45.7 mi / 8.5 mph / 1797 ft. climbing
Home: Baños Termales Calachaca

For the second ride of our 5-ride final crossing of the Peruvian Andes, we were again up at 4am, cooking breakfast inside our masonry-block motel room, which had held enough of the previous day’s sun to remain a comfortable 55°F inside. That’s “comfortable” relative to the 28°F that it was outside, which itself didn’t even feel too bad since it was the part of the day with zero wind. Normally when cooking inside our room with our gasoline-fired camp stove (something we never did before we arrived in Peru), I put it inside the tile-lined shower, but here we had no bathroom, much-less a shower, so while the rough-plank wood floor probably would not have immediately caught fire, I positioned the stove so that I could open the corrugated steel door and kick the whole contraption out into the gravel parking area if things decided to go south.

We got rolling at 6am, out onto the perfectly-smooth asphalt of the PE-38 highway. We had actually wandered out to it yesterday on foot, partly to confirm that the long unpaved nightmare of the previous day’s ride had in fact ended (an “ah ha, I tricked you!!”-type dream didn’t feel entirely outside the realm of possibility, especially since we were now hitting the most-remote part of the traverse where gravel would be more-expected, with just a single small town across the next two days of riding). But it was real! And even better, it was a no-centerline road, narrow enough to indicate that traffic volumes would remain low enough to make a wider road unnecessary.

We climbed just 500 feet over the first 20 miles, but would then double that over the next 10. Still, 1500 feet over 30 miles is pretty relaxed for Peru, even if we caught some earlier-than-expected headwinds (the reliable afternoon headwinds were a major concern for us on this route, and a big factor behind our early starts). But we even got some tailwinds to help up the steep final pitches, so it almost felt even.

During lunch we could see the town of Capaso below, and it would be the last place to acquire the water we would need for the rest of the day today, and all day tomorrow. We bought a couple 1L bottles, which is something we’ve mostly been able to avoid thus far, by filtering natural sources when wild camping, but that wouldn’t work tonight. Well, except for a visit to the Chiliculco River a couple miles out of town, where I quickly pre-hydrated myself a liter or so of algae-tasting water squeezed into my mouth from my HydraPak filter bottle. The unknown quality/flow of the river is why we pre-bought water in town, and while we could have lived solely on river-filtered water, it’s probably good that we didn’t.

Up until now, the day had been far easier than our previous ride. But there were no “easy” days on this traverse, so that meant the last five miles were going to be a beast (along with the water-supply issues and general challenges of wild camping already hinted at). We were heading to camp at a hot spring, and while the direct route across the mountains should be paved the rest of the way, the offshoot to the hot spring was not.

There is a track on RideWithGPS’s heat map that cut straight west across the desert that I had initially mapped out. But then I saw a reference to the “road to the hot spring” being sandy (which road were you talking about?!), and studying satellite images (and reading Tacna water commission PowerPoints!) suggested that work on a new canal may have disrupted the short-cut anyway. So I’d selected a 4-miles-longer route that would continue southwest on the highway (climbing 400 ft.), and then turn northwest and down a (hopefully) more-proper gravel road, forming two edges of an inverted equilateral triangle, while the short cut was the third edge drawn straight across the top.

But we’d resolved to at least take a look down the short cut when we got there, and to my surprise there was a relatively-new informational sign posted there saying that this was the route to the Calachaca Hot Spring. Huh. We were still undecided, but the factor that tipped me to the (now not a) shortcut was the wind, which was now blowing strongly straight out of the west. Huh? But wouldn’t the shortcut direct us straight into it? Yes, but my feeble logic was that the effect of headwinds is lower the slower that you’re moving, so a slow sandy road would be a good way to cancel the headwinds?

Initially the road was decent, and a couple vehicles even passed, implicitly corroborating the fact that we would be able to reach the hot spring this way. But soon the sandiness became more of a struggle. Rett, who has minimal experience on sand, and is (rightfully) frightened by it, adapted and learned amazingly, gearing down to enable the power to spin through the tire-grabbing stuff.

Still, sections definitely required pushing/dragging the bikes (especially down and back up a stream crossing), and Rett became increasingly frustrated with how long it was taking us. Frequently in these situations she’ll tell me to go on ahead without her, and I usually ignore her (because while there is the benefit of her feeling freer to navigate the challenges on her own, this doesn’t outweigh the risks of separating). But this time I figured she was relatively safe (guarding her rear from traffic wouldn’t be necessary), and I could scout the hot spring ahead of her. I still stopped several times to ensure I could see her somewhere behind me, especially as the road improved near the end and I could go faster.

The main reason we took the challenging detour to the remote hot spring was not to get a relaxing soak, but to camp there, in the most-sheltered location that exists between Mazocruz and Tarata. While someone has constructed a concrete pool to hold the heated water, stairs to access it, and other amenities, there is no one “running” it and no admission charge. So no one to say whether you can or can’t camp there, but other bike tourers have done so (this section of our traverse briefly overlaps with a bikepacking.com route) without any issues.

Unfortunately even with our day off in Mazocruz, it was still the weekend, though maybe Sunday is better for crowds than Saturday would have been? Either way, there were a dozen people there when I arrived and descended the 30 stairs (some playing music on a party speaker, some drinking beer)  though I was glad to see no one was occupying a flat partly-walled concrete area tucked next to the cliffs where we could potentially pitch our tent.

I went back up to report to Rett, but she hadn’t arrived yet. Hmm, she wasn’t that far behind at my last look, did she make the wrong turn at the 4-way intersection just before the steep sandy descent to the parking lot? After spending some time scanning upwards (using my camera as binoculars), I began to get more worried, and a horrible vision began solidifying in my mind of her bleeding and crying out, with her bike laying on top of her where it slid out on the sand.

I grabbed my handlebar bag (including the camera-binoculars), left the bike visible in the parking lot, and huffed back up the hill as fast as I could. I retraced the route, looking for her tire tracks and footsteps in the sand, though since I couldn’t even really see my own tracks, this was a less-than-perfect method (which all methods would be in this far-from-cell-coverage area).

80% of the way back to the previous desert-path intersection, it suddenly struck me (with some relief) what had likely happened. A spider web of unnamed paths criss-cross the desert here on OpenStreetMap, which is the underlying data I used to construct a route on RideWithGPS. Due to some iffy-looking stuff on the satellite view, I had chosen to route a zig-zag near the end, that added half-a-mile, but would likely be more-reliable. But arriving on the ground in 2025 (two or three years after the satellite images), the left turn was clearly iffy-er than the direct route. Woo hoo, saved half a mile, and on an easily rideable surface, too! Rett, following behind, and knowing nothing about my planned zig-zag route, would naturally continue straight the same way, done!

Except, she did know about the zig-zag route! I had forgotten that she views my RideWithGPS routes on her phone, and though she’s still terrible at understanding maps, she’s perfectly adept at knowing when her GPS dot is moving off the line. 100 yards of run-walking further, the sand proved my theory: her tire tracks suddenly appeared in deep soft sand, makin a U-turn. She had come 50 yards down the straight path, realized that was “wrong”, and reversed to follow the prescribed zig-zag route.

My heart broke to see those tracks. In them I could feel her frustration as the sand required her to use all her strength just to turn the bike around. And they pointed to a route that would be longer and harder. And worst of all, it was absolutely the correct choice for her to make, given the information she had.

I continued following her (strangely far more visible than my) tire tracks on the zig-zag through the desert, just in case, even though I could have saved half a mile on my near-2-mile foot-search if I’d just turned straight back. I could see every spot where the sand had been too treacherous, when her footprints appeared alongside her tire tracks. Finally, there I found her, standing safely in the parking lot, with no idea where I’d been, or how much my heart had been racing. But I couldn’t be mad, since she’d done nothing wrong. Except to tell me to ride on ahead of her!!

We unloaded our bags and began the laborious task of carrying them and our bikes down the stairs to the hot springs. Our concrete area was still free, and we could change semi-out-of-view and then join the six other people still in the hot pool. It was wonderful, and helped release my remaining bits of tension. Many hot springs/tubs are so hot that they get uncomfortable for me after a few minutes, but this one was perfect, and I could have stayed in for an hour. Unfortunately we only got about 15 minutes, because we wanted to dry off while it was still sunny and relatively warm (even though the air temperature was probably less than 60°F, the intense sun and continued stiff wind meant our skin and clothes dried almost instantly).

We cooked up dinner while we waited for everyone else to leave, which was happening with a frustrating lack of alacrity (a new family even turned up, with their own music, around 4pm!) But eventually, suddenly, we had the place to ourselves. Our real target was the covered stone hut, whose built-in benches until now had been filled with people’s bags and change-of-clothes. Assholes leaving garbage behind is a big problem at the site, but it only took me a few minutes to bag up the small amount of  trash in the hut, and dry out some muddy puddles on the concrete floor with a Swedish dishcloth (useful for everything!)

Wonderfully, our 3-person tent would just fit inside (sans rainfly, but not needed), and we could take advantage of our whole reason for coming here: unlike 99% of our Peruvian hotels/AirBNBs, this primitive stone hut hours from anywhere WAS HEATED! The hot spring emerges from the ground directly into the backside of the hut, pours into a small steaming well, and then runs through a pipe under the floor before emptying into the main pool outside. Now more than 1000 feet higher than a city that dropped below freezing last night, this was a critical comfort.

Rett lit some incense, and every time I ducked out from our hut and walked the rough path between stone walls, it felt like we were living in the ruins of an Inca village! All the struggle and heartache and waiting was completely worth it. It’s definitely one of the most-amazing places we’ve ever camped, or hoteled/AirBNBed for that matter, since it’s sort of a cross between the two. Just having an endless source of hot water in our “room” is a rare luxury that most Peruvian AirBNBs don’t even have!

But wait, why the concern with water if you’re staying at a spring alongside a river? Well, the Maule River is heavily polluted with arsenic (and boron, but arsenic is the concern for drinking water), coming naturally from another volcanic spring a couple miles upstream (and presumably our spring too). That’s why there is the big canal project, to tap off the river’s water upstream from the poison sources, and send it to the big city of Tacna down near the desert coast (I read a lot about this in preparation!) Unlike most other water dangers, boiling or filtering does nothing for arsenic, so it was a case of “water water everywhere, and not a drop to drink, but plenty to wash dishes with!”