Day 18 - Layo to Ayaviri (65km cycling) Monday 22nd August 2016.

Wow what a day, an emotional roller coaster.
We were up early (6.45 for me 7.00 for Ant) and Ant sourced us an AMAZING breakfast of yoghurt, tinned peaches and granola (Absolute heaven) from our hostal owner who also happens to own a shop of many businesses. He and his wife were super happy to have us stay and really excited about our cycling it was so cute and just the motivation we needed after the grueling day yesterday. They asked us if we had a small English coin as a keepsake (note to self, next trip take small denominations of English wedge), but all we had was a five pound note. Realising it would bring them much more happiness than it would us, we went down and gave it to them... They were absolutely stoked and offered to pay us... Obviously we refused, and after some deliberation I told them what it was worth (viente Peruvian soles, the same as our room cost!)... They were so amazingly happy, whole family gathered around the note with intrigue, stroking it and looking at it... seeing how grateful the family were really spurred us on.
Next stop, the other town shops to try and source sweets and lunch goodies... Not so successful on the lunch front, but we soon found ourselves surrounded by all manner of people: old, young, police, security guards; all so excited about our trip and offering advice on routes and congratulating us / shaking our hands. Ant later remarked that he's pretty sure one guy just kept saying "wow" repeatedly. 
So we found ourselves stood in the middle of a market town, semi celebrities and somewhat reluctant to get moving...
... But onwards we went, going against the flow of the many people and animals walking to town (we guess to a Monday meet market, sorry piggies!). We freaked out some cows (sorry cows, guess you've never seen a luminous yellow gringo on a bike before), Ant said "holla" to a pig "holla señor cerdo" (this made the two women walking the pig giggle and smile like children), and stopped for several livestock roadblocks that made us smile.
After a while we started to wonder why so many people were keen to give us route advice on our way out of town. One security guard even drew a map in the sand. They were all keen for us to take the road with more climbing, and harder work... No thanks!
So onwards we ploughed, our spirits incredibly high. Thankful that the road out of town was not rippio, but massive huge rocks (well anything from tennis ball to football size) all over the road. Unfortunately this made it almost impossible to stay upright in some places, throwing the bike left and right under you, staying upright became a challenge in itself, both on the abs and on the mind (thankfully despite many near misses,  both of the bikes behaved well enough for us to avoid any road rash) . Once out of town with a km or two under our belts the road quickly dampened my spirit... Ok that's an understatement... I was the most angry I've been on this trip, I think I even kicked some of the rocks and told them I hated them at one point... Though this wasn't quite as amusing (to Ant at least and me in hindsight) as the moment I threw my bike down (thus covering the handle bars in mud which I now very much regret!!), then walked about 100m up the road refusing to cycle (perhaps I was channelling Froome). Ant, bless him, probably trying not to laugh and only taking one or two photos (!), whilst  also finding the road incredibly mentally sapping, dug deep and found some encouraging lovely words to pick me (and my poor dusty bike) up.
Another km or two and after being passed by several empty busses, we started to debate whether it was sensible to just hop one of them to the high point... We decided that no, we should plod on, we could do it and just accept the challenge. It would only be 3hours of suffering anyway.
We passed the turning everyone told us to take (feeling somewhat happy we'd planned a better route as we watched it snake almost vertical up the mountain) and started enjoying the day, both our heads finally high and determined.
A motorcyclist stopped us, asked us where we were going and directed us the other way. After some conversation, "is there a road over the mountain this way?" "yes", "ok for bikes", "yes probably", we again plodded on. It was only when several busses signalled at us and one stopped and pulled us over, that we thought perhaps the entire town might be right, and their route might be better. The bus driver was saying there was no road ahead, and his adamant nature made us stop and think (we later found out our planned road existed as we saw it join our road out the other side, but it was probably blocked at some point, hence why the motor cyclist might have thought we could get through).
So after going several km out of our way on the wicked road of doom, we turned back. Having worked so hard to lift our spirits, they were now rock bottom. For some reason the quote of the day that's stayed with me came at this moment from Ant... "that's cycle touring Stew, you roll with the punches, it just seems Peru is very good at delivering them!". (Rolling with the punches, taking the downs and waiting for the ups... At this point it felt no ups would ever come our way... How wrong we were...
We reached the junction for the turning and the steep road up the mountain and agreed that if a bus should come our way we flag it down and take it if they will have us. And just then, out of nowhere as we were literally about to set off heads hung low, a blue truck takes our turning. Our thought process went collectively like this: Lets try and flag it down, it probably won't stop, it's stopped, they might just be offering us a tow, too risky on this stuff, we'll not have the strength to hold on and control the bikes, they're getting out, they're really smiley, they're opening the back, it's empty, oh my gosh, they're actually offering us a lift... (cue the 100 strong gospel choir... ) Hallelujah!!
We had no idea how far up the mountain the truck was going, we just held our heads over the top of the parapet that was the back of the truck ( like two alpacas stretching to see some crazy gringos) and hoped they would keep driving as we watched the km ticked away...
We later found out these incredibly kind gents were llama farmers, heading off up the mountain to round their herd up and take them to a show in Puno... So it turned out we were pretending to be llamas for a massive 6km and 300m climbing... At least a third of what we had to do. (cue gospel music again!)
Yes we still had a hideous 3km left but what a special treat gifted to us by such nice folk. Perhaps some karma for bringing such happiness with the £5 gift earlier? Ant in all his thoughtfulness said... "I think that's the main thing we should do on this trip, share the joy and happiness to folk, that you can only bring when you're a crazy adventuring gringo on a bike, we should make that our priority".
The next 3km was tough, horrible, slow and just plain yucky... Yes I might have thrown my bike down a few times and walked up the hill. Both Ant and I were finding we didn't have the power in our legs needed to get over the huge rocks on very steep hair pins, without being too unstable and being thrown off balance. You need speed to stay upright and I for one just had completely empty legs... Nothing there at all. Ant just about gritted his teeth and used his leg guns, to get up the slopes (much harder for him to push his much heavier bike up the mountain, than just to dig deep and find power where there isn't and keep cycling). 
So after about an hour, we reached the top, and the highest we've been yet: 4600m. And wow, neither of us are panting uncontrollably, there are no headaches or sad moods... We are acclimatised!! Finally!
Such a different feel to this highpoint. Surprisingly much more life supporting up here than any of the others we've been to. Greener and more vast rolling lumps, less ragged dusty rocks. Ant even spotted (and got amazingly boyishly excited about seeing) four vicuñas just short of the summit (he'd been sad we'd not seen any llama or alpacas yet this week, they seemed to have been replaced with donkeys until today).
As we turned the corner though, just a few meters below the summet, the mountains opened up into the most incredible view. It had everything: a vast wide open valley, revealing our road and the next 40km we were about to take; rolling green hillsides behind us; jagged rocky volcanic peaks in front; then in the distance the snow capped peaks that any child would draw if you ask them to illustrate a mountain. Simply stunning.
Less stunning was our descent. After the initial promise of a better gravel road, it quickly disintegrated into a rainbow road of doom (similar to what we'd been cycling all day, only much worse in places and damn hard to descend on a loaded bike... There's something saping about working hard to descend at only 10km/h!). Why rainbow? Cue Mario Cart... The colour of the mountain rocks kept changing, from grey to purple to red, to even green and yellow at some points, which led to different colour rocks and dust on the road... A Rainbow road (the one thing that kept my head high). Ant not so much, he was resenting having to take this road (the other would have stayed high and joined the tarmacked main road just in time to descend on that), resenting having to lose 400m hight only having to work hard at the bottom to gain it again, and resenting the beautiful view that showed us our roads and exactly how far we had to descend then ascend again (mapping out at least the next 3hours cycling, that could have been avoided on his alternative route). He was not happy and time now for me to cheer him up... "Look its so pretty, it's a rainbow road, we're like Mario Cart"... Nope not working...ok.
I learned I cannot do hair pins on this stuff whether going up or down (a few hairy slippy slidy moments!). Ant learnt that no matter how frustrating it was, the end would come. And it did... Tarmac wahoo!
But before we embarked on gaining our altitude again, we stopped for lunch at aguas caliente (the supposedly beautiful hot mountain springs everyone in Layo had been going on about). They were not beautiful, not the natural rocky springs we had in mind, just a man made swimming pool style resort containing spring water in large concrete circles and squares that people were bathing in.
Fueled from lunch, but both feeling like our bodies had been stretched, torn, shaken and rattled, I started to talk of the taxi rank I might have spotted at the entrance to the springs.  We could just get a cab to the nearest town then finish our day with a flat (ish) 40km tarmac cycle to the big town (capital of the district) with almost certain promise of a hotel (trying not to dream too much of hot water, cosy beds and our own bathroom at this point).
We agreed and negotiated a price from a very confused driver, and soon were on our way. At this point it should be noted how lucky we were to  stumble across a taxi rank... They are practically non existent on the routes we've been taking... The cycle touring lottery being kind to us again today.
The final 40km was simply amazing, tarmac and very shallow gradients through a valley plateau at around 3900m, with only a strong cross wind to challenge us (that sometimes had the sense to get on our tails and push us along at a whopping 30km/h). The road wasn't too busy, just one or two kamikaze busses and trucks to give us a bottom clenching moment or two, but fairly infrequent traffic so we could just enjoy the ride. And a glance in Ant's mirror and he said, "blue truck behind... Oh wait... It's the llama farmers, with their llamas!". Lots of waving, honking, cheering and smiles.
Then the small child in Ant who loves animal spotting, saw flamingos and got so excited. We stopped to take photos and let his excitement roll.
We managed to outride the three or four impending mountain storms (yes we saw lightening in the distance in several directions) and seemed to slip through the only channel where the rain and dark grey clouds weren't (thanks cycle touring lottery!). Soon enough we'd made it to the town, with only a few spots of rain on our heads and were cycling through the industrial suburbs.
I seemed to find my Spanish, asking security guards where the best hotels were in town, and they excitedly pointed us to the centre exclaiming "good hotels and a festival, a festival".
We followed their instructions and were soon caught up in the busiest most atmospheric street market we've  ever tried to push two massive loaded bikes through (its ok though we didn't attract any attention in our luminous yellow jackets!). "gringo holla" "gringa con bicycletta", "holla" "hello" "buenos tardis". The jubilant atmosphere helped us push on through, and I guess about 20minutes later (and only 3 or 4 blocks walked!) we found the central square with not one but 2, not hostals but hotels, to chose from and the most stunningly beautiful cathedral. Covered in dust, we went to the best looking hotel asked for their best double ensuite room (they asked Ant if he was sure... We must have looked a state, because it was only about £20!) and rejoiced as the hot water ran hot and the bed was clean and comfy. Even the toilet worked properly!
Promising to always remember how good it felt to wash ourselves and our clothes in the steaming shower, we ventured out to the local pizza restaurant (ok we knew their pizza would be rubbish, but anything other than rice potatoes and meat at this point please!), drank beer, found an ice cream parlour for hot chocolate, hot milk, ice cream and chocolate mousse to finish off our supper and went for a quick wonder to walk it all off. The streets had turned into a party, many people drinking beer and eating street food, a fun atmosphere... but not as fun as going to sleep!
So that's just what we did, and now its 8.10am and I really should wake Ant up for the 70km day we have ahead... But I like it here so much and the ice cream place said they do omelettes and fried egg sandwiches for breakfast but don't open until 9am... So if I leave it another 10minutes I could probably tempt him to stay for that :-) sneaky!!!
Much love to all, and here's to (all being well) another 2 day's cycling to get to Puno (if we ever get out of bed of course!).