Journey to the Bottom of the World

Road Closed

"Señor, you should look at that bridge carefully, because if it breaks, you're probably going to die," said the sweet little-old-lady at the bus stop: in Spanish of course. After a quick double-take, I almost began to chuckle.  I'm not sure if it was her nonchalant tone of voice, or the context of her warning, but I never expected to hear something like that from her.  I had ridden past this bus stop just minutes before on my way to Baños, and was forced to return and seek directions.  A couple miles further down the road, volcanic ash covered the road's surface, rock slides covered parts of the right lane, and a sign reading, "High-Risk Area," stated the obvious.  Baños was only six miles away, so I tried to push through the mess, but I eventually came to the end of the road...literally.  A 40 yard section of the road had given way, and it looked like the collapse had occurred several years ago.  I road up to the edge hoping that I could ride down and back up the other side.  I could certainly do it on foot, but not with the bike.  I took a quick look around but couldn´t find any scrap wood, so building a ramp to jump it wasn´t an option either. (no, I'm not serious)  I turned back, slightly baffled that not even one of the signs indicating "Baños" throughout the last hour, had mentioned that the road was closed.  There wasn't even a "Road Closed" sign at the point of the collapse, although any reasonable person would have noticed that something was wrong long before that point.  Then again, since the collapse had happened years ago, I was probably the only person in Ecuador who didn't know that the road was closed. 

When I arrived back at the town, or should I say, the lone bus stop that people somehow appear at, there was a little-old-lady sitting in traditional dress.  I stopped and sat down with her for 20 minutes or so, and she told me that she thought I might be able to get to Baños without riding all the way back to Riobamba.  It wasn't a direct route, but it was better than nothing.  She told me that I had to cross the bridge that I had caught a glimpse of when the road turned bad, and follow the road 20km to the next town.  Thrilled that I wouldn't be back-tracking for an hour, I stood up with a smile and thanked the lady for her time.  As I walked to my bike with a new sense of resolve, I heard the familiar soft voice come from behind me, "Señor, you should look at that bridge carefully, because if it breaks, you're probably going to die."  So much for the new sense of resolve!  With a little less enthusiasm, I got back on the bike and returned to the volcanic ash and rockslides, and found the turnoff for the bridge.  It was a narrow suspension bridge, barely wide enough for a car, and the wooden planks were laid lengthwise, rather than across like on most bridges.  The bridge looked passable at first.  There were a couple planks missing, but nothing too bad.  My eyes continued to pan across, and that´s when I saw the last 20 feet of the bridge; and the solitary plank laying in the center.  The little-old-lady´s voice chimed in, "...you're probably going to die."  I couldn't have said it more eloquently.  Looks like I'm backtracking!

After two days of checking out waterfalls, riding my bike on horse-trails, and visiting Baños' volcano-heated hot springs (think big cement bathtub with more people in it than water), I made my way to Cuenca.  My stomach didn't feel right when I was packing my bike in Baños, and things became really bad, really fast, once I was on the road.  I was forced to call it a day at only forty-five minutes into the six hour journey.  (Yes, probably more information than you needed to know, but everyday isn't as nice as the pictures!)  I spent the night in Ambato, and continued my journey to Cuenca the following morning.  My stomach problems continued as well.  After more than a day of not eating anything, the antibiotics finally kicked in, and I was able to stuff my face at dinner the way I'm accustomed to.  In Cuenca, I met up with two other bikers from Toronto, Moe and Mike.  They've been on the road for six weeks and expect to be in Ushuaia by January.

Riding south from Cuenca to Vilcabamba, I stopped in the small town of Saraguro for lunch.  As I walked out of the restaurant, a nearby elementary school was being let out.  Within seconds, I was surrounded by two dozen kids in their blue and grey school uniforms, complete with backpacks in tow.  The majority were between six and nine years old and they stared at me as if I were an alien.  I guess the combination of being 6ft tall and having red hair, along with being dressed in full motorcycle attire and riding a "huge" bike by Ecuadorian standards, probably does make me an alien of sorts.  The kids took a lot of interest in the paper map on my tank bag, so I laid it out on the ground for them to see.  As they each struggled to get close enough to point at and name a different place on the map, I took my camera out and showed them pictures from different parts of the country.  After checking out the map, we had an impromptu English lesson in the street, which mainly involved me repeating the days of the week at least 10 times, and translating simple phrases and greetings from Spanish to English.  They seemed to get a kick out of my accent, and they were incredibly enthusiastic.  I only wish my students in Guatemala were as eager. 

One of the younger girls asked me how long I had been traveling for, and when I told her that I started in May, she counted the months out from May to December on her fingers, and then stood there silently for a moment, before exclaiming with big eyes, "That's a very long time!"  One of the boys asked me how much my bike cost, and when I told him, he seemed completely shocked.  Not in a "trillion-million dollars" type way, but in the way that he knows and can appreciate how much things cost in life:  Something I certainly couldn't do at seven years old.  It's been a while since I've been around kids, but I was really blown away by how these children seemingly understood and could appreciate what are typically abstract ideas to children: time, distance, money, etc.  In a way, I felt like I was talking with people two or three times their age.  The group of boys in the picture below, hung around the longest, and asked,"When are you leaving town?"  When I replied, "In 15 minutes or so", they looked truly disappointed, as if they had wanted to swap stories over a beer or something.  

When I think about it, most of the children I've seen or met, have all seemed much older than they are.  Whether it's really young kids trudging along a muddy mountain road in the rain on their way home from school, herding goats or cattle, roaming or working in the streets of a city, or working in restaurants and stores alongside their parents, they definitely seem to grow up fast.  I can remember sitting down at a small eatery in a market back in Nicaragua.  As I sat and waited, I watched the 6 or 7 year old waitress in the comedor next door take the order of the two men that had just sat down.  She walked, talked, stood, and had all the mannerisms of someone in their late teens; complete with attitude.  She had just finished listing off the meals of the day, and one of the guys asked her to repeat something.  She sighed, gave the guy a look like, "You must be kidding me," rolled her eyes, and then rattled off the meals of the day again, though this time she counted off each meal by bending a different finger back on her hand.  She went back into the kitchen and recited the order to the cook, who I assume was her mother, and then came back out to jokingly give the guys a hard time about something.  When the meal was all said and done, she accepted payment, held each bill up to the light, presumably checking for counterfeit money, then wished them a nice day. 

The hour I spent with the kids in Saraguro was a lot of fun and as I road out of town I couldn't have been happier with how the day turned out.  It always amazes me how the most memorable moments of the trip are found when I least expect them.  They´re not places I've read about in guidebooks, and they´re not things I can take pictures of.  They're the chance conversations I've had with people at bus stops, teaching spanish to children in the street, and all the other faces I've seen and personalities I've met along the way.

On The Road In Peru!

As I crested the last ridge and dropped into the river valley dividing Ecuador and Peru, I was thrilled to see a bridge with small sheds on either side, and with two draw-arms blocking access from each side.  Someone actually works here!  Six hours earlier, I had left Vilcabamba not knowing what I would find at the crossing.  My map showed a road, but neither of my maps showed the symbol for a "border post," as there was at the two other crossings west of here.  Often times, the remote crossings don't have immigration offices to stamp passports or aduana offices to do paperwork for the bike.  I'm not sure how this means for the residents of the two border countries, but as a foreigner, I need my passport stamped.  So when I left Vilcabamba I accepted the fact that I might be making a return trip, but a couple hours into the ride, I was really hoping I wouldn't be taking the same route back.  The road was beautiful, and it was nice to see forests after a couple hundred miles of widespread deforestation, but no route is fun to ride twice, especially when it's six hours each way.

There were two people working on the Ecuadorian side, and they had me on my way in less than five minutes.  One of them lifted the draw-arm and I crossed to the Peruvian draw-arm.  I parked my bike on the bridge and walked over to the cluster of sheds that was the Peruvian border post.  The immigration official welcomed me with a complementary soda and some fresh pineapple.  I need to go to remote border crossing more often!  I hung around and chatted with the guy for a while, and then walked to the aduana who's office door was three feet from the immigration office.  The office was closed.  I knew this was too good to be true. It's not the end of the world to have to wait a bit, but when it's 3pm, and the first town with a place to sleep is an unknown distance from the border, on a road of unknown condition, I start to get a little concerned; especially when I've waited for several hours, on several occasions, for a person to come back to the office.  

I poked my head back into the immigration office and asked if he knew where the aduana guy was.  "Oh, he's probably sleeping.  There's so few people coming through here that we usually sleep until a bus is scheduled to come through.  See the two story building in town with the red roof, go knock on the door and he'll come back to the office."  I need a job like that!  One where you can just go to sleep when there's nothing to do.  Wait, I did have a job like that: Marine Corps Infantry.  Actually, now that I think about it, I'll pass.  I wasn't sure if waking this guy from his beauty sleep was the best way to make friends and ensure a speedy crossing, or if I'd be better off just waiting for him to wake up on his own, but I walked the 200 yards into the cluster of houses and stores that was the town, and knocked on the door.  When he poked his head out the second story window, with a face that said, "I'm less than happy right now," I wasn't sure if I had just made a really long day for myself or not.  He said he'd be at the office in five minutes, and as I walked back to the offices, I glanced at the bridge wondering if it would be my roof for the night.  Ten minutes later, he arrived at the office and he was actually smiling!  Another ten minutes and I was on my way.

I've been in Peru for a couple days now, and although I don't have any specific stories to tell at this time, Peru has had some of the best riding of the trip.  Ecuador had very few North to South routes aside from the Panamerica.  I made several loops off of the Panamerica in Ecuador, but all southerly progress was made on the highway.  In Peru, the route options are limitless, so it's great to be off the beaten path, but still making progress south.  Like Colombia and Ecuador, the people of Peru are friendly and inquisitive, and its a pleasure to stop in the small towns and meet people.  I have a ton of pictures to share from the last couple of days.  I apologize if it's picture after picture of winding roads hugging the sides of mountains, but that's what the last 14 hours of riding has consisted of...and I'm not complaining!

Rough Rides In Peru

New Pics Added on December 16th- I added 30+ pics (I got a little click happy with the camera) of my 11 hour ride through the Cordillera Blanca yesterday. Peru just keeps getting better and better!  Here's a preview:

 

Now, back to the December 14th post, "Rough Rides in Peru":

The going has been painfully slow over the last couple days.  The combination of afternoon showers, slow roads, bad luck, and lack of detail on my map, has turned what I thought would be a 2-3 day jaunt, into a 5+ day odyssey.  The ride has been incredible, but it's still disappointing to see that you've only moved an inch on the map after 8-11 hours in the saddle.

Three nights ago, I went to bed with high hopes of getting up early, knocking out an 11 hour day, and actually getting somewhere.  Since I still haven't got around to buying an alarm clock of some sort, I went with the chug-a-lot-of-water-before-bed method.  My timing was off though, and I was up at 3am and chugging more water.  I woke up at 7am, an hour later than I had hoped, and went outside to load the bike.   "Son of a ___ !"  After more than 21,000 miles, 17,500 of which have been on this trip, I had my first flat. (not counting the two flats Kali and I had with the rental car in Costa Rica)  A quick inspection revealed a nail in the rear tire.  Just two days before, I wrote an email to someone who commented on my last post, saying how I hadn't had any problems with the bike: not even a flat tire.  Ironic, yes.  Entirely unexpected, no.  With the words in that email, I practically hammered the nail into the tire myself.  My mind flashed back to all of the rear-tire-changes that had lasted several hours, and all hopes of covering ground that day disappeared.  On a high note, I was parked in the hotel parking lot and not on the side of the road in a downpour.  Surprisingly, after a little more than an hour of work while entertaining the questions of every hotel guest that walked by, I had a new tube in place and the bike was ready to go.

Once I was on the road, any feeling of needing to get somewhere disappeared.  The area was really picturesque and not something I wanted to race through.  Off the main dirt road, was a slightly rougher road that meandered up a hill and begged to be explored.  I decided to check it out, and slowly navigated over and around the jagged rocks and mud pools to the crest of the hill.  The road ended there, but I could see where tires had flattened down tracks in the grass.  The tracks sprawled out in all directions so I figured that from this point on it was somewhat of a free for all.  I road out into the meadow to the top of a hill that provided perfect views of the rolling hills surrounding me.  The vast terrain draws me in every time, and I have the feeling of contentment with just being there.  At 12,000 feet, the world has a different feel.  Even without an altimeter I could give a reasonable guesstimate of the elevation.  The air is thin and brisk, and each breath leaves a hollow feeling in your chest.  The colors are different as well.  The natural greens (not planted crops) are a dulled green.  Browns are equally muted, and it's as if you are looking a the world through a filtered lens that gives everything a hint of gray.  While enjoying the views, I fired up my stove, and cooked up some soup and some instant coffee.  I couldn't think of a better place to have breakfast.

After breakfast, I found my way back to the main dirt road.  After rounding a couple hills, I spotted a bus parked a ways off the road, and it looked like all of its passengers were gathered around the outside, with their possessions strewn about.  I really wasn't sure what was going on at first, but as I got closer, I saw other cars and pickup trucks parked there as well.  I finally got close enough to see that it was a market.  I was a little baffled at first, being that I was in the middle of nowhere, but I spoke with a couple guys who explained that the market happens once a week, and all the surrounding villages come to meet there.  Always on the lookout for something to eat, I wandered between the blankets covered in various goods, but was disappointed that a lot of what was being sold could be found at a convenience store.  I've been in the situation countless times now, but there is still something slightly uncomfortable about being the center of attention.  As always, everyone was really friendly, but it still has that walking into a bar and having the music stop kind of feel.  I ended up grabbing an apple, and a bag of caramelized puffed wheat. (think Kellogg's Smacks cereal, but with much bigger puffs) 

The day continued along the same winding dirt road, and I was making the typical slow progress.  Many towns have one main road cutting through the center, but the bigger ones offer their own little maze.  Usually the main road leads to the central plaza, but from that point, you have to guess which of the seven other roads exiting from the corners of the plaza, is the road leading out of town.  People are more than eager to help when I'm not too stubborn to ask, so I always find my way out one way or another.

About halfway between towns, my front tire washed out in some mud, and I crashed my bike.  I was riding along the right edge of the road (no cliff edge this time) and when my bike went down, the right pannier collided with the end of a large log, that was laying there as a border to the road.  The log hit the front of my pannier like a battering ram and sheared the right pannier rack in two places, and cracked it in a third place.  Believe it or not, the broken pannier rack was actually the best case scenario.  If the bike had fallen to the right a half a second faster, the battering ram would have collided with the bike's oil-cooler, and/or my shin, knee, or thigh.  I'll take a cracked pannier rack any day over the alternative.  With two of the three load bearing arms broken, and the third held on by a bead of weld, I took out some nylon straps and tied off the pannier to the bike, so that when the weld eventually let go, the box wouldn't fall off completely. 

I drove to the next town at a snails pace to limit the bouncing and stress on the remaining support.  I found a welder in the next town, and after almost 2 hours of bending and welding, the racks were repaired and just as crooked as they were since I high-sided it (when you get sent forward off the bike) riding with Omer in Guatemala.  As I loaded the bike back up at the welders, I eyed my map and saw two towns further down the road.  The welder told me that it was 45 minutes to the first town, and 4 hours from there to the next town.  Did I hear him right?  4 hours?  On the map, it looks like the same distance as the 45 minute stretch of road.  He explained that although the two towns can nearly see each other, there's a huge river valley between the two.  I didn't have my heart set on getting to the second town that day or anything, but the fact that a 4 hour ride would only get me a stones throw away, was still a little discouraging.

I arrived in the next town, 45 minutes later as promised, and I could see what the 4 hours was all about.  The far side of the valley was crisscrossed with switchbacks that rivaled any others I've seen on this trip.  It was 5:00pm, and I asked a couple guys hanging around the plaza if there were any places to stay at the bottom of the river valley.  I was hoping that I could make the decent that evening and continue with the ascent in the morning.  There weren't any hotels, but they did offer more favorable estimations of ride times that ranged from 2.5 to 3 hours.  Even with their best estimate, I would be arriving in the dark, and the switchbacks didn't seem like the best place to be riding at night.  Yet, instead of the voice of reason encouraging me to refrain from doing something, some other voice was telling me to go for it.  So that's what I did.  I left the plaza around 5:15pm and told myself I'd make it before dark, which was around 6:45pm.  I'm not sure why I put such unnecessary pressures on myself, but it gets the adrenaline going, as weird as that may sound.  I rode fairly quickly, but the loose sand, gravel, and rocks had me crawling through the hairpins.  I completed the descent in about 45 minutes, crossed the bridge, and made it through the ascent in 30 minutes.  By this time the sun was certainly setting, and I followed another cliff-hugger to the town.

The road curved slightly as it traced the contours of the mountainside, and as the road curved left yet again, I rounded the turn and heard myself say aloud, "Oh...My...God".  I was then left speechless, thoughtless, and in shear awe, as I gazed at one of the most incredible natural spectacles I have ever witnessed.  I have never seen, nor could I have ever imagined, a more amazing sunset.  Pixar couldn't animate a more awe-inspiring sunset.  If I knew the names of any famous painters, I'd say that they couldn't paint a more perfect sunset.  After a couple minutes of admiring the intense reds and oranges, I thought back on the flat tire that pushed the ride back an hour, the cracked pannier rack that set me back more than 2 hours, and the voice telling me to go for it.  If all that hadn't happened the way it did, I would have arrived too early and missed it, or I would have been staged in a hotel back across the valley.  Divine intervention?  Tire-popping angels?  The voice of God?  Sorry, but I'm still not convinced.  I was simply reminded that this journey isn't and has never been about a destination.  Just because a route that I thought would take 2-3 days, has taken 5 and counting, there's no reason to rush things or feel like I need to get somewhere.  Things will happen the way they do, and as always, the best parts of the trip have happened when I've least expected it.

As a follow-up, the following day (yesterday) I had another spill.  I was riding along a cliff-hugger, and a gust of wind pushed me into the loose rubble that's piled up between the two tire tracks.  Once your front tire hits that stuff, it's all over, and you're just going along for the ride. The gust blew me towards the mountain and away from the cliff's edge, but the bike came down hard on my left leg, and pinned it under the pannier.  I managed to get my leg out from underneath the bike, and hit the kill switch to shut off the motor.  My leg was definitely hurting, but I was able to stand and get the bike upright.  I straightened the front end out and continued on my way.  About two minutes down the road, I started to feel really nauseous and my leg started to throb.  I pulled over, got my helmet off and sat on the side of the road.  After a while, the nausea went away but my leg was still throbbing.  I'm not sure what brought on the nausea: My body may have been coming down from the surge of adrenaline that flowed through me during the crash, or it may have been the realization that if the bike went right after hitting the rubble, I wouldn't be writing this right now.  While resting I saw that my left pannier was more badly damaged than the right one was the day before.  It hadn't cracked, but was so badly bent that I couldn't get the lid open.  I pressed on for 8 more hours, 2 hours of which was spent on a wrong turn that brought me up 7,000ft feet of switchbacks, and then right back down again.  It rained for the entire descent as well.  I road on rough dirt and rock for 11 hours yesterday, all of it sitting because I couldn't stand, so today is a day off from riding: My butt and my body need it.  I'm in the town of Caraz, at the north end of the Cordillera Blanca, and I'm hoping I can find another welder that is open on Sunday.  If I can get the rack fixed today, I'm going to head into the Cordillera Blanca tomorrow.  Until next time...

To Protect and to Serve

December 27th Update: New pictures added from Machu Picchu and my last ride in Peru

The road from Huaraz to the coast was paved and plunged from over 13,000ft to sea-level in just over four hours.  Since the descent was spread out over 100kms, rather than 10kms, the road was a lot more relaxing than riding the usual switchbacks, and the pavement helped me cover some ground.  For brunch I stopped at a roadside restaurant in a small town, and the woman who owned it came to the front door to greet me.  "Oh Gringo, Bienvenidos!" she said with her arms raised in the air and with all the enthusiasm of an Italian grandmother welcoming home her long-lost grandson.  She promised to cook me the local specialty: another variation of chicken and white rice.  While enjoying my meal, her daughter, who was probably in her 20's, arrived and said a shy hello.  She went back outside and I finished my meal.  I thanked the woman for my lunch, and headed out to the bike.  As I stripped off some of the layers that had kept me warm that morning, the daughter returned with four friends and they asked if they could each get a picture with me.  All of them, the mom included, were acting like giddy school children, and I heard "Gringo guapo" quite a bit amongst their banter.  I felt like Brad Pitt!  I've had a handful of people ask to take pictures of me because of my red hair, but no one has ever been borderline ecstatic over my presence.  It was a lot of fun being a star for 5 minutes, and I have to admit that I felt pretty cool as I rode away. 

As I was plodding down the Panamericana, through a desert landscape that could easily pass for North Africa, I crested a slight hill and low and behold, there was a police 4x4 waiting on the other side.  They waived me over, and I cautiously slowed down and pulled off the road, hoping that the pick-up truck and SUV tailgating me wouldn't hit me.  I took off my helmet and gloves, put on a fake smile, and greeted the Police officers as if it was the highlight of my day. 

They started with the usual battery of questions:  Where are you coming from?  Where are you going?  What kind of bike is that?  Then they told me that I was going 73kmh in a 45kmh zone and asked if I saw the sign.  I explained that I didn't see the sign, and then I decided to get a little creative with my Spanish and said, "With the two trucks on my ass, I thought that I was driving too slow!"  As the words came out of my mouth, I realized that the Spanish word "en" can mean "on" or "in", which could explain the unusual look the cops gave me.  One of them went back to his post along the roadside, while the other told me to get my paperwork and meet him by the truck.  Having a bad feeling about the situation, I took this moment to empty all but 30 soles ($10 USD) from my wallet.  I grabbed all my paperwork and grudgingly made my way to the cruiser, wondering what games were about to be played.

The officer took my license and picked up a stack of licenses that were rubber-banded together and resting on the dashboard.  He explained that those licenses belonged to the other people they had given tickets to, and that it's standard protocol to withhold the license until the fine is paid.  That's a nice story, but I can think of a lot of other reasons why a cop would have a stack of confiscated driver´s licenses: fakes, expired, etc.  He added mine to the stack and placed the pile back on the dash.  He began writing me a ticket for 330 soles, or $110 USD, and explained that I had to go to a town back North on the Panamericana, pay the fine in an office there, and then return for my license.  "I don't live here.  How am I supposed to find an office in some distant town and pay the fine?  I'm going to get lost, and you won't be here when I get back", I said to further the game along. 

"Hmm, well how about you get into the truck, we'll bring you to get your money and bring you to the office," he replied. 

"Thank you sir, but I'm not going to leave my bike here." 

"Well how about I get on your bike with you, and show you how to get to the office." 

"Sir, there isn't enough room on my bike for two people."  I was hoping that response would finally get him to the punchline, and it did. 

"Well, you can pay me the 330 soles, and I can give you your license back right now!"  How convenient! 

"I have an idea, we can go to the police station, and I can give your boss the $330 soles, and then you can give me my license back.  But  I am not going to give you 330 soles here on the side of the road."

  He didn't seem to like my suggestion, and said, "What else can we do about this?  I want to help you get your license back." 

"I think we should forget about the whole thing.  I know what the signs look like now and I will drive more carefully." 

"So you want me to annul the ticket?" 

"Yes, I think that is best" 

"Ok,", and he tore up the ticket and handed me my license back.  Are you serious?  After giving me my license, he looked at me and said, "You should invite us to lunch."  I understood exactly what he said, but pretended to misunderstand him. 

"Thank you for the invitation sir, that is very generous, but I ate an hour ago, and I really need to continue my trip."  I'm not sure how much he believed that I misinterpreted him, but he said, "Go, my friend."  I turned and walked away trying to hide the smile on my face.  I'm pretty sure the cop was seething with frustration at my last comment, and I had felt like I had redeemed myself after paying off the cop in Costa Rica! 

Ironically, before my trip, I made a fake drivers license specifically for circumstances like these, that way I can bluff and drive off with the promise of returning for my license.  I keep it in my wallet at all times...except for when I actually needed it of course!  I always put my real license into my wallet at border crossings since the officials there are usually trustworthy.  But when I entered Peru a couple weeks ago, I forgot to put the fake one back into my wallet after I had crossed.  In addition, all three of my expendable international drivers licenses, were buried at the bottom of my panniers. 

The Panamericana continued through the desert and followed the coast.  This area certainly makes it on my list of, "Top-ten most depressing places to live."  I was forced to drive though Lima, the capital city, and aside from a seemingly endless traffic jam, it wasn't as bad as driving through some other cities.  At least the highway goes through the city, rather than dump into the urban sprawl.

The next day I cut back inland and out of the desert.  The desert was a nice change of scenery for a day, but I was happy to be heading back into the mountains.  I stopped in the plaza of another small and pleasant mountain town for lunch.  Four local guys were at the restaurant and they invited me to sit with them.  I shared the story of the police encounter and they were laughing out loud at the part when I told the cop I'd give the money to his boss.  They said 330 soles was way too much, and that it was abuse.  I then told them about how the office asked me to buy them lunch.  "What?  They wanted you to buy them a lunch! That's ridiculous!  You only have to buy them a soda if they don't write you a ticket!" 

Just in case anyone had the illusion that every day is sunny, warm, and beautiful, here's a couple pics from the rest of my ride that day.  As I continued to ascend to 15,500ft in the mountains, the clouds moved in and drenched me with rain, then freezing rain, and then hail and ice.   I'll openly admit that the icy roads, brutal winds, and freezing temps made for an absolutely miserable ride, but in hindsight and from the warmth of an internet cafe, I can say that it was exactly what I was looking and hoping for in my South American adventure!   

Happy New Year!

From Ayacucho, Peru, the city I arrived in after the ice storm, I drove east for two days and arrived in the city of Cusco.  The ride was picturesque, but I couldn't help but think about how spoiled I've become.  After riding amongst the snow-capped peaks of the Cordillera Blanca, the less profound rolling hills and farms that lined the 14 hour route, seemed merely so-so; when only a couple weeks ago they would have been mind blowing.

In keeping with what has seemingly become tradition for me in Peru, I had another spill while enroute to Cusco.  This time it was on pavement: the first of its kind...yeah! (sarcasm)  I think I may have been overly excited to be on blacktop again, especially on a really curvy road, and I pushed it a little too hard into an uphill switchback.  It was a really tight turn, so I wasn't going very fast, but I leaned it over far enough to have the bike wash out on me.  The car behind me stopped to see if I was OK, and when they saw that I was alright, the father and son were really excited to tell me about how far I leaned into the turn.  They said that my right pannier hit the ground and then I crashed, but I'm still not sure if the tires had lost traction before the pannier hit.  Regardless of how it happened, I know for a fact that the CE armor in my jacket saved my elbow, which more than a week later is still bruised and sore but not broken.

I spent Christmas Eve day at Machu Picchu, and returned to Cusco around 11:30 that evening.  Christmas Eve was not at all like I had expected it to be.  I pictured the entire city being shut down and people at home with their families.  That wasn't the case at all.  The main plaza was closed to traffic, and filled with people.  There were vendors selling fireworks, moss that is burned as an incense, food and hot chocolate, and on top of that, thousands of people descended from local towns and slept in the plaza.  They didn't have tents, but were packed in tightly with blankets under the overhangs of the stores and restaurants facing the plaza.  The scene took on a party type atmosphere that I truly never expected.  Christmas day in Cusco was similar.  Many places didn't open until noon, and many remained closed, but I originally thought I'd have a hard time finding food on Christmas day with how religious South America is.

The day after Christmas, I road through the altiplano (high plains) to the border of Bolivia.  While enroute, my mind wandered back to the experiences I had in Peru.  While I don't think I'll ever be able to make a blanket statement such as, "____ was my favorite country," I can comfortably say that Peru delivered everything I had both consciously and subconsciously wanted to experience on this trip:  Amazing landscapes that ranged from the desert to massive mountains and glaciers, challenging roads, good and bad weather, very long rides, minor bike problems (cracked pannier frames and a flat tire), friendly and welcoming people, corrupt police, and a genuine feeling of South American authenticity.  On top of all that, it was really inexpensive. (Aside from Cusco and anything related to Machu Picchu.  Even that was inexpensive to American standards, but not from a budget travel standpoint) 

Crossing into Bolivia was pretty straightforward.  An archway over the road marked the border, and both the Peruvian and Bolivian migration and aduana offices were well marked and logically located within meters of the arch on their respective side of the border.  The $130 Bolivian visa was a bit of a surprise.  Actually, I knew it was coming, but actually handing over 4-7 days of living expenses for a sticker in my passport was much more painful than it sounded when I was planning this trip.

My route in Bolivia took me to Copacabana, a small town on the shores of the beautiful Lake Titicaca, which is the world's highest navigable lake.  From there I road northeast to the town of Sorata.  The road to Sorata runs parallel to a mountain range that has some of Bolivia's highest peaks, but heavy fog ruined any chance I had of catching a glimpse.  I returned down the same road the following day while enroute to La Paz, and the peaks poked through the clouds from time to time.  There was a ridge between me and the mountains that the clouds seemed to cling to, so I turned of the main road and headed towards the ridge line via paths through farm fields.  I was hoping to find a way to get over the ridge, but after being stuck in the mud several times (see video) in just the first couple minutes, there was no way I could make it to the ridge, and make it to La Paz in time to meet my friend Jurri.

I met Jurri on my way to Machu Picchu in Peru.  He's from the Neatherlands and backpacking around South America for several weeks.  His father is the Dutch Ambassador to Bolivia, so he's visiting his parents during his trip as well.  While we were at Machu Picchu, he invited me to stay at the Ambassador's residence with he and his parents.  I've been here for several days and have really had a nice time.  The house is amazing, to say the least, and their hospitality has been overwhelming.  The night I arrived, they treated me to a steak dinner at one of La Paz's finest restaurants, and it was unquestionably the best meal I have had in a very, very, long time.

The following day, Jurri, Malik (a family friend) and I, went on a mountain-biking on Bolivia's famous "Death Road".  The ride began way up in the mountains, where it was snowing, and finished in a hot and humid tropical clime in the town of Corocoi.  At this time the "Death Road" isn't overly dangerous, but I can see why there were so many fatalities when it was the primary road from La Paz to Corocoi.  Actually, the ride back in the van on the paved road was infinitely more scary than the ride down on the bike.  The combination of having a driver with really heavy eye lids, and the worst fog I've seen to date, made for a really attentive ride back, and I don't think anyone was able to relax.

We spent the day roaming around the city yesterday, and we're going to a Dutch owned bar/restaurant to celebrate New Years Eve tonight.  Happy New Year!  Until next time...