Category: Peru

Cycling Peru Part III

On 23 August 2019

This blog is about our last part in Peru. We will visit the capital of Peru, Lima, we will visit the world famous Machu Picchu inca ruins and before heading to Bolivia we will visit Rainbow Mountain… here we go…

After hiking the Santa Cruz Trail with our basecamp in Caraz we dropped of our rented backpacks again and cycled from Caraz to Huaraz. It’s just an one day stretch to the bigger and more touristic Huaraz. We stayed here for a few days before we hopped on a bus to Lima.

In the first place Lima was not in our planning at all. It’s just another big city, it’s far from our ongoing route south and it’s along the cost, out of the Andes Mountain Range which means a lot of extra climbing when we wanna pick up our route south again. Unfortunately we had visit Lima to bring a visit at the Dutch Embassy. Arjan sold his apartment in Holland so official documents had to be arranged. We didn’t want to fly back to Holland for this so we had to find ourselves an embassy through which everything could be signed without flying back to Holland.The Dutch embassy in Lima was one of the very few options in South America to do this.

Cycling to Lima was no option because of the appointment which was in two days.
After all Lima was not to bad. At the embassy everything went smooth and in the meanwhile we discovered the big city.

From Lima we catched a bus again into the High Andies around the town of Cusco. Cusco is very touristic, this is THE town from where 95% of all tourists visit Machu Picchu. In Cusco we found a Casa del Ciclista to camp. The owner was an ex-tourguide and he was able to arrange a Machu Picchu tour for us the cheap way ?

Machu Picchu was high on our “What to do and to see in the world” list for a long time already, so we where really excited to finally bring a visit to MP.

After Machu Picchu we finally jumped on our bikes again for the last couple of kilometers in Peru. The popular Rainbow Mountain and Lake Titicaca where nice to visit though Titicaca was very cold, rainy and windy. Not real fun.

Pictures according to the story above, see below ?
Have fun!!!

Finished the Santa Cruz Trail, ready to hop on the bikes again. No not the motorbikes 😉

To Huaraz

Ice cream the Peruvian way.

Jummy!!!!

Get the bikes ready to stuff in the bus.

After a night in the bus into the busy morning traffic of Lima.

Bike lanes 😀

I Like!

Lima is on the coast. The weather was cold and rainy so no swimming for us.

Shopping instead.

Gas Mobile

Dutch Embassy

Nice roads to cycle on? Nope!

After a few days in Lima back in the bus to Cusco. The busses are super luxe with TV’s and chairs that can go 100% horizontal so you can sleep like in a bed.

On our way to Machu Picchu.

First with a small bus to Hidro Electrica from where a 12km railroad winds to the new town of Machu Picchu.

We hike along the railroad… Cycling is not allowed. (and our bikes are still in Cusco)

We are not the only hikers.

Once in a while a slow diesel train shows up.

The hike trail is quite narrow at some parts.

In the new town of Machu Picchu. Here we spend the night in a hotel to go to the old ruins in the early morning.

A bit after 7 in the morning. Our guide is ready to go. Some of the group are still sleepy 😀

The sun is still behind the mountains.

Sunrise is nearly there.

The first sunbeams over Machu Picchu.

This is the place to take your pictures.

Mr. Lama does also enjoy the early sun.

Many tourists already. If you buy an entrance ticket for Machu Picchu they ask you at what time you wanna go in. This starts from 7am and you are aloud to visit Machu Picchu for a maximum of 4 hours. Every day circa 4000 people visit Machu Picchu!

Our guide is telling his story.

Selfie Time

In the far distance Hidro Electrica from where we came hiking.

An old Inca bridge. The scary bridge is closed for pubic.

No idea why they closed this old Inca bridge 😉

The path to the Inca Bridge.

Okay, one more selfie.

Going down into Machu Picchu.

Look at his shirt, Studio MAD is filming here as well 😀

Steep down…

Lama’s all over the place.

After our 4 hour visit (which was long enough) we hike back to Hidro Electrica.

The blue line is our track. The black zigzag line is the road between the old and the new Machu Picchu.

Kim has a new friend again.

Hi doggy 🙂

Machu Picchu seen from the back side.

Another train comes along.

At the train station loads of stuff.

Back at our Warmshowers adress in Cusco Arjan helps Walter in the big garden.

Camping in the garden of Walter.

Fresh bread, bacon and cheese for breakfast.

Leaving Cusco again, on our (long) way to Bolivia.

Wildcamp at a beautiful spot along a river.

At night freezing cold so in the morning a warm downjacket and a hot tea.

South we go…

The beginning of the one hour hike to Rainbow Mountain. We started hiking at 6 in the morning to see the sunrise over Rainbow Mountain.

The sun is still behind the mountains.

We are not the only onces going up this early in the morning.

Nearly there at an altitude of more than 5000m.

Kim hiking up to Rainbow Mountain.

It’s not only Rainbow Mountain which is colourfull, the whole area is full of colours.

At 5000+ m you can expect to see snow.

The sun is still rising, the valley behind Rainbow Mountain still in the shadow.

Lookout point at 5036m above sea-level.

With our own shadows.

Colours, colours, colours.

Many pictures made.

Selfie

And another doggy…

Purple and blue??

Locals on the track. They still carry their stuff on horses and donkeys,

And of course lama’s again all over the place.

Beautifull animals.

The later it gets, the more tourists show up.

The boy is making fun.

Hot tea??

No idea which bird this is but it’s not a small one.

We start hiking back to where we came from.

Breakfast with a view. (and another dog)

Lama’s in the deep valley.

The small van which brings us back to our hostel.

Our group of today, two from Spain and with the driver, Samual, in the middle.

At our hostel, newborn cheep.

The next day cycling we meet Alex from Argentnia.

Still cold at night so a Whisky is fine.

The long roads of Southern Peru.

Check: Another mountain pass. At 4338m.

Dahm… Kim a flat tire again.

Market at the top of the mountain pass.

Going down after the pass.

We love the slow diesel trains.

Back in time. Picture with Elvis.

The moon is up already, time to find ourselves a camp spot for the night.

Empty area, not many places to hide a tent for the night.

But found one behind an ugly wall.

Full moon tonight.

Beautiful sunset over the train track in the front.

On the road again.

A big market in a small village. Sheepskins for sale.

Camp at an old abandoned train station.

Leaving the trainstaion again the next morning

Kangaroo? Rabbit?

Big brother is watching us.

Rain at lake Titicaca.

Another flat.

Lake Titicaca.

The snowy mountains of Bolivia in the far distance.

Lunchbreak. Around the lake it’s very windy so we cook our noodles behind a small stone wall.

Fishing nets.

Hi, come inside, it’s nice and warm here!!!

It froze last night.

White tent.

Brrrrr cold but hot tea and an euhmmm… nice hat 😀

But with a view. Again 🙂

Bye bye Peru, it was nice visiting you for the last 2,5 months.

Checking out of Peru, into Bolivia.

Thanks for reading, we love you all!!!

Santa Cruz Trail – Peru

By 2WF

On 26 July 2019

In Peru

We have arrived in Caraz, a small town along the Cordillera Blanca, a high mountain range in Peru. The mountain range is part of the larger Andes range and extends for 180 kilometres. It includes 33 peaks over 6,000 metres high and counts 722 individual glaciers.

The plan here is to hike the famous Santa Cruz Trail. In Caraz we find ourselves a small hotel and spend a day for preparation. We rent some larger backpacks, buy trail food for four days, arrange storage for our bikes and organise transport to the beginning of the Santa Cruz Trail.

At the first hiking day we leave our hotel at 6:30 in the morning and take a 3 hour rough ride to Vaqueria. The rest is history... Happy reading again.

With a small collectivo (small public transport bus) we take a ride to Vaqueria where the Santa Cruz Trail starts.

The rough gravel road over a 4700m mountain pass has stunning views.

The start of the Santa Cruz Trail at 3750m.

The first part of the track leads between some local farms.

Small piggies 🙂

In the distance we already see some snow coming up.

The Santa Cruz Trail is a popular trail so we're not the only once's on the track.

Our direction pointed out.

The Paria campground. It's still early in the day so we move on to an other campground.

A lot of people also walk the trail in an organised group. They don't have to carry their own luggage, it's carried by donkeys and small horses.

We like to be independent so we walk the trail by ourselves and find our own way.

Muesli bars. Hikers food.

It's climbing all the time. In two days we will climb up from the start at 3750m to the highest point on the trail at 4750m.

Around 16:30 we find this unofficial campground.

Check, nice place to stay but pretty cold already.

Kim has some blisters but forgot to take a needle and compeet. A Leatherman knife and ordinary band aids is the second option.

The next morning the sunrise is beautiful.

It was cold last night. -5 C.

Warming up in the early morning sun.

Fresh drinking water is coming from the mountains.

We fill up our water bottles and move on.

The 4750m Union Pass in a far distance is coming up.

Where we came from.

Climbing higher and higher.

At this hight the air is tin. While climbing up it feels we're 30 years older because we get less oxygen.

More donkeys...

Nearly at the top of the pass.

Yes, made it. It took us 2.5 hours to climb up from our camp at 4200m to 4750m over a distance of just 4km. Tin air you think? 😉

Nice views.

Also animals at the top.

We continue our track and start walking down again.

A new valley has new views.

Have a break with hot noodle soup.

Taullipampa campground.

We pass by because tonight we wanna stay close to a glacier lake not far from here.

The last part of today.

Made it to Arhuaycocha campground. Just 1km from Lake Arhuaycocha where in the Arhuay glacier ends.

We pitch our tent and enjoy the cold sunset.

The next morning we wake up early to hike to the glacier lake. We leave the tent and our stuff at the campground because there is just one way up and down.

Any Hobbits around here?

The sun rises slowly and shines already on the mountains behind us.

At the lake and the glacier still no sun.

Still waiting for the sun to warm us up.

Whaaaahh..

Yeah... finally the sun is up.

Warming up again after the freezing night.

Back down again.

Back at the campground we make some hot oat meal and tea.

We start hiking again and pass some cows.

This is the valley we will follow the coming two days.

Kim making new friends again.

Flat and slowly going down, following the river.

Fresh drinking water along the way. We don't drink from the river because all the animals walk in there aswell but the small side streams straight out of the mountains are safe for drinking.

The first lake in the valley we pass.

Some die on this trail 😉

The river with cows on the side.

Donkey with her baby.

Having a nap...

Our campground for tonight is in the far distance.

Llamacorral campground.

Having a cold beer.

The next morning noodle soup with tea.

Packing up again.

Donkeys running over the campground.

The start of our last day of hiking the Santa Cruz Trail.

The river we follow is getting bigger.

The cow didn't like us.

Going down, deeper into the valley.

Still very clear water.

Nearly at the end of the trail 🙁

In the collectivo back to Caraz in 1.5 hours.

From Caraz we will cycle to Huaraz, a bigger, more touristic town, just one day cycling away from Caraz.

Bye.

Cycling Peru Part II

By 2WF

On 25 June 2019

In Peru

At the town of Cajamarca we took a few days off from cycling. In this post we cycle further south. Our South-America paper map hardly shows any roads in this part of Peru so we try to rely on the map apps on our phone. The map apps do show roads but it's always the question how these roads are in real life.

We find out the roads are hard to cycle in this part of Peru and sometimes the roads just end. Sometimes bridges over rivers just don't exist at all and we have to wade through.

In these very remote areas hardly a living soul is found, the only people we meet are rough old gold diggers and drunk guys at Monday morning.

After a lot of chicken with rice, chicken with fries makes me happy 🙂

A town square like as in every town in Central and South America.

The local tienda (shop)

A day of no cycling. Relaxing, drinking coffee and thee and reading books all day long! This hostel has a nice backyard we don't see often so we are very happy to use it.

Making friends again.

We stayed here for two nights.

And say good bye again to the nice family that owns this hostel.

On the road again but we have to push up at some places. This part of the road is pretty rough with gravel and has some steep up and down hills.

And going down again....

I hugged the road 🙁 No serious injuries.

After falling off the bike I went a little slower down the mountain.

Market

When walking over a market people always give us a lot of attention. Probably it's rare, tourists visiting no-tourist markets.

Away from the towns again into the great wide open.

Sun is going down.

Camping at the Agua Calientes. Here we meet the Swiss again and a lone cyclist from the US. We chat and drink some beers in the night to celebrate being together again.

The next morning we check out the Agua Calientes but the water is not as caliente as we expected so we stayed in just for 10 minutes or so.

Looks nice but it was pretty chilly.

Politics on the left building, local herbs on the right. A wierd Dutch girl in the middle 😀

Just another unknown town.

"Welcome in Shit a Bamba"

6:30 in the morning, time for another day on the road.

In the villages most women still dress in colourful traditional clothes. We love it!

While taking a break along a lake a bunch of sheep pass by.

Young shepherd.

The sheep didn't bother us.

After the sheep a couple of cows pass by as well and start a fight in front of us.

We survive the sheep and the bull fight... time for food!!!

Random street pic.

At a small stream we find a nice spot for camping. The sky turnes in full color pallet as soon as the sun starts to go down.

...

Sheep don't care about the colourful sky.

The next day we pass a huge mining area. Colourful as well but it ruins the area 🙁

Pushing up again.

Red river?

Farm up in the hills.

A farmer is drying the corn in his backyard.

At the top of a mountain pass we find an old graveyard, just in the middle of nowhere.

Kim waiting when Arjan shoots picture number ...?

Going down into the...

... eucalyptus forest.

After a downhill always an uphill.

But with beautiful views.

We have a hard time finding a good spot to sleep because all the land seems to be owned by farmers here. Eventually we ask a farmer and we are aloud to camp in his eucalyptus plantation. Finally time to eat, relax and drink lots of tea before diving into bed again.

The next morning we come down from the eucalyptus plantation again.

In a small town, we pass, a festival and soccer game is going on.

Happy people.

Happy me as well.

This old lady parties hard as well.

Waiting for the bus?

The festival stays at the top of the mountain, we go down again.

Local statues in the background.

Workers building a new bridge. Luckily we can pass.

Natural water for free. A bit brown but when boiling tea from it the color doesn't matter anymore.

Though going up.

A perfect grassy spot for a camp high in the mountains. We are around 3500m in wintertime. So it is cold at night, around zero degrees celsius.

Eating dust from the trucks.

More dust to eat.

Taking some wood for a fire.

Some ruins along the road when going down.

One of the villages we pass is completely closed for traffic because of roadwork. Luckily we can pass.

Pass through peoples backyards.

Going down but on the other side of the deep river valley we see the road already going up again.

More dusty roadworks. Even with our bikes we have to wait for more than an hour.

When we're finally allowed to pass by, tens of sand trucks ride the mountain up and down in high speed. The whole mountain is one big construction area.

This road is just 30 minutes old. Before the mountain was just straight coming down. This was what we where waiting for the last hour.

Deep deep river. We come from the mountain on the right and the route is going up on the left mountain. (But maybe we can skip the climb and follow the river going further down. We have to figure that out)

Camp along the deep river. That gives us an opportunity to have a bath again too! 😉

The next day we start following the river, see where this road ends.

We go deeper and deeper into the canyon.

The scenery is beautiful and pretty wild. We don't see any other people.

We hope this road doesn't just stop in the middle of nowhere.

Wild.

On some places we find some old private mining spots.

Can you imagine living in one of these huts, far away from everything?

Mine on the left.

Living in huts and working in this?

We follow the road further down, still along the river.

We know the road will end in a few kilometers but there should be another road on the other side of the river. We have to cross the river somewhere but the map doesn't show a bridge.

End of the road. We have to go down to the river bed and find a place to cross the river. Hopefully we can find the road on the other side.

The last part of the road doesn't exist anymore. We have to drag down the bikes on lines.

On the river bed.

Good spot for river crossing.

Cross like a mule, packed.

Made it 🙂

Made it to the other side... but where is that road?

It's sunset already. We decide to camp on the river bed and search the road the next morning.

FIRE !!!

Hungry so...Food!

The next day we pass a swamp in search of that damned road.

Where we came from the other day.

We found the road after an hour of struggling.

Also on this side of the river they do mining.

Where is this road going to?

Mining hole.

Our map shows a bridge somewhere over there.

From above we see this bridge doesn't exist. We have to wade through the river again.

A new stick for the next river crossing is found already.

Where the **** can we cross this river again?

We found a spot to cross the river but there is no road leading there. It's hard to get our bikes there and it takes us hours.

Like a mule to get to the crossing spot.

Unpacked bikes are a lot lighter to cary.

Wet feet again.

Yes! Made it again 😀

Another biker as crazy as us to take this mad but amazing beautiful route. Sebastian from Romania is going in the oppersite direction. We give him some tips and tricks for crossing the river, he gives us some fresh fruit.

Finding our way back to the road.

Road found 🙂 (See left)

The counter for today shows just 3.89km.

The next morning we pack up again, struggle up the road again and a few cows look after us.

Nice single track.

We still follow the river with nice views.

One of the first houses after a few days of seeing none is showing up.

Still nice single track and coloured mountains.

Shy kids in this hut along the track.

Goats on the road.

Asphalt road again 🙂

Gold diggers looking for gold in the river.

More gold diggers down the river.

Monday morning 8:45. The guys drinking beer already.

"Thumbs up, I don't drink and drive"

Breakfast; Cooked corn, unions and meat. Not the best meal ever but we're hungry so we don't bother.

Buying some extra food in a small shop.

This old mining spot is no longer in use.

Fresh fruits for sale along the road.

Yeah, nearly a town again. Time to buy food again.

At some food stalls we meet some (motor) bikers from Chili. We have their address, maybe we give them a visit in a few months?

We continue through a beautiful landscape.

At our camp spot Arjan does some bike maintenance...

...And needs a bath afterwards.

I guess we have to hold left on this road haha...

Mining is still going on here.

Kim is cycling to wards this nice shaped rock.

Tunnels....

More tunnels...

Douwe from Utrecht, Holland.

Overlanders from Brazil

Crashed bus on the road.

In the evening we find a nice spot again to put up our tent.

last day cycling up to the town of Caraz. From Caraz we will hike the Santa Cruz Trail (See previous post)

Thanks for reading again...
Kim & Arjan

Cycling Peru Part I

By 2WF

On 20 June 2019

In Peru

Coming from Ecuador we crossed the border with Peru at the town of La Balsa. La Balsa is nothing more than a tiny dot on the map, its very primitive, has hardly any shops, no restaurants or bars and no ATM cash machines.
It is in this village that we camp our first night in Peru. Luckily in a small store the lady is willing to change some US dollars in the local currency, the Peruan soles. The store has not much to sell so we eat some dry bread with cooked eggs for dinner.

The days after we discover the roads in Peru are much better and less steeper to cycle on then in Ecuador but for the rest it’s all much more primitive. No fancy clothes or cars anymore and the people are definitely not used to white tourists. For us it feels like a draw back after much more civilised Ecuador.

In Jaén we stay a few nights in a cheap hotel to get Arjan’s bike fixed again and to do some serious shopping. (Yes!! We found a real supermarket in this town since weeks)
We already figured a route south to Cajamarca, the next bigger town on our way south but our bike mechanic Miguel suggested an alternative, ‘little’ longer, ‘little’ more challenging route. A route along one of the highest waterfalls in the world, through a stunning canyon, along Peru’s only but beautiful cable car ride over a deep valley and along some famous Inca ruins. The route ends with a stunning 60km downhill and an challenging 50km uphill to Cajamarca.

We dubbed our own route or Miguel’s more challenging route to Cajamarca.
See what happened below:

Welcome in Peru at the small Migration Office.

Breakfast with tea at our first camp in Peru in a tiny village a few miles after the border crossing.

Many many houses in Peru have political paintings. In front they are drying coffee beans, just on the streets.

Who can count his legs?

The Peruan Mountains.

More coffee beans to dry on the roads.

The guy of the house in the distance saw us camp here and offered us to stay with him but we builded up camp already... Maybe next time 😉

Cycling in just another village.

Waiting in line to get Peruan soles out of the cashmachine. (3 soles = $1)

Fin de Asfalto? I don't hope so!

25km downhill. Luckly still asfalto.

The river side is nice but rubbish everywhere.

Beautifull camp spot along a river.

Dinner. Pasta. As usual.

Tea in the morning. We survived the 8.1 earthquake last night. Very wierd experience, it was like in a rollercoaster but while standing on vast ground.

Leaving the earthquake side again.

Cycling into some Swiss friends who we met before in Mexico.

Four on the road now.

Check the roadsign, how steep can you go?

Rice fields. Flashbacks to cycling in Asia.

Birds over the rise fields

Arjan's rear break was broken. In Jaen he got a complete new system. Never ever Magura again!!! (His front break broke in Central America, now the rear break in Peru)

We guess they feld the earthquake in this town as well.

Also Arjan's rear hub did have problems. A new one is installed here.

While Miguel from El Ciclista installs the new rear hub we went to a big mall to do some shopping for the coming weeks. We don't exept much real shops on the route we gonna take so we want to be prepared.

Jaen has the most Moto Taxis of whole Peru Miguel told us.

Many thanks Miguel. Arjan's bike is fixed again.

Second time along the mall for some last fresh groceries.

The river we gonna follow up steam.

Old bridges to cross the river a few times.

Like cycling in the United States.

Street dogs. We see them a lot in Peru as well. Kim has some dog food with her to give them something to eat.

Miguel skizzes a nice route for us to take to Cajamarca.

Not the best spot to camp but we couldn't find any better. Loads of bugs and stinging bushes.

Nice views.

The road leads into a canyon.

Uphill.

The canyon continues.

Camping on a volleyball field.

The canyon gets deeper.

Many waterfalls.

Overhanging rocks.

Eating fresh melon.

Side track, off the main road to the Gocta Falls.

The Gotca falls are one of the highest in the world. 771m in two stages.

Camp in front of the tourist centre near the Gotca Falls.

Dogs like to hang around at our tent.

Next day; Hiking time to the foot of the Gotca Falls. An 12km hike in total.

Some bridges to take.

Coming closer.

Jungle.

One of the dogs in the village hiked with us the whole day.

From here on we only can see the second stage of the falls.

We called him Yoda because his big ears.

Impressive falls.

It all comes down.

Yoda is waiting. Making our way down again.

The hike route. Starting at the bottom in the small village.

Stunning views on the way down again.

After the hike we hop in the bikes again. We pass this beautifull side river.

Overhanging rocks again.

Only for lower trucks?

Scary to cycle under.

We arrive at the town of Tingo Nuevo. Home of the Kuelap Inca Ruins. Here we did hide our bikes and hope to get a ride up to the only cable car in Peru.

Up to the cable car.

Very funny. Stand on your number to hop in the cable car.

In Austria we did cable cars at wintersports but this is defently the highest and most impressive one we've bin in.

Going from 2272m to 2930m in 20 minutes over a very deep valley.

Hope we don't get a strong wind on our way back!

At the top you can get a horse ride to the Kuelap Ruins.

Kuelap.

A small stand to get some local food.

One of the kids around.

And back again.

Peru

At night we camp close to a red bridge. As many of our camp spots, found on the iOverlander app.

The area is very dark at night and this night there is no moon. Here the Milky Way in clearly visible over our tent. (Picture is made in 25 minutes facing south)

Red brigde the next morning. Breakfast time.

Oatmeal, raisins, tea and coffee.

On the raod again. Rainy day today.

Climbing from 1800m to 2200m before lunch.

Our public along the road.

Still rainy.

After lunch we start climbing higher. Our goal for today is the top of the Calla Calla pass at 3600m

The views getting better.

Rain rain rain.

Slowly we climb up.

The higher we go the wors the weather.

Fresh mountain water

At night it still rains a lot. The water floats into our shelter. At 6 degrees celcius.

Our shelter at the top of the pass.

The last few meters to the top.

The shelter is very dirty but we arrived in the dark in the rain so it was welcoming but because the floading at night we had to barricade the entrance to keep our stuff dry. We slept on top of our tent to keep our beds clean.

Cooking in the morning.

Ready to take off again.

Still rainy outside.

Over the top.

From here on 60km downhill from 3600m to 800m. It started in the cold and rain but the lower we got the better the weather.

A little blue visible already.

Stunning views into the deep valley.

Road works because of land slides.

Road piggies

More road piggies.

And cows just hanging around close to the steep and deep valley.

Kim flat tire in the middle of a road construction.

Cooling my breaks.

How deep can we go? 60km downhill is realy a lot, it takes a few hours to get down on these narrow mountain roads.

From 6 degrees to 35 degrees celcius.

That will be our next climb tomorrow. From 800m back to a 3200m pass.

After the long downhill we take a lunch a climb up again for half a hour to reach our campsite for the night.

Yes made it to our campside.

Outdoor shower with a lot of privacy (not!)

The campside owner of Oasis Del Condor.

The next morning we start climbing again. 50km to the top of the pass is our challenge for today.

Pfff... still hot up here.

Lunchtime.

With the valley underneath.

There is just one raod in the valley, we cycle it all today, slowly going up.

By the end of the day the sun sets. We are close to the top.

Yes!! Made it before dark. We camp in front of a small chapel with the most stunning view you can have.

Dinner time.

5:45 in the morning waiting for the sunrise from inside our warm sleeping bags.

Still no sun.

Getting closer.

Sunrise, a new day is born

Watching it from inside the tent. One of the best camp spots we had for so far.

The clouds are still deep in the valley underneath.

A house underneath gets the first sunbeams as well.

What a view. In the deep you can see the road we came up yesterday.

Not a bad place at all.

Camp with a view.

Breakfast!!!

On the road again. Going down to Celendin to do some shopping.

Pulp Fiction

Check the pig in the tree.

After we cycled down to Celendin we climbed up to our highest mountain pass for so far at 3750m. While cycling up we saw Dutch overlanders in a van, sadly they didn't stop for a chat. It were the first Duch licence plates we saw in more than a year. Very wierd.

At the top of the pass. It's chilly up here but the weather is good.

Going down we meet two other cyclists. He's from New Zealand, cycling for two years already. She's from Colombia, cycling for a few months now. Both going to Ushuaia in 1.5 years.