Day 952
Up the Andes
Most cyclists don’t bother with the coast in Peru. So, we decided to head up into them there hills to see for ourselves what all the fuss is about. First though, the not so small matter of getting there.
As soon as we left Trujillo my Garmin beeped at me, first hill of the day, over 8,000 feet of climbing, gulp. It was reasonably steady at first, we took our time. It was hot, but we’d left the dreaded headwind at the coast. The roadside was lined with small shops selling fruit and cool drinks so we had plenty of opportunities to escape the sun and catch our breaths. Slowly though we left the towns behind, the shops and the people disappeared, and we were left with the sun and the hills. The views were slowly getting more impressive, pineapples were growing in the roadside fields, we could glimpse the mountains in the distance but it was such hard work. Our plan was to complete the first climb, Tom was hoping to break our climbing record, but by 2pm we had only got to 4,000 feet. I had a mini meltdown, sorry reader, I’m not that tough after all! By some miracle a small town appeared and a restorative ice lolly did the trick. We decided to ride till we found a wildcamp spot and 1,500 feet later Tom spotted an old quarry with a stream of fresh mountain water, we could have a wash tonight! A local lady said it was fine to camp there and even brought us a spade to help flatten out the area. She sat with her two children chatting to us whilst we put up the tent, the children were too shy to check out our tent though. In the morning it was back to it, we finished the last 3,000 feet of our first ‘climb’ and managed just short of another 3,000 feet before we set up home for the night camping beside an abandoned barn. No stream tonight though, who needs a bath every night eh?
We were now riding on the 3N, the main road through the hills in this area of northern Peru. Despite this, the surface soon became dirt. A combination of heavy use of overloaded trucks, weather etc. soon ruins the tarmac, that’s if it was ever there in the first place. We were cycling past a copper mine and boy it was bad, I think the section that was simply full of potholes and washboard was the worst, and of course we were heading uphill which makes it extra tough. Keeping pedalling whilst trying to pick a decent line, stay upright on the loose stones, avoid the sand, potholes, washboard and look at the views is exhausting! Finally, after beating our altitude record again, we had a downhill, unfortunately the views disappeared hidden by a thick mist, we couldn’t have looked at them anyway as we had to concentrate so much to stay upright on the awful surface. We were wet, cold, smelly and somewhat miserable as we reached the town of Santiago de Chuco. We parked our bikes and dived into a small restaurant opposite a small hostel, just as the heavens opened. No wildcamp tonight. The hostel boasted hot water but as no water came out of the hot tap I cannot verify that statement. Not much cleaner or warmer we dived into the somewhat damp sheets and wondered what the heck we were doing there!
