20.9 mi / 5.9 mph / 1185 ft. climbing
Home: Church Wild Camp

We woke to another high-altitude morning cold enough to cover our tent in a thick layer of frost (there had also been some form of light precipitation after we tucked in), but warm enough that our water supply (massed together under the rainfly) didn’t solidify. Despite the breeze that was flapping the rainfly, I was up and out of the tent at 6:30am to cook breakfast. If one stupid mountain didn’t suddenly step up twice as high as its neighbor (or if our tent had been pitched just 200 yards to the west), the sun would have hit us nearly an hour earlier than it did, but it still got everything melted, warm inside, and reasonably dry before we got packed up.

To exit our lakeside camp and return to the main road, we could actually continue a bit further into the valley before the road reversed direction and rejoined the highway at a higher point than where we had exited. There were a couple of clear attempts to block vehicles (despite the gravel road being wide and well-graded), so I was concerned that we might be heading directly into some sort of restricted mining area and be forced to backtrack, but no, the highway reappeared more-quickly than expected without ever passing a work area.

We were treated to a brief continuation of the wide concrete road, but soon it changed to rough gravel on 8% switchbacks, so we just walked that last mile+ to the top of the 15,500 ft. pass.

We’ve come to expect a different world each time we reach the other side of one of these high Andean passes, but this might have been our most-unexpected transition so far. Rather than simply switching to a river valley flowing in the opposite direction, here a circular plain, ringed by mountains, opened vistas arrestingly-wide for these heights. Rather than matching the 4000-foot climb from Oyon with a 4000-foot descent, here the bowl sat “only” 800 feet below us, and after crossing its 3-mile diameter, we needed to climb back out the opposite side.

As enjoyable as the bowl hidden at 14,800 ft. was to ride across, I unfortunately had to put some pressure on us. There was a warning posted on iOverlander that the road we needed to take (PA-100) was closed to traffic for much of the day except for one hour between noon and 1pm. A more-recent post said that the workers had no problem letting bicycles by during the “closed” hours, but who knows if we’d also qualify for such special treatment, and if we just happened to arrive during the “open” hours, so much the better. On the other hand, there was a decent chance that the closure no longer existed at all. But if we wanted the insurance of making it there before 1pm, we had two hours to cover 6 miles, a distance we could literally walk in that time, but this is Peru, so that could be exactly what we would need to do!

Once I voiced the concern and put the idea into Rett’s head, I felt bad because she revealed how she was reacting to the new time pressure by leaving me in the dust, panting to keep up with her. I stressed again that there was a good chance that the closure no longer even exists, so I didn’t want her exhausting herself and hating the day (and then me for pushing us along) for no reason. The road turned to gravel as we climbed back out of the bowl, and then (as iOverlander also reported), some of the most-destroyed gravel road we’ve seen in Peru for the last mile or so before the junction, so while we made it there with 30 minutes to spare, that still means it took us 90 minutes to travel six miles.

And there were no workers or any sign of a closure, just a young family walking up the road. But I think on the way we had found a reasonable balance between moving forward and enjoying ourselves, so we weren’t mad that iOverlander was “wrong”.

With the junction not under construction, we realized it was a perfect place to stop for lunch. The father and young son walking ahead of us had stopped, and I soon noticed that the mother was approaching from behind. She called ahead to them with something like “que pasa?” (the first time I’ve heard that phrase in Peru, it doesn’t seem to be used in greetings like it is in US Spanish), essentially meaning “why have you stopped?” He replied “gringos!”, essentially “um, because of these crazy white people on their bikes, obviously!”, and whatever she responded with translated in my head to “oh, dang, yeah, good call!”

They quickly gestured for pictures with us and the bikes, which we love, and the father even wanted a photo of himself astride Rett’s bike, after we named all the things that we carry with us in our big bags. I was also able to confirm that the road was in fact open all the way to Cerro de Pasco, so that removed some last bits of anticipatory stress.

There had been varying iOverlander reports about the terribleness of PA-100, but generally improving over time, and we can confirm that at least the 2000 ft. downhill to Uchumarca was all good congealed gravel, a little bumpy, but not rocky. 10 mph was doable on our 55mm tires, riding the whole way. Which was good, because an ice sleet began spattering us early in the descent, and worse, booming thunder echoing off the surrounding mountains. We never saw any lightning, but when you’re in a treeless landscape at 14,500 ft., getting down in a hurry feels like a good idea.

We successfully beat the storm down the mountain, and only experienced 10 minutes of that icy stuff at the top. Within a few miles of Uchumarca, we began passing through active construction zones, where they’re clearly working on major improvements to the road (and previous versions of that work is likely what made the higher sections better). Some sections had workers enforcing one-way traffic, but we had no problem passing through all of them, and I don’t think we ever even had to wait.

Timothy Tower had discovered/created an “urban wild camp” in Uchumarca, where a small church let him camp in their side-yard. Another iOverlander review confirmed that they took shelter in the same place, so we would try the same. Even though it’s right at the entry to town, it took us a little while to find it, but after poking around a bit I immediately recognized the outdoor sink from photos. There were also freshly-labeled men’s and women’s bathrooms (implying public use of this yard was still practiced), but they were padlocked and unfortunately no one responded to our knock on the attached dwelling. A woman walking down the “street” in front of the church greeted me with something I didn’t understand as she passed; I asked if camping in the churchyard was ok, she said “si, claro” (yes, of course) as if it was the normalest thing in the world, so I guess we’ll take that as authoritative?

It was nice to relax in the 60-degree sunlight at 3pm, and the roof over us was even nicer, because the rain restarted as darkness fell, and continued on and off for a couple hours. What darkness unfortunately did not bring was the caretaker who lives in the adjacent building (I could see fresh laundry hanging in one of the bathrooms, so they just must have been out-of-town for a period). That meant the toilets remained locked, and while the surrounding ground was sufficiently rough and animal-visited that we didn’t feel too bad about #1s, the need for #2 (foregone at this morning’s wild camp) was becoming an issue. I remembered that there had been a porta-potty standing at the final construction zone, so I made an exploration in the dark, walking a quarter-mile back down the road, and thankfully found it unguarded, unlocked, and quite clean (but apparently even in porta-potties in Peru, you place your (not supplied) toilet paper in a basket, and not the tank. Later on I repeated the walk with Rett when she needed to go, and we returned just in time as the heaviest rain of the day began battering the tin roof over our comfortably-dry tent. Thank you unknown Uchumarca church people for unknowingly granting us the excellent shelter!