When I woke up at sunrise it was foggy and there was a thick layer of frost on the wetland behind the house. We had breakfast at 8:00am and Michaela and Jaime joined us. The breakfast was beautifully presented and it gave Andrew the strengths back he needed to get through another long day of riding. We saw an owl flying over the wetland and the breakfast was amazing and we really enjoyed the company of our hosts. Michaela downloaded the WRWR app and I passed the baton to her 🤗🏍🏍 We also left one of our stickers on the front door. We got a tour of her art studio and saw the current restoration projects she is working on. We finally left just after 11:00am and it was a beautiful sunny day. We rode along the valley and the road followed the river which became larger closer to Cusco. We stopped for petrol in Sicuani (where we should have stayed the night before) and had some biscuits and charged the phone. There were so many reckless drivers who overtook on blind corners on double yellow lines with oncoming traffic that it was important to constantly check for idiots on the road. But the views of the mountains were stunning and the mountains were all covered in vegetation – one could easily forget that we were riding on a high altitude plain and that the surrounding mountains were over 5000m high. There were lots of villages and towns along the way and each one had plenty of speed bumps – I am so glad my front wheel buckled rim had been fixed in Arica and my fork seal leak too earlier in Concepción – the bikes really get tested on these roads and they handled everything perfectly.

We made good progress despite the crazy drivers, slow vehicles on the road and the endless speed bumps but when we approached the outskirts of Cusco, traffic came to a crawl. Inpatient drivers tried to get past on the dusty dirt on the side of the road and then squeezed in. It was very tiring and frustrating after a long day riding but once a larger two lane ring road started the stop start traffic eased, but by then my phone charge was down to 5% and without the phone we can’t navigate through big cities to find our hotel. We pulled over on a side road and charged the phone – very frustrating as we would have made it at a good time and without having to stop for a recharge of the phone if we had not been stuck in traffic 😡🙁 But every time we are stuck on the side of the road for whatever reason, we meet the most lovely people. This time a guy was unloading some ply wood ftom the roof of his car and came over to ask if we were ok – we told him we were charging our phones. After we had told him all the places we had been and how many km we had already ridden – he just pointed to his behind – sympathising with Andrew how sore his bottom must be 😂. He then asked if we wanted something to eat and while we were still trying to work out what he had said, he opened one of the industrial shop doors, disappeared inside for a few minutes and came back with 4 Haas avocados and gave us two each and gestured to peel and eat them. I did not need a second invitation as I love avocado and we both ate one avocado each and took the other two with us – the guy then told us that he had a farm with 300 trees and it was harvest season for the avocados. We finished eating and charging, said our good byes to the friendly guy and headed for the hotel into the setting sun which made seeing where we were going difficult. We followed a good road along a river but there were traffic lights every few hundred meters. We arrived at the hotel and staff opened the gates to allow us into the inner court yard and directed us to where they wanted us to park the bikes. We then checked in and paid for the hotel and two nights of parking. We were about to be shown to our room when the guy realised he had charged me the wrong amount, so we sorted that and eventually got shown to our small room. We were so glad we actually made it to Cusco!!!🙏 – what a relief and accomplishment after the difficulties we have had the previous few days. But there was no time to rest, we went to get things off our bike to re-pack for our two day tour of the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu. We got changed, asked whether we could leave our motorcycle gear in their storage room and they handed us two plastic bags to fit it in – we told them it was much bulkier than that but took the bags anyway. We then went for dinner at the hotel restaurant, then had a nice hot shower and re-packed and got our day hiking pack and a small yellow dry bag with clothes ready for the next two days. We stored everything else on the motorcycles, parked them a bit better and out of the way and covered them as they were in an open court yard and some rain was forecast. We put all our riding gear in storage and then went to bed in our small room with a good heater. Andrew clearly felt much better today, even though he was still a bit weak, evidenced by the amount of videos he took 😉👍