May 2, 2010

Next day at breakfast, back at joy Ride cafe, we noticed that they also offered tours…MOTORCYCLE tours! Cool! It was Rick’s great idea to hire a tourguide and ride the area without the stress of navigating ourselves.

We hooked up with Sergio, and told him what we wanted: more bike maintenance in the morning (Rick needed to adjust a front-end rattle and also do some electrical work, I needed to clean my air filter, and install a new horn since the one I installed in Lima rattled off!)

Sergio took us to the local shop he uses.

Then we took off with Sergio. Over breakfast we’d decided that we’d ride to the Inca Trail, then follow Sergio on a loop he knew that would give us a good feel for the Sucre area.

Lunch.

Lunchtime entertainment.
They came and asked for food, so we gave them everything we had not eaten including a couple of sandwiches and cookies.

Pretty incredible scenery.

Yup, that’s our road!

Sergio and Rick are really good riders…it was a job for me to keep up.

I could not keep up. On the way back down the mountain we passed the shepherds again. The fellow didn’t seem to notice or to care that he’d already cleaned me out of food. this time he asked for my sunglasses and camera.

Poor Rick…he’s been following Sergio and I for hours. I was tired at this point and didn’t want to be a sissy and turn back, but I needed to go slower. I let Rick go ahead from this point on. Poor guy! (But so darned funny I had to take a pic!)

Sergio took us on some single track, but I was too busy with both hands to take pics.

He’d given us a choice…short route back to Sucre or river crossing. RIVER CROSSING! (Bravery in numbers!!!)

We got lucky and were able to watch a car cross in order to gauge the depth…the river was moving f-a-s-t! My largest and deepest water crossing to date!

Back to Sucre.

Wow. This was the most fun I’d had on m y trip since that day in El Salvador with Mario. I was re-pumped about my trip, excitement overriding the trip weariness I’d been experiencing lately, absolutely in love with my trip again. Thanks Rick and Sergio!!!

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