We are heading north in Peru, so as to reach Cusco tomorrow, one of my faourite cities in South America. In this case the very ordinary town of Espinar is new to Compass and to us. It was created as an interim stop, so that we could stay in Chivray to see the Condors.
The organisers had warned us of badly deteriorating roads and "some" gravel sections, which were actually 142 km of gravel along a ridge top. In fact the gravel road turned out to be far easier than the very pot holled sections prior to it, which were rough and dangerous.
But prior to heading off on that secdtion we headed west out of Chivray to the third deepest canyon in the world, and it certainly was impressive. The condors live here as they can hatch their eggs without any fear of them being taken by predators, high on the side of the cliffs. The condors come out in the early morning between about 7am and 09:30 so we were there for that, along with a crowd of others. There were plenty of good vantage points and the view was incredible. At one ti
We then took our drive along the ridge, rising to more than 5000 metres, which my bike did not like and stalled a number of times from lack of fuel. I will need to research the issue more, but once I started decending, it was all ok again. Unusually the group split and we took a shorter road to the highway which was well sealed except for one section of about 10 km that was truly a challenge with large ruts and stones!
On arrival in Espinar, we found that our hotel now faced onto a mall, and we were not allowed to ride out bikes to it, so we parked a block and a half away and schlepped our bags around the streets again. I enjoyed the day despite the challenges, but look forward to making it to Cusco tomorrow. We stay there three days then fly to the Amazon (in Peru) for two nights. All of that is to come.
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