Today is proof that we don't plan a long way in advance.
Yesterday we booked a 9 day trip down into the jungle to Manu National Park, starting on Sunday 8th Nov. That decision was pretty much out of the blue. In the mean time, we thought, we could spend today seeing some more local sights, then Monday travel down highway 3S to Puno on lake Titicaca. But after breakfast we decided to change all that. Let's leave today, and not go to Puno, but down 3S to Sicuani and then a side road down to see Canon Del Colca. So that's how the day went.
It took some effort to get out of Cusco, some streets were still closed this morning, and there were no signs on 3S until we were well out of the city.
Highway 3S traveling south east was a good blacktop, elevation was 11-12,000 ft and we made good time and had a pleasant drive. We even stopped under the shade of some gum trees (eucalyptus) for lunch.
We had to ask directions a couple of times to find the turn off onto the side road as our GPS knew nothing about it. But it turned out to be easy as the road was sign posted to Arequipa. This road was a mix of good blacktop and bad dirt but afforded us some wonderfully wide vistas of big deep valleys with wide spread farming, and a large lovely blue lake.
We eventually stopped for the night in an un-used loop of highway. About 5:30 while cooking dinner a couple of Carretera Police in their standard Toyota Landcruiser dropped in to see what we were doing but said it was OK for us to stay there the night. We had a nice view from our camp, and the rising full moon was gorgeous.
Carretera Police
Camping
We turned off highway 3S just south of Sicuani at the sign to Arequipa. The road was good black top for about 10 kms and then became rough dirt until the town of El Descanso where it again became good blacktop. There were not many good places to pull off for the night along this road so about 5:00pm we found a disused loop of highway and stopped. Not a great place as we were visible from the road, but not much traffic either.
