The Start: Detroit International Airport
Quito, Ecuador.
More Quito.
Need shoes?
Evening in the Ecuadorian capital.
All white.
Dinner time.
The fact that my equipment took a detour through Venezuela gave me the chance to check out the equator. This is a self-timer picture! (Not the only one.)
Physics.
The team: Florian, Anna, Andre.
Andre trying out kids helmets.
Anna fixing her butt pain.
And here we go: Mountains in southern Ecuador!
Little break.
Flower of a tree.
Camping on a construction site in the rain.
Road.
Road?
Andre meets Volvo.
Hot. Humid. Humbling.
Green hell.
Stop in a little village.
Andre fighting the mountain.
Anna fighting the dog.
Crossing the border to Peru. Yeah!
Peruvian girl.
With her friend.
And another friend.
And yet another friend.
Can you see it in their eyes?
Street store.
We were a little sick of the ups and downs so we decided to take a bus to a more interesting part of Peru.
Unluckly the bus broke down.
But everybody was fine...
... only we had to cycle to our final destination.
Stores in the evening.
Want juice?
Peruvians on the main plaza.
Ruins of Chan Chan, build out of sand in the desert.
Anna doesn't like parallelograms.
The rule: If someone wants a picture with me I want a picture with them.
During a dream the other night.
Anna trying to be social in her underwear during laundry day.
So is Andre.
Royals?
French Canadian how has been doing this for the last four and a half years.
Planting a tree in the sand.
Sand dunes close to the Pacific coast.
There it is: The mountain up into the Andeans!!!
Camp site.
Bathroom under the sky.
Riding up and up and up.
German couple.
And up.
Cacti (or whatever the plural of cactus is).
And up.
Pink Floyd must have been here earlier.
Pig and tires.
Brick production.
This is what you do if you don't have a car.
Water falls.
One of the many, many coal mines.
Market.
Mother and daughter.
Peruvian woman.
First snow mountain! 6800m.
There is a reason for this sign.
Can you see it in the background?
Break from biking: A hike up this valley.
And up this waterfall.
My friend Adina.
Our reward: A Laguna at 4450m.
Yeah!
Look back.
Crazy vegetation.
Mountain top.
Another campsite.
View the other way.
Home sweet home.
Next morning at the inside of the tent.
Nobody there.
That's one of the reason I am doing this.
Uninterrupted attention.
Mountains.
More mountains.
The road.
Just a few kilometers away...
View the other way.
This is fun!
Ecuador & Peru '09.
The highest pass: Punta Olimpica at 4890m.
Downhill!!!
Laguna with flowers.
Fields at the crack dawn.
Woman with cows, sheep, dogs and a horse.
Stop in a small village.
Up another pass.
Yet another laguna.
Pass: 4300m.
Ruins of Chavin.
With some pretty cool underground tunnels with A/C.
And crazy Peruvian kids.
Everything in the architecture has crosses in it, following the cross of the south up in the nightly sky.
Choices.
Carved out soccer field at 3500m.
Another campsite.
Fields in the early morning.
Into the clouds.
Pass at 4300m.
Yet another laguna.
This one was hard: 4670m on the muddiest road possible. And it wasn't even mentioned the map.
Sun and rain fooling around.
Valley at 4200m.
Band playing in honour of San Huan. Super important celebration of Midsummer (winter??). I got offer a drink and some bread.
Dried corn.
Homework.
Peruvian women.
Evening.
Kids.
Cerres. Freezing mining town at 4300m. It is so cold that people take litle notice of me.
Memories of Tibet. Biking 150km through a valley.
Alpacas (Llamas??) at lake Junin, at 4000m.
Alpaca love.
Last campsite, at 4400m.
Sunset.
Last laguna.
Last uphill.
Same rule: However wants a photo of me...
Suburbs of Lima.
It is so dusty that they hire an anti-dust crew.
Crazy traffic.
I could not resist. Not a second.
A little tired of biking. Plane to Cuzco.
Plaza major. My escape from the tourists ended here.
Vanessa and Melissa from Brazil.
Catholic celebration.
Friends.
Restaurand in basketball court.
This is how restauration works.
Opening super glue to fix my sun glasses at 3100m.
Peruvian woman.
The Machu Picchu village can only be reached by this railway line.
Bastian from France I hike up some mountain to get a glimpse of Machu Picchu.
There it is... A local is explaining. We are excited for the next day.
We leave for an hour walk up to the entrance.
There it is: Machu Picchu.
And that's me!
500 years old ruins of the Incas.
Breathtaking.
6:47, the trail up the mountain behind the ruins opens. We are 10th and 11th.
And if the biking was only worth that: I have the top of the mountain 4 minutes just for myself. Right as the sun reaches the Machu Picchu site.
A National Geographic Photographer explained that the stone at the bottom of the picture is right at the line of symmetry of the city. Can you see it?
20 Minutes later.
Machu Picchu guard.
Bastian taking notes from a guided tour...
... but I couldn't sit still and had to climb Mount Machu Picchu, the mountain the site is named after.
On the way up: The peak we climbed yesterday.
Machu Picchu from Machu Picchu.
This was just soooooo amazing.
Back in Lima: The end of a long journey.
My friend Fidel from Michigan and his girlfriend Sylvia, both from Lima, were showing me around all day. Thanks again, guys! It was amazing. Your food rocks. Especially the guinea pig heart. Very crunchy.
Main plaza in Lima.
End of a moving journey.
