June 8, 2025
Day 26: Preparing for battle
3773 feet of vertical
Camping around 7100 feet (so low!!)
We woke up in a bed for the third morning in a row! The highlights of the morning were our cereal breakfast and instant cappuccino mix. Like most mornings, we also woke up to a soft front tire. Instead of trying to pump it up, we decided to go look for a larger pump (inflador) in town. We left Rosita’s hospedeje around 7:45am, and after a cute exchange with Rosita, we were pushing our bike up the steep road to the Main Street of town.
Lucky for us, 1) the ferreteria (a hardware store) was open at 8am on a Sunday, and 2) the little boy inside said “Si, tenemos un inflador!” However, turns out they only sold new pumps, and they didn’t have one we could use just once. Genius Erin decided we should just buy the large pump and carry it with us. It wasn’t too heavy after all, nor was it very expensive. And it would give us peace of mind and limit the need to ask basically everyday if someone has an inflador. This tire has been a source of stress for us - it has made us question whether we should keep going and it has eaten up a lot of time during the day while we try to pump it with our hand pump. We knew we were headed into some rugged, rocky, and remote terrain today, which was risky for the tire. It took little convincing for Megan. So, we purchased the large inflador and strapped it to our rear rack. Now we look like all of the moto bikes that go by with an inflador strapped to them! We pumped our tire in less than 30 seconds and headed out, feeling slightly more secure.
We rode 10 uphill road miles to the town of Vilcas, arriving around 10am. Like all things in Peru, it was a treasure hunt to find the groceries we needed. We must have gone to 5 different tiendas before we found the two larger tiendas that had lots of what we needed. And inside every small tienda are typically older people and kiddos who want to know where you’re going and where you’re from. Today we had a few young boys (10 years old) who were tagging along on our tienda journey and asking us questions. When we told one of them we were from the United States, his face lit up and his eyes got huge. “Los estados unidos?!?!” It was fun to interact with them, and they even helped point us to the larger tienda which had what we needed: avocados!
After finally checking off all the food items that we needed for the next two days, we came across another bigger tienda/store. Well of course we had to go in there! Erin found cereal/granola bars (score!), cereal (another score!), a huge bag of Lays for Megan, and she topped off our hand sanitizers. After this tienda stop (#7??), we went in search of a restaurant that could make us eggs and bread. We struck out on the first two but found a cute restaurant hidden away in an alley that could make us what we wanted. And boy were those eggs good!! We finished our meal off with some bananas and oranges (after peeling some carrots at the table for dinner) and we were off again.
We kept riding up up up on gravel for the next 12 miles. Towards the end of the uphill we approached two buggies (small three-wheeled cars) on the side of the road. Like all people we pass by, we said “Hola!” and smiled and waved as we rode by them. They shouted “inflador!!” And we said “sí!!” We were so proud of the inflador we just bought. But then they kept shouting, perhaps a little louder, “inflador!!” After taking a second look at them, we realized that maybe they needed to use the inflador. They had a bunch of wheels off their buggies and they were all crowded around. We stopped immediately after our realization and confirmed that yes, they needed to use our inflador. They had two flat tires. It felt like the world was all of a sudden giving us the opportunity to give back to the Peruvian people. People here have been so kind and have continually lended a hand - and provided an inflador - so many times. Ironically, now WE were the ones with the inflador that was needed. So we happily lended them the pump, and even helped them patch the puncture in their tube - our first time using our patch kit! We must’ve been there for 30 minutes. We had wonderful interactions with one of the daughters, named Cynthia. She is becoming a teacher and she owns a cute piglet. The family gave us a bag of traditional snacks and one of them even offered us a smoke, which we politely declined. Cynthia asked if we were partners (parejas) - the first time we’ve been asked that question. We said yes, and she continued to say how her sister is with a girl. It felt good to be seen and acknowledged in an unprompted and authentic way. They were able to fix their tires and then they zoomed off. We felt good they we were able to help them - and maybe it’ll give our tires some good karma.
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2 weeks ago
Eventually, we finished our climb and started what we heard was going to be a rough descent. It was rough, yes, but not terrible. We descended from 13,000 to 7000 feet, and we could see the river and our climb on the other side of the valley as we descended. It was super neat! We stopped for water and oranges at a tienda before finishing up the descent. We had two water crossings where we had to dismount and take our shoes off and put our sandals on to cross. We continue to be impressed by the rugged roads cars drive here, since these cars also cross these streams. We also almost hit a juvenile cow on our descent. It didn’t move until the last minute, when it basically ran in front of us. Lucky for everyone, nobody was hit.
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Finally we hit the river - our destination - and with no flat tires from the rugged descent! We walked our bicycle across a very sketchy bridge with holes in the wooden planks that a person could fall through. It is wild that cars drive on it. We set up camp on the other side. It’s a cool spot next to the river in a huge valley. We cooked dinner outside (since it was warm!) under the light of the almost full moon. We have a biiiiig climb tomorrow, but we’re 100 miles from the official end of the route. It feels surreal!
Today's ride: 41 miles (66 km)
Total: 816 miles (1,313 km)
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