21st – 24th September 2011, Arequipa – Chivay – Peru, Radiohead – In Rainbows
Arequipa is a beautiful white walled city in the lower part of Peru. It sits at 2,335m.a.s.l. and is in the desert that forms the west coast of Peru. It has a lovely warm and dry climate and is surrounded by stunning snow capped volcanoes which lead eastwards into the altiplano of the Peruvian Andes.
I met my Kiwi friend Anna there, and to celebrate my birthday with a spontaneous motorcycle ride over the Andes, reaching the highest point I have ever been on earth. It was fantastic.
 The central square in Arequipa is nice. |  And the adventure begins swiftly, with the hiring of our 250cc yamaha. Would this piece of crap make it over the mountains? |
 No it wouldn’t, we set off early afternoon for the 4 hour ride and after 30 minutes, we developed a flat rear tire and had to hang around in the desert until help came. |  which luckily arrived in the form of a ute. It took us to the nearest fixit shop |
 where the guy who rented us the bike got to work on the problem. Now it was late in the day so we decided to head back into town and try the next day. |  And after an early start we started the climb. Here we stopped to put on some warmer clothes. this is about 4100 meters, and no snow or ice, just cold and a little hard of breathing. |
 We really were pretty crazy, we had no protection except a helmet, our jackets would rip to shreds should we come off. |  There were some beautiful landscapes along the way. We spent about 2 hours ascending to our peak |
 and at 4900 meters we came across the top of the pass, where the locals had started a crafts market. Crazy! |  It took about 1 hour to descend into the Colca Valley on the other side of the pass, there were herds of llamas to avoid. |
And after our adventurous ride we made it safely down into the town of Chivay, our home for the night. Chivay is a nice place, and it boasts some awesome hot pools, just what we needed after freezing our arses coming across the pass.
 We stayed at the Ruma Wasi Inn, it is a very nice spot, I recommend |  and they even had a curious pet llama. ¿Comó te llamas? |
 The town is typically styled around a main square, with a church and cross scraped into the hillside. |  and the locals look super cool. |
 Anna was tasked with motorcycle security while I went to the pub for a quick one before the journey all the way back to Arequipa. |  On our way we came across this overturned truck. We didn’t stay for long as everyone was ok, and the trucks cargo was a consignment of gas bottles. Luckily they had a fire extinguisher should one explode. |
 The scenery was fantastic. Arequipa lay just beyond that volcano. |  Power rangers are GO! |
And with great skill, determination and suffering sore bums we made it back into Arequipa for my birthday celebrations.
We headed out for a nice steak meal followed by mojitos, tequila shots and beers. It all got too much for a while, but we managed to stay awake to watch the All Blacks demolish France in the Rugby World cup at the Wild Rover. And somehow after all of that with the help of some new friends the sun arose to a very hung-over and tired day.
laters.x.b.rad
