Link to PHOTOS and VIDEOS Album
Just copies of my facebook posts. If you see my FB posts, you have seen these. .....
My first cup of Coca Tea. Considering how much effort it was to walk across the hotel to sit and drink it, I think it was a good idea.
Edit... My mistake, I thought it was 12,000 feet, but it is only 11,400 feet.
The heck with coffee service. Coca service in the hotel lobby.
Holy crap what the hell is that. When it sits, it balances on that third leg. And when it gets curious, like when a dog comes by, those forked ears come together like some sort of a weapon.
OK, I thought this dog was funny looking, but there is a lot of concern for this guy. I assure you, he is in good health, as is his owner. It is a Peruvian Hairless dog. In the link below you can see some show dog examples of them. And one more realistic picture that shows just how powerful that chest looks. He is really sweet though. Really loved strangers petting him. I didn't pet him because by the time I figured out he was supposed to look like that, he was running up the stairs with his owner, a not very young Peruvian lady. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peruvian_Hairless_Dog
So every place you go, every decent sized tourist town, every city, anywhere in the world, you can find an Irish pub. Cusco, Peru, is no exception. However right across the street there was the Norton pub. I assume that's English. By all rights a rugby match should be breaking out in the street in between these two.
Irish
Norton - British
I won't get into the history of the Catholic Church and the Inca religion here. Let's just say history does not look back on the early Europeans favorably. But there was a merging of faiths to an extent. In the large cathedral in Cusco, there are many paintings, some are copies of famous murals and paintings but some are done by local artists. Many have been adapted to be more relevant to the local population, depicting llamas instead of camels, and local fruits and other foods.
My favorite was the depicting of the last supper. Forget that the table was more square, so everybody couldn't sit around it and talk to each other. Or that the face of Judas was the face of one of the most hated of the Europeans.
The best part for me was how they fit local foods into this picture. I couldn't take a photo myself, so I took a photo of the brochure. You will notice that Jesus chose guinea pig for the last supper.
An hour and a half crammed in a 15 passenger van with no ventilation, then when we get on a train with great ventilation and plenty of room and we are required to put on these foolish face shields. Not sure what they think they will do in this situation.
Well, it is a 3rd world country. The last 3rd world country I was in required you to show your vax card to eat in a restaurant. That would be Massachusetts.
And every train has it's little emperor to enforce the silly rules.
Notice the two ladies giving me the victory sign.
On the train back the little emperor had to keep reminding me to wear my mask and face shield properly. At one point he said there was a bar one car back.... At least that is what I heard. No bar but there was an open car where you could take pictures through the glass free windows. I noticed that the other people who were getting repremanded for masks were also there.... And we were all mask free. A lovely ride. I'm calling it the Freedom Car.
And then there was this bus:
I feel so much safer that that half the bus is hermetically sealed from the rest of us.
First Day With the Bike
It was a day of ups and downs, literally and figuratively.
My first day with the bike. Left Cusco at 11:00 a.m. . New school is at 11,400 .. during the day I went over 13,000 ft, And I think as low as 6,000 ft. Up and down up and down.
The temps were as high as 80, as low as 50. Up and down and up and down.
The DOWNS
.. There were animals in the road. Pigs, cows, sheep, goats, dogs, horses, people, kids, and just about everything else in the road. But no Llama or cats.
.. The road was at least partially blocked by Rock slides, mudslides, earth slides, cow pies, boulders, trees, construction, you name it. Fortunately They either did not block the road completely, or were mostly cleaned up by the time I got there.
There was an Overturned truck, hope the guy made it. They were pulling it off the guardrail when I got there.
I left late, because Garmin doesn't understand how to make a motorcycle GPS installable on a motorcycle.
Then I had to turn around the paperwork for the bike that they forgot to give me. It was going to be a rush to get to my destination before dark.
I rode some of the worst off-road conditions I've ever ridden, and it was a city street. There were also city streets with foot deep rivers going across them.
Smelly disgusting city streets. All highways drop you into the city, and leave you to fend for yourself. 18 wheelers, big buses, everything driving through the city. Always makes for fun traffic and bad roads.
Spaghetti roads with trucks blocking them. (Spaghetti roads are roads that are so curvy that when you look at them on the map they look like a bowl of spaghetti. It's just normally a good thing)
My Garmin GPS tried to send me up a steep rocky path that got narrower, and it had a bunch of pigs. Then it tried to send me up a muddy narrow path that's at a 45° angle. Later, when it tried to send me down a normal road, that was different than the track I had set up, I decided not to trust Garmin. I wonder why.
It kept trying to send me to the piggy road, and the mud track for miles after passing them.
The UPS
Spaghetti roads with no one on them. In Perfect shape.
Phenomenal views.
Snow in the mountains.
Snow on the side of the road, but not on the road.
Friendly people when you do meet them.
I did make it to my hotel before dark. Just before dark.
Not bad for the first day. Mostly Uneventful.
Snow topped mountain
Truck
Animals in road
Piggy Trail
45 degree mud slope
Bike and snow
Bob working on bike
Old tv, just because it was in hotel.
Over 14,000 ft twice today
At one, while I was taking a photo, one of the incredibly slow moving trucks that I had recently passed caught up to me, the driver got out, and through pantomime and whinny.ing?? he got it through my oxygen deprived head that there were two horses back down the road. It seemed pretty important to him that I know this. I didn't know if he wanted me to ride them, take pictures of them, buy them, or eat them. All but one were good options. But it was backtracking so no.
