Eating and biking our way through the Americas .... and beyond!

Peru: Part 3 – Huaraz to Huancayo

David cycling along the Pastoruri "Highway"

We have had a tough few days on the bike. The highlight of this stretch has undoubtedly been cycling the dirt Pastoruri “Highway” through the Huascaran National Park. My goodness – cycling at altitude is TOUGH (and cold, especially when cycling through a hail storm!) We climbed to a height of 4870m – the highest pass that we have tackled so far on this trip.

Here is an overview of our journey from Huaraz to Huancayo, Peru. It is detailed for our own records, so feel free to skip ahead to the photos!

Saturday 10th October: Huaraz to First campsite along the Pastoruri Highway

We left Huaraz around 9am and basically climbed steadily all day on an easy gradient. We made a little detour into the lovely town of Recuay, where we had lunch at a seafood restaurant. Then it was back on the bikes, heading to the turn off to the Pastoruri Highway.  After 43kms we reached the turn off, which is very well sign posted, and after letting some air out of our tyres, we hit the dirt!

Google Maps lists this dirt road as the “Carretera a Pastoruri”, which translates to the “Pastoruri Highway”; but it is more a dirt road than a highway in the traditional sense. The road is quite rocky, but in very good shape, and would have been no trouble if not for the fact that we were cycling above 4000m!

As we continued to climb, my breathing became more laboured and I needed to stop frequently to let my heart rate slow down. By the time we reached 4100m, I had a slight stomach ache, so we decided to call it a day, although we hadn’t made it as far as we would have liked. Having just hiked the Santa Cruz Trek, we were surprised by how quickly we had lost our acclimatization to the altitude. Hopefully, it will return equally quickly!

We found a secluded campsite beside a little laguna and made a yummy veggie curry for dinner.

We were very surprised by the amount of traffic on the road – almost all tour buses. None of the blogs that we had read had mentioned traffic and we had expected to have the road pretty much to ourselves. Unfortunately, it wasn’t like that for most of our first 2 days on the Pastoruri Highway. Of course, we did cycle it on a weekend; perhaps the road is quieter during the week.

KMs travelled: 88km
Maximum elevation: 4107m
Elevation gain: 1168m
Elevation loss: 97m
Highlight: Cycling the Pastoruri Highway
Lowlight: Traffic on the Pastoruri Highway and our lack of acclimatization

Sunday 11th October: First campsite along the Pastoruri Highway  to Second campsite along the Pastoruri Highway

Having slept surprisingly well at our campsite at 4100m, we were up early and on the road by 8am. We crossed into the Huascaran National Park around 9am and after registering at the control centre, we were the first people into the park. Luckily our national park pass from hiking the Santa Cruz Trek was still valid.

This stretch of the Pastoruri Highway is incredibly beautiful and consequently, very touristy. Similar to the previous day, there were a huge number of tour buses passing us on the dusty road on their way to deposit tourists at the foot of the Pastoruri Glacier.

We passed the bubbling Agua Gasificada (mineral water) and then a few kilometers further, we reached the beautiful Ojo de Agua de Pumashimi, a stunning lagoon. At both locations there were locals with animals/children dressed up for photographs. Normally, we don’t like this sort of thing, but we couldn’t resist taking some photos with two fabulously decked out alpacas!

Further along the road we passed some fascinating rock paintings and also some groups of endangered “Puya Raimondii” (also known as the Queen of the Andes), the largest species of bromeliad in the world. It was wonderful to see these beautiful plants and we were lucky to see a number of flowering ones, which given that they only flower once in their lifetime and that it takes between 40 -100 years to produce one flower – it was pretty special!

I found the cycling to be incredibly tough on this day. Although the gradient was generally pretty mild, I was puffing and panting and my heart rate was racing crazily and I had to stop almost every 500m to let it calm down. As a result, David nicknamed me “Hufflepuff”! Although David cycled the entire climb, I alternated cycling with walking, as I found pushing my bike to be less exhausting, and more efficient, at times.

By the time we reached the turn off to the Pastoruri Glacier it was 4pm and I was utterly exhausted. We could see the glacier (which is shrinking at a rapid rate) in the distance, but decided to press onto the top of the pass and give it a miss (there will be more glaciers for us to see in Patagonia!).

We reached the top of the first pass around 4.20pm and after snapping a few pics, we descended into the next valley. The road was less maintained on this side of the pass and we had the feeling that we had finally gotten off the beaten track – we didn’t see a single vehicle for the remainder of our ride along the Pastoruri “Highway”.

The beautiful weather that we had enjoyed all day quickly turned and we soon found ourselves cycling in a light hail storm. We stopped to fill up our water bottles at a glacier waterfall and then started looking for a campsite. We didn’t have to cycle too far before we found a wonderfully remote and secluded campsite in a little valley above the road. Unfortunately, at this moment the hail started bucketing down! We didn’t have time to set up our tent, so we draped our tarpaulin over our bikes and huddled underneath waiting for it to subside. The hail storm was short lived, but intense; within 10 minutes the grass around us was covered in a layer of pea sized hail stones. When it finally stopped (for all of 10 min or so), we quickly set up our tent and dived inside before the hail started again.

It was freezing in the tent and neither of us wanted to get out and cook in the hail storm, so dinner that night consisted of nuts, biscuits and chocolate. Not very healthy or nutritious … but yummy!

Later that night, the hail storm turned into snow, covering our tent and surroundings with a chilly white blanket. :)

KMs travelled: 26kms
Maximum elevation: 4814m
Elevation gain: 755m
Elevation loss: 150m
Highlight: The spectacular scenery, the rock paintings and the “Puya Raimondii”  
Lowlight: My lack of acclimatization and slow progress up the mountain

Monday 12th October: Second campsite along the Pastoruri Highway to Huallanca

This was a fantastic day of cycling – definitely my favourite along the Pastoruri Highway. We had jaw dropping views of snowy glaciated mountains, alpine lagunas, pastel coloured mountains and wonderful rock formations. Best of all, there was no traffic!

We had camped at around 4700m – the highest that either of us had ever camped (at Laguna 69 we camped at 4600m and on Mount Kilimanjaro, our final camp was at 4640m). David suffered from altitude sickness all night, with a bad headache and stomach ache. But, thankfully, he was feeling much better in the morning. I, on the other hand, felt reasonably ok overnight, but when I woke up in the morning I was greeted with a killer headache. We knew we needed to descend as soon as possible; however, we still needed to descend a little further into the valley and then climb up to our second pass at 4870m – the highest that either of us had ever cycled.  Thankfully, once we were both out in the fresh air (which is VERY fresh at 4700m!), we felt much better.

I made better progress on this day – I guess I was slowly starting to acclimatize to the altitude. Nevertheless, our progress was still slow considering that we only had to climb 334m to the top of the second pass at 4870m. We made it to the top around 11.30am (yippee!) and then it was downhill all the way to Huallanca; firstly on dirt for the remainder of the Pastoruri Highway and then on a lovely stretch of pavement after we turned onto Highway 3N. It was so much fun and after all of our hard work making our way along the Pastoruri Highway, it felt very much deserved!

We found a nice-ish hostal in Huallanca and celebrated our completion of the Pastoruri Highway!

KMs travelled: 46kms
Maximum elevation: 4870m!!!!!!
Elevation gain: 334m
Elevation loss: 1463m
Highlight: The views from the Pastoruri Highway and the descent into Huallanca
Lowlight: Getting altitude sickness …

Tuesday 13th October: Huallanca to Huanuco

This was a relatively short day on the bike due to bad weather. Although the day started out fine, by lunchtime a storm had developed. We couldn’t find a hotel or anywhere suitable to camp (as we were cycling along a steepish mountain road), so when a shared taxi to Huanuco passed us, we decided to take it.

The downhill to La Union in the morning was quite nice, although the dogs were some of the worst that we had encountered on our trip – aggressive is an understatement! However the remainder of the way to Huanuco wasn’t that nice and there were a lot of crazy drivers on the road (including our colectivo driver, who clearly thought he was driving a race car!), so we weren’t too disappointed to have missed out on cycling this stretch. In total, we paid 60 soles for the shared taxi ride (30 soles per person).

We got a room for 40 soles at the Hotel Imperial (what a name … there was nothing “imperial” about our room, which came complete with cockroaches!). The following morning, we changed hotels and ended up with a lovely room at Hostal Huanuco, which is set in a beautiful old colonial building.

KMs travelled: 42kms
Elevation gain: 392m
Elevation loss: 655m
Highlight: The downhill to La Union
Lowlight: The dogs and our hotel room at Hotel Imperial

14th-16th October: Rest days in Huanca for David’s birthday!

After a few tough days at altitude, we were in need of a break and as it was David’s birthday on the 15th October, we decided to spend a few days in Huanuco. It certainly isn’t the prettiest city, but it was nice to just chill and hang out. We went shopping at the Plaza Real and enjoyed the novelty of the food court and shopping in a real supermarket (most towns in Peru don’t have them). We also used the time to plan our route through to Cusco. We had been planning to tackle Andes by Bike’s Peruvian Great Divide, but the rainy season appears to be upon us, so we have decided to stick to the pavement and leave the dirt for Bolivia.

Saturday 17th October: Huanuco to Huariaca

From Huanuco, we started a very LONG 110km climb up to Cerro de Pasco along Highway 3N. As this is a major route to Lima, there was a LOT of traffic on the road, mainly big trucks and buses as most people don’t own their own car in Peru; but thankfully there was a shoulder and the traffic was generally pretty good.

The scenery wasn’t exactly spectacular, but we’re probably a bit spoilt after the Cordillera Blancas! The highway followed the River Huallaga for much of the day and continually passed through small towns. Small towns mean dogs and unfortunately for us, they were terrible on this day. One of our cycling buddies (Andre) recently got bitten, so we are being extra careful around the dogs. At every village we scanned the area, waiting for dogs to run out at us. With such a lot of traffic on the highway, I really don’t understand why the dogs aren’t tied up for their own protection, as well as ours. :(

The climb was too much for one day, so we decided to break it up over two days, with a stop in Huariaca, which has numerous hotel (although most were full) and restaurant options. We found a room at Hotel Los Andes for 30 soles (USD9), with the smallest double bed that I have ever seen! Unfortunately, we discovered later that there was no water in the hotel that night(!), not even cold water, so we had to make do with a wet wipe shower!

KMs travelled: 68kms
Maximum elevation: 2951m
Elevation gain: 1300m
Elevation loss: 98m
Highlight: Dinner in Huariaca
Lowlight: The aggressive local dogs and the wet wipe shower in our hotel room

Sunday 18th October: Huariaca to Colquijirca

This was a tough day of climbing – steeper than the day before – with quite a bit above 4000m. As the road was paved, I found the climb easier than cycling the Pastoruri “Highway”, but I still struggled with the thin air above 4000m.

The scenery was similar to the day before; we passed through numerous little towns (all decked out with purple and white decorations and with marching bands – there must have been a festival of some sort going on) and a big mine at Chicrin, and of course, there were LOTS of aggressive dogs!

As I was gasping for breath mid-afternoon, we came across a little shop selling fresh cheese and coffee. We pulled in for a break, but as it was freezing at that altitude, we didn’t stay long.

Around 4pm, we finally made it to the turn off to Cerro de Pasco. The mining town of Cerro de Pasco is apparently pretty grim, with the reputation for being one of the most polluted places on earth. Given that it was pretty late in the day, we decided to give it a miss and cycled onto Colquijirca, another bleak mining town.

There was one additional hill to climb after the turn off to Cerro de Pasco and then we finally reached the top of the 110km climb! Yeah – what a relief! It was the longest single climb that I had ever done! :)

We knew from other blogs that cyclists have stayed in the town of Colquijirca. But, we couldn’t find it listed on our Garmin or on our phone app maps.me. They only showed the town of “Chaupimarca”. Later we found out that the “online” maps were wrong (they probably use the same open street maps source) and that Chaupimarca is actually Colquijirca!

We reached Chaupimarca/Colquijirca around 4.30pm and were hoping to come across a hotel on the main highway, but we discovered later that they are all hidden in the town centre. We cycled on for another 10kms or so to the town of Vicco, where a taxi driver assured us there were two hostals. The locals in Vicco were extremely helpful and gave us directions for the hostals, but they were both closed. :( We waited around for a while in the cold, while someone tried to contact the manager of one of the hostals, but by 6.15pm it was dark, we still didn’t have anywhere to stay for the night and we were COLD.

I didn’t want to cycle in the dark because of the crazy dogs in the area, so we decided to try to find a taxi/colectivo which could drop us in the next town with a hostal. Fortunately, David managed to hail a passing pickup truck, and although it wasn’t an official taxi, the owner agreed to take us to the next town with a hostal. We thought he would take us in the direction of La Oroya, but instead he took us back to Colquijirca, which we had cycled past earlier that afternoon! Unfortunately, the hostal that he took us to was also closed …, but a friendly local showed us 3 other hostals and in the end, we found one that was open. It was a bit of a shocker – with the worst mattress ever, but by this time, it was getting late, we were very cold and we didn’t have any other option. We paid 20 soles for a tiny room, with a tiny double bed, with a dodgy mattress and a shared bathroom. There was no wifi, but thankfully, the water was hot!

Finding a restaurant open at 8pm for dinner in Colquijirica was the next challenge. But, thankfully, another friendly local found us one! Colquijirica may not be the prettiest place, but the locals couldn’t have been friendlier if they tried!

KMs travelled: 65kms
Maximum elevation: 4385m
Elevation gain: 1636m
Elevation loss: 332m
Highlight: Making it to the top of the 110km climb and the friendly locals in Vicco and Colquijirica!!!
Lowlight: Our hotel room in Colquijirica, especially the mattress!

Monday 19th October: Colquijirca to Huancayo

After two big days of climbing, I was feeling a bit tired on the bike, so thankfully the terrain was mainly undulating from Colquijirca to Junin. The scenery wasn’t particularly special today, although at times we caught glimpses of Lake Junin (the largest lake entirely in Peru) in the distance.

We passed through a couple of little towns; Carhuamayo, which was inundated with identical little shops all selling “Special Maca Smoothies” (we stopped at the first shop for a smoothie and a coffee, not realizing that the town was full of such shops) and Huayre, which has a bizarre “Park of Maca”, with a giant purple maca root as the centerpiece. Clearly maca is a big deal in this part of Peru. The maca root is used for its apparent medicinal properties and I have since discovered that it is only grown in high altitude areas of the Peruvian Andes. Obviously this is why it has a park dedicated to it in Huayre!

The weather was pretty gloomy all day, threatening to rain at various times, and when we finally arrived in Junin around 1pm, rain drops started to fall. David noticed that there was a bus leaving shortly for Huancayo, so we decided to take it. The scenery hadn’t been particularly nice since leaving Huanuco (although, it did improve after La Oroya), and we are conscious of needing to get to La Paz, Bolivia soon, as the rainy season is starting and we want to be able to cycle both the Salar de Uyuni and the Laguna Route.

Huancayo is the biggest city that we have been to so far in Peru. The city has a nice Plaza de la Constitution, but isn’t otherwise that attractive and we haven’t seen any other tourists here. We got a very nice double room at the Hotel Confort (I wonder if they meant “Comfort”?) near the plaza for 40 soles and after much negotiating, the manager allowed us to put our bikes in the room (which is always a priority for us). We plan to have a rest day here to update our blog, before pushing on towards Cusco.

KMs travelled: 62kms
Maximum elevation: 4266m
Elevation gain: 256m
Elevation loss: 370m
Highlight: Glimpsing Lake Junin
Lowlight: The aggressive dogs