In Search of Incan Gold..... MORE PICTURES TO COME!!

**MrNutt** Thu Jun 20 2013, 02:07

4:15am…… a time that shouldn’t have been invented. Its faaar too early to be awake, but sadly I was as was Rozy and we were sorting out to head to the airport to catch out flight.
Though Rozy had been up since 3:30am doing her hair….

We finally got on the road just after 5am. Ollie, Rozys boyfriend was cajoled into giving us a lift to the airport. I was shattered so not really with it, but when the car started stuttering and the exhaust started to go funny and the engine warning light came on I got a tad worried….. the engine seemed to not like having 4 cylinders and obviously really wanted to be a triumph of some sort. Though I don’t think a fiesta 1.4 is really triumph material.

After a slightly nervy car journey and some bad navigation that took us to a freight and non domestic airport, because apparently the sat nav didn’t know where it was going… we finally arrive at 6am and are off into the terror of airport check-ins! Ollie and Rozy say their goodbyes and I was entrusted with her and to bring her back alive, in once piece and not married off!
We checked in using a machine that scans many things and it then prints out your tickets for you and all that, but as we got there a bit early we then had 50 mins to wait to check out luggage in… so after a coffee we were queuing to check our bags in.. so the time saving check-in machine wasn’t really time saving…lairs!

Bags checked in we make our way through the passport and security control points, yup they actually let me though…and after all of that and some staring at pointless crap in duty free, apart from the sausage sandwich and water I brought, we were on our first plane and a short 55 min hop across to Amsterdam.

We only have a short stop over in Amsterdam so couldn’t venture into the city to sample its delights, instead we had to walk to the other side of the airport to go through yet more security and passport control points, we got scanned by those new fangled x ray machine things.. Rozy got pulled to one side and frisked..…..She always looked dodgy to me …… and just before getting on the plane the barstewards took our freshly bought water off us telling us it was a risk or some bullshit…so not wanting to have wasted my money, chugged 2 litres of water as quickly as I could without drowning myself!
After some burping we were now walking down the gang way to our home for the next 11 odd hours a 777 -300 this thing was huge, it had something like 50 rows of seats spread in a 3 – 4 – 3 layout.
The flight was ok, watched 4 films and got fed like a king.. and the booze was free so had a few nice beverages to as there wasn’t much else to do!

I think I learnt this from DBD’s long haul flight tales on facebook!! :p

Finally some 11 hours and some 12,000km/8ish000miles we landed in Lima, Peru.
After an hours wait for our luggage and getting through all the customs lark we were finally here, and off to a shit start!the taxi that I arranged through the hotel we would be staying in wasn’t there… I read before going that you shouldn’t get taxis from outside the airport but these ones were all properly licensed and only a handful of drivers are allowed into the airport and need special passes, so we were finally in the taxi and on our way to the Miraflores district of Lima right on the Pacific coast.
The taxi ride through the city was mad! There were lanes and traffic lights but neither seemed to make much effect on the driving on the roads, every car had something missing or dented, a thick smog of fumes and high humidty, lots of lights and horns, it was a real assault on the senses and I loved it, its perfectly organised chaos, Rozy seemed less enthusiastic but having been in Uganda, Egypt and Romania I saw a lot worse!

45 mins later we were at the hotel, checked in and crashed out.

After a cracking 10 hours zonked we awoke to a foggy lima, Miraflores has its own microclimate and at the start of everyday there is a thick fog that rolls in off the pacific and some days can be so thick you can only see 5-10 metres in front of you!.

Lima is a wonderful city, still with its charm of its older buildings but also lots of modern engineering, there’s money there to, lots of new and fancy cars being driven around, as well as utter shit boxes to balance things out!
I expected the city to be a bit of a wild frontier but its very modern and cosmopolitan and vibrant with lots going on, and also extremely safe, yes there were police around and security guards around to, but they weren’t everywhere and after the first day I felt very safe wandering around.
Peru is a hotbed for food and there’s lots of Asian and French influence in the cooking with many South Americans coming to Peru to train as chefs. We were lucky enough to go for lunch at one of the best restaurants in Lima, it was full or business types and a handful of tourists, the food was great as was the drink! We spent our time in Lima wandering round, exploring and chilling out. There’s a central park that we spent a lot of time just chilling out in and an arty area right on the cliffs that was cool to sit and people watch at.
On one of the days we were walking along the coast area and saw a huge bird flying around in the fog and went to go have a look as it was sitting on the wall (yes there’s pictures), and we found out it was a pet and the owner was there walking/flying it! It was a black American vulture and was really odd seeing it walk around and him feeding it, the owner was a mad English man who was originally from Brighton but moved to Lima 3 years ago following his lass and stayed put.He also had another vulture, a harris hawk and a peregrine falcon as pets! He was great to chat to and totally mad!
Having spent a few days in Lima exploring we jumped onto our 21 hour overnight bus to Cusco, the heart of the Sacred Valley of the Incas.

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The Bus was pretty good actually, with big comfy reclining seats, hot food served and a touch screen for each seat with various films and music and wifi access, managed to get through a few films and get some kip before waking up winding our way up mountain passes the following morning towards Cusco. The Lima area is slightly hilly/mountainous but nothing compared to the Sacred Valley area, which is in the heart of the Andes.

We stopped an hour or so outside of Cusco with the bus freewheeling backwards down a hill which was a tad clenching!! Found out the pass we were about to go over was having some repair works and the system worked as the road was open for and hour and closed for an hour so works could be done. We missed the slot by 10 minutes so had 55 mins to kill….
But we had stopped in a rather nice spot!

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We got to Cusco and got to our hotel and having not felt any really bad altitude sickness effects we thought we were good, that was until we tried to climb the stairs! Gaawd we were knackered after 2 small flights of steps! Had to have a few minute’s sitting down to catch our breath!
Cusco looks far more European than other places we had seen, but given the Spanish invaded and pinched all the Incan gold. The buildings surrounding the city squares have the white walls and terracotta roof tiles look and are all lovely and great places to chill out.
Cusco itself is very very…very touristy with lots of hawking for restaurants and tourist tat shops, and oddly massages and tattoos….

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We had a few days to explore and chillout before picking up the bikes, we went to Perumototours office which was near our hotel and met Alex the owner and his team and checked over the bikes and picked out kit up ready for our off the following morning. We left the bikes over night at the petrol station next to our hotel, I think we paid the guy there £2 for both bikes which was pretty good!

We came back to our hotel to find 4 bikes just parked in the main reception area! I got chatting to one of the riders, they were 4 mates riding the pan American highway (kinda) his English was better than my Chilean and was hard to understand more than that, but was cool looking at their bikes, they wished us well on our ride and they headed off into town for some beers.

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The bikes, were Honda Falcons, 400cc singles, with carbs, long travel suspension, knobblies and spokedwheels for off roading, they are built for the job and very robust and rugged and a South America market bike, not seen them anywhere else.
They were really easy to ride, very nimble and light, really easy to flick around and had a bit of go in them, but the gear box I felt wasn’t great, really hard to find neutral, had lots of false neutrals along the way and it wasn’t that smooth, though this is in comparison to the cat so maybe the off roader bikes aren’t as smooth as out and out road bikes. The seat was also a sore point, was ok but a bit more padding wouldn’t have gone a miss!!.

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So 8am and we are geared up and attaching our luggage to the racks on the bikes, we fueled up and set off and after a good 15 min through Cusco I couldn’t understand the GPS and got lost… the GPS didn’t have a line on the roads but an as the crow flies line.. and after a few more goings the wrong way we were finally on the way up and out of Cusco. Cusco sits in a valley/bowl so lots or switchbacks and twisty steep climbs to get out of the valley, we then were out on the open road and flying along great sweeping roads through towns and villages and finally up onto a plateau.
On this plateau in the distance we saw our first snow capped Andes..

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We carried on our way with yet more switchbacks, but this time steep down hill into the actual Sacred Valley, we rode through the town of Urubamba and along to the ancient Incan town/settlement of Ollantaytambo, which has its own Incan ruins which a town has sprung up from, it’s a tourist hot bed, being the start of the Inca trail to an extent and with many tourist tours that run from Cusco stopping over at Ollantaytambo, having arrived on a bus and leaving on a train to get to Aguas Callientes , which is the town directly below Machu Pichu, it also only exists because of Machu Picchu and given its remote location is only accessible by train, or if your mad you can drive or ride as we did to 12 KM outside of Aguas Callientes and then catch a train through the Andean Jungle to the town.

We Stopped in Ollantaytambo which is 2850m above sea level, for a break and an ice cream before heading off to tackle the mountain pass that would get us closer to our bike drop off destination.

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The mountain pass was called the Abre Malaga and peaks at 4315m above sea level and is a truly astonishing piece of tarmac, blind, mad switchback after switch back with nice open straights to wind the bikes on and some sweeping snaking sections too, then back into the mad switchbacks, all with massive drops to the right of us as we climbed, get it wrong here and its gonna pinch abit! But neither of us fell off the edge and we got to a top plateau point to look down at what we had just ridden.

The view was amazing and I did somewhat wish is was on a lithe nimble sports bike rather than the bikes we had as the road was really good fun, and could have been more fun with a better gear box, more torque, power and some better tyres! But non the less still a real highlight for me having ridden that.

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We summited the pass and started our decent down the other side and hit thick cloud, we had gone from glorious sunshine to wet and dank, the road on this side of the pass was more precarious and the surfaces weren’t as good, with more chances to fall of the edge to your death to, we took it a bit steadier working our way down.
Then the heavens opened, and like really properly pissing it down opened. I have never ridden in rain that hard, add that in with the cloud we could barely see 5 metres in front of us and we slowed to a crawl.
We finally dropped out of the cloud and the rain stopped and we started moving a bit faster than a crawl, the views should lush green jungle/forest as far as the eye could see.
The road would be tarmac then drop to dirt road with no warnings so was an interesting ride! Then there was the mid road rivers and waterfalls, as the road hugged the mountain with sheer rock faces to our right you would get water flows and waterfalls, that would then run across the road and down, the roads had special kind of fording areas built in to allow the water to flow, now these varied in depth from a few inches to nearly 2 feet deep! But they were good fun to ride through, either up on the pegs or sitting with our feet as close to the handlebars as possible!
We wound our way further down the mountain passing through towns and villages perched on cliff edges, with dogs that would run after you while cranked over on a corner and trying to bite you!

We finally made it to the town of Santa Maria, this is where the tarmac would finish really and our mini off road adventure would start.
Now we had to get to our bike drop off point by a hydroelectric dam works before 4:30 pm to catch the last train into the town of Aguas Callientes. There were no other trains after this, the next one was the following day.
We asked some locals how far it was and they said it wasn’t far so off we went.
This wasn’t what I would called off road off road, not like an enduro track or something, it was a fully functioning road just with no tarmac or markings, just compacted dirt roads, though there was a loose top surface and there were lots of rocks dotted around too…
The scenery was stunning and really something else, though we couldn’t always look at it due to the high levels of concentration! The road now went up and hugged the side of the cliff face along this valley, on our right was a sheer rock face going up into the sky and about 15 ft to our left was a sheer drop which varied from a smidge over 1000m to near 3000m, get it wrong here and there’s nowt for it your properly fucked!
In fact we both decided the fall was so far, you’d have enough time to write a letter home, take some photos and maybe make a phone call before you splatted into mush.
We also decided that if you did go off there would also probably be lots of poo!

Annnyyway that aside it did keep us on edge a bit and at times you really had to concentrate and have complete faith in the bike to do what its built to do. There were a few hairy moments for us both were we’d hit a bike rock or have a bit of a tank slapper and get shot towards the edge of the road, there was much clenching and forcing ourselves not to grip the bars tight and just be as smooth as possible and the bike would correct itself, then it was a deep breath and carrying on.
We finally made it to the town of Santa Teresa and we thought that the hydroelectric would be just on the edge of the town… nahhh this is Peru nothing is that simple! The Hydroelectric was another 20 km down another though much more spectacular dirt road.
We trundled along taking out time and trying to enjoy the view, there were some big big drops again as with the first section, also to aid the clenching was more traffic, the first section was pretty empty but we came across massive earth movers and various bits of large machinery from CAT, they would kick up a sea of dust so you got a nice mouthful of that! We finally made it to the Hydroelectric and found over bike drop off with a chap called Senior Escobar, who had a little house and outside open shed thingy that people could store there bikes under for a small fee of a couple of quid, there were a good number of bikes being stored so obviously this was a well used bike travel route.
We dropped the bikes and kit off ready to set off, only to find out we really missed the last train and there was nothing till the following day, we though we might have made it but alas no.
So we now had 2 options… go back into Santa Teresa back down the dirt road and try again tomorrow..or…walk the 12km down the train tracks to Aguas Callientes.
Neither were great options to be honest but tomorrow was our only day for going to Machu Picchu, if we’d had a day or two extra on the trip we could have maybe done things differently. So we decided to walk it, I had read in the prep that people walk this route a lot so it should be safe… well I tried to convince myself of that!
So changed with a borrowed headtorch and some water we set off. Now in Peru it gets dark at 6pm everynight, you get dusk and then someone switches the lights off, not like here were the daylight is drawn out in the summer, it was 5:45pm when we left and but just gone 6pm that was it, it was night time. We both thought as we were walking that we were going to be darted in the neck and dragged off into the jungle/rain forest to have our organs harvested and then thrown in the river, never to be seen again…
45 mins into our walk we bumped into a German couple walking the other way, we stopped and chatted and they assured us that this route was perfectly safe and was walked all the time be travellers and locals who couldn’t afford the train or who just fancied the walk.
We both felt a bit more reassured we weren’t going to be dragged off, killed and eaten…but there were still lingering thoughts!
Though when we came across some more people walking the other way we realised that this was a safe route and we weren’t going to not make it out the jungle!
It was an interesting walk as there was lots of noise from animals and bugs you couldn’t see, you could also hear the river, but couldn’t really see it, though at times you could see it rushing and glistening in the moonlight. It was also extremely humid and sweaty which was really the hardest part and most unpleasant part to the walk.
2 hours later we rolled into Aguas Callientes, but even this bit wasn’t straight forward, but we thankfully bumped into a local who saw we looked lost and said he would show is the way into the town. This is one thing I have noted when I have travelled, 1 there is always someone who is willing to help out and 2 everyone is friendly, I know some people who would never leave the UK or Europe as they think that you’ll get mugged or shot or killed or something but the fact is the world isn’t like that at all, people in these far reaches are all the same as us and everyone else and all they want to know is why your there and what interests you in visiting their part of the world. This chap was lovely and explained that he worked at the Hydroelectric construction site and lived in Aguas Callientes with his wife and new born son, who he introduced us to. He walks the route we just did to get too and from work everyday 6 days a week, he leaves at 4 am and walks 12km down the tracks and leaves at 6pm to walk home and is greeted by his wife and son every night at the edge of the town by the train tracks.
We said thank you and goodbyes to this lovely chap and headed off into the town to find our hotel. Agaus Callientes only exists because Machu Picchu exists and the town is still being built to an extent, with new buildings being built ontop of exisiting ones or being squeezed in between existing ones, tourism is the name of the game and theres, hostels, hotels and b&b’s to suit every style and pocket. The town is in the middle of a valley and is a lovely and I found relaxing place. Well it was after we walked up the seriously steep main street to find our hotel, which was annoyingly right at the top of this steep walk!
We were shattered by the time we got to the hotel so just crashed out, ready for our big day out tomorrow.

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We got up and sorted out and were in the queue for the buses to Machu Picchu by just gone 7am, there was already lots of people waiting to get on so we waiting in line. It was interesting seeing the town in daylight, really seeing how isolated it was and seeing how it was surrounded by mountains, the bus went out of the town on the road we walked in on, again seeing it in daylight was so different, a 5 min bus ride and you are at the base of the mountain which MP sits atop, 25 mins of near vertical switch backs we reached the holding area for buses etc. there were restaurants, loos and a few shops here and then the entrance to the site.
We got let in thankfully and walked along the path that hugs the mountain edge and rounded a corner to finally bring MP into view, its one hell of a sight to see, I have seen pictures from others who have been and obviously tv shows etc but it really is something else seeing it in person. Its awe inspiring not just the city but also the surroundings, its amazingly isolated and surrounded by huge mountains and valleys on all sides.
Walking round and listening to the guides we realised no one really knows why the city exists or how it was made as the stone isn’t from the mountain and of course there were no roads, buses or trucks to move the stone round to get it 2,400m into the air atop a mountain summit.
We did conclude somewhat that with the Incan’s having sun gods that given its position as a complete sun trap that this is possibly one of the key reasons for its existence but there is no solid evidence or proof.
But saying that I decided that the city was like a really good magic trick, sometimes not knowing how they work or how they are done is best as knowing can take away from the experience and magic, it’s a secret that allows you to be astonished and amazed by the sight and I liked that. (I haven’t read Wikipedia either)
Wandering round you really get to understand and see why it wasn’t found until 1911, and even then that was some feat as from the ground you wouldn’t know it was there, the only way to know it was there would be to fly over or to summit one of the surrounding mountains, but even then with no roads or truly off road vehicles or anything seeing it from a separate summit is one thing, but then being able to actually get to the city through the dense jungle and up another mountain is really something else.
We saw some lamas, but decided not to eat them or turn them in to tourist tat…. They didn’t manage to photobomb anything but did look rather proud at times!

We wandered round the main city area taking in the main square and buildings and some of the sheer drops from the terraces that were used for farming. The engineering of the place is amazing its all dry stone walled, no cement of fixing agent and everything was precise, even the steps and walkways, though they had been worn away to an extent with 2500 people a day allowed up to the city. Having walked round most of the main bulk of the lower main city we went got some munch and have a rest. The city attracts people from all over the world, we chatted to Americans, Germans , Aussies, Thai, Venezuelan, Brits, Canadians.. every corner of the world was covered and it was nice to chat and people watch for a while.
We headed back up to MP and decided to go and see the upper levels of the city and see the Sun Gate.
Now we didn’t realize this but the Sun Gate is a seriously chuffing long way away from the city and the path for it clings to the side of a mountain and winds it way up with a cobble stone and cobbled stepped path. 45 mins in to walking up we came to a stone ruin that was meant to be half way… we were shattered but the view was amazing and worth the struggle. We decided to dig deep and get all the way to the top as the view would hopefully be better than this one. About an hour later I staggered up to the final steps to the Sun Gate that was the hardest and steepest part!! Cheeky sods doing that.

But getting there was a real accomplishment as many people try to get there and don’t and the view, danng the view. The photos don’t really do it any justice but it was amazing, from this vantage point you really understand the isolation of Machu Picchu and I know I’ve said it before but you then really get how its been hidden for so long.

Having descended back into the city we had one last wander round before going for a drink and catching the bus back to Aguas Callientes, we went onto the main street and had a few drinks at one of the main bars before grabbing some street food and going for a few more drinks while watching a local band set up and play on the street, they were great, really good music and real characters.

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The following morning we got up to try and catch the train back to the hydro electric station, walking the route once was enough!! We missed the early train by 10 mins which was a pain in the arse as we now had to wait 3 hours for the next one. The train system is even more un reliable (well on the local routes) than British rail which I know is hard to believe!! We sat in the main square and caught some rays and watched the world go by while waiting which was lovely.
Finally on the train and we got to see the route we walked.. it was amazing, as the train followed the route of the river we were flanked by huge mountains on both sides with the sun beaming down and glorious blue skies the green of everything was really lush and well green….

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We got back to the bike drop off and geared up and we were back on the road, I was hoping that we’d have caught the earlier train as that go us to the bikes for before 8am but with the train we caught we were on the road for 1:45pm , so the idea for visiting a big local market on the way back was shot sadly, as the ride here took 7 hours and I expected it to be a similar time to get back, and had to factor in darkness setting in proper from 6pm.. I really want to be back on tarmac and ideally over the mountain pass before darkness as these were the most treacherous parts of the journey. The offroad section I really enjoyed this time as I didn’t too much on the way there, but had a right hoot riding back and felt very accomplished when we got back to Santa Maria to start our mountain accent.. we’d ridden off road in Peru and we weren’t overly experienced and I really enjoyed it and would love to carry on with off roading.
After 2 quite hilarious and complete lack of language understanding fuel stops we were on our way up the Abre Malaga pass again and heading towards the summit. The higher we got the colder it got and I was glad I had my winter and summer gloves with me! Though a nice screen, fairing and some heated grips would have been toasty! The rented gear we had was ok but not great and both of us did get rather cold. Just as we summited and started our descent darkness hit and made riding the barrage of switch backs down the mountain and experience I wont forget! Also having a blanket of stars above us while riding is a memory that will stay with me forever.
We made it off the mountain and into Ollantaytambo for a quick break and leg stretch before getting back on the road and making our way back to Cusco on the same route we rode on the way there.
After some confusion in Cusco.. (it’s a strange one way system)… and some riding on pavements and town squares we finally arrived back at the hotel that we left from 3 days ago. The journey back took us 7 hrs 16mins with a total distance of 235 km so a round trip (on the bikes) of 470, arse breaking Km’s! But we’d done it, ridden motorbikes to Machu Picchu and back while pretty much everyone else we met or spoke to went on the train.

After a nice long shower we crashed out, feeling the altitude a bit more this time round. In the morning we dropped the bikes back with Alex at PeruMoto and he checked over the bikes, which consisted of revving the nuts off the bike and pulling a massive wheelie up the street! We had a nice chat about our mini adventure with Alex and his lovely female assistant from Canada ;p
We wandered off into town and got some food before just chilling out.

The following day we packed up and chilled before checking out of the hotel and getting a taxi to the bus station for our overnight bus back to Lima. We had a few hours sun bathing in the hotel terraces and I got rather burnt and looked hilarious according to rozy with panda eyes and a bright red nose, arms and lower legs.
The bus ride back to lima was nice, we could just sleep and chill not having to do anything for 20 odd hours. I watched a few films and listened to my ipod which was nice, allowing me time to try and gather my thoughts of the last few days and the trip as a whole. As this was the start of the long journey home sadly now.

We arrived in Lima on time the following morning and now we were on our way by taxi to our luxury 5 star hotel for our final night.
When we rocked up in our shit box taxi we could tell we’d probably be the pikeist cheapest 2 people there haha, but we weren’t treated any differently which was nice! I guess they saw it as well if you can afford to stay theres no problem!
This place was amazing, it had only been finished and opened in 2012 and was the highest building in Lima, probably the plushest too with lots of dark woods, stone and marble around the gaff. We got to our room and it was bigger than some of the hotels we’d stayed in! 2 queen sized beds, massive floor to ceiling window, huge telly and a bathroom bigger than one of hotel rooms on the trip.
We changed into our free slippers and dressing gowns and headed down to the pool and spa on the 2^nd floor, the place was amazingly opulent and plush, we swam for a bit then got into the water spa area that was empty. We went through all the different spa pools and sauna/steam rooms and shower things they had before going for some lovely lunch.
After lunch we went back to get into the spa to told you had to book a session with a spa angel….. it cost £40 and got you just over an hours use…so our hr long sneaking in freebie was well worth it!
We went back to the pool and chilled out there chatting and swimming before crashing out in the room, going to get some drinks and food in the bar and calling it a night.
In the morning we went for another swim and got some breakfast before catching a taxi to the airport, the journey took 75 mins of which about 45 mins was spent sitting in completely mashed traffic jams with cars point every direction! A fun way to leave Peru and Lima!.

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We checked in and next to us was the Thai ladies volley ball team, they drew quite a crowd…shame it wasn’t the beach volleyball team…..

We boarded the first of our 3 flights, heading towards Panama City and then changed for our flight to Amsterdam, after a short stop over in the Dam we were on our final leg back to blighty.

We landed in the UK at 5pm the following evening and after being picked up at the airport by Rozy’s boyfriend Ollie, we were back at her house.
we said our goodbyes and I jumped in the car for the 90 min drive home, this turned into over 2 hours because of a traffic jam on the M5, I was a tad disappointed at how civilized it all was.
Finally at 9:26pm I rolled onto my drive at home having been on the go for some 27 odd hours with only 4 hours sleep, I’d made it back from our South American adventure. And what an Adventure it had been!

If you made it this far without falling asleep I applaud you! I hope I have given you a taste for the trip with my words and photos! I will be uploading photos and videos of the biking bit soon hopefully once i have finished faffing with them!

Muchos Gracias mis Amigos !