8-1-12
Well I Arrived back in Cusco after 2 long days of flying. Camille has been here since 2-12-11 doing yoga, yoga,yoga and Spanish class. It took a couple of days of doing nothing before preparation for our journey south again. yeah. It feels good to do nothing sometimes!!
11&12-1-12
Today we went and got the White Rabbit out of hibernation. You may not have thought that rabbits hibernate but this one does. I cranked on the starter switch for a while and it started to pop a little bit. I then decided to start pushing it before I killed the battery. On the second push she was up in running
Back to the guest house and it time for some moto work. Four quarts of oil here= 38.00 US dollars!! One battery for Camels bike 35 dollars. One new windshield made out of a five gallon bucket 5 dollars.(thanks for the idea Tom,Chris,and Doug) and one new clutch cable for the rabbit. Oh yeah now there is fuel pouring out of the bottom of my carb. A few taps on it and the fuel stops leaking. Its now about time to hit the road again.
13-1-12(Friday)
We packed up our bike and headed to the gas station to fuel up and head south. At the gas station fuel was again pouring out of the bottom of the carb. A LOT !! I started to pull out my tools and then decided to head over to the motorcycle alley instead. We found some shade there and began to pull the bike apart. Within 5 minutes a teenage boy came over and started to help me. Next thing you know we are in front of his house 50 yards down and him and his brother are both going at on my bike. One was pulling the carb. out while the other was changing one of my throttle cables. It was hanging on by maybe 3 wires. I actually had a new throttle cable with me. The inside of the carb. float bowl was covered in so so much gel from the fuel sitting in there for 7 months. A whole can of carb. cleaner was used and now it looks like new. The entire time the boys were joking and having a great time. I think they just liked to work on a big bike. They don’t see many Honda’s this big. They never once asked for anything!! I gave them $11.50 for there 2 hours of help and they were stoked.
Now its like 2 or 3 pm. and we finally get down the road some. Just in time for the rain
Cusco, – Sicuani Peru 90 miles.
We then managed to get into some good wind for a while. And then there was also some good rain that followed. Oh yeah what good reintroduction to motorcycle touring. We Love It!
14-1-12 Sicuiani – Sibayo peru 140 miles of Amazing dirt @ 13000ft.++
The riding today was simple amazing!! Mountains,Lakes,Rivers and desert. Most of the day we kind of knew where we were. But it seems that the roads we were on are not actually on our map. No worries we popped out on an intersection that had a sign pointing us towards the town we were looking for. It would have to wait until tomorrow as the sun was now setting. We found a sweet camping spot along the river tucked behind some old empty building. Cooked up some dinner and slept like a baby. In the morning there was a nice frost layer on everything. I didn’t think it really got that cold last night though.
15-1-12 Beautiful camp spot - Chivay, Peru 26 miles of dirt
This is the stepping of point for Colca Canyon. We found a nice hostel with parking of course, had a few cocktails and then went and soaked our bones in some sweet hot springs.
16-1-12 Chivay – Colca Canyon 60 miles of Dirt.
We started today early so we can see the largest flying birds in the world(south American Condor;wind span over 10ft.) soar over the deepest canyon in the world 13600ft. In 1981 the first rafters boated down the canyon to discover that it was deeper than the Grand Canyon. Then in 1991 it became a national park. Gotta love a national park that is dirt roads!!
A mile down the road we stopped to lube up the chains. Luck would have it that it was kind of the gate area to the park and someone dressed in uniform walked up to us and asked us if we had our park pass. We said no we will get it further towards the park. We heard it was 35 sols each and he demanded 70 sols each. We said no thanks your trying to rip us off. He replied that it went up starting in 2012. We called his bullshit, started the bikes and went anyway. We never paid anything all day after that. Most people touring the canyon are on guided tour busses and have already paid at the tour agency.
The canyon was everything that we expected it to be (maybe more). This canyon differs from the Grand because a lot of parts of it are terraced for crops and support villages all through out. We got to the condor viewing point and did manage to see a few flying by way in the distance. then we notice that there were a lot of them circling further down the road. We rode down further and there was 20 or so on the ground and circling overhead. Theses birds are vultures and they were eating on a dead cow. We snuck up to them and what we became part of was so so special. they were everywhere and very very close up. WOW something I will never forget! Oh and we were the only people around. Yet another plus to having your own wheels. All in All a very special day for us.
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