My itinerary in Peru was roughly the following: Arequipa & Colca Canyon; Cusco, Sacred Valley of the Incas, & Machu Picchu; Lima. Both Arequipa and Cusco were meant to include multi-day bike trips essentially concluding the bikepacking part of the South American adventure.

Arequipa & Colca Canyon

After my stop in Copacabana, Bolivia and Lake Titicaca (basically on the Peruvian border), I took an overnight bus to Arequipa where, immediately upon arrival at 5am, I hopped on a bus to Chivay, the start of Colca Canyon with the intent to do a three-day, 300km tour back to Arequipa. Well, I don’t sleep well in buses; though I do sleep, my sleep-tracking ring doesn’t actually register it as such, meaning the quality can’t be that great. Anyway, I rolled out pretty tired, noticed that there was a moderate headwind, and quickly gave up on the idea of doing 100km on the day. Better this way, as I could then take my time and really enjoy the spectacular view of one of the “deepest” canyons in the world which also happens to be covered in Inca terraces.

I made it 55km or so to Cabanaconde, from where most of the descents to the canyon floor begin. Rather than cycling for cycling’s sake, I decided to hike the next day, a pretty brutal down and up which, with no food, I bonked on. Never happened on a hike before! Despite that, it was still lovely to get a form of exercise other than cycling :)

Then it was back to Arequipa, a beautiful colonial city (UNESCO site) nestled in a valley bordered by volcanoes. I met a fellow bikepacker who happens to live in Berlin, so we hung out and already started to hatch plans of bikepacking together in the future. Exciting!

Cusco, the Sacred Valley, and Machu Picchu

After a Mexican dinner with my buddy in Arequipa, I hopped on another night bus towards Cusco. As I learned later, my buddy got food poisoning that night, and he wasn’t the only one. I had a rough night in the bus’s toilet, which, amazingly enough, was relatively clean. Thank god.

Anyway, I got into Cusco and just like in Arequipa, immediately jumped on my bike and started pedaling. Again, not a great night’s sleep obviously, but I was still in a good mood. Riding out of Cusco was also fantastic, as you climb a few hundred meters to get a view of a former Inca site and a sliver of the city as well.

Then it was onwards through the Sacred Valley of the Incas to Pisac, another well-preserved site.

From there I finished the first day’s ride at Urubamba. As I was pulling into the narrow street of my hostel, I realized some kind of procession was underway which was blocking the entire street. I was only a few meters off the main road, so I decided to walk back to the main road, tuck myself in a shop entrance, and let the (what I could now see was a funeral) procession pass. Except they didn’t. They stopped right in the intersection, blocking the main road, and blocking me in; I, a (for the first time in my life) relatively tall idiot in spandex, was surrounded by 50 or so Peruvians, dressed in black, some in tears, watching the casket be carried past and set down not three meters from where I was standing. As folks started to notice me, some even leaning on my bike for support, I started to accept that my extreme discomfort wasn’t going to be short-lived (no pun intended). Thankfully though, the priest called the group to come closer, which left me a narrow path to escape without having to barge my way through a mourning crowd. Probably the most I’ve felt out of place on the entire trip, but pretty amusing.

The next day I woke up to rain, and when it cleared around 10am I rolled out. A rocky, 25% grade hiking trail greeted me, so I pushed until I could ride again, a feat made fairly tricky by the patches of sticky mud between the rocks. It wasn’t a long slog before reaching old Inca salt mines, a site which is still active using the old technique.

After reaching the Salineras de Maras, I had another 8km or so of climbing up to the plateau, all on the wet clay road. It was awful, sliding around, my bike getting heavier and heavier as it accumulated clay, at the same time as my traction got worse and worse. The people laughing and clapping at me in the buses going past kept my spirits up after a while, but by about the 4th time the mud made me drop chain, I was pretty over the situation. Fortunately, I found an ATV rental joint with a hose where I could get the bulk of it off, making the remainder of the ride possible.

Then it was off to Moray, a fascinating site of circular terraces. No one is certain what purpose they served, but the most commonly accepted theory is agricultural experimentation, as the temperature differs 5C from top to bottom, the sun hits at different angles, and there are even different types of soils on the different terraces. Or maybe it was aliens.

I ended the day back in Cusco and prepped for Machu Picchu. Now, I know this is probably sacrilegious to say, but I had a pretty disappointing experience. The site itself is of course incredible, but it really felt like we were on a conveyer belt from one photo opp to the next. Maybe it was just the guide, but the amount of time dedicated to explaining the site was dwarfed by the amount of time we spent taking photos. One of the seven modern wonders of the world with its mythology and the reverence it deserves, stripped to become a photo factory for Instagram. Bummer.

I wanted to love it, but somehow, it just didn’t live up to expectations. I blame the guide.

Lima

I was able to sell my bike in Cusco, meaning Lima was the first time in two months that I was bikeless! What a joy! First up on the to-do list: surf. So my first full day, I rented a wetsuit and a board and got to it. What a disaster. Apart from only catching one wave, my exit was ruinous. The beach was a steep and stony, the stones the size of your first. Hard to walk on with tender, desk-jockey feet like mine on the best of days, but carrying a heavy board and getting thrashed by waves made it triply difficult. So after the 3rd time I got washed back out into the dirty foamy water, one of the locals came to relieve me of the board at least, allowing me to scramble on all fours like a baby out of the reach of the waves. Nonetheless, the damage was done, as in my attempts to scramble out, I had broken a toe and had gotten enough dirty water in my ear to start germinating an infection.

The ear infection (who gets those, anyway) is miserable. I’ve now spent five days feeling like the right side of my face is underwater, hearing poorly, and having debilitating pain in my ear/face/head. I can best describe it like gas that you can’t pass (as the Germans say, when you have a fart lying sideways); the pressure builds up, causing alternating sharp pain, like a needle being pushed through my ear into my brain, or a dull pain, like it’s a nail instead. Then when the pressure is released, you feel relief, but only temporarily until the pressure builds up again.

Rather than go on full-day outings, I’ve been good for about one activity or tour (couple hours) per day, which is infinitely frustrating. Of course I want the pain to go away, but more than that, I want to be able to explore the places I’m in. There was fantastic mountain biking to be had in Lima, as well as more surfing (on cleaner, sandier beaches), and more exploring of the city and its world-class food. Fortunately, I was at least able to get in a couple of delicious ceviches and pisco sours before the pain took away my appetite, but I hadn’t even scratched the surface.

And now I’m in Panama City, effectively stuck in a hotel sweating it out as a fever and the antibiotics fight the infection instead of hiking in the jungle or surfing poorly on some Caribbean islands. I haven’t been laid this low since…I don’t know when. Why couldn’t it have happened in Berlin while working, not here! :)

Anyway, that’s the end of the second phase of the trip / South America / the southern hemisphere / & bikepacking. Now I’ll just be a regular backpacker, which I’m looking forward to!