THE Peruvian town of Urubamba will seem like paradise to three weary Jimboomba mates on Saturday as they finally roll across the finish line of the Adventurists' October Mototaxi Junket.
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Andrew Nolan, Julian Buttigieg and Glen Gorton are just hours away from completing the two-week challenge, during which they and their three-wheeled "sofa bike" have traversed thousands of kilometres through the Andes mountain range.
The trio have been tackling the gruelling challenge to raise funds for Rotary's youth leadership program RYLA.
So far, they have raised thousands of dollars and helped boost awareness of the program, with many supporters following their adventures religiously via Facebook.
Mr Buttigieg said the past few days had been tough.
"In summary, we ended up getting ourselves and the mototaxi transported by coach from Moyobamba to Cusco, which is about 60 kilometres from the finish line at Urubamba," he said.
"It was a constant battle to keep the mototaxi running, lots of problems slowing us down including carburettor leaking, clutch cables on brink of snapping (and having) mechanics that 'fix' your mototaxi and it ends up worse than before.
"Some roads were closed for eight hour periods while landslides were repaired with no alternate routes (and) the sheer terrain and steepness of some of the roads means the rear passengers sometimes need to jump out and run and push the mototaxi just to ensure it can make it up the hills.
"The other night we were driving in pouring rain trying to make up for lost time and we didn't get to our accommodation until about 1am.
"As a result we ended up having quite a bit of water seeping into our fuel tank, which we had to drain."
He said despite the challenges, they were thrilled with their efforts.
"Our adventure may not have gone as expected, but we have relished the challenges and drawn upon all the lessons we have learnt from our personal experiences with RYLA," he said.
"We still feel we have accomplished our ultimate goal to raise awareness about RYLA and in the five days and 1000 kilometres between Colan and Moyobamba, we managed to start at the coast, cross desert, climb 3000 metres to scale the Andes and end up in the Amazonian city of Moyobamba.
"We still intend to cross the finish line in the mototaxi."
To follow the team's adventure visit the Ride for Ryla facebook page or their website, www.rideforryla.com
