Le tour de South America: March 2015

Everybody had an opinion on Trujillo and most of them were bad. "Oh it's not safe", " careful with your bike" etc etc.

I got there via bus from Piura since I asked at least 10 people and they all said the ride from Piura to Trujillo was BAD NEWS. Most Peruvians I asked made a pistol sign with their hand every time I asked them about that stretch of road, the majority won, there's also nothing to see in between. That said, I still regretted not riding it.

The bus arrived at about 8pm and I had to ride from the station to the center of the city. I was a bit worried since it was night time and the roads were busy, but I had no bad experiences. I asked a local on a bike where to go and he told me to follow him, he pretty much left me right at the hostel which was pretty funny. Lots of traffic and beeping but nothing out of the ordinary for a decently sized city.

Trujillo itself is nice. The plaza de Armas is massive, the biggest one I've seen for sure. Lots of colonial buildings and churches scattered around, I got a good vibe from the city. There is a long stretch of restaurants and little shops near the plaza de armas, from classy ones to very cheap ones.

Going out of Trujillo was a shitshow, just like getting out of any major city. Lots of cars and lots of smoke. 40 min in to the ride and you're out of the city. You can barely see the coast but you can see a lot of sand. My plan was to go up into the mountains again, specifically Caraz. Lets just put it this way, 90% of this route consists of unpaved, coarse rock mining roads. There is a section where it is all under construction because they're defacing a mountain or something. It's very difficult to advance fast and its also very uncomfortable to be bouncing around non-stop for hours on end. It took me three days to get to Caraz. You can see a few coal mines along the river and you go through some really dark caves that can stretch for a few hundred feet, you need lights for this since its pitch black. There was a landslide on the paved road further ahead and I had to take an ultra long detour up a huge goddamn mountain with spectacular views. I spent a night in a town that consisted of 10 houses.

Caraz is a small town known for it's sweets, hence it's nickname: Caraz Dulzura. It's got a cute little plaza de armas and a decent indoor/outdoor market. It's hard to describe, but it had a special feeling about it, you truly felt like you were somewhere very different and very far.

One of Caraz's main attractions is Laguna Parón. 32km up a little dirt road all the way up to around 15,000 feet plus. The ride is very, very difficult especially because of the altitude. It is also very beautiful, otherworldly. The trail is eroded limestone on top with big, sharp rocks underneath. I had no traction with my Schwalbee Marathons and I was geared out on my double. I suggest if you want to attempt this you do it on knobbies and a triple or very low MTB gearing. I nearly puked from the pounding headache I had and lack of O2. The view is gorgeous if you go in the right time of the year, I didn't so it was foggy, raining and freezing. You could still make some huge mountain silhouettes in the distance. I later learned that that mountain Infront of the lake was "Piramide", the mountain from Paramount pictures. I camped out for one night in pouring rain and rode down in the frozen rain the next day, the descent was almost harder since I was pretty much riding on top of a river from the torrential rain. That night I ate half a chicken. 30 minutes went by and I burped very loudly, (gross part ahead) it had a putrid, but sparkly, gaseous tinge to it and I had not had any soda. I spent the next week with violent and incessant fluid expulsion from both ends, Salmonella probably.

The ride to Huaraz was a pretty chill 70km. There are some nice views of the cordillera blanca along the ride and that keeps you pretty entertained. Though my stomach was still doing backflips every few minutes. I arrive at a decent hostel and make friends with A German girl and one from New Jersey. Later that night I was on the phone with my girlfriend and the German girl spoke into my room, asking if I wanted to join them for dinner in a very casual kind of way, my gf did not like that, understandable. I ended up going alone and ate a massive bowl of some sort of fried rice. Later that night I was constantly going to the bathroom through the night. Keep in mind, these are bunkbed style dorm rooms with up to 8 people. Try having explosive diarrhea in close quarters like that. Thankfully I was Ethan Hunt levels of tactical stealth, or at least that's what I was aiming for.

Huaraz is a decently sized city. It has a lot of stuff going for it, especially hikes. Its surrounded by epic snowy peaks and you can do anything from cycling to climbing up to the snow summits. Two Danish guys, the German girl, the New Jersey girl and I went up to Lago 69, it's a 2hr bus and a 10km hike but don't be fooled, it's brutal because of the altitude. The lake is at 4600 meters.

A lot has happened but it's just too much to write about. I'm currently in Lima and am heading to Nazca, Cusco, lake Titicaca then in to Chile!