Another Adventure Machu Picchu is on the way, ACP1601

Day 13 - Arequipa to Arica   The last riding day of our Machu Picchu tour has started. And although you might think there is not much to see in this desert area, we enjoyed the calmness of this vast, mountainous area.   I would like to thank all tour members for a wonderful riding experience in Peru. Not only is it the ride and the landscape that account for a great motorcycle tour. Without like-minded riders like you, it would not have been such a fantastic time. I truly enjoyed travelling with you and the laughter we had.  Hope to see you another time on tour somewhere on the planet. Always ride safely, Your tour guide Angela Day 12 rest day in Arequipa   Most of the guys went for a real rest day today and decided to take it easy. So Waltraud, Dieter and myself, we took the opportunity to visit one of Arequipa's main attractions - the monastery Santa Catalina. Located close to the city centre, the monastery was founded in 1579 and originally served as a boarding school for the daughters of rich Spanish families. Before the earthquakes in 1582 and in the 1960s, the monastery extended an area of 20.000 sqms. Today there are only about 20 nuns left who run the monastery. Despite the unusually colorful place, it is striking to see with how little comfort those nuns had lived in those times. Day 11 - Chivay to Arequipa   Day 10 - Puno to Chivay   Leaving Cusco early in the morning, we've arrived in Puno at the Lake Titikaka. With an altitde of 3.812 m or 12,507 ft above sea level, Lake Titikaka is the highest navigable lake in the world and the biggest in South America, too. It has a surface of 8.372 km2 or 3,232 sq mi, 60% of it belonging to Peru and 40% to Bolivia. Our highlight this morning will be the Uros, the floating islands in the bay of Puno. Most interesting to learn about the lives of the people living on these islands. Quite different from home ;) Day 8 - rest day in Cusco In the morning we met Ruth again. She lives in Cusco and once more she shared her profound knowledge about the place. A shuttle bus took us outside town to the archeological park of Saqsaywaman. Many names of places here in Peru are hard to pronounce for a non-Spanish speaking person. But no worries, here you will be given an easy memory hook - Just say "sexy woman" and you'll be alright :D Day 6 Ollantaytambo - Cusco Only a short ride of about 100 km brought us into the most beautiful and most famous city of the Inca culture. At the time of the Inca Cusco was the place where everything was organised and where all threads were coming together. We have another rest day here to explore and learn more about the city.  Day 1-5 Arica - Moquegua - Puerto Inca - Nazca - Challuanca - Ollantaytambo   The Adventure Machu Picchu tour came as a surprise at short notice for me - as a wonderful one, I should add. Having had the enjoyable experience of travelling South America last year already with the Adventure Altiplano tour, I was very much looking forward to another opportunity to discover another part of this continent. Although we have our tour start location in Arica, Chile, our travel itinerary takes us around mostly in the south of the 1,285,000 square km Peru. Being the second largest state of South America, Peru shows an amazingly vast variety of stunning landscape. The huge differences in altitude, and consequently also in climate, offer stunning impressions for us motorcyclists.    In our group of riders we have Caryn & Brad, Brian and Greg from the United States and Waltraud & Dieter from Austria. We are absolutely enjoying the chilled rides in our small, almost family-like, group ;) We have been on the way already for 6 days and today there is finally the best internet connection so far to be able to tell you about our great adventures. You're welcome to enjoy our pictures :)