Peru, day 7 & 8 (Sept 15 & 16)

Mmmm, I'm sitting here drinking some left-over mulled wine. Had some friends over last night and made it for them. It's so tasty!!! Would it be bad to make a whole batch just for myself? And it makes the house smell really good too! :)

Ok, back to Peru...

Sept 15 was our rest day in Cusco. Spent the day bumming around the city and a little bit of shopping. Bought my fabulous blanket that day. It took me about four hours and a ton of walking to find the one I really liked...but it's worth it. So nice and warm. We also had our briefing for the trek. All day I'd been thinking about taking a "day off" from the group and going on a mt bike ride. I was a bit nervous, 'cause if I got hurt right before the trek...I would have been in such trouble! Also, after looking at the shops that did the mt bike tours, I didn't have much confidence in the equipment etc. Finally decided that I would regret it if I didn't. You know what they say, we only regret the things we don't do. So I decided to go for it!

Sept 16 I woke up really early and headed out to meet my fellow bikers. I was supposed to be going with four other women, but when the tour guide finally showed up, it turned out it was just me and one other guy, Olaf. It was fine, just not what I'd been expecting. The bike they had for me was small enough...but it was a piece of crap! I didn't expect high quality bikes, but I did expect that they'd work. I only had 3 gears! And my helmet had to be tied on! Sheesh. It kept slipping back on my head, or down over my eyes. I finally gave up and just decided to not fall! :) The route was about 27 miles with elevation gain of only about 800-1,000 feet, which here would not cause me difficulty. But there...! Wow! When you're at 13,000 feet ANY hill feels huge. Especially when you only have a couple of the middle gears.

So this is about 30 feet into our ride and already the fourth fix! Not a good sign. Our guide Gilbert totally reminded me of a Hawaii surfer dude. Very funny. But he was great.

Here I am a little bit into our ride. The wind was pretty strong and was making it even worse. This was the first time in Peru that I had to use my inhaler. The view was just beautiful, and the riding would have been a LOT more fun at a lower elevation...or if I'd been on my Titus.

We rode for about 2 hours and finally got to one of the archaeological sites we were going to visit, the Maras Moray. Maras is the nearest town. The moray was an Inca experimental farm. They planted different types of plants on each terrace and experimented with water, light etc. Fascinating. In this complex there are three morays, but the one below was the most impressive. Can you see the people down in the bottom? It's a lot farther down than it looks.

Took us a while to walk down, but it was fun. Hot at the bottom too! Here I am going down the "steps" that are on all the terraces. You can't see it here, but on each terrace the stairs reverse direction...so it's like going down flights of stairs. We spent a bit of time resting at the bottom, then had to slowly work our way back up.

Walking up was exhausting, so we took a brief break back at the top. A very cute puppy was trying to sleep in my helmet, but then his mom came and took him off. There are a ton of dogs in Peru, and they're not like ours...pets. But it's not as bad as in Belize, where they were obviously in much worse health and more wild. These ones are tame..just not pampered.

After we left the Moray, we biked towards the town of Maras. Now the fun started! From here it was almost all downhill. Here's one of the hills we came down...and then did have to go up on the other side. This was the last hill up. At the top of that hill the headwind was so strong that it actually blew me backwards into a cactus patch.

After Maras we started descending into the Urubamba valley passing by the Salinas salt mines. They were pretty cool too. The descent was very hairy in spots. I didn't have to get off... but to be honest, I think there are several spots where I should have. Well, guess not 'cause I did ride them, but they were scary. I did fall once badly, but thankfully didn't land on the nearby rocks. Or off the huge drop-off on the other side! Olaf took quite the tumble, so here's Gilbert fixing his bike...again!

And while we were fixing his bike, we were passed by some donkeys. The farmer with them laughed at us. We finally made it down to Urubamba, where the bus was waiting to take us home. The wind was blowing so hard at that point it felt....I don't know, but it was super windy! This is a view back up the valley towards the salt mines.

So I had a great day, and am so glad that I did take the opportunity to go biking. I don't regret it. Once I got back to the hotel I had to pack for the trek, since we'd be leaving at the crack of dawn. We were going to leave all of our luggage at the hotel in Cusco, just take what we needed for the trek. Then it was off to bed, 'cause the next day we were going to be on our way!