You traveled an Andes Death Road .... because?

To attend a four day celebration of the Virgin of Camen.....

I traveled nearly four hours by bus to the isolated Andes town of Paucartambo.....

To be part of a huge crowd of people who´d come to Paucartambo to participate in this annual festival......

 

 

But to get to Paucartambo, I had to travel in an ancient bus along dusty roads that clung to the side of the Andes Mountains.....

Non stop switch back roads that had the bus slowly climbing the mountain, only to descend into the valley ..... and then repeat the process of climbing and descending over and over and over ..... for hours!

The road through the Andes Mountains to Paucartambo was so narrow, two vehicles would nearly touch as they met ..... leaving the one vehicle practically falling off into the valley thousands of feet below.

The views were spectacular, but the drop offs were far beyond scary.....

The narrow mountain road was packed with vehicles .... and even though the road was extremely dangerous, many of the vehicles were driving much faster than the road allowed....

Slowly down the switchback  mountain road to the valley below.... then the slow climb up the  mountain on along the switch back mountain road...

Rock slides was an ever present problem.... huge boulders lay on the road, sometimes blocking half of the road.  A massive rock slide, just after my early morning bus had passed, closed the narrow road for hours as huge construction equipment slowly cleared all the debris from the road.

And I traveled this life threatening road.... to be part of a large mass of people who´d all come go Paucartambo to.....

See the Virgin of Carmen ...... and party!

Here´s the kicker!  I could find no place to stay in Paucartambo so I had to return to Cuzco the same day.... only my retun along this Death Road was now in the dark!