June
19th,
2018
Sunny
yet cool, strong cold breeze at times in afternoon
Off
early I am soon cycling down The Sacred Valley to cross the River
Urubamba via a narrow suspension bridge with a wooden plank floor.
The village of Huayllabamba I go through and as I go further up a
steep sided valley so the dirt road disappears and I am left crossing
a ploughed field to find a pathway through a dense Eucalyptus forest.
This is not what I expected to find here. Mapometer, the cycling
route website that I hav been using, showed a road on the map this
morning but there isn't one. Instead the narrow grassy pathway
through the woods crosses a small stream and steps appear. A group of
ex-college friends from the USA, friends for over forty years and
travelling together in a wonderful spirit of comradeship, tell me
that the steps go on for at least three or four miles and I decide
that enough is enough. I can't carry my bike up that far and I return
to the village.
I
find another route on the map and spend a tiring afternoon on a
switchback dirt track that goes up ever higher and higher towards a
distant summit.
It is getting dark by the time that I reach a small
village and after that the main road towards Cusco. In darkness,
being extremely careful of on-coming traffic, I walk the bike up a
steep hill and then down to the large town of Chinchero. Hostel
found, I am soon asleep, shattered by the day's exertions.
Green
Year list : 274 birds average new birds to list per day : 3.43
birds
Distance
walked, pushed and cycled : 25.72 miles
elevation
: up 6,768 feet, down 3,969 feet
altitude
: 12,208 feet
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