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!