Day 6
Huaraz to Rt. 14
By the sixth day of our cycling trip, we had spent several days in the colder, mountain weather and, at this point, were thinking about getting back to the warmth of the coastline, where we could check out some sand dunes and, perhaps, hit up some of the many hidden beaches you can find along the Panamericana.
In this spirit, we left our hostel after a good night’s rest and headed for the bus station to check about the cost of taking a bus from Huaraz to Casma. We ate some breakfast of pan semita (bread made of corn) and some cheese at a street vendor right outside of the bus station. We got to talking about how it would be cool to get some images of Huaraz from above and ended up revising our plans again. Rather than heading straight to Casma, we would spend one more night in the mountains. The plan was to ride up along Route 14, find a spot to camp, and take some photos of Huaraz and the surrounding scenery from a different vantage point.
Plan made, we cycled to the edge of town, over to Route 14 to which, much to my dismay, we were greeted with a road that was remarkably uphill. So much subida, so little time. It didn’t take me long to come to the realization that there was no way I was going to be able to cycle up this and get very far.
Upon this conclusion, we were left again to try to grab a ride to take us up this road. It took a few tries but we at last managed to find a taxi to take us along the way.
As we climbed the winding mountain road, rising higher and higher above Huaraz, the views became increasingly more stunning, and I became increasingly grateful that we had decided to grab a ride rather than try to cycle the route. If not clearly evident at this point, while I would consider this to have been my first long-distance cycling trip there was far less cycling and far more catching rides involved. But we had another couple of days left of our trip, plenty of time to get in some more cycling.
We stared eagerly out the window, watching as Huaraz shrunk in the distance, searching for a point at which we would want to be dropped off that would be a prime photography location. It took about 20 minutes to half an hour or so of driving, but we eventually had the taxi drop us off along a curve in the road where there was a small shed and a flat area for cars to pull off. The view was good and we figured this area would prove to be a good camping spot so we hopped out.
Having found a worthy camping location, David thought it would be a good idea to pay a visit to the nearest house and see if we could leave a few things there while we went to cycle around.
The concept of showing up to a stranger’s home, conversing, and leaving personal property with them to watch after was also a foreign one to me prior to this trip yet one which David was quite familiar with. The combination of moments such as leaving our things with strangers who happened to be quite friendly plus grabbing random rides to get to where we needed to go proved to give me a far greater sense of faith in humanity than I believe I had prior to the trip.
This said, perhaps due to having listened to my fair share of Crime Junkies episodes, I also find myself reflecting on the experience quite often and wondering, should it have been me on my own or me with a female friend, how different would the experience have been? Would it have proved to be as successful/safe?
Regardless of what could have been, what did happen was I found myself pleasantly surprised by the reception we received. After some chatting, and food shared with us, plus the discovery that the area we had been considering camping on was, in fact, owned by these people (and they were happy to let us camp there for the night) we left some of our stuff and cycled off to snap some shots of Huaraz and the coming sunset.
The sunset over the Andes was spectacularly beautiful… just as spectacular was the wind and cold. It was WINDY and the cold from the wind chill was rough. We remained huddled in a sleeping bag for the duration of the sunset, freezing our butts off. The views were well worth it, however, though, in retrospect, the large majority of the, what I thought at the time were, great photos actually turned out to be not so great. Oh well. Better luck next time.
Once darkness had fallen, we retreated back to the house to pick up our stuff and set up camp for the coldest night of our trip. Despite huddling close together and being confined in the tent in our sleeping bags, I slept poorly and never felt warm for the duration of the night.
Day 7
Rt. 14 to Casma
Our journey on the seventh day of our trip, which happened to be New Year’s Eve, was to be simple enough: we would start with just a bit of uphill cycling torture to get to the top of the mountains and then everything would be a breeze going downhill from there, heading toward the coastline. Downhill cycling? Awesome! This would mean less achy legs and less cursing of the weight I was carrying on my bike.
But, of course, it wasn’t that simple.
What we presumed to be a short trek to the top of the mountain road we were on proved to be far longer than anticipated. I lasted somewhere between half an hour to an hour before, on a particularly steep stretch of uphill cycling, I frustratedly got off my bike and decided that walking the rest of the way would prove to be faster, and more effective than actually attempting to cycle.
And that’s what I did for the next three or four hours that it took to get to the top of this road which had looked deceptively close but was actually much farther away due to the road’s windy nature. Save for a few photography stops, it was quite a bit of walking and I was a-lot-of-a-bit relieved once I finally made it to the top, where I found David chatting with a Swiss couple who lived in the area.
From there, it was all downhill. At last, as I had eagerly imagined, my legs were given a bit of a break. The thing is, when you’re cycling downhill, while (clearly) not a lot of pedaling is required what is required is a lot of brake action. Thus, rather than having achy legs, as we descended downhill through the mountains along the windy roads, I ended up with quite the ache in my hand, which was slightly relieved by throwing on some gloves to give myself a bit of padding.
Our objective for the day was to reach Casma, a town along the coastline, where we could check out some epic nearby sand dunes and spend the night. From there, we could cycle again along the Panamericana and check out some of the hidden beaches along the coastline.
By the time we reached Yupash, a small town along the way, and stopped for some lunch, it was clear that getting to Casma, especially after our long uphill morning, was taking longer than anticipated.
Lunch complete, we cycled on to Pariacoto where, rather than cycling the rest of the way to Casma, we grabbed a combi to take us there.
Upon reaching Casma, we cycled around to find someone to do some quick repairs on the bikes and then checked in to a hostal for the night. When we headed out in the evening to grab a drink and something to eat, we came to the realization, upon observing the festive mood and busy restaurants, that it was New Year’s Eve, a fact which we had completely forgotten.
Day 8
Casma to Chimbote
For the final full day of our trip, we began the day with a couple of objectives: one, to see the incredible sand dunes close to Casma and two, to do some more cycling along the Panamericana to reach some of the hidden beaches you can find along the coastline of Peru. The latter seemed simple enough – the beaches couldn’t be that far away, right?
Well, as I believe you could imagine after reading the variety of surprises that emerged along the way throughout the duration of our trip, it didn’t prove to be that simple and we, yet again, had to adjust our plans accordingly.
What went wrong?
First and foremost, yes, I’m a gringa however, prior to traveling to Peru for the first time, I had never considered myself to be easy to burn. In the US, sure, I would have those days where I would get red from being at the beach out in direct sunlight all day. Generally, though, this redness would turn from red to tan within a couple of days.
The sun works a little bit differently in Peru. Take heed.
No matter what, sunscreen is an important step to not forget in your daily skin care routine but in Peru it is absolutely an essential if you are going to be spending a lot of time out in the sun.
This said, it’s not as if I didn’t put on sunscreen during this trip. I did, just not generously enough, it would seem, as evidenced by what happened to my skin as we started our journey down the Panamericana on this day. Within the first hour or so of cycling in the sun (in the middle of the day), with my shorts and tank top, my skin began to bubble. Whoops, sun poisoning – not cool.
My bubbling skin resulted in our need to find some immediate shade, which we were able to achieve by stopping by someone’s home along the Panamericana – not far from where we had just been admiring the dunes as we cycled by. No one was home so we sat there in the shade outside, amusing ourselves by feeding grapes to the plethora of chickens hanging around.
We thought we could wait for the sunlight to subside and then continue on to the beaches – only to discover, upon some Google-mapping, that the beaches were, in fact, nowhere near as close as we thought they would be.
Thus, we adjusted our plans once again. The new plan? To spend the night camping out on the sand dunes.
After sufficient time spent in the shade during which we welcomed back the inhabitants of the home in front of which we sought refuge, we moved on so that we would have ample time to find a hiding spot for our bikes (there was no way we were going to lug our bikes through all of the sand to reach the dunes) and to hike over to the dunes in time to find a camping spot and enjoy the sunset.
Upon reaching the base of the dunes, several things struck me. The first was the sheer size of the dune. I remember the first time I experienced a desert sand dune in Wadi Rum, Jordan. Prior to that, my closest sand dune experience would have been the sand cliffs along the coast of Cape Cod, though in the desert the feeling is different. So much sand, so little time. It’s a lot of fun to climb through the sand dunes though it took a lot of effort to reach the top of this particular dune, it was so high.
The second thing which struck me was the amount of trash scattered at the base of the dune. It was sad to see a place that is otherwise so pristine and beautiful tarnished by vast amounts of garbage. I had every intention of documenting this pollution but in a rush to reach the top of the dune for sunset, we didn’t have time to do so.
Last, it was super windy on the top, with sand blowing everywhere, into our hair, into our faces, you name it. Watching the sand blowing across the top of the sand dune, being flung into the air only to eventually rest on the other side is fascinating to witness as it allows you to imagine the process of the dunes being created in the first place. Crazy to think how wind, sand, and time have managed to create these huge structures.
The photography at the top of the dunes was fantastic, especially with the changing colors of the landscape as we went into golden hour.
After the sunset, with darkness descending as we descended down the dune to where we had left our camping gear, we made yet another last-minute decision. Rather than camping out on the dune overnight, where the wind continued to howl and we were already covered in sand, we decided to head back to the bikes in the darkness and to go back to Casma, where we could catch a bus or combi to head on to Chimbote.
There was little to no moonlight as we trekked back toward the highway and where we had left our bikes. We had very little visibility and there was a brief, terrifying moment when there was a sudden rustling approaching us through the darkness. I jumped in fright, thinking it was a dog or something of that nature. Turned out it was just another piece of trash — a plastic bag being blown about by the wind.
It took us a while to find the exact spot where we had left our bikes in the darkness, leaving us with the fear that someone had possibly come along and taken them. We eventually found them, however, and proceeded to cycle back down the Panamericana to Casma.
It was during this last bit of cycling that I had my closest experience to being hit by a car as a truck went to turn into a gas station as we were cycling by. Luckily, they saw me, perhaps thanks to the bright orange vest I was wearing, and we made it to Casma without any further difficulty.
From Casma, we managed to grab a combi on to Chimbote where we stayed with David’s family for the night before arriving back safely to Trujillo the next day. So ended our epic adventure.
