Around Cusco - Getting drenched in Machu Picchu...

It looked like we made a good choice with our hostel in Cusco: Even though we had to leave before they officially served breakfast, we got the normal breakfast just half an hour earlier! :-) Then we got picked up by a mini van in front of the hostel that took us to Hidroelectrica. It was a 6 hours ride and once again the driver was terrible! I really think that here in South America, cycling might actually be safer than travelling by bus... We got to Hidroelectrica pretty late, meaning that we had to hurry up on our hike along the train rails if we wanted to make it to Aguas Calientes before dark. The hike was nothing difficult, it was mostly flat, through the forest, and along a nice river...

Hiking along the train rails from Hidroelectrica to Aguas Calientes

When we reached Aguas Calientes, we were brought to a pretty nice hostel, where we enjoyed a really hot shower before dinner. It became a short night, was we had to get up short before 4 am, in order to leave Aguas Calientes at half past 4, hike up an uncountable number of stairs to the entrance of Machu Picchu in slight rain, and get to the entrance by 6 am. There were hundreds of tourists doing the same as we did, and even though we got to the entrance by 6 am, the time it opens, we still had to stand in line for about 45 minutes until we finally entered Machu Picchu. Luckily, the rain had stopped, so we didn't get wet while waiting. Once inside, we didn't see too much, it was all cloudy and foggy, but we anyways had a 2 hours guided tour first, where we learned a lot about the history of Machu Picchu and how we believe the Inkas lived here. Among other things, we learned that actually we have no idea, what Machu Picchu was once called... Machu Picchu just means old mountain and is the name of one of the surrounding mountains, and as we have no clue about the real name of the city, we just name it the same as the mountain... For me it was extremely impressive to imagine how they built this whole city; the rocks they used for the houses are huge and they used no mortar but carved the rocks so long until they fitted exactly on each other. In addition, they knew a lot about architecture, as most Inka buildings survived the many earthquakes in the region, while most colonial buildings collapsed... 

Mystic Machu Picchu in the morning

Is it maybe clearing up???

After the guided tour we could still not see a lot, and in the hope of the sky clearing up, we started to hike up to Machu Picchu mountain, from where you're supposed to have a panoramic view over the whole area and the surrounding valleys. However, by the time we reached the summit, the only thing we saw was a whole lot of white, or, as some other tourist told us on our way up: Todo blanco...

Ok, maybe it's not clearing up... :p
But we got a panoramic view of the clouds :-)

It was still a nice hike, the rain forest was just beautiful! On our way down it once cleared up a little bit and we got a slight idea of how Machu Picchu might look like from high above...

On the hike down from Machu Picchu mountain we got an idea
of what you might be able to see without clouds...

Back down again, the lower hanging clouds vanished and we got the classic view over Machu Picchu with Wayna Picchu mountain in the background. We were really glad we planned to spend the whole day in Machu Picchu, otherwise we wouldn't have seen it in it's nicest way. And the good thing about the "bad" weather was that by the later afternoon most tourist had left and we could enjoy the view over the ruins without thousands of tourists around...

And then the clouds moved enough for us to get the
classic view of Machu Picchu! :-)

Due to the weather, most of the tourists were gone in the afternoon...

:-)

Before hiking down to Aguas Calientes again, we decided to quickly visit the Inka bridge, an ancient bridge built into a very steep wall of rock.

No wrong step please!

The Inka bridge

Taking in the view

And then, just before we started our hike back down, it started raining. Actually, raining is an understatement, it was pouring down like crazy. The stairs converted themselves into something between a river and a waterfall and soon we were completely drenched with lakes in our shoes. So by the time we reached Aguas Calientes, the only thing we wanted to do was enjoying a really hot shower. But we were disappointed, when we reached the hostel we were told that our rooms were already occupied, that we'd have to change to another hostel.. We got really angry, but it seemed like there was nothing we could do about it. Of course the shower in the other hostel was freezing cold and I had to complain several times until I finally got a hot shower... As all our cloths were soaked, we didn't leave the hostel anymore and just hoped for the stuff to dry over night. Of course it didn't, so the next day we had to hike back to Hidroelectrica in our still wet cloths...

And back along the train rails...

By the time we made it to Hidroelectrica, most of us had more or less dry cloths again, except for the shoes that were still completely soaked... On the drive back to Cusco we were luckier with the driver, but less lucky with the car. It was already late and we were still more than an hour away from Cusco when the front right tire deflated. Of course the car jack didn't work, so it took the driver half an eternity to change the tire and we got back to Cusco really late... But at the hostel they awaited us and our room was ready, so we could just fall to bed :-)

The next day was a lazy day with a lot of eating, I did a walking tour around Cusco and in the evening we went out for dinner with Nicolas and Alice, two of the French cyclists we rode together over Paso Jama and who arrived in Cusco while we were in Machu Picchu...

Cusco at night...

...and during the day

Juliaca to Cusco - Cycling the Altiplano together with a South Korean couple

Once we were all ready to leave Juliaca, Geovanni and his brother accompanied us to the outskirts of Juliaca, to make sure that we didn't get lost.

Stefan, Geovanni, me, Jihuyn, and Sungjong
in front of Geovannis house just before leaving Juliaca

From there the four of us continued on our own and it was really great to ride together with Sungjong and Jihyun. We took lots of breaks, enjoyed the landscape together and talked and talked and talked.

Beautiful landscape on the way to Ayaviri

Stefan just never looks tired...

After a lunch break in front of a small store in the middle of nowhere we tackled the second half of the days stage and short before dark we made it to Ayaviri, a pretty big, but very non-touristic city where we stayed at the first hotel we found. 

I slowly start to appreciate the arid altiplano landscape as well -
but just as long as there is some water around... ;-)

Clear sky, lots of sun, and luckily the wind can't be captured in a picture...

The light up in the altiplano turns unique before each sunset!

The next morning we went to look for something eatable in the city center. It was really funny, was our Korean friends use to eat something completely different for breakfast than we do. While we always looked for some kind of bread, they prefer a good soup with rice and meat in it... And find soup for breakfast seems to be a lot easier around here than finding bread. However, after a while we found a woman on the street where we could get some cheese and egg sandwiches and some jugo de maca, a hot juice made of maca, a strange Peruvian fruit. After leaving Ayaviri we had a long stretch of flat road in front of us, until we reached Santa Rosa where we had lunch and enjoyed the festivities due to the local schools anniversary.

The festivities for the local schools anniversary in Santa Rosa

Leaving Santa Rosa behind us, the road continued to be pretty flat, and for once I longed for it to start climbing, as we knew that eventually we'd have to climb to the Abra la Raya, a mountain pass between Santa Rosa and Aguas Calientes, our destination for the day. But it turned out that the climbed never got very steep and soon we found ourselves at the highest point, and as for once there was even a sign indicating the altitude, we had to take some pictures before continuing on the downhill...

One more pass climbed...

Soon the sun vanished and it got freezing cold, but it wasn't far anymore to Aguas Calientes, a place that basically consists of some hot springs and some little stores. We stayed at the hot springs, had dinner there and then, in the dark, took a bath in the nice and hot water :-) Unfortunately the showers weren't hot at all, so after warming up in the hot water of the springs, we took an ice-cold shower and then soon headed back to our room to warm up in our sleeping bags...
The only thing they offered us the next morning in the restaurant was trout with rice and french fries or some meat, but we didn't really feel like eating any of it. So we just drank a tea and bought some boiled corn and fried cheese from one of the ladies outside the springs and it turned out to be an exotic but very tasty breakfast! Then we continued the downhill towards Sicuani, the next bigger city. On our way we could observe how the vegetation slowly changed: There was more and more green, trees everywhere, rivers coming down from the hills, lots of agriculture; all in all, I liked the landscape more and more! Once in Sicuani we found an ATM to get some money (a scarce thing in non-touristic places...) and had a very good lunch at a local restaurant.

Oh yeah - Riding a bike in this weather can be a lot of fun!!

From Sicuani it wasn't far to Combapata anymore, where we decided to stay for the night. It was nice to once arrive at plain day, so we could enjoy the sun for a while before heading for dinner and spending the rest of the evening talking. The other morning we went to the same restaurant where we had dinner the night before, and they were really kind, preparing just what we asked for: Sungjong and Jihyun got chicken soup and Stefan and I got some egg sandwiches :-) From Combapata to Urcos the road follow a river, just that it didn't follow it directly, but we had to climb lots of hills in between. But still it was a nice road and after a night in Urcos we started our last day before reaching Cusco! We passed a nice lagoon just after Urcos and then continued towards Cusco. 

The lagoon we passed just after leaving Urcos

Soon we reached Tipon, where we were told that they had good "cuy" (guinea pig). We really wanted to try it; and even though it was pretty expensive, we decided to share one among the four of us. While waiting for the cuy to be cooked, we had the luck to witness the festivities for the Virgen del Carmen: While some older men played traditional music, the girls in their traditional cloths performed their dances in the patio of the restaurant...

Festivities for the Virgen del Carmen in Tipon

Traditional dance in honor of the Virgen del Carmen

And then we got it, our cuy... It doesn't taste bad, but it's also not the best thing we've eaten; the skin is very leathery and there's really not a lot of meat on it...

We just had to try "Cuy" (guinea pig) once!

It's not just for the picture, I really tried the head and it was tasty!

After leaving Tipon, we soon reached the outskirts of Cusco, but it was still quite a bit until we got to the city center, especially as it was all uphill... There we stayed at a hostel known among cyclists, enjoyed the hot shower and explored the city center for a while before booking a 3-days-tour to Machu Picchu... The next day we spent mostly in the hostel, just relaxing, enjoying to do nothing for once and in the evening we went out for pizza (and afterwards to a cheap restaurant as we weren't full yet after the pizza... :p)

In Cusco we once had to eat something else but meat, rice,
and potatoes again, so pizza seemed a good option...

La Paz to Juliaca - Getting to know beautiful Lake Titicaca

Leaving La Paz meant cycling up to El Alto again, meaning about 500 m of altitude gain in only about 12 km... And on our slow ride uphill we had plenty of time to enjoy the amazing smell of the exhaust fumes of the cars and the sewage :p However, eventually we made it to El Alto and after a long ride through this town we finally made it out of the agglomeration of La Paz and soon found ourselves in the middle of nowhere again. On our way towards Lake Titicaca we had beautiful views of the Cordillera Real and could now enjoy the view on Huayna Potosí from another angle.

Huayna Potosí from the backside

Unfortunately, I suddenly felt sick again, so we had to stop at the little village of Palcoco, where we didn't find a hospedaje, but after talking so the people at the local health center, we were allowed to camp in the backyard of the health center. After leaving Palcoco the next morning, we soon spotted Lake Titicaca for the first time :-). However, for the first few km we rode along the shore of the lake, it didn't look very spectacular yet... After lunch it got more and more hilly and soon we found ourselves above 4000 masl again. It was hard, especially as I still felt sick, but the views over the lake got more and more spectacular!

The good thing about climbing passes is that usually you also get a good view...

After the last pass the road led down to the lake, where in San Pablo de Tiquina we had to take one of the may little ferries to get across to San Pedro de Tiquina. It was really strange to see on what kind of ferries they transport all kinds of vehicles across the lake: Cars, buses, trucks, bikes...

Interesting ferry transport from San Pablo de Tiquina to San Pedro de Tiquina

From San Pedro de Tiquina the road lead uphill again, and after a few km I was just too tired to continue. So we set up our tent a little hidden from the street, with a gorgeous view onto the lake and the Cordillera Real. The next morning the street continued to lead uphill, we climbed higher and higher and in between we always got some good views onto the lake again. And then, after a long time we finally reached the highest point. From there the road led down toward Copacabana.

Our first view of Copacabana

After checking into a hostel in Copacabana, we headed to the Costanera and had lunch on the roof of one of the many restaurant just next to the sea. It was beautiful, but with the wind we soon got cold and left for a walk along the shore of the lake. Later in the afternoon we made a small trip to the Islas flotantes (floating islands), but we figured that they were really nothing special and the best thing there was a nice rock we could climb to get a good view over the lake... After a good nights sleep we headed again to the harbor, this time we wanted to get to the Isla del Sol. The weather was nice and we enjoyed the long boat ride. Once on the island, we started hiking across the island. First we got to a nice bay with lots and lots of fishing boats.

Little boy on Isla del Sol

Then the trail led uphill, we came across some Inka ruins and soon found ourselves on the ridge of the island from where we had amazing views over the lake! There were so many small islands all around, turquoise bays, and of course the Cordillera Real in the background...

Isla del Sol - The view over the lake with the Cordillera Real
in the background was breathtaking!!

The end of the day we spent in a small restaurant drinking hot chocolate and enjoying the sunset. At the hostel we met a French couple that joined us to Isla de la Luna the next day. There we visited some more ruins and hiked to a sleepy, little town located on the opposite side of the island than were the boat took us. On the way back to Copacabana, my stomach made me feel really bad again, so that the only thing I did once we got back to the hostel was sleep...

After leaving Copacabana it didn't take long to get to the border; and soon we found ourselves in Peru! :-) It was still pretty hilly and by the time we made it to Juli I definitely needed a break, so we decided to stop for the day.

Yes! We made it to Peru!

From Juli we had a days ride left to Puno. For a long time we saw nothing of the lake anymore. After climbing another hill we saw this amazing lake again and then Puno was just a short ride away.

On our way to Puno, very hidden but just next to the road
I found this beautiful place...

Once we got to Puno, I decided to get medical advice, as I was still feeling bad all the time. It proofed to be a good idea, as the antibiotics I got finally seemed to help! The next morning we made a trip to the famous Uros islands. These are about 80 floating islands in the middle of the lake inhabitated bythe Uros people. Although it was one of the most touristic places we visited, it was extremely impressive to how these people still live without toilets (they have to take a boat to get to the "toilet island"...), without drinking water (they have to boil the water of the lake for everything), and mostly without electricity (some now have a solar panel that gives them enough energy for one lamp inside their hut...). However, they are completely dependent on the mainland, as they need trunks to anchor the islands, ropes to construct their boats, wool for their handcrafts, and much more...

The one of the Uros islands we visited...
People really still live like this out here!

Another Uros island

One of the luxurious reed boats

Uros island with typical houses and one of their "taxis", a simple reed boat

The next day we left for Juliaca. It was a short ride and in the early afternoon we got picked up the the plaza by Geovanni, our WarmShowers host in the city. And there, together with Geovanni, the two Koreans we already knew from La Paz, Sungjong and Jihyun, showed up as well. What a pleasant surprise! We spent the whole afternoon talking to them and then decided to tackle the remaining few hundred km to Cusco together. In the evening we went out for dinner with Geovanni and then he told us a lot about his life in Juliaca and his experiences with all the other cyclists he already hosted. It's always amazing how openedly we are welcomed in these peoples houses and this time I was completely speechless as Geovanni came back up an handed us both a little present... I thought that in any case we would have to be the ones to give him a present, but no, he wanted us to have a souvenir of Juliaca and so I got an alpaca-scarf and Stefan got some alpaca-gloves! :-)

La Paz - Being sick, climbing Huayna Potosí, and visiting the Yungas...

The first few days in La Paz we didn’t do a lot. It was great to meet lots of other cyclists once again, so we spent a lot of time talking, walking through the city, or just doing nothing. Eventually I got really sick too, a thing that seemed to be really common here in La Paz, so another few days of rest were necessary. Through David, an Austrian cyclist we met at the Casa de Ciclista, we also got to know Christian, a Swiss backpacker. The four of us decided that we’d like to climb Huayna Potosí together, one of the easier 6000ers around La Paz. So on the 28^th of June we all met in the office of an adventure agency, however, they had some problems with the transport, so we had the chance to go for a second breakfast before we left in a minibus towards the base camp at 4800 masl. After lunch we hiked up to the high camp at a bit more than 5100 masl, it was a rocky hike, lots of loose stones but nothing very difficult. Nevertheless, we could feel the altitude, it's a lot more exhausting to hike up there than back in Switzerland and I noticed that I was breathing like crazy! At the high camp we got some hot tea and cookies and shortly later we were already served our dinner and at around 6 pm everyone was in bed, as the alarm was set to midnight...

High camp toilet at 5130 masl

However, as warned by our guides, none of us could really sleep. Apparently people are hardly ever able to sleep at altitudes above 5000 masl if they are not used to it. So when the alarm rang at midnight, all of us were still really sleepy. It was good to get a coffee before leaving the high camp in the middle of the night at around 1 am. Stefan and David formed a rope team together with their guide, Franz, and Christian and I, together with our guide David, formed another rope team. David turned out to be the better guide, as he insisted on hiking really slowly and therefore we hardly had to take any breaks. Franz, in contrast, hiked much faster and took lots of breaks... The climb wasn't difficult, there was just one spot where we had to use our pickax and the last slope was pretty steep, otherwise the only difficulty was the altitude.

On our way up to Huayna Potosí 

After hours of hiking, finally the sun rose... :-) 

Astonishingly, Christian and I were the first to made it to the summit just before sunrise; shortly after us Stefan and David arrived as well and then more and more people joined. We had some hot tea at the top to celebrate our success, but soon it was so crowded at the summit and we were so frozen that we started our hike down again.

Finally! We made it to the summit! :-)

Gorgeous view from the summit of Huayna Potosí

One of the sunrises I enjoyed most...

On our way back down we finally saw how beautiful this mountain is...

We were all really happy that we made it, it was a great experience!

The four of us: Me, Christian, David, and Stefan -
Happy but tired once we were down again...

Back in La Paz the four of us went to a restaurant and cooked a delicious lasagna in the evening, as we definitely had something to celebrate! After this we needed another day of rest, especially as we really needed to sleep a lot, the night before climbing Huayna Potosí was quite short... After going that high up, the next mini-trip led us quite far down: We wanted to cycle the most dangerous road of the world, also named "Death Road" and spend a day in the Yungas... So together with a German cyclist we met at the Casa de Ciclista in La Paz, we left early in the morning and cycled up to the Yungas bus station in La Paz. From there we took a bus to La Cumbre, a pass north of La Paz, as we were to lazy to cycle up these 1000 m of altitude... Up there we took our bikes of the bus and unlike all the "normal" tourists who cycle this road with a tour agency, we didn't take the new, paved road to the entrance of the death road, but the old, unpaved "road" (or what's left of it...), where we had no traffic at all and where we could avoid the hundreds of tourists who cycle the death road every day...

Hmmm - And where's the road???

The old road down towards the Yungas

Even though we were constantly cycling downhill we didn't advance very fast, the road was too bad for that and we were pretty happy to have good brakes. It was pretty fascinating how the landscape changed: From one moment to the other we didn't find ourselves in the arid altiplano-landscape anymore, suddenly we were surrounded by lots and lots of vegetation and by the time we got to the beginning of the famous death road we were in the middle of a rain forest.

Entrance of the death road - By now we were already in the rain forest :-)

We were lucky, as all the commercial tours were ahead of us, so we had the road for us and could really enjoy the beautiful, green, and wet vegetation surrounding us. It was easy to imagine that this road was extremely dangerous when all the cars had to us it, as there's a single lane and often all there is just next to the street is a huge cliff...

Once below the clouds we had a beautiful view over the Yungas

From time to time it was better not to look down...

Adventurous bridge...

Additionally, the road is pretty bad, we were shaken a lot and honestly, once we made it to the end of this street I was glad no having to control my handlebar constantly anymore. 

After weeks in the Altiplano all this green was like balsam for our eyes!

Water and dirt road = a lot of mud

Our first sight of Coroico

However, at the end of the death road there isn't a lot, so we had to climb another 500 m of altitude on awesome cobblestone to get to the handsome town of Coroico.

The steepness was actually enough of a challenge,
it wouldn't have had to be cobblestone too...

On our way up we met a Czech couple of cyclists and we spent the evening with them...

Coroico

The next day, Lars, Stefan, and I decided to hike to some waterfalls close to Coroico, which turned out to be quite an adventure, as the trail wasn't really a trail anymore and the waterfall (there were supposed to be three, but we only found one) was a joke, it looked like it was the drinking water supply for the surrounding villages and accordingly there was a big fence around it and lots of pipes all around... From there we walked to the next village and took a bus back to Coroico and then another bus back to La Paz. The bus driver was driving so terribly that actually I was more scared on the new, paved road than the day before on the death road... :p