Scooters!

Yeah, I said it. Scooters. Think about it. You are in a foreign country and you understand little of what people are telling you. People drive like crazed lunatics over cobble stoned streets. There appear to be no laws. There are few visible signs on the street. Good place to rent a scooter, huh? Exactly.

Now, only my family knows that when I was younger (Not sure how much younger, although I do know it was well before I turned 16) I rented and wrecked a scooter in Cancun, Mexico. That event deserves a blog entry, but there is no time for that now. Just know that I still have a scar from where my shin hit a wall. Regardless of this history, I decided that it was about time for me to try the scooter riding in foreign countries one more time.

When Mike and I were in Los Perros, we learned that we could rent scooters for 20 nuevo soles, or about 6 US dollars, per hour. So we went with Juan up the street to a locked door that had 4 scooters behind it. He had us sign our second dubiously enforceable waiver of the trip:


What follows was a trip that was crazy to say the least. We traveled 32 kilometers on what anyone would say were QUESTIONABLE bikes. My speedometer was fixed at 45 kilometers per hour, even when stopped; Mike´s fuel gauge was worked sporadicly and randomly. We went all the way to Pisaq, the next town north of Cusco. Along the way we drove over a mountain pass, through 1 small community and 3 really small communities, past farms, by sheep and cattle herders (I saw two people use a strange method of herding cattle: throwing rocks at them), and finally, by an alpaca farm.


We also saw the ruins at Saqsaywaman (the largest Incan ruin near Cusco), Qenqo (an ancient amphitheatre), Puca Pucara (another fortress that shines red at sunset), and Tambomachay (an ancient resting and bathing place that still has running fountains).



What struck me was that we passed through some extremely rural areas, even though we were near a top tourist spot for the country. Away from tour guides, and on our own, we were able to observe people as they live their lives. We saw people herding cattle, farming, and selling goods in a small local market. They noticed us as we buzzed through, but did not have to acknowledge us unless they wished to sell us something.


Trekking on the hazardous road over the mountain pass was worth it, though, because we saw why they call it the "Sacred Valley."