It’s great to see that people out there in the blogosphere still appear interested enough in the daring exploits of Buff3y The Hardcore Adventure Cyclist to be clicking on the blog despite it now having been three whole months since he concluded his conquering of The Americas.  I would stress here that I remain completely unwilling to concede that the recent blog hit statistics might be due to people searching for ‘pants’ or ‘mariachi’ and being misdirected to the blog of a touring cyclist. That just does not happen.

Am a little bit concerned at the lack of feedback at the moment and more specifically, the lack of gushing praise for my blog and bicycling. I can see that many many people are looking at the blog. You are not, however, adequately sharing the joy of the experience with the buff3ysbicyclingblog community. Therefore to assist in rectifying this short-coming, I have below provided some pointers on the type of comment that is required to help you along:

-       “Buff3y, you are truly remarkable! It is difficult to imagine how a human can ride a bicycle for such a vast distance and also produce such an entertaining blog at the same time.”

-       “Buff3y, we love you!”

-       “Buff3y, look so trim and fit and could be 25 years old”

Machu Picchu has to be done. Yes, in order to get there to take ‘that photo’ you have to join the throng of tourists and be prepared to endure a good dose of the local sport of ‘tourist fleecing’ from railways, buses, tour operators, hotels and local vendors. But such is the wonder of the sight once you top the rise and set eyes on the city for the first time, it’s suddenly all worth while. Mind you, this correspondent slept in and almost missed the dawn which wouldn’t have done at all. But fear not dear reader for as it turned out I arrived just in time to see the sun rise and get my mug in front of the camera to capture an image with a backdrop that only 152.6 million* people before me have been able to witness.

While in Cuzco I’ve taken full toll of the Irish and English pubs for lashings of sheppard’s pie and Old Speckled Hen ale and scoured the back streets for the finest cappuccino coffee that the city could offer prior to heading back out into ‘Pollo & Papas’ land outside the major tourist centre.

The bike has had some tender loving care while here in Cuzco and is now resplendent in a brand new set of lovely Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tour tyres (thanks to Zach at Co-Motion Cycles in Oregon), so is well ready for the next leg of the trip on to Bolivia. And so in the next few days I will bid a, …well, pretty relieved adieu to Peru.

Buff3y in ‘That Photo’

Machu Picchu sun beams

Cuzco Roof Tops

Cuzco Street 2

Cuzco Street Scene

To mark the completion of The mountain passes of the Andes, here is a new video. You might recognise the music (‘El Caminante’) which is now the official anthem of my Pan-American bike ride.

Peruvian Andes Biking

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In the endless quest to improve your viewing pleasure, I’ve added the Ecuador and Peru photo sets to the ‘Photo gallery link to Flickr.

As I move southwards through Peru the hats are thankfully reducing in size; high conical Fedoras replacing the heavy white brims of the Big Hats, some even boasting colourful plastic flowers. Before putting a full stop on the time in Northern Peru, however, and particularly that spent in Big Hat country, (and by popular demand – at least one person requested it), here is a Big Hat song.

Martin Luther King once famously said he dreamed of a time when a man would be judged, “not by the kilos of his brim but the content of his carrot cart”, and I like to think that he was thinking of the Big Hats when he said that.

From the writing team that brought you classics such as ‘Bag Stuffin Woman’ and ‘I killed a Dog & I Liked It’, comes ‘Big Hat Song’ (in the American Song Book Page)

In the seemingly never ending quest to bring my readers the latest and greatest information on Buff3y’s feats of daring-do, I’ve now created a Flickr gallery of photos for your viewing pleasure. There is also now a link ‘Photo Gallery’ on the menu bar.

Well there appears to have been a (very) belated recognition of the sublime quality of my song writing. About bloody time!! So much so that I have gathered up the road songs to date and put them on a page for your viewing convenience (see menu bar at top of Home Page). At the conclusion of the trip some drunken Irishmen and I are going to get the instruments out – maybe in a pub at the southern tip of Argentina – and record all of the songs from the road ( available in time for Christmas on CD and iTunes for US$9.99 – pre-ordering available).

Am going completely over the top today in terms of enhancing the buff3ysbicyclingblog experience by also updating the Equipment List. Yes, for those of my readers with an interest in widgets and reasons as to why one would chose a Co-Motion bike over a Surly, a Rohloff hub over derailleur, a carbon belt drive over a chain, then this is the place for you. It’s riveting stuff for bike nerds so please enjoy.