Day 27: Up!

June 9, 2025

7400 feet of vert

Sleeping around 12,000 feet

We both slept well last night - woohoo for camping low! But we did wake up to LOTS of bites on our legs. Luckily, they are not itchy. Also, luckily, we decided to put the fly on the tent even though it was a beautiful night…right after we put the fly on, it started to rain! Phew! It was a beautiful and peaceful morning on the banks of the river. It was warm enough to sip our coffee outside the tent and enjoy the sunrise as it hit the other side of the valley. We had cereal and powdered milk for breakfast!! A good change from oatmeal.

We rolled out of camp by 7:30, after using our grande inflador to inflate our front tire, which seems to start losing air around 3pm each day. We started to climb, which is all we (mostly) did today. The first 3200 feet of the climb to the town of Belen was quite enjoyable. There were well graded switchbacks and beautiful views of the valley. The river where we camped kept getting further and further away. We even turned on some country music. We did come across a town of barking dogs but we walked the bike past them and all was okay.

Looking down on the river where we camped.

We made it to the town of Belen around 10am. Like the other towns we passed through today, the town was situated on the hillside and had great views of the valley below. We had a few pleasant exchanges with some locals and got some delicious goodies from the tienda—they had lots of good fruit and Megan’s favorite cookies! In addition to the usual oranges and bananas, we got a mango! It was delicious and such a good treat!

A bag full of fruit peels means deliciousness was had ;-)

After a nice break in town, we restocked up on water and headed out for the next part of our climb. There were about 4 small towns on today’s climb, all about 6 or 7 miles apart. It was a great way to break up the climb as we stopped and had food in each town. Climb, eat, repeat was the theme of the day. In our next town, we encountered a whole class of elementary school boys who shouted “gringos!” and ran by the fence to say hi when they saw us. We enjoyed avocado sandwiches and chips for lunch in the town plaza, which was surrounded by poppies!

Interacting with a cute kiddo on the porch above us.

After lunch, it was onto the next town, which wasn’t too much of a climb away. The riding today was beautiful - the valley we were sidling felt like it went on forever, branching into more and more interconnected valleys. Towns appear and disappear as you weave your way through it. In this next town, we bought more fruit, sports drinks, and cookies!! Megan’s favorite cookies were in many of the tiendas today. It was hot and we were tired after climbing all day. It was around 2:30pm at this point.

Taking a rest before continuing the climb.

We left this town and headed out for what would feel like the hardest part of all of today’s climbing: a STEEP climb that went on for four miles. Our chain and/or our cassette are quite worn because our chain keeps skipping under load. This climb was TOUGH, but eventually we reached the top around 3:45pm. Yippeee! We descended into the final town for the day. We didn’t know if we were going to sleep here or continue on. Right after town, you start climbing again so we didn’t want to go too much further. The hospedeje in town didn’t look too good, so we decided to stock up on food from the tienda and go find a place to camp. Unfortunately, the route past town was a bunch of switchbacks with limited camping options. However, we found a small sliver of flat ground near a switchback (and off the road) where we were able to set up camp. It was a beautiful night! The (almost) full moon was rising and it was warm and we felt like we could enjoy camp - such a nice change from sleeping in the cold (although we’re still at 12,000 feet).

Beautiful views at camp (and peep the almost-full moon!)

While we ate dinner (pasta with veggies), two separate men came down the hillside with flashlights. It felt a little scary at first watching the flashlight approach us. But turns out we are camped on their walk home from work at a nearby mine. They were both very friendly, and one of them shook our hands. With that, we are inside the tent and ready to watch our show. We are 70 miles from the end of the route. We can’t believe how far we’ve come - it’s certainly been one of the biggest challenges and adventures we’ve ever faced.

Today's ride: 31 miles (50 km)
Total: 847 miles (1,363 km)

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