24 October – Day 94

Concepcion, Peru to Ayacucho, Peru
Distance: 255kms

It took nearly nine hours to cover 255kms today. Not only was the road unrelentingly windy, included multiple stream crossings and one river crossing as well as several sections of mud and/or sand… there were also roadworks galore! Even Adrian was over it, and that’s saying something. It was so dusty that my once black motorbike jacket is now brown… and the inside of my helmet is coated with a film of sticky brown. We literally spent hours waiting in queues at roadworks, then playing chicken in the mad dash that happens as soon as the lolly pop person turns their sign around. Seriously, it’s crazier than the start of a grand prix.

Once we got through the craziness and made it to Ayacucho It took us a while to find a hotel; our first option didn’t have good parking for the motorbike and the next three I tried apparently had no space (despite looking totally empty). Anyway, we finally found a place near the main plaza and headed straight out for a walk – to get blood flowing back to our legs – and also for some food.

 

23 October – Day 93

Huanuco, Peru to Concepcion, Peru
Distance: 200kms

We said goodbye to Jeremy this morning…he’s spending a few days in Huanaco to work on his bike; we’re continuing our journey south. We left about mid-morning and it took most of the day to get there. Concepcion is a fairly small town and we’re staying in a hotel just on the outskirts. We’re the only people staying here – other than a Kenyan marathon runner who is in training and runs about 200kms a week. He made the Olympic qualifying time but still wasn’t good enough to get into the Kenyan team, so he’s in Peru hoping to make a go of it. 200kms a week?!! Wow. And just for the record, according to Wikipedia the 2012 Olympic qualifying time was 2h15m…

 

22 October – Day 92

Chavinillo, Peru to Huanaco, Peru
Distance: 62kms

Well, it may only have been 62kms, but it took close to three hours due to the windy road and a bit of a challenge to find our accommodation for the night with Toby and Sara. Toby had given Adrian the GPS coordinates to his place, however Adrian’s GPS was 300m different so we ended up next to a cemetery where a few farmers were letting their pigs roll around in mud.

After settling in, Adrian and I caught a tuk tuk into the main square and had a good look around and just watched people in town go about their business for a while. It was excellent.

For dinner, Jeremy and I cooked a super hot (wowsers these chillies here are crazy powerful!!!) stirfry. It was lovely spending some time just hanging out in a house again, and Toby and Sara’s place was great… even though they only moved to Huanaco from Maine, USA less than a week ago!!!