Road to Cusco

We turned off at Nazca and set our sights on Cusco.  It was going to be a long haul, over 600 km's.  But it wasn't the distance, it was the twisting, winding road, that rose from sea level to over 15,000 feet, before dropping back to about 3500 feet, and then climbing again to over 12,000 feet until we got to Cusco.

There were sections of the road where my GPS track looked like a small intestine it was so twisted.  We ended up taking two days, over 7 hours of riding each day to complete the trip.

The first section we climbed the highest, to almost 15,000 feet from Sea level.  This amount of altitude gain, in such a short time really played havoc with Troy, who seems to be susceptible to Altitude sickness.  By the time we crossed the pass and started down, his head was pounding so bad he was having trouble telling me anything other then "lets keep going.. as fast as we can…. DOWN".    What was interesting is by the time we finished for the day, we were somewhere below 9,000 feet and his headache was completely gone, and he felt fine.

It was getting late by the time we found a campsite, which was just an abandoned mud brick hut beside a roaring river.  I broke out a couple food packets, we had a quick supper and were in bed as the sun went down at 6:30 pm.  

We got up the next day early and completed the ride into Cusco, doing the last 50 km in the pouring rain.

We ran into a couple guys going the other way.  One was from Argentina and one from France.  They had started out in Cusco, and it had taken them 4 or 5 days to make it half way to Nazca.  The were averaging less than 150 km per day on their 185 cc Honda's.  They were quite impressed with my 1200 cc BMW and Troy's 650 cc Kawasaki.

This is Phillip's bike.  He picked it up in Cusco, and had just crashed a couple corners back.  His pannier was dented, his gloves were shredded along with his pants.  He kind of looked shell shocked.

Our camp on the road to Cusco, by a roaring river.

We had stopped for a break on the side of the road and this thing landed on my jacket.  It was jet black and had the most beautiful blue wings.  It was HUGE, bigger than any bumble bee back home.  

Close up.  I googled it, but can't find out what it is.  Anyone know?

There were places where the highway was washed over from the rains.  I had stopped to get a picture when I just about got drowned by this bus, which was going full speed through the water.

Some of the scenery we rode through today.  As you can see the road is pretty twisty.

Walking a baby lamb.  :)

The soil here is red clay.  So the rivers run red.

hula, hula, hula.