I leave Cusco at 8:00 a.m. and take a side trip down to Urubamba, a town on the river Urubamba, the largest tributory to the Amazon. It turns out that I’ve been following the Urubamba from just a trickle. I get to cross.
The ride from Cusco is incredible. You just keep on going up and up for hours and hours, and then at the top you can see Abancay below. It takes about an hour and a half to get down. The road is metal, narrow, and winding, and after a 162 mile ride I arrive in Abancay and book in to the Hotel Tourista for three nights. The road north to Huancayo is closed, as they only allow traffic one way, then the other, so I must wait. The only other road is only suitable for trucks, and goes west to the coast.
I find a doctor to get my stitches out, and enquire about the truck road; it should be okay for a motorbike.