Inca Trails and Haunted Castles

As two condors lazily floated overhead, I soaked up some sun and reflected on the morning. I marveled at how much one can get done when the alarm is set for 3:45 am. As the wakeup time suggests, it was an early start from La Paz. We made our way up and out of the slowly waking city, and into the mountains. Bikes were shouldered as the sun touched the highest reaches, and we tried to warm up fingers and toes on our 1.5hr long hike-a-bike up to a pass at 4600m.
Once at the pass the sun offered placebo warmth, as the biting wind cut through our many layers. I felt pretty envious of the wooly llamas at that moment. The mountain pass marked the start of our epic descent down the Takesi Inca trail, a centuries old pre-Hispanic trading route that the Inca built using slave labour to help move their vast armies, and provide a route to transport food and other goods from the Yunga Basin to the high mountains. This trail is part of over 40,000km of Inca roads built by this magnificent empire.
It was pretty amazing to ride my CoilAir over the smooth stones of this piece of history. You could practically feel the ghosts of Incan armies passing by you as thousands of feet of descent passed under our tires.
It was a giant ride. By giant, I mean the most vertical I have ever done in one ride, and I have done some big descents in my time. We dropped 3000m/9,840ft in 24km of extremely varied terrain. Yes, almost 10,000 feet in one go. We rode everything from high alpine singletrack, to inlaid stone Inca road, and eventually down into lush green jungle trail, passing by rustic farming houses with rows of maize drying out front. The thick air of the deep valley was a treat to breathe in after many days at higher elevations.

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