Road to Arequipa

I woke up Saturday morning after our last night out in Cusco, and the first thing that popped in to my head was excitement that after 55 days, I would be riding once more on my BMW R1200GS Adventure to places unknown.

The night before, Vanessa and I had packed and re-packed our gear so it would fit on the bike.  OK, I stuffed my 2 shirts and two pairs of pants and a pair of swim trunks into a waterproof bag 1/2 the size of a football, and Vanessa was struggling to fit all her clothes into two giant duffle bags.

Either way, we "packed" our gear and loaded the bike.   After saying our goodbyes to all our friends at the Loki Hostel, we geared up (Vanessa in her new Bike Armour and helmet), and headed out of Cusco onto the open road.

Vanessa has been in Peru now for 12 days, and has really enjoyed herself, but I know she is a little bit scared of the new reality of riding on a motorcycle.

Luckily for us, we started our new adventure on the most glorious day imaginable.  23 degrees (warm for this altitude), blue skies and a vast terrain as far as the eye can see.

We rode for an hour, then I pulled over for a break. After Vanessa managed to take her helmet off (a 1-2 two minute process right now, what with gloves, buff, headphones, sunglasses, hair etc. etc. etc.).  But when she finality emerged from the helmet, her face was alight with a grin, and the first word she spoke was "WOW".

I have to continue to remember that as I marvel at the scenery, it is with the eyes of a person who has seen a lot of the world.  Vanessa knows Colombia, and of that a small part, so she is seeing many things for the first time.

We descended from the Andes into the desert region as we rode towards Arequipa.  It is a vast landscape, one that kind of reminds me of Mongolia, treeless and barren, yet achingly beautiful.

We left late enough in the day that I knew we would never make the 10 hour trip to Arequipa, so the thought was about camping the first night.  Hopefully not too high an altitude, so I wouldn't freeze my Colombian girl on the first night in the tent.

As the hour got late,  I started looking for a possible site along the highway, and, as we have done numerous times in the past found an abandoned gravel pit just off the road.

Gravel pits, as long time readers of the blog will remember, are some of my fondest places to camp.  They usually provide a nice, firm, level, and generally bug reduced location that are usually far enough from the road (and have a road to them) to be secluded, so we can set up camp and not be disturbed by local unknowns.

From Russia to Kazakhstan and now Peru, my Gravel Pit camping continues.

We set up camp quickly, fired up the trusty MSR camp stove, heated up some Corn on the Cob ("Mazorca" or "elote", in spanish), popped a couple cans of Tuna, and ate supper in the fading sunlight.  

It gets dark in the middle of nowhere fast, so now pitch black and getting colder (we're above 4000 meters here), we headed into the tent.  We stayed awake as long as possible, but by  7:30 pm,  we were both asleep.  :)

We have my arctic sleeping bag, which is a thick inner bag and a thinner outer bag.  The inner is rated for at least -20 and the outer for about 5 degrees.  If you layer them, they are probably good to -30.   But of course, with two people we had to share, so I zipped them together.  It worked fine, as long as no one moved. 

I won't say it was a completely pleasant night laying on the hard, cold ground.  Vanessa had the leaky thermarest, and I had my yoga mat.  Neither of which is too comfortable.  It was cold. The water in the MSR cooker had a layer of ice in the morning, and the bike and gear was covered with a full layer of frost, but we made it through the almost 12 hours of dark (the days are pretty evenly split here so close to the equator).

We had breakfast (a couple Oranges and my very last Freeze Dried meal pack - Scrambled Eggs), and waited until the sun was up before heading out on the road, and the final couple hundred KM to Arequipa.  It was 5 degrees for the first couple hours, but warmed up later in the day to a nice 20 degrees.

On our last day in Cusco, we went for a walk in the main square

Some of the local girls ladies with a couple baby goats. We couldn't pass up a picture.

With Celeste, the Manager at Loki, getting ready to leave. 

Fueling up.

Lunch time.

In the tent, ready for -2 or -3 overnight.

In the morning, frost on the tent.

Our camp.

Frosty bike.

Breakfast

Some of the countryside of Peru