15.6 mi / 4.7 mph / 3578 ft. climbing
Home: Highway Bend Wild Camp

We exited our hotel in search of breakfast before most of the rest of Chincheros had roused themselves (again leaving through a locks-from-the-inside door and hoping someone will have unlocked it by the time we want to get back in!) But one worker had stumbled out to open up our new favorite D’Mabeli, probably just moments before we arrived, given how long it took him to get the kitchen fired up and our coffees and egg sandwiches out to our table. But that was a much better result than arriving moments before he opened, because then we would have turned around and found somewhere far inferior; instead we got perhaps the best coffees we’ve had in Peru, and eggs so perfectly runny that Rett wasn’t even expecting it and glopped a yellow puddle in her lap.

And hey, our lengthier-than-expected breakfast gave plenty of time for the hotel doors to be opened by the time we returned, so win-win! Our friendly host helped us down with our bags, even arranging them in the correct positions next to our bikes; an excellent hotel and excellent service! And now for his next bike-touring visitors, he’ll probably know to ask them to remove any luggage they want from their bikes before he directs them to wheel their bikes to the back of the garage area, because us getting that order wrong yesterday led to a lot more walking and lugging than necessary!

Days 4 and 5 of this 5-day stretch of riding would be weirdly similar to Days 1 and 2: first a non-stop climb (continuing what we started yesterday) from ~9,000 ft. to a wild camp at 13,000 ft., followed by a longer-distance day where we would more-gradually top out near 14,000 ft., then coast a long descent all the way back down to 9,000 feet. And while Chincheros is far smaller than Ayacucho was, our departure followed the same structure, with the main road immediately continuing a switchbacking route up the mountainside, while the grid of city streets provide more-direct routes for higher-powered vehicles.

It took just over an hour of pedaling time to complete the 5 miles and 1300 feet of climbing to Uripa, proving that we could have done it yesterday afternoon if we had really wanted/needed to, but now that we know how nice Chincheros is, and how Uripa looked (at least from our bicycle seats) a lot less inviting, I’m glad that yesterday’s rain had taken the decision out of our hands. Even though there are these two good-sized towns in close proximity, and the highway between (and beyond) them is almost continually-populated, there were surprisingly-few cars sharing the road with us. And the grade remained incredibly-steady; we were clocking almost exactly 250 feet of elevation for every forward mile, though conveniently it relaxed a bit near the end of the day.

I had StreetViewed a good (and likely last) opportunity to fill water at mile 10.2 of our 15-mile ride (much further than ideal to ride to camp with the extra weight, but water seemed pretty scarce higher up). So it was not a good moment when we arrived and the roadside canal was completely dry. Shit. There’s no way we could survive through tomorrow morning with just the water remaining in our bottles. It was near lunchtime so we decided to stop and take care of calories while figuring out what to do. Ride back down half-a-mile to the trickle that was running through the canal for a stretch? Just keep going up and hope for the best? Or, what was that noise? Flowing water, or just wind in the trees? I walked a couple hundred yards ahead toward the sound and found a concrete canal running across the mountainside and absolutely gushing with water. Phew! I guess the irrigation infrastructure had changed routes a bit here since the last StreetView. Hmm, except the water was really muddy for some reason. Well, at least we could fill our bladder, and then if we found something better, dump it and replace.

Just a mile later, a restaurant magically appeared, one that appears neither on the satellite view or 3-year-old StreetView. And yes, they had water! We bought a couple of bottles for straight up drinking, and then they let us use the tap at their outdoor sink to replace the six liters of muddy water in our bladder with clear water. As excited as I was that we would no longer die of dehydration, Rett was much more excited by the little lamb that the two women were raising. A bit bemused by her joy, they gave her a baby-bottle of milk in order to fully-win the lamb’s furious tail-wagging love. It sort of felt like the absent water source was all part of Peru’s master plan to get us to have more wonderful social encounters?

As usual, the wild camp we were targeting is one that was initially scouted by the Shaws in 2018, and reported on in detail by Timothy Tower in 2019. While it was a bit of a hike in (and more importantly, out) of a huge gravel pit, both had reported it as one of the most-scenic places they have ever camped. As we slowly curled up the snaking road, I thought I spotted the leading edge of the flattened area high above us, but I could also see a tall fence along that edge. Hmm, I don’t recall that from their campsite photos…maybe they just used strategic angles? But no, 20 minutes later when we had finally wound our way up to the highway side of the gravel pit, my heart sunk to see that not only was the very-solid fence now enclosing the entire area (yet another change from the 3-year-old StreetView images!), but the once-abandoned gravel pit had clearly been returned to active operation, with large equipment and guard dogs (and signs warning about them). Ugh, dammit!

Thankfully, Rett (who usually starts becoming intolerant of any challenges 10% before we reach our day’s endpoint) took it in stride, maybe because she assumed I would have already scouted another possibility? If so, she was right, but although it had the advantage of being close, I didn’t have high hopes for it. It was an “oxbow”, a short abandoned curve of the road created when a more-direct and deeper route is cut through a sloping section of rock that the original curve was attempting to go around. So a wall of rock remains standing between the oxbow and the current highway, but unlike the excellent hairpin campsite from a couple nights ago, this oxbox ran essentially parallel to, and on the same level as the highway, so becoming invisible is less likely.

And yeah, exploration revealed that of three desirable qualities for pitching our tent (flat ground, hidden-from-view, and not-covered-in-feces), we could achieve any two, but not all three (unsurprisingly, the spot where we could tuck in close enough to the rock wall to be hidden is also the spot where people tuck in when they drop their pants!) We considered pressing on and hoping for the best, but my Internet research hadn’t suggested anything better nearby, so we decided to just pick our two (flat ground and not-covered-in-feces), and sacrifice being fully hidden from view. We were able to achieve approximately 50%-invisibility though; we were hidden completely from one direction of the highway, and in the other direction, approaching cars (in the far lane) would have a somewhat-obscured view, while only departing cars (in the closer lane) would have a full view, if they were looking in their mirrors at the right moment.

The nice thing is that the view was essentially the same as it would have been from the gravel pit, and yeah, it was pretty spectacular. A line of snow-capped mountains (something we haven’t seen in weeks!) far across a valley sprinkled with towns, farms, and animals far below.

Once again camped at “only” 13,000 ft., we could enjoy a nice warm afternoon, even requiring the rainfly to be rolled back so that it didn’t get too hot inside the tent. But eventually the rock wall behind us brought us into shade, and the temperature was down to 42F by actual 6pm sunset. None of the many passing cars gave any indication that they saw or cared about us, nor did the man and woman in the fields a few hundred feet below us who were putting away their herd of cows and sheep for the night. But while I was eating dinner with my chair facing down into that valley, I noticed a large Labrador-type dog come angling up the mountainside. I thought maybe he was a farm dog unhappy about the human intruders above, but he seemed to pay me no mind as he crossed in front, and then switched back behind to plop down just 15 feet from our tent. Was he here to beg for (or steal) our food? No, he didn’t even seem interested in that aspect, it literally felt like we had acquired “our” own dog, who just enjoyed hanging out in rough proximity to humans. So maybe he would even provide a bit of guarding for us?

Even though the afternoon had become increasingly-clear, rain began falling at 7pm (luckily we’re well-done with dinner and ready for bed by that hour). I expected the usual light sprinkles, but after some time genuine raindrops began battering the tent, and even more-unexpected, percussive gusty winds began hammering us. It got so bad that we needed to open the inner-tent doors and reach out to grasp the tent poles to keep them from buckling under the force. Adding to her fear, Rett cut the palm of her hand on a zip-tie that I used to reinforce a small split in one of the poles, exactly the sort of thing that we were trying to prevent a reoccurrence of! The intensity of the storm oscillated up and down a couple times, but by 8:30pm, everything was back to the dead calm that had been the standard earlier. Definitely the most-intense and scary storm we’ve been through in Peru, but it was good to know that we could endure it together.