… in the words of Jim Morrison…
This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end…..
…ahh but I’m getting ahead of myself, last time I wrote I was still in Puno, this is another long one by the way so you might want to get a mug of tea, or a beer or something before reading any further…
right then… you know all that stuff I said in Juli about no early starts and keeping my daily distance relatively low… bollocks, all of it, in future I think you best not pay attention to anything I write… ;-) I’ve been getting up before 7am and riding some long days… The rest in Puno did me a lot of good, I got my legs back.. well, to a degree anyway, and the journey to Cuzco was magic.. apart from the bit between Puno and Juliaca.. that was just a busy bad road and Juliaca itself very much lived up to it’s reputation as a bit of dump.. But no matter, all part of the journey :-)
Between Juliaca and the small town of Ayaviri was just 100km of open altiplano at about 4000m, not particularly exciting and the road was in pretty poor condition, a bit of a slog but a necessary one.
Ayaviri however turned out to be a gem of a town. No tourists would ever stop there so it’s very much a genuine Peruvian hill town full of good natured people with a bustling market in the streets around the plaza.
Leaving Ayaviri the next day I rode the first 10km out of town with a young chap on his chinese-built boneshaker. He was a school teacher heading out to a village school for the day, we chatted as we cruised across the altiplano in the early morning chill. Shortly after he left me I came across another chap with a bicycle sitting in the grass at the side of the road eating a packet of biscuits.. turned out to be Pete from the UK on his way from Tierra del Fuego to “not entirely sure, probably Mexico.. via Venezuela etc”. He was riding a lovely bike, a custom Roberts with a Rohloff hub, mmmm :-) Having said that my Thorn Nomad has been a sublime tool for this trip and with a number of interesting journeys under it’s wheels now it has acquired a nice ‘patina’ that tells of a useful life. Pete also turned out to be pretty handy with his Charango.. at the time I did wonder what was in that little stripey bag on the back of his bike.. all was revealed later in the evening.
By default Pete and I joined forces for the remaining few hundred km to Cuzco, random company is always a good thing and especially here, other than James, Kate and Malena I’ve not met another cyclist since leaving Salta.
The road from Ayaviri started to climb significantly through fabulous scenery from the little pueblo of Santa Rosa to the high point of the day – the Abra la Raya at around 14500ft.
Although not desperately steep, probably no more than a 6% grade the altitude required a little effort… although we didn’t help ourselves, with the UK elections so close we were talking the whole way up, and still chatting away at the summit when a tour bus pulled up and discharged it’s load of tourists all stumbling around breathlessly in the thin air :-) Most just stared at us as we sat on an old stone wall eating lunch, though one Japanese chap did say hello which was nice. By virtue of stopping for a half hour we also became something of a novel focus for a quintessential village idiot character wandering around up there who simply stood and giggled at us, an unfortunate fact of life in this part of the world. Despite our gentle protestations he insisted on standing upwind of us… so with wrinkled noses lunch was finished quickly and off we went looking forward to the descent down to Sicuani, some 3000ft lower :-)
Sadly a strong headwind robbed us of some of the pleasure of a fast descent but that was more than compensated for by meeting four friends from Quito making their way south on bicycles. The plan for their trip was to visit all the major waterfalls in South America, very much an original premise. Like the gang of Colombians I met in the Quebrada de Cafayate they were an inspiring bunch with just basic equipment and ‘panniers’ made from plastic oil/water barrels fixed to their bikes with strips of bent aluminium. Dead simple, very cheap and very effective. I love meeting folk on the road, it’s pretty special… at the risk of sounding like a pretentious twit we are all part of a global brotherhood of two-wheeled travellers :-)
So, into Sicuani after almost 6hrs of cycling, almost 8hrs on the road. Nothing special about the town but it has a nice situation in a cultivated valley alongside the Rio Vilcanota. As in so many places, and judging by the stares, I doubt they see many travellers… but the locals turned out, as usual, to be a friendly bunch. We found a basic place to stay for £1.50, no hot water of course but no big deal. Dinner was the usual local affair of a bowl of soup with some chicken feet and the odd kidney floating around in it followed by a quarter chicken and cold, greasy fries… hmm, it filled a hole :-) I could have cooked something I suppose but I left my fuel bottle empty since leaving Bolivia. This whole part of Peru is heavily cultivated/populated so I made no plans for camping. While eating 3 very drunk locals staggered in, one in particular barely able to stand came and propped himself up on our table for a chat… it last 5-10 minutes or so but was pretty much limited to him asking if we were from Australia and us telling him we were from England.. he was very much an alcoholic stuck record… probably a bus or truck driver about to go on shift :-)
Next morning, figuring we had an easy day of between 90 and 100km along the river to Urcos we didn’t leave town till 9.30am after a breakfast of bread, jam and yoghurt. We were also delayed slightly by a crazy and very noisy parade of hundreds of the three-wheel moto-taxis all adorned with balloons and streamers and so on.. no idea what it was about but the screeching horns were deafening.. I’ve got some video so I’ll post that directly.
We really were looking forward to a pleasant day of crusing through beautiful mountain scenery… hah, should have known better. The wind was near gale force from the north, a direct headwind funnelled through the Vilcanota river valley. In the end despite the relative lack of altitude (around 3500m) and only a few short climbs our average speed was lower than the previous day of climbing.. a result of the wind and weary legs. The scenery was typically fab however and we enjoyed a very pleasant lunch stop in the plaza of the pretty little pueblo of Checacupe about 50km from Sicuani.
Urcos turned out to be another pleasant little town, again no tourists at all so very genuine, everybody was friendly, we found a nice little place to stay with colourful blankets depicting lions and bears and so on. Terrific value at less than £2 for the night … with hot water :-) Amusing to sit in a little cafe on the plaza for dinner admiring the combination of chickens turning over a wood fire with religious iconry, soft porn and horses decorating the walls :-)
From Urcos then… just 50km to Cuzco, the first half through an increasingly heavily populated valley with an obvious transition after about half distance from the openly friendly country folk to people occasionally exhibiting an open distaste for gringos… a sad consequence of tourism I suppose, and in one case we were subject to very western, very rude gestures for no reason at all other than being there. Ho hum.
Riding into Cuzco itself was the usual developing country scrum of smoggy buses, trucks, cars and motorbikes.. 20km of it. It also began to rain – seems the wet season hasn’t quite finished with this part of the Andes. It was while riding this busy stretch that the most remarkable thing happened.. something that as a cyclist I will never forget… a local taxi driver stopped and gave way to me at a junction.. unbelievable :-) that has never happened before anywhere in S America.. or anywhere in the world for that matter, not from a taxi-cab. He was smiling as he waved me across… more than compensation for the miserable sod back down the road with his one finger salute :-)
Riding into the historic centre of Cuzco was magic, I’ve been here before but the majesty of the plaza still takes my breath away (photos in a few days…). I must admit I very much enjoyed a victory lap of the plaza on the wet cobblestones followed by an obligatory photo in front of the cathedral before heading to a nearby pizza restaurant for a celebratory pizza (what else), beers, apple pie and icecream.
My odometer showed 6005km cycled from Puerto Montt as I parked my bike outside the restaurant. Not as far as I expected, but only because I got sick in Oruro and then too lazy to make the big detour to Arequipa :-) So.. the end of my journey… but not the end of my riding. I will dump my camping gear here before heading down into the Sacred Valley of the Incas for a few days. Decided not to visit Macchu Piccu again, there is a risk that with the new tourist development and so on it may spoil my memories of 12 years ago when I hiked in on a quiet, unregulated Inca Trail just before sunrise to enjoy the magnificence of the place in peaceful solitude.
With a bit of luck my rear wheel will last another couple of hundred km… 3 days ago the rear brake started grabbing on one spot of the rim, to the eye the rim is perfectly true but pulling the tyre and rim tape off revealed a crack growing on the inside of the rim.. hence the brake grabbing as the rim walls begin to spread outwards. I’m lucky it’s taken ’till now to fail. 7 years use on some pretty bloody awful roads, and in particular this journey some 1600km approx on ripio and dirt tracks with a full load, at times with an additional 10kg of water on the back. I’m not going to complain :-)
so that’s it really, it’s been a wonderful journey but also sad that it is over. I’ve cycled most of the Andes… just the Carretera Austral south of Puerto Montt to knock off one of these days, and then I suppose Central America would be the obvious next destination… For the immediate future however I am looking forward to some relaxed street photography around Cuzco and then a summer in my kayak, on my bike and on the beach at home :-)
Stay tuned, hasta pronto!
p.s. by the way, if you haven’t sponsored me for Shelterbox yet and have a £ or two to spare.. now might be a good time {hint}…I know you will ;-) As usual that big blue button at top right should do the trick.
p.p.s Cuzco being the place it is I suppose it was inevitable I’d meet someone I knew… in this case the two Aussie lasses I met in Salta and again on the shores of Titicaca. Drinky time I think… ;-)
