We had an early start and had breakfast just after 7:00am and took our altitude sickness tablets- the sun was up by 6:00am and it was getting warm quickly. We put our warmest thermal underwear pants on and put the liners in the pants in anticipation of the cold and possibly rain, snow and hail on our crossing of the high mountains on our way to Puno. It was too hot to wear all the thermals at the top and I started riding with just a singlet and long sleeve shirt with the liners in the jacket but the vents open. We left just after 9:00 am and fuelled up on the way out of town. The road started climbing quickly and we encountered a few slow moving vehicles which we were able to overtake. We topped the bikes up just 28km out of Moquegua at the last petrol station for 238 km before reaching the outskirts of Puno.

The road kept on rising and we quickly reached 3000m and up and up we went, on very good roads with the most spectacular views of snow capped mountains and valleys, high plains and sand and rocks – it was quite exhilarating riding through these amazing landscapes. But by the time we had reached over 4000m within an hour of leaving Moquegua (1410m), I had a terrible nauseating headache and also needed to pee urgently (side effect of the altitude tablets which have diuretic effects). We stopped at 4517m at an abandoned brick shack, where I could hide behind the walls to pee. My headache was pretty bad then and I decided to chew some coca leaves which the French Antoine had kindly given to us in San Pedro de Atacama. It eased the headache a little (probably needed to chew more 😂😉) but not enough to function properly. Andrew led for the rest of the trip and I followed which takes slightly less concentration. The highest point we reached was 4600m and as we started descending at the other side of the mountain, clouds were building and some very dark rain clouds were behind us and in front of us. We stopped one more time on the side of the road to empty my bladder and I was really badly affected by the altitude – barely functioning, nauseous and still with a pounding headache. I took some neurofen for my headache and we put our wet weather jackets on and continued. We had a few sprinkles and then a section of wet road where it must have rained earlier but we made it to the petrol station on the outskirts of Puno without getting wet 🙏. We fuelled up there and I had to charge my phone – I needed another toilet stop but there was no toilet at the petrol station so I had to hold it until we reached the hotel. We rode through narrow streets, some cobble stone covered ones, some dirt roads and arrived at our hotel at 3:30pm. We parked the motorcycles in a locked secure car park, took all the gear off and collapsed in our room. I booked a half day tour of Lake Titicaca for the afternoon of Friday. We had an hour sleep and Andrew woke up with a headache and took some panadol before we went to a very nice restaurant overlooking the main plaza and the cathedral. There were mostly international guests, many Germans and one couple from Melbourne. Andrew talked to them before they left as it was the guys birthday and the waiters had sung happy birthday for him. I had coca tea with lemon and honey which is apparently a local remedy against altitude sickness and it seemed to have helped my headache. 🤗🤞😉👍. We returned to our hotel room and called it a night after Andrew caught up with a work colleague.

Andrew used the new GoPro for the first time on this stretch – we are glad to have been able to capture the amazing scenery – enjoy the videos with much better quality 🤗👍