In the morning, we said goodbye to the tour folks and donated a few things to the porters. We then set out to meet the Reserv Cusco folks for our half day mountain bike excursion. We were really excited to go biking.
In the video above, you can get a feel for our ride.
It started up on a hill, above Cusco, near the Pukapukara Ruins. We rode along a two lane road for a little while, passing some construction. Brenda had some trouble with her brakes and I had a flat tire…but we fixed those problems and were able to finish the ride. At one point we stopped for a breather (riding at over 12,000 ft is a challenge!). The view was amazing.
We veered off the concrete onto a muddy downhill road. This was where the fun really started. It was steep, full of puddles, and did I mention…Muddy!
William, our guide is a very profficient mountain biker, so he usually rode ahead of us a little. He’d stop on occasion and let us catch up. At one time, I asked him to take video of us riding and he caught some awesome footage of us negotiating the turns of the road. (more…)