It would take two days so we stopped
enroute, and early the next morning
at about 4am there was a huge earth-
quake.
I was absolutely shitting myself and
ran down the four stories wrapped in
a blanket to get out of the questionably
stable building. After 20 seconds of
shaking, there was silence. We found
out the next day that the earthquake
had been 7.1 on the Richter scale
and lasted approximately 20 seconds,
about the same as the one that recent-
ly floored Mexico City. We were lucky!
Apparently, there were sadly two or
three deaths due to the quake howev-
er, it could have been a lot worse.
Cusco was a fleeting visit and then
we were off to discover some more
awesome back roads. The one thing
Peru has in abundance, other than
mountains, is dirt roads. After visit-
ing Santa Teresa, on what should be
classed as a 'death road' due to the
sheer drops and crazy minibus driv-
ers, we headed South West on route
to Vilcabamba. This isn't a route that
you'd really want to take after heavy
rainfall, but we were unbelievably
lucky in that the last few days had
only seen a few smatterings of rain,
and on the day we decided to leave,
the sun was shining. We were in the
back of beyond with no 3G, no phone
signal and no traffic. It was bliss! The
photo stops were numerous and the
surroundings were breathtaking. The
cold air was so fresh, and breathing it
in hurt my nostrils, but in a good way.
The route for day one was actually not
too challenging, but delightful and to-
wards the end of the day we managed
to find a little Hospedaje to stay in.
They even had a hot shower, which
felt so welcoming on my goose-pim-
pled skin after the last hour of very
cold temperatures because the sun
had decided to hide itself away.
We wandered around the little vil-
lage and didn't feel overly confident
about finding a good meal however,
the lady at the hostel was more than
TRAVERSE 41
happy to cook us up something for a
very small fee, and it was super tasty.
The same could be said for breakfast.
Her son was promoting the area and
tourism, so we had a good chat and
agreed to share our video footage and
photos so he could use them.
We were then on our way and we'd
been warned that the road from here
was more challenging. They were
right, but for me it was the perfect kind
of challenging with a loaded bike. It
was the fun kind of challenging, with
nice water crossings, but not too cra-
zy. Saying that, on one water crossing
with a concrete slab covered in slimy
green algae, my back end had a bit of
a wobble on, but not as bad as Kelvin.
Not realising quite how slippery it was
he hit the slab at an angle and before
he could say 'oh shit' he was on his
arse, his pants vents full of icy water.
Luckily we got it on video! His bike
started again no problem, however
the feel of soggy, icy cold water inside
his jacket and pants made things a tad