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.