Machu Picchu and the Sacred Valley.

** More pics here

After a solid few days ruin-viewing we packed out bikes up and headed to the Sacred Valley for more ruins. Turns out we just can't get enough of polyagonal blocks.




Machu Picchu from Huayna Picchu. Pretty much awesome!

 
We cycled up out of Cusco past some of the closer ruins we had already seen and down a awesome downhill to the town of Pisac, a mere 32kms away. The last 2kms were completed in a huge thunderstorm that we didn't put our rain gear on for as we thought we would beat the storm, we rode into town looking like drowned rats. You'd think we would have learned by now, but no.

Looking for a place to stay we pretty much jumped into the first place we saw, which was more expensive than we would have liked but as it was pouring we shrugged our shoulders and agreed that neither of us could be bothered looking around in the wet. Once the rain stopped we dashed up to the ruins above the town which were up about a thousand (incan) steps. We started with most of our rain gear on but within a few minutes were puffing away and stripping off the layers as fast as we could. The ruins at the top were reasonably well preserved and there was hardly any tourists as everyone is put off by the huge climb (and fair enough). While we were up there admiring the views we could see another huge storm approaching and ended up in our second race-to-beat-the-rain scramble of the day. This time we were slightly more fortunate and made it under the cover of the woven blanket stalls before the rain hit. We celebrated with our nicest yet affordable dinner in ages, complete with amazing carrot cake.





Ben amongst ruins.

  
The next day we cycled all the way down the valley to a place called Ollaytambo which has an amazing Incan ruin perched on the hill overlooking the town. Its also the end of the road to Machu Picchu, so we stored our bikes here and took the train the next day to Aguas Calientes, the tourist trap at the bottom of the mountain that Machu Picchu sits on. While the place is overrun with tourists (there are 2500 people on the ruins each day) we met some fellow travellers and bumped into a few people we had met earlier which was fun.

After much waiting in line for various tickets we lined up an early bus to see the ruins before the hordes. Of course this is exactly what all the hordes thought and there was hundreds of people waiting in the dark for the first busses before dawn. It wasn't even sunny so everyone got up 3 hours early for nothing but oh well. We had a great time exploring the ruins and walking up Huayna Picchu, the mountain behind Machu Picchu which gave us amazing, if sweaty views over the whole site. We walked down later that afternoon and had a soak in the local hot pools, the best ending to the best day!

We headed back to Cusco the next day where we ended up having an unexpected mini-break in a local hospital after Anna fainted in a restaraunt and cracked her head on the tile floor. It turns out she has had a gastric infection for the past 6 weeks and the resulting dehydration finally caught up with her. 3 nights in hospital on a drip and about 15 stitches in her head later she is as good as new. She was in good enough spirits watch all the buildup to the royal wedding on the tv in her hospital room. We think it was the nicest room we have stayed in on our whole trip and all the staff were very nice to us an accomodating of our poor
Spanish. We are also totally grateful for our travel insurance! Anna now has an awesome Harry Potter-esqe scar on her forehead as a reminder of Cusco.

Cycling to the navel of the world: Puno to Cusco

Us enjoying our last view of the lake.

 **More of Bens photos can be found here

After a great day at the floating islands on Lake Titicaca and a nice meal in town where we were given a Spanish-Arymara lesson from a waitress as we huddled around the pizza oven for warmth we headed north towards Cusco. Riding out of town and away from the lake was flat with a headwind but gradually we started climbing towards the pass we had to cross before it was 150kms downhill.
We have gradually become a bit tired of the local food, rice and potatoes for lunch was becoming less and less appealing and we were keen to reach the international climes of Cusco. Alas, we were literally not out of the mountains yet and as we pulled into a very small town about 30kms from the top of the pass our worst fears were realised. There was no place to eat, just local women at the junction of the road with buckets covered in blankets - we were going to have to take our chances with the unknown bucket food. We plonked the bikes down on the side of the road and edged up to where they were sitting. They said they had two options but we didn't recognise any of the words - to us it was a choice of "blah blah blah" or "blah blah blah". We looked at each other blankly before Anna suggested that we'd both take the first option even though we had no idea what it was. This was immediately regretted when it turned out to be a tripe soup. Super gross. Ben actually tried to eat the tripe before resigning himself to the freeze-dried black potatoes also in the soup.

Despite feeling like sickness as a result of this meal was inevitable we carried on through increasingly desolate scenery until we reached the pass. Along the way we foolishly stopped outside a school and were immediately surrounded by a group of young boys asking for some paper for their schoolwork. We didn't have any but gave them some pens which they were pretty excited about and proceeded to fight over. Anna  gave one of the boys a "special architect pen" which turned out to be her last one (rats). We have noticed since comig to Peru that people here are alot less shy than in Bolivia with many people, especially children running out of houses and fields to say hello, shout "gringo" or ask us for money.

We camped pretty much right at the top of the pass just above the road which was amazing with all the mountains around but less amazing when a large hailstorm struck right in the middle of dinner when we hadn't even unpacked our bags into the tent. We were trapped in the tent for the night at 5:30pm and possibly asleep by 6pm, a new record.

We cycled down the next day to Siscuani and then to a campsite in a field in one of the valleys before carrying on to Cusco. We stopped at a number of minor Incan ruins on the way and looked at some Spanish colonial chuches with original paintings from the Cusco School. Coming into Cusco was of course crazy but we were excited to see some new food appearing, such as roasted guniea pig (expensive) and deep fried pork crackling, which Ben finds tasty. From here we are heading to the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu!

Lake Titicaca: Hello, Peru.

**Anna linked the link to the wrong link the other day. Shes fixed it now and its working good as gold, here

Before we get carried away, Ben wanted to put up more photos than Anna would let him. They compromised and more photos can be seen here

Anna on the never-before-seen bike lane leaving La Paz.

Greatest. Day. Ever.

After a great few days in La Paz being tourists and getting our bikes serviced for the first time on the trip we reluctantly prepared to leave. The reluctance was perhaps mostly due to the fact that the city sits at the bottom of a 500m deep canyon with only one road in, meaning the same road out only horribly uphill. So on the advice of the guys from Gravity (who serviced our bikes) we got a taxi to the top of the hill with our bikes on the roof and bags in the boot. Anna forgot to take her drinkbottles off her bike and one flew off down the motorway at significant speed, the driver saw and Ben ran back along the motorway to collect it before some truck squashed it (its not like any vehicle would swerve to miss it, they ain't those types of drivers over here). It now sports an attractive dent but is otherwise unharmed.

Oh, and none of this happened until late morning as we had a sensational breakfast at Angelo Colonial in town. Ben had the American breakfast with a huge plate of eggs and bacon and coffee and juice and Anna had the Andean breakfast, which included quinoa pancakes, quinoa porridge, bread and jam, fruit salad and a freshly squeezed fruit juice. So we were too full to do anything for a while, and Ben had to post something at the post office, always a debacle that takes longer than intended.

We assembled our stuff again next to a street food stall at the top of the motoway and began cycling through El Alto, the megacity at the top of the canyon. This city is a bit out of control but our taxi driver gave us some directions to get out of town (of which we understood about 10% - something about straight and left) which combined with astute guessing got us on the right track and we settled down for a cheap lunch in the panel beating district on the edge of town. It was a family owned place and while we obviously stood out like sore thumbs they were very nice and even gave us a discount on the already cheap meal. We tried some Quina Kola, the local coke alternative, it was possibly even sweeter and more sickly than the original. Our bikes sat safely outside completely out of our sight watched by a couple of mechanics having their lunch. There was a few conversations along the lines of "well we don't see too many of them folk 'round these parts.." around the bikes, they are quite the attraction.

Yup, clocking up those 4000 metre passes like nobodys business these days.

Our first view of Lake Titacaca from the pass.

Anna doesn't like this photo because her helmet is on crooked and her arm looks funny.
Her objections were overruled.

Another bonus part of the day was the most welcome tail wind that picked up after lunch and the gentle downhill, both of which were gratefully recieved as we didn't really start cycling until after 1pm and had a good 70kms to cover that day. We covered almost half of it chatting away about where we wanted to flat upon our return to Auckland and what features would be essential. Conversation stopped when we reached a short but steep hill and from there it was a wizzy downhill and accross the plain to the town of Tiwanku, famous for its pre-incan ruins. We checked into a small hostal with barky dogs and Andean themed rooms and had a cena at the only local place we could find that served food. Cena, like almuerzo usually means you'll get whatever you're given, its both a stress-free and stress-full way of eating. But in this case we had our vegetable soup with a piece of meat in it and our meat-and-rice-and potato main couse, grabbed some chocolate crackers from the shop and was done with it.

Ben with that "I had a tailwind all afternoon" smile.

Our bikes at our flash digs in Tiwanku.
Seriously, inside was very nice.
Food in this town: not so nice.

The next morning we had very questionable meat burgers for breakfast and spent the morning wandering around the ruins. We cheaped out and didn't hire a guide so we can't off much in the way of explanation of what we were looking at, but it was fun and we found a man selling nice jelly and lemon froth things on the way out. This hardly stopped us scoffing down lunch 10 minutes later (fried trout from the lake, a local specialty) before we set off for the Peruvian border well after lunch, again.

Ruins.

Anna, conqueror of the wall.

Portrait of an ancient local.

Ben with a jelly-and-lemon-frothy-top treat at Tiwanku. We found these quite the taste sensation in Bolivia.

Cycling sucked due to a headwind and we didn't reach the border town until quite late in the day. The border between Bolivia and Peru cut right through two places we wanted to visit so our first foray into Peru would only last about 70kms before we cut back accross to Copacabana in Bolivia. Ben recieved a parting gift from Bolivia that night in the form of a tummy bug from one of the many questionable food choices we had made that day so we holed up in a cheap hostal over what sounded like a basketball court or some other type of gymasium for the night. The next morning Ben still wasn't feeling 100% so we crossed the border and hopped on a local collectivo that took us to the other border in about half an hour where we went through the whole rigmarole of passport control again. We think we spent more time filling in immigration forms than we did in the country of Peru, not to mention confusing the officials with four passport stamps all dated the same day before lunchtime.

What could well be the first informative road sign we have seen in Bolivia.
Bad luck if you were aiming for Argentina.

Ben being welcomed to Peru along with guys carrying bricks on their bikes. This is the first time we have seen people with bikes heavier and more ridiculous than ours. Anna though we should swap our bikes for one of theirs and she could sit in the front with the bags while Ben rode. The idea didn't fly.

It was only 8kms from the border to the tourist town of Copacabana, possibly the Queenstown of Bolivia? a tourist town at any rate, famous for being the hop off point to Isla del Sol, the birthplace of the sun according to Inca legend. Its right on Lake Titicaca in a pretty little bay filled with mostly tourist boats. We checked in for a couple of days of recovery, visiting the island, hiking in the surrounding hills and eating non-Bolivian food like nachos before going back to Peru, this time for serious.

Us and Copacabana. Peru in the background.



 

Isla del Sol.



Ben and donkeys, Isla del Sol.

Carrying on our recent trend of not actually cycling until the afternoon we rolled up to a major junction in the road blindly hoping there would be food there. There was, but not exactly what we had in mind: 3 women, each with big pots covered in towels and a table and some chairs. We plonked the bikes down and wandered blankly up to them "pollo" "queso" "locro" were their sales pitches. Well after recent sickness we weren't going anywhere near chicken, and what the hell type of meal is cheese so we went with locro, the meat stew with the rice and boiled potato. Meanwhile our bikes had attracted quite the fan club, well, Bens map had anyway with a group of men eagerly working out where we were on the map.



Ben with local map and bike enthuiasts, obscure road junction, Peru.



We carried cycling around the lake for the next few days, stopping over in the town of Juli which will forever be remembered as the home of the worst hotel room ever and for eating dinner at 4:30pm and going to bed at 5pm. Apart from that minor blip the scenery was fantastic, the second day in Peru happened to be the presidential elections unbeknown to us so everywhere was super busy. We have noticed that Peruvians seem much less shy than Bolivians, children have frequently been running out of houses to say hello to us, often in english which is both unnerving and awesome.

Lakeside fields on the way to Puno.

Cycling into Puno, population 100,000. Gravel.
What the?

Floating Islands. So cool.

Photo taken from a structually questionable viewing platform. At least if the whole thing collapsed the spongy reeds would break your fall.

Boat, of reeds.

We have spent a day in the city of Puno resting and going to visit floating islands made of reeds out on the lake which was really interesting. Many people live on them permanently and we have seen many bundles of reeds stacked drying around the shore in recent days.

Worlds most dangerous road, La Paz Bolivia

I survived the ride with gravity decents, it was an awesome ride pity about all the fog so that we could not see the bottom of all the chlifs we were riding past at great speeds.

here is a link to the photos that the guides and I took on the way down