Nasca to Lima - Riding along the coast

We decided not to fly over the Nasca lines (I think it's not ecologically worthwhile...), but on our way north we came across the viewpoint from where we could still observe two of the famous figures.

Nasca lines: The frog or hands

The Nasca lines are geoglyphs in the desert, created by removing the reddish pebbles from the ground, exposing the lighter ground below it. However, no one knows what for the Nascas created these figures, there are lots of theories, none of which could be confirmed so far...

After leaving from the viewpoint, we soon reached Palpa, and as we were told that after Palpa there's nothing but desert all the way to Ica, we decided to spend the night there and continuing the next day to Ica. Leaving Palpa we had one last little pass to cross; it was pretty special, as the mountains are completely dry, while in the valleys on each side of the mountain ridge there's a green valley along a at this time of the year dry river...

Our very last mountain pass: just about 600 masl...

After leaving the pass behind us it got really boring: There's a lot of sand everywhere (we're in the middle of a desert) and lots of cars on the road (we're back on the Panamericana), but otherwise there's pretty much nothing and it's completely flat...

Now we're definitely in the desert!

A few km before Ica we reached another valley and it became a bit greener again, and then we made our way through the suburbs of Ica, looking for the place of Berly, our WarmShowers host. Initially we didn't plan to spend a day in Ica, but it came different: On our way to the oasis Huacachina we got lost and ended up in a weird neighbourhood where several dogs followed me (nothing special, dogs don't seem to like bikes). As they seemed pretty aggressive I stopped (usually they stop barking and turn around as soon as you stop), but one of them didn't like that either, jumped up and bit me in my ass. Now that wouldn't have been too bad, it just bled a tiny little bit and well, it hurt, but as it was dog from the street, we knew that we'd have to get anti-rabies treatment. This turned out to be pretty difficult, in the first hospital we spent over an hour waiting for this and that until they finally told us that they didn't have the vaccine I needed (and they even told me that it's not that important, that you should only start treatment if you show symptoms, clearly telling me that they had no idea, as by the time you show symptoms you're condemned to death...). At least they told me that I should be able to get the vaccine at the local anti-rabies center, so we decided to first go and visit Huacachina and care about the vaccine later. Huacachina was very touristic, but truly gorgeous! It really looks exactly how I always imagined an oasis: a little lake surrounded by palm trees in the middle of huge sand dunes...

I didn't think that an oasis really looks like this!!...

Huacachina - Just amazing!

Back in Ica we went to this anti-rabies center which of course was closed, so we had to return the next morning again... There they took it more serious and sent me to the next hospital where finally it was no problem to get the shot. The next problem, however, is that now I need another shot exactly 3 days later, so we have to be in a city with a hospital again... In the afternoon we finally left Ica and cycled towards the coast. On the way we passed lots of vineyards, it was really weird to see all this agriculture with the sand dunes in the background... In the evening we finally got to the coast again; we stayed in the touristy town of Paracas in a very cute little hostel with amazingly kind hosts! From there we took a tour to Islas Ballestas the next morning. These are some islands out in the sea with lots of wildlife, therefore also named poor mens' Galapagos.

Sea lions on Islas Ballestas

They almost seem to be posing...

A Humboldt penguin :-)

El Candelabro - A geoglyph on the Paracas peninsula

When we returned to Paracas, Stefan went to bed immediately as he didn't feel well at all. However, he still wanted to leave later in the day in order to reach Lima soon, so I went for a short ride to the national reserve on the Paracas peninsula while he slept for a while. If we'd had more time it would have been great to spent more time on the Paracas peninsula, as the landscape was just amazing! I only got to see one of the many beaches, but I'm sure the others would be at least as gorgeous as this one!

Paracas National Reserve

This red sand is just amazing!

Beautiful bay with a red beach!!

Amazing colors!!

I guess I could have spent quite a while there...

When I got back Stefan really wanted to continue, so we packed everything and went on to Chincha Alta, a very non-touristic city a few km from the coast. The next day Stefan felt so bad that we decided to stay the day there for him to recover. Luckily I could get my second anti-rabies shot at the local hospital the next morning before heading on towards the north. But Stefan still didn't feel well and after a long ride along a busy highway we stopped at a gas station where we only found a closed restaurant. So we ate our last cookies and then tried to get a ride to Mala, were we had a Warm Showers host waiting for us. Pretty soon an empty yogurt truck agreed to take us and our bikes to Mala for 20 soles, which we were more than willing to pay, as Stefan seemed to be falling asleep soon. Once in Mala people soon figured that we were looking for Lula, our Warm Showers host, she seemed to be known for hosting cyclists... She welcomed us very warmly and after a lot of story telling Lula showed us her little town and we went out to eat Chinese dinner. Later that evening I learned a lot about Lula and all her travels and experiences while Stefan went to sleep early in order to finally recover! It would have been nice to spend more time with Lula, she seemed a very interesting person telling us lots of thing about Peruvian people and customs, but Stefan was determined to finally reach Lima. So the next morning we hit the road again. It wasn't a particularly nice ride: Along a busy highway through the desert; passing several abandoned "holiday villages" of the rich Limeños, but luckily there was a wide shoulder so the passing cars didn't bother us too much...

Entering Lima on the highway: Lots of ads, cars, fog and pollution :-)

Soon we reached the southernmost parts of Lima, from one minute to the next the desert was replaced by houses, but we still had lots of kilometers to head north along the highway. And once we finally left the highway, we got lost pretty immediately and only with the help of several kind Limeños and police officers we reached the Jesús María district. Once in this district we soon found our hostel where we both enjoyed a warm shower before heading out to find some good food and celebrating our arrival in Lima!
The next day we met Jihyun and Sungjong again! :-) As they have been in Lima waiting for a package from South Korea for over 2 weeks, they knew the city pretty well, so we had our personal city guides. After eating Ceviche at the local market in Jesús María we took a bus downtown. After visiting the mandatory Plaza de Armas with all the government buildings I finally got the chance to buy some souvenirs! (We decided not to buy anything before reaching Lima because of space issues...) Towards the evening the streets got filled with artists of all kinds and we spent quite a while observing them. Once our legs didn't want to carry us anymore (it seemed that by now our legs preferred cycling rather than walking), we made our way back to Jesús María the four of us went for Chinese dinner.
One touristy day in Lima had to be enough; the next day we had lots of things to do: First, we had to find some bike boxes. Natalia, the women who invited us to her house in Nasca, gave us the contact details of a certain Andrés. So after contacting him, we set out to find his little bike shop (which turned out to be pretty difficult in a city as big as Lima...). But finally we found it and Andrés proofed to be a very helpful guy! He didn't have bike boxes in his shop, but he promised to organize some and to bring them to our hostel! He also showed us a good seafood restaurant where Stefan and I had lunch before heading to the sea. But it was all so gray (we never ever saw the sun during our time in Lima) that we didn't really get the "beach-feeling"... So we took a bus back to our hostel and just the moment we got there Andrés arrived with two perfect bike boxes! I want to use this opportunity to thank Andrés and all the other helpful locals we met during our time in South America; all of them our trip special and unforgettable, it would never have been the same without meeting them!!

Andrés, a friend of Natalias', organized two bike boxes for us :-)

Later we went to the nearby supermarket for some duct tape and after asking around for a while we even got the Styrofoam of a fridge. Soon our bikes were safely stored in the boxes and I finally started to realize that our adventure is coming to an end... But we still had one last evening left in South America, so we headed to the Miraflores district where we met Alice, a French cyclist we first met in Susques, Sungjong and Jihyun, and Thomas and Corinna, two German backpackers we met on the Laguna route in Bolivia. After a last Chinese dinner we spent the evening in a cozy little restaurant having some drinks and replaying the last few months with all the unforgettable experiences each of us will take home...

Cusco to Nasca - Cycling a seemingly endless series of mountain passes

Eventually it was time to say goodbye to Sungjong and Jihyuan, as they continued by bus, while we started cycling towards Nasca... Leaving Cusco meant cycling up our first pass on the way towards the coast, which gave us a good view over Cusco as soon we were high above the city.

Leaving Cusco we got a nice view over the city

For the first time since quite a while we seem
to be in a pretty fertile area...

 Astonishingly fast we got to the top of the days first pass, from where we cycled quite a bit down again, before having lunch in the next village... Then it got pretty flat for a while, before the road started to climb again. And then we found ourselves on top of pass number two and had a 25 km downhill in front of us, that we definitely enjoyed!!

On our way down to Limatambo

The road took its way down along the hills on which suddenly everything seems to grow, something we haven't seen in quite a while! The view into the valley was amazing and slowly the temperatures rose, so that by the moment we got to Limatambo it was really warm. After checking a few hospedajes we finally found the Hospedaje Rivero, where we immediately had a whole clutch of children around us. Our bikes seem to have been really interesting and soon I had 4 girls on my bike :-)

The kids at the hostel in Limatambo were fascinated by our bikes... :-)

From Limatambo the downhill continued for another while, but most of it was under construction and the road was accordingly dusty...

Construction sites can be REALLY dusty!

Soon we got to less than 2000 masl, where we reached the Apurímac river and where the road started to climb again. For the first time since a whole while it got really hot and we were both cycling in shorts and t-shirt and soon we got to Curahuasi, were we had a late lunch and later dinner in a Chinese restaurant (we figured that Chinese food is a more than welcome change from the usual rice and chicken you get in the "normal" restaurants...). Luckily, we found a nice little hotel with a working hot shower, that was great!! Even though we thought that we were on our way up the next pass, the next morning we first cycled down for a while, just to climb these meters of altitude again a while later. Then it climbed higher and higher, giving us a nice view over the valley where we started in the morning. Eventually it started raining, which led to the shock of the trip for me, as on the wet road a crazy driver lost the control over his vehicle and crashed into the guardrail just about 10 m behind me... Luckily we found a place to hide during our lunch break when the rain got pretty strong. By the time we finally made it to the top of the pass the weather was pretty nice again and far below where we were we could see Abancay, our goal for the day...

View down towards Abancay

But as soon as we started our downhill, the weather changed and very soon we found ourselves in thick fog where we hardly saw anything anymore...

Yes, on the other side of the pass it was foggy...

In Abancay we checked in at the "Gran Hotel Abancay" which happened to be our cheapest accommodation in all Peru...
From Abancay we had another few km of downhill until we reached another river, that we then followed for about 150 km, meaning that the next uphill was very slight but steady. However, the landscape was breathtaking, the valley was sometimes really narrow, the river gorgeous and there was hardly any traffic...

Beautiful valley!

Not the worst camp spot I guess ;-)

Our lunch break location :-)

Camping with huge rock walls on either side

On our third day after Abancay we finally left the river in order to cycle up the next pass... 

Just another pass...

However, after quite a few days of cycling one pass after the other I was dead by the time we made it to what we thought was the top, but obviously it wasn't... Additionally, it started raining again and soon it turned into sleet and eventually snow... So when it stopped snowing for a while we set up our tent next to the street and Stefan continued to the next village where he found delicious lama meat and roasted corn.

Getting dried lama meat and roasted corn in a tiny village
-> It was delicious!!

Then we hid in our tent and soon it started snowing again, the next morning we woke up in the middle of a completely altered landscape: The sky was blue and there was snow everywhere! 

It didn't look so comfortable the night before...
-> getting snow at 4500 masl

So we waited for the sun to dry our tent and then continued in a pretty hilly landscape. From time to time we crossed a herd of lamas and alpacas, then we had another steep downhill that led us into the next village and obviously, leaving the village we just climbed again to the same elevation where we started in the morning...

Aren't they cute???

And then we stayed high for quite a while, always at around 4500 masl, we came across lots of lamas and alpacas and eventually there were tons of lakes (no idea where they suddenly came from...).

The landscape at these extreme heights can be gorgeous...

And then, finally, the next pass, from which we had a loooong downhill leading to Puquio, where we arrived early and just realxed a bit, as we both knew that the next day will be hard.

Arriving to Puquio

Leaving Puquio, our warm-up was a first, small pass, just about 500 m in elevation gain, from there it went down into the next valley. And then the last long uphill of our trip started, slowly the landscape got more arid and at some time in the afternoon we were again and for the last time above 4000 masl. From the highest point it continued to be hilly for a few km until finally the longest downhill of our trip started: Over 60 km of continuous downhill!! 

Getting closer to the coast!

On our way down to Nasca

It was late already, but the view was gorgeous as we cycled down and down and down and eventually, short after dark we got to Nasca, situated at only about 600 masl!

Arriving to Nasca

It was the longest day of our trip, 160 km, but we arrived luckily in Nasca and somehow it's weird to know that there are no more high mountain passes to cross on the way to Lima...
Once in Nasca I definitely needed a day of rest, and even though there would be a lot to do and visit around the city, we just did nothing the next day, but Stefan met a local family at a restaurant that invited us for a drink in the evening and we spent an amazing evening with them! They were extremely kind, told us a lot about Peru, showed us lots of ceramics from the Nasca culture that the father of Natalia collected and we just talked for hours!

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