Apurímac is a Quechua word that means the speaker of the gods, or the great speaker, and it is the name of the river whose canyon you cross, deep and loud, on any road between Cusco and Abancay. The region around Abancay is one of the least visited in the southern Andes, and I find that its character is mostly vertical: valleys at 2,000 metres with sugar cane and avocados, then switchbacks climbing into puna grassland above 4,000 metres where the wind is cold and the llamas look at you without interest. The abra in the title, Spanish for a mountain pass, is one of those high crossings, and the Inca road, the Qhapaq Ñan, runs over or near it.
The Qhapaq Ñan was the road system of the Inca empire, some 30,000 kilometres of paved and stepped paths linking Colombia to Chile and Argentina, with relay stations, storehouses and bridges. Runners called chasquis carried messages along it at astonishing speed, handing knotted cords from one post to the next. A large part of the network was listed by UNESCO in 2014, across six countries, and this stretch in Apurímac is among the sections where the original stone paving and stairs survive.
For a rider, the roads of Apurímac are among the more demanding in Peru. The highway from Cusco to Abancay is paved but twisting, with hairpins, landslide patches, trucks and the occasional herd of sheep, and the side roads leading to high passes are often gravel, rutted and steep. Altitude is the first thing to respect: at over 4,000 metres, engines lose power and riders get headaches, so acclimatise in Cusco for a couple of days and carry coca tea or ibuprofen as the locals do. The dry season, from May to September, is the time to go, with clear, cold mornings and frosts at night. From December to March, rain turns tracks to mud and the mist can come down without warning.
Fuel is the practical issue. Abancay, a city of over fifty thousand, has stations, and so do the larger towns on the main road, but villages in the high country may have none. Fill up in Abancay and carry extra if you head onto the side roads.
Take warm layers, even in daytime, and plenty of water. The silence at the top of a pass is almost physical.