They advertised that there'd be lots of singletrack, but unfortunately it was mostly just dirt road. Fun though, and lots and lots of fast downhill. The bikes were disappointing given that the website advertised Shimano XT groupsets on all the bikes and other such crap, but in the end they were just slightly better-than-average hire bikes.
On the road out to Colca Canyon.The trip was plagued with car troubles. In what was the newest looking car we'd seen in South America for a long time, the Toyota Land Cruiser was dodgy as hell. It did mean we got to see more condors, as we were stuck at the condor viewing point for almost 4 hours waiting for the car to be fixed, and since the first 3 and a half hours only gave us 1 condor in the first 5 minutes and then nothing else, it was worth the wait when 4 condors came back to their nests about 15 minutes before the 4WD came to pick us up.
The Canyon itself was pretty cool, but perhaps a bit over-rated. On the last day we had a lot of fun riding about 20km downhill, and ended it with a nice 2 hour walk to a little guest house that had some hot springs we could jump into and relax in.
Chilling out in the hot springs.On the last day we did a bit more riding, all downhill, fast, and fun, and jumped into the car for the long drive back to Arequipa. Unfortunately the radiator in the 4WD had developed a crack, and after going back to the village and filling up with 40L of water, we drove very slowly back the 100km on slow 4WD track back to the main road. We stopped every 8-10 minutes to pour more water into the radiator. It was epic really.
One of the many radiator refills on the long road back to Arequipa.The tour company felt bad, and luckily for us they had pizza and drinks waiting for us when we arrived. We got back around 9pm, and had a 10pm bus to catch out of Arequipa so we hurriedly packed our things and ate the pizza while we were waiting for the bus. It was comfortable overnight bus that brought us to Ica, which is about 4 hours south of Lima. We were headed to Huaraz, about 8 hours north of Lima, where we were going to meet up with Rik again and hopefully do some trekking.
In Ica we went sand-boarding and dune-buggying and also wine tasting. It was a nice little interlude that broke up the long journey from Arequipa to Huaraz. Unfortunately Peruvian wines aren't really all that much chop. But we nodded politely and said they tasted nice anyway. Dune buggying was heaps of fun; kinda like a free-style roller coaster. We'd never been to a desert like this before, with huge sand dunes as far as the eye could see. Sandboarding was fun too, but unfortunately we only got to slide down the dunes a handful of times.
Kath on the dune buggy.After Ica, we jumped on board a bus for 4 hours which took us to Lima, and from there we went straight to another bus station and booked an overnight bus to Huaraz.
