After the resting days we rose like a phoenix from the ashes, with new power in the legs and energy reserves filled. But the up and down between the villages continued as it had been the week before and on the opposite site of the major valley we’d been following for 3 days already, we still saw that road that went constantly with a slight gradient upwards, leading to the same end we seemed to be riding towards - that could have saved us probably 2 or 3 days, had we only been riding on the other side!
In the meantime I had put some brown tape around the gel cover over my saddle that had always moved. And the more tape I put around to fix the cover to the seat the more comfortable the seat got. Had I tried a Brooks saddle before I guess my MTB saddle + gel cover combination would probably come pretty close to the Brooks feeling now, but of course still worlds away from the comfortable seat of the recumbent my father’s enjoying these days.
Now we cycled towards Sihuas, where the people told us we would have faster internet, decent shops and hostels, so we were optimistic. More and more white peaks appeared especially to our right … we could feel the Cordillera Blanca come closer and closer and just before Sihuas we climbed up this long road towards a 4200 m pass. There we took another hour to climb a small mountain beside the road and in the distance we could see them: the giant, glacier covered, white peaks of the Cordillera Blanca spreading from north to south. A phenomenal view that made us hungry for more; and more should come in the following weeks!
But only half an hour later after arriving back at the bikes and cooking a short lunch a strong, one hour lasting cold shower took us by surprise. I reacted quickly and put the blue plastic sheet which I’d been using all the time as a tent footprint, put it between the two bikes and we sought protection under it while it rained in pours. But slowly we got colder and colder, so we tried to use sheep and penguin know-how and sat together, minimizing the surface area as far as possible and reducing air circulation around our bodies.
Then we went into the long descend of more than 1000 height meters, arriving in Sihuas just before dusk, but had some problems finding a room because of a health convention in town where not only a lot of doctors came from Huaraz as we’ve been told but also all the people with ills from smaller, surrounding villages arrived in town. Bad timing! When we had found one we just put all our stuff inside and went for the fast internet. But again we got disappointed and the internet cafe didn’t even have internet at all, all the stations standing empty!
Cycling up a long and dry mountain the next day we interrupted and began cooking right beside the steep drop. As we sat there cooking, two small boys arrived and started sieving the sandy soil, probably to get raw material for bricks. Then 20 minutes later we interrupted again and entertained a whole bunch of village children by playing a game in front of their tiny church.
At that time the clouds were so dark and threatening, that we didn’t believe in cycling much further that day. But fortunately the weather changed and after another 2 or 3 hours of climbing uphill we found this nice little single trail leading further up from the pass we had reached towards a hilltop.
Leaving the bikes behind at a place out of sight from the road we took one or two bags each and climbed up another 100 m to the top of the hill. With a magnificent view on some of the glacier covered peaks, we pitched the tent close to a stone ruin, probably an ancient Inca tower at the top and several great stone walls divided in smaller cells around it.
This Inca camp was definitely one of the top spots we’ve camped at this tour! The heavy winds just after dusk couldn’t blow us away because I had secured the tent with all available cords and pegs. But it got pretty loud until probably 8 or 9 pm when the winds suddenly stopped.
The following morning I was up half an hour before dawn to get the best light and clearest view on the massive 6000 m mountains in our neighborhood. Even though this was a tough job after a hard day of cycling and a night with bad sleep on 3900 m, it was rewarding and a wonderful early bird feeling.
Walking back to our bikes we met two shepherds with a great amount of sheep, cows and even a few donkeys. One of them had a sling and since I’ve ever wanted to have one of those simple slings I went straight towards him and asked him to demonstrate it and even got the chance to test it myself. What a fascinating simple instrument but also dangerous weapon!
(the old woman on the right in the focus:)
In San Luis we met Italian missionaries again. As Elia from Tauca had told us, they, too, welcomed us with open hands and here we even got some warm pizza in the evening, some cheese filled pancakes and two warm beds for the night.
In this town the ‘italianos’ have not only helped with the construction of the truely massive church but also created another colegio to educate young men, a place for disabled and homeless children and another massive building complex outside town with gardens and schools. They also seemed to have other projects in the area which we didn’t get to see.
Now the next morning we sat out for ‘Punto Olimpico’, the 4890 m high pass to cross the Cordillera Blanca. Actually we didn’t even plan to cross, but only cycle up and the next day down. But first we arrived in Chacas. Here the Italians have built another giant church with rich cravings all over and a massive complex of baroque style buildings. And now we had arrived at the root of this kind of “Italian invasion”: Padre Hugo. This priest had arrived here from a Italian community close to Milan more than 30 years ago and started all the missionary activity in the area. We met him when invited for lunch into one of the buildings and chatted for a while with this charismatic old man of 84 years.
Later when the sky cleared up we started an attempt to get closer to Punto Olimpico. But sadly the outcome was not what we had hoped for but a totally different one, nonetheless a nice and pleasant one: Half an hour of cycling after Chacas dark clouds slowly crawled into our valley and we could smell the rain already before it fell down in heavy showers. Straight from the street we cycled under the veranda of a house nearby the dirt road. Raul’s house. Raul, a man in his 60s and a extremely friendly, helpful and great-souled character.
With him we chatted the remaining hours of dailight. He showed us his room with a small bed with loads of blankets, his wooden box with all his valuables, his two or three books, including a heavily worked with Bible and another sci-fi book which he believed in. He showed us a post card from some tourists he had met some time in the 1970s, he showed us a puma head probably from Inca times which he had found on one of his fields and he actually even wanted to give it to us.
Then he brought a bag of dust and put a bit of it onto my hand: gold dust. He told us he had 15 kilos of it and it was his only capital. The tiny bag should be another present for us. So it got pretty tricky for us to refuse without disappointing him.
And because the rain just didn’t stop he offered us to sleep in another, empty room. But we had a better idea: Pitching the tent in the rain we soon realized that this was not the solution: a tiny creek had formed just below our tent, making it impossible to spend a dry night inside. So he showed us a bigger place behind the house where we could put the whole tent under a roof. And this was the best solution and definitely the driest.
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