Cuzco is only 10,099 miles from Oakland by my convoluted route, anyway.  I'm sure it could be done a little quicker and more directly, but would that be as fun??  Cuzco is also almost due south of New Hampshire, if anyone there wants to take a southerly tack and meet up.

We arrived in Cuzco at noon, but unfortunately spent a ridiculous amount of time looking for a decent hotel.  Parking is an issue in an old city like this, the Incas weren't thinking about automobiles, nor were the Spanish when they rebuilt this fine old city.

I felt lucky to get the bike here without incident, but not I have to get some work done on it.  The battery has been drying up too fast, and I noticed at Nazca that it was finally starting to start a little slow.  While I'm at it, I'm going to get an oil change and swap out the spark plugs.  The bike has been doing really well given the extreme altitude changes, but I know it will do better with a little maintenance.

On Thursday we took the flight seeing tour over the Nazca lines.  It was well worth the $50.  I felt this $50 was much better spent than the $30 bribing cops from a couple days before that.  My theory on the Nazca Lines was that a few drunk high school students went out and constructed them about a thousand years ago as a prom night prank.  Once you start flying over them, however, you realize the scope was far beyond what a few youngsters would be willing to carry out.  These ain't no crop circles.  Some of the lines look to extend several kilometers, and some of the formations shaped like triangles are cleared areas 100M wide and a kilometer or so long.  The animal figures were well done, and once the pilot points them out to you it's hard not to be impressed.  The flight lasted about 30 minutes and I got the copilot seat, I think because I'm tall.  It was good to be up in a little plane again, it's been a while.

Later in the afternoon we went to the Cemetario de Chauchilla, where the Nazca burried their dead.  The site was spread out over several acres, and there were about a dozen open graves that were sunk down about 2 meters.  In these open graves were the mummified remains of the Nazca, with piles of leg bones, a few ceramic pots, and these amazing dredlocked hairdos.  sp?  It's very dry out there, it being a desert and all, so the remains were in really good condition.  I think some of the photos I took came out well and I will hopefully have some to post soon.  I'm currently getting my photos burned onto CDs, which should be easier to upload than the memory cards.

A weird conicidence; while riding into the cemetery the song Yesterday by the Beatles came into my head.  Not sure why.  Maybe it came up on the iPod mix I was listening to earlier in the day but I don't remember it playing.  Just the title kind of seemed appropriate for viewing a cemetery, but not really the words.  Walking to a restaurant that evening for dinner I mentioned to Dick that the song had gone through my head out at the cemetery.  We went to a place that serves a lot of traditional Peruvian dishes and there was a band playing traditional Peruvian music.  After a few songs typical of the Andes they suddenly broke into Yesterday...

Yesterday morning we left Nazca headed for Cuzco.  It's a 580K ride that takes busses 13 hours, so we didn't plan on making it here in a day.  As it turned out, the road was in pretty good condition and we may have made it if we had left earlier.  However it was so over-the-top scenic that 2 days for the ride was a good thing for drinking it all in.  From Nazca we immediately started ascending, and withing 100K we topped out on 4330M Abra Condorcerca, the first of the 2 big passes for the day.  It was desert all the way to the top, but descending into the next giant valley everything started turning green, and there were more and more farms.  Then it was time to ascend into the next big pass, 4330M Abra Huashuocasa, which seemed even higher because it was colder and we were right at the snow line of some snow covered peaks.  The sky was an almost unearthly blue, with some cumulous clouds blowing around.  I have no pictures from up here, I didn't want to shut off the bike for fear that it would not start again, the battery was getting really weak.  We pulled into the city of Abancay for the night, only about 160K short of Cusco.  There was a storm cloud on the peak above the city, and the switchbacks ascending to the city crossed the same muddy creek 3 times.  There was no bridge across this creek, they just let it run across the road.  Me and my bike were filthy pulling into town.

We received a knock on the door around 7:30, Eric booked himself into the same hotel and saw our bikes.  He ended up taking the same route because of the inland rains and people telling him not to take the alternate routes.  Because he was about 2 hours behind us, the storm clouds had built into the second pass and he went through it in rain, hail and snow.  The snow was not sticking to the road but was accumulating on the grass adjacent the road.  It really pays to get an early start in these mountains.

Today we got an early start coming into Cuzco.  We left Abancay at 9, and arrived Cuzco at noon.  We went through some light rain, particularly descending the second 3900M pass into the city itself.  I haven't got out exploring yet, but just riding around looking for the motel I saw some of the famous Incan masonry work, stones placed so close together there is no perceivable gap between the rocks.

I was hoping to get the bike fixed up today, but by the time we found a room all I wanted to do was drink a beer, which I did, at Nortons, named after the motorcycle.  It has a nice view overlooking the plaza.  What I would give to see this plaza as the Incas built it.  The catholic churchs are impressive and all, but I want an Incan view.  Well, Machu Picchu will have to suffice for unadulterated Incan architecture, hopefully we will make it out there approximately Monday.  And hopefully I will get some photos posted soon!

Saturday January 21, 2006 - 02:04pm (PST)