So shouted the moto driver to us as we were climbing out of Pallasca. It felt apt as we would be facing a 1000m climb to over 4000m later that day. Our goal: the Laguna Pasacocha, a series of 8 lakes surrounded by shear rock walls on 2 sides that I’d first read about on Mark and Hana’s blog years ago.
But first, lets rewind a few days to our leaving the coast and returning to the mountains. After 3 days of “rest” in Trujillo (supporting Lucho in the bike race being a wonderful experience, but not all that restful) and with El’s stomach more or less ready to accept food again, we decided to bus to the town of Huamachuco, where we could continue our ride South down the Sierra. Getting the bikes on the bus was the usual stressful experience of negotiating with jobsworth employees and watching with heart in mouth as your most prized possession in this world gets bungled carelessly in with the rest of the luggage, but it was worth it for skipping out a 100km and 4000m climb on a busy road (the same road that was used in Stage 2 of the race incidentally).
We were thankful that the bus driver seemed to be one of only a handful of sensible drivers in the whole of Peru, as the road snaked its way to over 4100m offering us our first glimpse of the Cordillera Blanca in the distance, but it did mean we got to Huamachuco quite a bit later than expected. After putting the bikes back together and grabbing an almuerzo, it was already 3pm, too late really to be able to make the first expected campsite on our route. It also turned out that my attempted bleed of El’s rear brake in Trujillo (after accidentally popping a piston out when cleaning it) hadn’t been a complete success as the lever was pulling to the handlebar with no discernible effect on actually clamping the rotor. Bollocks. A hotel for the night it would have to be.
We ended up choosing some random place on a street with a least 6 other random places, in a town with at least 20 hotels, on the basis that it had a courtyard where we could attempt to fix El’s bike. It turns out that, completely unbeknownst to us, Simon and Lizzie, who we’d last met at the Casa de Ciclistas in Medellin nearly 4 months ago, were also staying at this hotel. Small world! We only found out about this as we were hunting for DOT5.1 fluid and some plastic tubing (I still love how easy it is to find parts/fix things here) – they’d recognised our bikes in the courtyard and had messaged us straight away. So it was that after a second, successful attempt at bleeding El’s rear brake, we all headed out for a Chinese to celebrate having 2 functioning brakes, as well as the serendipity that brought us back together again.
The following morning, we took a couple of moto-taxis to visit the Marca Huamachuco ruins which sit in a commanding position high above the town. The level of engineering skill on display – 3 to 4 storey buildings and a complex drainage system – was very impressive. The only aspect I can fault is that the doorways seem to have been built for hobbits, some of them barely coming up to Simon and I’s waists!
After lunch in town (with another cycle tourist Joanna, who had turned up that morning), we all headed up as a 4 to Laguna Huangagocha, where we planned to camp for the night. At this stage, we were still following the Bikepacking.com Cajamarca to Caraz route.
We were followed on the last stretch to the lake by Neimar, a young boy just walking home from school. Some school run…
Simon and Lizzie put our standard dinner of pasta and tinned fish to shame, with a diverse assortment of pulses and vegetables sourced from the market in Huamachuco. Unfortunately however, something hadn’t agreed with Lizzie who had spent the night vomiting, and so it was with a heavy heart that we parted the following morning to give her a bit more time to recover.
From that first lake, the route climbs further over a small pass overlooking a landscape dotted with more small lakes.
More top-draw dirt roads awaited as we climbed up to a high point of 4400m.
At this point, instead of following the bikepacking.com route into the Tablacacha canyon, we continued straight on. Having already ridden quite a few canyons in both our Amazonas loop and the ride down to the coast, we decided to stay up high instead.
Our route took us through such evocatively named places as Pampas del Condor – there were no Condor sightings unfortunately, only herds of Alpaca.
It was getting on for 5pm when we got over the final pass, so we spent most of the descent on the hunt for clean water and a space to camp. Unfortunately, this area is heavily mined and the resulting impacts on the environment are clear – from the hillsides transected by ugly scars and mountains missing their “tops”, to the bright orange colour of the rocks in the streams. This made finding a suitable water source tricky, but we did eventually find some clear water dripping through moss – a little vegetable matter never hurt anyone! A suitable flat spot was also located among the remnants of some mud brick houses by the Rio Plata.
It was a cold night at 4000m, so we were in fact relieved to be climbing again straight away the following morning. Back up to 4400m we go!
The descent down into Pampas started with some classic Peruvian curves…
…passed by another big lake with some sort of mining encampment on its near shore…
…before diving into a steep canyon on roads littered with braking bumps from the significant truck traffic.
Post lunch, another up and over into the Conchucos valley beckoned.
At the top of the pass, a Hilux driver had stopped and, after exchanging the usual pleasantries, informed us that there were some hot springs up ahead. Thus, when we arrived down in Cochaconchucos, we took the 2km detour out of the village to go check them out. El was initially concerned that we would dirty the water if we jumped straight in, given how caked in dust we were, until that is, we saw that the hotter pools were lined with Head and Shoulders bottles!
We camped that night by the river in a small strand of trees that hid us from the road. The goal the following morning was to hit Pallasca lunchtime so we could take the afternoon off! First up, a 600m climb up through Lacabamba with it’s cute village square complete with miner statue.
We arrived in the main square of Pallasca just after noon to find…Simon, Lizzie and Jo all standing by the church surrounded by some Peruvian day trippers that had just arrived by bus! Having taken the obligatory million selfies with the locals and thanked serendipity once again at having crossed paths, we all bungled into a dark restaurant for lunch. Fairwells were once again offered as the trio were heading down into the Tablacacha canyon, whereas El and I were resting up for another stint up high.
And so we find ourselves at the start once again, climbing out of Pallasca with a motorbike rider shouting encouragement at us. This section of the P3N was subject to some major roadworks, meaning many trucks, long waits until we were given the green light to proceed and dust, much dust.
Thankfully, the roadworks ended before Huandoval where we stopped for an early lunch, fuelling up for the big climb ahead.
The climb up was a steep one, probably the longest consistently steep climb since Angamarca in the Ecuadorean highlands. Halfway up, we came across another hot springs – at this one there were even people washing their clothes in it. As it wasn’t too hot and we were keen to get to the lakes as early as possible in order to have time to explore, we pressed on.
We rode along the rough 4×4 road until reaching the western edge of lake 2, where we set up the tent in the lee of a stone wall, hoping for some shelter from the wind that was whipping down the valley. It was still not yet 5pm, so we went off to explore the other lakes. The dark clouds that had been threatening on the climb seemed to recede in the early evening, bathing the whole valley in a wonderful glow.
We’d hunkered down expecting a very cold night but it was surprisingly warm. Our only issue was that we kept getting woken up by fishermen hiking into the lakes in the middle of the night!
Taking inspiration from Simon and Lizzie’s dinner that we’d jealously eyed up a few days ago, we’d left Pallasca with some funny little orange tubers, some tomatoes, a few eggs and some spices, with the intention of making a soup that night. Whilst tasty and hydrating (important at altitude), we both woke up starving and really struggled to get going up the climb the following morning. I don’t know if those tubers were particularly low in calories, or whether we’ve eaten so much spaghetti and fish now that our bodies can’t function on anything else, but we both felt very low in energy that morning.
The top of the climb led onto a barren, windswept plateau dotted with lakes and filled with prancing wild vicuña. A perfect spot for a much needed lunch.
More rolling terrain ensued, Champará getting closer…
…and closer…
Until all that was left was to go down.
We descended first on dirt to Corongo, then on the crazy tarmac of the P3NA.
We camped just past Pampas and continued our downward progress the following morning, eventually reaching the Rio Santa, 3400m below where we’d been riding the previous day.
Our target for the day was to get to Caraz before dark. This meant a 65km grind up the Rio Santa after our initial “free” 20km of downhill. We weren’t too long into the climb when we spotted a big sign with an ice cream cone outside Yungaypampa. There was no question – of course we were going to stop! The ice cream was delicious and the owner very friendly and chatty, asking us how long it would take to drive across the UK and informing us that there were 3 other brits there the day before – we were hot on the heels of Simon, Lizzie and Jo! Turns out this ice-cream shop is a traveller classic with an iOverlander entry running to many tens of comments. It felt all the more special having stopped there through shear luck instead of having targeted it beforehand.
The final highlight on the way to Caraz was the Cañon del Pato and its many famous tunnels.
El was on a tear feeding off half a coke and the Fleetwood Mac blasting from her speaker (the tailwind might have also helped) and before we knew it, we were in Caraz and reunited with the Bikepootlers. As luck would have it, our Bristol friend/mule Joe, who’d kindly transported our package with spare parts from the UK, was also in town along with bike touring royalty Ryan Wilson. We all met up for dinner, trading stories of the routes we’d ridden and the people we’d met along the way – a very sociable evening (shock horror) all told.
The following activities have taken up today’s rest day:
- Visiting the market and getting breakfast
- Sampling all the ice cream in town in order to come up with a comprehensive league table
- Writing this blog (these things don’t write themselves you know)
- Mending clothes
- Hard boiling eggs
- Feeling extreme FOMO at all the things and places to visit in the Cordillera Blanca that we don’t really have the time for (screw you 3 month Peruvian visa)
On this last point, we’ve decided to spend an extra couple of days here to visit Laguna Parón and, hopefully, Laguna Congelada, before tackling the Huascaran Circuit in due course. The possibilities here feel endless and it would be a shame to rush on through!
Routes
If you’re interested in our routes, you can find them all on our trip homepage.
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