January 30th, Cusco, Peru to Puno, Peru – 500km

            I literally dragged myself out of town.  I was weak, tired, and more than ready to get the heck out of Cusco.  Not because it wasn’t a great town with tons to offer, I just wanted a change.


            The hotel staff at Hotel Royal Qosco was amazing.  They were so much fun to get to know over the past few weeks.  Jeanni was genuinely concerned with my over all health the entire time I was there.  He would bring me mate de coca every day, just to be nice.  Great guy, great people.
 

            I am really not feeling up to riding.  Mentally I just had to get out and back on the road or else something would have broken inside my fragile skull.  So I take it slow and try to work myself into a better mood. 

This is easier said than done.  Outside of town, I stopped at one of the last gas stations before a barren stretch of road on the way to Lake Titicaca.  I fill up while I am still on the bike, pay the gas dude, and I am just getting my tank bag back into place when a car pulls into the station facing me.  The car heads to the pump in front of me and instead of stopping, he kind of gently plows into my front wheel, head on!  I am jolted not really understanding what is going on.  Then I see the car and a slew of profanity erupts from the depths of my soul.  He has actually rolled his car on top of my tire.  The early model corolla has about 9 people in it.  He just sits there smiling like this is real funny.  His buddy gets out of the passenger side to help push the front of the car off of my wheel.  Meanwhile I can’t get off or the bike will fall when tire gets unstuck.  This whole interaction does not improve my mood.  Nothing was broken and I slowly moved on.


On my way out of Cusco I met some Colombians on super Tenere’s from Cordoba.

            The road towards Puno is great.  High in the mountains, gently twisties, desserted, it’s great. 
 

My clutch is still not any better.  This affects my mood. 


For me when something is wrong with the bike it really gets me down.  I start to think worse case scenario, how much time will be lost, how much money will the repairs cost, where the nearest dealer is, and is it dangerous to ride it like it is.

 
            I make it to Puno and find a hotel for what I though was 25 soles($9) a night but was really $25USD.  Puno is a little depressing, poor..  So is the BBC news when I found out that Shell oil recorded record profits for 2006, $28 billion dollars.  While the rest of us poor slobs get kicked in the groin everyday at the pump.

 

Dusk at Puno on Lake Titicaca.
 

After some pizza I watched some TV and slept.