A Bicycle Ride Through South America

Or rather, beam me down to Puerto Montt! Not the first time this phrase has gone through my head when cycling but I found myself thinking it quite a lot as I ground my way through the desierto and headwinds of northern Chile – I just wanted to get to the start of the 770 mile long Carretera Austral (Southern Road) which runs through Patagonia from Puerto Montt to the enigmatically named Villa O’Higgins. So I cheated a bit . . .

I said now I’ve got my magic bus

At the end of my last post I was in Huasco with Emma. Three days of riding from there, mostly on Ruta 5, took us to La Serena further down the coast. My ‘beam me up’ thoughts were concentrated on getting to Santiago, Chile’s capital, still another 300 miles of Ruta 5 away. Six more days of ploughing down the Pan-American highway felt akin to poking myself in the eyes with a stick so I did the only sensible (and cheap) thing I could do – I took the bus.

Santiago

I can’t lie, Santiago doesn’t make it into my Top 20 Cities. Or my Top 30. Or . . .

But there was some pretty cool street art:

I said now I’ve got my magic bus (reprise)

The start of the Carretera Austral was still – depressingly – 800 miles further south. At Emma’s suggestion I decided to head to Valdivia for Xmas – 650 miles and 12 days ride away. After five days of slog (mostly boring Ruta 5, mostly boring headwinds) I’d reached Chillan, still 300 miles to go.

I wasn’t having fun, just grinding away, nothing much to look at, so I took another bus, spent three days in Valdivia and then rode for four days (not on Ruta 5 – woohoo!) to get to Puerto Varas, just north of Puerto Montt and much nicer, in time for some uneventful festive celebrations.

At last, the Carretera Austral!

I read somewhere recently that Chile’s Southern Highway, 789 miles long, was ranked in the top three most scenic cycling routes in the world by National Geographic. Rainforest, volcanoes, pristine lakes and rivers, snow-capped mountains, valleys . . .

I’m only a few days in but the change in scenery – and my mood! – is incredible. It feels like the start of an entirely new trip to the one I’ve been on since leaving Cusco in October.

I’ll leave it there for now, just a few more images from the last few days:

More on the fabulous Carretera soon . . .

Dicky 🚴🏻💨

Try, try and try again, apparently. Well here I am, seeing if I can prove the saying justifies the effort!

The ‘first’ was my naive – in hindsight – idea that I could cycle the approximately 14,000 miles from The Arctic Circle in Alaska to Ushuaia in Argentina, at the southern tip of South America, in one go. About 8 months should do it? This was in 2017.

I made it to Acapulco in Mexico where a combination of too many days of mosquitoes, over 8,000 miles travelled and hot, sweaty nights in my tent persuaded me to call it a day and retreat to the UK. Still, it was an amazing trip – I cycled alongside a herd of running buffaloes in BC, saw a total eclipse of the sun in Oregon, pushed my bike across the Golden Gate Bridge and cycled the road that Forrest Gump ran in the incredible Monument Valley NP.

The first ‘try again’ came a few months later, in 2018, when I flew back to Mexico (my first night in Mexico City I was shaken out of my bed by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake!), picked up where I’d left off in Acapulco and went on an incredible 3,000 mile ride through the rest of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. To be fair I only cycled one day in Panama, having broken my collarbone in Costa Rica! I was determined to cycle over the border so made it to the nearest town and then caught a bus to Panama City. Back to the UK to mend.

The second ‘try again’ came in April 2019 when I flew out to Medellin in Colombia, determined to complete the ride to Ushuaia – only 7,000 miles to go?! It wasn’t to be, I made it to Cusco in Peru, but still had another amazing and incident packed (read hospital visits! 😂) journey by bike and bus through Colombia, Ecuador and northern Peru, managing some incredible Andean hikes in the Huascaran and Huayhuash NPs, as well as the incredible Machu Picchu. The imminent arrival of the rainy season and the Covid pandemic sent me back to the UK – again.

I left Selina (my bike) in Cusco with my friend Scott, intending to go back at some point to finish the job. But as time went by it all kind of went on the back burner, something I thought about once in a while and then moved onto something else. But there’s always been that pull of unfinished business and my bucket list destinations of the Bolivian salt flats, the Atacama Desert, riding the Carretera Austral through Patagonia and reaching the tip of South America.

So here I am, back in Peru, trying again, eight years after cycling out of Fairbanks Alaska . . .

Away Day Blues (sorry, Reds)

“Roy Keane, Wayne Rooney, Christiano Ronaldo . . .”

I was sitting in the back of a police car, being taken to hospital, holding a huge wad of tissue paper to my face to catch the blood pouring from my nose and mouth, when the most senior of the three police officers – who had literally picked me up off the road – told me he was a Manchester United fan and began to reel off a list of his favourite players. These were not comforting words!

“Where are you from”

“Leeds”

“Oh . . . Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs . . . “

Could things possibly be any worse than this?!

And it had started so well, just four days earlier . . .

Vamos! (Cusco)

Cusco really is a beautiful city and a great place to start a bike ride from, albeit it’s 3,399 metres above sea level and therefore a pretty tough place to start a bike ride from! Worth a few days staying with Scott and his partner Sara to acclimatise a bit and have another look round.

Just time to stock up with food, including the all important tins of tuna . . .

And then the Grand Depart:

Although there had been a lot of rain during my few days in Cusco (rainproof poncho sellers even outnumbering the ladies selling massages) my first day on the bike was sunny all day long. On the road I quickly met three other tourers – Jack and his daughter Erica, and Goren, Erica’s boyfriend – and rode with them for the next two days, roughly tracking along the Rio Vilcanota. So far, so good . . .

Check out what drinking Cocozhi can do for you!? I really should’ve had some:

On days three and four I was back on my own and facing a 750m climb upto and over the Col de la Raya at an altitude of 4,338m – a bit of a slog. Beautiful scenery to begin with, then a wet and cold final push to the top:

Very pleased to have made it to the top, but feeling quite cold, I could now look forward to the long descent . . .

Blood on the Tracks

Eight miles down the other side I was approaching a railway crossing. I’ve cycled over countless railway crossings. About a second before crossing this one I knew I was in trouble. The tracks didn’t cross the road at a right angle and they were wet. My front wheel went one way, I went the other and I literally face planted into the road! It hurt. A lot. I honestly thought I’d knocked my teeth out. There was a lot of blood pouring out of my face onto the road and my lovely clean jacket. I thought my trip was over, after just my fourth day on the road.

Then there were three people with me, the only word I could understand was “tranquillo, tranquillo” – “calm, calm” as they told me to stay lying down. My Spanish is extremely limited and I’ve never wished more than that I could speak it better! Sara, back in Cusco, had given me her number and one of the chaps phoned her so she could translate for them and for me. The police were coming to take me to a clinic in Santa Rosa, about ten miles further on. Apart from the Manchester United nonsense they were brilliant, as were the medics at the clinic!

In went stitches into my upper lip, out went bits of road from my face!

Incredibly I still have my teeth and my nose isn’t broken apparently (no x-Ray machine to check). Sara and Scott arranged a car to get me and Selina out of the sleepy town of Santa Rosa and onto Puno, on the shores of Lake Titicaca (the world’s highest fresh water lake) where I need a few days to recuperate and get my stitches taken out. Big, big thanks to them 🥰.

There are worse places than Puno to spend a few days, especially when my old mate Mark has gone halves on a nice hotel for me to stay in! Cheers mate.

I’m incredibly relieved this trip is still on. When I get going again it’s three days riding to Bolivia. If I see a railway crossing I’ll be getting off and walking over them!

Vamos!! 🚴🏻💨

“In the variety of its charms and the power of its spell, I know of no place in the world that can compare with it” 

(Hiram Bingham, discoverer of Machu Picchu)

OK, so the first thing to say is that I’m writing this blog post about four months after I actually reached Cusco and the famous Machu Picchu, an amazing place that’s been on my travel bucket list for more years than I care to remember. And the reason I’m writing this long delayed post now is that it’s taken me this long to work out how to get around the issue of my broken blog site! If you’re a Facebook friend you’ll probably know I made it to Machu Picchu before returning to the UK; but, if you’re not, you might have thought I’d fallen off a cliff somewhere in northern Peru. Not so, I’m still alive!

This won’t be a long post, it’s written mostly to plug the hole that would otherwise exist in the story of my ride(s) from Alaska to Argentina, before I return to Peru in May to hopefully – and finally – complete the journey.

Having broken the ride on two previous occasions – the first in Acapulco due to a general weariness and the second in Panama due to a broken shoulder – the third break, having reached Machu Picchu, was much easier to reconcile myself to. There are some sought after places that turn out to be a bit of a disappointment, the hype not quite matching the reality, but Machu Picchu wasn’t one of them – it is a truly spectacular and awe-inspiring place. Thank goodness the Spanish conquistadors didn’t find it and destroy it (as they did with Cusco). The four day trek and 1,800 steps upto the citadel on the last day were all worth it.

The about-to-arrive wet season in Bolivia and Chile is what sent me home. South America is way too beautiful not to go back and enjoy when the weather is at its optimal and that’s what I intend to do, having left my bicycle and some of my gear in Cusco.

So, a few images from my last few weeks in Peru and, all being well I’ll pick this blog back up in May/June when I’m back on the road to Ushuaia.

Hasta la vista!

The Lone Cycler

“These boots were made for walking, And that’s just what they’ll do . . . “ (Nancy Sinatra)

Because sometimes a bicycle won’t take you where a pair of boots will . . . 

Leaving the bike behind

My cycling buddies Scott and Sarah had told me about a four day hike they’d enjoyed in the Huascaran National Park and I’d determined that it was something I was going to do as well. Following my recent crash I felt perfectly happy about putting the bike aside and reverting to two feet to see some of Peru’s most famous mountains and lagunas.  A day trip to the beautiful Laguna Paron, which sits at 4,200 metres asl, got me in the mood.

Santa Cruz trek, Huascaran National Park

Then it was onto the four day Santa Cruz trek, of which there are two options:

– Independent: get yourself to the start point, carry all your gear for four days (tent, sleeping bag, mat, food etc).

– Guided: get transport to the start point, hiking guide, cook (three meals a day plus snacks) donkeys to carry your gear so all you have to do is the walking.

Hmm, let’s see . . .

The guided hike worked out at about $30 per day – incredibly good value.  In case anyone is thinking about hiking holidays in Peru – and I’d like to think it might be on some of your bucket lists by the end of this blog post – do NOT book them online through adventure companies in your own country before flying to Peru.  I’ve heard of, and seen, groups who have paid over $2,000 per person by doing it this way.  Just get to Peru and then book onto a hiking tour locally, it’s easy and could cost you ten times less.

OK, some pics from the trek:

In case you’re thinking you’ve seen that mountain before, it’s the Artesonraju, and it’s image is used by Paramount Pictures, so you’ve probably seen it many, many times from your sofa or at the picture house.  It’s a lot more impressive up close!

Back in Huaraz

Huaraz is a large, bustling town which sits at the foot of the Huascaran NP and is the hub of most tourist activities in the area.  It’s not everyone’s cup of tea but I quite like it.  The Quechua women here have a different style of hat to the tall, cream-coloured ones of further north – some just as tall but made of different material with a feathered pattern on the side and often decorated with flowers.

Some nice wall art here too:

Huaraz has busy markets, restaurants, cafes, Quechua women street-sellers (anything from food, jewellery, fruit, vegetables, knitted clothes . . . ), all of which make it a thriving, noisy town.  It also has incredibly annoying car drivers who all seem to drive with one hand on the wheel and the other on the horn, which they sound constantly even when there is seemingly nothing to honk at.

The most ignored and unenforced sign I’ve ever seen!

The Huayhuash Circuit

The Santa Cruz hike had rekindled my love of hiking and to the south of the Huascaran NP lies the smaller but even more spectacular Huayhuash (pronounced Waywash) NP.  I booked onto an eight day hike that is considered to be one of the Top 10 treks in the world, surrounded by 5,500m and 6,000+m peaks and glacial lagoons and rivers.  It didn’t disappoint.  I joined my fellow hikers – Jakob from the Netherlands, James from Ireland, Eric from Italy and Christina from Austria, as well as our guide, cook, three mules and a horse – and embarked on eight wonderful days, filled with spectacular scenery, starry nights, 6.00am starts, good food, wonderful camping spots, much, much laughter and several drunken games of ‘Who Am I’ in the only pueblo bar on the 110km route!

The hike took us over several mountain passes, including the Cuyoc Pass at 5,000m, as well as past the 6,344m Siula Grande of ‘Touching the Void’ fame.

The five amigos – Eric, James, Jakob, Christina: if you’re reading this I LOVE you all!  I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again – traveling is at least as much about the people you meet as the places you see.  I can’t add many more words, hopefully the pictures tell the story of a fantastic week and an amazing Andean national park.

Onwards

It’s about 1,000 miles from Huaraz to Cusco.  I have five weeks left on my Peru visa and it would take me at least that amount of time to cycle it.  So, guess what?  I’m taking the bus! There’s a lot to do in and around Cusco, as well as people to see – an old University friend Juliet, my old cycling buddy Scott and hopefully James from the Huayhuash trek.  I make no apologies, it’s not always about the bike . . .

Until next time

The Lone Cycler

 

 

 

 

“Then I’m dying at the bottom of a pit in the blazing sun, Torn and twisted at the foot of a burning bike, And I think somebody somewhere must be tolling a bell . . . “ (Bat Out of Hell)

Yes, yes, I know, overdramatic lyrics (I didn’t die) and that’s clearly a motorbike, but I like to think the guy’s posture resembles something close to what mine looked like as I vainly tried to avoid the second big crash (and second visit to hospital) of my South American adventure.  To be honest, although I may be giving myself credit for a suppleness in the lower back I no longer possess, and his hair being a bit longer longer than mine, I reckon we have very similar muscle definition.  But more of this later . . .

Vote for the hat!

My last blog post had me about to leave Cajamarca, the town where I’d first encountered the wonderful outfits and big hats of the people of this region of Peru.  The next few days were spent riding amongst beautiful rolling hills and mountain scenery on a mix of paved and dirt roads, passing through small villages and towns.  Most of the villages were those of the ‘big hat’ people where I watched them in various labours – brick making, roof tile making, sheep and cattle herding, fruit, crops and vegetable cultivation.  It was good to make the connection between the women selling the produce in the markets of the bigger towns with the actual growing of it in their villages. Very friendly people too – always ready with a smile and a wave and a “buenas dias!”

The small town of Cajabamba afforded me more people watching opportunities.

Now, when I say that nearly every building in the countryside of Peru has a name and/or picture of some local or regional politician, alongside a slogan and request for a vote, I am not exaggerating.  And – I’m guessing due to levels of illiteracy – each person/party is also represented by an image, helping people to know where to place their cross on the ballot paper.  They can vote for a sombrero and no corruption (good luck with that) . . .

Or Lenin, represented by a house (should be a hammer and sickle, I think Lenin has missed a trick here) . . .

There are shovels to vote for, stars, mothers holding babies, you can even vote for me:

Can’t quite see the icon for that one but I think it’s an image of a well toned, good looking bloke on a bicycle).

I imagine the people who live in or own these houses, buildings and walls get a few Soles for allowing them to be daubed with election slogans but, apart from that, it’s hard to imagine how these people’s lives will be significantly improved by whoever they vote for.  The rich will always be the rich and the poor will always be poor.  Call me a cynic!

A day to remember

The easy 33 mile ride from Cajabamba to Huamachuco was one of the best days I’ve had in Peru to date, passing through lovely villages and hillside fields with mountains stretching away in the hazy distance.

I’ve been through a few ‘bamba’ towns and villages in Peru and this was the day I cycled through the unfortunately named ‘Shitabamba’.  It was actually quite pretty!  Anyway, it was a very relaxing day, nothing too strenuous by way of climbing, sunny, warm, 360 degrees of lovely scenery.  Too good to last really.  Things were about to change . . .

A day to forget

Actually the day from Huamachuco to Cachicadan began very well with bright blue skies, more gorgeous scenery and a village with a little fiesta going on. 

And then the day went literally down hill.  Since the crash I had on my first day out of Medellin my brakes have rarely been good, even after having new brake pads and cables fitted in Quito.  My previous love of downhills (my speed record is 52mph/83kmh in Alberta) has turned to nervous caution.  I have quite a few little cycling mantras and, on steep and winding downhills I’m always saying to myself “no prizes for speed” by way of cautioning myself against recklessness.  This particular downhill was a 1,700 foot drop on a nice, new tarmac road.  Lovely!  I swapped my baseball cap for my helmet – this proved to be a very good move – and set off, cautiously.  The problem is, if one’s front brake decides not to work at all, it doesn’t take very long on a downhill, and on a loaded bike, before stopping becomes impossible.  The back brake alone will not stop the bike once you’re going at a certain speed.  My front brake did indeed completely fail, which didn’t stop me desperately pulling on it in a vain bid to slow down, taking on the rough shape of the chap on the motorbike at the top of this post!  Neither was any amount of Fred Flintstone-style foot braking going to help.  It’s a horrible feeling/experience of helplessness – the knowledge that you’re about to come off and it’s only a matter of how much damage is going to be done, your brain screaming “you are soooo fucked!”  

I inevitably hit a corner I couldn’t get round, the bike went down the hillside and I bounced and slid down the gravel and tarmac.  Bike – OK 👍.  Me – shredded shirt and shorts, badly gashed elbow (four stitches required), bleeding shoulder, knee, hip, bruised ribs, broken finger, sprained neck that I could only turn to the right, not the left 👎.  Almost a carbon copy of my Medellin accident.  I managed enough of an adjustment to my front brake to make it semi-effective, made my way gingerly down the rest of the hill to Cachicadan and then to the little hospital there to have stitches put in my elbow and my fingers taped together.  Remembering the bang when my head hit the road, and looking at the large dent in my helmet, I have no doubt I would have been a lot worse off if I’d left my baseball cap on.

I’ve learnt to become quite sanguine about things going wrong, even when in strange places.  As a good friend of mine, Lynne, said to me, it’s sometimes the price you pay when striking out for adventure.  If you put your head above the parapet sometimes you’ll get shot at.  I also try to take something positive from these kind of setbacks and, in this case, the accident helped me to refocus.  But I’ll come back to that, first of all . . .

Yes, it’s time for What Really Grinds My Gears!

And the topic for this post is: Choosing to do the Wrong Thing.  

We all do the wrong things at times, make decisions we regret later.  But I’d like to think, certainly at this stage of my life, that I don’t choose to do the wrong thing.  I’ve been on the receiving end of a couple of examples of this recently and it’s had me both seething and contemplating the nature of man.  And dog!  And the parallels between them.

In Peru I’d say there are, generally speaking, four types of dog:

1.  The Defender.  This dog guards his owner’s property by patrolling its perimeter, barking “don’t come any closer!” at you in a menacing way, but not crossing his (or her’s) own boundary itself.  As long you keep cycling this dog will leave you alone, happy that it has seen you off by letting you know verbally what’s what.  OK doggy.

2.  The Observer.  This dog doesn’t bark at you and doesn’t take any interest whatsoever in defending anything.  It is generally lying or sitting down, enjoying the sunshine and doing nothing that might lead it to disturb its own tranquility.  You could probably get off your bike, walk through its owner’s front door and it might cock a raised eyebrow at you as you go past.  Nice doggy.

3.  The Scavenger.  This dog has no owner and no property to defend.  It has no-one to look after it and its only interest in life is to try to find enough food to eat to stay alive.  The ones in towns are good at begging at restaurants (they are often very polite in their begging) and the ones in the middle of nowhere are generally so terrified of humans that you can’t even get them to take biscuits from you.  Very, very sad.  And completely harmless.  Poor doggy.

4.  The Nasty Bastard.  This dog is a nasty bastard.  It will go out of its way to chase you down the road, terrorise and intimidate you.  It doesn’t matter to this dog whether it has property to defend or not, it just wants to scare the shit out of you or have the chance to take a piece out of you.  This dog is the boss, you’re a cycling Gringo in his country and he’s going to make sure you don’t forget it.  This dog enjoys his work.  Bad doggy!

What’s my point?  Dogs make choices.  Don’t give me this “it’s just in a dog’s nature” nonsense when they’re haring down the road after a cyclist.  Some choose to bark, some choose to beg, some choose to keep as far away from you as possible, some choose to take a sleepy interest in you, some choose to take no interest in you whatsoever and some are Nasty Bastards!  The latter choose to do the wrong thing.  As I was walking my bike through Cachicadan, looking for a clinic following my crash, dripping blood and generally feeling a bit sorry for myself one dog – quite large – took it upon itself to turn into Nasty Bastard.  This was not a good time.  Some workmen were laying down some new paving bricks and I stopped, picked one of them up, raised it above my head and shouted my loudest “fuck off!!” that I could to the dog.  In 1966 the Argentina captain, Antonio Rattin, was sent off by the German referee in the World Cup quarter final against England, apparently for “the look in his eyes”.  I reckon I must have had the same look, because the dog yelped and ran away, all its bravery dissipated.  After too many other similar incidents, if that dog had kept coming and I’d had the power I’d have sent it to doggy heaven.  

Having said all that I can still excuse dogs a little, certainly when compared to humans, as even the Nasty Bastard dogs are less capable of rational thinking than their two-legged owners.  Three days ago I was cycling out of a bus station, about to pass the security guard’s little kiosk when four dogs left the area of the kiosk to have a serious go at me.  These were all Nasty Bastard dogs, they meant it, it was quite terrifying and all I could do was stop and try to keep them off.  The security guard stood five metres away, hands on hips.  “Por favor” I shouted over to him, “controla a tus perros!” (“Please control your dogs!”).  He didn’t move.  I asked him again.  He took a couple of steps forward, shrugged his shoulders and pointed at my bike as if to tell me it was my fault for being a cyclist in a public place.  I asked him again to control the dogs but he was smirking by now.  Then his mate came out and shoed the dogs away enough so I could get going.  I thanked him and yelled abuse back at the moron.  He could/should have helped me by stopping his dogs but he chose to do the wrong thing, presumably because he thought a Gringo on a bicycle was a fair target?!

Here’s a thought – just do the right thing!

That’s it, my gears have been ground!

Onwards and Downwards

After three days rest in Cachicadan I planned a seven day ride to Caraz near the Huascaran National Park.  I only made it for three days before I was forced to give up, though I still enjoyed some beautiful scenery.

The little hill town of Pallasca had a restaurant with nineteen food items printed on a menu.  The waitress came over and asked “Uno cena?” (“One dinner?”).  “Er, yes please” I said, but she was gone before I could place my order.  Two minutes later she came back with my dinner – exactly the same dinner as everyone else in the restaurant was eating!  A bit like the old Ford slogan – ‘you can have any colour car you like, as long as its black’.

 

In spite of the accident and some fairly tough climbing on dusty dirt roads I was really enjoying riding through these mountains with their hilltop and valley bottom villages.  Although still quite sore, I felt OK.  Unfortunately Selina, my bike, had had enough.  On the drop down into the town of Cabana I had no brakes left and no amount of tweaking would give them any purchase.  It wasn’t too steep and I was able to Fred Flintstone my way down, but my bike was now unrideable, another accident waiting to happen.  Luckily there is a daily bus from Cabana to Chimbote on the coast, a large town with bicycle repair shops.  So, I’ve dropped 3,500 metres from the mountains to sea level and yesterday Selina was fitted with new brake pads and cables.

These are what’s left of three of the old ones I had fitted in Quito, just 800 cycling miles previously!  No wonder I was struggling.  Brake pads shouldn’t need replacing after 800 miles but I’m not sure whether the pads were just poor quality or whether their complete wearing away is a testimony to the sheer amount of braking you have to do on Ecuador’s and Peru’s hills.  I suspect the latter.

 

Onwards, back upwards and refocussed

Today I’m taking a bus back up into the mountains, to Caraz at 2,250 metres, a town at the foot of Peru’s most famous and spectacular mountain range, the Cordillera Blanca, and the place I was heading for before my latest (and last!?) crash.  All being well I’ll be going hiking for a few days before getting back on the bike.  I only have two months left on my Peru visa and the crash has helped me to refocus on what’s important for me to see here.  Plans can change but my current one is to spend most of my remaining time around the Cordillera Blanca and Cusco.  There are about 1,000 miles between the two and I don’t plan on cycling all of them!

Just before I go . . .

Peru: Well Known as the Culinary Centre of the World

I saw this bold and rather surprising claim in a tourist leaflet in Huamachuco.  It went on to claim that Huamachuco in particular was a place of gastronomic delight.  Other travellers may have a different view to mine but I have to say that these claims are as far fetched as it’s possible to imagine.  I’m not saying the food is poor but it’s the least varied and my least favourite of South America to date.  Chicken and chips with rice seems to be the food of choice here and many restaurants – like the one in Pallasca – only offer one choice of dish.  Example of what I see as a general lack of imagination: the hotel I’m staying in right now (and it’s quite a nice one) includes breakfast.  This morning’s breakfast consisted of a cup of coffee and a small bread roll containing three olives.  That’s weird enough, but the olives still had the stones in them.  I rest my case.

Until next time, stay safe (like me!?) and make some travel plans.

The Lone Cycler

This is what I call a breakfast!

 

 

 

“It is only through labour and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things”

(Theodore Roosevelt) 

But what if the effort is sometimes just too painful?!

Bad day(s) at the office

After three weeks of generally lazing around in Vilcabamba – looking at the changing colours of the mountains and moods of the sky, drinking coffee and rum, smoking Cuban cigars I managed to acquire, visiting the town’s Belgian bakery and other eateries – I needed to leave.  Apart from anything else my 90 day visa only had four days left and it was a three day ride to the border.  I had considered taking a bus but persuaded myself out of it by telling myself I needed to ride to start getting fit again and the scenery should be good enough to warrant not looking at it through the window of a bus.  Hindsight is a wonderful thing isn’t it?

It was time to look ahead to Peru but if I thought Ecuador was about to let me go quietly I was badly mistaken.  Why should it? – this was Ecuador, land of pain!  The first day out of Vilcabamba was a 48 mile long day from hell, not helped by the useless profile app Strava.  According to Strava all the 3,850 feet of climbing came in the first 21 miles, then it was all gently downhill to the town of Palanda.  After the usual sweating and heaving myself up those 21 miles I turned a corner to see the road continuing up.  And up.  And up.  On it went, so steep in places I was reduced to getting off and pushing.  So, here’s the real problem: at the start of the climb your brain tells your legs that after 21 miles they can relax – all the hard work has been done, time to coast.  When this doesn’t happen, your legs are confused, they complain to your brain – “you said it would be downhill, you lied!”.  Your brain also protests and shouts back, “it’s not my fault, I was lied to as well!”  And, as the road continues to spiral upwards, your legs and brain continue to spiral downwards, screaming at the unfairness of it all.  As each new corner approaches they whisper a desperate hope to each other – “it must start downhill after this one?”  As the corners added up with no change in the gradient so did the desperation.  After eight more miles of this exhausting effort for legs and brain the road finally crested and I enjoyed 19 miles of fast downhill, but I will NEVER trust Strava again – it literally ruined my day.

Some wall art along the way:

Proof of the Strava pudding was emphasised the following day.  An easy, steady 800 foot climb out of town (according to Strava) began with an 800 foot drop, followed by a steep 1,800 foot climb.  To make matters worse the road turned to dust and rocks, the sun burned down all day and my brakes failed (again).  I was reduced to pushing up the steep sections and using my feet as brakes – Fred Flintstone style – on the downhill sections, hanging on grimly to try to slow the bike.

After unloading the bike to effect some repairs to the brakes, reloading it, I then punctured 50 metres further on.  Everything back off in the dirt and heat, fix puncture, start again.  

It was another exhausting day, the end of which included a steep 2,000 foot climb up more dust and gravel ‘road’ into the town of Zumba.  There was no way – I flagged down a pick-up style taxi, threw my bike and gear in the back and paid the princely sum of $1 to get into town, the best value $1 I think I’ve spent.

Two pretty brutal days meant taking a day off in Zumba to recover – I had one ‘spare’ day in my ride to the border – and some time to reflect on Effort versus Reward: what level of effort merits what level of reward?  Sure, as an example, these two days had provided some nice views, but had they been worth the pain and misery I’d put myself through?  Answer = not really.  Effort versus Reward will help to shape future decisions.

Heaven knows I’m miserable now

My final day in Ecuador was, of course, another brutal one!  I wrote the words of The Smiths song in my diary after another horrible day, albeit a day that took me into a new country – number 46 of countries I’ve now been to.  More climbing on impossibly steep unpaved road, breathing in dust in burning heat.  My brakes packed up again and I managed to take a wrong turn and added a few more miles to an already tough day.  The remote Ecuador/Peru crossing point I’d chosen lies on the Rio Canchis but – due to my lack of brakes – I couldn’t even enjoy the steep downhill to the river.  Instead I had to walk the bike down the last mile, no water left, covered in dust, arms aching from the effort of holding the weight of a loaded bike.  I suppose it was an apt way to leave Ecuador – a beautiful country, but not the easiest to ride a bike in!

Into Peru! 

The border crossing was one of my stranger ones.  On the Ecuador side the customs official expressed surprise that I’d left it until the last day of my visa to exit the country.  “One more day” he told me as he made an alarming throat-cutting gesture.  You can be fined upto about $6,000 for overstaying your visa but I was unaware of potential execution.  He made the same comment and gesture as he stamped me out, just to re-emphasise that I’d narrowly missed being beheaded.

On the Peru side I temporarily shut down the computer system.  Spotting what I thought was a bottle of hand sanitiser I squeezed a generous helping onto my dirty mitts only to realise it was just liquid soap as my hands gunked up.  The finger printing machine couldn’t cope and the customs chap had to reboot the system while ushering me towards the toilet to wash my hands.

But I was finally into Peru.  And that means . . .

In keeping with other flags of the region the colour red represents blood spilled by the martyrs; white represents purity and peace.  On the Coat of Arms the animal is a vicuna, the national animal (who knew?) on a blue background, representing Peru’s fauna.  The tree is a cinchona tree, source of the anti-malaria drug quinine and a key flavourant of tonic water (again, who knew?) on a white background, representing the country’s flora. The bottom shows coins spilling from a cornucopia, representing the mineral resources of the country.  And that’s all I’ve got to say about that.

First impressions

I spent my first night in Peru in the small town of Namballe.  My legs ached, my back ached, my head ached.  The only thing the three previous riding days had lacked was rain.  I woke up to the sound of pouring rain and screeching cockerels with zero enthusiasm for getting on the bike.  But there was nothing in Namballe, not even breakfast, so I bought three bananas and a packet of biscuits, put my wet weather gear on and headed out of town in the rain and mist – and uphill of course.

North western Peru is generally poor.  It’s remote and there are very few tourists.  Volley ball is very popular, you see kids and adults playing it everywhere.  The towns and villages in this region are dusty and run down – the smartest building is always the church, much better to spend money on a nice church while most people live in shabby houses with no running water or electricity, or even windows.  There are lots of dogs, most of them street dogs fending for themselves and producing more dogs.  Too large a percentage of them take an unhealthy interest in chasing cyclists (more on this later).  The most popular forms of transport are motorbikes and tuk-tuks.  Like the other countries of Central and South America motorbikes often carry four people and one of the things that never ceases to anger me is that children (even babies) are driven around with nothing to protect them.  You often see an adult rider wearing a helmet while their two year old child is hanging on somewhere – no helmet of course.  What are they thinking!?

After reaching the bigger town of San Ignacio I decided to save some time by getting a bus 70 miles forward to Jaen.  When I turned up at the bus station the ticket office woman started speaking to a taxi driver.  I said I wanted the bus, not a taxi, but she said it cost only $5 to take me, my bike and all my gear the 70 miles in the taxi.  I took the taxi!

The trip was nice, mostly through a lush, agricultural valley.

Only 2% of all visitors to the chaotic town of Jaen are non Peruvians and, once there, it’s easy to see why.  I was chased all the way to my hotel – in the middle of a construction site – by the local dogs, all of whom seemed to resent foreign visitors.  The main street heaved with motorbikes and tuk-tuks, dust and petrol fumes filling the air.  About 90% of the businesses were motorbike repair garages – if they weren’t being ridden they were being fixed.  There is absolutely nothing worth seeing in or near Jaen.

The Utcubamba Valley and Kuelap

After being chased back out of town by the local dogs I had the easiest 42 miles of the trip so far, mostly flat along the wide Maranon River valley to the town of Bagua Grande.  For the first time in South America I even moved into my biggest gear – lovely!

From there it was into the Utcubamba River valley, following the river gently upstream, in spite of the drastic-looking uphill warning signs.

This was/is a lush, wide agricultural valley, with all sorts of crops – bananas, maize, coffee and (much to my surprise) rice.

As I got gradually higher the valley narrowed and basically turned into a canyon with massive, steep-sided mountains lining the way.

After the strife of previous days I was back into the cycling groove – beautiful scenery, blue skies, quiet roads and easy pedalling.

What the f**k!?

I was shocked out of my serenity by the sudden, unexpected and extremely unwelcome sight of a huge (has anyone ever seen a small one?) Rottweiler bounding aggressively towards me, barking and teeth bared.  I’ve never actually been bitten by a dog, my worst experience being the self-inflicted bear spray incident back in Mexico.  But neither have I ever been confronted by a Rottweiler.  Usually it’s a case of outrunning dogs, standing my ground, throwing warning stones or just sussing out the ‘all bark but no trousers’ dogs.  But it only took a split second to realise there was nothing I could do to protect myself against this beast if it was intent on taking a few chunks out of me and my heart was pounding.  And then it’s unseen owner called it off.  I’ve never been so relieved!  But the after effect is that I’m now constantly on the lookout for dogs – every town, village and building I go past.  Like all cyclists I’m always wary, but Peru is the worst country since Mexico for my nerves when it comes to dogs – and I know I’m not the only one.

Near the town of Nuevo Tingo are the ruins of Kuelap, sitting on the top of a limestone ridge in the Andean cloud forest at 3,000 metres.  It was built by the Chachapoya people and dates back to the 5th century AD.  Thankfully a cablecar takes visitors up there and it’s a beautiful site, not just the ruins themselves but for the stunning views of the surrounding mountains.

From there it was back to cycling upriver again to the quaint little town of Leymebamba.  The river was almost crystal clear, the sky was blue and the scenery gorgeous.

Cajamarca

The weather turned in Leymebamba, clouds and rain, and I referred to Effort versus Reward in helping to making a decision about how I was going to reach the town I’m writing this post from: 152 miles and the pain of a whopping 16,300 feet of climbing on the bike to potentially see nothing through the clouds, or 152 miles on the bus.  After much agonising I chose the bus!  It’s a nine hour journey and I wanted to take the day bus so, if there were any good views, I’d get to see them but I was told there was no room for my bike on the day bus and I’d have to go on the overnight bus instead.  When the night bus turned up there was no room for my bike on that one either!  If this had been in Mexico the driver would have flat refused to take me, ticket or no ticket.  But this is Peru and a space was eventually found – in the toilet! Yep, the wheels were removed, everything was put in the toilet and the door was taped shut.  What the other passengers thought about this I don’t know but I was perfectly happy!

OK, I’m nearly done.  Cajamarca is quite a big town.  There’s not an awful lot to see but the best parts are the markets and the wonderful big-hatted indigenous women who sell goods – mostly food – on the pavements.  Their hats are easily the best I’ve seen anywhere in the Americas.  Most of these pics are mine, but I’ve nicked a couple off the internet to give a feel for the place.

Wonderful, I love them!

I’m done.  Tomorrow I head south again.  Oh, nearly forgot, I took 12 hours of Spanish lessons in Vilcabamba and it’s amazing how even 12 hours has helped my confidence.

Until next time.

“He spoke a kind of Chinese that I don’t understand very well, but I think he said something about a lamasery near here, along the valley, I gathered, where we could get food and shelter.  Shangri-La, he called it.  He was most emphatic that we should go there” (James Hilton: Lost Horizon – The Legend of Shangri-La)

OK, so no-one has been speaking Chinese to me, and I’m a long way from the Himalayas, but I’m writing this post from my own little Shangri-La in Ecuador, otherwise known as Vilcabamba in the country’s Southern Highlands region.  I arrived here a week ago and, after pulling into the little town square, knew before I’d even climbed off my bike that I’d be staying for more than the one night I’d booked at Hostal Avalon.  Like the characters in the 1933 book and 1937 movie, once in Shangri-La it’s very difficult to leave.

A re-baptism of fire

I left you in Cuenca, another place I spent longer in than I’d intended, after discovering a lovely little Belgian bistro complete with imported Belgian beer.  After several thousand miles cycling through Central and South America I can vouch for the difficulty of finding truly good beer and I wasn’t about to waste the opportunity to sample several bottles of the world’s finest.

After a month or so of not being on my bike I have to confess a certain nervousness about the three day ride from Cuenca to Loja, the first stage of my push to Peru.  Having lost a degree of fitness I really could have used a gentle re-start but what I actually had was 9,000 feet (2,750 metres) of climbing in the first two days.  There was no hostel to aim for on the first day so I ground my way upto a recommended wild camping spot behind La Paz gas station where I was rewarded with two bags of fresh empanadas (think flat do-nuts), cold drinks and a stunning sunset.

The morning wasn’t too shabby either.

Day 2 was even tougher, just under 5,000 feet of ascent into an increasingly beautiful valley.

I wasn’t sure when I’d last climbed 5,000 feet in a day and it was another of those ‘brutal’ days in Ecuador – plenty of sweating, swearing and grinding away in granny-gear.  The scenery helped – on the occasions I managed to look up from the piece of road in front of my front wheel – and my mind was also kept occupied by the hundreds, if not thousands, of painted ‘Gruas’ signs that lined the road for the whole day.

On rocks, trees, the kerbstones, disused buildings, bus stops, ‘gruas’ signs adorned every bit of road for 45 miles.  I was intrigued – call a mobile number to order your very own gruas?  What could it be?  Google translate, ‘grua’ is a ‘crane’.  Must be wrong, why would anyone want to call for a crane?  Turns out there are “many problems with the road” and rock falls and landslides often result in drivers having to call for a crane to get them out of trouble.  “Just like calling a taxi” apparently.

Saraguro

The end of the day had me in the small town of Saraguro where I decided to take the following day off in order to follow the cricket World Cup final as well as rest my aching legs.  It was a Sunday and the hostel owner told me there was a fiesta going on.  “Oh, good” I said before retreating back into my room for five hours to follow the cricket!  After cheering England on to a nail biting, last ball victory I finally emerged to have a look around the town. What a treat!  Saraguro is an indigenous town, its people being part of the Quechua nation that inhabits the Southern Highlands.  The Sunday fiesta had them out in their finest traditional clothing – the men in woollen ponchos, fedoras, knee length trousers and espedrilles; women in home-woven, pleated skirts, coloured shawls, jewellery, fedoras, and some in black and white hats that are unique to the Saguros.  I’ve said before that I’m not one for pointing my camera at people so I’ve pinched a few internet pics of the Saraguros to give you an idea of what I was looking at.

Like the Otavalos the men wear their hair in a single, long braid, as do many of the women.  Many claim direct Inca ancestry and it’s believed the Saguros are descendants of the mitmaqkuna who were forcibly removed by the Incas from the region that is now Bolivia.  One of the reasons they’ve been able to keep their ethnicity and traditions intact is that when Ecuador gained its independence from the Spanish in the early 1800’s the new government left them alone, just as long as they paid their dues into the government coffers.  Having done no research into Saraguro before I arrived it was a wonderful surprise just to walk around the town and enjoy the sight of these beautiful, gentle, welcoming people. 

From Saraguro I rode into the city of Loja and started to make a three day plan to arrive at the Ecuador/Peru border.  Initially I had no intention of stopping in the small town of Vilcabamba as it was only 24 miles away and I needed to average around 35.  I then changed my mind, purely on the basis that I decided I would have an ‘easy day’ (a relative term in Ecuador!) so I could relax a bit.  This turned out to be one of my better decisions.

Vilcabamba

As I write this I’ve now been in Vilcabamba for eight days.  The name comes from the Quechua language ‘huilca pamba’ – ‘plain of sacred trees’.  The small plain is surrounded on all sides by hills and mountains and the area is also referred to as ‘the playground of the Incas’ which refers to its historic use as a retreat for Inca royalty.  Yet another term that is used for this area is the Valley of Longevity, as it is widely believed that its inhabitants live to a particularly old age with claims of up to 135 years, which would make it an area with the oldest inhabitants in the world – hence one of the reasons why I’ve coined it ‘Shangri-La’.  The claims of it being an area of exceptional longevity are basically nonsense but it’s a lovely little town, in beautiful surroundings, and the perfect place to chill out for a while.  I really love it here and Peru is going to have to wait a while longer.

So I’m afraid I’m not making too much progress from a ‘road travelled’ point of view.  I’ve been in South America for almost four months and cycled a whopping 770 miles (1,240 km). I’ve actually travelled further by bus – 808 miles.  And I’m not too bothered to be honest.

I’ll enjoy Vilcabamba for a few more days and then head for Peru.

Until then . . .

The Lone Cycler