Author: dwood

14 days and so many miles. Happy to see a break from the pedaling. But will be sorry to end this chapter of the trip. Next up for us is some sedentary Beach life. Maybe we will learn how to surf. I’ll still post some pictures but less frequently. Coming home June 15th.

after a night in Santa Ana ‘s only hotel. Several mosquito bites and pillow less accomodations. We bolted early and started pedaling for the coast.

the climbing is brutal but the road is good. The high pass comes at about 10am.

back at 4700 meter sobre el Nivel del mar. Wow. Does this mean we have 15000ft of downhill riding over 65 km to the sea board. Chimbote, here we come!

but in the end we couldn’t make to the ocean in one day. We held up in a small town called Santa Ana. With so so nights sleep well try to finish this trip tomorrow.

one night in Caraz. On the rio santa. We could follow the river on a main highway but instead we opt for a marginal road that goes through the foothills climbing passes and following ridge lines for about 80km.

The route we picked climbs a whooping 9,000ft from the valley floor.

9grand in one day! Didn’t happen. Great camp spot, final good bye to the high mountains.

today we have a huge amount of elevation drop mostly on trails of varying quality. Next town we’re going to get to tonight is at 7,000 ft.

we have to push our bike for miles. Because the big rocks and the steep terrain doesn’t let us ride until we get about halfway down the trail.

Just a few miles of downhill riding and we arrive in the city of Caraz. That brings our trail riding in Peru to an end. Tomorrow will start another biking segment but all dirt roads. We actually have three good options to go from where we are now to the coast. One reasonable, one hard, one extremely hard. That choice will be made very soon, stay tuned! Any guesses…?

so are big day begins 6:30 in the morning. Big breakfast in town at the first restaurant that opens. We have about 12 miles of road biking before we get to the trail. 10:00 a.m. in the morning we passed the last small village Huaripampa. Then the killer day on the Santa Cruz trail begins.

After the last town the trail climbs to an incredible 15,000 ft. Tipping out at Punto Union.

the final climb to punto Union was unbelievable. My cell battery went dead and photo evidence is non-existent. But just 40 minutes before nightfall we ascended this 300 ft Stone staircase that was likely hundreds of years old. We drug our bikes up we cross the pass and we drug our bikes down just fast enough to get our tent set up before or the rain and the darkness went crazy.

Yanama a nice little mountain town with plenty of views. A great place to hold up and let our legs recover. Tomorrow we have a 45 km trail ride that will take us from the east side of the high Andes to the west side. We’ll go over a pass known as Punto union. On a very famous trekking trail called Santa Cruz!

today was about 30 miles bike riding on good gravel roads. And maybe about 4,000 ft of climbing. After all these days that’s feeling like a light day. Arriving in the small mountain town of Yanama with plenty of light and time to get a hotel. And check out the views!!!