Winding my way up and out of Cusco I let my mind drift. Drifting through the history of this Andean city, wondering how life was during the Incas and how things changed after the Spanish Conquest. And then how Cusco was practically forgotten for hundreds of years as the sea-faring Spaniards found Lima to be […]
Like all plans, the one we thought was locked and tight was subject to change. It was time to give our Dakar’s a bath. Washing the bikes periodically is important because if you do it yourself (as you should) it provides an excellent opportunity for inspection. Always checking for loose bolts, dangling parts, something odd […]
For nearly 400 years while the Spaniards in their ‘great’ conquest of South America, Machu Picchu lay buried beneath the growth of the jungle high on a mountain top just 50 miles or so from the great city of Cusco. Perhaps lost. Perhaps forgotten. But Machu Picchu and much of the Inca history may be […]
The Great City of Cusco – The Heart of the Inca Empire High in the Andes. Once the epicenter of the Inca Empire, Cusco today is a wonderful city lined with cobblestoned streets, colonial buildings built atop fantastic Inca stonework and an international flair brought by the influx of thousands of tourists each year who […]
My alarm blares in my ear. It’s 5:20am and I’m in Puquio, Peru. The segue from last nights chilling ride to this morning’s alarm was way too rough. I peer through the blinds out the window. It’s dark. It’s raining. And it’s foggy. Good god. Not again. It takes about 5 long minutes for the […]
“Frio, no?” My fingers numb and teeth chattering as I tried to find a warm spot in the La Estancia eatery in the southern highlands of Peru. The owner and her son huddled around me wondering why I didn’t dress warmer. The biting cold and stinging rain were unbearable enough just walking through this muddy […]
They’ve mystified anthropologists and mathematician’s for years. Only truly appreciated from the air, the Nazca Lines are a 300 square mile anomaly in this rock strewn arid desert in Southern Peru. The Nazca Lines consist of over 800 lines, 300 figures and about 70 animal and plant figures drawn into the earth by removing sun-darkened […]
Armored bike cops in La Paz, Bolivia One of the problems we encountered when riding into Bolivia an hour before the border closed and in the twinkling of moonlight was getting Bolivian currency. We traded the last of our Peruvian soles at the border, but this was barely enough to pay for our room and […]
Consistency. When you have it and it’s good there’s nothing better. But in things like golf, gambling and well.. take a guess, you never attain it. However when it comes to arriving in busy Latin American cities you can bet I always will arrive just as the sun is sinking to the west. In the […]
After hitting the snooze on the alarm a record number of times, I still managed to be packed and ready to hit the road by 7am. However the hotel in Macara received many more guests since I arrived about 5pm last night. My bike was blocked in the small subterranean garage of the Hotel Katrina. […]
