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After crossing the border I made it to the city of Jaén for the night. The next day was a spectacular ride on pavement through beautiful canyons to the town of Chachapoyas.
Beautiful scenery.
This canyon was pretty spectacular.
Chachapoyas is a very nice little town at the end of the pavement. There are some very comfortable hotels near the town square, good food, great climate, friendly locals.
South of Chachapoyas is where the good stuff starts. It turns into very smooth dirt road immediately after leaving town.
I climbed up out of the valley to this high ridge line at around 13,000 feet.
Here I meet Mark. Mark started in Alaska about a year ago and is peddling his way to Ushuaia. This guy deserves serious respect. By this time he had already done a huge climb out of the valley and was looking forward to a 10,000 foot descent followed by another 10,000 foot climb. After I saw what Mark had ahead of him, I was very happy that I was not on a bicycle.
Cresting the ridge line you are treated to spectacular views of the mountains and valleys below.
The pictures dont really do this justice, but it was quite spectacular.
The road continues to wind alongside the mountains, with precarious drop offs, some are thousands of feet. You do not want to slide off the road here.
The road continues to snake its way through the mountains.
This has been the most spectacular day of riding that I have seen on my trip so far. Of course I am pretty happy about it.
Finally, towards the end of the day, I drop down into a valley to the town of Celendin.
Its an unremarkable town with few amenities, but there are a couple of hotels.
The road from Chachapoyas to Celendin is a must do in my opinion. Get off the Pan Am, get in the mountains and into the good stuff. After Celendin it is a rather unremarkable ride to the city of Cajamarca. However, Cajamarca is a nice old colonial city with a pleasant town square, plenty of nice restaurants and decent hotels.
Main church in Cajamarca.
Another little church that overlooks the city.
Nice view from the little church.
Here is a video I took of the ride from Chachapoyas to Cajamarca. I now have a helmet cam so will be posting some videos from now on as well. I hope you enjoy them.
From Cajamarca I headed to the town of Huanchaco on the Peruvian coast. Here is a video of a little uh oh moment I had on that road. Stuff down here tends to jump out at you with little warning so you have to be on your toes at all times. This stone filled washout in the road was over a foot deep and I didnt see it in time. I hit it at about 60 mph and almost lost the bike. I was on the pegs so I had good control. If I was on the seat, or had a bike without excellent off road suspension, I probably would not have been able to hang onto it. Also of note is the tire shop conveniently located after the washout.
At the coast I met some other riders, Tormod and Claus, from here on known as the “Mad Norwegians.” They are traveling around the world on 1937 Nimbus hacks!!! Yup, mad Norwegians alright. You wouldnt believe what these guys have done to keep the bikes going. They said that the first words they learn in each new language are, machinist, and machine shop! I can believe it!
In addition to being great mechanics and a little bit crazy, these guys are a total crack up as well. They claimed that they learned great begging skills from locals along the way, and it helps to fund their trip.
Tormod.
Claus.
Yep, they better be Jesus’ favorite, because they are going to need all the help they can get on this trip.
Tormod insisted that I take his bike for a spin. After a ride around the block, I cant imagine riding one of these around the world. After that little ride, I felt like such a wimp riding my KTM.
Just a little routine maintenance, a cracked engine block on Claus’ bike. They couldn’t do anything about it here, so they simply removed the motor, the head, the crankshaft, and took out the piston and connecting rod in the cracked cylinder, all in the hotel parking lot. Then they headed to Lima with Claus running on 3 cylinders.
They even carried a toilet plunger with them. I have no idea why and I didn’t want to ask.
Really fun guys to hang out with. I hope I meet them further down the road.
Saludos.