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18 hours into the expedition and we’re….still in Camana!

Now, there’s a perfectly good reason for this - we just wasn’t quite ready to leave yesterday (its 01.30 now, Wednesday 2nd April, as I write this). We had only obtained our 1:100,000 maps from Lima and have spent an entire day shopping for food etc on Monday. Ed and I came to a decision to postpone by one day so as not to rush things.

No dramas, it gave us valuable time to sort the little niggly things. Rest assured we are now ready. The bags are packed, and packed to the rim! Over 40kg each, without water….erm.

A few interesting things of note before we got here. We had taken the overnight bus from Lima down to Camana and awoke shortly before arriving. What did we see? To our right (West) was the Pacific Ocean - “aaaaah” we thought. To our left (East), desert! Lots of it!! DESERT!!?? No one had told us about deserts! The closest I’ve been to a desert was a stroll along Brighton beach, mid summer! This was clearly a subtle problem that Ed and I had quite innocently “overlooked”. We both started laughing hysterically at the ludicrousness of the situation. We are about to walk from the Pacific Ocean, up the second deepest canyon in the world to the source of the amazon on Nevado Mismi at 5600m, but first we have to go through some desolate barren landscape….”hmmm,” we thought, “some hats maybe in order. And some sun cream…oh and maybe lots of water!”

Our guide, Oswaldo, turned up early Monday with little kit. So we took him out on a shopping spree to get some bits and pieces. I later realised that I’d left his waterproof jacket in Cuzco. We gave him some money and sent him to buy one. He came back with something that Damon Hill would wear for a formula 1 racing sponsorship deal, a jacket with hundreds of logos all over it. Brilliant! There’ll be lots of companies out there getting free advertising to say the least.

After buying the food we separated it into breakfast, lunch and dinner piles to carry each. We have 2 litres of kerosene for our MSR stove which I reckon is enough for quite a while - Ed has filmed me saying its fine, hoping it won’t be so he can film the consequences, and of course, film me looking a numpty! We then went through the maps highlighting routes and getting ourselves acquainted with the area. Then off to pack our bags individually.

Ed and I have now started filming properly and think we are going to be able to get some half decent footage for both the blog and the documentary/film. Stay tuned as Craig, the “Producer” is already putting together something for the blog and it should be up soon.

We’re up in 5 hours. We’re going to have a hefty breakfast, get a “Moto-taxi” down to the beach, touch our toes in the pacific ocean and then…..we’re off. Possibly the longest jungle (with mountains - and DESERT) expedition ever walked non stop. Lets hope no one brakes a leg within the first couple of days - THAT would be very embarrassing.

Thanks for all the support guys and please, keep watching the site. Tell more friends, give money to the charities and stay tuned. All our future installments will now be coming from the field!All the best,Luke and Ed