I often lament, facetiously, that other bike tourers are far better at collecting “stories” than we are. The best of those stories span a wide dynamic range, usually involving risk or danger, but then also rescue and humanity. Due to our risk-tolerance being lower than average, few of our stories would draw the interest of Hollywood. That changed yesterday, when we definitely covered a huge dynamic range, from the mountaintop high to the crash-to-the-pavement low.

But the real story is about the second high that pulled us up from the the pavement-low: the concern, kindness and generosity shown to us by a whole collection of Peruvians who don’t even know these gringos that barely speak their language.

It began immediately with the colectivo driver who managed to stop without running Rett over (we’ve found that Peruvian drivers are aggressive, but generally quite-skilled). He wouldn’t leave until he was sure that Rett was reasonably ok, even though the crash was in no way his fault (I don’t even know whether he had any customers in his van who were waiting!)

Then there was the group of three or four who immediately came from the nearby shop. One woman had a bottle of water for Rett, and they had various ideas of how she should immediately care for her injuries. Then, realizing how discombobulated and hopeless we were, Ciro’s mom had the insight to call her English-speaking son, and her son had the willingness to immediately drop whatever he was doing on Saturday evening and come to help out some Americans. Stashing our bikes overnight in someone’s random roadside garage space without even locking them might seem crazy, but already I could tell from the kindness and concern of these people that there was no real risk. At the clinic, everyone was very kind, and worked generously around our poor Spanish.

The next morning, I contacted Ciro to tell him I would be taking a taxi back to the scene of the crash, to ride our bikes serially back the 1.8 miles to our AirBNB. He was having trouble getting ahold of his mom to see if the garage would be unlocked, so eventually he overruled my idea and turned up at our AirBNB in another taxi and we went over together. Dammit, man, you’ve done enough! Oh, but wait, he wasn’t done. Rather than my idea of riding one bike back to our AirBNB, and then repeating the taxi-bike ride for the other, he rode Rett’s bike back with me! Coincidentally, he runs a trekking company, and the first day-hike listed on his website is for the very hike we had done before the crash. If we had more time, I know who we’d be doing a multi-day Huayhuash trek with…if he cares this much about non-customers, he must really look after the people he guides!

When I returned, Rett was in bed with a bowl of homemade chicken soup. From the moment we met Eva, our AirBNB hostess, it was obvious that she carries an exceptional amount of warmth and care in her heart (it’s from her on our first day that we learned the word “abrazos”: hugs). She was already suspicious that something might have happened when Rett hadn’t returned her check-in messages from previous afternoon. When she learned what had happened, she sprung into action, bringing over the pot of soup, and almost demanding to do a load of laundry for us. Then, learning that we were due to return to the clinic at 7pm so that Rett could get another injection of pain medication, she instead got a nurse she knows to come make a house call! While Rett could have survived a bumpy cab ride to the clinic and back, being able to skip it will surely speed her recovery.

Eva provided the same pot of soup the next day, apologizing because she didn’t know what else Rett would like to eat. We think we convinced her that it was the absolute perfect thing, and Rett ate it for both lunch and dinner. At one point she also brought over more eggs, from her and her mother’s chickens, which Rett declared the best she’s ever eaten (Eva informed us that they’re fed alfalfa and corn).

She also took us with a taxi to Rett’s follow-up appointment at the clinic. By this point Rett’s left rib area was hurting her the most, so the doctor ordered an X-ray. It returned the peace-of-mind that there was no broken rib, but the doctor believed that rib cartilage might have been damaged, so he prescribed a girdle around her abdomen, and a sling on her left arm to minimize the movement of the rib cage. Eva led us on a walk several blocks away to a small medical supply shop that had exactly what we needed.

Our entire unplanned interaction with the Peruvian medical system of course demonstrated how messed up the American system is. Obviously there was no insurance involved, we simply walked in, gave them Rett’s ID, and paid S/40 cash (~US$11!) for the initial consultation. The X-ray cost ~US$17! “Stuff” here is more expensive than services, so the majority of the cost came from the bag full of medication (US$36) and girdle+sling (US$24), but the entire exam+treatment was still under US$100, and totally frictionless.

Through all this we had been using what Eva called “El Traductor” (the “speak into the phone” feature of Google Translate) to make sure we were clearly understanding each other on these fairly important matters, improving our skills as we went (me remembering to hit the “listen” button before Eva started talking, and Eva remembering her glasses so she could read the Spanish translations of our spoken English). After a few days she proudly showed me how she had installed “El Traductor” on her own phone! But through none of this did any of the dozen people we interacted with show any frustration or make us feel any shame at our inability to speak their language. I would be challenged to give the same grace if the our positions were reversed!

As scary as this incident was for both of us, Rett pointed out that the way all these wonderful Peruvians went out of their way to care for us foreigners actually makes Peru seem like a less risky place for us to be. After all, there was nothing particularly Peruvian that caused the crash; it was just bad luck that could have happened anywhere. We were chased by dogs all over the Southern US just a couple months ago, and their distraction could have easily caused us to hit something in the road and crash just like Rett did here. And it seems unlikely that the locals would have responded with anywhere near as much care, concern, and assistance as they did to us here in Peru.

It’s been almost exactly a year (just three days past!) from our last major injury, when we got raked across the coral and rock during a Hawaii snorkeling attempt (the remains of a wound from that is still visible on Rett’s left hip). Coincidentally (or not?), that was also the most-recent day where we had combined multiple sports, biking to a hike to a swim. At least this time we had nearly completed the biking-and-hiking day when disaster struck (and we had all that Peruvian assistance). In Hawaii we were only halfway through the distance and had no choice but to hike and bike back home. Here we had a full and incredible day up on the mountain before it all went bad, which is far better than having a bad day get worse. Our lifestyle is undoubtedly riskier than a “normal” life, but even after this, we still agree that the rewards are worth those risks. And thanks to the incomprehensible kindness of the people of Huaraz, we finally got a good story to tell!