Further up we go

We all lay comfortably and happily in our sleeping bags when we were startled awake by a loud and angry ‘HEY!’ coming from outside the tent. We looked at each other to check if we hadn’t imagined that noise when our question was answered by another loud ‘HEY!’. Göran, who is the most proficient in Spanish of us all, opened our little tent window and was face to face with the owner of the land. He wasn’t happy we were sleeping there as people constantly seemed to be trespassing his land and leaving their garbage. After some assurances from our side that we were not aware that that bit of land was private and that we would of course take all our luggage with us and respect his land, his tone softened. He even allowed us to use some of the wood lying around to build a fire and cook ourselves a nice breakfast, before wishing us a nice day and heading off to where he had come from.

After our startling encounter we slept in until 7.30 AM and had a slow, leisurely start into the day with breakfast in the sunshine, knowing that only around 10 km lay ahead for the day. We met a group of other bikepackers who were cycling the Grand Divide in Peru. They had been cycling for a while and had less luggage. That is to say: they were accustomed to the altitude, were fitter, and faster than us. But they had to be since they only had a month to cycle the whole route. Personally, I already find our plans crazy and challenging enough to even consider something as hard as they were doing.

After a bit of a late start, we started heading our way up further into the mountains. It was a tedious and difficult climb rewarded by amazing views. We passed a cattle farmer with his herd of cows only for them to pass us again during one of our many breaks during which we gasped for air. Cycling up a slope is hard enough as it is, but the lower oxygen levels were a nasty addition to that.
Eventually we reached the peak after which we rolled down for a few very cold but blissful minutes. We found a nice place to camp along the river. While the sun was still out we took a dip in the ice cold river to wash ourselves and rid ourselves of the dust that covered everything after a day of cycling.

After washing we quickly made dinner and got ready for bed because it was windy and incredibly cold that evening. So much so, that we even decided to have dinner inside the tent for the first time on our trip. We went into our sleeping bags wearing socks, long underwear, shirts and a hat that night in an attempt to warm us back up. It took a while, but eventually the warmth came and lulled us into sleep.

distance cycled: 10.5 km
elevation gain: 528 m
Actual altitude: 4221 m
time cycled: ???