Cycling with Sally

Okay it has to be said that we could have gone a little camera happy in the last section of riding, but the route from Huaraz through the Huascaran National Park to Huancayo is bursting with picturesque scenery. The combination of gravel roads, being over 4000 meters and passing glaciers and towering mountains without another sole in sight gives you a true sense of ah and wow. Being well and truly breathless we miraculously climbed twice to 4800 meters before a huge and well deserved decent into some warmer territory.

Having planned a couple of extra days through this section payed off in leaps and bounds, as we were able to relax about the kilometers, further take in our surroundings, camp early and goof around a little. This has been our first true taste of the magnificent Andes and although the cycling has been at it's hardest and coldest to date, the landscape is out of this world. Belinda really said it best when she remarked how privileged we are to be able to experience this treasure. Rumour has it that the Paramount Pictures Mountain backdrop came from this area too!

Just to give you some perspective:

• the highest mountain in Peru, Huascaran stands at 6768m
• the highest mountain in New Zealand, Mt. Cook 3754m
• the highest in Canada, Mt Logan at 5956m
• the highest in Alaska, Mt Mickinley 6194 and continuous USA, Mt Whittney 4421m
• and Australia, Mt Kosciuszko at a whopping 2228m.

Once out of the park and onto pavement, our super skinny little road wiggled and giggled about and the temperature dramatically increased plunging into the city of Huariaca at only 1800m. Once again we found ourselves in shorts and t-shirts and our breathing and sleeping improved immediately. Even our digestive tracts seemed to have recovered, judging by the amount of rooting and tooting that followed the next couple of nights. Finding suitable campsites at these lower elevations can be a little tricky at times, with houses and building lining the road. Fortunately we spotted a quiet, lonely and unsuspecting high school that served our propose splendidly.

Having descended over 3000m in the last couple of days, we were all too aware which way the road would be heading and what was in store for us. Climbing! Lots and lots of climbing! Not needing much in the way of an excuse to take a break and get off the bike, we soon found ourselves in the company of a huge group of other cyclists. A couple from Spain, a girl from Peru, a guy from Colombia all heading North and an older Frenchman Emmanual who has been cycle touring for two months every year for the past 30 years. The mixture of meeting new people, swapping stories and purchasing a kilogram of animal biscuits seemed to demphasis the impact of a full day of climbing and before we knew it, we were once again buzzing about at 4000m.

There really is something quite astonishing being at these high elevations, there is the sense of accomplishment and being in a remote and jaw-dropping place in the world but also something else that just escapes words. Its just awesome! Freezing, but awesome! Equally impressive was how our environment seemed to change so dramatically from river valley, to alpine, to rocky canyon, to flat farmland within 300km. We also know that the stretch into Huancayo is the last hint of flat and straight road we will be seeing in a long time. We had a peek at the elevation profiles between here and Cusco and the graph looks like a garden rake or like the top of Bart Simpson's head. Yikes!

Belinda can not stop thinking about;

• Steak and cheese pies that only New Zealand does ever so well.
• What will be our best ammunition be against the vicious and persistent dogs here that like to chase cyclists?
  

Roland can not stop thinking about;

• Will our tires and rims handle the gravel sections from here to Cusco?
• How can we lighten our bike?
• What can we get rid of?
• Has our new bike parts arrived in Cusco?

In Huaraz, a popular adventure destination situated in some breath taking mountain scenery, we were warmly welcomed by our SERVAS hosts, Sophie and Louis. They are originally from Belguim, but have also lived in Guatamala with their three children Mael, Gabriel and Alban who are five, three and 0.5 years old. Besides sharing some stunning meals together and Roland recovering from some altitude sickness, we were lucky enough to visit Mael and Gabriel at their school in Monterray. Bringing some extra reinforcements, Seth and Parker our cycling companions, we shared a lovely afternoon with the students showing off our unique bicycles, sunglasses with review mirrors, a tent and cooking appiliances to name a few. We even managed to sneek in a few bike rides before departing to a nearby hotsprings.

We would really like to thank Sophie and Louis for being so accomodating and understanding, especially when Roland and Parker were feeling nil.

 Jumping onto a private road some 80 kilometres down from Trujillo immediately brought our stress levels down a few knotches after cycling on the manic Panamerican Highway.  Not only did the traffic subside but the camping spots were plentiful and nothing short of perfect.  We haven't had such serene camping since Alaska and Canada.  The nearby river provided an opportunity to remove a layer of dust and dirt, revitalise our tired bodies and easy listening music to fall asleep to.   

From sea level we had to climb again up to 3000 metres through Canyon Del Pato and 36 tunnels.  The only sour note came when Roland decided to take a trip across the Canyon in an unmarked manual cable basket; giving Belinda a few more gray hairs (yes, she already has some)!  The entire time Roland was in that basket, he couldn't wipe the smile off his face and fortunately Belinda didn't watch her husband fall dramatically to his death.  BOYS!  

This has been some of our favourite cycling to date and it was further enhanced by the company of Seth and Parker, two brothers also cycling from Alaska to Argentina but stop every once and a while to do some fishing.  However, maybe the company went to our heads and we started losing stuff i.e. Roland's toque, Belina's arm warmer's, one of our bike headlights and our change purse.  Dude, that's a knarly run of bad luck.  Of course, we are entirely blaming this on the two brothers!  

Roland spent as much time on the bike as off the bike swapping tires back and forth as the road continuously changed from dirt/gravel to pavement.  Parker suggested he could have a change of career and work in a Nascar pitstop.  He also found the perfect solution to fix a massive tear in the side wall of a tire with a piece of a soccer ball.  However, the ride wasn't so smooth once back on pavement again!  In the end we got through with no punctures and although the wider tires we purchased secondhand in Trujillo have seen better days, it got us through the tough dirt and gravel sections without too much slipping and sliding about.   

Interesting point:

• The indigenous woman wear cartoon-like hats that seem to be a cross between a cowboy hat and hats worn by leprechauns.
• We splashed out and stayed a night in Caraz for $7 for the both of us.  There was an election parade in full force with singing, dancing, honking, whistling, music and people wearing interesting clown/jester costumes.

We have just reached the one year milestone on the road and are trying very hard to balance between thoughts of the future (life after cycling) and absorbing where we are, while battling fatigue that accompanies such travels.  It's mind blowing to think we have been doing this cycling thing for more than 365 days and almost as long as we've been married.  Lately we've been reflecting on our adventure thus far and there has been quite a bit to chew over.  What sticks out the most is all the people we have met on this trip and our family and friends back home that have made this experience possible and more wonderful than we could have ever imagined.  The best bit is that we still have a few months left before reaching our goal and the opportunity to continue exceeding our expectations. 

Just a bit a food for thought: 

If we have travelled over 20,000 km at an average speed of 20km/hr, how many hours/days have our bums been glued to our bike seats?
a) 1000 hrs
b) about 40 days
c) far to long
d) all of the above  

How many different Salvation Army sites have we volunteered at?
a) 29                b) 3                c) 18                d) 63  

Buen Provecho! We eat about 250g of porridgel for breakfast almost every day. How many kilograms of porridge have we consumed during the course of our trip so far?
a) no idea, i don't have a calculator
b) oh gees, maths is not my strong subject
c) about the weight of a photocopier
d) about 100kgs

Cycling to Pacasmayo was bleak and barren and ordinarily we would have used our rocket boosters and flown through, but the afternoon head winds thwarted our plans. It did make us appreciate the mountain scenery that much more though. This was also our first real introduction to the fast and aggressive drivers in Peru. They don't want to stop for nothing and drive you to near insanity with their incessant beeping. Beeping for Peruvians has a smorgasboard of functions; to indicate that they are a bus/taxi and want to pick up customers, to say hi, to be used instead of braking and signalling, for going around corners and through tunnels, overtaking, get out of my way, to scare the crap out of cyclists and just because they can.  

Our night in Pacasmayo couldn't have been more relaxing as we were in the company of Warmshower host, Jose Luis and his family.  We weren't allowed to help with any of the fun stuff like doing dishes and setting the table.  We also didn't go hungry and ate like a King and Queen thanks to Brenda's (Jose Luis's wife) hearty meals she skillfully prepared. This town also has a great surf beach and was our first time seeing the ocean in South America.

The stretch of highway between Pacasmayo and Trujillo had been on our minds for many weeks. We have been told numerous times by locals and cyclists that the area around Paijan is extremely dangerous.  There is a group that seem to target touring cyclists and we have heard of at least seven accounts of theft at knife and gun point this year alone.  We made the decision to bus it to Trujillo which was 100kms away and Jose Luis helped with the arrangements.  This decision was bang on as two days later we met two brothers (also cycling from Alaska) that passed through Paijan and almost got robbed.  If it wasn't for their quick thinking and skillful maneuvering they could have lost everything.  You can read their accounts on their website at:
http://pebblepedalers.com/pedalers  

This brings us to Trujillo and the world famous (in the cycle touring world) Casa de Ciclistas del Peru.  This free hostel for cycle tourists has been open to all since 1985 and is managed by Lucho, who has bikes coming out of his pores.  We got sucked into the vortex and stayed a total of five days after planning to be there for three.  Reading the guestbooks from the other 1360 cyclists that had passed through there was fascinating, as many of their thoughts, insights and experiences are similar to ours.  We were number 1361 and 1362.  Lucho was always on the go and often you could hear him tinkering around in his workshop at all hours of the night.  He is a wanted man so this was the best time for him to work solidly.  We really appreciated him working on Big Bird but couldn't believe his discovery of both front and rear rims being cracked.  Number four and five!  Once again we have bought a second hand wheel for the front while we wait for two new rims to arrive in Cusco, a city further down the line.  Another aspect that makes this place so special is the opportunity to meet other cyclists.  We bumped into Byron again (see last blog); two Colombians, two Argentinians and one Spaniard (all going North); and Seth and Parker (the fishing brothers who in the next blog you will learn much more about as we are currently cycling together...yay!).  Lucho's place is like "Marching of the Penguins" as many cyclists accumulate and wait for one cyclist to initiate a leaving date and then the rest seem to follow suit.  Lucho's wife, Aracelly is also famous in her own right as an accomplished baker.  We got to taste some of her renowned chocolate cake and "three milk" cake.... oh so good!
   
While on the topic of food, the area around Casa del Cyclistas was a cyclists heaven with street food vendors and a fresh food market half a stones throw away.  You could literally eat yourself down the street with hamburgers, plantain chips, all sorts of fried sweet pasry goodness, tamales, fresh juices and not to forget SUBLIMES!   In between sampling Trujillo's vast menu we in fact found time to volunteer!  You can click here to see what we got up to.  

Through The Salvation Army we met David Navarro (no, not the singer) who is originally from Peru but also has Canadian citizenship.  We are glad to have made a new friend and are incredibly grateful for his time and computer knowledge to help rid our many USB bugs.  Resolving this was a huge weight off our mind as our photos are very precious to us.  But it's not all about chores!  We also enjoyed an afternoon with David visiting the "largest mud city in the world"!  Chan Chan is a archaeological site that is still being uncovered and restored to this day.  It was built by the Chimu people that were eventually conquered by the Incas.  It was literally a maze of mud walls with some neat carvings that supposedly were once painted.  At one of the sites they even had some ancient hairless Inca dogs that have a skin temperature of 40 degrees.  No offense, but they were pretty darn ugly!  Thank you to David for our unexpected time together.   

Everything always seems to work out in the wash as if we had left when originally planned we wouldn't have fixed our gadgets, seen the ruins, made a new friend, tasted delicious cake, fix our tent zipper and meet other cyclists to cycle to Huaraz with.

Interesting point:
The photo you see of the dessert with shacks and a mountain backdrop illustrates a new community on the outskirts of Trujillo.  Apparently, the land is free and you can move out there and as long as you can prove you live there.  Then you can get the deed to the land; any takers?

**** Oh no, we have got a virus (we think) on our camera memory card so can't access our most current photos.  So we think there are a few missing that should be on this blog.  Hopefully we will met someone that can help us rectify this problem... and can also speak English!    

We rolled into Cuenca on a Saturday night and made a beeline for the cheapest accommodation on offer, Hostal Majestic. We had a crazy and wild one...... going to bed early!  Over the past few days we had accumulated a long list of chores which needed to be attended to; like laundry, waterproofing our tent and jackets, finding white gas for our stove and lots of other little niggly repairs. We were quite surprised to discover that most shops in this large modern and most beautiful colonial city in Ecuador were closed on Sunday including restaurants, and in the end only managed to hand wash our clothes.   Instead we spent a rather tranquil day wandering the streets and strolling alongside the river which runs through the city centre. However we did have a bit of a mission looking for a place to grab a bite to eat that didn't include the ¨Gringo Tax¨ (a term given to items with an overinflated price for foreigners).  After some time and thought we finally discovered where all the locals were hiding, at the indoor market, where one can buy fruit, vegetables, meat, etc and a quick meal for a couple of dollars. We particularly liked the juice stands that prepared a variety of refreshing smoothies right in front of you and only cost 50 cents, blackberry was the best - so good!  

When cycling in Ecuador all you really need is one gear, "the granny gear" as the road onto Loja continued in an Ecuadorian fashion, hours of 'up' with a few minutes of 'down' that overheated our breaks on many occasions. This was perfect camping territory and we enjoyed many secluded nights with breath taking mountain views and a full complement of stars. The illumination from the moon was so bright we hardly needed to use our head torches to prepare dinner and set up camp. The night before arriving in Loja, our perfect stealth camp spot had an intruder. A beautiful and very affectionate golden retriever popped by for dinner and a cuddle before making his way home to an unknown location.  It was a really lovely surprise encounter.  

In Loja we stayed with couchsurfing host, Marcelo who had another couple of guests arrive at the same time as us.  Fortunately, he had a massive house so it wasn't a squeeze.  We had a shared meal that night with Bato (a Chilean guy) making pasta, us making a salad and the French couple (Caroline and Pascal) making a yummy apple crumble for dessert.  At first, we thought they were making Creme Brulee maybe due to our sleepy ears after a physically demanding few days or maybe because of their wonderfully thick French accents ( they say "cromble") which sounded very gourmet!  We were fascinated to learn how they were going to make this flamboyant dessert with only a few basic kitchen utensils until they started peeling the apples and preparing the top we were like hold on a minute!  

Reaching Macará (the Peru border) we were in for a bit of a shock, as after enjoying weeks of the cool, green, mountainous landscapes; we had to quickly adjust to the brown, flat, dusty, windy, rubbish-laiden and hot low land areas that harboured only a few unwelcoming thorny bushes and shrubs.... we've had a few flats since coming into Peru!  Roland found it particularly fascinating that we had to wait to be processed at the border due to a power outage.  However, while we waited we scored free tangelos from the police that were the most juicy and sweet we have ever tried.  Probably, the nicest border control people we've come across this whole trip too as our usual experience is quite gruff and staunch.  

The miles started to click by quickly again as we entered the Sechura Desert and with the shortcut on a dirt road to the 1B meant we made it to Chiclayo after three nights of camping.  We found the early morning the best time to cycle when it was overcast and reasonably fresh.  It's currently the dry, winter season here but we found the sun still to be pretty scorching between about 12 and 4pm.   

In Chiclayo we stayed two nights as we had an opportunity to volunteer with The Salvation Army (click here to find out more about our visit).  We stayed in Hospedaje San Lucas which was a bargain and conveniently three blocks from the main plaza that was the centre of many festivities, due to Peru's national celebration of Independence.  Chiclayo had a beautiful downtown area with modern shops and amenities; with locals wearing fashionable clothing and expensive brands, while eating lunch in a ritzy café.  Quite a stark contrast to the past few days of riding, in which we passed shack after shack made from corrugated iron, mud or weaved plant material (much like massive flax mats) and people working the land with not much else to their name but the clothes on their back.  Constantly we are faced with this harsh reality as we cycle through a country but it doesn't get any easier to digest.  

Now onto Trujillo where the famous "La Casa de Cyclistas" can be found.... but more on that next entry.... ooooo, have we got you hooked?    

Lovin' the.....

• Nestlé Sublimes: which are squares of chocolate packed with peanuts.  Much like a peanut slab in New Zealand.  They are a steal at 1 sol (30 cents) and the size is perfect to feel satisfied but not over indulgent.... well..... unless you buy more than one!
• Numerous makeshift football fields and goals (that in rural parts) we pass probably ever 20kms or so.
• Peru flag (which has a three vertical stripes, red, white, red) at quick glance could be mistaken for the Canadian flag... minus the maple leaf! 
• All the political campaigns which have different symbols to help distinguish between the parties i.e. wheelbarrows, chickens, bulls, shovels etc.
• Cyclist from France that we met who is also heading south that cycles in bare feet.  BARE FEET!  Now that's hardcore!