June 10, 2025
Day 28: The eve
4455 feet of vertical
Well, if things go as planned, tonight is our last night on the Peru Great Divide. We are currently laying in bed reflecting on the past 28 days and feeling a range of emotions. Just a few weeks ago - after sickness and mechanicals - we thought that finishing the route was no longer in the picture for us. It was about “survival” - making it to the next big town or finding an inflador or recovering from sickness. It wasn’t until Huancavelica (about 3/4 into the route) that Erin did the math and discovered that yes, we could finish on time. So here we are: day 28, in the town of Pampachiri, about 31.5 miles until the official end of the route. Dang, how did we get here?! We did it (almost). We are surprised and proud and sad and a little anxious about the end-of-trip logistics. Our bike needs lots of TLC - it’s creaking, our front brake pads are almost non-existent, our front tire needs to be inflated every morning, and our granny gear is very worn out. Because of that, it feels like the right time for this journey and this chapter to come to a close. At the same time, as we’ve become more comfortable here, we started to feel anticipatory sadness at leaving this place - the beautiful valleys, the lively villages, and the kind people. However, some parts about the journey still feel hard: we are a spectacle as we pass by people and pass through towns. The constant calls of “gringo,” the whistling, and the jokes that we don’t understand leave us feeling slightly uncomfortable and out of place.
Anyways, more about today: if you have read any of our other blog posts, you can picture our morning. We woke up, drank coffee, ate breakfast, packed up, and started to climb. We had a short-ish climb to 14,000 feet, where we undulated for a little bit until we hit double track. The double track was a bit rocky and techy so we walked some. Eventually we arrived at some smooth pavement (surprise!) and had a nice long descent to the town of Soras for an egg and bread lunch (also not a surprise if you’ve been following along with the blog posts).
From there, we undulated for the rest of the day, stopping for 30-ish minutes to wait for some construction.
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We decided to sleep inside for the night to get wifi and shower in anticipation of a potentially chaotic and hectic day tomorrow, as we try to take a nighttime bus out of Abancay. The place we are staying at tonight is super cute - there is a beautiful courtyard and the room is decked out in traditional Peruvian decor - very colorful! Unfortunately, it took 30 minutes for the shower to heat up and it was still cold when Erin got in. She was squealing as she rinsed her body, her one nightly desire of a hot shower not met. We both got grumpy because Erin was cold and didn’t get a hot shower and Megan was hungry and needed dinner. The wifi also doesn’t reach the bedroom. So we struck out on two of the things we wanted! But then we went and got Chifa (Peruvian Chinese fusion) and a bunch of pastries and cake and things felt better. Our plan is to wake up early tomorrow to bang out the rest of our miles.
Today's ride: 45 miles (72 km)
Total: 892 miles (1,436 km)
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