SEPTEMBER 1 - HUANCHACO TO GUADALUPITO

128 km, 1325 A, 1345 D  The ascent and descent numbers turned out to be way too large; the actual was about half those numbers. Anyway, the usual 0445 alarm, pack, coffee at 0545, breakfast at 0600, and start cycling at 0630.

Sad note - Huanchaco is the birthplacee of Ceviche - unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to try any here.  Will remedy that soon.

As soon as we got going I stopped to take photos of these reed boats lined up on the waterfront.


We cycled out of Huanchaco and into Trujillo, but this time on the outside (water side) of Chan Chan.  So, no views worth posting.

Even 0700 going through any town is a bit of a zoo, and Trujillo is no exception.  Cars, trucks, mototaxis (putt-putts) and people everywhere.  It looks like mass chaos, but they do seem to make it work.  No way can I take photos as we cycle through.  I need both hands on the bars and eyes looking in all directions at once.  More often than not, they seem to avoid us rather than we avoiding them.

Poor overloaded donkey cart (also out of focus - sorry).
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Further along, poor overloaded sugar truck stuck in a line at a road construction detour.












Interesting mountain photo.  We're seeing lots of mountains that look to be half sand dune.  Don't know whether they were fully vegetated in the past and the sand is taking over or if the vegetation is taking over the sand dune.






At the top of a hill we saw this disintegrating adobe structure.  The sand is filling it up - it's soon to be an archaeological site.


Just past the house, here's a shot of the pass (pretty low, not more than 300 meters high).  They are 4 laning and dividing a long stretch of the Pan American highway, but have not let vehicles onto the second half.  Yay - a 50 km long, 2 lane bike path.  Building a highway through the sand actually isn't that easy.  They have to dig out the soft sand and import tons and tons of good road bed material.  No big problem with property expropriation in this section, though.

Downhill view as the highway winds through the mountains










We've seen a number of these folks.  They are walking along the highway, usually in pairs or 3's, often one of them is carrying a cross with a wheel and one of the others has a collection tin.  I presume it is a pilgrimage of some sort, but I'm not up on my religion.  BTW, most of the time they are dressed in purple.


We rode into Guadalupito mid afternoon and pitched our tent in 'Bungalows Gemma," which has bungalows (obviously!), pools, tent spaces, a restaurant, a bar (well, beer at least) and a kid's play area including a bouncy castle!  Sorry, I forgot to take photos again.

Mark the cook fed us dinner, I did a bit of blog ( for 2 days earlier) and off to the tent for a nice sleep.  Yeah, right!  Remember the partially finished 4 laning of the Pan Am highway?  Well, they are busy doing it right outside the resort.  Two shifts, until 2 ayem!  Lots of the cyclists didn't have a great sleep.  Mark the cook made an extra large batch of coffee the next morning.