Tired (in my case also carsick) and therefore a little on edge, we arrived in Abancay. The bus ride was unpleasant but manageable. With every bump along the way, I worried about our bikes. When we arrived, it turned out that Göran’s and Jacques’ bikes had a slightly dislocated mudguard, but they could be pushed back into place quite well. My bike, which lay below Jacques’ bike, had fared less well, and there was quite some damage to the coating, which I was quite pissed about. Hopefully nothing that Frank, our trusted advisor from Radscheune, can’t fix. At least we didn’t have to cycle up and down all those mountain passes (which is why we took a bus in the first place).
With our moods not great, they dropped further when we left the bus station only to find that we had to cycle one very steep climb after another. Still not fully recovered from having been sick, it was incredibly hard for me, and I was quickly fed up and in complete horror when the men told me we would have to cycle another 28 km uphill. I just physically couldn’t manage that at the moment, and psychologically I wasn’t up for it either as a result.
Long story short: we stood at a gas station trying to hitchhike our way up the mountain pass, but no car stopped for quite a while. Until it turned out that once again, fellow cyclists are our friends on this trip. Percy, a mechanical engineer with a small roadwork company, came to the gas station for gas and noticed our attempts to hitch a ride. As they were heading up to the mountain pass with two large camiones, he kindly offered to help us out, being a cyclist himself. He and his two colleagues were so friendly and made for interesting conversation.
They went to a small stall to get breakfast to go. Being hungry, we bought some breakfast for ourselves as well: a typical quinoa breakfast drink accompanied by a hopefully delicious selection of bread with either avocado, fried egg and potato, vegetable omelette, egg with bacon, or pulled chicken with potato and mayonnaise. We continued driving, but a bit further up the road an opportunity to have breakfast together presented itself somewhat macabrely: two cars had crashed frontally, so the road would be blocked for at least an hour until the cars were removed and the road cleaned. Luckily, no deaths were reported, but heavy injuries were sustained. All we could do was wait. So we got out of the car, had lots of nice chats, and enjoyed our breakfast.
When the road was finally free again, we headed further up to the mountain pass, driving through very beautiful landscapes (or so I was told because I slept through most of it). At the top, we said our heartfelt goodbyes, thanks, and well-wishes before heading off with our bikes. We kept on cycling until we reached a campsite that was indicated on our maps and supposedly had thermal baths as well. Although this campsite was next to the river, which meant we had to drive more than 300 m down into the valley — which we would have to climb up again the next day — the landscape was rocky, barren, and not flat, so it was the only option we had.
We set up camp and bathed in the warm water. When I say it was warm, it truly was warm, but not the hot kind of warm you’d like in a bath. After 5 minutes, all of us were cold, but we stayed in for a while nonetheless and enjoyed that we could bathe again. Also, the water protected us from the armada of midgies that were maliciously waiting for us to come out and advance their attack. They seemed to have a particular appetite for Jacques, who is always covered with the worst amount of bites among all of us. Poor him. That evening, protected by layers of clothing and repellent, we had dinner and quickly headed to bed.
Distance cycled: 55 km Elevation gain: 1725 m Actual altitude: 3994 m Time cycled: 2h 52 min
