July 2, 2017
After taking a day off to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday we headed out on some more glorious paved roads.
Cycling Stats & Travel Stats
Start Point: Pachapaqui, Ancash, Peru
Destination: Conococha, Ancash, Peru
40.4 km, 15.6 km/h average speed, 57.6 km/h maximum speed, 2:34 time on the bike
871 meters gained, 669 meters elevation descend, 4265 meters maximum elevation
Route Description:
This entire day is on a paved road with no shoulder and light traffic. The first 9 km is downhill as you drop 300 meters in elevation. Then you climb 700 meters over 14 km to an altitude of 4252 meters. After this climb you have a gradual downhill for 13 km with a small 4km climb up into the town of Conococha. There are many restaurants and stores in this town, and CHEESE!
Accommodations:
There was two advertised hospedejes but both of them didn’t answer the door. We had considered staying another day and the next day they did answer the door but they were pretty grimy so we rode on. The one night we did stay the gas station let us sleep in the building that was under construction.
What happened…
Andrew writes: It had been raining on and off for the past day and a half as we tried to spend the time praying for our freshly washed clothes to dry on the line outside. On our day off yesterday, we figured that it was probably snowing again back up high where we had camped with Nici and Philip, but wouldn’t you know it, they showed up just in time for lunch. They were cold and wet, but the posse was back together.
It was misting slightly when we left this morning yet by the time we reached the bottom of the first descent, the sun was out and we started our climb for the day which figured to be about 900m. Everyday seems to be 800-1000m of climbing lately. About the only benefit of this, near as I can figure, is that I’ve lost 20 of the 30lbs I put on when I was in Canada. Oh, and the views. Philip had some sort of bicycle maintenance to take care of this morning, so we agreed to just ride our ride and they would ride theirs and we’d all end up in Conococha at the end. The descent into town today was really great. It reminded me of coming out of the Rockies, and onto the prairies, with a straight-as-a-ruler road and such a gradual downhill as to be imperceptible to the eye, but man did we ever have a great time just whipping along at breakneck speed. There is a laguna beside Conococha, and with the waist-high grass everywhere, and the strong headwind that kicked up just as we were approaching town I couldn’t help but think what it would be like to kitesurf here. Then I noticed the cows standing in the waist deep laguna. They were crapping everywhere. Suddenly, kitesurfing didn’t seem like such a fun idea.
Conococha doesn’t have a lot going for it except for the three dozen stores selling cheese. We did a tour of the available hospedajes before deciding to accept the generosity of the gas station manager who let us sleep inside the unfinished restaurant. N&P showed up around sunset, and we erected our tents inside the building and shivered ourselves to sleep. Man is it cold in here!
Amanda writes: It was really nice to be back on pavement today and with the addition of our motors the ride didn’t feel too bad. After we completed the climb the mountains seemed to part and it was wide open valleys. As we continued along the gradual descent there was a beautiful farm on the right hand side. Behind the farm it had beautiful snow capped mountains and the whole picture was just so beautiful. I instantly declared to Andrew that I could live there. So remote and yet so beautiful. Having said that it’s bloody cold around here so maybe not. But it sure was pretty to look at.
As we rolled into Conococha we met yet another two cyclists. We seem to be meeting new cyclists daily and its so great to hear others stories. Myline and Thibault are from France and they’ve been on the road for I believe a year. They were so excitable and had loads of information about the route coming up. In addition in the last year they’ve ridden Africa so we were very interested in their adventures on that continent. We talked for probably an hour and then they decided they should probably get going. Good peeps and we hope to see them again.
The aerial view of our ride: