June 1, 2025
Day 19: More cake (and rest!)
Today we thrived! We ate and relaxed our way through the day. We had breakfast at our hotel. Unfortunately, we couldn’t eat the delicious-looking papaya smoothies since they were made with tap water, but we loved the eggs and bread and jam! We were in search of a cappuccino, but unfortunately one place was closed and another place served us lukewarm tap water drinks so we just went back to make coffee at our hotel with the instant stuff. Sad, but it’s ok! A cappuccino can wait. We enjoyed a second breakfast of more pastries and coffee in bed. We spent the morning wandering around the local town markets and enjoying the festivities. It is a Sunday which means there is a hugeeee street market. Imagine tents upon tents upon tents lining the streets filled with colorful fruit, big bags of rice and grains, and hanging meat. We saw a ginormous dead pig hanging for sale! It was so cool walking around and taking everything in. It feels like we are getting used to the hustle and bustle of towns.
Side note: While walking around, everyone looks at our bare legs (we are wearing shorts) and points. Sometimes they ask if we are cold (frio). Perhaps shorts are not the most appropriate in rural areas of Peru? We are unsure. We bought delicious fruit to peel and rinse at home to make a fruit salad—mango, pineapple and more oranges and mandarins and bananas. We also dropped off our laundry at the lavenderia and did some food shopping for the next few days of riding—we loaded up on lots of goodies at the local market. We even found peanut butter and tortillas! We had fruit and bread and avocado for lunch.
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We spent the afternoon working on our bike and doing some research on the next section of the route. We (mostly Megan with Erin’s moral support) replaced our rear brake pads, cleaned and lubed our chain, inspected our front brake pads (leaving for now), and did a deep dive investigation into our front tire. Finding no bad rim tape, nothing sharp in the tire and no obvious leak in any of our tubes, we are still confused as to what was causing our issues. Alas, we put in a new tube and are hoping for the best! We tried pumping it up with our hand pump but it was SO slow and not beading correctly so we took it out in search of a bike pump. There were pumps but all the men here seem to think our tire has plenty of air. It took some negotiating but we finally got it blown up and seeded all the way around.
We enjoyed another dinner out at the restaurant Intikilla (Peruvian-Amazonian-Chinese fusion), trying different dishes this time and then picked up some more cake for dessert. We highly recommend that restaurant! Very tasty. We relaxed in bed, watching Netflix and eating cake. What a great rest day!
Also it rained on and off all day so we picked a great to spend it in town and inside :)
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