Motoventure Day 15: Cusco to Putara

(written 11/04 @ 8PM)  Last night Rob, Will and I had an absolutely fantastic meal at a gourmet tourist restaurant in Cusco.  Everything from arugula salad to ravioli in walnut butter sauce and gnochi with polenta and steak, combined with a great Malbec from Argentina.  The total bill was enormous for out here, over ten times what we have paid for other meals, but in total the amount was still about equal in soles to what it would've been in dollars at an equivalent restaurant in the US (s/250).  Fantastic treat.

After dinner we hit a bar for a bit, then the rest of the guys went out while I went back to the pad to crash (expecting to leave early).  I'm was asleep by 1AM but the other guys didn't get back until close to 5AM, except for Rob who arrived around 4AM with a girl and got a private room.  Left us a note on the toilet that said "In room 202 with girl.  -Rob"  Haha.

 

Had a nice slow morning, got some groceries at the supermarket, then pounded off towards Puno.  I didn't expect to make it all the way since I didn't get out of town until well after 12 noon, but it was nice to take a slow day on my own.  I spent most of the day at low RPM just cruising these pavement roads up over 3000 meters and really enjoying the view.  Later in the day I was stopped at a roadblock talking to a police officer about what we were doing down here (apparently the first of the ten or so of us Junketeers he had met who actually spoke Spanish) and was just about to leave when Lloyd and Mark rolled up!

 

Spent the rest of the day taking turns passing Lloyd and Mark then having them pass me, generally mucking about on these beautiful flat roads high up in the mountains close to 4000 meters with wide straight plains all around us… and plenty of alpaca farms!

 

It was cold enough during the day (mid 50's) but as night started to fall it quickly dropped into the 40's and became quite uncomfortable at 60-70kph.  Knowing we had 150km to our target of Puno we kept pushing for awhile, but eventually the cold started to beat us down.  Finally as we road into this teeny town called Putara (or Purata, I can't remember for sure), we saw a sign for Juliaca that said 61km, and we knew Puno was 35km beyond that…  so we called it for the night.

I found a sign for an hospedeaje (sp?) and we ate a traditional dinner of warm soup, rice, meat, potato, and beer while waiting for the manager to come.  The manager showed us in around back to this little farm house with a teeny little room with two beds, where we happily crashed early. 

 

Tomorrow we get to Puno and find out if we can even leave the country…