WARNING: The images below may evoke feelings of wanderlust and jealousy as well as existential questions.
Tip: get on your bike and go for a ride 😉.

There we were, in Huancavelica, as Paul described in his blog here; tired, muddy, cold, hungry. Fortunately, the shower finally gave us really hot water around midnight, after which we both fell into a deep sleep.

In Huancavelica we have a rest day in which we exchange our agricultural ponchos for real fluorescent ‘festival raincoats’ (with hood and snap closure). We wash our clothes (as usual) in the shower and Paul has another jar of poop examined at a ‘Laboratoria’. His stomach ache has still not completely gone. Fortunately, the result is ‘negative’; good. That Giardia will now really be chopped to pieces. Under the 5-layer warm blankets I plan the route for the last 1.5 months of our trip. It will be a mix of the Peru Divide, some of my own inventions and a round around and through the Cordillera Blanca (the white mountains). We call the result ‘La Gran Final’. Because the finale of our journey will be grand in terms of both altitude and impressive surroundings.

After this ‘rest day’ we leave freshly rested on our still muddy bikes towards a mountain pass exactly 1000 metres higher. With a departure well after lunch we do not expect to get very far. At the same time, there is little space to camp on the way to many passes because you cycle between abyss and mountainside. This time too. And so we ride, forced, to the top of the pass. Again we have to endure some wet snow, but descending is no longer an option because of the approaching sunset. And so we pitch our tent on top of the pass, 4700m above sea level. This is perhaps the coldest night of our journey. When I want to drink from my water bottle at night, the spout appears to be frozen solid and the water in it has also turned into ice. Yet neither of us were really cold. Our equipment also appears to be sufficient for these temperatures (-15*C). In the morning we wait until the sun hits our tent before we start moving. We also seem to need to thaw out a bit.

After a wonderful descent into the valley, a new climb awaits us. Again, almost 1000 metres in altitude. This leads us beautifully along a river and between towering mountain walls. We reach the pass before the end of the afternoon and we set up camp on the descent with a view of the valley with a village in it. During the descent the next day, it turns out that this is not ‘our village’, as we call it. ‘Our village’ is the first village in three days and that is where we will stock up for the next few days in which we will again not encounter a village. ‘Our village’, Acobambilla, does not seem to be much. However, a few workmen tell Paul that at the plaza (the central square) you can get everything you want, ‘except women’ they add laughing. Paul points to me, about 20 metres further on… ‘I already have them’ he says! I go with my bag and wallet to the four shops on the square. Everywhere it is an art to get the salesman to appear. Peruvians bang on the metal doors with brute force. This seems to work better than my civilized ‘Buenas diaaaaaas!’. From one I buy a large bag of bread rolls and cheese, from another a large bunch of bananas and a few avocados, from the neighbor I find tomatoes, eggs and a few packets of noodles. This will get us through the next few days.

The same old story follows: a high pass, a bit of a descent and finding a place to camp. This time it is at a lake, a lagoon. On the other side of the bank a herd of alpacas grazes, high above we see the silhouette of what looks like a mine. In the evening our suspicions are confirmed when a sea of ​​bright lights comes on. In the meantime Paul is having another stomach ache. We had defeated Giardia, hadn’t we? But we are not entirely sure, for that they would have to examine stools from several days. Of course we didn’t have ‘time’ (feel like it) for that. What follows for Paul is another night full of tossing and turning and cramps. The question arises: what now? We have just started our Gran Final. It is still two days of hard work to a village or one day back… but what are we going to do there? We decide to drive on. I load the bananas, avocados and tomatoes into my bags to lighten Paul’s load a bit, that is all I can do to help him. The beautiful ride that follows is an ordeal for Paul, but although I feel very sorry for him, it is also a pleasure for me.

Our route takes us down a path where no car seems to have been for ages. We do see the track of a bicycle tire. Not so strange, we are on the ‘Peru Divide’ in the most ideal season. There follows a section over rock fragments that we are allowed to descend ‘thank God’. In the opposite direction we would have had to drag our bikes up here. With difficulty we stay in the saddle (most of the time). We pass the abandoned barracks of a closed mine, where we take a quick look into the still open corridor. Despite the bumps tormenting Paul’s painful stomach, we want to cover a fair amount of distance. All the less left for us the next day to our resting place Laraos. So we do one more steep climb, fortunately on much better ground, and then decide to look for a nice camping spot.

While cycling through a rolling landscape, we come across a hiker there, far from any habitation. He urges us to stop and explains that he is on his way to a certain village, but his phone is dead and he has no idea whether he is walking in the right direction. I grab my phone and look for the village. It turns out that it is still 20 km as the crow flies to the north, straight through the fields and over mountains, and it is 16:30. It slowly dawns on him that covering that distance on foot is impossible to combine with the imminent setting of the sun and thus the onset of frost. How exactly he ended up in this situation we do not understand. Something about his friends having driven away somewhere without him in the car. He is a friendly young man, nothing strange about him at first sight. We tip him off to the empty barracks, probably the best place here for him to spend the night. Paul lets him drink his water bottle empty and we give him a few bananas and a pack of biscuits. He thanks us heartily for everything and then sets off towards the barracks. When a car passes us a little later in the opposite direction (the only one of that day), I sincerely hope that they will help the man a little further to a warmer shelter or a bus.

A little later we set up our tent by a lake. In the distance we see (again) alpacas and a small farm. Just when everything is set up, a man in overalls walks towards our tent. I spot him just in time, because I was just about to get undressed to wash myself. I walk towards him with a radiant smile, hoping to thaw him out a bit if he is annoyed by our presence here. However, he immediately shakes my hand and tells me that cyclists often camp here (on his land). He shows me a photo from the previous week of him and an Australian cyclist and asks if he can take a photo with us too. Of course! We thank him heartily for letting us stay on his land. Whether the land where we camp belongs to someone and how that is determined is usually a mystery to us.

The day that follows must be one of the most beautiful cycling days of this trip. Fortunately, Paul is also feeling a lot better. From the meadows we ride towards the mountains and see a large grey wall looming in front of us in which the road is carved like a Z of Zorro. When we have conquered this, the next surprise awaits us, a mountain lake that we ride around via the path, which seems to have only just been cleaned up after a rock avalanche. The last part of the climb that follows treats us to beautiful views when we look back, until we reach the pass (Punta Pumacocha) and see an amazing landscape appear in front of us. We are surrounded by beauty. We quickly dress warmly. Everything goes on: long trousers, down jacket, buff, hood on, gloves. A descent of 1500 meters over 27 km awaits us, to Laraos. In the howling wind we quickly make a movie for the family and then get on for a bumpy but also wonderful descent.

The further we descend, the greener the surroundings become. We start in an area where you would barely survive the night without suitable equipment, but after an hour we enter a valley full of whistling birds, flowing streams, contentedly grazing cows and fragrant flowers. But make no mistake, here too we are at an altitude of 3500 meters and the night is treacherously cold. However, we spend it under a huge pile of blankets (much too warm) in the room of a hostel.

In the night, Paul and I wake up at the same time. Paul jumps out of bed. ‘Why is the house shaking?’ he asks with fright in his voice. He feels it too, the building is shaking. The neighbours notice it too and we hear voices in the rooms next to us. It soon stops. ‘That was an earthquake’ I say, also quite impressed. And now? We are both quite scared, but what can you do? I wonder if this is a ‘forequake’ and the worst is yet to come or if this was it. I am tempted to google it, as I do with many things that I do not know the exact details about. This time, however, I leave it alone. Googling earthquakes in Peru in the middle of the night does not seem like a good idea to me. We decide to stay awake for a while to see if anything follows. Our hostel is a small building with six rooms that stands on the edge of a mountain. If something collapses here, we will be the first to roll down the mountain. After a sequel seems to be absent, we decide to go back to sleep, which fortunately works. The next morning I google it anyway, and it turns out that there was a major earthquake on the coast of Peru last night. 7.5 on the Richter scale, that’s not bad. So far, there have been no fatal injuries, but the damage is not mild. I don’t want to think about being closer to the epicenter. We were about 300 km away and were already quite scared!

In Laraos we meet several other cyclists who are cycling the Peru Divide. A Canadian we met earlier in La Paz, a French couple and another couple. Since we are travelling in opposite directions we exchange route tips. The Canadian makes a trip from Laraos to the city by bus and takes a few groceries and a new anti-parasitic cure for Paul. As much as we hoped, the Giardia has not yet been defeated but has only regrouped to strike back again. With our fingers crossed, hoping for the best and with a supply of anti-diarrhea medication and painkillers within reach we set off again after two rest days.

For the sake of time, we will bypass a section of the Divide, which has an unearthly number of elevation meters, via a section with half as many elevation meters. Fortunately, the route I have devised turns out to be no less beautiful at first! It leads us through a beautiful green valley where we cycle against the current of a wild mountain river. On a small asphalt road, actually, which is quite a pleasant change from the many uneven gravel. Exactly where we will leave the asphalt lies the village of ‘Tomas’. There is a Hotel Municipal that seems to be able to accommodate the entire village. I am cold and the village is so cute that I convince Paul to take a ‘just’ hotel as an exception. We go ‘shopping’ in the few local shops and return to the room with a collection of small bags of chips that we devour with a few jars of Claim. Nice, ‘sinning’ in luxury for a while. On a pillar in the room we see a light-up sign with a large ‘S’ on it. Underneath it says ‘zona segura en casos de sismos’, or ‘safe zone in case of earthquakes’. It’s the first time we notice it. It’s clearly hanging on a pillar that supports the building. Suddenly we also understand what those large circles with an S in them are for that we see painted here and there on the ground in every village or city. They are places where you can stand in the event of an earthquake without a tree or part of a building landing on your head. Not a bad idea.

The unpaved continuation of our road is also beautiful. But unfortunately it eventually leads us into mine territory. Out of nowhere one appears in the depths next to our road. No idea what they are mining there but it looks like a dirty poisonous mess. And where there are mines, the road is paved, because trucks and cars have to drive back and forth with materials, minerals and personnel. Fortunately we can limit our time on the big paved road to one long day. We are going crazy. The trucks and cars rush past us, honking for who knows what reason, greeting, warning, cursing? Most of the time that remains unclear because the horn is their only way of communicating. Most drivers overtake us quite a bit, for which I am grateful. Unfortunately they do not pay any attention to the oncoming traffic during their overtaking manoeuvres, which sometimes only just prevents a collision. I am surprised that we have not seen quite a few accidents happen here. Then suddenly we see a traffic jam on the road. As we get closer I can see a truck that is standing at a slight angle in the verge. While we stop for the traffic controller the truck is pulled away by a tow truck. The entire cabin and engine are in pieces. When we pass the oncoming vehicle dozens of meters further on it doesn’t look any better. The cabin is a total loss and the contents are in the meadow. We look at it without surprise but with horror. Whether the drivers survived this head-on collision is very doubtful. We cycle away from the wreckage and are immediately overtaken again at high speed and without any reservation by cars coming from behind. The Peruvian drivers are more than stubborn.

That afternoon we arrive in Junin, a town where we will have a rest day. ‘Rest day’ as we call it. The list of tasks is already finished. Paul has to have his front carrier welded, which probably collapsed during one of the bus rides, his shoes have to be repaired, inner tubes have to be found and bought, food has to be bought, money has to be withdrawn etc. etc. Fortunately we also have some time left to enjoy our hotel room in the ‘Gran Pumpush’, where you have your own electric ‘geyser’ (and therefore always hot water) in the bathroom and you can ask at the reception for a thermos of boiled water and a hot water bottle for your cold feet. What a paradise! I think I will stay here for the remaining month… what a luxury.

No… I love lying in our own little tent under the stars way too much!