As soon as I get my papers straightened out ( very soon i hope) I will be in peru for a month tour of the southern half. I am looking for any good rides anyone can suggest for me. I can go about 500 K´s without filling, so thats not an issue. Places I would love to see from the seat of my XT 600...... Colca Canyon?? Nasca Lines?? All around good mountain rides?? I have heard you can ride up to aguas calientes?? Anyone know about that?? Any ideas / contacts / etc. let me know. And if everyone just sends a little positive energy to the customs office between arica and tacna, maybe they will be nice enough to let me pass through soon.......

Hi there,

It's not possible to ride to agua calientes but you can get as far as Hydro electrica which is a train stop / station, two hours walk from Agua Calientes. Me and a couple of friends rode from cusco to Hydro electrica last October and it was great but mostly off road.
I'm unfortunately back in work now so can't remember the route or the names of the places we went through but basically we left cusco and rode to a place with a long name beginning with O, otatamba or something like that. Very nice town with old riuns and cobbled streets. After a couple of hours of tarmac the rest of the way is mud / gravel. stones / sand / streams etc.
Back in October the road was closed between certain times of the day as it was being constructed. It was also closed due to landslides which took up to 5 hours to clear. We headed to a place called santa maria and stayed the night in a little hostel then set off the next day for Hydro electrica.
This is just a train station with a restaurant in which we left the bikes.
We then had to walk along the tracks to get to Agua calientes or you can take the train. It took about two hours to get there on foot.
It's illegal to ride any vehicle between Hydro electrica and Agua calientes and
from what I could see it would actually be very difficult to ride a bike anyway.


Hope this is useful
Christine