We'll start right where we left off, with Jo and Mareika, who are pretty well fantastic and showed us a great time during our two weeks in Lima.
Most of which consisted of a lot of this.
And this. (special shipment of Water Avenue coffee from the amazing Cheri Schoebel and the good folks at Baristadors Coffee in Portland, soooo delicious!)
Meat and veggies on a grill? This downtime thing ain't so bad.
Even got to spend the weekend partying at a friend of a friend's swanky beach house.
Lima has a new rugby team as well, and we were able to go to a couple of practices to help out. They were actually quite a bit better than we were expecting, and fielding a solid group of 10+ players at most practices.
Coach Seth got to go over Key offense/defense and offensive spacing/moving without the ball, definitely more fun than transfers and how to push your rugby chair.
Oh and check out this guys bike. Modified his wheelchair so he can get around on his own because he doesn't have the upper body coordination to push a manual chair. Rock on!
Pretty amazing what the Maximus Project (www.maximus.org) and the IWRF (www.iwrf.org) are doing to getting Wheelchair Rugby rolling in South America. Kelly and I are super stoked we've been able to help a little while on this crazy trip of ours.
Also stoked to be able to hang out with some great people while in Lima. Dinner party with a bunch of Peruvian architects? Sure, why not?
Of course, with Dylan approaching, we had to get back to the business of traveling. Unfortunately, for the next leg (Lima-Cusco) meant getting back on a bus because the roads crossing the Peruvian Andes were too steep for our weighted legs and arms to handle.
Yes, buses suck. But sometimes you do what you have to keep moving.
Dylan didn't seem to mind though. Moving-vehicle narcolepsy strikes again!
Cusco's a little colder than the coast. Nothing a little Pisco and a puffy jacket (thanks Big Agnes! www.bigagnes.com) can't cure.
Before heading back out on the road we had a little side-trip to make.
Here's us, right before starting a day of marathon piggy-backing to wander around Machu Picchu. Not going to look this fresh for long.
Almost...
Holy balls we're there!
We're a little excited.
A long ways from pre-school.
The construction of this place is silly.
Just a few non-mortared stones carried over an Andean pass or two.
In case you wondering how a quad gets around Machu Picchu, it looks something like this...
And this.
With the occasional bit of wheeling.
And napping.
And Pisco-ing.
Helluva day though.
Even if had to end like this.
And this. Pretty damn glad we thought to make my wheelchair and bike wheels interchangeable.
So after a full 3 weeks off, we were finally ready to hit the road again. Dylan's a little nervous for his first ever day of bike-touring.
Looking sharp, Gooooooo Ducks!
First night's campsite. Not too shabby, if we don't say so ourselves
Scenery's a little different from the coast.
And biologist Dylan was pretty stoked by the critters.
Second night's camp spot was one of our best of the trip.
Things started to go downhill from there though. Have we told you about camping in public spaces in Latin America? Not a good idea. Sometimes you don't have any other options though.
That night Kelly started getting sick, then we started climbing up into this. Nothing like a 25km climb with a fever and a chest cold.
But look. It's snow!
Here's the summit, at 14,200ft. Ever tried riding your bike at 14,000ft? Neither had we. Not so easy.
Best road descent Dylan's ever been on though.
And we had this spacious hotel room to sooth our weary muscles. Not pictured is the shared shower where the lights would decide to go off randomly. Nothing like washing pits in a pitch black bathroom.
In this town (Ayaviri) all the restaurants were closed for Good Friday and the shops had just about nothing for food. At least there was a creepy mermaid guarding our room.
The next day we put in a 100km day. Dylan was tired, and Schwan was still sick, head down drafting as much as she could. On the bright side, for the first time on this trip I beat her up the hills.
We made it to Juliaca, where Geovanni, a Warmshowers (a website where people offer to host touring cyclists) host, sent a friend to come show us to his house, even though he wasn't going to be there until about 3am. What a guy.
The next morning, Geovanni and Dani decided to ride with us to Puno.
Only 40km to Lake Titicaca.
We were all pretty stoked. One more segment down, with the next one looking nice and flat, though a wee bit chilly.
Dylan loves his bike (thank you Gretchen and Corey!). He killed it on his first bike tour and we're sad to see him go. Good friends make all the annoyances of a trip like this a lot easier to deal with. Thanks Dylan!
He was little tired when we got to Puno.
But before he left we had to get some Lake Titicaca frizzknock in.
4 continents knocked, only 3 more to go...
7 months on the road. Thank you everyone for the continued support, we couldn't do it without you! We rested up in Puno and made a dash through Bolivia to Argentina. Working on real blog about those adventures soon...
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