When driving out of Abancay in direction of Nazca, almost exactly 10 kilometers after Abancay, there is a small river crossing in a downhill hair-spin curb. At that spot, the road is made of concrete, not asphalt. The water is only 1 centimeter deep (half-an-inch) and maybe 5 meters wide (15 feet).

Watch out! There is algae in the water and both sides of the road, left and right, are extremely slippery. It is even difficult to walk there without falling. Only solution: ride straight in the middle of the road (that is, if a truck isn´t coming from the opposite side!). In the middle at least, the stream is strong enough and the algae did not develop.

Merritt fell there and her bike ended up in the creek, planted on the nose, the two wheels in the air. Everybody miraculously survived and we continued our trip. A few days later, we heard of another overlander who crashed his bike at the exact same spot.

Second warning: the same day, we got stuck at 4500 meters (15,000 feet) in a snow storm and camped in an abandonned barn. If you don´t have strong camping gear or if you are not acclimatized yet to the altitude, you´d better not take chances with the weather in the area.

Besides that, don´t miss it. The road is beautiful.

Cheers,
Pierre (& Merritt too)
http://www.photobiker.com

__________________
Pierre Saslawsky
http://photobiker.com