28.5 mi / 7.4 mph / 2910 ft. climbing
Home: Hotel Vista Verde

It was time for another of our early mornings: awake at 4am, breakfast in our hotel room, and rolling by 6:30am. And the reason was the same as usual: we would be dropping further into the valley, to a level where it becomes hot and buggy, and then climbing back out, so the earlier we could get to the climb, the less exhausting it would be. I hadn’t really discussed morning plans with the three European bike tourers staying a couple rooms down from us, but I was surprised that they weren’t even awake by the time we departed; I guess they were going up all day to a high-elevation wild camp, so no rush necessary.

We still had nearly 3000 feet to descend (after yesterday’s 4700 ft. descent to Chumbes), so the first part of the ride was super-easy. And while not quite as scenic as the higher elevations (partially due to the day’s low clouds), it was still a pretty great way to wrap around a dozen different mountains.

The Pampas River, at 6,420 ft., is the lowest we’ve been in Peru by nearly 1000 feet. In most other places, a sign at 6,420 ft. would be a record high, marking the high point of a mountain pass, not a record low deep in a river valley, but most places are not Peru! Our roughly-eastbound dive turned south to follow the river upstream for 9 miles before turning east again to climb back up the other side of the valley. Even though we hit the river around 7:15am, and were already climbing out by 9am, it was still plenty warm, reading 74°F under the thankfully still-cloudy sky.

That meant we were faced with the no-win choice of stripping down and facing the wrath of the mosquitos, or staying covered and overheating. We went with the former option, but the mosquitos were so bad that we needed to be slowly walking up and down the highway the entire time we were changing just to avoid their swarms. So it was also generally ok if we stayed moving on the bikes, but had to climb more than 1000 feet back up before their attacks abated significantly when we stopped. By that point the temperature had dropped to 72°F, and never exceeded that for the rest of the day. It would have been a whole different story if it wasn’t cloudy and we were four hours later, so we’re very thankful for the luck that augmented our good planning.

Light rain started an hour from our destination of Chincheros, foiling our plans to break for lunch. Instead we just kept toiling onward and upward for the last 1000 feet of our 2700 foot climb. That meant we were severely hungry by our noon arrival to the fancy lobby of brand-new Hotel Vista Verde, where I collapsed on one of their couches and stuffed my face with tortillas. Most places we stay in Peru don’t have even a hint of a lobby, much less one with couches, so I figured that there was a 50% chance that we’d be quoted an insane rate and would need the calories to be able to stumble to inquire at the hotel across the street. But S/70 (~US$20) for the most Western-style hotel we’ve been in since Quichas? (and the best-smelling in all of Peru?) Yeah, we’ll take it. And the host even helped carry our bags up to the 3rd floor!

After showering (a bit less hot than the rest of the hotel would imply, but good enough), we went out to find lunch, and had our first “menu del dia”, where you select from a small list of main courses, and get a starter (here a soup) and drink (pineapple juice) for a fixed low price (here, S/8, or ~US$2.25 each). We went with “mondonguito a la italiana” for the main, because, hey, Italian sounds good, and ended up both having our first experience eating tripe! I enjoyed it a bit more than Rett, but we both had no problem finishing!

Given our early start and good progress through the day, I had been thinking of raising the idea of going another 5 miles beyond Chincheros (and 1300 feet higher) to Uripa, which could potentially then allow us to make it from Ayacucho to Andahuaylas in four days instead of five, but the rain made me swallow that idea, and while we were eating lunch it started absolutely pouring outside for 15 minutes, confirming that would have been a bad plan. Plus, Chincheros was a surprisingly-pleasant town, with friendly people giving the most “buenos tardes”es when passing on the street than any place we’ve been in a while.

After a few hours back enjoying our comfortable room, we headed out up a steep hill for dinner, only to find the wood-fired pizza place all locked up, despite recent posts with their hours on their Facebook page. Crap. Well, it’s a good thing that I asked at D’Mabeli, a cute bakery where we’d bought (excellent) donuts earlier, if/when they served dinner, but it was still some 20 minutes before the quoted 6pm opening. So we slowly dawdled our way over (walking again through the town’s unique plaza, checking out the church), only to find that when we walked in just before 6, the place nearly full! “Never trust opening/closing times in Peru” is a lesson you would think we would know by now, but it’s a tough adjustment! So service was a bit slow, but it was totally worth the wait, as we were still able to get pizza, and it was some of the best we’ve had in Peru (just the smell revealed that oregano/garlic spicing is a big part of what other Peruvian pizza lacks). It’s hard to believe our original pizza target would have been better, so thank you for being closed!

We did have a strange situation where a young drunk guy came and seated himself at our table, shaking our hands. At first it seemed like maybe he was just being friendly, but eventually it became clear he was asking for money. We told him no, and eventually he moved on. It never felt dangerous, just annoying; I guess a lack-of-panhandlers in cities is something that we have quickly gotten used to!