It’s been a while so I think I will split this into two posts… one today and one tomorrow. When I last wrote I was in Espinar and planning a slightly easier route for a while in the hope that it would help me get rid of the lingering chest bug… but there was still the matter of a 4700m pass to get over in order to get away from Espinar and find that mellower …
Cycle Touring Archive
Dia de la Bandera – A Photo Essay
Street photography from Dia de la Bandera (Flag Day) in the town of Espinar, high in the Andes of southern Peru.
Onwards and Upwards…
.. at last. I was able to leave Chivay after just over 2 weeks of convalescence so to speak. Still not 100% and with a persistent chesty cough I decided I was going anyway. I did however take it easy on the first day, just cruising gently back up the valley of the Rio Colca, back to Sibayo at just under 4000m and 36km away. As I cruised slowly up the valley I met an …
Onwards… perhaps
Hopefully this will be my last post from Chivay. It has been two weeks and I feel at something of a crossroads. Yesterday I went for a short spin up the valley on my unloaded bike, just to see how I was… I was OK, but not brilliant. My chest is still bit tight and I have periods of feeling really tired and weak. Whatever that infection was it really screwed me over. Morale is …
A little bit more Chivay
One is still in Chivay. It’s been a week now. The last couple of days I have been navigating the apparent chaos of the Peruvian rural healthcare system, and, having found my way around it I’ve been really happy despite ending up with a large, and somewhat painful needle in my arm… not to mention being told I must not eat any cuy (guinea pig) for the next few days…..! Now, I’m generally shy of …
Chivay
… not unexpectedly, some street photography from Chivay. It’s a lovely little town and so far being forced to stick around hasn’t been a chore, rather the opposite.. although I am having periods of low morale as the days tick by and I still feel weak and chesty… But as always when I spend a bit of time in a place the place seems to make time for me. There are some friendly folk around, …
Arriba…
It was a bit of a late start leaving Arequipa… one last leisurely coffee then a chase around the steep suburbs above the city in search of a ferreteria selling stove fuel (‘ron de quemar’.. essentially ‘rum to burn’ – otherwise known as meths.. at least in the UK), by which time it was lunchtime and made sense to enjoy a set lunch from the cafe adjacent to the ferreteria. It’s a steep climb out …
Arequipa… part 2
We delayed departure from Arequipa by a day to spend a little more time exploring what is a rather wonderful town. There are a ton of riding photos and stories from the road to come tomorrow, I have my feet up in Chivay today, but this set I think are best kept separate from those… so without further ado….. oh no, wait… before that – a couple of recommendations in particular if you’re heading this …
via Arequipa
Hitting the road tomorrow so now seemed like a good opportunity to sling up a quick post with some pics. In Arequipa at present in the south. I had thought I might go north to begin with but the wet season seems to be lingering much longer up that way (it’s an el Niño year)… and purely by chance an old riding friend happened to be flying into Peru from New Mexico earlier this week …
Revisiting Summer
Having been utterly lacking with regard to motivation to write anything recently I thought I might make the effort to tell a very brief story of a regression to the summers of my childhood. Not that I ever grew up or anything it’s just that those warm summer days with their soundtrack of skylarks high above the fields of ripening wheat and the hum of bees around the wild flowers feel as if they have been …
Summer Nights
Just a couple of snaps from the just past weekend local ‘adventure’ with friends. I was going to include them as part of a post I’m working on that, for once isn’t about me, ha, and that also, for a change, requires me to think a little about what I’m going to write – it’s important you see. I changed my mind however on including them in that post so, while that one sits in my …
A quick spin north
When I last wrote the long range forecast suggested a weather window might form for a sea kayak journey to explore the uninhabited islands and islets that form the most southerly limits of the Outer Hebrides. With a few days in hand in the meantime I decided to hop on my bike and head north from Barra for a few days to explore some favourite places from the landward side, previously only seen from the seat …
Back on Barra
I’m back on the Isle of Barra in the Outer Hebrides for a bit, visiting friends and renewing my acquaintance with this rather wonderful corner of the world. Some folk may remember I spent a summer out here working as a sea kayak guide for local operator Clearwater Paddling (http://www.clearwaterpaddling.com). It is a world class sea kayaking destination and that summer was one of the happiest I can remember – a combination of wild camping …
Patagonia
I’ve been thinking about Patagonia an awful lot recently, and not just because it’s a damp, grey January… There is a little place inside my heart that has Patagonia in it.. I can feel a tug there every time I think about the place. In 2016 I feel as if I must deal with some unfinished riding business in Central Asia .. so I think that’s what I’ll do this year by way of a …
Post-Himalayan Apathy…
It’s always ‘challenging’ returning home after a decent adventure but this time seems to have been, or rather ‘is’, particularly difficult. All I can think about it is the mountains – nothing new there – accompanied by a crippling apathy with respect to what passes for normal life. I’m tired too… really deeply tired so haven’t even been able to get it all out of my system with more riding… or paddling for that matter. Experience says …