After six days in a row on the road it was time for a few days off. We found a hostal in Lambayeque that ticked all the boxes, hot water, TV, wifi and no cockroaches. We did very little for three days besides eat and rest.

Center of Lambayeque

We meet a very friendly local named Oscar while wandering through one of the markets. Oscar was a university student and gave us a tour of the local uni. He was also a very proud Rotary member so we had a tour of the local Rotary hang out too.

Our mate Oscar

A few days later we had a short 20km ride into the city of Chiclayo. From Chiclayo we caught a bus 3 hours south to Trujillo. Besides this stretch of road being nothing but desert it is renowned as being very dangerous especially for tourists, even some Peruvians we spoke to said they would not stop along the way due to the number of muggings.

After arriving in Trujillo we rode from the bus depot to the most famous hostals among cycle tourists in South America the ’Casa de Ciclista’. For the last 15 years Lucho has welcomed passing cycle tourists to stop at his house. We were visitors 1302 and 1303. Along with a full workshop were Lucho repairs bikes he also had a wealth of information about cycle touring in South America.

Lucho

Having seen no cycle tourists in our travels so far it was great when there was a knock on the door and another one would show up. We meet to German girls and a guy who had been travelling a very similar route to us over the last few weeks. It turned out for 3 days in a row we were only half an hour ahead, people kept telling them two people had just passed through but we never crossed paths. While we are proud to have knocked off our first 1,000km another guy, Petr, from the Czech Republic had just ticked over 22,000km over his 10 month ride so far that started in New York city, crazy!

Our planned two night stay at the Casa de Ciclista turned into four nights. From Trujillo we plan to ride back up into the mountains over 5 days to the popular tourist town of Huaraz. Petr was heading the same way so we will travel together. Lucho offered to guide us out of town and ended up riding the 66km to the town we spent the night before saying his goodbyes and turning around to ride back home.

Casa de Ciclista

Day trip from Trujillo back to the Pacific Ocean at Huanchaco

Ceviche and Pollo - amazing feed

Tambo Grande to Motupe

We left Tambo Grande after a wee sleep in in our nice cool accommodation.

The plan was to ride a dirt road out of town for 30km, which would eventually join back up to a sealed to Chiclayo, about 90km shorter and with less desert than the main road. The dirt road only lasted for about 15km, a nice surprise. There are little villages all along this route, so we where able to buy a few cold drinks.


Traffic jam

The plan had been to camp between the villages somewhere, and push on to Olmos the next day. The problem was we rode about 75km and did not really see any well hidden camp spots. We followed a couple of dirt tracks off the side of the road but they either lead to dense bush or other people. It was beginning to become a long day, and then we had the first puncture of the trip, not such good timing. Then as we stopped to change the tube, we must have irritated a hornet’s nest! They took a liking to me, I did not like them, they stung me on my legs a few times. While I was leaping around trying to get away from them, Ben went about fixing the tube, they didn’t sting him at all, the only reason we can think of is that he smelt too bad.

So that probably was not the best hour of our trip so far, and with too far to go to the next main town, we asked a local farmer if we could camp the night in front of their house as it looked very secure. This was fine, and we pitched out tent amongst the chickens in front of the house. We chatted with the ladies of the house, and had a wee cuddle of a 2 month old baby, cooked a big pot of pasta, beans and tomatoes for dinner, and went to sleep.

Our host

Camping with the chickens

We said our goodbyes in the morning to this lovely family, and hit the road, making it to Olmos close to 100km away. We are feeling good that there are no more mountains to ride for a while, but are starting to feel like we need a rest day. We could have had a rest in Olmos, but the town smelt aweful and we had too many cockroaches and other creepy crawlies in our hostal, so we left early the next morning for a short 30km ride to Motupe.

Now, in Motupe we are resting and have the last decent ride tomorrow to a town just north of Chiclayo. So far Peru has had two sides to it. We have met some really lovely people and had some good riding through some interesting green desert areas. We have also had to learn to deal with more intense attention than in Ecuador, with more loud tooting, whistling and people who just cant help but yell ‘gringo, gringa’ at us.

But, all good so far, will have a few days off the bikes in a couple of days and plan the next cycle section of the trip.

Pedalling to Peru

We have not had sore bums from any days of biking but we were feeling the affects on our backsides after only four hours on a horse.

We left Loja via a medium sized hill (1.5 hours of climbing) and after a 20km descent we decided to call it a day in Catamayo. We stayed in our cheapest hostal yet at $4 each, you can see why from the pictures below.

aka - Hotel Alcatraz

Sugar cane fields leaving Catamayo

Start of the climb

Near the summit

Lunch mate

We left Catamayo at sunrise as there was a big hill to get over and we wanted to avoid the midday heat. After 3 hours of uphill we finally made the top, we slightly underestimated how high we had to go. A few hours later we rolled into Catachoca. Catachoca was a friendly little town so we decided to have a rest day there. Judging by the locals interest in us this was obviously not a common tourist stop.

Catcacocha town centre

Above the clouds on the way down from Catacocha

Day 6 of riding we clocked up another 100km to the grotty little boarder town of Marcará. The highlight of this town was dinner, it’s amazing how the quality of chicken, rice and beans can vary from town to town. And we did find the best pan de chocolate we have had so far.

The next day we headed a couple km’s down the road from Marcará to the boarder with Peru. Ten minutes later we had the stamps needed in our passports and we were back on the road. From what we’ve heard this is a very quite little boarder crossing compared to the main one on the coast, and it was pretty easy.

Boarder crossing from Ecuador to Peru

Road in Northern Peru

Ecuador has been a really beautiful country to travel through. The people are generally really friendly and quietly polite. The riding has been amazing, with beautiful scenery and nice wide roads with good drivers who give you plenty of space and a friendly toot and wave.

We are now in Northern Peru, we have some gradual down hill roads to enjoy for the first time as we head back to sea level and the desert. We managed another 100km almost 1.5hrs faster than the previous day. To our surprise we stumbled across some great accommodation on our way into Tambo Grande. We splashed out ($20) for a private bungalow, our first room with air con since being here. We chatted with the owner over dinner, pulling out our world map to show him where we were from. He was surprised at how few people live in New Zealand.

We are about to get on the road again now. Hopefully some more camping over the next few days as we make our way to Chiclayo.

The biking begins

Finally the cycling of the ‘cycle tour’ has commenced. We have now notched up three consecutive days of riding. So far the only flat pieces of road has been the few bridges at the bottom of valleys we’ve crossed, everything else has either been slow, steep climbs or fast descents.

We started in Cuenca (c.2500m) and finished three days later in Loja (c.2100m). What those elevation numbers do not illustrate is the c.3000m of climbing in between.

Leaving Cuenca in the rain

Day 1 we rode for 4 hours climbing up to 3500m from Cuenca. We set up camp on an old farm track tucked away off the main road. It absolutely poured down during the night and we woke to a cold drizzly morning.

Leanne making friends with the shop owners in Cumbe
(they smiled before and after the photo)

View from our campsite at 3500m

Not a very nice start to the day

Day 2 was another 4 hours of riding with our first taste of Ecuador downhill, with a 15km decent before the uphill, climbing c.700m over 12km to a tiny little town called Oña. We started in drizzle then roasted for a couple of hours before finishing in a down pour. Being soaked we decided to stay in the one and only ‘hotel’ in Oña. It was very basic but suited us fine.

Great roads with virtually no traffic

15km descent to the valley below

Day 3 - 104km to Loja, piece of cake - yeah right. We knew this day was going to be tough. The distance was not overly long but there were at least 3 big hills/mountains to tackle plus a couple of minor ones. We started at sunrise with a 2.5h climb out of Oña. This was followed by a fast 15km descent before another 2.5h climb. A few ups and downs then a great 10km descent dropped us to c.2200m. The final climb of the day took us up again to c.2800m before another 15km descent to Loja at c.2100m. We were both absolutely shattered on arrival. All up is was a 12 hour day with 9 hours of riding and over 2000 vertical metres of climbing. Thankfully our hostel had hot showers and we found a good pasta restaurant with creamy cabonara.

Start of the 9 hr ride to Loja

Taking a rest on one of the many climbs to Loja

We have just had a couple of rest days. The first one was spent checking out the city of Loja. Today we caught a bus to a nearby town called Vilcabamba. The place is renowned as a relaxing town and is famous for having inhabitants who live forever. We bumped in to a Kiwi guy who owned a horse trekking business and has been living there for 27 years. He set us up with a guide and we headed up into the hills to a medicinal waterfall on horse back. The track was steep and Ben had the only tumble of the day when his saddle came undone and he slide off the horse while heading uphill, no harm done though.





Tomorrow we are back on our bikes with 200km to travel to reach the boarder with Peru. We will do this over a few days as there is still a number of passed to tackle along the way.

Last days of relaxation

We have just spent the last week in Cuenca, Ecuador’s third largest city (pop 420k). The days have disappeared with more Spanish lessons, sightseeing around the city, Easter and a ride to a nearby town for half a day.



We took our bikes in their boxes to the central bus station in Guayaquil and got on a bus headed for Cuenca without any issues. We were not regretting the decision to bus to Cuenca one bit when the bus started to head uphill. Cuenca sits at 2500m but we knew there was a 4000m pass to go over beforehand. It was hard to image how high a 4000m pass is from sea level but it was only about 80km of continuous and super steep uphill on the bus - not something we wanted to tackle first up on our bikes.

Cuenca is an incredibly old looking city. It has narrow, one way cobblestone streets lined with whitewashed red-tiled buildings. The streets are immaculately clean, it is hard to spot a single piece of rubbish on the ground. The streets in town are also lined with abogados (lawyers), there are too many to count, one street alone next to our hostal has seven lined up side by side. Our Spanish teacher said not so long ago they stopped all enrolments for law and medicine at the university in Cuenca for five years as the city was saturated in both professions.


It has been pretty cool to be here over Semana Santa (Easter week). As most of the population here are Roman Catholic, the whole town shuts down on Friday and Sunday, with parades and singing around the streets. On Friday we ventured inside the biggest cathedral in town, pretty impressive. No easter eggs or hot cross buns though, instead there are people selling candyfloss, icecreams and other random sweet things outside the church.

In the last couple of days we have done some more in depth planning and studied the elevation profiles from here to Peru. The bikes are loaded and ready to go. The plan is to start at dawn tomorrow and head out of town, can’t wait…