to Maranon River viewpoint camp – 1480m: into the heat
“The bread is getting smaller and cheaper” Patrick says, then adds: “and fresh, just delivered.” After breakfast and photos of us and the owners with the bikes, we leave the Hospedaje Mi Posada y B&B and Patrick goes to shop for bread that we will need for the next couple of days. The plan is to get to Balsas then decide whether to continue or stay in Balsas. At breakfast, the owner recommended to continue on, he says there are casas to ask for water. We’ve had information from others who have cycled this way that Balsas doesn’t have a very nice hospedaje but does have a restaurant.
Our 30 soles (US$8) room also included breakfast. Rachel had joked about whether we should expect breakfast because the “Hospedaje” sign also had a B&B indicated. We really did not expect it, not for this little money, but the lady asked us last night what we wanted and this morning, we had coffee, papaya juice, bread with eggs and homemade blackberry jam. Very nice! Even though we had some issues with the WiFi and electric shower, we highly recommend Mi Posada, the people are just so friendly and helpful with a "can do" attitude.
We pick-up the main road out of town toward Leymebamba. This road has only been paved for a couple of years, and then only about a car and a half wide. And it’s the type of road where most of the day you see where you are going and where you have been. Almost immediately we start climbing to get over our first ridge. As we leave the city, dense white clouds come rolling in and obscure the buildings. We have to climb about 400 meters to the high-point at distance marker 111; it takes us about an hour and a half. Here, there is a restaurant and a nice pine forest that would be a beautiful place to camp were it not so close to Celendin.
Even though we do not get many great views, the ride is nice and cool and instead we focus on the wildflowers that are beautiful. For the descent, we are enveloped in a dense fog. The downhill is narrow with a steep drop on one side. It is cold in the fog. After we drop a couple of hundred meters we get below the clouds and views start to develop. It is a long ways down to Balsas on the Maranon River. About halfway down the temperature gets noticeably hotter. There are more farms with banana, mango and papaya trees. Water is plentiful from a stream that follows the road. There are many places one could camp.
As we drop even lower the farms disappear and the landscape gets much drier with cactus and acacia trees. It also gets very hot. By the time we cross the Maranon River at Balsas it must be over 40 degrees. In case we forget to mention, it is hot! We were not sure whether we would be able to cross here right away, there had been signs about road closure due to construction and William Bennett had to talk his way through one a couple of months ago. When we get to the bridge though they are busy building a new bridge, and there are no delays today.
Right at the old bridge is a small settlement with many shops. We down a couple of cold sports drinks and review our options. It is only one pm, Balsas is hot and accommodation options are not good. The main town is about 2km off route here; we would have to backtrack tomorrow. We always prefer camping over a bad hospedaje, the question is whether we will find a good site once we start climbing the switchbacks out of this canyon, and how bad will the sandflies be at this lower elevation.
Balsas is only at 870 meters altitude, it seems the sandflies are bad until about 2000 meters. We will not be able to climb out of that zone today. After another cold drink we decide to go on, and ask for agua to fill the bladder. There are about 2700 vertical meters to gain to the high-point which will take us at least two days so we might as well get a head start. On our way out of town we do see a sign for a hospedaje though it doesn’t look great and our mind is made up.
The first six kilometers we follow a green valley full of mango orchards. There would be good camping here with a nice stream nearby. Then there is a hairpin and the road doubles back up the dry mountainside. We manage about another 7 kilometers, the last 4 walking our bikes. The grade is not that steep but we are tired.
At 68.5 km from the Plaza in Celendin and near road 8B mile marker 168 (distance from Cajamara) the road cuts through a vertical ridge and there is a rough rocky track backtracking up a small knoll between the road and the valley. At the top there is a small acacia tree and a nice flat area to camp. The views over the Maranon River canyon are spectacular. You can see all the way back to the big downhill we came down earlier. The sandflies are pretty bad though. We are fortunate there is a fairly strong wind that keeps them at bay.
After pitching the tent we have a cup of coffee, then a sponge bath with baby-wipes. We eat instant mashed potatoes flavored with a beef bouillon cube and baked beans and enjoy the view. There is no water here. We were expecting this and to be able to camp just about anywhere we carried about ten liters of water from Balsas. Our water bottles, one large plastic bottle and our six liter bladder were all full.
A storm approaches, and it starts to rain just as we finish dinner. We retreat to our tent, which is great to keep the sandflies off us, but it is also pretty hot with the rainfly closed.
With the owners of Mi Posada in Celendin. Good people.
Balsas has two parts, the settlement at the bridge with shops and restaurants catering to passing buses, and a little town about 2km away. We did see a hospedaje here, there are several more in the town proper, but none get good reviews from other cyclists.
