Bureaucratic problems abruptly came to an end for us Saturday morning at about 3 AM, when the paperwork for our vehicles showed up by taxi from Lima. By 6:30 we were packed and on the road to Ayacucho, about 250km away.
Climbing up to a pass outside of Huancayo at about 15 km/hr, I was worried that it would take a week to get to Cusco, and that we would have to camp that night. Over the course of the day, however, we broke our engines in, and they're now puttering along at a cool (or hot) 40-45 on good roads. I was lucky enough to get one of the 150cc bikes, and between the stronger engine and my lighter weight (teams have two people), I've been cruising. Some people have had terrible luck with flats and weak engines, while others of us haven't had hardly any trouble.
The longest part of the trip yesterday was along a river valley with vertiginous cliffs. We took it easy, especially around the narrow, sharp, blind curves. I got separated from most of the caravan, and raced to make it to safer ground by sunset. I really wish we'd had a little more time because the scenery was stunning. I'll try to post some pictures in the next couple days.
We're traveling now in a caravan of between six and eight vehicles. It makes for slow going, but it's nice to have this companionship at the start of our journey. We're being looked after by some family friends of one of the teams, who are traveling with us to Cusco in a pickup truck. They've proven to be lifesavers, as the team with the worst mechanical troubles would have been stranded on the bad road at dark with a flat tire.
Traveling slowly and tightly, with the pickup at the lead, we made the last about 100 km by dark on good-to-middling roads, and arrived here in Ayacucho after 11 PM. I'd love to stay and explore but we're heading out in a few minutes to put in at least 100km on bad roads today, with the hope of making Cusco on better roads tomorrow.
Ok that wasn't the most interesting post but I wanted to say that I'm still alive and things are going at least as well as expected. I'll probably post some pictures and reflections when we get to Cusco.
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