At first I thought it was HAPE

Rush hour traffic.

In Cusco, I hung out with other cyclists, spent a few days with a friend from the USA, applied for a visa for Bolivia, and visited a some archeology sites. 

Cusco is filled with jaw-dropping stonework. 

Many of these prehispanic walls were incorporated into the current architecture. 

My friend Debs, who I last saw in Ecuador. Her and her husband Tom are also travelling by bicycle. 

Four more cycle tourists! From Hungary, Germany.

Cusco, Peru. 

This is my friend Tanguy Bauder. 

I met Tanguy while volunteering for Multnomah County Search and Rescue, while in high school. Tanguy grew up in South Africa (and also Mozambique and the DRC, I think). He speaks French fluently and Spanish, too. He works as a paramedic in New Orleans, Louisiana, and loves his job.

Tanguy as a SAR volunteer, Oregon, 2017.

He flew all the way from the US to visit me here. We hadn't seen eachother in years and it was really nice of him to come so far. 

I think this was llama meat. 

Passport photos for my Bolivian visa. Do I look 14 years old?

I left Cusco on June 1st and headed towards the base of Nevado Auzangate.

Camped at the base of Auzangate. 

I cycled this popular trekking route around the southwest perimeter of Auzangate. There's a reason most people do it by foot. The trail was very steep and rocky and I had to hike/carry the bike for several hours. 

fInally I got to the road system on the other side and could cycle again. 

In the evening I felt very weak and had a cough. In the morning I felt a deep exhaustion and my cough became severe. It took five hours to make it 12km over the next pass.

Exhausted, feverish, violent cough at a 5100 meter (16,500 ft) pass. 

I rested for a day in my tent at 4800 meters (15,500 ft) and dug deep to reach the next town. After a few nights in a hotel I didn't improve - walking 100 meters caused me to cough uncontrollably. Shortness of breath, rhaspy cough, low fever, inability to exercise, headache... I had all the symptoms of High Altitude Pulmonary Edema - a deadly condition. So I took the next bus to a larger town at lower elevation. This only helped slightly. Then I bussed all the way down to the large city of Arequipa at 1700 meters (5,500 feet). In the end, I don't think it was HAPE, because I was perfectly aclimitized, and decending didn't help much. A doctors visit was unhelpful, but after several days rest, I felt capable of exercise again, so I bussed back to the Andes to keep cycling.

Cycling was exhausting but at least I could make some progress. 

I followed the north side of Lake Titicaca - the largest lake in South America and the highest altitude commercially navigable lake in the world. 

My last night in Peru, on the shore of lake Titicaca. 

First night in Bolivia, along the bank of the same lake.