Saturday March 23, 2013, Tocopilla, Chile, Hotel Bahia

Tuesday was Deby’s birthday and the plan for the day was to ride Colca Canyon to check out the deepest canyon in the world and take a chance on seeing the soaring condors. We ended up in Chivay, Peru the night before after a long ride from Puno. We  rode into Chivay well after dark with all three bikes almost out of gas even after we exhausted our extra gas we carry. The last 10 miles were on a twisty mountain road in the dark. I did manage a couple of pictures.

We stopped here to add the extra fuel because we were almost out, the weather was threatening, we were heading into the mountains and it was getting dark. 

We climbed to well over 15,000 feet as the sun was setting behind the clouds. The color in the sky was fantastic. 

Here is my GPS, “driving on road”, notice the fuel light is on? That means less than one gallon left. It’s dark, it’s cold, we are almost out of gas, we are above 15,000 feet and soon it starts to hail. 

From about 10 miles out we came around a bend and saw the city lights below us. We dropped in the dark down the twisty road into town to find a hotel for the night.

The next day, Deby’s birthday started with morning (instant) coffee served in bed.

Before long we were on the gravel road riding towards the canyon, the weather was perfect, clear skies and cool temperatures at our 12,000 foot elevation.

Who me? Getting older?

Living on the edge. 

Looking for condors, we were so high that they soar below our level. 

A truly impressively deep canyon. 

It wasn’t long before we got a glimpse of one of the giant birds. Evidently the best time to view the condors is at sunrise when they drop from the cliffs in search of prey. We considered an early ride for the best viewing but Deby was having nothing to do with getting up at 4:00 AM on her birthday. I wasn’t about to argue. 

There were some local women selling snacks to the tourists, since the prime viewing time was over we were about the only ones there so they were standing around looking pretty bored. They let me take a picture since we bought some over priced candy and nuts. 

Birthday girl.

Local donkeys came out to pose for us. 

According to the map we could have continued through the canyon to the south but it was unclear if it was really a road or a cow path. We decided to turn around and re-ride the excellent gravel road back to Chivay and then back up the twisty road we took at night to see what it looked like during the day.

Here is a picture of that road looking back towards Chivay during the day. 

You can see Chivay in the distance. 

South of Chivay the road climbs and climbs until we hit the summit at 15,800 feet. A new altitude record for me on a motorcycle. Probably the highest I’ve ever been anytime other than an airplane. I was glad that we had been over 10,000 feet everyday for the past week and actually felt pretty good in the thin air, just slightly euphoric.

At the summit there were rocks everywhere. It is evidently a tradition that visitors leave behind a little rock stack monument. Deby was thrilled, rocks on her birthday. 

Michael and I prepared a special birthday lunch for Deby, we celebrated at the summit with leftover pizza, M&M’s and beer. 

Beer at 15,800 feet? Hmmmm, it must have been the altitude that made us think that was a good idea but it actually worked out OK and added to the birthday, altitude record experience. 

We were all pretty happy.

Deby was pretty happy. 

The summit was pretty desolate. 

Until you turn around and see some hardy locals trying to sell a few things to the tourists. I’m pretty sure they are there for the occasional tourist buses that stop on their way to the canyon. 

Rocks everywhere, a great birthday for Deby. 

Eventually we had to leave to make our way to Arequipa. The elevation stayed high but the road straightened in the high Altiplano of Peru. 

The views were stunning. 

After a few hours of incredible riding we ended up in Arequipa. We had the name of a hotel we found in a tour book so per our usual procedure, we rode to el centro and asked directions. Michael has this new thing about always asking the cute traffic cops. In Peru they are all women with guns in white holsters. 

Deby and I waited while they went out of their way to help Michael with directions. 

The downtown square in Arequipa is fantastic, made of the local white volcanic stone, it’s known as the White City. I could see coming back and spending some time here. 

We eventually found the hotel and guess what…. it was full. Really? Fortunately, they had a recommendation of a place not far away. The hotel called ahead and verified they had room and gave us directions. That is how we ended up here. 

The La Casa de Margott hostel. For parking we drove up the curb, into the lobby and parked in a hallway. 

We’ve stayed at enough hotels, hostels, hostelerias and other places to know that we never know what to expect when we open the door to our room. This place was totally unexpected. Who would have thought that on Deby’s birthday, the woman who loves everything that has to do with stones and rocks that our room would be completely made of brick and block.

Wow.

After checking in we went for a walk about town, had dinner at a nice restaurant and called it a day. 

Deby said it was one of her best birthdays ever. I couldn’t think of one that even came close to this one. In one day we saw the deepest canyon in the world, rode to the highest road we’ve ever been on and slept in a stone hotel room in Peru. Yes, unforgettable indeed.

Donn and Deby 🙂 🙂

Wednesday March 20, 2013, Arequipa, Peru. La Casa de Margott Hostal

Yesterday was Deby’s birthday so instead of blogging we had fun strolling around the square in Arequipa and a nice dinner. I took this picture outside the restaurant, we didn’t try this featured dish. 

Back to Machu Picchu…..

Here is the day 4 elevation plot. 

The day started with a steep climb called the “Gringo Killer”.

At the top of the “killer” is the famous Sun Gate which his high above Machu Picchu, It is at this point where all the famous pictures of the site come from.

The sun gate. 

Here is what it is supposed to look like. 

All we saw was fog so after a brief rest we continued to the site walking in the fog.

After almost 4 days of hiking, we arrived. I thought we earned our visit to this historic site. We were greeted by crowds of people who rode the bus and probably slept in a nice bed the night before. I’m sure none of them stunk as bad as we did. 

Ahhh, finally the site came into view. 

A city made of stone! Deby was in heaven.

Deby and Dee Dee, Rock Stars!

An amazing place. 

Here is a picture of what they call the sun dial. There is some controversy about it’s real purpose but it is a rock that sticks up near the highest point of the site. A lot of people believe this is the vortex for all the mystical energy that envelops Machu Picchu. I didn’t feel any energy but my camera battery was almost dead after four days so I held it near the rock and it seemed to charge enough for me to take a few more pictures.

I have many more pictures HERE.

Note: Today we will cross the border into Chile. I’ve been having some technical difficulties with the blog so it’s slowing me down with posts. I think I’m getting it worked out so hopefully I can get caught up. We had the best day riding on Deby’s birthday and it will make a fun post.

Thanks for following our adventure,

Donn and Deby 🙂 🙂

Sunday March 12, 2013, Puno, Peru. Hotel Hacienda Plaza de Armas

Today we were back on the bikes after a week off. It felt good to be on the road again, we rode south from Cusco to Puno on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Puno is at 12,500 feet msl, good thing I’m getting a little used to the elevation. I don’t feel sick at all but just a wee bit woosie so if this blog entry gets a little off track you know why.

The following is from Wikipedia, you can read more HERE.

“It is often called the highest navigable lake in the world, with a surface elevation of 3,812 m (12,507 ft).[4][5] Although this refers to navigation by large boats, it’s generally considered to mean commercial craft. At least two dozen bodies of water around the world are at higher elevations, but all are much smaller and shallower.”

Now, back to day two on the Inca trail.

Below is the elevation plot for day two. Climbed roughly 4,000 feet in about 4 miles to the peak of almost 14,000 feet, which is called Dead Women’s Pass.

The locals watched us as we cheerfully started our day. 

No worries, the bridge looks safe. 

Up we go, stopping only to let the porters pass. We were glad every time the came along. 

I only look tired. 

We got our first glimpse of the formidable Dead Woman’s Pass. 

We were heading right for the saddle of the pass. Here’s a butt shot…. not sure why.

Climbing and climbing…..

Getting closer.

Eventually we make it! Here is the group shot to prove it. Our guide Richard is in the center.

Looking back…

Little did we know that we were crossing from the dry side of the mountain into the rainy side. Time for the rain gear!

And the climb down..

Soon the rain ended and we continued on.When we arrived at our lunch stop hot spaghetti was waiting for us. 

Back on the trail it wasn’t long before we were at our campsite for the night.

The clouds and views from our campsite were magical.

We ate another meal in the mess tent and settled into our tents for another great nights sleep.

————————————————————————————

Day Three

The elevation plot for the day is below, a climb right at the beginning and then mild terrain.

First we go up….

Then down…

Over a few bridges. 

The fog came and went all day. 

At times the trail went into some short tunnels formed by fallen rock. 

The trail leading into the fog. 

Inca ruins along the way. 

Local fauna along the trail. 

As we descended, the terrain became more jungle like.  

We arrived at our last camp before reaching Machu Picchu, dinner was excellent as usual. 

Since the porters would be leaving us in the morning we got the group together for a group shot. It took six people to guide the four of us on the trek. These guys were great. 

I’ll save the final visit to Machu Picchu for the next post. Stay tuned.

Donn and Deby 🙂 🙂

Saturday March 16, 2013, Cusco, Peru. Back at the Casa SanBlas Hotel.

Yesterday started at 3:30 AM to the wake up call of a porter outside out tent. I fumbled in the dark for the zipper and reached may hand out for my morning cup of hot coffee. I had time for one sip before Deby’s cup was ready and she eagerly sat up to accept her morning offering. Yesterday ended with a 2 hour train ride, 2 hour long bus ride and finally a shuttle to our hotel for a 9:00 PM return. As badly as we wanted to crawl under the soft covers with the provided hot water bottles, we both opted for the necessary hot showers to wash off four days of hiking dirt, sweat and mud. No blog posting last night.

Today we woke up early but not early enough to say goodbye to Dee Dee who needed to catch an 8:00 AM flight home. We had a fantastic time getting to know Dee Dee on the trail. You really get to know someone when you share four days of hiking, camping, sweating, climbing and fighting exhaustion, in weather that alternated between hot, cold, damp, really damp and the occasional downpour. Dee Dee showed her stuff hiking up Dead Woman’s Pass and the “Gringo Killer” like a pro. Deby and I made it but not without a little more huffing and puffing. Dee Dee, I hope you get home safe and keep in touch, we’ll miss you but not as much as Michael will, I’m sure.

I’ll get to the Machu Picchu story after I catch up on a few things. This morning we met with German Canales Flores to return our backpacks and rucksacks for the trip. German (pronounced Her-‘man) is the owner of Viajes Destino Peru, a Peru travel company. He arranged our whole Machu Picchu trip including guide, porters, transportation and the hotel. Everything was taken care of with the utmost professionalism. If you are ever in Peru and find need of any travel services he covers the whole country and can arrange tours or hotels. Click HERE for his web site.

Also, before I get to the Machu Picchu tale I want to thank Alex at Peru Moto Tours for helping me get my bike fixed! Yes, while we were hiking Alex made arrangements with a local mechanic to repair my blown rear shock absorber. I thought it would need replacing but there was not one to be found in the whole country. No problem for the resourceful people of Peru, if you can’t buy something fix the old one. Nice.

Alex and I with the motorcycle. They not only fixed it, they did a total detail cleaning job, it hasn’t looked this clean in months!

Thanks Alex! Check out Alex if you are in Cusco and need any type of motorcycle assistance. Of course his main business is motorcycle tours and motorcycle rentals. This is a beautiful place to ride, maybe consider saving the hassle of using your own bike and just fly down and rent one of his or better yet take one of his tours. His web site is http://www.perumototours.com/

Now for the main feature…….

In case not everyone is familiar with Machu Picchu, it is the most famous Inca site and was built around 1450  The Wikipedia Link HERE has a good overview.  It was re-discovered in 1911 by Hiram Bingham, an explorer from Yale that is credited as being the inspiration for Indiana Jones. Our co-riders Keith and Dave visited the site 50 years ago on the original Motoraid trip. They said they were almost the only people there. Today it is the most popular tourist spot in Peru, the government limits the number of visitors to 2500 per day. As you can imagine, our experience was much different from theirs. Dave and Keith had such an incredible time in 1962 that they didn’t want to go back and see the commercialization of the site. They encouraged us to make our first time visit but they decided to ride south and we agreed to catch up later.

Most people who visit Machu Picchu, 2000 to be exact, do it as a day trip. There is a bus and train option from Cusco or one of the nearby cities. The other way to visit Machu Picchu is to hike the Inca Trail. The government allows 500 people per day to depart on the four day hike. Guess what route we took?

Richard, our guide, was waiting for us at 6:30 AM on Tuesday in the hotel lobby. We had been up for a while storing our luggage, drinking coffee and getting our provided backpacks and duffel bags ready. We met Richard the night before when he came to our hotel for a pre-hike briefing. We would carry the backpacks with water, snacks and what ever personal items we thought we would need, and the porters would carry our duffel bags which contained our provided down sleeping bags and up to 10kg of other stuff we might need. I liked the plan.

We rode in van for a couple of hours on our way to the starting point of the hike. Along the way we picked up porters until we had 4 hikers, 1 guide, 5 porters and the driver with all our gear loaded in the relatively small van.  We stopped at a small town on the way for the porters to purchase food to last 4 days on the trip.

Finally,at the trail head we stopped to pack the gear.

We weren’t alone, there were many groups, most much bigger than ours. 

By about 10:30 we were at the starting gate, ready to go!

The trail starts off really easy, the guys with the big packs are the porters, the guys with the wimpy packs are the tourists, and the guides.

The weather was just right and the views were fantastic. 

It wasn’t long before we stopped for lunch. The porters run ahead and set up the tent, cook lunch and have it all waiting for us along the trail. Hmmm, I’m going to like this!

Back on the trail we meet some of the locals.

This lady was coming back from the bar where she downed a few checha’s, the local corn brew. 

Still close enough to civilization, we had opportunities to buy drinks or rent a horse. Had we seen this the next day I would have opted for the horse. 

After 7.3 miles of hiking we came to our camp for the night. Tea was waiting for us at our private mess tent. Did I mention how much I like camping like this?

Our tents were ready with the air pads blown up and duffel bags delivered. 

One of the locals came to check us out. 

Dinner was served promptly 7:00. 

This was the view out my tent flap.

The only problem we had was beer. There was no practical way to carry the quantity we needed, with ice, so we assumed we would have to be on the wagon for a few days. A hardship to be sure, but manageable. Then a miracle occurred, we looked out of our tent and this bucket of beer and water was there. No one knew where it came from but it looked OK so we each had a beer and filled our water bottles with the mineral water. Life was good!Ahhh, the end to a perfect day hiking. When it was dark I looked up and saw for the first time, the southern cross right in the middle of the milky way – wow. Of course the lyrics ran through my head…..

When you see the Southern Cross for the first time
You understand now why you came this way
‘Cause the truth you might be runnin’ from is so small
But it’s as big as the promise, the promise of a comin’ day

(Crosby, Stills and Nash)

What a day, below is the elevation plot, we started at around 8,000 feet and ended up at close to 10,000 feet. My acclamation time in Cusco was paying off, I felt great and drifted off into one of the best nights sleep on the trip.

So, this seems like too long a post already so I’m going to stop here. Stay tuned, I’ll get the next post out soon!

Donn and Deby 🙂 🙂

As you may recall we met Michael on the dirt road outside of Duck Canyon. He was turned around and saved us 4 hours riding time, he lost 8 hours riding time trying to get to Cusco before us. We spent the night in Chimbote and Michael left early the next morning to get ahead of us. The 5 of us went towards Lima and Michael took a route we thought we would take to Huancayo to take the original highway three to Cusco. Michael went to pre-run the route a day ahead of us. When we arrived in Lima to get tires from Ivan he strongly recommended we not take the Huancayo route, he said it was cold, snow, possibly ice and there was over 100 miles of dirt roads that turn into slick mud in the rain. Ummmm, too late for us to tell Michael, he was on his way.

On Tuesday the 5th Michael left the Lima area and headed into the mountains in decent weather but as he approached the 15,000 foot summit in Abra Anticona (4843 meters) it started raining and then it turned to snow over the summit and the flooding.

The summit.

Flooding. 

Snow and rain. 

After the summit in the rain and snow, Michael continued into Huancayo in drenching rain, cold, and traffic. In Huancayo Michael stopped for the night and when checking his e-mail found a message from Keith about the road conditions ahead. It was Tuesday night and Michael decided he had to turn around to to make it to Cusco to meet Dee Dee. Now he had 1380 km to go including the backtrack to Lima.

Wednesday morning Michael was on the road by 8:00, the weather was better over the 15,000 summit. The flooding in the picture was worse the second time. He crossed the water which was halfway up his boots and a truck blasted in the other direction drenching him the rest of the way. A good way to start the day. Back down to Lima, just outside of Lima Michael stopped for soup. In the English / Spanish translation he ended up with pig jaw soup. It was a pig jaw in some mystery broth. The tongue is not shown. (Ethan, this picture is for you!)

After a late afternoon fight with Lima traffic Michael found his way to the four lane Zona de Billboardos and flew south trying to get all the way to Pisco. Late in the afternoon he had a flat along the road. 

Michael didn’t have an air pump but managed to get a plug in the hole and filled up the tire  to about 15psi with a couple of CO2 cartridges. He managed to get to Pisco for the night. Total mileage for the day was 325 miles including the flat.

Thursday, with one day and 540 miles to go he left with the goal of 300 miles through the hot desert into Nazca. Somewhere near Nazca Michael’s wallet with his charge cards, drivers license and some cash disappeared. Left at a gas station? Stolen? Left on the seat at a stop to fly away along the road? We still don’t know. Michael didn’t even know it was missing and rode on into the 14,000 foot Andes.

Remember in my report we stopped Puguio because it looked like the last stop and the clouds were forming? Michael rode through there at 4:00 and saw the same dark clouds but didn’t have his 300 miles in so he kept going. Big mistake. Sure enough when he hit the 13,000 plus level the rain started and turned into snow. It was getting dark, cold, snow and with fogged visor couldn’t see a thing but kept going. Finally he arrived at Negro Mayo a small town consisting of about six huts. The snow, cold and dark meant the end of the ride for the day. He went and knocked at a hut and communicated in his limited Spanish that he was near frozen and needed a place to stay for the night. After some negotiation he ended up in a shed along a house. Home for the night, freezing cold, no heat.

Here is the room. It was during the night that Michael realized his wallet was gone and he didn’t have any money to pay for his stay at the beautiful hotel.

Friday morning, cold, damp, broke and with almost no gas in his tank and a leaking rear tire that was pretty low Michael got up early after not really sleeping and jumped on the bike and left feeling bad for running out without paying. Good thing Michael had a spare charge card stashed away, all he needed to do was 1) find a gas station and 2) find one that accepted charge cards……

Eventually after draining his spare gas can and with the bike computer saying he was out of gas he found a station that accepted cards and even had an air pump for his tire. He was ready to go!

From there with 15 sole’s which is about 6 dollars he had enough money for a bite to eat and some money left over to pay a cab in Cusco to find the hotel. Determined to arrive the same day as Dee Dee he blasted through the twisty mountain road the final 265 miles to the hotel where Dee Dee was waiting!

There, the tale is told, Michael’s three days in hell.