Back after lunch and dinner and a big huge piece of chocolate cake I keep writing ....(Caraz 20th of July)
After riding through the security of the last big mine the road seemed to improve, it got wider, more groomed, even and for the first time in a long hard day riding downhill I didn't feel like my eyeballs were about to pop out of my head and the world is nothing but a big blur.
But the good road didn't last and soon we found ourselves back with the treacherous, rocky narrow path heading further and further down, knowing we have to climb back up again. A sweet peruvian inca family let us camp and cook on their property - we were DONE and camped early that day....gorgeous sunset and crispy, cold, clear night enveloped us - thankful to be here, be strong.
To Tulpa, but first the downhill.....all the way to the river where we found no bridge over the troubled water - the steep, steep descend before, led us through deep dust and sand and our heavy bikes had to be pushed most of the way down and through the river
and up the other side. I think that day we managed to ride 15km instead of 13km like the day before...
But in Tulpa we found kind people again (love the Peruvians!!) with a key to the school
and an invitation to stay, spread out, wash and relax in one of the bigger classrooms.
We cooked up a storm, ate well and futzed with our bikes - there was also a store in town to fill up with new provisions. All this in good weather with sunshine....happy!
The road didn't improve much the next day - long, long downhill on rocky, sandy partially pretty darn steep carreteras .....which is a bit hard to enjoy when I have the next uphill (for sure) in my head - not only that, but we could SEE the switchbacks across the canyon from the little village of Mollepata. Asking locals confirmed what we feared....
There had been talks about a path following the river down below, but our inca friends told us it wasn't passible further down. We knew we had to get back to the river anyways, but it looked like we needed to climb the damn next mountain range first - as beautiful as it looked, I wasn't convinced I was up for it!
We spend the night down at the river at the dirtiest and most unfriendly, none- smiling hosts yet. It was a hot spring, but the water was mucky looking - partially because the amount of iron in the water, partially because the pools hadn't been cleaned. The rooms had to be cleaned by us before they were usable...the dust made us all sneeze through the night..
We were quick to get out of there in the early morning hours and -somehow- quite enthused (followed by resigned) to tackle the switch backs. Really, it looked worse than it was and we switched our way up this mountain range in no time........IT WAS PARTIALLY PAVED (between the switches) - nice surprise...we were hoping ...we had noticed the "less dust factor" when a car or truck was switching its way up or down...James had counted 24 switches of which the last four were steep enough again to make us push (wer sein Fahrrad liebt, der schiebt) our bicis. Thinking we made it and were on the top, we celebrated with a snack. I am sorry to say that the colored cookies we picked up in Mollebamba tasted worse than imaginable...big bummer.!
The road snaked it's way along the mountain range for a while and we stopped to get a cold juice when we came across these fine people who thought we were a funny sight.
Our Waldemar got pretty wound up after drinking his Coca Cola and picked one of the locals up to dance a little jig.....the old man smiled and the rest of us doubled over..
Our goal for the day was Pallasca and we climbed a lot more than we thought was possible, but the village was a reward to say the least. The day was still young and we filled the remaining hours by EATING our way through town!
