I believe this is the map of Peru used by the Conquistatdors 500 years ago. Should be accurate enough for my purposes.
This morning, I got this email:
Hey Pete,
Sorry for the massive delay getting back to this. A team has dropped out of the Junket and the guys in Peru have confirmed that we do indeed have a spare mototaxi….
Do you still want to jump in!?
Let me know if you still fancy it and we can press the buttons…
Cheers,
Dan
Mototaxi Junket Chief
Long story short, I pushed the buttons. (You know when The Adventurists set up a custom signup code “lastminutepete” that you’re getting in just under the wire.)
I have been wanting to do the Mototaxi Junket ever since I did the The Mongol Rally; in 2011… so when my work schedule shifted by a few weeks back in August and I realized that I had the time off to do this Fall’s Junket, I immediately started trying to round up a team.
The problem is, it’s pretty tough to convince people to join you on a big, crazy, dangerous adventure just a few weeks before the launch date… I first called up Chris Burt, my Mongol Rally teammate who also has had his eyes set on the Mototaxi Junket for a few years. We had already been talking about doing the Mototaxi Junket together at some point. Unfortunately, Burt couldn’t swing it this time (something about having a real job), so I started scrambling. I hit up everyone I met in person. I posted relentlessly on social networks. Hit up the Reddit travel subreddits. Posted a classified ad on Lonely Planet’s “Thorn Tree” travel forum. Even made a “classified ad” on the chalk board at our Burning Man camp. I got a bunch of interested parties, but none of them came through…whether it was the cost, the time off work, a bad back, or the unnecessary difficulty for a Zimbabwean citizen in Canada to get a Peruvian tourist visa.
My Burning Man Mototaxi Junket classified ad…got some good inquiries, but none of them came through.
So I signed up on my own. Of the twenty teams (49 other people), I am the only solo team registered in the junket. I’m also the dead last person to sign up – most people signed up months or even over a year ago. I’m on my own and woefully unprepared.
This should make things interesting!