The Ghostriders Conquer the Urubamba

The Urubamba River is the river that made the sacred valley of the Incas. Over millions of years it has carved this amazing valley which has become one of the cradles of civilisation. It not only flows past the famous site of Machu Picchu, but it later joins the mighty Amazon and eventually empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Today's ride plan was simple - to follow the river along a rough side track for about 3 hours. It sounded quite easy. Actually it wasn't.

The hardships for two of our group actually began the previous evening. After dinner Steve and Gil decided that they needed to augment their dwindling cash and visited one of the only two ATMs in Ollantaytambo. They inserted their card and waited. And waited. Nothing happened and the machine decided that they had no right to get their card back. Considering their misfortunes of the previous day, one could be forgiven for thinking that these poor folk were destined to have bad luck throughout the trip.

Apparently they then spent more time on the Internet cancelling the card and making other arrangements to survive for the next few weeks. It was certainly an inauspicious start to their trip. However more trails were to lie ahead for our group.

We began the day by driving upstream along the Urubamba River for about 60 km from Ollantaytambo. The plan was then to ride along a rough track along the far side of the river, downstream for several hours. It sounded simple.

We began in glorious conditions under another clear sky and were soon bouncing along over rocks and huge culverts in the path. The bikes did a sensational job in coping with these conditions. It is little wonder that they cost an eye watering $2800 USD each. They certainly are very well adapted for this type of riding, although it was a pity that my body was not equally as well adapted as the bike I was riding.

I had not ridden very far before I started to feel like my nether regions were being scraped with sand paper. This is every riders worst nightmare. I wriggled in the seat. I lifted my backside off the seat. I moved forward and backward. Still sore. I was not looking forward to another 3 or more hours of this posterior torture, but there was nothing I could do but grin and bear it. Why oh why hadn't I used some of that magic cream that was hiding somewhere in my suitcase ? Good question.

The path itself undulated up and down and the rough surface certainly challenged most of our riders who were not experienced mountain bikers. David suffered the first puncture of the ride when a tack lodged in his rear tyre. A short time later it was my turn when my front tyre went down. I ended up swapping bikes with Jimmy (one of our cycling guides). This was most kind of him. The only problem is that Jimmy is about a foot shorter than me and his bike was about the size of a midget BMX. I was therefore quite relieved when we reached the lunch spot at a rather late 2 pm and was told that the riding was over for the day.

We then transferred to a restaurant for lunch. A pan pipe player was playing El Condor Pasa. Actually someone has been playing this same song almost everywhere we have been since we arrived in Cusco 4 days ago. I think we will hear it a lot more before this trip is over.

We finally arrived back in Ollantaytambo about 4 pm . After showering and changing we were able to spend some time exploring this fascinating and very much frontier town. Then it was time for a coffee and snack. We found a lovely cafe that had been started by a young American girl who had been working for an NGO organisation before settling in Ollantaytambo. She loved the place and decided to start a business here. I really admire such people who have the courage and imagination to live a remarkable life. I hope her business succeeds. She deserves it.

It was also soon after arriving back in Ollantaytambo that a remarkable coincidence took place. I knew that Liz and Priscilla Kwok were travelling in South America on another World Expeditions trip at about the same time as us, but we were not prepared to see them actually book into our hotel ! What were the chances of what ? We felt a little like that famous meeting between Stanley and Livingstone as we welcomed and embraced out two Australian friends who were so far away from home.Read more