• Andean Geotrail Blog (In English)
  
• Fat Cyclist
  
• Our Long Haul Honeymoon
  
• The Andean Geotrail
  
• The Andean Geotrail Blog (In French)
  
• Up In Alaska
  
• Walking the Andes (In French)
  
• Ze Movers (In French)
  

We're finally cyclists again!

By Dan Wallace - 2010-01-01

It had been well over two months since the ORS team was on the road, riding together. As we wrapped up our time in Cuzco, we were all growing anxious to strike out into the intimidating Peruvian Andes. The day finally came, and before lunch time we had checked out of our hostel, and bought food at the local store for a few days. Soon we had pedaled out of the central plaza and were huffing and puffing up the steep rode leading up out of Cuzco.

The feeling was good. We were all happy to be back on the road together, doing what had become natural for us in previous months. We had planned our route through the Peruvian Andes, from the tourist capital of Cuzco to the actual capital of Lima. We figured that it would take us between two and four weeks, however we did not know how hard it would actually be.

The first few days went smoothly, as we rode up through one mountain pass and half way up a second. One night we stayed with a local family for a birthday party. The next morning we ascended to the top of our second mountain pass, where I fell ill with a bad fever due to the intense cold and wet conditions at the top. We endured a wet and frigid descent into the town of Abancay, where I spent a few days in bed with chills and flue symptoms. This gave the other guys a chance to hit the town and explore the local market cuisine.

I gave the go ahead when I was feeling better, and we started out on the road again. We dropped hundreds of meters over very windy and sometimes wet roads into a deep valley. On one sharp turn Chris wiped out bad as his front tire slipped into a crack in the road. We were going less than 18 mi/h when it happen, but because the road was wet, Chris slid underneath the weight of his bike for about 20ft. The kicker was that we had just passed a cop car 10 seconds before, and promptly received the “you idiots” look from the officers who pulled over and got out to check on Chris.

The following few days were spent riding through a gorgeous valley, marveling at the enormous walls of mountains and the dark blue river we followed. Around every bend was another mountain, looming over us. At times the valley narrowed to uncomfortable widths, and at other times it widened so much that you couldn’t hear your own echo. Eventually we pulled into the town of Chalhuanca, the last big town before the valley ended. Beyond this town we would ascend into the alti-plano once more and face the bitter cold nights of high-altitude, windswept lands. But, little did we know, Chalhuanca held a few surprises in store that would occupy our time for longer than we had anticipated.