Getting bikes

Things are getting exciting! First of all it is wonderful to be here in Cuzco with Tessi, Lisa, Ulli and Nanni. Second our "building-a trekking bike" project is getting shape. We've spent all day yesterday hunting for the things we need and were lucky to get a lot of help. By accident we bumped into David, an American we met on the train from Machu Picchu, on our way to the bicycle shop. He offered his help as translator as he speaks fluently Spanish. Our group grew to four in the shop when Rubin, a local who's bike was being fixed, joined along to show us specialized places he knew. What followed was a 6 hour race across the city with about 10 taxi rides and easily 20 shops (or more) visited. We were in a shop specialized on sewing bags, several metal-selling places to find the right metal pieces for our baggage tray, melding-places and countless bike and bike-equipment shops. In between we stopped at Rubins work to bribe his boss with an ice cream so he could skip work and had lunch together in a food stall. There was hardly a corner in town we didn't go to. It was really fun to go to all these places although also somewhat stressful.


The result of yesterday is that we bought two bikes which we can pick up at 2pm today, have one tray already and hope to get the rest in the next hours as well. Thank you David, thank you Rubin!