Combine nature and mountain biking in Cusco
Experience the varied ecosystems of Peru, on this four-day mountain biking tour. You need to be fit and able to handle a bike, but don’t need expert biking skills. The rewards are exceptional. From the Inca capital of Cusco, through the traditional community of Paucartambo, famous for its yearly festival, and down to Manu National Park, the most diverse place on earth, this is a spectacular adventure.
Did you know: We plant two trees per person, per day that you travel with us- making us the sustainable choice.
After getting kitted out with full suspension mountain bikes, helmets and gloves you ride out of Cusco downhill to Huambutio for your first taste of mountain biking in Peru. Here you take a beautiful quiet road beside the River Urubamba.
Your support vehicle will set up a picnic lunch before you carry on to the town of Pisac. Famous for its artisan market this is a great place to buy souvenirs which you can transport in the support vehicle.
From Pisac, you drive up into barren Altiplano to a pass at 4100m. Here you begin another day of mountain biking in Peru with a great descent to the small village of Paucartambo, with spectacular views of the surrounding Andes. There are a few optional single track trails available en route if you have enough mountain biking experience.
In Paucartambo you hop back on the support vehicle and drive to the edge of the Manu National Park and the Tres Cruces campsite. Famous for spectacular views of the Amazon jungle stretched out below, it seesf a spectacular sunrise phenomenon in June and July.
Rising early and weather permitting, you enjoy a spectacular sunrise over the rainforest. At certain times of the year, the refracting sun rays bounce off the jungle below, creating a truly amazing spectacle.
Back on the mountain bikes, you start with a fun 16km ride along the final ridge of the Andes, before dropping off the edge of the Amazon basin for the descent into the amazing Manu cloud forest.
It is downhill mountain biking all day, surrounded by spectacular jungle views and hopefully glimpsing rare wildlife en route. Andean bears, pumas, various species of monkey and hundreds of birds have all been sighted on this same trip. You camp at the small jungle hamlet of San Pedro.
Continuing on downhill you enter the rainforest and pass various small villages, where you can see how settlers try to eke out a living in this hostile environment.
Stopping along the way for cold drinks and a chance to cool off in pristine jungle streams, you eventually reach Atalaya: the gateway to Manu. Here is where the tour ends and you either continue your journey into the Manu National Park and one of its lodges or return to Cusco, arriving late in the evening to be dropped off at your hotel.
Biking kitlist
Biking kitlist
