Not sure what this sculpture in Carhuamayo is, funky though - day 190
Welcome to the Altiplano, central Peru style - this is the split near Cerro de Pasco - right is downhill to Huanuco
Heading to Huanuco
Actually, an old bridge - now Hwy 3 into Huanuco - and the end of pavement for a few days (191)
Yeah, this is the same road about 300m later
Corona del Inca - crown of the Incas - day 192
Corn
Just liked these clouds - it's raining up there but not down here
Neat morning shot out the rear window of this little hostal in Pachas (193)
Ahhh - arteries, commence clogging - just a awesome breakfast in Pachas - probably my favorite of the trip (I mean real steak, eggs, and potatoes).
Pachas in the early morning light
Labor intensive farming
Neat Waterfall
Heading up the final final pass - mining road cuts across this picture
Neat mountain ridge
Ditto
My Friend
Morning around 4800m (194)
The critical junction - the left branch (I'm looking back, if coming from Union you turn right here) - left is one of the most amazing roads I've ever seen:
A Moonscape Mountain under a Moon
Just amazing
The closest road to an Alpine trail I've ever seen
Heading down off the pass
Gravel serpentine
More Andes
One of those 100year flower plants (or was it 10)?
Just before Huaraz - down to "only" 3200m or so with 6000ers all around
Morning at Carolines in Huaraz (day 195)
Brick making kiln
Stairway of the Gods
Main Street and Mountain
Start of Canon del Pato
More Pato
Ditto
Ditto - note the road tunnel about 2/3 up this shot
Waterfall in Duck Canyon
One of many rough tunnels on what I'll call the world's worst highway (day 196)
Bumpy but scenic
An even tougher tunnel - plenty of lingering dust after one of these goes through - be sure to have a functioning headlight - some of these are long and may have curves
Getting out of the mountains for the last time
More canyon views
All hail the Gods of Pavimento
Day 190 - Huanuco
Well, yesterday blew another hole in my km-budget, so after no exciting trips to the bathroom in about 20 hours I decide today will be a marathon day to try to catch up a bit. Still a bit weak, but in theory I should have a nice long downhill.
I first need to make it to Cerro de Pasco - Cerro meaning mountain of course, so town is perched near a 4400m pass (actually out of sight on the other side of a ridge, I bypass it). The first 30km or so are along lago Junin, more or less rolling hills and a very alti-plano landscape - even the vicunas have returned (or are they guanacos - it's been awhile). Then the road starts to climb again - and even without any serious grades, in my current condition and at this altitude I notice the climb. But it doesn't last too long (the lake is already 4100m), so by around 2pm I'm at the pass and have covered my first 60km. Only 120 to go.
They will drag on awhile. But the descent is quite scenic - even if frequent, moderately strong headwinds keep me on my toes and slower than I'd like to be. This seems to be the valley of laundry - all along folks have blankets and jackets lying in the sun gradually drying. I should have grabbed that first picture from way up high but missed my chance.
Still not a whole lot of vegetation but some neat river views and waterfalls that come right out of the rocks. Halfway down is a dam and the opposite of a few days ago - around it all the roads revert to very poor gravel. This is where my phone/GPS stops working so I fumble around to recharge it. And then it's onwards and downwards along now not-so-good paved roads with plenty of potholes. Oh well, still beats gravel. By nightfall I'm still 20km from Huanaco but in no mood to camp so I keep going until things get urban and I can find a hostal where the entrance isn't a staircase. Eventually one appears - they still only have room on the 4th floor but I'm a lot happier unpacking my bike in the lobby instead of a night-time street out front.
Well, almost up to date as I enter these words in this very noisy place on the morning of 191 - only 9 days to my B-Day and theoretical return trip although I'm more and more tempted to add a week for Galapagos - we'll see.
Day 191 -
Still keeping up - tonight I write from my tent most of the way up the next pass. Yeah, 1900m was too good to last. Plus I have the cheat sheet now so I kinda know what's coming. La Union is way to far for one day. I hope to make the first pass, but end up about 400m short. As is often the case after a marathon day, it's a bit hard to get started this morning. Plus I'm not quite 100% yet - I feel like the thing from Alien is working its way through my innards much of the day.
But the uphill starts anyway. The road is more or less on par with the bad gravel of before in Peru - perhaps a bit worse - a bit steeper. I do have some tailwind, but I still only manage 7.0km/h average all day - one of my worst. Do manage to log another killer uphill of almost 1600m (probably a bit more due to errors in my altimeter at these altitudes).
The day is pretty much par for the course - slow, slow going, lots of small villages with plenty of folks to remind me I'm a gringo. I'm torn between feeling very annoyed and somewhat intolerant. I have a hard time gauging when folks are showing contempt and when they're being friendly - some are pretty obvious with hands out and a big smile - although even then there are a fair share of beggars today - including tiny kids asking for "plata" (silver or coins). I was warned this is one of the more annoying stretches in Peru and it's living up to that so far. It's a hard position to be in - just biking along but definitely not somebody who belongs here - I can pretty much get out on a moment's notice. Still, I bike through all these tiny pueblos where folks see a gringo maybe every few weeks so it is a bit of an event - me that is. Me who's still a bit queasy and way behind schedule and every 30sec in every town somebody wants to know about my trip. I mostly just keep moving and keep answers short - sorry.
Yeah, still queasy tonight - somewhat unusual I don't finish dinner, well won't get into that too much. Hope dinner agrees with me and that tomorrow is better.
Roads are terrible as expected and the views are quite beautiful - also as expected. Although I can't see snowy peaks from here, the deep valleys are still amazing - higher than the Rockies is pretty normal here in Peru - valleys at 1700-1800m with many roads/passes going over 4000 and in many places peaks reaching over 6000. Well, more of the same tomorrow - hopefully make Huaraz in another 3 days at most and Trujillo 2 days after that - should just be able to squeak an extra day in somewhere and still catch the 2 buses to Guayaquil and hopefully onwards to Galapagos. Time will well. Hopefully nobody surprises me tonight - at least 2 teenagers noticed me dragging my bike to the campsite. Later I had a whole group of workers catching a truck and I just froze - I'm in full view just above the road but I'm pretty sure nobody noticed - at least no one pointed and said anything. Amazing how a red bike and bag can blend in the evening when you stand still.
OK, time for bed.
Day 192 -
Sometimes the days blend together - another long punishing day on gravel. Get up before sunrise, clear out and take down the tent to reduce the odds of being noticed. I still just manage to leave by 8 and yesterday's uphill continues. The summit is near 4000m making it another 2000+m all-at-once climb over about 60km. But I have a bit more energy early in the day and by around 10am I'm passing under the Corona de los Incas (Inca Crown) - an interesting, jagged-rock summit. I take a picture and a local maybe 200m away starts yelling at me demanding a tip for occupying 3 pixels in my photo. Won't be the last one today - lots and lots of kids yelling for plata - teach em young. But actually today goes quite well, including with the locals - quite a few are interested in my travels and I go through the route at most of my stops - of which there are quite a few.
From the summit the road heads down to Chavinillo where I negotiate lunch - it's only 11:40 so still breakfast time although nobody actually seems to know what food is available. After the help goes back to the kitchen about 3 times I can order the single food item that's available. And after asking a few times I can even get a beer to go with it (although the help has to walk to the street to buy it). General confusion about menus is fairly common - most places have colorful posters with all sorts of food on display, or sometimes a chalk/white board with a list, but generally only 1 or 2 items is actually available.
Anyway, the road continues to drop to about 3000m and then it's time to climb. Road conditions seem a bit better than yesterday but are still fairly rough in a lot of spots and the downhill is around all of 15km/h. At one point I manage to skid off the sandy ridge that runs down the middle of the rutted road and end up putting my bike down in a ditch of mud - but fairly gingerly so no real damage.
The final ascent starts around 5:15pm so I figure on camping again but as it gets dark I notice the lights of Pachas appearing in the distance - and it doesn't seem too far, although in the end it drags on until about 7:15. The road is actually really busy - folks driving home their herds in the dark - first time I've ever passed a bunch of cattle (& horses & donkeys) on a narrow 1 lane road in the dark. But I'm glad I made it - a room, sink, lights, electricity, and a pretty decent lomo-saltado (steak, french fries, rice, onions, tomatoes and soy sauce). Nice way to finish the day. Plus I've made another 400m which I don't have to do tomorrow - I'm really tempted to strike for Huaraz - it's about 170km, most of which are paved although I'll still have to make it to 4800m from tonight's 3450 (& actually there's more uphill plus a drop to at least 3200 before the climb). Hmmm... it sure would be nice to have a whole day off to explore Huaraz - supposed to be one of the most idyllic places in Peru. I'll do my best.
Day 193 -
well, best isn't good enough. Manage to get up before 6 and be on the road by 7:30, but still don't seem to have 100% energy, plus waste over an hour between keeping my GPS running, my slow leak happily inflated (and later patched when it becomes too annoying). It's getting really close to the end and I just feel like trying to do the bare minimum to keep things working - while quite a few systems seem to be nearing their limits - my front tire now has a bulge and I'm probably up to a flat every 300km and slow leaks otherwise. I don't even have a 100% spare tube - something I always try keep handy (try to patch a flat in the rain sometime), but I haven't been able to buy a correctly sized new tube since arriving in SA and my existing tubes are barely getting by - slow, unidentified leaks... Only 500km left now - about Chicago to Wausau. Plan to gut the bike in Trujillo - dump things like rims, tires, tubes, chain, maybe more - hope to get the frame really light and small.
But back to today - even without the hurdles, there's no way I would have made Huaraz before maybe 10-11pm, still not something I'd like to try in Peru. Especially as towards evening the pass gets bigger and bigger and soon it starts to sleet and snow - nothing hazardous, just a dusting. Still, not conditions for trying to pull a marathon session. Today is one of the most scenic days I've had in awhile. After a huge breakfast of steak, eggs, fries and coffee, I leave Pachas and the road drops down to an idyllic valley floor and runs along the river to La Union. Here you cross the river at the first bridge and continue to parallel it as it gradually climbs to around 3600m at Huallanca. 40km and lunchtime. I feel proud - I more or less make my first joke in Spanish and get some sarcastic locals to laugh. They ask the normal barrage of questions and finally ask why I don't just fly around SA and I say you can't fly to Huallanca. I guess you had to be there, but I felt pretty good that all 3 started to laugh and one tells me that for money he could get a plane to land [in this narrow, deep canyon with no airstrip].
But my conversational highlight - probably for all of Peru - comes when I stop for a drink and this local waiting for a passing camioneta starts to talk to me. He points across the valley at what he explains is an Inca trail - and indeed now that he mentions it, it does look a lot like the ones near Macchu Pichu. In fact, this is part of the trail that connected the heart of the empire in Cusco with what is now Ecuador. I mention that the bridge at the base of the trail doesn't look ancient and he mentions there was a Spanish colonial stone bridge there but it was destroyed in a flood. He goes on to talk about the Inca trail system all the way down to Argentina and a few other local archeological sites. Just amazing - just wants to relay some pride of his country and culture. Then a passing car stops and he's off - just best wishes for my journey - no request for a tip or anything. I have to smile - my hopes for Peru seem a little closer. Despite the warnings and the frequent requests for plata by little kids, this stretch has been quite nice. The restaurant/hostal last night was great and I've have quite a few friendly folks to at least greet and discuss travel with - yesterday one tried to get me to change my route to take in a local ruin - muy hermosa (very beautiful), but my schedule is really getting tight.
So back to tight schedules - after lunch and a tube repair it's time to attack the last great pass(es) of the trip. The road out of Huallanca is actually paved (my map disagrees, but then it's at best a crude interpretation of reality). But the climb is beautiful - amazing, jagged peaks in all directions. It's also very long - my cheat sheet mentions 4800m - well, I guess I'll have to find out tomorrow - I keep going for awhile as the weather turns, and I approach a summit of sorts - then I get to a fork in the road - Huaraz points down a gravel road. I have this road on my map - unfortunately I don't have the full cheat sheet so I'm not sure which road is preferable - this is definitely a short-cut and probably less vertical, as the paved road heads down into the next valley. It's also muy solitario and muy hermosa. Hmmmm... - I decide to follow hermosa and also possibly save quite a bit of time. Plus I need to camp and soon find a reasonable site. It's not very secluded, but hey, it's dark, there's snow coming down, and no vehicle has passed since the turnoff.
I'm a bit concerned - I like to ask locals when choosing routes, but they're in very short supply up here - the road seems to go through a park so I suspect they'll continue to be in short supply. All the trucks and cars without exception go the other way - maybe weather related, maybe want to avoid this very high gravel road. Hard to say - but tonight it's dark - really, really dark - no sky (clouds) and no lights in any direction. I can't make out my tent when my headlight goes out. Probably the eeriest night of the trip and I only have a day's worth of drinks left - well the road must lead somewhere. I hope I can trust the signs and there aren't any unsigned gravel junctions ahead. I'm already really close to the summit at around 4750m (I think this is my highest campsite of the trip), so it should just be a bit more climbing and after 30-40km I should rejoin pavement. Hopefully. Well, assuming tomorrow doesn't bring a foot of snow and I'm on the right road, I should definitely make Huaraz tomorrow - hopefully by early afternoon. It's about 100km, mostly downhill. I still want to explore a bit if possible (and some laundry would be nice). Well, enough diarrhea of the brain for one day. Tomorrow should be great.
Day 194 - to Huaraz
Fallen behind yet again. Currently entering these words after my trip has entered whole new territory - sitting on a bus heading for Piura and Ecuador. The biking is over, but hopefully there's still a bit of travelling left. More on that later.
Today begins at one of the most amazing campsites of the entire trip. A couple km from the junction of the gravel cutoff road to Huaraz. Definitely go this way. Yeah more crappy gravel, but that pales in comparison to a high alpine road that ranks up there with some of the nicest hikes I've done. Just an amazing 1-lane road set among 5000-6000m snowy peaks.
I'm a bit paranoid to begin with as I haven't seen anyone since leaving the main road yesterday evening. So I actually bike back to the junction - unloaded - and double-check that I'm doing this right - take a picture of the National Park sign which has a crude map. It shows no junctions - but of course that'll turn out to be wrong.
But the sign does confirm that this is the way to Huaraz. I suspect cars mostly take the faster paved road which has the benefit of going through a lot of towns where passengers might be waiting as opposed to a national park. But after a couple hours, I do see my first vehicle who confirms that I'm on the right path.
The road stays at high altitude for the first 15-20km with some ups and downs, and then it's time for my final pass of the trip - from here near 4900m to Trujillo it's just about all downhill.
On the way is a small railing and staircase - check it out - some pretty neat rock paintings right next to the road. There are plenty of other possible side tours to various high peaks, but no time for that now.
The road is actually not as bad as some other gravel stretches and the downhill goes OK - until the blowout that is. Just moving along nicely and bang, my rear is flat in about 1 second. I have a look and it doesn't even look that bad - maybe just some really odd metal object - but once I have the tire off I find a spot I can just about stick my pinky through. This tire is no more. Well, maybe I could try yet another layer of inner tube on the inside to hold things together for a few more km - only 400 to go - but then I do have this spare.
In retrospect I don't know if it was a wise choice. My spare is a road tire - 28mm wide - and basically sucks. It was left over after my Florida tour and my other Specialized lasted all of about 2000km on nice paved roads with light load - but I figured I could save the weight and it would be an acceptable spare until I could buy something better.
Well, turns out you just can't buy hardly any 700c sized stuff in S. America - except a few countries where road racing is popular, but even there touring sizes are nigh impossible. Fortunately the Schwalbes have more or less lived up to their reputation - my first major failure here at around 9800km.
Anyway, the rest of the trip will have a high-pressure narrow front tire. It sucks, it really sucks. Plus my pumps can't even properly inflate to the minimum 5bar. I fall after about 5km when rough surface and lack of steering forces me off the gravel and into the sandy embankment. But that will be the only fall - I just take it even slower on gravel from here on out. There's another 20km or so today and some more N of Huaraz.
Eventually, gravel rejoins pavement at Catac - not much here, but you can buy some gaseosas at your standard roadside markets. And then it's a wonderful paved descent more or less all the way to Huaraz with amazing mountains all around.
Headwinds are the only real challenge - so in the end speeds are still low and I make town between sunset and dusk.
I find Caroline Lodging - the generally recommended backpacker place - friendly folks, hot water (after asking 3 times) and a nice, simple breakfast for S/12 ($4.25). But no private rooms available which I would have prefered at this point. Huaraz is pretty full of gringos - peak tourist season plus a local festival. I really wish I could spend a few quality days checking the place out, but I'm increasingly looking forward to returning home - maybe I just ain't quite cut out for the multi-year trips, but I think it's mostly what you gear your brain up for - I was expecting around 5 months, then 6 and now those are over I think I need a break from vacationing. Yeah, time for home wherever that may be - but possibly after a quick trip to the Galapagos first.
Oh, and there's Internet and WiFi at Carolines. And plenty of decent restaurants, trekking, MTB-ing - well all the tourst stuff to go with some of the most majestic mountains in S. America.
Day 195 - to Huallanca
Well, it ended up taking 4 days from Huanuco to Huaraz, so no extra day in town. Today it's onwards and downwards. It is a bit of a late start for a change (did those words just come out of my keyboard) - I've actually been starting pretty early generally around 8. Today was closer to 11. But initially things go pretty well - the road is mostly down and the winds don't pick up until later.
Then they become a pain. My goal is Trujillo in 2 days, 1 day to hang around and visit the amazing Casa de Ciclistas, and a night bus towards Tumbes and Ecuador. I have 300km of downhill and only about 80km is unpaved, should be possible.
Well, the late start doesn't help, nor does all this beautiful scenery that just screams for me to stop and have a look around, snap a few shots here and there.
So progress is slow and only gets slower as headwinds pick up and up. And where is that downhill - it's mostly 1m up and 2m down but the uphills are short and steep. Finally hit some switchbacks - and surprise - they're unpaved. Yeah, Peru wants to keep me another few days. I baby the bike down the switchbacks without incident and then pavement returns - more or less. More and more frequent patches of gravel emerge and soon I'm at Canon de Pato - the famous Duck canyon. I knew the name but that was it. I really wasn't expecting this - amazing rock formations and a very narrow, steep gorge with a crude road cut out of the side of the mountain. And before long the crude road becomes cruder and cruder and proves my map wrong yet again. I trade about 30km of pavement for gravel. Really, really, really bad gravel. This area has lots of moving rocks - just stand still and you'll occasionally hear something. The local "Duke Energy" hydro-plant (privatized and sold off to the 1st world - in fairness it actually does seem to be a fairly decent operation - at least no were near as oppressive as Doe Run in Oroya - I just prefer economies to stay as local as practical) has lots and lots of trucks rolling down the road and they all have an extra metal grate on top of them as a kind of armor protection against falling rocks. One stops to point out my backpack is askew and we talk about the road ahead - no good news I'm afraid. But in the meantime - the views and the road itself are amazing - narrow tunnels blasted out of the mountain face and a precarious road a hundred meters or two above the river. Too bad progress is so slow I go from day to sunset to dusk to dark in the course of the 12km canyon. I decide proceeding past Huallanca on this quality road at night would be insane and there's a couple hostals here, so it's home for the night. Even find a hot shower - well somewhere between cold and luke-warm actually but it hits the spot as I painfully dropped about 1600m from Huaraz - mostly wasted on horrible gravel. Oh well, no extra day in Trujillo.
Day 196 - to campsite
From Huallanca to Trujillo there's not all that much. Yesterday's driver proved accurate - the road is probably the worst condition gravel I've had in all of Peru and pretty much anywhere outside SW Bolivia and Paso Pichachen. There are very few short climbs and otherwise just a gradual, gradual descent so it should be wonderful but the horrificly large rocks everywhere make progress really slow - under 10km/h on the 70km despite a loss of another 1000m altitude. So in the end this stretch alone is near 90km of really bad gravel on an unsuited bike - I get a pinch flat within the first hour negating my earliest departure yet (before 7).
The scenery is somewhat unexpected - more really dry conditions despite overcast skies in the morning which gradually burn off. Large stretches seem devoid of almost all vegetation. The rocks vary from amazing canyons to basically giant piles of rubble and mud. I suspect this is really hard territory to live in - seems giant pieces of mountains are moving around all the time. Most bridges have evidence of the past 2 or 3 generations of bridges next to them.
Even as the Pacific approaches, the scenery remains desert. After around 67km from Huallanca sanity returns - I hit pavement. It should be a fairly nice rest of the day. I ask at a police checkpoing about the cutoff road to Trujillo - yeah, it's only 10min away - maybe 6km - look for the red bridge, not the yellow one. And he's pretty close - a bit over 8km later the red bridge after the yellow one appears. Not what I expect - these bridges have big fence gates and guards. Apparently a lot of this region is part of Peru's cultural heritage - a lot of archeological excavations going on and this road is monitored with guard shacks on both ends. But they're friendly enough. Open the gate and tell me about road conditions.
So after all of 8km of pavement, the rest of my day is on gravel yet again. At least this stretch is what gravel should be - well consolidated and fairly smooth. I stop to inflate my tires several times - the slow leak in my rear getting noticeably less so and I keep bottoming out. I just don't want to fix another tube out here with about 100km left.
I manage to ride about 25km down the gravel road to at least reach my goal of 100km for the day. The road annoyingly parallels the paved road on the other side of this not particularly big river, but there are no more bridges to cross. In the end, I camp up on a bluff perhaps 5m above the road - fairly exposed but only about 3 vehicles pass all night and I really enjoy my final self-cooked meal of spaghetti (what else) with salami and the rest of my fresh veggies. Tastes awfully good. Tomorrow I'm shooting for the earliest start of the whole trip and hopefully covering the remaining 100km by noon. We'll see.
