Day 47 – 7th January. Peruvian Andes.

Arequipa - Cuzco. Rest Day 620 kms.

Total Distance So Far: 12,245 kms (10,475 kms by Land, 1,770 kms by Sea)

We set off bright and early this morning as we has some 600kms to cover and knew the roads were in very poor state. About an hour into the ride we hit a plateau at about 4,600m in the centre of The Reserva Salinas y Aguada Blanca National Park. There were mountains all us around going up to 6,000m. It was just fantastic scenery. I could hear Lidy’s camera clicking away on the back. It was about 7am and we stopped for some tea and to tae some pictures of a pack of Vicunas around a watering-hole. With the 5,700m Volcano Ubinas as back-drop it really was a photographers dream.

It is worth writing a bit about the vicuna as I had never heard of it before arriving in Arequipa, where it is treasured. The vicuna lives in the high alpine areas of the Andes between 4,000 and 5,500m. They produce small amounts of extremely fine wool, which is very expensive because it is the finest wool in the world. When knitted the garments are extremely soft and very warm. It is understood that the Incas raised vicunas for their wool, and that it was against the law for any but royalty to wear vicuna garments. Today Vicuna wool is the most expensive wool in the World. And for this reason they are caught by rangers and sheared whenever their wool gets to just 2.5cms long to prevent poaching. The Peruvian government still sells this wool into the world market at over $300 a kilo and the profits go back to protecting the animals which have rangers working to protect them 24 hours a day. In comparison wool from a sheep sells for $0.80c to $1.00 a kilo.

Both under the rule of the Inca, and today, vicunas have been protected by law. Before being declared ‘extremely endangered’ in 1974, only about 4,000 to 6,000 animals were left. Today, the vicuna population has recovered to about 100,000, and while conservation organizations have reduced its level of threat to ‘endangered’ status, they still call for active conservation programs to protect population levels from poaching for wool and meat, and habitat loss.

Later we were told it was a very lucky sighting as the Vicunas are very shy and steer well clear of humans.

The altitude did not cause us many problems, just a little extra breathing, minor headaches and a little feeling tired quickly when doing tasks. Lidy got into a bit of a breathing fit after climbing down a hill to take a picture. It was only about 15 meters below us but it made her feel pretty giddy and light-heading needed a bit of a sit-down to recover.

We rode through the first proper town of Juliaca after about 300 kms descending 3,800 meters. The town was a filthy smelly place. It nearly made you vomit, with open sewage and rubbish everywhere. It was the one low-point of the day.

Heading north along the old Inca road, and climbing back to 4,600 meters the last 300 meters to Cuzco was like an image book of age-old Peruvian mountains farmsteads and villages all constructed from bricks made of terracotta clay and mud.

The road, at times stony track, and other times pot-holed and rutted asphalt wound around mountains and valleys and was a bikers dream. The asphalt parts were more tricky as naturally the speed increased but you could not see the depth of the pot-holes some of which were 1-2 meters long and up to 50 cms deep. Dropping into these would have made a bit of a mess of the front wheel. I have to say though the Honda now running on 90-octane leaded petrol was running very well, although it lost 20-30% of its power over 4,000 meters. The chip-fat it was guzzling also made it sound a bit noisier. It is truly a great, and extremely reliable bike.

Arriving into Cuzco just after sunset, we luckily ‘bumped’ into our hotel by accident. Very lucky as we have no GPS guidance in Peru, and the same will be true in Bolivia. We found a nice little restaurant in the square and for some reason we decide to try the local delicacy!!!!! It turned out to look something like a grilled rat. It was an ordering error, as we thought it was going to be hare from the waiters description, but decided to give it a go as we were both pretty tired. We have now convinced ourselves it was water-foul, but to be honest we really have no idea what it was. It was chewy, smelled a bit cheesy and needed the use of fingers to pick off the little bits of meat. It was thoroughly unpleasant and never again. I am sure we both had the same thoughts nodding off that evening – that we would both wake up with our stomachs intact!