You can probably guess which one I chose.
The route I had planned out would, if all went right, take four to five days of hopping between mountain cities, starting from Lima to Huancayo, Huancayo to Ayacucho, Ayacucho to Abancay, and finally Abancay to Cusco. Much of the route would take me back onto the famous Ruta 3S, but the last couple of days would have me on some rural routes that I wasn't too sure about. All part of the adventure.
The road out of Lima started off with more desert, but before I knew it, I was hemmed in by a narrow canyon, and ascending rapidly. The rock formations on either side, and sometimes above me were gorgeous, and I happened to catch a lucky shot of a train crossing over the road above me.
The further into the mountains I got, the more I began to see why some had recommended against the route I was now on. After ascending slowly but steadily for a couple of hours, I now found myself high in the mountains, and starting to face real challenges even though my wheels were still firmly planted on asphalt. There are no straight lines in the Peruvian Andes; even the main highways are composed almost entirely of winding, plunging curves and switchbacks, and the vast majority of drivers I encountered seemed to consider lane lines optional. More than once, I entered a curve only to see headlights in my lane, requiring evasive action. Not even halfway through the day's journey, and I was starting to feel the mental fatigue, at times even more than the physical. I got half an hour or so of respite in stopped traffic at one point, but once the line started moving again, I saw the horrifying reason for the stoppage: a semi-trailer, evidently flipped on its side from taking the hairpin corner too fast or too tightly, had flattened the entire front half of a car beneath its weight. A few years of training and experience responding to similar emergencies told me with just a glance that the accident couldn't possibly have been survivable, and I found out from news reports later on that two people in the car had died at the scene.
With an even higher sense of alertness than I'd had before, I continued the trek towards Huancayo. I'd experienced high altitudes before, most notably in the Parque Huascaran just a few days prior, but before I knew it, the altimeter on my GPS was creeping towards 16,000 feet, and I was cold. I have a nasty habit of not noticing things like excessive heat or cold while on the bike until they're really excessive, and in this case, I didn't really realize how cold I was until the temperature dropped into the low 40's and the snow-covered peaks of Anticona and Yanasinqa appeared across a narrow pass to my left, with a narrow lake extending beyond them and pointing my way down. Beyond the lake, I could see grey clouds gathering over the distant mountains, and knew I was probably going to need my rain gear before too long.
Just before arriving to Huancayo, I crossed the 10,000-mile mark since leaving Nashville, and the realization of just how far I'd come erased the day's fatigue in a rush of exuberant happiness. I didn't manage to make it there before the sun set, but Rodrigo, my host for the night, had given me excellent directions to his home, and I was warmly received with dinner, a cozy private room, and requests for stories from the road by his family. Rodrigo had spent two or three months working in Oregon the previous year and taught English at a local college, so we were able to converse easily, and he gave me lots of recommendations for the next day. I'd originally only planned on staying the night in Huancayo, but the combination of a long, fatiguing day and excellent hospitality convinced me to stay for the day and leave for Ayacucho on Friday.
Huancayo proved to be an interesting one-day stop. While it doesn't have quite the tourist cred of places like Lima, Cusco, or Arequipa, I found it to be an entirely pleasant city, particularly the city square with its art installations and beautiful-yet-understated cathedral. I also enjoyed the Parque de la Identidad, a small plaza filled with sculptures of prominent figures in the city's history and mosaics of both ancient and modern Huancayo. After a quick lunch while waiting out afternoon rainshowers, I made the hike up to Torre Torre, a group of rock formations carved out of the hillside above Huancayo by hundreds of years of wind and water erosion. The sandstone cliffs and pillars looked more like something I'd expect to find in the American Southwest, and I spent a nice afternoon hiking and climbing around the area, though I was definitely feeling the altitude by the time I reached the highest point in the rocks. Suitably tired out, I made my way back to Rodrigo's for dinner, and turned in early enough to get a good night's sleep.
Waking early Friday morning, I packed up, said my goodbyes to Rodrigo and his family, and set off for Ayacucho. The route I'd plotted out was supposed to take me around six hours, most of it following Ruta 3S through a canyon carved out by the Rio Mantaro. I say "supposed to," because things, as tends to be the case, did not go according to plan. After around an hour and a half on the narrow road bordering the canyon, I came to a small town and found a pile of twisted metal on the side of the road where a large bridge over the Mantaro should have been. As there were no other roads running parallel to 3S, I was left with one option: an 9-hour detour from where I was standing. It was already past 11 A.M., and neither time nor distance were in my favor. Still, only one thing to do: keep riding.
I wish I could tell you that I remembered every little town I went through over the course of the afternoon, but with the sheer amount of riding ahead of me and a single-minded focus on the road, things started to blur together. What I do remember, quite vividly, are all the amazing views of rural life in the Andes. Whether it was green expanses of farmland, terraced hillsides whose use likely dated back to the time of the Incas, or herds of llamas and alpacas crossing the road with little regard for wayward motorcyclists, it felt like I'd truly entered a different world from the one I'd left behind in Lima just two days prior.
The further I got into my forced detour, however, the more it began to wear on me. With only brief stops for food and fuel along the way, I was starting to feel the miles and hours in the seat, and the stress that comes with driving in Peru wasn't making it any better. After stopping for a brief dinner on the street in the town of Lircay, the road, still designated as a main highway, narrowed down to a width that was just barely enough to fit a car and motorcycle past each other - if we each slowed way down and got as far over as possible. More often than not, the oncoming drivers were less than accommodating, and I quickly learned to get to the shoulder and stop as soon as I saw headlights coming in the other direction. At least the narrow river valley leading out of Lircay was gorgeous. I was back in the mountains before I knew it, and facing an escalating series of problems. Firstly, the weather was still trying to play havoc, with patches of fog and rain making it difficult for me to see very far up the narrow road, which sometimes contained switchbacks so tight I couldn't get around them without putting a foot down. Second, it was getting dark, further complicating the poor visibility and bringing up the very real possibility that I would have to settle for pitching camp on the side of the road in completely unfamiliar territory. Third, my stomach wasn't cooperating; I was pretty sure this was the result of the questionable dinner I'd had in Lircay a few hours earlier, but either way, the implications weren't good. Fourth, and most critical, was that I was on the verge of running out of fuel. I hadn't consciously tried to stretch my fuel range as I'd done in the past against my better judgement, but every fuel station I'd passed for the past 60-80 kilometers had been closed, and with my odometer climbing past 180 miles on the current tank with an absolute limit between 220-240, I was pushing it with no guarantee that I wouldn't end up stranded in the middle of nowhere. All of these factors were playing in my head when I came across a small farming town in the mountains, little more than a few houses and a hand-painted sign reading "Amiti." It was the first sign of civilization I'd seen for a few hours, and it turned into one of the more surprising and interesting experiences of the trip so far.
A small group of men was standing by the road outside the first house, and I pulled over and asked for the nearest fuel station. The oldest of the men replied that he could sell me a couple of gallons of fuel, bu first asked me where I was trying to get to. Upon hearing that I was on the way to Ayacucho, his reply was quick and firm.
"No, no, no, you can't get to Ayacucho tonight," he said. "It's about to rain, and the road is too dangerous at night. We have a few beds for travelers, you can stay here and we will get you fuel in the morning."
A month or two prior, my traveler's ego might have turned down the offer out of misplaced pride, but at this point, I knew enough to know when the odds were stacked against me, and I wasn't about to turn down help when it was offered so freely. The farmer and one of the workers who lived on the property helped me maneuver the Twin into their workshop, and then escorted me into their home for a dinner of homemade soup. The farmer's name was Fan (I'm sure I'm misspelling that), and even if he hadn't been of clear indigenous descent, the fact that he and his wife were conversing in rapid Quechua would have told me all I needed to know; she spoke very little Spanish, but he was able to translate my quick account of my travels so far, and both of them were happy to have another traveler in their midst. Fan told me of a group of bicyclists traversing the continent who they'd hosted a few weeks prior, and offered me as much tea and soup as I could handle. I would gladly have eaten my fill had I been feeling 100%, but instead, I politely excused myself outside and promptly vomited everything I'd eaten that evening into the creek running through the farm. My hosts promptly showed me to the guests beds above the workshop; a simple wooden frame covered in thick Alpaca blankets had never looked so welcoming, and though it was barely 8:00 in the evening, I was asleep in minutes.
12 hours later, I woke up feeling refreshed and 100% healthy. Fan scrounged up enough fuel to make sure I got to Ayacucho with kilometers to spare, refusing my offer to pay him for anything more than what he'd just put in my tank, and sent me off with his best wishes. I had been consistently amazed by the hospitality of nearly everyone I'd met over the past three months, but this was the very definition of the word; I was not used to living somewhere where a slightly ragged, slightly sick foreigner on a motorcycle showing up in an unfamiliar place at nightfall and asking for fuel would be welcomed with unquestioningly open arms, and it was the most prominent of many experiences that have strengthened my resolve to pay forward the friendship and care I had been shown over the 10,000+ miles I had covered.
Once I got back on the road, I realized almost immediately that my host's advice had been more than wise. The highway was completely unlit, with a couple of particularly treacherous corners just past the town, and several construction areas where the pavement simply ended with no warning and hastily laid gravel detours around them. Had I come through at night, I would likely have run straight off the edge of the road and been badly injured. Instead, I was treated to an absolutely amazing morning of riding. It was early enough that the only vehicles on the road were pickups and vans used by local farmers, and the non-stop, smoothly paved curves and switchbacks reminded me of some of Tennessee's best roads, winding between forests and river valleys. At some point, I will have all the GoPro videos I took that morning edited and posted on here, but hopefully my words will suffice for now.
I arrived in Ayacucho around 11 A.M., and after getting stuck in a midday parade in a scene slightly reminiscent of Easy Rider, I was able to meet up with my host, Sonia and two other travelers staying with her in the town square. Both of them were from Belgium, and one, Djonas, was also on a motorcycle odyssey through the Americas; he had shipped his Yamaha XT660 from Brussels to the east coast of Canada nearly 18 months prior, and had been traveling across Canada, the U.S., and Latin America since then, covering close to triple the distance I had. I was in awe of his journey, and we would spend much of the day swapping stories of our various experiences along the way.
After some confusion with directions, I followed Sonia and the two Belgians to the home of an elderly woman who was one of several receiving assistance from a volunteer organization Sonia had founded to provide food and basic necessities to the poor and elderly of Ayacucho. The woman paid little attention to the three foreigners in her midst while Sonia explained the pitfalls of Peru's social security system, which provided the equivalent of around $10/week to recipients. This was my closest encounter with the abject poverty found throughout so much of Latin America, and it was obvious that what this woman received from the government was wholly inadequate to support even the most basic standard of living. Sonia and the others with whom she worked were clearly providing an essential service, and I was happy to have been a part of it, even through something as small as helping take out the trash. Once Sonia's work was done, I followed my three companions to her family's house, where her father, Julio happily welcomed the three foreigners. We'd picked up a number of ingredients along the way, and promptly got to work preparing a huge and savory lunch. I'd only just met these people, but we were breaking bread together like old family members.
After lunch, we hopped on a bus to the edge of town, where Julio guided us on a short hike up one of the mountains overlooking Ayacucho, where we found a tall, rickety concrete tower offering a great view of the city. Sonia and Julio pointed out most of the major landmarks in the city, and after clowning around for a few photos, guided us back down a different trail that met up with one of the main roads down to the Plaza de Armas. I'd ridden around the city's central square earlier in the day on my way to meet Sonia and the others, but hadn't had a chance to actually walk around and take photos. We wandered around the brightly lit square and pedestrian paths until rain started falling, at which point we all squeezed into a packed bus to get back to Sonia's; I ended up sitting on the raised deck next to the driver, and subsequently experienced one of the most terrifying public transit rides of my entire life. I've complained about Peruvian driving before, but had never before had to experience it from the other side; red lights and lane lines were treated as vague suggestions, and the entire concept of yielding seemed not to exist at all. I was very happy when we exited at Sonia and Julio's home, and fell asleep to the sound of rain on the metal roof.
Fortunately, the rain had let up by the next morning, and I was able to continue onward to my next stop along the road, Abancay. I'd once again be following Ruta 3S along the mountains, but fortunately, this time the weather was far more cooperative, with reasonable temperatures and just a few clouds for most of the way. Much of my route wound up and down the sides of near-vertical cliff faces, and with the sun out and few cars on the road to compete with, it made for a wonderful day. Abancay sits a few thousand feet higher than Ayacucho, and as I got closer, the cold set back in, though I thankfully stayed dry for the duration of the day. The views were, as I'd nearly gotten used to, absolutely spectacular. I unfortunately hadn't charged my camera the night before, so I'm able to leave you with only a few photos of the ride to Abancay, but rest assured there is far more beauty along the way than I was able to capture.
I arrived to Abancay around 4 P.M., and attempted to make contact with my host for the night, Javier. After around an hour of waiting, I received a sudden flurry of messages that had apparently been sent while I was on the road explaining that he and two other guests had gone out for food, and that he would be back around 5. As I was reading, I heard the sound of a distinctly American motorcycle, and found Javier riding up the steep dirt hill on a decked-out mid-90's Indian. This guy was definitely a biker, and after a quick apology for the wait, I was conducted through the gate and into Javier's hospitality project, Vocheros Abancay. Something like a hybrid Couchsurfing-hostel-roadhouse, Javier started Vocheros two years ago as a haven for travelers on the way to and from Cusco, and has hosted meetups for several car and bike clubs in the region, including the (apparently very active) Volkswagen Club of Peru. I got a particular kick out of the vintage Honda CT90 placed in the second-floor common area; Javier said that he'd bought it in Alaska years prior and ridden it most of the way back to Abancay. Javier provided a very comfortable space, as well as the company of an Argentinian couple who were traveling north and provided more recommendations on things to see in Argentina than I could remember. The tom turkey guarding the property was none too happy to see a tall American motorcyclist, and repeatedly expressed his displeasure with me throughout the evening by taking opportunistic pecks at my boots and knees whenever possible. Over a cobbled-together dinner, some wine the Argentinians had brought, and intermittent sips of Javier's rum supply, we enjoyed a lovely evening chatting as a full moon rose in the distance.
After making sure everything was still secure and pushing the handlebars back into a straight line (yet again), I exchanged some loud, choice words with the driver before setting back off, extremely rattled but otherwise OK. If a sign of foreign language skill is the ability to loudly curse someone out in that language without having to think about it, then I passed with flying colors. The rain and occasional wheel-deep water in the road made for a bit of an ordeal getting out of Abancay, but it thankfully reduced to moderate drizzle as I ascended back into the mountains. Though the route I was on was the most direct way to Cusco, it still proved to be one of the more difficult days of what had become an overall challenging journey. Slow-speed hairpins made it difficult to maintain enough speed to stay upright, and dirt and gravel washed onto the road made braking tricky in places. Then there were the dogs; while stray dogs are a common sight all over Latin America, the canine population of Peru seemed to have a particular hatred for motorcycles and foreigners; two out of every three dogs I encountered along the road would charge me with very little warning, and caused a few close calls.
The narrow valley I spent most of the morning riding through widened out as I approached Cusco, and I soon found myself back in actual traffic as I approached the mountain city. As I got into town, construction along nearly the entire main road deposited a fine layer of mud along the entire bottom half of the bike, my legs, and my luggage; by the time I navigated bumper-to-bumper traffic near the city center and pulled into Milhouse Hostel, my home for the week, I was dirtier than I'd been at any point in the previous three months, to the point where the hostel staff wouldn't let me into the rooms until I'd hosed off my luggage and boots. Every single piece of clothing and gear I had on was absolutely soaked; my boots would take a full three days to dry completely, and I had to deposit the rest of my gear near any open window I could find in order to dry off.
I didn't care about the dirt, or the wet gear, or the fact that I looked like a tired, bedraggled motorcycle hobo, though; I had made it to Cusco, one of the places I'd looked forward to most for the entire trip. I had ridden through mud, rain, hail, gravel, bitter cold, multiple detours, and some of the absolute hardest paved roads I'd ever experienced on a motorcycle, and come out of it with flying colors. I felt as though I had faced the challenge of simply getting through the Andes, and, if not entirely worthy, at least been found capable. Now, having come out the other side, I looked forward to exploring the magical city of Cusco.
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