Southern Exposure

Sunday, February 15

It was an early morning for me, getting up early to catch up on some emails before we headed out. We’d been in this hotel for a few days now, and the unpacking was nearly total. It took some time to reconfigure the scattered debris into our standard packed bags.

We cleaned and lubed the chains on the bikes before breakfast. While we were working, we finally met the owners of two BMWs that had appeared in the courtyard while we were in Machu Picchu. They were a couple from Belgium who had started in Buenos Aires and were working their way towards their end point in Colombia. They had been riding for 4 months already, but had lost some time due to a broken collarbone in Patagonia. We traded advice and stories and they seemed like a very nice couple.

Once we were finally packed and finished with our meager hotel breakfast, we were on the road south. It was surprisingly easy to get out of town. We soon found ourselves on the Peruvian altiplano. The sky was an overcast gray, but there were no signs of rain.

The altiplano ranged between 12 and 13,000 ft, with wide open plains and farmland, bordered and interspersed with mountains and low hills. Occasionally we caught site of a snow capped peak in the distance. The farmland we rode through consisted mostly of cattle ranching, with only the occasional herd llamas.

We stopped for a quick snack of a lunch in a small town with a forgettable name. We were quick because we’d had such a late start and were soon back on the road. We rode through a few sections of road bordered with beautiful prairies filled with yellow flowers.

For a ride with so many stretches of straight road, it was a surprisingly pleasant day’s ride. The KLRs cruise along comfortably in the thin altiplano air. The scenery changed often enough and the road had enough curves to keep it from becoming monotonous. Combined with the quality of the pavement, this made for a very easy and relaxing day’s ride.

We pulled into Puno around 5:30 and checked a few hotels. We settled on Hostel Helena and they arranged parking for us next door. The hostel was very nice and the top floor’s cafeteria had amazing views of the lake. It’s not a very charming town and feels too dense for its size. We went out for a nice dinner and tried to plan our lake excursion for the next day.