Pic - Michnus Olivier
tor, two friends of our AirBnB hosts
Pipe and Carlos Maranzana. Payo was
so tall, and even made his KTM 690
look small!
This time it was a two day expe-
dition up to Bosque de Piedras with
some absolutely stunning rock forma-
tions. Sadly, on reaching our destina-
tion an almighty thunderstorm closed
in and we were unable to ride our
bikes in the park however, we still got
to see a lot of it from the park rangers
hut. The route took us through some
beautiful landscapes, and like most
dirt road excursions in Peru, on some
very small roads with super steep
drops. It amazes me how some roads
get the title of 'Death Road' and other
far more amazing and more potential-
ly deadly roads don't get a mention.
Mind you, we prefer it that way as we
tend to keep away from the commer-
cial ones, and get to experience the
truly heart-pounding roads for our-
selves.
One last job was to add oil cooler
fans, Aurora lights and uprated horns
to the bikes. I'd recommend a good,
loud horn in Peru, if not to save your
life on a few occasions, but just to join
in with the locals!
When in Rome ... !
Soon the bikes were ready to rock
and roll. We were escorted out of
Lima by Pipe Maranzana and a huge
gang of Triumph motorcycles, which
was awesome.
We then headed to Huancaya and
Vilca, home to some of the most beau-
tiful waterfalls I’ve ever seen. We
spent a few days there to go and tru-
ly appreciate the landscape, before
heading north on one of the best rides
so far. The skies were blue, the lakes
were aqua coloured, the water cross-
ings were fun and plentiful, and the
llamas were super inquisitive. It was
our favourite kind of riding and we
had beaming smiles from ear to ear.
After that, we had two days of riding
between 3500m and 5000m through
the Andes mountains, in close proxim-
TRAVERSE 43
ity to the Huayhuash mountain range
and many, many mining roads. We
got hailed on, rained on and snowed
on, plus the grit and mud slush on the
mining roads quickly caked our bikes
with a thick layer of brown sludge.
Fortunately, the views from the road
more than made up for it.
Huaraz, smack bang next to the
glistening and majestical Cordillera
Blanca, was next on our ‘destination’
list. I personally get mesmerised by
huge, snow covered mountains and
can spend hours looking at them, and
the best part was, on route there was
a huge Glacier; Pastarouri, which was
the first glacier I had seen in real life
(not on the TV).
The last leg to Huaraz was short and
we were soon at our hostel.
Huaraz was a perfect place to visit
some mind-blowing places like Lake
Paron, the Llanganuco Lakes with an
amazing mud pass leading down to it,
Canon del Pato, Chacas and so much
more.