Mark On A Bike: Lima to Buenos Aires - Part Two

Well it's just after eight in the morning so I'm getting a good start this morning. I have not had breakfast or coffee so I'm going to try to get that at a town down the road. It's going to be slow and steady but beautiful. It's just a little chilly not too bad but I've got my heated vest on because yesterday I about froze to death. Nick left this morning early. I didn't see him but I heard his bike leaving when I looked out the window at about seven. He was already gone. It's 45 degrees so it's thin air and a little bit brisk. I am now crossing 4,000 meters in elevation. The temperature is dropping. It's cold. It's 44 degrees and I see snow in the distance. This is not what I want. I do not want some snow. It's cold. Yeah there's snow and well there's ice over there in the shady area. The temperature has now dropped down into the 30s. I think this is the summit. 4,435 meters. Very windy. It's not just the temperature. It's the wind. High winds. My hands are getting so cold that it's hard to move the levers. The bike computer now is giving me a flashing warning that it's black ice warning. So now the temperature is down cold enough where we could have black ice. Wonderful. I am in the middle of nowhere at 1,000 meters. You can't see it way back there. There's just snow-capped peaks of these giant mountains. It's too cold to take my helmet off. It's in the 30s and it's really getting cold. So I hope it warms up as I get over the mountain but I don't know the geography enough. This is the toughest ride I've had so far on this entire trip. It's very curvy but just cold and windy. It's really really cold. Ah it's cold. There's a little town coming up. I'm hoping that they have coffee. Doubt it but I'd love to have some coffee. Doesn't look like coffee's in my future. Hey that's Nick. Top of the morning. I knew he'd be here. Coffee. Still recovering. Feeling in my hands. Cold. So your throttle is iced over. I look at my hands like oh it's iced over. I've never had that happen. Yeah I only saw black ice in one or two of the curves on our side. The other side was iced over. Oh yeah on our side I only saw it once or twice. Happy about the altitude. It's actual coffee. Wow this is hot chocolate. I'll take it. It's warm. Oh it's so good. Heat up my hands. I mean I know it's above freezing but the wind. Well the wind chills getting it below freezing. Like I said my throttle iced over so it's the wind that takes it below freezing. That's rough. Doing some serious character building today. That's exactly what's happening. He was so cold that his his hand actually froze. Well his there not his hand but his throttle had ice on it and it was slipping under his glove and he couldn't feel his hands anymore. I guess I'm going through that. Hmm quite the view. This place is spectacular. Holy. So do you go in front of the donkey or behind the donkey? I'm going in front. So now it's uh in this beautiful valley 75 degrees. So we've had this and I'm at 2600 meters. So today I've had what is that a 40 degree shift in temperature. And then I'm guessing as they climb back out it'll drop again. So it's sort of weird to to try to dress correctly. Went from just freezing to now really nice and sunny and warm and summer beautiful. Sort of starting to feel like home down here. Got some cactus, aloe vera plants, red rocks. It's 82 degrees. I'm coming up on the town of uh Abnacki. Abanki. Abankay. Abankay. And that's where I'm going to call it a day. And then I'll uh do the last 100 miles into uh Cusco tomorrow. I'm so tired. Every single little movement feels like just a herculean effort. It's like saying that word. I'm just tired. Not a good way to start the morning. My garment keeps wanting me to take these shortcuts through town that are on roads that are insanely steep. Dirt. Just there's no possible way I could go down those roads. This is the city of Abankay. Abankay. Abankay. Abankuy. I don't know but it's turning out to be one of my least favorite places I've been. I'm just not in a good mood. So I'm settling in for a nice twisty slow long ride this morning. And I will be happy to get to Cusco. See my niece and relax just a little bit. Because I'm getting to that point of just being really tired and my mental state is getting starting to reflect that. Just meh. Gotta change my attitude. Enjoy the ride. Enjoy the scenery. And uh that's what I'm gonna do. Having to take a breather here. My mind is not where it needs to be. You can see here on the GPS. We got some incredibly curvy roads coming up. And so I just pulled over to take a breath. Center myself. I'm just too distracted by I don't know a bunch of things. So I'm just gonna enjoy the scene for a second and just concentrate on riding. These roads are treacherous because it's um not only are they curvy but you're going from really bright shiny to all of a sudden bam dark shadows. And there are cars that want to get past you. Trucks in the road. I think this is a much more dangerous road than I was on in Colombia with all those trucks. I think I'd take that over this. This is just sort of scary. And it's cold. It's very cold. It's 45 degrees. So I just checked my altimeter. I'm at 3750 meters. Which means I've climbed about 1200 meters in the last 25 minutes. That gives you an idea of how steep these roads are. I'm now passing 4000 meters. Holy smokes. I've got to figure out a place to pull over and take pictures of this because wow. Wow. Wow. I'm at the I don't know if it's the summit but at the top of this mountain pass. And the I just came over this peak and the view is spectacular. I tried to get some video of it. If I go this way to show you and I turn all completely black. So here's some b-roll. Enjoy some b-roll of this mountain range that I just stumbled upon. It is fantastic. Oh it's unfortunate with the wide angle lens here you just can't see the sheer magnitude of this mountain just towering over this. It's pretty spectacular. They wanted to build a tribute to Golden Gate Bridge and so we got the mini Golden Gate Bridge. Well I am just over or just under 60 kilometers from Cusco which is just under 40 miles if you're keeping track at home. And I can't wait to get there. I get to see my niece and meet her fiance Fabricio who is from Peru. And I also can't wait to have some lomo saltado and some coffee. It's going to be fantastic. But for now I'm just going to enjoy the curves. Enjoy the scenery. Take it easy. Get there alive. The view here is breathtaking. That mountain peak right over there. I don't know what that is. I just stopped and took a couple pictures and hopefully got some video that I could show you. But I'm just surrounded by snow-capped mountain peaks. Just beautiful. Well this is my kind of place. High plains in the middle of the mountains. Snow-capped peaks. Lots of livestock. The smell of the trees. Coming into Cusco and on my left is the historic city of Cusco. My GPS just told me to take a left right off that cliff. Ah silly GPS. And now I'm in historic Cusco. I have to take a left here on Avenue del Sol. The Avenue of the Sun. If you've ever been to Cusco you'll recognize this street. All right here we go. The main plaza of Cusco. Yeah. I can't go where I want to go. Oh well. Now the off-roading fun begins. Here we go. This is not really what I wanted to be doing right now. Son of a... All right. Gotta be a different way to get to the hotel. Because that way did not pan out. Let's see. That's a one-way street. That's a one-way street. This is insane. Oh. All right. I don't know how to get out of here. I can't go back the way I came. And this, I don't know if you can see, is quite the hole. So if I get my tire in there I am done for. So I'm gonna try to go to the right that way. See if I can get out of here. Okay. Muy peligroso. All right. Well let's just stop right there. Now you see that pothole? Of course you do. But I didn't. And so in a second you're gonna see me first stick my front wheel into the pothole and it'll get stuck. But then I make it out of the pothole only to get my rear wheel stuck in the pothole. And then I'm in trouble because from the front of the bike to the back of the bike it's an incline of about two feet. So that's, I don't know, a 30 degree angle. Something like that. The bike weighs with me on it about 900 pounds. And so at this steep incline if I gun it I'm gonna pop a wheelie, fall over, and then I'm just stuck. And if I try to get out of this and do the wrong thing the bike's gonna fall over and I could break a leg. So this is really crazy. So let's start from there. I don't know. I might be stuck here forever. I think I've burned my clutch out. Okay. So according to my GPS those stairs that you're looking at people crawl down. That's the road that I was supposed to take to get here with GPS.