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Big Ups and Bigger Downs

By Dan Wallace - 2010-01-22

After a few days exploring the festivities that the small town of Chalhuanca had to offer, it was time to ascend up onto the alti-plano. We hit the road before 12pm and finished a hard 40km in a couple of hours. Chris and I were at the bottom of the ascent waiting for Mike and Daniel to catch up. After awhile, I told Chris that I was going to start climbing. We knew the climb would take at least 2 hours, and I wanted to get it out of the way. Unfortunately, Mike fell ill upon reaching the bottom while I was already more than half way up. I spotted Chris more than a few times while I was climbing, and figured that they were all behind me.

At the top I waited a long time until finally an impending storm forced me to set up my tent for shelter. While making camp, Chris arrived to bring me the bad news about Mike, who was still at the bottom with Daniel. Chris and I had two options, ride back down the next day and eventually climb all over again, or hope the other two would make it up the next morning. We decided to wait, and ended up sending messages by car down to Mike and Daniel the next day, who were going to camp another day at the bottom. The following morning Mike and Daniel made it up and we were soon riding out in the high pampas.

We camped on the side of mountain after rolling over the high hills for half a day, and woke up to find many of the surrounding mountains blanketed with fresh powder! Mountain passes big and small began to occur regularly and we did our best to battle the wind and steep grades. Soon we were cruising down giant downhill at dusk, which ended up in the town of Puquio. We spent the night in a hostel, each of us dealing with some kind of sickness. Our antibiotics were quickly becoming precious commodities.

The following day was spent climbing, descending, and climbing some more. We ended up making the biggest climb on our trip, ball parked between 3-4 hours. Climbing for that long, at high altitudes is murder, but it gives you a great feeling of accomplishment afterward. After reaching the top, all that was left was to cross a bit of alti-plano pampas and begin the 70km descent into Nazca. We camped on the pampas after that huge day of climbing and descended the following day. The biggest climb followed by the biggest and longest down hill. Unforgettable and effortless are good descriptions of our ride down from 15000ft to near sea level.