Day 22: Glorious pavement!

June 4, 2025

3828 vertical feet

7.5 hours camp to camp

Camping at 14,700 ft

We woke up to a completely clear sky. It was a beautiful morning and the best part was—we got morning sun! The sun hit our tent around 6:30am as we were sipping our coffee in our sleeping bags. After a typical morning routine, we left camp a little after 8am and started to climb, per usual. A truck full of construction workers drove by us and rolled down the window, smiling and asking where we were going. We see a lot of construction workers out here, and they seem to get a kick out of our matching outfits and our bike “para dos!!” These workers asked us to stop so they could take a picture. They said we were strong!

Sipping coffee in the tent! We never wake up not excited for coffee.

We had a short climb this morning, but there was a section where the road was “renaturized”, meaning the road just suddenly ceased to exist and was covered in rocks! We pushed our bike for a bit up and over and down into a meadow, only to find a glorious surprise on the other side—a newly paved road! We love gravel biking, but pavement can be a sweet relief sometimes as you move quicker and it feels less physical. This is especially true when you have been riding chunky and loose gravel, which makes both ascents and descents challenging. We took the pavement all the way to our first town since Huancavelica. It was a smooth descent and the sky was still crystal clear. The road followed a beautiful valley, surrounded by the typical colorful Andes mountains.

We got to town around 11am after a brief climb. We were hoping for a tienda with fruit and veggies and/or a restaurant to have eggs and bread. At first, there was nothing open in sight. However, after asking around, we found a tienda and a gas station that were open. We are learning that in towns around here, you often have to ask. The locals are very helpful and will point you in the right direction. Megan is getting good use of her high school Spanish to help us navigate conversations. Unfortunately the two tiendas we found did not have any fruit or veg. However, we did buy some fruit juice, muffins and chips to tide us over. Megan asked the owner of the tienda if he could make us eggs and bread for lunch. The tiendas often have a table and chairs inside and what looks like a kitchen in the back, so perhaps they also serve food. Megan thought that the message was communicated about the eggs and bread, but it is never 100% certain what gets across, especially because we can’t always understand what they say back. After a little bit, the owner came back with 4 hard boiled eggs on a plate and some bread from a recent bread delivery. We were surprised because we have yet to be given hard boiled eggs. Perhaps in the prior conversation, the owner of the tienda was asking Megan how she wanted her eggs but she couldn’t quite understand. The eggs and bread turned out to be yummy! Even Erin, who prefers her eggs scrambled or fried, liked them. We bought some more water and cookies and Gatorade and headed out for our road climb.

The road was one of the main roads going into the city of Ayacucho so it was pretty busy. We were expecting good pavement, but at first, it was rather bad—huge sections of gravel and some pavement that was falling apart. We turned on some Chapel Roan to keep morale high. It was about 10 or 11 miles of climbing and a little over 2000 ft - not too bad. It was a good gradient and luckily the road condition improved some. We eventually made it to the top of the pass where we sat in a line of cars waiting for construction crews to let us through. There was a woman and a cute kid selling fresh cheese at the top of the pass. We wish we could eat it! We are still cautious about food here, especially after our stomach sickness.

Eventually the construction workers let us through and we hit our descent, which also had its fair share of poor quality pavement. Dogs seemed to be abundant on the descent. We were chased and barked at many times, with one dog launching very close to us. Luckily we had some speed and were able to out-bike it.

Alas, we made it to our turnoff off the main road, and what did we see: more pavement!! It was a short climb to the town of Santa Fe, where a security guard (?) wanted to take our picture. He asked us a bunch of questions and he had a notebook, but he didn’t write anything in it. We were wondering if he was just posing for a photo. Afterwards, we rolled through the quiet town. The tienda looked closed so we asked some people if it was open. They said “si” and sent a little girl to go fetch the owner. It was cute - she walked alongside us, told us to wait, and then sprinted around the corner. Then the owner appeared and opened the tienda. Unfortunately they didn’t have water - which is what we were hoping for - but we bought Sportades and headed to our campsite. It was a short push up a grassy hill to our campsite, which is hidden from the road for the first time in a while. We generally trust people here, but it’s nice to be out of sight and not be a curiosity to people driving by.

We had a mix of quinoa and pasta for dinner with a Peruvian sauce (crema de ají) - yum!! Now we’re off to watch our show on Netflix. The nights are long and we need some entertainment.

Today's ride: 44 miles (71 km)
Total: 633 miles (1,019 km)

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