(winding 1-ish lane road much of the way)
(huge canyon walls)
(crazy canyon walls)
(interesting small towns along the way with tire eating troughs in the middle of the road)
("killer boots, man!")
(up to the high plains)
(some stretches were more green)
(this town right on the railroad tracks felt a bit like the Peruvian wild west)
(we let the goats have the right of way)
(the road ended up back at lower elevations with some dry desert scenery)
Leaving Huancayo for Ayacucho we passed a bicyclist from Minnesota who we had met in passing just crossing Huascarán the last time. The crazy part is that he had been riding hard everday to get through Huancayo, while we had dropped down to Lima from La Oroya, hung out for a few days, then worked our way back up to the mountains. Those bikers certainly have their work cut out for them!
(Christopher on the road. It's nice to catch bicyclists with a smile on their face...sometimes they look a little more, uh, taxed)
(on the right path)
We ended up going through a major construction zone before hitting Ayacucho, as well as after. It dramatically changed the course of some of our days...
(in the little town of Ocros we stopped for lunch, where we provided some entertainment for the school kids)
(at the edge of town there was a roadblock for construction, which closed back down at 1:30. We, of course, arrived there at 1:45. The next time to pass was at 5:30. Shoot. We had even been asking about the road to Ayacucho and noone mentioned the blockage. So we were stuck)
(we ended up staring at this tree for much of the 4 hour delay)
(sun setting after our 5:30 departure from Ocros)
We stopped short of our planned destination, which would have been about 4 hours of riding, finding a small town just 2 hours down the road. But it still required lots of dark dirt riding through a construction zone. Un-fun. The next day was a nice day as we continued towards Ayacucho, where we stayed the night. Leaving Ayacucho started off with replacing 2 completely thrashed front wheel bearings. Not so bad except for having to weld a piece onto one of the outer races to get it out of the wheel. But ready to go after about an hour. We then proceeded to take nearly an hour and a half to find our way out of town on the correct highway. It should not have been that hard, but between the poor GPS map, a huge ravine with no way to cross, and Latin directions, it was just one of those mornings. To be followed by:
(the zona de BOOM that kept us in one spot for 2 hours on our way to Abancay. I guess 2 is better than 4.)
(And we got some entertainment by a municipality driver who tried to pull rank on the nice lady working the closure. What an asshole. But quite common for some of these small town officials (which may even be a stretch in this case) in Latin America. Poor construction worker lady shown here)
We finally started to feel like we were making progress to Cusco, though. After finally arriving in Abancay (we could see the town for what felt like hours as we worked our way down switchbacks on the other side of the valley) we found out we'd be back on autopista (=paved) to Cusco, after hundreds of km of carretera (= dirt) and unexpected construction.
(some of the relentless switchbacks into Abancay)
(the ride from Abancay to Cusco is about 4 hours and an absolute blast)
We rolled into Cusco as night set in, extremely happy to arrive at a location where we would stay for a few days. But of course, it was a bit of a challenge navigating the busy one way streets to find the hostel we planned on staying at, La Estrellita. Even so, it served as a good introductory tour of Cusco.
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