Cerro de Pasco to Jungle

I knew Geo would get fed up with the ugliness of the Pan American highway at some point. I knew the time would come we would traverse the Andes again. I just sat quietly at the back of the Kenton, until the auspicious moment would arrive. Now it has.

To get to the jungle we need to cross the Andes again. Much to my delight, we have to tackle the highest altitude we ever took with our 150cc motorbike, and one of the higher in the entire Peruvian Andes. Being fed up with the Pan American highway, we take the challenge to ride to Cerro de Pasco via the 20A, leveling an altitude of something around 4750 meter.

I agreed without hesitation to continue our drive through the jungle and perhaps see parts of the Amazon forest, only because we must cross the Altiplano to get there. If it was me I would have taken the entire length of the Andes, but my dear husband doesn’t like to suffer altitude sickness and feeling worthless. I understand that.

Yet I have absolutely no interest in any jungle, my mind is only fixed on barren nothingness, spectacular heights and unimaginable beauty high in the mountains. Geo his mind is set on getting his fix of green surroundings.

We drive to Canta, at 3491 meter, an easy drive where we exchange the city of Lima filled with smog for fresh air canopied by thick clouds. Because I wanted to walk, my day-pack and walking sticks are brought to the surface, ready to use, so I can meet Geo at a waterfall where we will camp again.

However, it seems to be an impossible task to combine motor riding with walking, and again I have to abort my intention to be more active than sitting at the back of a motorbike. Heavy rainfall and thunder have us just in time reach a ramshackle restaurant where we can warm our painfully cold hands, eat and wait the outrageous rain to be over. I suffer from altitude sickness a bit, being dizzy with a poor blood-flow in the fingertips.

Two hours later, in better spirits, we move on to find a camp spot but are halted 100 meters later by heavy mud-flow. Parts of the softer mountain have slided down, leaving waist deep mud. Needless to say, impossible to ride through. Not too much annoyed by not being able to camp after the rain, we drive back to Canta in a thick mist, unable to see farther than 5 meter. We check into a simple windowless room and pay €9 for a hot shower and a dry night.

Canta is a typical mountain village, pleasantly showing the daily life of the villagers, ranging from elderly traditional people to young folks in leggings and Lycra, as if they have forgotten to put on their pleaded dress of the old days…

Once back on the motorbike, we crawl towards the turn off to  Yantac, passing many high altitude laguna’s to end the day in Huayllay, at 4300 meter. We had to push our Kenton motorbike only once. And since we have distributed the luggage to less weight in the front, Geo was able to cross rather than bump, haw and falter. I noticed he enjoyed the ride but perhaps he wanted to get over the Andes as soon as possible too?

It was a tough ride, constantly above 4000 meters, cold, some rain and hail. The dark clouds more threatening than the Peruvian dogs, trying to bite in our legs.

We had much water to cross, sometimes scarily close to a laguna.

Sometimes deeper, more uneven than hoped-for.

Now, open Keen sandals are not the best choice of footwear one can make, and of course my feet get soaked. This in itself is not having much influence of the rest of the body was it not that our motorcycle outfits are just not that professional. We are becoming so cold that our fingers feels like too tightly stretched pigskin on a drum. When I touch them it send uncountable prickles of nerve pains through the tips.

As a pillion rider I am sitting still for long, my knees are becoming stiff, my back itchy and hurtful. This, and the shivery weather makes it uneasy to climb off and on the motorbike, a hindrance to make photo’s with my uncomfortable cold hands. Geo wants to tackle these heights as quick as possible and so do I. Although I love to be at an altitude, I have no desire to camp with my summery, flimsy Big Agnes tent, not resistant to hard winds and unwilling too receive much rain.

A headache start to develop and as usual at these altitudes I get constipated. Geo feels nauseated.

We need to cover 108 kilometer. December is rainy season. And since we do not make plans, we have ended up on this incredible magnificent patch of Andes with insufficient clothing, let alone motorbike gear.

Literally 2 minutes after we arrive in cold and cloudy Huayllay, we’ve climbed the stairs to the third floor of an uninspiring alojamiento, the heavens break loose. Rain falls through the night, leaving us dry but utterly cold. Inside the room it is barely warmer than the 1 degree Celsius outside. Without dinner and wrinkled cold feet we slip under the 3 heavy blankets, giving off nothing but unease.

Talking about unease, while Geo lays motionless in bed, suffers altitude sickness and is dealing with general weakness, diarrhea and throwing up twice, I refrain from airing the gas building up in my belly. A small issue, you say? Well, it is the main issue in my marriage, the sole problem. Not being able to deflate the balloon forming in my stomach is leading to constipation and an equally general unease.

Having bought a new pair of Chinese synthetic mass-production socks, plastic bags to protect the socks, a quick breakfast for me and a rapid packing of the motorbike, we race down the Andes to the jungle where more oxygen is waiting for Geo.

Riding from Huayllay to Huánuco at 2820 meters is a relief for Geo, a dread for me. It starts off pleasant, the route goes over tarmac, a rather uninspiring high plateau towards the capital of mining. A busy route, perhaps because Christmas is arriving soon, with desolate villages.

Without knowing where, we gurgled over the highest point on our trip, 4700 meter in altitude. Both Geo and I are proud of our machine! Back in Paraguay, where we bought it, no one really believed in its capacity and some people smirked about our grand plan with a little motorbike. People still grin to us, their eyes taking long to take in our luggage. Kenton is more or less buried under packs and bags.

We whiz down, past green canyons. Over a busy route. Past repulsive dwellings. Through a city stuck with traffic. It rains. It doesn’t get more beautiful in my opinion. We see rubbish again, just as along the Pan American highway. The entire route is built up with shacks, pigs growing fat, little businesses and patches of farming.

Eventually, beauty seeps through. It even looks like we are truly in a jungle. Green hills are carpeted with long, slim eucalyptus’, palms, all sort of trees and very steep agriculture. Small plots swarm up resembling a patchwork. The road is narrow, curvy and traffic is racing. There is no way we can pitch a tent unseen here. We have to get off the main road and onto a path to be able to find a spot to camp the night.

Clouds are hanging low, we drive past little houses where children sit in T-shirts, where elderly ladies watch the traffic. The little dwellings are wet and moldy, turned to a deep gray. Laundry hangs to dry, in the clouds. Driving more down and the jungle is in full swing, overwhelming much green, lush. A willingness of stumbling green. Geo goes ‘oh’ and ‘ah’. Little cascades and pigs are to be seen everywhere, but no place to stop. In fact, it is very hard to portrait the jungle with a camera.

Lush. Sheer. Dripping. Closed. Crowded. Swarming. Also, so much more people.

There were not many people in the Andes. The simpleness that reins high up in the Andes I undoubtedly romanticize, yet its so clean up there. Up tends to be no rubbish, not too many people and no ugliness. Up there, everything is in harmony. The lama’s, even awfully shaved ones, are the white dots that an artist emphasizes on in the eyes of his portrait. The openness, the simplicity, the drama is what yield might to the Andes. Though I am able to see beauty in the jungle, in between expelling mosquitoes.

Thankful that our first puncture is in the selva jungle and not in the high Andes, where we would not be abe to repair it so cosily as here.

December 2019. From Lima to Canta, Huayllay, Cerro de Pasco, Rio Huallaga. Next post covers Tingo Maria, Chontayacu and Tocache.