Last Major Andean Pass into the Amazon

It was quite a ride over the final ridge of the Andes, steep and increasingly verdant, filled with village roadside life. We knew the heat would come, and it has. We are resisting air conditioning, even though is is sometimes available, hoping to quickly adapt to the heat. We have kept the days short, trying to be done by early afternoon, when heat stress begins to take a heavy toll.

By the roadside.

Humble Home, fabulous Poinsettias

Off to Market

From our Dinner Table

Walking around the Village

Butterlies on Scat

Amazon "Foothills"

Friends of Zippy

We are in Yurimaguas, the end-of-the-road in Peru. We’re down from around 4000 m to 150 m in elevation. It’s hot and humid and the last few days have been hard riding. It is a different world. Everything revolves around the river, here the Rio Huallaga, flat and brown and teeming with life. The market is filled with fresh and dried fish and bush meat.

We saw our first wild monkey yesterday, crossing the road in front of us. At first I thought it was a squirrel, but Claire clearly saw it’s round face and I noticed the downward curve to it’s tail. It was small, black and very cute.

Parrots for sale with chickens at the Yurimaguas market.

Crocodile meat and eggs at the market in Yurimaguas

She has her TV even in the market at Yurimaguas

We hope to be on a boat downriver tomorrow. A three day hammock on the deck trip. Should be interesting.

We had cuy for lunch. A little greasy and not much meat, but not bad tasting. Claire shot some video. Many photos coming.

PS. We love Cajamarca; brightly painted, clean, good food and music, friendly people who don’t seem to look at us a tourists. Maybe it’s because Gringoes don’t come here. More Andes tomorrow.

Lower Andes Fog

Huascaran and Iglesia in Caraz

Cactus and Tunnel in Canyon del Pato

Cordillera Blanca

Along the Rio Santa

Our View of the Rio Santa from 30 Meters

My evening Cristal cerveza seat in a $3.60/night hostal

We could understand a few concepts of his sermon: Music of Satan, Movies and marijuana. He appeared be genuine, coming close to tears at one point. The bus seemed to be less than half with him, some clapping and singing hymns he led. He wasn’t Catholic, and that may have accounted for the lack of enthusiasm on the part of many. Evangelicals are making big strides in South America, and Catholics aren’t too happy.

 Below: Appropriate for our 21st Anniversary today, a photo of Claire making an oh so typical marriage bed!

Bush Camp on the Rio Santa

Our second day on the Rio Santa was even more difficult than the first because it was long. We had nearly 70 kilometers to Chuquicara, with no improvement in the road surface, save for a few kilometers out of town. We were fortunate to stock up on large sodas and water at a small village and a roadside stand. The touring couple from Austria, Andi and Anita, told us of a bush camp spot they’d found seven kilometers out of Chuquicara. They said there was only one room in the village and it was taken when they arrived; we figured we would be so late we’d be out of luck also.

As we approached the seven kilometer mark it appeared the river was too close on one side, and cliffs on the other to allow any spot to camp, particularly one safely out of sight. But, just before the bridge, just as Andi had described, was a spot completely hidden from the road.

We set our sleeping bag out, and left the tent packed, the better to see all around us. Black mountains  created a 360 degree corral for a spectacular display of stars. The Southern Cross tilted to the west as it sunk slowly below a southern mountain and the faint hints of the rising Milky Way.

As usual when bush camping, I eased in and out of sleep throughout the night, keeping time with the changing positions of stars and Milky Way. It cooled through the night and we snuggled off and on, spoke quietly about the stars, and the shadows on the canyon walls cast by the odd passing vehicle, watching  for a cessation of movement or change in motor sound. We even found the fog like illumination of their dust clouds entertaining.

We’ve had a lot of experience over the years in bush camping, and have a few interesting tips for safety and comfort:

Claire’s: Not to sound paranoid, but we make a point to obscure our tire tracks going into a bush camp (some bikers call it stealth camping). We also break up the visual lines of the bike and tent or sleeping bag with a bit of camouflage. We have a silent language between us when something has alarmed either of us and we have a few decoy ploys to thwart potential trouble makers. We’ve heard people make camp near us, never aware of our presence until we pack up in the morning. We both sleep a little fitfully this way, but with 12 hours of darkness, we usually each manage seven or eight good hours of sleep. When we’re awake, we’re keenly sensitized.

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CanyonDelPato

Zippy Making Friends Along the Way

Bob:

Canyon del Pato is Hell on a tandem, pretty much two days of Hell. It was the best way north in the Andes from Huaraz without backtracking to a road lined with illegal coca plantations and bandits; not our favorite type of cultural interaction.

The pista (pavement) ended a few clicks north of Caraz, a pleasant day’s ride from Huaraz. The dirt road was a combination of pale gray dust, loose sharp rocks up to fist size and babies’-heads, both could be either imbedded or loose.  Basically it was medium double track mountain bike riding on a loaded tandem; a struggle for both Captain and Stoker. Thirty seven tunnels skirted the upper steeper part of the canyon, and a dozen or so more fortified the longer section below the village of Huallanca, where we spent a night (another post).

The tunnels were long enough to be dark in the middle and our light was too weak to make out the rocks, or even the edge of the ruts. The dust was so thick and fine after trucks went through, that the light at the end was often completely obscured. We went down once in deep dust, and once in unseen mud from a ceiling leak. We just hung on hard, me to both brakes, Claire to the drum brake, and hoped for the best until the light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel began to cast some light on the subject. Behind us, the light at the tunnel entrance cast our shadows ahead on the track and made things worse, obliterating my view of the rocks. Claire of course, always rides in the dark. I don’t know how she does it. Sometimes she even takes videos with one hand! One of these days she’s going to bounce off. Much of the route was within bouncing distance of cliffs into the river. Once a car driver forced us toward the edge and a rock bounced us closer; we had to come off the bike to avoid disaster. Parts of it were beautiful, with huge mountains on all sides and always the roaring Rio Santa.

Claire:

So, I’m still not sure what Pato means, fiend perhaps? I had seen other cyclists’ videos of this route and mistakenly thought it didn’t look too bad.  It was a bone rattling two days, at the end of which we had to piece Zippy back together. The front pannier racks and mounting hooks shook loose, the drum brake cable pulled itself into the rear tire’s clearance from overuse and we lost a vital two liters of drink that we had to backtrack for, enduring an extra kilometer or two for the pleasure. At least the tent and front panniers didn’t fall off, as they did in China. Someday, back in Tucson, Bob will clean dust out of Zippy’s headset and remember Canyon del Pato.

Several days later my tennis elbow is reminding me of those two days!

Look for a video in a couple of days.

We leave Huaraz northbound eventually to Cajamarca, in hopefully less than two weeks, probably our next usable Internet. We hope to catch a large agricultural fair there. The route will stay high in the Andes, but we don’t see any passes as high as we had in Tibet. Beyond Cajamarca we will look for more pre-Inca ruins on the edge of Amazonia.

Claire is over her cold, and I think I am getting over my respiratory thing that knocked me for several days. We had two full days of acclimatizing in Huaraz at 3,000 meters elevation, and don’t expect to over much more than 4,000 meters. If Zippy has enough gears, and the Captain has enough shoulder strength to wrestle his long wheelbase, it could be more fun than work. We’ll see.

We expected it to be much easier to manage in Spanish than in the Asian languages. Claire says she thinks she is getting through to people here in her limited, and growing, Spanish, but she seldom understands what they say back to her. They seem to just talk louder and more incessantly no matter how many times you say “no entiendo.” I could help some in Asia with pantomime, but they don’t seem to have a similar body language basis, or just look at me like I’m un loco gringo. Often we think we have understood someone, only to find what we thought they said doesn’t match what we see. They are particularly bad at judging, or communicating distances. We asked several people the kilometers to the next village, by name, and got answers from five to 22 kilometers. Eleven was the correct answer.

We found the same for elevations. Maybe it is because we use muscle power so much, but we and most of our friends, know the elevations of where they live in Tucson and all the surrounds. Most people here don’t seem to know, or have incorrect information. Our map is also not very clear, again. Claire spends lots of time gathering information, or trying to, about the road ahead, and it is difficult. We often get the time it would take by bus, which varies wildly depending on the size and power of the vehicle, and people’s personal concept of time.

Dogs have been more of a problem here, but so far we find that if we stop and pick up rocks, the dogs will falter. However, getting a heavily loaded tandem stopped and safely off the road while a pack of dogs is gaining on you is a little intimidating. From past experience, we know to be more concerned about the hounding dogs that are not barking than those that are. Lacking a wrist-rocket, Claire’s been practicing her aim with an oversized rubber band (an item which, while packing, she couldn’t justify but felt she might need “for something”).  Our other problem with dogs happened when a scraggly cur lingered too close while we were talking to someone and all his fleas jumped onto us, mainly Bob. Fortunately, they abandoned us soon after, but we still, days later, have red marks and we hope those don’t get infected.