18.9 mi / 5.0 mph / 4500 ft. climbing
Home: Powerline Wild Camp

Our day began with a climb, ended with a climb, and in the middle, had a climb. The nonstop climbing meant that we accumulated 4500 feet, tying our record set just a couple months ago. But it really began with a climb, where we had to heave our bikes for a couple blocks up a 14% grade to return to the more-relaxed Highway 3S that zig-zags through the center of Abancay. But while the grade on the main road decreased to a manageable 4-5%, the broken concrete surface meant that Rett continued walking for a while. As hoped, the auto-repair chaos all remained on the western entry to the city, so except for the road surface, our exit out the eastern side was much more peaceful, and we didn’t have a single dog lunge at us (neither in the city, nor, remarkably, for the whole rest of the day!)

Four miles in (and 1300 ft. up), just as it felt like we had left the urban area behind, the most ornate and exquisite church we’ve seen in Peru unexpectedly appeared at a bend in the highway. Looking as if formed from cast concrete, its style and construction was like nothing else we’ve seen in this country (or any country, really!) We stopped and descended to its sunken location to explore the mystery, and discovered that it’s still under active construction, and a replacement/addition of an older sanctuary facing it. Later research didn’t do much to explain the peculiarities of its style and location, though construction photos revealed that it’s largely built of brick (like most churches in Peru seem to be), but then coated in a smooth layer of concrete/plaster(?) When climbing a twisting mountain road, there are frequently new views around every bend, but rarely a surprise like this!

That first 1300 feet of climbing (from 7800 to 9100 feet above sea level) was pretty sweaty, but as we got higher temperatures remained more-comfortable for the rest of the day. It felt like the greenest climb we’ve done, with honest-to-god trees lining many of the switchbacks, though with the near-overhead sun they still provided less shade than we might have desired.

When we could climb no more (ok, we could, but let’s save the last 700 feet to give us something to do tomorrow), we had a surfeit of good wild camping options. Rett scouted one area just off the end of a highway hairpin, while I headed a bit down and further away to a broad open field and then an abandoned roadway that lead even further away. Any of the places would have done the job (all being hidden and flat), but I decided to go with the most-secluded.

So it was an annoying surprise when we reconvened, and a red pickup truck with four workers had headed down towards the open field. And then, somehow continued down the “abandoned”, roadway! On my scouting mission, I saw that it was so overgrown with tall grasses and other brush, and had low branches overhanging, that I had planned to pitch our tent right in a flat spot right in the middle of the “road”, since obviously no vehicles had come down it in years. Until this pickup truck, no more than 30 seconds ahead of us!

Even though we could have easily just returned to either of the other two spots, we felt committed, so followed them down and found an open, flattened spot that our tent would fit in right next to the “road”. We could see the truck another half-mile down the winding route (probably something to do with the power lines), so waited to actually set up the tent until they came back. Which they did after 30 minutes, showing no concern for us obviously getting ready to camp.

While a bit frustrating, waiting a that time and squeezing our tent into a tight spot was way better than having to rapidly disassemble and move the tent if we had set it up before the workers headed down. Which is exactly what would have happened if we’d left our AirBNB just 10 minutes earlier, or shortened lunch. So really it was a blessing-in-disguise, an incredibly-unlikely and incredibly-timely statement directed passively at us: “this road is not actually abandoned!”

Another nice quality of our wild campsite was that it was “only” at 12,350 feet. So while the sun was still up, I was comfortable puttering around in shorts and a t-shirt, something I haven’t been able to do at any of our previous wild camps in Peru. But then of course everything changes immediately when the sun drops behind the nearest mountain, and it was 38°F by 6pm and time to bundle up with Rett inside the tent..