15.6 mi / 4.8 mph / 3038 ft. climbing
Home: Wild Camp at Huascarán Gate Comedor

At breakfast, served by our hosts at Los Capulies (excellent!), we were surprised to see another couple at a table, since it had felt like we were the only ones spending the night. Even more surprising was that she was clearly wearing padded bike shorts! Christina and Matthias are from Austria, and had just completed the Huascarán Loop (as part of a larger South American adventure), and today would be heading to Huaraz. This was valuable, not just because we would be doing half the Loop in reverse, but also because after just one day out of Huaraz, it felt like we’d already linked into the South American bike touring crew of 2025!

I’ve been in a “Cycling South America” WhatsApp group, and reading all the people who have been out there moving down the continent for a month, while we remained stationary and isolated in Huaraz, had in retrospect made me feel like a bit of a poseur. But now we are True Bike Tourers again! (and upon hearing about Rett’s crash, Mattias recalled, “oh, hey, I guess it was you who posted something about that in the WhatsApp group…?”) It feels good to go straight from the embrace of the Huaraz community and straight into the (much more dispersed) embrace of the mobile bike touring community.

But before we could get to retracing their route, we needed to get ice cream! Carhuaz is known for their ice cream for some reason, and since we failed to acquire any last night, luckily many of the hiking tours stop en route, so the shops are open at 8:30 in the morning. We went to a place more known for its quality than its crazy flavors, but we did each get a scoop of “Carbon y Vanilla”.

Then it was time to begin our epic climb, taking two days to get us up to the world’s highest road tunnel (until a higher one opened in China in 2019). Intentionally, it would all be on a paved, low-traffic road, similar to our Huaraz day rides to Pitec, so the main doubt was whether we could do it on far heavier bikes.

First challenge was making it past a spot marked on iOverlander for aggressive dogs. A year ago, one bit a guy’s pannier, and just a month ago another guy got bit in the foot! I’ve rigged up Rett’s sling from her injury as a pouch on my bike from which I can grab a rock to throw at a dog, but luckily none were needed as there was no hint of dogs in the area.

Rett wanted to stop for lunch at a quiet spot with a great view of the mountains, but we’d also been shooting for a viewpoint monument, so my hesitance meant we continued on. When we reached the viewpoint, we had to backtrack to access it, parked our bikes so we wouldn’t have to roll them down the hill, gathered everything we needed for lunch, walked down the hill, and finally stopped when we saw the rough path leading up to the stairs of the tower. Are we burning way too much energy on this stupid viewpoint when we had a far easier one half-a-mile back? Yes, so we walked back to the bikes and continued on until we were clear of the small village and back to a simple roadside stop with a view inferior to Rett’s original choice. And we didn’t even have chips with lunch, because the tienda we stopped in in Shilla didn’t have any, and at later tiendas that clearly had chips inside, no one was around to sell them to us.

Even on a day where we set a new record of climbing-per-mile, it sometimes feels like the riding is the least-difficult part of bike touring.

We are basing this ride (and maybe our entire South American route) on Timothy Tower’s unbelievably detailed and helpful journal from 2019. Rather than finding a random true wild camp, he stayed at the National Park entrance station. This sounded like a great idea, since there were flush toilets, and even a rustic restaurant. Why not make our night slightly easier for our first camping attempt in South America? Plus, I was excited to be able to give him an update on the (then) 9-year-old girl he had befriended, whose family ran the restaurant.

When we pulled up, it was clear that the park rangers had left for the day, which meant we wouldn’t have to pay, and a woman appeared from the restaurant on the other side of the road. Great! “Can we camp here?” I ask in my prepared Spanish. Rett and I are both shocked when the answer is “no.” She then goes on asking something about where we’re going, how many days it will take to get there, and we realize she’s telling us that we need to pay the park entrance fee to her. Cold, tired, and confused, we hand over S/120 (US$33) for two people for two days.

We’re about to continue glumly up the road to find another place to pitch our tent, and Rett realizes we have no proof of payment to show a ranger who might later ask. We ask multiple times for some form of ticket or receipt, even using Google Translate to make sure our words are clear, but get essentially nothing in response beyond a blank stare. It completely feels like we’re being scammed.

But then, some sort of breakthrough slowly emerged, and she seemed to indicate that we could camp here after all, if a little further back in the sandy cow pasture than the nicer palapa-side grass where Timothy Tower had pitched his tent. And then, she gave us back our cash, seeming to understand that we would pay a ranger in the morning.

Relieved, we began setting up, and the woman came over, now intensely curious to see how our tent went together and what went inside. Her name was Nelly, which is different from the family Timothy Tower met, so it seems that ownership of the restaurant has changed hands in the intervening six years.

It also means that we accidentally asked “can we camp on your land?” to someone for the first time. It’s something we’d always feel too nervous or imposing to do, and the only reason we did it now was because we (mistakenly) thought camping here was a “standard” park-endorsed option. But no! It seemed clear from Nelly’s reaction that we were the first people to ask her to camp. So we very much appreciate her adjusting to this weird gringo request.

Next, food. To call the place a “restaurant” is a bit of an exaggeration. You could get anything you wanted as long as it was “trucha” (trout), and given Rett’s unappetizing first Peruvian restaurant meal (trout with the fish’s eye still looking at her), she was ready to eat a plate of potatoes for dinner. But with barely any coaxing, she willed herself to give it a second try, and was much happier for it.

Because the trout was literally the freshest fish we’ve ever had. From being fished out of a little holding pool, tossed flopping into the outdoor sink to be cleaned, and fried over a wood fire inside the dark stone hut, it was 15 minutes from pool to plate. But, it looked much more distant from the live version than Rett’s last experience, so she enjoyed it at least as much as me.

So once more, Peruvian hospitality steps up to rescue lost and confused gringos.