It's All Part Of The Adventure

Days 134-137

After our night ride out of the protest area, we arrived in Cuzco at 7am and started our usual search for a hostel with all the necessary prerequisites, in particular parking for the bikes. Emily watched the bikes while Ric wandered around trying to find somewhere, but it took a bit longer than normal and Ric's battery went flat in the process (yes, he left the ignition on). So our first tour of Cuzco involved Emily pushing Ric's bike so he could try to jump start it, down whichever street was most downhill irrespective of one-way conventions. After many failed attempts, Ric rolled round the corner to try to park up, found the best hill yet and with one almighty jump managed to get the bike started. Little did we know at the time that this was just the start of many problems!

The next few days went smoothly, however. We visited the awesome Macchu Picchu, leaving our bikes in a nearby town and taking a train and a steep hike to reach the site (no roads all the way there, unfortunately). The primary icon of Peru was definitely worth the hype (though Emily had been there before), and getting there early to avoid the peak crowds was worth it too. On the way back to Cuzco through “The Sacred Valley” we looked round a number of other Incan sites which were all very cool, but somewhat overshadowed by the superlatives of Macchu Picchu. Cuzco itself is a nice city with lots to see and do (including the famous Norton Rats bikers' bar that was sadly devoid of bikers when we stopped by) but, as we'd been warned by the American family we met in Abancay, very “hassley”.

Days 138-139

From Cuzco we wanted to visit the Colca Canyon. The only all-tarmac route would mean a long way round and doubling back again later so we chose to take the more direct route to Chivay, at the edge of the canyon. We had read that there was a “mostly paved” route somewhere in the region and took a guess from the map at which this was, having tried (not as much as we should) and failed to get local advice on the matter. The route was fairly high altitude – mostly between 4,000 and 4,700m – and although the scenery was beautiful, the thundery hail storms (two of them) were not as pretty and very cold. By mid-afternoon we were getting close, about 60 miles away, but the road really started to deteriorate. We asked some locals how long they thought it would take: “about five hours”. Five hours! With only two and a half hours of sunlight remaining this wasn't the best answer. We rode for about half an hour and bumped into some other locals on dirt bikes. So of course we went for a second opinion: “about five hours”. Eek! Our half an hour's riding had done nothing to reduce the estimate! We decided to carry on as fast as possible and stop at any town that might have a bed, or else find somewhere safe to pitch the tent. Now the road was just a track full of big stones. Emily in particular felt her bike twisting beneath her, and mentioned to Ric on the radio that her bike was bottoming out more than normal. Stopping safely on the big stones was just as tricky as riding across them, but when we came to a clearing Emily rode in front so Ric could check the tyre: flat as a pancake. We set about fixing the tyre, with our little kit and our bike pump but couldn't get a solid fix. The sun was setting and the air getting colder, but as we were stopped we noticed buses and lorries travelling at a reasonably speed on a road crossing our track about 300m away, and more than that we could see a small town! So being extremely careful on the semi-inflated tyre we made our way there, and managed to find very basic lodgings (we're talking outside toilet, no shower). When dinner, bed and breakfast all come in at just four pounds each you can't really complain, though.

The next morning we put more and more plugs into the tyre, pumping it up with the hand pump each time, then finding it still leaked. Eventually we thought we had it so we rode out towards Chivay. Just as we started out onto the reasonably good unpaved road, Ric did an emergency stop. Emily put on her brakes but not much happened – not the best time to discover your assisted breaking is no longer working. She managed to slow down a lot and swerve to the side, and almost got away with it, except for a small clash of the paniers which sent her and her bike sprawling across the road. Ric's reason for stopping was that the GPS had jumped off the bike and he pointed out that, as we had found it between his two tyres, if he had gone any further he would have squished it. Emily felt a bit miffed that the GPS seemed to be more important than her, but she was fine; the breaks are a pain but still work if you just press them harder so we continued on.

The day improved after we reached Chivay and rode into the beautiful Colca Canyon where we were lucky enough to see some of the resident condors flying up on thermals. However, we realised we were still leaking air, so when we got back to Chivay put another plug in the tyre and used the petrol station air to pump it up. Surely we must have it this time, and after a night at rest the pressure was still good.

Days 140-141

From Chivay we wanted to get to Puno on Lake Titicaca and it wasn't too far to go so we were happy to stop at various view points on the way. It was at one such point that we discovered Emily's broken pannier rack. This probably happened when she dropped the bike the day before, or possibly it was weakened and then rattled itself off on all the subsequent bad roads. There wasn't much we could do but tie it up with string so it didn't cause any further damage to the pannier, which it was busy wearing a hole in. As we were about to leave, a German couple pulled up on two BMWs (a 1200 Adventure and 800 GS – both slightly bigger versions of our two bikes, and much more heavily laden). We had a good old chat about biking and the roads to come (apparently some of the Bolivian roads we're planning on taking are really bad); they had also met our French friends a few days before so we already had friends in common! We are going separate ways at the moment but hope to meet up in Chile or Argentina.

So we continued on to Puno, and it wasn't until we were quite close, having stopped at some more ruins on the way, that we discovered Emily had a flat again. We limped into Puno and into a hostel. Just before setting out to find a tyre repair shop and a welder for the pannier rack Emily opened the tail bag, and the zip broke! Sometimes everything just goes wrong. We had the tyre fixed and agreed to do the welding first thing in the morning. First thing in the morning Ric found that the tyre was flat again! So he made another trip to get the tyre fixed again – a stone had worked it's way in probably because of running it so flat – and a bit of time at the welder next door, while Emily fixed the bag for the millionth time this trip, and fingers crossed that now we're sorted. At least all this tyre fixing and welding was very cheap – just over one pound a pop!

From Desert To Darkness!

Day 127-128

In the northern reaches of Peru we interspersed our rather tedious desert rising with a bit of historical culture. The treasures from the tombs around Cliclayo were impressive and the old ruins of Chan Chan and the even older temples of the sun and moon near Trujillo were all worthy distractions.

Days 129-130

From the coast we decided to take a rough dirt road through the Canon del Pato to Huaraz, rather than opt for the wimps' tarmac route. It was a tough ride, but the canyon was stunning and it was definitely worth it – a wonderful variety of hues as we snaked our way up through rough-hewn tunnels carved out of the rock. While we managed the journey without dropping the bikes, the route did claim two victims: the windscreen-dangling turtle that Emily bought Ric for his birthday in the Galapagos took a leap for freedom somewhere; and the bumpy rocky road put cracks in one of Emily's Touratech (Touratrash?) panniers, and more cracks in the one of Ric's that we had fixed at Jorge's in Merida.

Huaraz is apparently backed by an enormous mountain range of crisp white peaks – one of the most beautiful in the world – which remained hidden for our entire stay there. We hung around nonetheless as there happened to be a metal worker round the corner from the hostel and we thought it best to take the time to reinforce all the panniers before taking them any further. They now all weigh about twice what they used to but are seriously strong! The delay also gave us a chance to do some serious re-planning, the conclusion of which was that we need to make haste to fit in everything we want to before the end of the trip.

Days 131-132

Our very friendly hostel owner in Huaraz gave us the address of his parent's place in Lima, suggesting we drop by and stay with them. As we just wanted to pass through the capital and not have to negotiate our way through the more touristy centre this worked out very nicely for us, and the delightful old couple were great hosts.

The desert didn't stop at Lima, and we rode through more and more of it all the way to the Oasis at Huacachina. It's a bit of a touristy spot (more gringos than we'd seen in a long time) but we'd heard good things about buggy and sandboarding trips into the neighbouring sand dunes. Indeed, the trip didn't disappoint and was brilliant on all fronts: being driven round the sand dunes by a near maniac was scream-inducing fun much like being on a rollercoaster; the sandboarding was tricky but worth it (although in the end Ric gave up on the slow and difficult standing-up approach to join in with Emily's faster and easier lying-face-down method); and the scenery of never-ending dunes was spectacular, especially when after a fun few hours the trip ended with watching the sun setting over the rolling sand – awww.

Days 133-134

The following morning we got up very bright and early and headed straight for Nazca aerodrome to get an early flight over the famous Nazca Lines for Ric (not Emily as she did the flight when she was in Peru eight years ago and so decided to save her dollars for something else – a handbag in Cuzco as it turns out...). The flight was great – perfect weather for it and Ric got to sit in the co-pilot seat so had the best view – and he managed to get onto a flight within 5 minutes of arriving which meant, we thought, that we had plenty of time to get to the next stop before dark.

The next stop was the biggest town on the way up to Cuzco, Abancay (Cuzco being too far to realistically make it in one go). As soon as we started out, leaving the dunes and climbing into the mountains we realised we were going to need a long time for the journey: road works all over the road were causing regular 15-minute waits along the road. At one of these we got chatting with the car at the front of the queue (having obviously driven straight to the front ourselves – bikers' privilege!) who told us that the road to Abancay had been closed for the last eight days! They were also hoping to get there though so we got the sense that it might not be entirely closed, but had no idea what the problem actually was. If our Spanish had been better, maybe we would have gotten the full story...

After climbing through roadworks for a good few hours we stopped for lunch. Then, the roadworks stopped and the rain came. We were on a plateau of over 4,500m and it was bitterly cold as well as wet so we made pretty slow progress. We'd asked about the road closure at a petrol station and had been told that the problem was around the next major town on the way to Abancay but that we should hopefully be able to get by on the bikes. There was no other way to go except back, so onward we went. As we dropped off the plateau and the temperature rose a little we started coming across a lot of rocks in the road – piles here and there which looked to be mini landslides.

We got pretty close to the town where we'd heard the main problem was and there were a few lorries waiting there. We went to the front, but with no officials and nobody volunteering any kind of explanation as to why people were waiting we just carried on down the road. This is when the piles of rocks started to get really bad. We figured there must have been an earthquake or something and that was the cause of the closure, though we couldn't fathom why they hadn't been able to clear more than one lane through the rubble in eight days. We then started to see lots of lorries and trucks coming the other way so figured we must be able to carefully pick our way through. We eventually caught up with the lorries going our way and were in the middle of their convey when we started to enter the town. As we got closer we became more perplexed. Here there were other things in the road: bits of lorry, cut down trees, burnt piles of rubble... and then we saw a mass of people at the town entrance, baying for blood, spray painting graffiti on lorries and buses as they slowly crawled through. We were pretty relieved when they cheered us and our bikes on but still didn't want to hang around in the death-mob-town for long so reckoned we'd better brave the impending darkness and carry on to Abancay, well beyond what was supposedly the epicentre of the problems, rather than lodge here as we'd been hoping to after losing so much time.

So we carried on straight out of town, noticing quickly that the piles of rocks in the road were not always near where land could have slid – these were man-made landslides / rock piles presumably put there by the townspeople who were protesting. The piles seemed to subside and the rain took over. Would this nightmare ride ever end?! Not for a while: the piles of stones got worse! We were going slowly because of the rain and as it started to get dark we could see even less of the road and the rocks in our way. As we entered Abancay there were lit pyres in the road with people sitting around them. We were “allowed” into the town itself by the people stopping the rest of the traffic, so we made our way towards the centre, through the throngs of people and under the wires strung across the road, and straight up to the safest place we could find – a police station with some motorcycle police outside! The cop we spoke to was a very friendly guy who explained what was going on (el paro – the strike) and asked us where we were going tonight. “Here?” we replied. We were then hit with the news that even more protesters were arriving that night and all the roads would be blocked again in the morning! The policeman suggested we leave immediately to get out while we could, but there was no way we were embarking on a five hour journey to Cuzco wet and cold at 7pm in the dark, so we decided we would have to leave first thing in the morning to avoid the new road blocks. The policeman suggested 4am and we suggested 5am (dawn, as a policy we don't ride in the dark) and he thought this would be OK. He then led us to a hotel, through more throngs of people – it was a huge relief to park up in the safe car park and get inside!!

It was also quite a relief for an American family who had been holed up for a few days having had quite a bad experience on their way in two days previously. They had joined with around six lorry drivers to clear a huge landslide so they could get through – apparently the lorry drivers had definitely done it before though and made reasonably short work (a few hours) of it. They'd also driven past a group of children brandishing machetes, and had rocks thrown at their Land Rover... The policeman suggested we all left together for Cuzco first thing in the morning, so we agreed to leave at 5am. Then decided to be on the safe side and say 4am. At 2.30am Dirk knocked on our door to say that someone had just arrived from Cuzco, said the road was clear and we should leave now! So at 3am we pulled out of the hotel...

Two minutes down the road we were stopped by a group of drunk men who didn't want to let us past, but after Dirk and Danielle's careful negotiation Dirk just had to accept a shot of their grog and we were allowed through. From there it was slow but sure progress around the various obstructions to the border of the region a couple of hours later, just as the new day was on us. The strikes were just within that one region – due, we gathered, to their regional leader being ousted for some reason – so once we cleared Apurimac boundaries we knew we were free and clear! At that point we bade farewell to the Land Rover (nice vehicle, but not a fast mover) and sped on to Cuzco.

From Darkness To Desert

Days 122 – 125

These days have been characterised by landscapes. First we rode the Quilatoa loop – a mostly dirt and sand ring road through indigenous villages and beautiful Andean countryside, culminating in the Quilatoa crater lake. Unfortunately the views were masked by mist and smoke which hung in the valleys under a layer of cloud the whole day, but we were still able to get a sense of it all.

We then went to Banos and rode out east – just tens of kilometres took us from highland down into jungle, and there were a number of beautiful waterfalls to visit on the way. Climbing up through caves to behind one of the falls was the highlight (and wet-light) of the journey, and the hot (and very cold) baths of Banos were a nice treat before we left the region.

From Banos we rode up to the base camp of Volcan Chimborazo at 4860m. The snowy top was shrouded in cloud but we had fantastic views across the sandy high plain and beyond. From here the spectacular views just kept going as we headed south, until we'd climbed right down to almost sea-level for the border crossing to Peru! On our way we stopped at Cuenca, which is Montecristi (Panama to you) hat central. We couldn't pass up the opportunity to meet octogenarian Alberta Pulla who has been refurbishing hats since he was six years old, and who found the perfect hat for Emily.

We were slightly relieved to leave Ecuador without incident in the end. Ecuador uses a lot of hydroelectricity, which is great, except that they haven't had enough rain this year and as a result there's an electricity shortage. Blackouts have been imposed to save electricity – we experienced full blackouts in some towns, but in Cuenca they rotated the electricity by quarter throughout the day and night. Not having street lighting is bad enough, but the lack of traffic lights is absolute carnage! We saw many a near accident but thankfully weren't involved in any...

Day 126

Within a few hours of crossing the border into Peru we met some locals at a petrol station who invited us to have lunch with them at their favourite restaurant nearby, so we hope this is a good sign of things to come! Peru was immediately different to Ecuador, though. As well as being visibly poorer with more shacks rather than buildings and a lot more rubbish around, it's also a lot dryer so far, including our first desert of South America – surprisingly cool but so windy Ric got a crick in his neck from his fancy helmet being blown around so much!

Trick And Treat

Days 113-114

While wandering the streets of Quito's colonial old town, Ric suddenly noticed some sort of liquid down one side of his trousers. Quicker than Emily could get a tissue from her pocket a lady appeared with a napkin and started wiping Ric down. She then pointed out that Ric had the same sauce like substance down his other side too, and on his camera bag which she wanted him to take off so she could wipe it. At the same time another lady appeared and started trying to take Emily's jumper off from round her waste – indeed there was also sauce on there. We've never had much occasion to suspect women brandishing napkins but even with the speed at which this event unfolded we were pretty sure something strange was going on and held onto all of our stuff pretty tightly. Sure enough some passers-by saw what was going on, ushered us into a shop and shooed off the women. Apparently it's a common trick in Quito and it's not just sauce – any sort of food stuff might be used to opportune a quick pocket pick or bag snatch, so we felt pretty lucky to have got away with just some dirty clothes (although this was pretty annoying as the rest of our clothes were in the laundry!). Chinese whispers about the attempted robbery spread through our hostel such that we got a note from our friends later in the day saying how sorry they were to hear about our stolen laptop!! But no lasting damage was done and all was forgotten later that day, when we booked a five day boat trip in the Galapagos Islands.

We spent Ric's birthday, and our last day in Quito before flying off for our boat trip, learning how exhausting the altitude can be and how unfit we've become. We only climbed from the top of Quito's teleferiqo (cable car) at 4100m to the top of Rucu Pichincha at 4680m but it was a painful few hours! Fortunately we just made it to warmth, hot chocolate and food when the heavens opened, so we were spared a drenching on top of our fatigue.

Thanks to everyone for all of Ric's birthday messages! Our French friends presented him with a candle-adorned croissant in the morning and he had at least one piece of chocolate cake to celebrate! Oh, and not forgetting the trip to The Galapagos the following day...

Days 115-121

Our cruise around the Galapagos Islands was fantastic. Our boat was much nicer than we were led to believe by the agents, our guide was very knowledgeable and our fellow passengers good company. Over the course of our four days there we literally saw more wildlife than you could shake a stick at, and at such close distances – we were astonished at how unafraid all the animals and birds were. We saw giant tortoises, huge turtles, hundreds of sea lions, multitudes of iguanas, penguins, sharks, fur seals, albatrosses, flamingoes, frigates, Darwin's famous finches (heavily used in his arguments for natural selection) and lots and lots of boobies – blue footed boobies, that is. The snorkelling on the cruise was fantastic too, and a definite highlight was seeing so many turtles and sea lions at such close quarters in their element. Although there was one point at which a huge sea lion came so close and gave Emily such a fright that she managed to manoeuvre herself out of harms way - the water - onto Ric's back!

We decided that we hadn't quite seen enough of the aquatic life after the cruise, though, and spent an extra couple of days on one of the islands so we could do a couple of dives. We were apparently in prime hammerhead shark area although unfortunately they evaded us that day, but our disappointment was more than made up for by a huge school (or is it a flock) of eagle rays gracefully swimming around and over us, as well as some manta rays, turtles, sea lions and other water-borne delights.

Back to dry land (and the altitude) of Quito today, we were relieved to find both bikes and all the luggage we'd left behind on the mainland all present and correct.