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!