Day 07-  Have a Coke and a Smile

Leaving Nazca we had 221 miles ahead of us before arriving at Chalhuanca.  I thought that we had already seen the best twisties ever, but I was wrong.  Much to my delight, today’s course was more crooked than straight.  Miles of smiles prevailed as I corkscrewed my way up to the next summit and positioned myself in the #2 spot, right behind Ben.  Finishing off a forever-long 180 left turn uphill, we came upon a fully laden semi-truck trudging along downhill.  I watched Ben disappear past him and around the next bend.  I moved to follow suit, right up to the point that another oncoming Coke-carrying semi-truck decided to simultaneously downhill-pass the first truck and was rudely occupying my uphill lane on this 2 lane road.  Two semis oncoming downhill, side-by-side, two lanes, me going uphill, you do the math.  Decision time: split the middle? ditch in the ditch? grab a free Coke off of the 2^nd truck? or test the ABS and stand the bike on its nose at the extreme right edge of the apron?  The ABS test prevailed, the apron was just wide enough and 3 people then needed to change their underwear.

Rustic indigenous villages dotted today’s ride, interspersed with herds of llamas being tended by their keepers.  Lunch in Puquio gave a few of the guys an opportunity to converse with some local youths as they mobbed the parked bikes.  Uno sole was the modeling fee for a very colorful native woman posing in her doorway.  More curves, a lake at 14,700 ft. and hundreds of terraced gardens graced the remainder of this day, stopping along the way to don my raingear.

Chalhuanca was a welcome site as I arrived in the rain.  My room shared a building with the chapel.  The restaurant and bar made everyone even happier as the evening wore on and once again, we crossed paths with our friends from Sweden.