Southern Exposure

Tuesday, February 10

After a cold night under several wool blankets, we were up and ready to get out of this hotel. On the other side of the wall directly behind our heads was the shared bathroom for the hotel, so once other people were awake we had little desire to remain in our room. We ate a convenience store breakfast, got the bikes out of the parking space and through the mud, and we were off.

If the ride up to Puquio was a real pain, the roads from there to Cusco were our reward. The pavement was in great shape, and even the first miles were nice. The road out of town twisted nicely among the hills, gradually rising up above the city as it rose to cross the mountains surrounding the town.

Once we were over the top of the mountain, we were on a high plateau with only ground cover vegetation. It was a beautiful setting with wide open views of the surrounding snow covered peaks. It was a rare combination of huge lines of sight on a road that still had plenty of curves. We passed a few small lakes that provided nice reflections of the landscape.

This was llama and alpaca country and we would occasionally zoom by small herds. Even rarer were the shepherds and shepherdesses, who would usually be somewhere in sight of the herds, but not visible from the road. Occasionally we’d catch a bright red poncho or shawl moving out amongst the rocks.

Seeing llamas and alpacas was still very new and fresh so we would often stop and take pictures and just generally enjoy the sight of an unfamiliar mammal in its natural setting. Inna took it a step further and got off the bike to give chase to a few of them and see how close she could get to them.

We had neglected to fill up our tanks in Puquio and all of the towns indicated as large on the maps turned out to be small collections of a few houses. Nice map. Fortunately, we had been riding along at extreme altitude. Most of this plateau was over 14,000 ft with a high point of 14,964 ft. The bikes were slow to pick up speed this high up, but the air was so thin the max comfortable cruising speed was higher than normal and gas mileage was good.

We came to the edge of the plateau and the road descended into a river cut canyon. We could see we had quite a descent to the river ahead of us, so we shut the bikes off and coasted down hill. We made it almost 25 miles without power and strangely we even passed a few cars.

After a short ride with my bike on reserve, we did make it to Chalhuanca, where we got gas and ate lunch. We ate in a local restaurant that was situated right on the river. We could look out the window down into the river, so Inna ordered some trout while I stuck with the chicken.

The ride continued for miles down the river. River rides can be counted on to be enjoyable as the road snakes alongside the river channel, and this ride was no disappointment. It’s easy to relax into the rhythm of the river curves and the pavement was pristine.

We eventually reached the town of Abancay, which didn’t make too much of an impression on us. The road wound steeply up from there, from 5,000 ft to 12,000 ft. It gave a great view of the town and of the twisting road we’d just taken.

The road descended again through a drier valley before climing back up to high altitude. The rest of the ride to Cusco was an easy ride through the countryside, regularly passing through small towns as twilight approached. It was just after sunset when we pulled into Cusco, and as we sat looking at our guide book to pick a hotel, a man approached us with an offer of a hotel with motorcycle parking. I can’t complain when the hotel comes to us, and Hotel Casa Grande was suitable, with a larger inner courtyard for secure parking.