Hola ma peoples. Que Pasa, heres some ramblings on a few recent things.
Monday morning I was up at 6:00 am to start working on the bikes as we were taking a group of 9 up to Malga. This is an asphalt road that winds switch back after switchback (91 hair pin turns) up a mountain – 52 kilometers to just above 15,000ft. – it is apparently the highest pass this side of the continental divide. Today me, Sam and Rob (Rob and Erica, the previous couple, had returned from Machu Pichu the previous night.) were to drop the Mega Avalanche course. Over 5,000 ft vertical drop in about half an hour. The other six in the group including KB, Erica, and a nice couple from Florida would be cruising the 52 km road all the way to the bottom. Weather was about 73 and sunny when we left Ollantay and surprisingly around high 50’s and somewhat rainy at 15,000ft. The rain cleared out and we dropped. The Mega Avalanche course is god damn kick ass. It has everything. You start by dropping into open fields and picking your line, some cliffs, watch out of mud holes and streams. After this you jump onto a long Inca Road; this is double track blown out rocks, tons of baby heads, real loose and fast. After this it is single track with some knarley tech sections, tight switch backs, rock gardens, off camber stuff pretty much everything. Ends with a couple booters – one big step down, one long table and a smaller double. Everyone made it down safely which was great. One of the two vans had to leave so me and Sam to ride back to town on our bikes. KB let us know it was only a short ride, no problem, we didn’t even need our packs. Little did I know it was god damn 3 miles most of the way up hill and it was sunny and hot as shit. Made it back after a couple hours and were greeted by “you guys only just made it back? Did you have bike trouble?” No KB, no bike trouble, I’m just on a god damn 9.5 inch travel single pivot downhill bike with a 12-22 cassette,2.5 tires, and with sag somewhere near a 63 degree head angle – nothing about that bike is designed to pedal uphill. Sam is on a new vpp pre production Chumba frame so its easy for him, he waited for me none the less. At the hostel we had beers and popcorn on the roof terrace and a group lunch made by KB. It was such a gorgeous afternoon KB decided to blow all the cash made on the tours (coming to learn this is a usual thing) on a van for me, him and Sam to head up to another famous riding spot called Rochi. Some storm clouds rolled in and on the drive up to Rochi (13,000ft) I saw some of the most epic panoramic views ever; storm clouds and mountains on one side meeting bright sunrays, a mountain range with lakes and green patchwork fields opposite. There had been some rain so things were kinda slick, however I had no idea what we were in for. Rochi much resembles some of the riding you see out west in San Diego/So Cal areas. Wide open dirt, bermy, many lines, rutted, jumps, fast with some tech. The only difference is it is on a scale about 20 times the size and length. The soil composition is a red dusty dirt like that of moab, when muddy this turns into an icy slick plattekill type clay which sticks to everything. KB slid out and fell on the first drop in leaving me in front. I hauled ass down a smooth double track road around a corner to be met by some locals leading a pack of 25 or so cattle. This is where I learnt how slippery the wet clay was as I went into a full on 2 wheel 50 foot drift around the outside of the heard, eventually laying it down in slow motion. I have also never ridden anything that slippery in my life (I know this trip is full of a lot of firsts, get used to it). The rest of the ride I was laughing and yelling out load having a ton of fun getting loose and drifting/sliding all over the place. I apologized to them and let them know that is what the east coast is about, we race on slippery muddy muck tech surfaces and this is pretty usual for me. Upholding the east coast is a pretty constant battle for me as KB spent most of his time in Colorado then rode many places around the world before settling in Peru 6 or so years ago. Sam is a west coaster riding in Washington and mainly New Mexico. KB always gives the East Coast shit and constantly asks me sarcastic questions on the scene out there. This lasted about the first three days and now they let me go first on every drop, even when I dont know the trail haha.
Tuesday was the first day I woke up to rain as opposed to the flawless sunny hot weather we have been having. This was good as I was exhausted and soar. I got up at 7 anyway and ventured down stairs in my pjs. Here I ran into one of the guys supposedly taking a ride with us, his vote is that with heavy rains and his cold like symptoms we call off the ride. Awesome, I am going back to bed. As I am climbing the stairs another French sounding dude walks in and is pretty persistent about riding and we manage to put him off until after lunch letting him know it will dry out. I managed to get a couple more hours of sleep then headed to the shop to prepare the bikes. This guy shows up with a buddy who both want to do the Salt Mines ride. We prepare the bikes and stall letting the hot sun dry up the trails and then head out. As we are driving in the van KB gets some of his classic hip hop going – a little Public Enemy circa 97. The guys who turn out to be from Quebec City are very knowledgeable on music. I obviously start shooting the shit with them about hip hop and underground bla bla, classified, DL Incognito, Knaan those types of Canadian rappers. Turns out they are in fact part of a French rap group who have had their way paid to Cusco from QC for a show coming up. These guys are a laugh, especially with their English - and when I say funny I was cracking up as one of them who was the DJ starts telling me about another group he is part of “which is hard core man, like slipknot but I DJ and we have big show, big show all over Quebec and I do the turn tables and spin bass and stuff and also have big trampoline on stage and jump around during show with smoke doing flip and spin and stuff while DJing. We all have make up and masks and really popular, we work hard get signed by universal and all age fans love us at shows from 6 years old to 40. “ This point I can hardly take it seriously until he pulls up his shirt to show us full upper body tattoos of their names and nick names. They turned out to be awesome guys and rode bikes real well, we all had a blast. I told them about my friend Manahan that was a big portion Canadian but they had never heard of him, I said that’s a shame, eh. Cruised a ton of dirt roads with epic views looking at ruins then dropped into faster trails, with multiple lines to choose – like a mini park for bikes. They did great and we took them for a drop into the canyon. We came across a real big road gap surprisingly very well built by who knows who. A good 5 foot tall take off step down across the road. Hiked it a couple times – one of the bigger jumps I have hit since being here. From here we road cliffside along the canyon until reaching the famous salt mines. Here there are hand made platoes which act as a siv for a running stream. They fill with less than 6 inches off water before running into the next area. This works as a filter and the water evaporates in the sun leaving huge squares of salt. In the sunny season this can take 1-2 weeks per square and said time doubles with lack of sun and increased rain. We ended the ride with them surprisingly riding very well through the last 1,000 ft descent of tech switch backs. Loaded up the vans, no one hurt, no broken parts – a first. Once back to the hostel we crushed Cusquenos and chilled out in the Garden till late night. Got their info and supposedly going up to Quebec City to party during some big music festival they have haha.
Wednesday was a relaxed day. We awoke with no tours to do and a lot of bike and gear cleaning to do. Once you get started with this it just gets on a role and we ended up getting pretty aggressive with cleaning and fixing/repairs. It was a beautiful morning, mid 70’s and sunny. I brought up my speakers and we bumped reggae on the terrace as we worked on repairs outside in the sun. We needed some thin aluminum to make a shim for the worn out DU Bushings on KB’s Chumba F5. We let him know we needed a beer can and he sent a local 7 year old kid to the store a block up the street for a beer. Little did we know KB gave him a bunch of soles and he came back with 12 Cusquenas and a few packs of gummy bears. I couldn’t get over this and had a good laugh that a 7 year old could go buy a bunch of beers at the store. KB picking up on the humor I found with a 7 year old making beer runs for us let us know that in the past when he and his buddies had poker nights they would send kids to the store to get all kinds of stuff; beer, rum, smokes, xanax etc. xanax? This is when I learnt that Pharmacies (which there are about 2 on every 3 or 4 blocks sell xanax, vicodin, valium etc freely no rx needed. I will come back to this. KB doesn’t drink beer so Sam and I polished them off along with the needed repairs, I won a bet on some shitty tube patch jobs KB had done so he hired us all a cab to go to the top of Pata Concha pass. Screw it, it will be a relaxed ride, we grabbed some more beers and piled into the van. Ran into a little trouble on the way up as the cab driver sucked ass at driving and was just doing an awful job navigating around mud and ruts. KB being the person he is got in a big argument with the driver who made us all get out and ended the climb. KB told us to enjoy our ride and stormed off. Sam and I began hiking to link a trail we did on the first day with Rob and Erica. The river had grown much bigger with the recent rains, I slipped on a rock while crossing and fell head first fully submerging myself and bike. This was a nice snap back into reality as I now realized I was at 14,ooo feet in the Andes, wet but still pretty happily buzzed. Awesome, laugh it up Lama’s I will probably be eating one of your cousins as an apitizer when I get back for dinner. Actually in all seriousness I like you guys and don’t really mean that although it’s probably true. We hiked up and linked the trail but this time took a lower split. Wished we had done this with Rob and Erica as it was super flowy and fun, great for intermediate riders – although I did have a few scares as I was feeling pretty loose. Dropped through a village and linked back to the dirt road. Just had time to shotgun a Cusquena and dusk fell pretty fast. Once again I was riding 3+ miles of dirt road back to town in the dark. I must say, it is most serene and peaceful cruising the road as the sun sets and dark falls with nothing but mountains surrounding you and the quiet tick of your rear hub spinning. This all turned out to be a 5 hour ride in which I hiked a shit ton, swam in a river, rode an awesome but flowy XC/all mountain trail (hard on my DH bike), all in all was very tiring and my soar and out of shape muscles still don’t seem to be improving ha. Back at the hostel we grabbed a few more beers and headed out to a cheap dinner. Getting pretty good with food and locations now, I will talk about this later too. At this point I am feeling pretty good and decide to wander into a Boteca (pharmacy) to see what they have. I asked in Spanish if they had xanax in which I got a confused look. I repeated a couple times to which the lady said something I could not interpret and rubbed her stomach looking sick. No blame on her but she obviously sees me the same as most of the white guys that come into the store looking for meds for food poisoning/sick stomachs – not the type of white guy drinking some beers and getting loose on xanax before going back to his hostel to read Time magazine and type a word doc of what is going on. I turn to Sam who is thinking the same thing and says “not stomach sickness, anxiety”. I turn back to the lady and shake my hands beside my ears pretending to go crazy ahhhhh saying necisito xanaxxx. She finds this hilarious and laughs at me but has no idea what I am trying to communicate. I call it quits and decide to head back to the hostel. Tomorrow I will do more research on Spanish names for American rx drugs but not before I pick up a 10 soles box of Chilean wine and write this to you. (to those family members reading this I am merely embracing this culture and its norms to the full extent in order to get the most original and real experience I can. If I could communicate with the pharmacists properly I would not use these “rx type” drugs in an excessive or reckless way – despite the fact that the prescription label and negative connotation with these drugs is only forced upon us in the US.)
