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“Does that help?” I asked her.“Oh yeah. Very much.” She replied,looking down at the strap in awe.We had not considered having totow somebody while hiking, butfigured out how to rig up a waiststrap for him to grab onto. It was asmiserable as it sounds, and quicklystarted hurting my knees, so JJfinished dragging him to the top.myself across the country andwas not prepared to carry anotherperson through this course.Control Point 1:At the top of the hill we got ourpassport stamped and I was able todisconnect Pedro from the tether.He kept up well on the downhillsections.Like ants emerging from theirtunnels after a foot smashes ontotheir mound, cyclists were scurryingacross the hillsides. Apparently,nobody knew exactly where theywere going on the maze of roads. Ifelt ridiculous for ever thinking wecould merely follow other teamsacross the course.Control Point 2:We came skidding into a haciendafilled with support vehicles andcrew. The Austrian model greetedus at the trailhead and pointed ustowards the Land Rover where wedropped off our bikes. Apparently,she was responsible for at least onebike collision while waiting for usto arrive. I forgot to change out ofmy bike shorts (something we referto as our diaper without affection)and only managed to take off oneglove before we were trekkingthrough cornfields towards the nextCP.Pedro was already falling waybehind, shortly into the hike. “Justfinding a pace he could keep for 3days,” he assured us.A cluster of teams was gatheredat the end of a road we had beenfollowing. Some were consideringa gnarly route following theEcuadorian military team whohad taken a compass bearing andbushwacked straight over themountain towards the CP. Crawlingthrough their jungle tunnel lookedhellish and we continued to traversethe mountain, eventually gettingback on the original trail.Control Point 3:A steep jungle trail heavily erodedby ages of rain and use took usinto a dwarf tree forest. Pedrocontinued to lag more and more,despite our encouragement.A team passed us with a womangrabbing onto the waist strap of herteammate as they climbed the trail.Misty hillsides greeted us and wewatched our trail disappear intopatches of paramo grasses until wesaw another team running by.After a knee pounding descent ona dirt road we could see the nextcheckpoint; an open stadium filledwith support vehicles. Down a steeptrail, we dropped through the thickjungle foliage and later learned thata member of the military team hurthis knee descending this section andwas carried out by his teammates.Control Point 4: (4:30AM)We had been out for about 10 hoursat this point and relaxed for awhileat the transition point.“He´s only carrying 1.5 liters ofwater!” JJ told me as he watchedPedro´s Camelbak get filled up,“We were just out there for 6 hours.He´s gotta drink more agua.” Extrafood and water was added to hispack.Our next CP with a support crewwas about 60 miles away and duskwas coming in only two hours. Wewere all worried about the initialclimb in this stage, afraid thatPedro just could not do it. To makethings worse, we made a wrongturn that took us 6 miles off routeAdventure World Magazine May 2009 18