42.8 mi / 6.7 mph / 4500 ft. climbing
Home: Royal Hostal V&D

Today we were attempting one of the statistically biggest rides we’ve ever done, so it was nice that our hosts at Hotel Inca were willing to get up a little earlier than usual and have breakfast ready by 6:30am.

We took the direct route out of town, which ended up being a pretty rough gravel road, though it brought us once more past the ancient ruins. We would need all their mystical energy, because the steady climb over the next 19 miles would elevate us from 10,300 ft. to 14,650 ft. That section alone is more climbing than we’ve ever done in a single day. Our previous record of 4151 feet was set when we climbed Beartooth Pass on the way into Yellowstone National Park. Cresting that pass, at 10.957 feet, was a new altitude record for us, and felt like a major accomplishment. Today, we would be starting just 650 feet below that high point, and blasting above it by nearly 4000 feet. Somehow, we have become convinced that this is actually doable!

Early on, the paved road leading from Chavin up to the Kahuish tunnel had its now-expected missing sections, filled with rough gravel, but thankfully those dwindled as we rose higher, allowing us to make more-consistent progress. The remaining obstacles awaited at each hairpin curve; while the curves themselves were paved in concrete for extra durability, the transitions at each end between asphalt and concrete had inevitably decayed into a rocky mess.

Traffic was light enough that we weren’t generally stressed by it, but the extremely-aggressive tour bus drivers meant that I specifically called out “tour bus!!” to Rett whenever one approached. At one point we got a real-world demonstration of how the traffic jam in San Marcos likely began: a bus roared up from behind us, while a pickup truck descended toward us, at a point where another vehicle was parked on the left shoulder of the road. In a sensible sequence, the pickup truck would have moved left around the parked vehicle, then back right as it passed us and then the bus. By that time we would have passed the parked vehicle, and after barely slowing, the bus would have been able to pass us. But that’s not how it went. Instead, the bus blasted past us, and both it and the pickup truck reached the parked vehicle at the same time. There was no room for all three, so they both had to come to a dead stop (and so did we, now stuck behind the bus!), and force everyone to wait at least 30 seconds for a negotiation that ended with the pickup backing up to let the bus by. Since there were no other vehicles, the delay was minimal (though still 10x longer than it needed to be), but if there had been vehicles packing in behind the pickup, and us, it would have turned into an impossible snarl.

Other side again had gravel, slowing our descent, but the views did that more. Most climbing we’ve ever done. Tunnel was super easy. Friendly welcome at Hostal with dogs. Hamburger dinner after nothing open, with good communication.

On our first crossing of the Cordillera Blanca, we took three days to ride from Carhuaz to Chacas, stopping halfway up, and then just past the high-point tunnel. The tunnel on that route is 1000 feet higher than this one, and we started 1500 feet lower than we started today, so it was definitely a much bigger climb. But we still take pride in our improving high-altitude strength, shown by the fact that on our return across the spine of the White Mountains, we made it to the high-point tunnel by mid-afternoon, leaving plenty of time to roll down to the town of Catac on the other side before dark (hopefully!)

On the Carhuaz-Chacas route, the tunnel marked a divide between two entirely different scenes, but here on the Chavin-Catac route (why do all the towns on each end of these passes start with ‘C’?), it separated two completely different environments (even though it’s a much-shorter tunnel). The landscape was far drier, painted with open grasslands, and just massively-epic in full widescreen glory.

A mild tailwind on the way up turned into a solid push as we entered the constricted windpipe of the tunnel, and continued with good strength in the same direction on the other side. But as the downhill switchbacks repeatedly reversed us 180 degrees, it meant that we alternated between squeezing our brakes to keep everything under control, and pedaling into the wind to get our downhill speed above 10mph. But hey, it saves our brakes a bit, and the pedaling ensures we stay warm.

As usual, the more we descended, the more the mountains rose up around us, and paired with the golden grasslands glowing in the afternoon sun, it provided the most “Lord of the Rings” scenery so far, perhaps even exceeding anything in New Zealand. Yes, it feels like sacrilege to even type that, and we wouldn’t have believed it possible until experiencing these mountains ourselves. Yes, New Zealand still is Middle Earth, but if Peter Jackson had instead been from Peru, he might have been able to transform our real world into Tolkien’s fantasy with even less effort.

The landscape was so beautiful that at several points we considered changing our plans and camping somewhere up near Laguna Querococha, but Rett had developed a more-persistent cough as we climbed, so we reasoned that it was safest to get back down to lower elevations and a room. And the visual rewards showered upon us for our epic ride were actually maximized by our timing; the afternoon sun lit the white peaks and golden hills to perfection, in a way that we would have missed the next morning.

Arriving in the small town of Catac, we knocked on an unassuming door behind a dentist’s office to access the relatively-new and highly-rated Royal Hostal V&D, and we were welcomed by a woman with a carefree laugh, her helpful teenage daughter, and as a final reward for Rett’s huge effort, three dogs, including a tiny jet-black puppy who relaxed into her arms when she scooped him up.

Day 2

Following our big mountain crossing, we needed an off-day to recover, and to prepare for our next segment, an immediate third crossing of the Cordillera Blanca (this time on gravel)! While our room was quite nice (only the second hot-water faucet at the sink in all of Peru!), its west-facing windows only caught an hour or two of the sun before it dropped below the nearby Cordillera Negra, so it averaged a chilly 50F, boosted briefly to a max of 61F in the afternoons.

Catac felt like the deadest town we’ve been in, especially when we went looking for dinner the first night. Barely anything was open, and places that were had no customers, but it turned out that it was just because we were too early. By the time we had walked to the far end of town and were working our way back, a greasy-spoon burger joint had opened, and for such a low-key place in a low-key town, the husband and wife (and son) impressively knew how to work with gringos who barely speak Spanish.

The second day we did our usual 8-different-shops search for ingredients for our upcoming days. Nuts for snacks/lunch-accompaniment were our white whale this time. We slowly graduated from just poking around ourselves, to actually asking shopkeepers (often much of the merchandise is behind a counter (or stacks of other stuff), Old West general store-style), and only when we finally asked at the biggest store (Minimercado Autoservicios, where we’d already checked out twice) did we score, with one of the workers bringing out three plastic bins from the back, containing pecans, walnuts, and cashews, priced at S/50 per kg, and she bagged and weighed them into the amounts we wanted (which Rett then salted and spiced into a snack mix).

I set up our stove on our balcony to boil eggs and do some other cooking, while also drying laundry in the brief sun. For our second dinner we ended in a relatively-fancy chicken place (with booths!), and I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that when we ordered Lomo Saltado (beef), we got Pollo Saltado (chicken) instead.