol Half Marathon now, and this represents the first charity fundraising 'action' that we're doing. Chris and I will both be sporting our Practical Action running shirts as we pound the streets of Bristol. We've been following a reasonably strict fitness schedule to get us into shape - and I think we're targetting sub 2hrs (me) and sub 1hr 50 (Chris) this time around.

Next month we're taking on the Cardiff half marathon (where we'll be trying to improve our times), so we should be in decent shape before we take on the mountains/jungles/desert in Peru!

Remember if you want to sponsor us, all money goes directly to the charities (none of it pays for the trip).

Planning bonanza

Lots of planning /eating

Chris and I had an epic planning session last weekend - taking off to the Black Mountains in Wales (not exactly altitude training - but we did camp in the ground of the "highest pub in the mountains").

We pitched a tent and, in a planning-meeting "first", we actually did some planning, as proven by the fact we now have content on this website.

Take that Waun Fach

We've worked out:

• when we're going,
• approximately where we are going (give or take -a few thousand kms),
• who we're raising charity funds for,
• put together our driver profiles
• and made a list of things we will need.

On top of the world

 We did all this in an impressive haze of San Miguel (reading the labels doubled as 'language training').
Next morning we felt it would be rude not to walk up Waun Fach (811m), a pretty big looking mountain next to the pub.

Nice.

All in all a very good weekend.

Peruvian Pork

At the weekend I realised, much to my annoyance that it there is still 6 months to go before the big trip. I have, bizarrely, convinced myself that there is very little preparation that can be done up front, in advance of flying out to South America.

This is of course a whopping miscalculation as the following need taking care of:

• Working out how to get to San Jeronimo in Southern Peru - and booking flights etc
• Selecting/finalising charities and doing the fundraising
• Learning Latin American Spanish
• Working out how to ride a motorbike (imagining there to be a sofa welded to the frame rather than a back wheel)
• Poring over maps and plotting some kind of provisional route through Amazon/Andes etc

As ever with these trips, the tangental possibilities are endless, and so it was that this weekend I ended up researching, cooking and eating a rather tasty Peruvian Pork dish instead of doing any of the above.

Navigation, navigation, navigation

Over the last decade Chris and I have navigated approximately 15,000 miles of foreign roads together. With plans afoot to put another 3,000 or so miles of unmarked and unsigned tracks in the Andes and Amazon, you'd expect us to do rather better than we managed last night.

Our attempts to drive Chris from a pub in Bedminster (Bristol) to the railway station (2 miles away) were an incredible feat of ineptitude.

In a hurry to catch the last train home, this was a great test of our teamwork and ability to arrive at places under the pressure of time. Despite having a sat nav device, and both living or having lived locally, we managed to navigate a perfect circle, driving back past the pub where we started 10 minutes after departing.
And so the clock ticked down. We tried route b, pushed the road laws close to their limits (possibly past them if the number of 'Slow down' illuminations are anything to go by), and delivered Chris to the station with barely 10 seconds to spare.

Note to selves, get better at navigation, or plan a circular route :o)

Cliff Face

Okay, so its not a Peruvian road-of-death, but this morning I did my first bit of cliff-edge simulation in advance of the trip; running up the mostly unstable Stonebarrow cliffs on England's South Coast. :O)

Ha. "Plan A" is on.

Silly me for doubting. Plan 'a' is officially a runner. We have secured the use of a legendary mototaxi. This 11bhp beast of a vehicle is a hybrid of motorcycle and sofa; and is so underpowered that the prospect of thraping it over the Andes and through the Amazon is just mouth-watering.

At 2011 draws to a close, Chris and I will fly to the 'lungs of the planet' (Amazon), near the shores of Lake Titicaca to collect our steed. From there we will plot a 3500km route through jungle, desert and mountain to a glorious finish somewhere else.

I literally cannot wait. More on the vehicle and route soon.

Considering "plan B"

Much angst over the past week or so trying to find a way to get hold of a car anywhere in the continent of South America, so that we can actually do the trip.

Whilst we don't want this to be easy, it does need to be possible for us to actually make a start. It's hardly a white knuckle ride to fly to South America, fork out money for a car, spend 3 weeks waiting outside the vehicle registration agency buildings, and then fly home.

On this basis, Chris and I have had to discuss whether there might need to be a "plan b".
We've given ourselves until April Fool's Day to determine a way to make our foolish plan possible. Failing that, we'll come up with another one.

The current plan b is to drive across and around China in a San Lun Che (Greenhouse/Moped hybrid). If that plan is blighted by the same administrative issues then we'll revert to type - buy a wreck off ebay and then drive it South as far as we can go (ideally until we sight penguins). Far more realistic!