Amazing Andes
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November 4-6 2016

One last day of riding in Peru before we head North to visit our friends in Mexico.

Cycling Stats

November 5, 2016
Start Point: Celendin, Cajamarca, Peru
End Point: Cajamarca, Cajamarca, Peru
104.9 km distance, 8:22 time on bikes, 52.3 km/h maximum speed, 12.5 km/h average speed

Accommodations & Route Information

November 5, 2016
We rode a very long distance on this day. We had tried to stay in Encanada which was about 3/4 of the way through the day but the three hotels turned us away. The town seemed to have a market of some sort and we guess that the rooms were being saved for locals who would use them on an hourly basis and they would turn them over quickly and make more money. So we continued on. On this day you climb for a consistent 50 kilometres and then it is undulating hills with it being mostly downhill. The grades are manageable and the maximum elevation is 3715 meters. In total we climb over 1700 meters. This day was too long and I wouldn’t recommend trying this distance. The scenery is nice farm land and Inca ruins.

What happened…

Amanda writes: We decided to take a rest day in Celendin after enjoying the previous few days. The city was large enough that it had the comforts of restaurants and our hotel allowed me to do our laundry and hang it to dry. So we took the day to relax and get some chores done in preparation for our final ride into Cajamarca. The ride was beautiful but too long. We had planned to ride to Encanada, however upon arrival were turned away by all the hotels. That left us in the position of either finding a wild camp spot or trying to push on further to Cajamarca. It turns out we just ended up riding all the way into the big City. While the day was much longer than we like to ride it was a good feeling to have accomplished that much distance. The countryside and ruins along the way were beautiful and I enjoyed the remoteness of the landscape. The closer we got to the city the more dogs we encountered and they were rather aggressive and clearly wild. I witnessed a group of males dogs taking advantage of a female dog in heat which always is a disturbing sight; one I hadn’t seen since being in Cuba. We were able to navigate our way to the AirBnB that we had contacted previously and we were welcomed with open arms.

After settling in to the casa and getting a good nights sleep we met the woman who we had originally communicated with about storing our bikes while we went to Mexico. She had just come from Lima where she was visiting her daughter who is there studying at University. She works in the tourism industry and was full of fabulous information. After spending some time with her we spent the next two days arranging our bikes and equipment so that we could travel North with a backpack and safely store our bicycles and equipment in her home. While some people may think it is risky to leave everything we own in life with a complete stranger, we think of it as following our intuition. And while we won’t know if our intuition is good until we return to Peru, we both agreed that we were comfortable leaving our things with this family. And so with that, we packed our backpacks and after two days with the family we headed to the bus depot to start making our way to the airport in Trujillo. First stop; back to the beach to surf!

Today’s Photographs

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Amazing Andes
Back to the Beach