ride to cusco was great...up and over two mountain ranges thru high small farm areas on race track like roads, hardly any gravel.....wished id had the ducati and no luggage for the day
so scenic in this river canyon (less the power lins) about fell off......constant balance of bliss riding and takin in area 
farmland meant lot of people and animals sharing the road
couple small towns
and then cusco....
refreshing city has strong spanish look although the majority of buildings sit on inca foundation about 10 ft up...really cool. 
lively main plaza area and a travel biker bar with real hamburgers! Norton Rats, owned by jeff from ohio who did this trip 15 years ago....a must stop for anyone en route.....which i found out is about 100 per year.
cusco is known as base point for macchu picchu and as such filled with merchants, stores and sidewalk sellers who wont quit the sale. hire them in the states as carsalesmen and the big 3 wouldnt have problems
zoom in and see specs are llamas, alpacas, deer things...all valley's covered and flat areas packss of 10-100 everywhere
shortly after this pic the road felt a 120mph silver bullet...but not for long.... llama crossing slow things down....
Passing occasional village of herders and out of nowhere highland lakes…eventually start coming back down….. it is impossible to get used to the feeling of riding DOWN to the clouds. 
Got in them and they were as thick ive seen riding enabling only about 30ft of visibility on mountain ridge potholed half gravel half pavement roads… gripping the handlebars tight for what felt like hours but really only 30 minutes or so until riding out 
Which lead to more incredibly humbling scenic views and a town or two. various landscapes high up peru are from another planet.
where are we?
donde esta el bano?
ohhh...gracias
once on top a lanscape I’ve never seen before. Very spark and dead..up to high for anything to grow I guess. …reddish color rounded craterish bluffs like imagination of what mars may be.
After awhile going higher it changed to a rugged rocky land and then superimposed yellow highland short grass area…altitude ranging from 14,000-15,500ft. 
Riding thru was great but gas was low and nothing around for 100+ miles. Found a little village and got a gallon of low octane 84 from a that a guy that used it in as his energy source. no choice we put a gallon in and went off.
Right away it was bogging down simons bike and causing it to die every 10 minutes or so…the altitude didn’t help im sure. 
After hour or so I stopped waiting for him in middle of nowhere near a shanty trucker stop store with one lady and child living there and what looked an old government semi-abandoned animal reserve ,1 person still caretaking (there are thousands of llama’s, alpaca and these small gazelle/deer like animals up here..1000’s everywhere.. so much free range wildlife and dodging them on the bike because the deerlikes blend into the yellow landscape) 
there was a store across from it that sold gas in milk carton gallons. They had 1gallon to sell. Siphoned out the little bit of bad gas and put the new gallon in.
ok back at it though it was getting dark. 5 miles down the road and my bike is going out of gas. Shite what now? Go on into nothingness getting dark and no towns for 100 miles or go back see if we can get more gas or stay somewhere. (at this point wishing I hadn’t dumped my tent) 
Go back…. Get there and no more gas but some in the morning…you can stay at the reserve. Ok great thankful. Go into the reserve to find its actually Norman Bates residence. 
Scary pitch black middle of nowhere peru 15000 ft up on lonely night trucker route and the guy who opened the place for us took off for nazca 2hrs away after letting us in.
cold up here....had to bust out the deliverance warm riding bibs 