Meeting Our Temporary Fourth Alpaca

We got up early, packed, had a homemade smoothie (banana, strawberry and soy milk) for breakfast and headed off. While leaving Cusco we encountered an anomaly that we only saw in Cusco and have not seen again up to date: a dedicated path/lane exclusively for cyclists. What a luxury! Despite the cycling lane, my mood wasn’t that great because I still didn’t feel great. Ergo, around midday I was extremely exhausted and tired although most of our path had taken us downhill. So in a small village we decided to have a cup of tea or coffee for break. Before we headed in Göran saw another bikepacker coming our way. Richard from the UK was traveling solo and it was his second time doing a larger cycling tour through South America. He joined us for coffee and we met him again at our campsite in our destination city: Urcos. On our way there we passed some impressive Inca ruins. Large walls at a strategic point at the entrance of the valley which led us to believe that they had probably been some kind of protective walls before strangers could enter the larger Cusco area. In Urcos we camped at the shores of a beautifully situated lake and enjoyed being four people for once. While I was taking a nap, Göran went for a swim in the lake and Jacques chatted with Richard.

The next morning, the four of us cycled together up quite a lot of inclines. Although it was either level or went downhill again afterwards, it felt quite exhausting. Therefore, around noon the four of us stopped next to the market in a small village I have forgotten the name of. In that market we saw something we had not seen in Peru before and haven’t seen since: a selection of well-balanced, healthy, vegetarian meal options. Hungry and quickly convinced by what we saw, we decided to have lunch there and boy oh boy, it didn’t disappoint in terms of flavour. It was also the first town where they asked if you wanted sugar in your drink instead of just dumping loads of it into the beverage beforehand. With our bellies full, we continued cycling further, until we were unpleasantly surprised by a long and heavy load of rain. We arrived at our destination, Combapata, wet and freezing. Because the hostels there were disgusting save for one, according to iOverlander, we decided to sit out the rain in a restaurant. Richard, who was freezing as well, decided to stay at the designated camping place, set up his tent and hit the hay. With his tiny one person tent without awning, rain promised to be even less fun than in Göran’s three person tent with a spacious awning so we were a bit surprised by his decision to stay. He was probably tired and cold and just wanted that unpleasant day to end. We felt the same way. After we came back from the restaurant and set up our tent, Richard was nowhere to be found. We suspect that he will have gone into the hostel after all because he was cold, tired, fed up and still struggling with altitude. Unfortunately we didn’t have his number so we had no chance of reaching him again afterwards. Which is a shame because we had a good time with him. He was funny, we were quite good at having the same pace, and it was nice to have someone else to chat with. All four of us expected to travel together for longer so we hope our fourth alpaca is doing well.

We wouldn’t see him again the days afterwards anymore either, because unfortunately I had gotten Jacques sick with my sinusitis, which meant more rest days for us and more cycling for Richard.

12-10:
distance cycled: 49,7 km
elevation gain: m
Actual altitude: 3608 m
time cycled: 4 h

13-10:
distance cycled: 64,3 km
elevation gain: 770 m
Actual altitude: 3506 m
time cycled: 4 h, 40 min