..........an Englishman (who lives in New Zealand) who was trying to sell his bike to an Australian who was with his Dutch mate, who also wanted to buy a bike, a Geordie Miner and Delbert.
As it turned out we had all descended on the same place at the same time and after kicking tyres for a while we adjourned to the Norton Rat for a few beers "Old Speckled Hen" no less, on draught and tasting as a piece of old England should.
It is pretty common for guys to trade local bikes rather than pay the expense of shipping them to and fro. There are complications with borders etc but they seem to make it work.
Whenever you get in to such a huddle it is always interesting to hear each persons reasons for being there and or their plans. The UK/Kiwi was a passionate traveller and was already planning his return after earning a bit more crust (renting camper vans to the likes of Smelly & Armpit) to keep him going. The Aussie had worked in ships engine rooms all over the world, loved travel and bikes and was about to start a year long trip (I don't think he was going to buy this particular bike). The Dutch guy was a Jazz loving chef who played the property market in Holland (and lost) so was having a year to get away from it all. The pick of the crop was Ian the Geordie miner. Worked on the underground machinery, when the mining stopped in the UK he went to the Western Australia, Germany and Nigeria. Retired, shipped his bike to Miami 3 years ago and has been travelling ever since. He made it to Alaska but after spending a winter in Montana "ranch sitting" for a wealthy family. 7 months alone! He was happy to see spring arrive and the snow melt! I did ask him if "The Shining" was amongst the DVD collection.
He has been in Cuzco for 5 weeks with a broken piston ring. His plan is to head south and then ship his bike to NZ for their summer. So his trip is 3 years and counting. Makes me feel like I am not really trying and rather inadequate!
I would have been quite happy to share a few more beers over he coming evenings but I had an hotel booked and better to leave wanting more!
The ride from Cuzco to Nazca is a long one. Depending on who you talked to it was 9 to 15 hours! It is only 700 kms - why could it take so long? I would normally split this in to 2 days but, there wasn't anywhere on the map that looked like a bail out point. Anyway, I can easily average 100kms per hour on my machine. That time was for mere mortals.
I had meant to get an early start but the beer from the night before and handing over my old maps for Bolivia and Chile to the guys took longer than I anticipated so I went through the hotel front doors at about 8:30am.
It was easy to find the road as it is the only one going that way. If you look up "Cusco to Nazca" on google maps you will see it looks fairly straight forwards. Zoom in a few times and you will see where the time is spent.
It took me 3 hours to get to the one major town along this road, Abancay. It was then that I knew I had to hustle otherwise i would be riding down from the Andes in the dark.
At the top of one climb you come to the Alto Plata, losing about 12 degrees of temperature and gaining snow in the sheltered spots. It is the beautiful but bleak scenery i had seen so much of in northern Chile and Bolivia. Lots of Llamas, Alpacas and of course the "pre-historic" villages of their owners.
I got to Pucio which meant "pnly" 200 kms to go but I could see a large mountain range between me and my bed. it was 4pm and I knew I was going to be cutting it fine to get there in daylight. My wrist was hurting from all the gear changes so I popped a couple of paracetamol as I knew there were a few more hundred grasps at the clutch lever before the day was out.
Not only was I running out of daylight, i was riding due west so the low sun was right in my eyes. I was trying to do hairpins with one hand shielding my eyes from the sun, look out for pot holes, rockfalls and any trucks on the wrong side of the road................and all at pace! I had to average 100 kph if i was going to get there in daylight. given that i was struggling to do 50 kph on the hairpins I was having to fly along the short straights.
Rock falls - The road is cut through some serious rock with sheer sides so alot of the time you have small rocks or gravel in the road. sometimes you get a serious boulder.- on this trip (and i wish I had taken a picture) there was a rock in the road with 3 guys & a jack hammer on top of it trying to break it up to remove it. I don't exagerate when i say it was the size of a lorry.
I was relieved to reach the final ridge but at the same time saw just how much I had left to do and how little light I had left.
Nasca is where the sun is setting (well sort of). From where this picture was taken was all down hill and with more hairpins than I care to think about. To one side was always a sheer drop, the trucks and buses seemed to be at every bend and of course it was dark not long after I took this picture.
The danger with the dark up here apart form the usual issues are the animals. Even during the day you have to watch out for them but at night you don't see their eyes glinting in your headlight until the last minute. The one bit of good fortune I had was that I got stuck behind a long truck which backed the traffic up behind him. A car (the only one I saw all day I think) was in front of me and I was able to follow him down the hairpins. It made it so much easier to follow him that try to work out where the road was going. If he had gone off the edge I would have followed him (lemmings and all that).
Because the land is so mountainous I did not see the lights of Nazca until about 10 kms away, at a point the land finally levelled off and the road straightened. It may sound a little dramatic now but at the time I was sighing with relief to have got down in one piece.
Nazca was pretty hectic and at night with no road signs I didn't have a chance. It took me a while to get a taxi that was free and led me to my hotel. I pulled up outside at about 7pm.
The only stops I had made were for a slurp of water and fuel (the bike not me). It was such a varied and beautiful ride that if I was to do it again I would absolutely stop at Colcabamba (picture below) - this didn't look much on my map but is a really nice town with accommodation (for any riders reading this).
You missed out the whinging Pom ! Who went on the bike trip of a life time but moaned about the number of gear changes in some of the most stunning scenery the world has to offer, I am sure if you had rung ahead they would have levelled the Andes for you?
ReplyDeleteWasn't moaning just stating facts. I would have liked a few lights on the road down but the scenery was just fine.
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