It's been a while since we've posted anything, so here's a big batch of photos and stories from our last few weeks.
We entered Peru from Ecuador at a nice, quiet border crossing first thing in the morning. It was smooth sailing and corruption-free! A great welcome to Peru. It turns out there have been unusually heavy rains in most of this part of South America for the last few weeks and we found out right away that we couldn't just assume a road on the map was passable. After three tries, we finally made it to Piura and headed for the coastal desert. And what a desert it is! We had no idea we would be riding for days through completely barren, empty desert. It looked like another planet and it went on for thousands of kilometers.
We stopped for the night in Chiclayo, where a 15 minute lunch resulted in the theft of all of Marion's stuff (minus the moto and what she was wearing at the time). A parked car had forced us to park the bikes slightly to the side of the restaurant and someone just unstrapped her duffel and made off with it. It was a bummer, but Marion handled it extremely well and we headed towards Lima to try to buy her a couple of articles of clothing.
I wish we had pictures of Marion shopping in extremely fancy Lima wearing my jeans and her motorcycle boots. Needless to say, she got some looks from the done-up latin women. We were able to replace most of the lost chargers but could not find a camera battery charger that would work. Every day we are reminded of something else that was stolen in the bag. The power goes out and you go for the head lamp. Oops! Gone! We were able to get Marion a pair of jeans and some underwear in Lima and we headed for Joaquin's home - Ollantaytambo!
The roads from Lima to Cusco / Ollantay had been closed off and on due to the rock slides and flooding caused by the record rains. We rode for 3 hard days through desert, flooded mountain rivers, rock slides and freezing cold high altitude plateaus. Marion's bike did great at 15,000 feet! We had modified the air filter cover to let more air in and it seemed to greatly improve the bike's manners above 11k feet.
We arrived at Joaquin's family hotel - El Albergue Ollantaytambo - and received a warm welcome. Joaquin has added quite a bit of luxury to the historic hotel on the train platform - and we were not expecting the amazing room and fine dining restaurant. Joaquin, Aima, Mayu and Wendy were awesome and we could have stayed for months. Thank you all so much for your generous hospitality!
We did the tourist thing and boarded a train for Machu Picchu a few days later. The train leaves right from El Albergue and is a beautiful ride through the canyons next to the raging Urubamba river. You can see countless Inca terraces and the Inca Trail along the way. Machu Picchu itself was awe inspiring and quite majestic in the heavy fog up on the mountain. Unfortunately, near the end of our time there, I turned to see a man fall from the very top of one of the terraced sections and tumble head over heels for a considerable distance - probably over 50 feet. He survived, but it was pretty scary and he was in pretty bad shape. They finally got him on a stretcher and hopefully to a hospital.
We spent a couple days in Cusco with Joaquin and friends and had a great time eating way too much and learning maybe 15 different ways to play darts in a bar. Great times and plenty of beer!
The morning we were leaving Ollantaytambo to head back to Lima, Bono - the lead singer of U2 - showed up at Joaquin's hotel on his way to Machu Picchu with his family. We missed the photo-op, but saw him in his sprinter van transport on our way out of town. The last picture is Joaquin's mother Wendy Weeks with Bono in the restaurant of the hotel!
We're now 2/3 of the way back to Lima, in the town of Nazca. Tomorrow we'll be back in Lima to figure out how to ship the motorcycles back to the United States and we're headed home ourselves!!! Probably to Miami, where we will clear the motos through "homeland security" and ride them back to New Orleans.
I can't wait to be back in our house and my own bed! Thanks for watching our blog -
peace and love,
Chris and Marion
We entered Peru from Ecuador at a nice, quiet border crossing first thing in the morning. It was smooth sailing and corruption-free! A great welcome to Peru. It turns out there have been unusually heavy rains in most of this part of South America for the last few weeks and we found out right away that we couldn't just assume a road on the map was passable. After three tries, we finally made it to Piura and headed for the coastal desert. And what a desert it is! We had no idea we would be riding for days through completely barren, empty desert. It looked like another planet and it went on for thousands of kilometers.
We stopped for the night in Chiclayo, where a 15 minute lunch resulted in the theft of all of Marion's stuff (minus the moto and what she was wearing at the time). A parked car had forced us to park the bikes slightly to the side of the restaurant and someone just unstrapped her duffel and made off with it. It was a bummer, but Marion handled it extremely well and we headed towards Lima to try to buy her a couple of articles of clothing.
I wish we had pictures of Marion shopping in extremely fancy Lima wearing my jeans and her motorcycle boots. Needless to say, she got some looks from the done-up latin women. We were able to replace most of the lost chargers but could not find a camera battery charger that would work. Every day we are reminded of something else that was stolen in the bag. The power goes out and you go for the head lamp. Oops! Gone! We were able to get Marion a pair of jeans and some underwear in Lima and we headed for Joaquin's home - Ollantaytambo!
The roads from Lima to Cusco / Ollantay had been closed off and on due to the rock slides and flooding caused by the record rains. We rode for 3 hard days through desert, flooded mountain rivers, rock slides and freezing cold high altitude plateaus. Marion's bike did great at 15,000 feet! We had modified the air filter cover to let more air in and it seemed to greatly improve the bike's manners above 11k feet.
We arrived at Joaquin's family hotel - El Albergue Ollantaytambo - and received a warm welcome. Joaquin has added quite a bit of luxury to the historic hotel on the train platform - and we were not expecting the amazing room and fine dining restaurant. Joaquin, Aima, Mayu and Wendy were awesome and we could have stayed for months. Thank you all so much for your generous hospitality!
We did the tourist thing and boarded a train for Machu Picchu a few days later. The train leaves right from El Albergue and is a beautiful ride through the canyons next to the raging Urubamba river. You can see countless Inca terraces and the Inca Trail along the way. Machu Picchu itself was awe inspiring and quite majestic in the heavy fog up on the mountain. Unfortunately, near the end of our time there, I turned to see a man fall from the very top of one of the terraced sections and tumble head over heels for a considerable distance - probably over 50 feet. He survived, but it was pretty scary and he was in pretty bad shape. They finally got him on a stretcher and hopefully to a hospital.
We spent a couple days in Cusco with Joaquin and friends and had a great time eating way too much and learning maybe 15 different ways to play darts in a bar. Great times and plenty of beer!
The morning we were leaving Ollantaytambo to head back to Lima, Bono - the lead singer of U2 - showed up at Joaquin's hotel on his way to Machu Picchu with his family. We missed the photo-op, but saw him in his sprinter van transport on our way out of town. The last picture is Joaquin's mother Wendy Weeks with Bono in the restaurant of the hotel!
We're now 2/3 of the way back to Lima, in the town of Nazca. Tomorrow we'll be back in Lima to figure out how to ship the motorcycles back to the United States and we're headed home ourselves!!! Probably to Miami, where we will clear the motos through "homeland security" and ride them back to New Orleans.
I can't wait to be back in our house and my own bed! Thanks for watching our blog -
peace and love,
Chris and Marion
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| Our last day in Ecuador - stunning beauty and GREEN! |
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| glamor shot of Davis surveying the Ecuadoran countryside |
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| Mountain sides used for farming in Ecuador |
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| La Fronterra! The Peru side of the border |
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| Our second try at a road to Piura... 3rd try was better |
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| The desert in the north of Peru |
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| Marion loving the desert in full riding gear. Notice her moto is now light as a feather without a duffel! |
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| After Lima, we headed inland towards the Andes. A day in, we finally left the desert! |
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| The Andes! High altitudes and cold fingers! |
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| I try to dress exactly as the locals do - I think I blend in pretty well... |
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| This was our pic commemorating 15,000 feet and Marion's bike still working! |
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| One of the many rock slides in the roadway. This is a long distance bicyclist - doing what we are doing on A BICYCLE! |
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| Between Chalhuanca and Nazca |
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| Joaquin and his home town - Ollantaytambo ruins and the village in the background |
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| Aima, Joaquin and Mayu in the narrow streets of Ollantaytambo |
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| Joaquin and Mayu with Mayu's friend Abril |
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| El Albergue from the train window |
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| The rushing river from the train window |
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| We took Peru Rail - here you can see the front from the window |
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| The view from Machu Picchu - Dramatic fog this day |
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| Marion in rain gear and an Incan storehouse |
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| This is where the guy fell - from the very top, landing where the crowd of people are tending to him. Elderly gringo around 65 years old. I hope he turns out OK. |
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| Just a normal day at El Albergue - Bono and Wendy (Joaquin's Mother) |
Aw! As sorry as I am that I won't get a taste of the adventure life from your blog anymore, I'm looking forward to seeing you two soon. It's been a lot of fun following your journey. And I've had lots of dreams about you two. Safe travels back!
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