Ride South from Lima - Beaches and Desert

Looking north from Punta Hermosa

I was beginning to question the whole idea of having a bike with me. I had not biked since Cuenca, Ecuador. Instead I had been taking buses, primarily due to the distances being too great between towns and the fact that most of these gaps were legitimate deserts. I first intended to take a bus out of Lima. After seeing the bike lanes throughout the city and the distance to the Pan-American Highway from the beaches was not so great, I decided to bike it instead of my original plan to bus out of the city. It turned out to be a good decision.

Lima to Punta Hermosa

I got my first flat tire less than two blocks from where I started. Other than this, the bike ride was nice all the way to Punta Hermosa. I biked towards the beach on the bike lanes and then headed south. The Pan-American had good shoulder. There were a fair number of cars, but seemed pretty safe.  Going south, the desert continues, but the distance between towns is much less.

Punta Hermosa is my favorite beach so far in Peru. It is pretty close to the city. The area is clean. The water looks nice; much more inviting than any of the other beaches I have seen in Peru. The waves looked good for surf. It seemed to be a family beach primarily, although I do not know for certain as I was only there for one day. It looked like most people either owned or rented family cottages and would make the trip here on the weekends.

Punta Hermosa Beach

Punta Hermosa to Asia

I rode down a mix of the old and new Panamerican Highway. The old had a little bit more character and fewer cars, but was not as good as the new highway. I rode the old highway until it ended at the new one. The ride had some very low grade climbs and descents. It was a nice ride to Asia.

Asia is kind of like Lima’s answer to Palm Springs. Most hotels and condominiums are in private walled off locations. Most of the beaches are private to the owners of the condominiums adjacent to the beach. It seems like people from Lima come down for the weekends with family and stay in their private homes. They then go out to a place called Boulevard de Asia, which is essentially an outdoor mall with restaurants, bars and clubs. It was pleasant, but I preferred Punta Hermosa. I might enjoy it more if I came with people from Lima. I really think this is a place that you need to know people.

Asia to Cañete and Chincha Alta

I continued riding south from Asia to Cañete and then on to Chincha Alta. There was nothing out of the ordinary. The ride covered primarily desert. The only thing out of the ordinary was that the food was really good. I have generally not liked the food in smaller towns as much as the cities, but I ate really well in both places. The following two pictures pretty much summarize everything I saw:

Common Scene: walled beach communities

Another common scene: desert

Warmer inland air meeting cooler ocean air creates a fog which is common here.

Chincha Alta to Paracas

I really disliked this ride. Not for the usual reasons of poor roads or bad conditions. There was an awful lot of trash along the road. On multiple occasions it felt like I was riding through a garbage dump. It was never "clean" the whole way. Even for most of the area along the beach from Pisco to Paracas. Only when I got to Paracas itself did the smell give way. This was not a fun ride, but now I am in Paracas.

The one interesting thing I saw on the ride: arable land. It appears to me that much of this land is arable if there is water. If someone invents high volume, low energy consuming, low cost water desalination, consider buying land south of Lima. It will be worth something.

Crop land just south of Chincha Alta

Lima - A nice city with a bit of history

Parque Central in Miraflores

I waited to post this until leaving, since the descriptions that I had heard of Lima were very different than what I was seeing. I had heard that Lima was just a city; that it was hot, dirty, dusty and very dangerous. The only thing correct about that to me seemed to be the city part. Lima does have a small historical center that is worth visiting. Aside from the historical center, it really is just a city, but I found it to be a pleasant city.

Lima is a huge city, so certainly I did not visit all parts, but I traveled quite a distance in different areas. I did see some dirty areas. For example, on a taxi ride, we turned down a street that apparently is used as a local trash dump. So there are some dirty areas. It is summer here. I found Lima to be surprisingly cool. In the day it was pleasant. At night, I needed some cover for sleep. I did not experience any issue with dust. I walked for quite a few miles around the city and I did not feel like I needed to be overly concerned about crime. Also, people were out at night, which does not happen in a lot of Latin American cities.

To me, Lima is a nice city. It has a lot of very nice areas. It has very good food. I would definitely return to Lima in the future.

Historical Center

Just like most other Latin American cities, Lima's historical center is a plaza (The Plaza de Armas) that has a major cathedral and government buildings on it.

Palace of the Governor

Cathedral of Lima

 The rock below is dedicated to Taulichusco, the last of the native leaders. Taulichusco and his men committed suicide rather accept than Christianity as their religion. Their religion worshipped the earth; hence the rock as a tribute.

Rock dedicated to Taulichusco, the last of the native leaders

San Francisco Cathedral has an interesting history. At some point, people concerned about their prospects in the after life asked to be buried underneath the cathedral with the hopes that being buried there would bless them in their future journey. So many had such concerns that they excavated catacombs. Given the large numbers they also organized the bones. So they stacked femurs together, skulls together, etc. Hopefully, there is no contigous skeleton requirement for the after life.

San Francisco Cathedral

Other Parts of Lima

It is hazy in Lima as demonstrated by the two picture below taken from Larco Mar, essentially a mall overlooking the ocean. I went to Larco Mar to find ceviche a traditional Peruvian sea food dish. I found Tony Romas, TGIFridays, some nice Italian. I did not find ceviche. Notice also that the water did not look too appealing.

Larco Mar view south

Larco Mar view north

There was significant activity on the street at night. I view this as an indicator of security. People do not go out at night in areas of high crime (at least that is my theory).

Miraflores at night

Iquitos Peru and the Amazon

Feeding young manatees at the manatee rescue center

Iquitos is located on the convergence of a couple of rivers; the main one being the Amazon itself. It is reachable from mainland Peru only by boat or airplane. While traveling through Ecuador, I was close to the Amazon, but never really reached it. I somewhat regreted that decision. While in Huaraz, I met a couple of people that were going to Iquitos and they told me that the trip was only $130 round trip from Lima. So I decided I would make up for my decision in Ecuador.

The Amazon from Iquitos

Iquitos is a fairly large town for a place reachable only by air or water. It has a fair amount of traffic dominated by motortaxis (tuk tuks). I think this is due to the fact that it is not as easy to get cars into Iquitos.

Jungle Tours or Day Trips

Many of the tourist books suggested that the way to do Iquitos is to do two or three day jungle tours. On these tours, a guide will take you a couple hours out of Iqutos into or close to one of the national parks. You will spend a couple of days hiking and checking out wildlife. While I kind of liked the idea, I kept reading reviews from people on different tours that made me feel that the lodges were somewhat uncomfortable with an abundance of mosquitoes. Also there were a lot of mixed reviews about the quality of information provided by the quides. Given these two items, I chose to stay in an air conditioned hotel in Iqutos and do day trips.

While I think my choice was pretty good, I think a better decision would have been to also rent a motorcycle while I was there (did not think of this until I left). Then I could have ridden to or close to a couple of the national parks and taken a boat from there. I could have done it on my own schedule. I will get it right eventually.

Manatee Rescue Center and the Zoo

One of the first things I did was visit the manatee rescue center and then the zoo (these are separated by about 2 km). Here we saw some rescued baby manatees as well as a baby otter. The manatees will be placed into the wild when they are old enough / healthy enough to fend for themselves. There were some manatees under 18 months and a few manatees two years old and over. We had an opportunity to feed them, which was quite enjoyble.

Baby manatee under 18 months

Some of the older manatees wanting to be fed

Feeding the manatees

The visit to the zoo was also pretty interesting, even though it was just a zoo. Here they had many of the animals that were from the jungle in the Amazon, but that you would not likely see on a day or two hike in the jungle itself.

Chances of encountering her in the jungle are pretty slim

Butterfly Rescue

Similar to the Manatee Rescue, the butterfly rescue was working on restoring a number of butterfly species whose populations have been substantially diminished due to loss of habitat.  They were working with 17 species of butterfly. They also had a few rescue animals some of which would be released back into the jungle. This was a fun visit and worth the time.

This butterfly's defense was to look like an owl

These caterpillars were as big as my hand

This guy gets fed live food often as it is possible that he will be released.

Attempt to go to Monkey Island

I attempted to go down stream to a monkey rescue center, however, I could not get through to them on the phone. The monkey rescue was two hours down stream by boat. I did not want to go all the way down there without getting in touch with someone, so I ended up just taking a ride on the Amazon instead.

That boat was carrying some old growth forest. Those were some very wide diameter logs.

Port Nanay

The local water taxis

Ayahuasca

One of the big attractions to Iquitos seemed to be Ayahuasca tourism. Ayahuasca is some kind of cooked Amazonian plants. Apparently, it provides some kind of psychodelic experience. Additionally, it is supposed to cleanse the body. People go on "tours" where they visit a shaman who gives them the ayahuasca and then the go on a spiritual journey. I did not really have any desire to participate the Ayahuasca tourism, This was especially the case, since most of the Ayahuasca tourists reminded me of the grunge crowd from college days. My spiritual journey would probably end up with me yelling at them to take a frickin shower.

Pastoruri Glacier; another great hike in Huascaran National Park

Pastoruri Glacier

After having a great hike to Laguna 69, I felt like I would be leaving a little early if I did not check something else out while I was in Huaraz. I spoke to a couple people that I met from Germany and they suggested a day trip to Pastoruri Glacier.

Pastoruri Glacier glacier is a nice complement to Laguna 69. Even though they are both within Huascaran National Park, they are very different. The flora seems much more barren (but no less interesting) in the area around Pastoruri. The altitude is higher at Pastoruri at about 5,050 meters (16,500 feet) than Laguna 69 at about 4,600 meters (15,100 feet). Aside from the altitude, the trek to Laguna 69 is much more strenuous.

It started snowing while I was on top, which was nice. How often do you expect to see snow when you are in Peru?

The road to Pastoruri

Gasesous bubbles from pond. There were warnings not to light it on fire.

Looking down from road to Pastoruri

A member of the bromeliad family, these are related to pineapples. I believe these are unique to Huascaran National Park. Some reach heights of 15 meters and can live as long as 100 years. 

Glacier Pastoruri

Glacier Pastoruri

Glacier Pastoruri

It snowed while we were there. Notice the difference in the first picture and this one. 

Hiking to Laguna 69 in Peru’s Huascaran National Park

Laguna 69 in the background

Huascaran National Park surrounds Peru’s Cordillera Blanca (White Mountains), Peru’s highest mountain range. I did not even know about the Cordillera Blanca before I reached Peru. I was focused on Lima, Ica, Arequipa, Cusco and Machu Picchu; the typical tourist trail. I was in Mancora talking with a group from Quebec who were going north to Ecuador and Columbia. After suggesting to them places like Volcano Cotopaxi, Laguna Quilotoa and Sierra Nevado Ruiz; they suggested I would like the Cordillera Blanca. They were right.

Since I was traveling by bus to Lima, it was an extra 8 hours total bus time to get to Huaraz, the main launch point for trips to Huascaran. I got in early after an all-night bus from Trujillo and checked into my hostel.

Plaza de Armas in Huaraz

The owner of the hostel told me about a day trip that seemed pretty cool. His description was way off in terms of the effort. He described it as about a two hour bus ride to the destination with an hour and half walk, then we return.

The walk turned out to be a 6 hour very tough, but very enjoyable hike. It starts at 12,465 feet and ascends to 15,090 feet. I thought I would be resilient to the altitude by now, but I definitely had to slow down to account for it. I think possibly I started out a little overconfident and moved a little too fast. This caught up to me by the time I reached the last ascent. Note: I think he may have been mistaken about the hike that he sent me on, because you could do this by just visiting the lower lakes and it would not be very strenous.

I think I have done some pretty amazing hikes since coming to South America on this trip. This hike matched up to any of them; a very nice surprise given that I did not even know it existed before coming to Peru.

Note for bicyclists: the road from Huaraz to Barranca looked like it would be an amazaing ride, but with very few services. It would be a 30 mile slow rise, followed by a hundred mile downhill. If you were prepared to camp, I think this would be a great ride.

One of the lower lakes

Running streams were everywhere, there were some precarious crossings

Cows were common and were seen pretty close to Laguna 69 at over 15,000 feet.

Stream running down towards the lower lakes

Waterfall coming from first upper lake on climb

First upper lake. I expected to see a lady's arm with a sword in hand here.

Water clarrity in the first uppler lake

Looking back on the first upper lake

Another lake seen from the ascent to Laguna 69; notice the people in lower left for guaging size

Reaching Laguna 69

Snowmass above Laguna 69

Laguna 69

Vertical view of waterfall at Laguna 69