February 20, 2017
to Huallanca - 1400m: Canon Del Plato and 35 tunnels
Again the morning brings blue skies with just a few puffy clouds hanging against the mountain sides. We are not in a hurry this morning; it is again a fairly short day in which we will lose almost a thousand meters altitude. At about eight we roll out of our hostal, we like these single floor buildings where the bike can stay loaded and roll right into and out of the room.
The town is fairly dead, we look for a bakery to maybe pick-up some bread, but we don’t see any along the main road. We don’t feel like detouring to the market so we set off towards the main road and for Caraz. On the way out of town we see the Gede Hostal, highly recommended place in our (2010) Lonely Planet. It indeed looks like a nice place right on a small square.
As we ride towards Caraz, we stop many times to take photos of the mountains to our east. The huge bulk of Huascaran stays mostly hidden behind foothills, but we can see its bulky summit and the wind blowing snow drifts off it. To its north is a much prettier peak, it is steep and has a huge cornice just below the pyramid shaped rock summit.
The main road skirts Caraz, again we see no bakery. We are carrying plenty of other foods, so it is not high enough a priority to head into town for. The road keeps descending and it gets noticeably warmer. The landscape also gets dryer and cactus plants return. The Rio Santo which we are following downhill has taken on a chocolate milk color and is more and more squeezed into a narrow canyon. Traffic has become very light since we passed Caraz. We enter the “Canyon Del Plato”, a spectacular section of road that is high on the list of many touring cyclists. The Rio Santa is raging and forced through a narrow canyon, at some places the distance between the rock walls of the Cordillera Blanca to the east and the Cordillera Negra to the west is less than twenty meters. There really wasn’t any room for a road, therefore engineers have hewn the road into the cliffs with 35 tunnels to pass through rock ridges. The first tunnel at distance marker 670, and the last tunnel at 678. We have our little blinker-lights on the back. A couple of tunnels are long enough for us to use our headlights but in most you could see the light at the other end, and a few were almost arch-like. The road is narrow, only about a lane-and-a-half, with the tunnels being single lane. Whoever honks first has the right-of-way. Far below us boils the Rio Santa. We have a headwind, but it doesn’t matter that much since we have a nice downhill grade and are constantly stopping to take photos.
At about noon we reach Huallanca. We can see it from above as the road switchbacks down to it. There seem to be two towns; one is a large gated community with nice homes, lots of greenery and a large clubhouse with a swimming pool and tennis courts. This is the company town for operators of the hydro-electric projects in the Canon del Plato. A little further is the real town, a bit dustier and less green, but still pretty nice with a little park, pretty church and quite a few “hostal” signs. We go for Hospedaje Mari’s, because William Bennett (CGOAB- “around the world attempt”) stayed there and liked it. It takes us a little while to locate the bell we are supposed to ring and find the owner. We are given a clean room with a double bed and attached bathroom. There is an electric shower, so warm water for sure, just don’t touch anything that is above your head. A little inside courtyard to hang laundry and a room for the bikes. All of this for less than US$10.
After dumping all our gear into the room we walk back to a small restaurant and have lunch, mediocre spaghetti, but with some nice chicken and a three liter (!) bottle of coke. Then a couple of hours of siesta and a walk around town clouds high up threaten rain. The town seems friendly, but most places are closed. We’ll try again in a couple of hours to see if we can find some dinner. Dark clouds have filled-in the valley and it sure looks like we’ll get hit with a storm soon. It is a lot warmer here; some rain would cool things down.
The best season to travel in these mountains is April to October when the weather is dry. That is probably true if you want to hike and camp. For cycling on these paved roads it has been fine though, as long as you get to your destination before about three when the rains seems to start. Whether this is typical we have no idea, but that’s the weather we’ve been having ever since leaving the coast. It helps to be indoors, camping would be less fun. We’ll see what happens the next couple of days when we drop even lower and then start climbing up again, probably on some dirt roads. We will also be camping again.
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Today's ride: 52 km (32 miles)
Total: 28,224 km (17,527 miles)
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