and her dog Jack. Once again, bike
issues leads to meeting great people!
Time flew, and soon my bike was
ready. We took the back roads to Cus-
co and it was fantastic. Many more
huge vistas, death roads and potholes
galore. In some places, part of truck
trailers were hanging off the edge,
how they stayed on the road I don’t
know. I was glad I didn’t have to wit-
ness any vehicles falling off the edge
of a cliff! We passed through vast
valleys of deep red rock, navigated
busy dirt roads with so much dust we
were chewing the stuff and enjoyed
the pleasant surprise of my bike not
breaking down after 1500km.
It was time for another rest so we
took our time in Cusco, plus my broth-
er came to visit, and this time we ac-
tually went to visit some of the more
touristy stuff like Ollaytaytambo,
Moray, Pisac, Salineras de Maras and
Chinchero. As always, more bike TLC
was undertaken, and then it was off
to Colca Canyon in search of the great
Andean Condor.
It was hard to believe that the Colca
Canyon is about twice as deep as the
Grand Canyon, however it really is.
At 8am, we headed with our over-
land friend Kirsi to the ‘Cruz del Con-
dor’, and like clockwork the condors
were out and giving us a good show.
I was glad to have a decent camera as
I was able to capture some of these
stunning birds up close in full flight.
The tourist buses came and went, and
we just stayed there watching. We
then headed off to the nearby Pin-
chollo Geyser along a few kilometres
of beautiful dirt road.
It was quiet, no tourists and hid-
den away in a valley below a nearby
volcano. It was very active and the
first time I’d seen anything like it. The
smell of Sulphur from the thermal riv-
er made its way up into my nostrils,
TRAVERSE 45
as the geyser hissed away and spat out
lots of hot water and puffs of steam.
It was great. After a ‘picnic’ of cereal
bars and chocolate, we headed off to
Chivay for a rest and an Irish coffee.
A visit to this area isn’t complete with-
out the obligatory thermal bath, so we
took some time to do that before get-
ting back on the road.
Next it was off to Choqolaqa, a very
small place with a full colour picture
taking pride of place on the Colca re-
gion’s tourist maps however, rarely fre-
quented by tourists due to its remote
location and lack of road-mapping.
We knew which direction we need-
ed to go and figured there couldn’t be
too many road options. It took a lot
longer than expected but it was no is-
sue because the roads were fun, the
scenery was impressive and in the dis-
tance we could see a volcano chucking
out clouds of smoke. Finally, after an
hour of no indication that we were ac-