We got out of that small town quickly and headed up into the Cordilla Blanca. The inital 50 kms was all freshley new pavement and it felt great to have new tires to carve them up the mountain side. We twisted and turned our way up into the Cordilla Blanca and set our sites on some hot springs we read about. We eventually found them from the awful signs along the way. We went to the Springs thinking it would be a large pool of hot water as the others were before. Nope it was literally a private room with a large tile bathtub. Colin and I just laughed and thought might as well since we paid for it. They said these baths were medicinal.. I guess they felt that way.. After our thermas bath we had some guinea pig for lunch which if you didnt think about it much was actually delicious.
Below are some pictures of our ride through the Cordilla Blanca. Beautiful.
We continued on after lunch through some amazing roads. The road was a cliff on one side that lead down into a raging river and a shear rock face that went high into the sky on the other. There were amazing tunnels that were pitch black. Also, to add to the danger factor there were Semis rolling along this road. You would go into a tunnel see a semi and have to literally back out of the tunnel to let the semi through. The tunnels would fill with dust and almost make it impossible to see where you were going. Just at the decent of this road I decided to have a lapse in paying attention and hit some mud and crashed AGAIN. The bike decided to go up the slanted rock face and pin my foot between the swing arm/pannier rack and the rock face. I was stuck between my bike and the mountain. A few cars passed by as if I wasnt there but eventually one car passed, stopped and reversed back. Another car was forced to stop since that car was blocking the road. Four guys came out and lifted the bike off of me while all the women in the vehicles just laughed at me basically. Embarrased and kinda banged up I hobbled my bike over to the side and said my thanks. All on video too but internet here cant handle that. I think ive hit my crash quota for Peru. The KLR is takin a beating but she keeps on going.
Below are some pictures of the ride even tho this was the much milder part of it.
KLR WHEELIE!
We decended down the sketchy road to a mining town. The hostels were all completely booked full as all the miners had occupied them. So we were forced to camp. It started to rain heavily and we eventually found a camp spot along side the river. We set up camp, had dinner, and passed out from exhuastion.