Distance: 100.99 km
Ride time: 6:33:17
Average: 15.40 km/h
Max speed: 48.42 km/h
Total: 29190 km
When you are in the mountains it is sometimes difficult to find a flat spot to put up your tent, but once you find your spot the views will be great. I had arrived at my campsite rather late last night so I hadn’t even realized how spectacular my view was before I woke up with the first light in the morning.
Back on the bike I rolled downhill to the village of Ocoña where I had a big chicken meal at 9:30 am. It’s perfectly normal to eat meat for breakfast around here. Then the climbing started. The ascents were as steep as Alpe d’Huez, but luckily not as long. I’m still getting used to my Bianchi road bike with the big gears – very different from being on my mountain bike.
At some point I started to wonder why the road was constantly going up and down the whole day. Since the road workers had to dig out the road on the cliffs anyway, why don’t just make a flat road close to sea level? Even though it was hard cycling I was enjoying the ride a whole lot. This stretch of road can fully compete with the otherwise more famous Great Ocean Road in Australia.
Flat tire – easy but annoying to fix. Oh well, I will have to see if I can get some quality Schwalbe tires in Lima.
The rest of the day it was getting more cloudy – the famous winter drizzle that also covers Lima for 8 months a year. Just as well as I could then concentrate more on the cycling instead of stopping at every corner to take photos.
I cycled into Atico after exactly 100 km where very few of them had been on flat roads. I was very tired as I checked into a cheap hotel and quickly collapsed into bed.
