20.9 mi / 5.8 mph / 3770 ft. climbing
Home: Hospedaje La Casa Del Halcon

Since no yogurt existed in Limatambo for Rett to have a no-cook breakfast in our room, we got our bikes all packed and loaded but left them in the hotel courtyard while we searched the main street for breakfast. (Despite there being a dozen shops in town, it’s funny how undifferentiated their stock is…like, what draws someone to your store rather than the one 10 steps away?)

There were a few restaurants open, but they were all really busy (and were serving the Peruvian dinner-for-breakfast that we aren’t big fans of), so we ended up going to a street vendor who had coffee (a liquid concentrate added to cups of water), pre-made egg-or-cheese sandwiches, and coffee cake (again as if differentiation is outlawed here, all the street carts in this town seemed to have the same coffee cake…but hey, it was good!)  We found a quiet bench in one of the town’s pleasant pedestrian pathways to eat.

Yesterday’s climb continued, first shallow, then with a quite-steep mile to make up for it. Early on we stopped at Tarawasi, a below-the-tourist-radar Inca ruin that barely had a sign, and no one to collect the supposed S/10 entry fee (but hey, at least it’s marked and named, unlike the terraces on the other side of town!) We just did a quick 10-minute spin through the grounds, and the lack of informational signs wasn’t because they were stolen; even online, there is almost no information to be found regarding the history or function of the site.

After another hour or so of climbing, we paused for a drink, I flipped open my handlebar bag to get my camera, and only on this 10th time did I notice something not right: my USB charger and cable weren’t in the bag. Shiiiiit. “Luckily”, unlike when I lost my biking glove a couple months ago, I immediately knew that I hadn’t accidentally popped them out of the bag in some unknown place mid-ride. I was 99.9% sure that I had left them plugged into the wall of our hotel room, as Rett had brought my handlebar bag downstairs for me, short-circuiting my habitual morning packing-check.

Certainly USB chargers and cables exist in Peru, but it seemed unlikely that I would find something with the size/weight/speed/port combination as my very-specifically-researched Anker. And charging our electronics is a pretty critical part of our lives. So in a rare bit of decisiveness, we agreed that I would ride back down the mountain for it, removed most of my panniers, and parted ways, all within 5 minutes of the discovery.

It had taken 53 minutes (excluding the Tarawasi visit) to climb the 1000 feet over 3.8 miles. I knew that I would be able to climb back up much faster without the weight of my panniers, but what I didn’t expect was that I would also be able to descend faster. 30mph felt comfortable, where normally on these Peruvian mountain descents, I start getting nervous when I get above 23mph or so. I realized that it wasn’t anything to do with balance or handling, but largely because my body intuited that I could brake to a stop in far less distance with 60 fewer pounds hanging off bike, in the case of a quick reaction required by a hole, vehicle, animal, etc.

We’re of course aware that we descend far faster than we climb, but we almost never do a direct comparison on the same stretch of pavement. So it was certainly a bit disheartening to feel our 53 minutes of hard work collapse into an effortless 10 minute return. I dashed back into the hotel, retrieved the key from where we had left it on the reception desk, which was an unnecessary step because the door to our room was still open and untouched and my charger was still plugged in exactly where I had left it. Phew. Now all I had to do is re-climb another 1000 feet in an already big-climbing day.

That part turned into a pretty pure example of how much easier our (riding) life would be if we carried less stuff with us. While I was working perhaps 10% harder than I had been the first time (knowing Rett was waiting for me and still nervous about the day’s heat), I made it back to her in just over 30 minutes, cutting 40% off our loaded-down climb. So in all, my forgetfulness added about an hour to our day, but it could have been a lot worse!

Even though the slope of the 3750-foot climb decreased gradually as we went up, it was still getting really tiring for us near the top, and as the final stretch returned to steepness, Rett was getting really frustrated that the end seemed to be running away around each corner, staying just out of reach. But hey, I was the one nearing an (unofficial-)record 4750 feet of climbing on the day!

We finally crossed the pass, the last of four massive up-and-downs between Ayacucho and here. As if to mark the end of the roller coasters, the descent to Ancahuasi (which still dropped us nearly 1000 feet) brought us into a completely un-Peruvian flat-bottomed valley, with more horizontal crop acreage in one view than we’ve seen in the rest of the country combined! Partway down we passed through a toll booth, where cyclists don’t need to pay, but in this case no one needed to pay, because it looked like the booth itself had been firebombed, and there were no official personnel on-site. There were the usual three or four women selling snacks, drinks, toilet paper, etc., to drivers as they slow down to pay their tolls, but with no drivers slowing down, it must really be hurting their business too.

“Blanca!” called the man wearing the sweater with an American flag on it, as we rolled down the rough gravel road and up to his hotel. Before we could even ask anything, his wife Blanca had hit the button for their electric garage door and ushered us and our bikes into their personal 1.5-car garage, which made it feel more like they were our WarmShowers hosts than hotel owners. While they didn’t offer us cold beers, they gave everything else we could have wanted, including really fast WiFi, the hottest suicide shower in Peru, two towels, a new sink with a new lever faucet, a seat on the toilet, a curtain on the shower, a nice firm bed, and help with our bags. When I asked the cost and Blanca said “treinta”, I repeated it back to her with a question mark, thinking my brain was mixing up Spanish numbers (it wouldn’t be the first time). But no, they only wanted S/30, or ~US$8.50.

When they let their tiny just-born puppy loose, Rett would have happily paid 10 times what we did.

We got dinner at a polleria, where we finally got our first straight-up 1/4 grilled chickens (a Peruvian standard). Walking the frontage-road-widened highway running through the town reminded me of Colquijirca (near Cerro de Pasco), where we also ate in a polleria, and this place similarly had doors that closed (a Peruvian restaurant rarity!), even though it wasn’t nearly as cold here in Ancahuasi.