Le tour de South America

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!

Plaza de Armas, Trujillo

Trujillo

Ruins

Trujillo

Towards Caraz, mosquitoes here are such assholes.

Touring brah

Just follow that river for days

;)

Timing....

Sandwich destroyer

Shorts for life

Never been closer...

Exhausted

Hike 1

Huaraz

The way to Cuenca sucked, it was basically all uphill and I HATE climbing. The mix of going at a turtle pace and having your legs light on fire sucks. If I wanted to go slow I'd walk, I ride a bike to haul ass.
There were alpacas and all sorts of neat animals. Random lakes and strange vegetation. I recommend riding it just for the sake of gorgeous pics and epic stealth camping.

I rode to the center of the city and BOOM, that place is gorgeous. Tons of old buildings and cathedrals. You can see the mountains in the distance and boy is it a sight to behold. I spent two days in Cuenca while the carnavals started. Didn't get wet once. I also tried "Canelazo", a very traditional hot alcoholic beverage composed of aguardiente and fruit juice. I drank a whole pitcher and got pretty buzzed. 10/10 would recommend it. Tastes delicious.

The ride to Loja was pretty intense. Tons and tons and tons of climbing and beautiful sceneries. I tend to go over 130km every time I ride, it's a bad (good?) Habit. This time it was around 230km with a massive amount of climbing so I had to stealth camp in this very odd place located on top of a road. I also got soaked by a few water balloons and some asshole thought it'd be hilarious to pelt me with a bucket of water saturated with ice cubes while I descended at around 45mph. That fucking hurt and I seriously wanted to kick his ass, pretty sure I'd end up as pig food. Those dudes wield some serious machetes.

Loja was empty when I got there. Everybody was hung over from the carnivals and everything was closed. Seriously, you can't even get food, you'll starve and die like I did. The city is relatively small but has a lot of plazas and stuff to check out. The main plazas have free, 45min WiFi which is pretty awesome. Overall I recommend it there.

From Loja to Macara was by far the most intense ride up to date. 114miles and 15k feet of elevation. Originally this ride was supposed to be two days. Around the middle of the ride the sun was starting to set and I was starting to look for somewhere to camp....well....nothing. It's all mountain sides and weird farmer's land, like from a horror movie. So I decided to ride through the night, it was terrifying. It was pitch black and pretty much uphill the entire goddamn time. My bike light is powered by a dynamo hub but I was going so slow it was struggling to keep the light on. I was shitting my pants to be honest and I did not want to stop. The sounds of scary animals kept me moving. Around three hours into the night ride it started raining, just a little extra fun.

Finally, the descent, it lasted about one hour and I was on the brakes for the most part. The shiny, slick, wet pavement made me kind of nervous so I was cautious the whole time. Once in Macará I checked in to a shitty hostel and passed out.

The next day I was looking around to get a haircut. I found this small barber shop with one person working there and a few other older gentlemen just sitting and reading newspapers. I don't recall the name but it said "unisex" on the sign. I walk inside and all the older guys get up and leave, kinda weird. The person who works there greeted me and asked me to sit. She was trans, tons of surgeries (I have nothing against it, just setting the scene). She started cutting my hair and asking standard questions. How old am I, what was I doing around there, am I married etc. I couldn't understand her strong accent very well so some questions I just answered with a "yeah" and a smile. After the cutting part she asked me to sit on the special chair to get my hair shampooed. I sit down and she asks, "Eres Huevon?". In Colombia that means " are you an idiot?" So I was a bit confused. She asked again and clarified, "do you have a big d**k." What the fuck? I just chuckled and said nothing. "I bet you have a big one, let me touch it real quick". She goes for it and I grab her hand mid-way and tell her not to touch me and that it was not cool at all. " just let me touch it", I was still grabbing her hand after two long minutes of her asking me again and again and really trying to grab my d**k. "I'LL GIVE YOU $100 IF YOU LET ME SUCK IT", yeah, no, I stood up, paid her the $3 for the haircut and got the hell out of there. " I'll be here if you change your mind baby". That has to be one of my top 3 most awkward and weird experiences, the haircut came out good though.

Next day I set off for Piura, it's around 170km from Macarà but doesn't have a lot of climbing so I was pretty confident about it. I had done the passport stamping the day before so I just crossed the border bridge without stopping, I got some weird looks. About an hour in to the ride I hear a car approaching very fast. The police Mitsubishi triton passes me, gets in front and slams on the breaks. The driver waves his hand out the window and asks me to stop. Both of the men get out of the car, the passenger walks towards the fence next to the road and starts taking a leak. "You did not get your passport stamped and you weren't coming back, are you Peruvian?" Asked the immigration police guy. "I'm Colombian and I did get my passport stamped yesterday", I said. " I don't believe you, let me see it", so I showed it to him. The other guy comes by and asks "is he cool?", I just smile. They both get in the car and say " good luck", and off they went.

The further I rode in to Peru the more arid it got. It started out with tons of farms and plantations, small towns and quite a few bit of people to the point where there was not a single tree for coverage and it was 40°c. If you are white (which I'm not) be prepared to get called "gringo" by the locals. They will wave and smile at you, point at you and yell "Mira al gringo!" and "mister!", that one is kinda cute, makes me feel like a teacher. I'm not a gringo and I'm not even white. Regardless of that the people out there are very nice, they have innocence and sincerity in their eyes, unbroken by our fast paced life.

I get to a town called Sullana, there's just sand everywhere, a lot of wind, lots of semi-trucks and the heat is just immense, that's all you need to know. I doubt there's anywhere to stay there and even if there was, I wasn't interested.

I continue on to the hardest stretch. From Sullana to Piura. Insaneeeeeee heat, insane head/cross/every damn direction wind. There are no trees or structures to hide from the sun so it's just suckage all the way there. I was hammering hard since it was decently flat to get it over with asap. You absolutely need long sleeves and a ton of sunblock, oh and water...lots of it.

Once in Piura there's one thing you'll notice. Holy wow! People drive like its a demolition derby. I have never in my life witnessed such mayhem on the roads. Everything goes, that simple. The honking is straight up abuse and noise pollution. Its like everybody has a nervous tick and that tick is to honk at literally EVERYTHING, every second, everybody at the same time. I just wanted to shower because I was covered in sand, tons of dry sweat and layers of road grime and I was getting realllll moody with all that noise. I was told this was the case but I had no idea it was that crazy. Once I settled in it's pretty cool here. The center of the city has it's nice restaurants and places to visit.

Another very evident thing is cat calling. It's pretty prevalent in Colombia too but a lot less in Ecuador. If you think this is bad in the U.S, you have absolutely no idea, It's a cultural macho thing, not that it makes anything better.

I've had no issues adjusting to using Soles. A dollar is basically 3.2 soles or something like that. The price of food is super cheap like in Ecuador. You can get a meal for about 10 soles or about/under 3 dollars.

That about sums it up. My next stop is in Trujillo. Taking a bus there, I was told by many locals that it's a very dangerous and long road from here to there. There has been a few bike tourers who've gotten everything stolen, I do not want to go through that.

Note: I'm not bashing on Piura or anything for that matter, I'm just writing about my experience. I've had a great time so far.