Sacred Valley Dirtbiking

It is settled... My next vehicle in Canada will be a motorcycle. After an eight hour motorcycle trip with Noel through the Sacred Valley in the Andes (renting two 2005 Honda 250 bikes), it truly is amazing how surprisingly easy it is to learn to ride a motorbike (especially when you have no choice but to learn amoungst Peruvian traffic). "Have you any experience riding a motorcycle Joe?" - "Of course not, never" - "Alright well here´s the clutch, here´s the foot shifter, here´s the brakes.. have fun" .. Hahah.. That´s about the shape of it. Only in South America can you actually rent motorcycles without a proper lisence and having never actually even sat on a bike before.. Most of the time was spent on pavement, testing the limits of our new found freedom and reaching speeds that would surely give my mother a heart attack were I to mention it here (Hi Mom ;-) ). The small bit of actual dirtbiking done was through a muddy dirt road following a river near Ollantaytambo - and given all of our experience, in retrospect I can say it was a very bad and yet terribly fun idea. Put it this way - Noel broke the handbrake and grip off his bike at one point after a bit of a wipe out while I nearly shot myself out into the river after sliding around a muddy corner just a liiiiitle too fast.. For some strange streak of luck I happened to down shift and accelerate at just the right time (instead of the natural reaction to brake) and managed to grab enough traction to avoid the disaster and straighten the bike out. ;-) Good fun.

Tommorrow, Noel, Angie and myself (along with two other girls from Canada) set out on a five day Amazon Jungle expedition within the Manu Biosphere!!! I will turn 24 in the Jungle on Good Friday! :-)

See you all in a week or so.

Joseph

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