ring of mountains. The city centre is
low in the valley, but the outer sub-
urbs are high above on the rim of a
plateau. In between the city looks
stacked on top of itself as it climbs
up the steep sides of the surrounding
slopes.
Out of La Paz we had the chance to
take on the “Death Road” day excur-
sion. Having watched a number of
YouTube videos of this intimidating
road I was keen to match my skill and
wits to it. I was not disappointed. I
could write a separate story about the
experience so in this tale it will suf-
fice to say that I had one of the best
days riding I have had for many years
on a well-used Suzuki DR650 belting
through the streets of La Paz, into the
hills and down (and then back up) the
epic and nerve-wracking Death Road.
It turns out the scariest part was
the traffic chaos, at breakneck speed,
to get out of the city!
From La Paz we headed towards
famous Lake Titicaca. Depending
on your preference, this was per-
haps our best days riding so far with
good sealed roads tightly twisting
and winding through the mountains
further into the Andes. Lake Titicaca
spans the border between Bolivia and
Peru, so today we ticked off anoth-
er border crossing and took a ferry
across the World’s highest (or per-
haps second highest) navigable lake,
then rode around its shore to another
colonial gem, the city of Puno.
Our hotel on the central plaza of
Puno was just a pedicab ride to the
lakeside dock where we took a morn-
ing tour out on the lake to the visit
the floating Uros islands and experi-
ence something of the Uru culture.
These 120 or so islands are construct-
ed from many layers of reeds and
require constant maintenance to
remain afloat. They support houses,
schools and a community that has
traditionally lived on the lake for
around 500 years.
Interestingly, the Uru retreated
onto the lake in an attempt to avoid
being colonised not by the Spanish
but by the Inca who conquered the
land and taxed the people.
Another unbelievable day of
mountain riding through the heart
of the Peruvian Andes, more high
passes and views that made it hard to
concentrate on the incredible road in
front of us led us to the ancient heart
TRAVERSE 49
of the Incan empire, Cusco.
Cusco is an old city built on an
even older city and this can be seen
as you navigate the maze of tight
roads and alleys that spread out from
the wonderful central plaza. Colonial
style buildings are built on the mas-
sive Incan stone foundations of the
earlier civilisation. The city has so
much history that you could spend a
week just scratching the surface of all
that is there to see. Our day tour of
pre-Incan sites around the outskirts
of the city gave us an insight into the
scale and complexity of each succes-
sive era of human habitation of the
region.
After16 days of mind and eye-open-
ing experiences and fantastic riding
our tour was nearing its conclusion,
or rather building up to its Grand
Finale!
The mysterious and majestic lost
city of the Incas, Machu Picchu had
been on my hit list for many years
and on my three previous trips to
South America I had never managed
to fit it into my itinerary. The antici-
pation was almost unbearable but our
ride from Cusco through the Sacred
Valley of the Incas did a lot to take my