Hypoxemia, when your blood oxygen levels are low, can be dangerous and even deadly. I always thought it was hypoxia, but according to the Cleveland Clinic, Hypoxemia is low oxygen levels in your blood and hypoxia is low oxygen levels in your tissues. Hmm, learned something new. Symptoms to look our for are: Headache, Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath, Rapid heart rate, Coughing, Wheezing, Confusion, Bluish color in skin, fingernails and lips.

Heck, I seem to have half those symptoms every day. In Puno, on the shores of lake Titicaca we were at 12,500 feet. Well above the elevation where people usually observe symptoms. The good news is, a healthy body eventually adapts and judging by the crowded conditions in Puno, people manage just fine. I learned hypoxemia impacts “older” people, especially men, worse than others. Great. Of course, I might be confused about that part. Here is something I remembered from my days as a private pilot:

According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), supplemental oxygen is recommended for use above 10,000 feet MSL for best protection. At night, the FAA suggests using supplemental oxygen when flying above 6,000 feet MSL because vision is more sensitive to diminished oxygen.

In our confused state, Deby and I thought it would be a good idea to take two days off and sign up for some tours through the hotel. Since this is a motorcycle travel blog and not a travelogue, I’ll spare you the details other than a couple of pictures.

The first day we took a small van style bus to the pre-Incan, Sillustani Tombs, about an hour out of town. Basically, huge rock structures where they buried royalty.

Deby wanted to see if there were any “good” rocks inside.

It was a beautiful day and we didn’t mind being driven somewhere for a change. Heck, the van ride there was as exciting as the destination. The van weaved through the very crowded streets less than a half inch from crashing into moving and stationary obstacles for the half hour it took to get out of town. These guys know how to drive!

For the second day we booked a boat tour to the famous floating islands on the lake. We had heard about these and it always sounded sort of a touristy thing to do (It was) but others convinced us it was worth a day trip (It was).

The “islands” are made of reeds woven together that are then anchored to the lake bottom. Because the reeds get soggy and eventually sink they need to continuously add more matting. Each island is usually inhabited by one or two families. Here is one we visited.

Who would have guessed this one would have souvenir stands? Actually, it was very interesting and the residents were very gracious and generous with their time. This is how many of them make a living.

Even the children were dressed up and sang us a little song before passing the hat. It was totally worth it.

After the floating island, we visited a bigger island where we had lunch and learned about the culture of the people who lived there. Well worth the day trip and I would recommend it if you ever find yourself in Puno, Peru.

Back to the Ride

We had a few more favorite places we wanted to visit before we left Peru. One of them was the town of Chivay which is the gateway to Colca Canyon, the famous tourist spot with a high overlook where you can see Condors flying below the overlook in the canyon. We had been there before and while it was cool to see the condors flying, for us, the road to get there was the main attraction. We were not disappointed.

We left Puno at 12,500 feet and immediately started climbing into even thinner air at 14,000 feet. For the first part of the ride we were on a main highway and while the views were stunning we were busy passing row after row of trucks on the popular route.

We stopped at a rest area and this little guy wanted to visit Deby. Any food?

Finally, we cut off the main road and were climbing up a more remote two lane road, this would be to one of the highest points of the trip, 16,000 feet, the Mirador  de los Volcanos.

This was the site of Deby and I celebrating Deby’s birthday in 2013 and immortalized in this blog post https://advdonnh.com/debys-birthday-ride/ It’s kind of a fun post if you want to see how young we looked back then…..

This time, it was cold, overcast and crowded. Deby and I stopped long enough for a picture and continued on. The route to Chivay is probably one of the best in Peru and maybe anywhere else. I drops down from 16,000 feet on a spectacular serpentine road to Chivay at 12,000 feet in the winding course of only 15 miles.

We’ve been to Chivay twice before and it’s a small non-descript mountain town with “casual” hotels. I was surprised to learn that the luxury hotel chain we stayed at in Puno had a hotel in Chivay so I decided to book again at the Casa Andina. It’s sort of like a high scale Holiday Inn with very modern amenities. It was just an overnight so we were glad for the nice room and restaurant. The only down side of the hotel chain is they cater to the tour bus crowd. As we were checking in a tour bus showed up and a group from a European country, not to be named, were getting off.  People were annoyed that they had to walk around our filthy motorcycles to get to the lobby and made some rude comments to Deby,. Deby offered to move her bike but the bus had it totally blocked in. The driver winked and said it was ok, I think he was sick of them as well. We had a couple of other incidents with these rude people and it made me think I was glad we travel in a much smaller group.

Back up the Hill

The next day we turned around and rode the fantastic road back up to the 16,000 overlook. This time it was a beautiful day, there was almost no traffic and we had a blast. I thought I took helmet cam pictures along the way but they seem to be lost in a digital wilderness somewhere or maybe in my confused high altitude condition I didn’t.  Here are a few iPhone pictures. This next one might be one of my favorite pictures of the trip.

Yes, that is snow in the distance….

This time I parked under the sign. I needed to get a sticker up there! At 16,000 feet in full riding gear with shortness of breath, rapid heart rate, coughing and wheezing, I climbed up on the motorcycle and did it!
We found the spot where we had the famous Deby’s Birthday Lunch and took a picture. No beer this time, just Powerade.

I checked my phone and to my marvel, there was a signal. We called Michael and texted him a picture. We never thought we would be back, almost 11 years to the day. Michael then sent me these two pictures from that visit.

We had an excellent ride down the hill towards Arequipa, the white city. Another fun fun day riding. Our destination, another Casa Andina chain hotel. This was starting to be a trend.

We arrived in Arequipa early enough to walk around town. The city is at 8,000 feet in elevation so we had fully charged red blood cells and had a lot of energy for exploring. We had to visit the Plaza de Armas surrounded by the white block buildings built with block from the surrounding limestone mountains. On one side of the square is the imposing Basilica Cathedral of Arequipa. I checked my phone and noticed we could tour the Basilica for 10 soles. We went back and forth and decided to go for it.

The price included an English speaking tour guide, it was impressive and interesting, but… I didn’t know the tour included going on the roof. I love rooftops!

We climbed up the stairs past the huge pipes for the pipe organ, something I always thought was cool, and onto the roof. We learned how an earthquake (2001?) demolished the top half of one of the bell towers and the blocks landed on pipe organ pipes. Ouch. Now totally restored.

Nice views of the surrounding mountains even though it was getting late and cloudy.

We could walk right up to the bells with the stern warning not to ring them. Ohhhh, tempting.

We could however, bang on them with our fists. Ok, that works.

From the roof it was a nice view of the Plaza de Armas.

Here is a picture I took of it all lit up at night.

We wandered around the beautiful city and found dinner at a romantic (sort of) Italian restaurant where the waiter made more of the presentation of the twist-off wine bottle cap than I thought necessary.

Our Last Night in Peru

On the advice of Ivan in Lima, we decided to cross into Bolivia at the smaller border crossing just south of Copacabana. We wanted to ride a slightly longer southern route that took us on another spectacular high altitude road. We could have made the it in one long day but I didn’t think trying to get across the border late in the day while tired was a good idea so we decided to break the ride into two days. This part of southern Peru is mostly high desert and wide open spaces without many cities. Checking the map only showed one city along the way, Moquegua. I wasn’t holding out hope for hotels in this remote city when my search showed there was a Casa Andina hotel located there, ha! I booked a room and we were on our way.

Getting out of Arequipa, or any big city, took a long time as we fought traffic, crazy GPS directions and general chaos. Once out of town and heading south we were in a totally different landscape.

There was long straight sections and curvy roads through what looked like ancient sand dunes.

It was a fun and fast ride. The route dropped in elevation as we neared the Pacific Ocean. When we were at 700 feet the temps warmed up into the 80’s and our super charged red blood cells felt great giving us extra energy and clear heads. We climbed up to 4,000 feet in elevation as we entered Moquegua which still felt pretty good. The city was a hot, dusty desert town with blowing dirt and sand. We were glad to pull into the gated parking lot of the modern Casa Andina hotel. As usual, the staff spoke reasonable English and as we checked in I casually mentioned that we’ve been enjoying our stays at their chain and this would be our last night in Peru.

The hotel was mostly empty. We found out later that Moquegua was a mining town that supported the nearby Cuajone copper mine. The hotel usually hosts mine workers during the week and is very busy. We arrived on the weekend so everyone was home visiting their families. About 6:00 in the evening the phone rang in the room with a personal invitation to attend the happy hour in the bar. With not much else going on we accepted the invitation and walked down the bar/restaurant.

As we arrived we were invited to sit at the bar and were told that they were going to have a class on making Pisco Sour, the most popular mixed drink in Peru. We glanced around, we were the only ones there so it seemed this class was just for us. No problem, we’ve acquired a taste for that drink and were interested in how it was made. Pisco, is almost the official liquor of Peru and is similar to Grappa in Italy being first formulated by Italian immigrants. It also includes, lime juice, simple sugar and the best part is an egg white. Mix with ice and shake for 15 seconds and strain into a glass with a sprinkle of bitter on top. Yum.

What happened next was amazing and touching. The small staff came out with a platter of a local pastry and a personized note written in chocolate:

Awwwww. Evidently, word got around that we were world travelers from the U.S. and this was our last night in Peru after staying at most of the hotels in the chain. The staff put together this memorable last night at their chain.

Jackie (center) and Jorge on the right. Sorry, I didn’t get the name of the woman on the left but they were all wonderful. With nobody else in the restaurant we ordered a second round and sat around and learned about each other and the city. It was a fantastic way to spend our last night after nearly a month in Peru. Thank you to the Casa Andina chain and especially the staff in Moquegua.

This seems like a good place to stop this lengthy post. Bolivia would soon have it’s own challenges. Just as we were getting used to how everything worked in Peru we would soon learn how different things can be in Bolivia. If they even let us into the country without pre-arranging the necessary visas. I should have one more post about our entry into Bolivia before taking a break as family members fly down to meet us and we become non-motorcycle tourists for a few weeks.

Thanks again for following the blog, taking the time to write comments (we both read them all) and for everyone’s support and encouragement here, on Deby’s Instagram or e-mails.

More to come, Donn and Deby