September 11, 2017
After some alone time we spent about a week assessing where we go from here. Our first day we left Cusco and headed South through some cool ruins and some nice paved roads.
Cycling Stats
Start Point: Cusco, Peru
Destination: Urcos, Peru
50.7 km by bike, 16.7 km/h average speed, 47.1 km/h maximum speed, 3:03 time on bike
642 meters gained, 940 meters elevation descend, 3445 meters maximum elevation
Route Description:
This day is mostly downhill. At the 30 km mark you have a couple of undulating hills. We stayed at one of the last hostels before leaving the town of Urcos.
Accommodations:
It was called Hospedeje Misky Puñuy. For 30 soles we got a private room with private bathroom with great wifi.
What happened…
Andrew writes: It was nice to finally be leaving Cusco after a month. The cycle out of town was pretty cool as there was a lot of traffic-free spots, including a ciclovia (cycle path) right down the middle of the highway for quite a ways. Believe it or not, we’re going to be spending the next two days cycling uphill to the Bolivian “altiplano” which should then be flat all the way through Bolivia. I’m excited to get out of Peru and explore more of South America for sure
As for where I want to go? Someplace warm sure would be nice. It is still winter/spring here, and quite cold at night. I think that if we keep on pace right now though, we would be reaching Ushuaia around February or March 2018 and then we’d be “done” with South America. Oh well, it isn’t a race. I’m just as happy to go visit the Bahamas and/or Mexico for a few months and either come back to Chile to finish it off, or even go and explore another continent. Stay tuned as this develops further!
Amanda writes: After taking a break and some rest Andrew and I hopped back on our bikes heading South. While the break did us some good, there was still room for improvement. We spent a couple of days chatting and trying to figure out where to go from here.
Many options presented themselves. We have a friend of ours who we’ve known for 3 years and who we have house sat for in Mexico a couple of times who has a yacht in the Bahamas. He’s been inviting us now for 2 years to come and sail with him. We were hoping to do that as a sort of celebration of the end of the Americas in Spring 2018 but who knows if he’ll still have the boat. Combined with the unknown fact we found out some other friends of ours who we know from Mexico would be going on the yacht in November. It would be nice to see them too. Once more he has put the offer out to us again. It’s hard because right now our timing to finish in Southern Argentina is perfect season wise. Where we are geographically located is perfect for cycling South and arriving at the tip of the world in the right season.
Something else that came up was the house and cat sit we did in North Vancouver earlier this year. The homeowners contacted us to see if we’re interested in coming back. It’s so tempting. The homeowners were great, the cats were wonderful and the location was perfect. It was a perfect balance of community and privacy being that we had our own space to not burden family and friends; yet still close to our old home to be able to see them all. It is such an amazing opportunity that I was hard pressed to decline. Andrew less so as you may recall he wasn’t a fan of the winter weather. For me however it was perfect. So that was something else I was considering even if I went alone.
So we talked about these two very big considerations along with our perfect timing. That and our continual pull back to what we now consider our winter home in San Carlos Mexico. We talked about after we finish South America we could go back to San Carlos for a few months before heading off to Europe. After all our chatter we only decided to reluctantly decline the house sit and headed out on the bikes to ponder what’s next.
The aerial view of our ride: