Chalhuancaus

Monday April 29th                                                                                           

We left the hotel at 8am. We gassed up. Then we headed east. In about 5 miles we were heading up into the Andes. 

We had our first incident. One of the guys from Canada ran off the road into a concrete culvert. He was not hurt bad but the front wheel is destroyed on his KLR. They need to fly a new wheel in so is going to miss two days riding. We were glad he was not hurt bad.

We continued riding up over the mountains. We were going half way today and halfway tomorrow. The mountains are not what we expected. There are no big peaks; just tall rocky hills with small beautiful lakes and valleys. We went past the tallest sand dune in the world. It is over 7000 feet fall. 

The curves were wonderful. After about an hour we stopped at a little store (shack) run by natives. We were at over 4000 meters elevation or about 13,000 feet. They fed us some coke tea and showed us a small museum with all the local animals and birds. That is meat they are drying in the sun.

We going higher.We were at 14,000 feet or higher all afternoon. All along the way there were herds of lamas and vicunas. There were a few straight stretches but mostly it was up one mountain and down the next. Great fun.  

We did not get to our hotel until 6pm. 360 km. It is a beautiful. For the first time we got a queen size bed. Tomorrow is another day of mountains and curves and takes us to our kickoff town for Machu Pichu.