Tuesday 17 September 2013

15/09/2013 Stage 25 Quichuas - Huanta by malcandmarjetpatterson at Garmin Connect - Details

15/09/2013 Stage 25 Quichuas - Huanta by malcandmarjetpatterson at Garmin Connect - Details

15/09/2013 Stage 25 Quichuas – Huanta
Political slogans painted on walls and houses are very common.
We joined the village party for a while last night and sampled the food from the stall.
Didn't have the nerve to cycle this bit. 
Hmmm The dogs did quite well out of that. Over time we have noticed that the Peruvians on the whole show great tolerance to the 'village idiot or drunk' and they nearly always give something to beggars and it was no different in Quichuas. Sadly the loudspeakers were of a rather good quality and the music kept me awake until 2 pm. There was no running water in the hostal so it didn't take us long to be on our way in the morning.

We continued following the same river as we did the day before and it was just as beautiful. It was truly lovely cycling. We found ourselves in Mayoc the place where we had intended to spend the night by 2.00 pm. It was still way to hot to put up a tent, the local hostal looked even less appealing and when stood still we were eaten alive by sand flies so we decided to push on to Huanta. It was a tough call as we knew we might not get to Huanta and would then have to find somewhere to camp but on the other hand Huanta would have the comfort of a proper hotel. We knew that it was going to be off road and about 30 km and we decided to push on. The locals all told us it would be 'plano' ( flat) so it shouldn't be too difficult to achieve. Well, I suppose to a Peruvian a height gain of 460 meters (actual meters climbed 660) is flat. When you are surrounded by mountains of more than 6000 meters it is not worth mentioning. To me, who was expecting a flat ride it was quite a shock and when the final bit proved to be exceptionally steep Malcolm got his head bitten off when he was trying to help me [she'll pay for it ]. To be fair the off-road surface was very reasonable and the gradient overall not too bad. It was also very beautiful in the late afternoon sunshine. It was nearly 6.00 pm when we found a hostal and we had been on the road since 7.40 so a long day all in all. There was no electricity until about 8.00 pm in the whole town because of maintenance works but that didn't stop anything. All the restaurants had candles on the tables and managed quite well so I guess it is not an unusual event. Another beautiful day riding.


2013-09-15 click on date to see more pictures

2 comments:

  1. How are the bikes? are they the perfect bike for the job?

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  2. The pictures look beutifull.
    Sometimes we see program's on tv where daredevil's(truckers)drive on this type of roads.
    that makes it look a tiny bit scary

    ReplyDelete