“Gringo, where do you ride?” the man shouts as we ride out of town. After the downpours last night we are surprised to see blue skies this morning. It is cool though; we ride in our long pants and smart wool shirts for the first time since Mongolia.
We continue climbing, the grade steepens a few times, but mostly up at about 5%. We do not see any accommodation options on the climb, but there are some good camping spots among large boulders in the switchbacks just below the summit junction. We stopped 12km below the summit for sopa and the restaurant also advertise as a hospedaje, though we didn’t check a room. We decide to continue to Conococha, first because the weather looks like there will be rain again this afternoon, and second because we still have not picked-up fuel for our stove. We go through several settlements that have advertising “gasolina”, but no-one has gas. There is a fuel station at the summit so that fixes our second reason.
We have a few nice views over Lake Conococha and ice clad peaks of the Cordillera Blanca to our east. Again we reach town just in time, there is an icy wind and rain is starting. The first Hospedaje we see is above Cafetaria El Gallito. The lady shows me a room on the front first then a second in the rear of the building. There is a single bed and a bunk bed, both unmade and covered in blankets left the way they were when the last guy climbed out. There is a picture window though with a nice view over the lake. Patrick walks a little further into town and finds another Hospedaje, this one is a series of dark dungeon style rooms behind a shop. No thanks, back to the first one where the lady is still straightening up the beds and starts cleaning the shared toilet. At least the “banos” is inside.
We haul our stuff up the narrow outside stairs and settle in. It starts to rain hard, we stay warm underneath our sleeping bags. Our dinner is much better than expected; fried trout and French fries and a salad. At about 7:00pm we decide the best way to stay warm is to get into our sleeping bags.
Small hamlet perched on a ridge across the valley.
This avocado truck didn't make it around the corner. It could have been worse, he could have gone off the other side and they probably would have lost all of the avocados.
