Peru – a land of mystery on the most unforgiving mountainous countryside I have seen in my life. The roads are bad, the land is rugged and the people are harder to get to know. This past 2,000km has been a true test of resilience. A day in the life…
As we ride off the Alti plano of Bolivia into Peru at 3,500m altitude the Peruvian landscape is so harsh the mountains are more like sheer faces, with valleys plunging deep into the Alto Plano. Trees seemingly defy gravity, growing on top of each other up steep gorges with thin string like waterfalls and rivers lining the rock faces and river valleys. Suddenly the land looks like it has been chopped up with a giant axe and what used to be 20km riding in a straight line is now 120km of switchbacks down and up the other side.
We slowly grovel our way up the a nameless mountainside in light rain on a mixture of mud and boulders weaving back and forth across the road. Constantly being called ‘gringos’ which the Spanish dictionary describes as being “unintelligible gibbering yank” with obvious negative connotations, but I believe has come to mean anyone with white skin. I casually hurl a rock at a dog careering towards us with teeth shining and ribs sticking out. Some kids run after us asking for money, as we near the town of Ocras – about 100 inhabitants and not a lot else. This is where we will spend the night as there is only an hour of light left. We ask for directions to the only hostel in town which looks like it has not seen too many tourists and luckily for us the only two beds in the hostel are available. The spacious room offers a nice view of the sky through the roof and great ventilation for us to get some rest, “We´ll take it!”
A group of about 10 locals gathers round watching with intrigue as we clamber up and down the steep narrow external steps to the room with our bikes and bags. I spark up the cooker and get dinner under way on the floor as Angela lights some candles and puts up the mosquito net. Then a taste of home as I pull out the Ipod and crank out the killers on the new Hi Fi speakers I bought in La Paz yeaa ee yeaa! After dinner we head down for a shower and find that the tap to control the FREEZING water is on the other side of the building and the shower room is only just big enough to fit inside. A nimble step is required not to fall in the bog in the middle of the floor. So Angela is first to undertake the task ha ha. She gets in and awaits torture as I judge the water pressure by her screams and how much icey water is pouring out the door until she tells me what she will do to me if I don´t turn the water off! After I finish laughing she does the same to me and we both feel much better afterwards and so do the locals.
Off to bed and a quick look at the following day’s ride before falling asleep at about 8:30pm, tired but content under the mosquito net and the stars. The following morning we are woken by the ritual roosters, pigs and dogs outside the door before setting off again up the same mountain and it takes us another three hours to get to the top. It’s carnival time in the region which means water bombs often arrive unexpectedly as we ride through each small town. Even the most poverty stricken find the energy to chuck water at us especially when we are cold. At the two-hours-of-light-to-go mark we look for another place to stay and find a similar town, fantastic wahoo wahoo!