Road to Puno

We left Arequipa for Puno on Tuesday, but since my GPS is mostly non functional now, we ended up leaving on the wrong side of the pass.  Easy to do as there is a huge gorge that bisects the city and we found ourselves on the wrong side of it.  

My GPS was showing that we were about 2-3km from the main road, but paralleling it.  So we stopped and asked directions and everyone we talked to said we could get to Puno this way, but my GPS was showing no roads.  

So we kept going.  The road faded into a trail and then a sandy track, but we never seemed to get more than 10-15km from the road, so I kept going.  The scenery was spectacular.  We came upon a group of mountain bikers, and they confirmed that in the next hour to hour and a half, this "trail" did in fact join up with the proper road, so we continued on.  It was slow going with the fully loaded bike and Vanessa on the back.  There were sandy sections that threatened to wash the front tire out many times, but we stayed upright.

We took one wrong turn, and then another, each time it cost us about 45 minutes of daylight, but finally, we came over a hill and saw trucks and buses on the horizon and knew we had found the right way.  

We pulled on to the beautiful blacktop road, and continued on to Puno, arriving in the dark at about 7:30 pm.  

Stopped at one of the dead ends.  The road ended at this gate (which was a Dam and beautiful lake in the middle of nowhere).  We stopped and asked for directions here, and found out we missed the turn about 20 minutes prior.  We turned around and went back.

We got to Puno (finally!) and parked my bike in the lobby, nice and safe.