Day 956
57 Hairpins
You’ve got to hand it to the road builders of Peru, give them a deep-sided valley with a river to cross at the bottom, weather that likes nothing better than to cause havoc, and they’ll say, “no problem, we’ll build you a road to get through there”. Access is awful, how they do it is hard to comprehend but hey, their forefathers built the Inca Trail, it’s in their genes!
So, this was why we left the UK. This was why we had ridden 20,000 miles. We needed to be fit enough to take on the next few days. We needed to earn the right to be here, pay our dues. We were excited beyond words, would today’s challenge live up to the expectations?
In total we had 57 hairpins. Though a fair bit of this road was tarmac, the trickiest bits, the steep hairpins were not. The tarmac on most of these had long since worn away and we had rubble and potholes to contend with. The descent started in Mollepata, on a rough steep road, then we saw them, those beautiful crazy hairpins. I can’t explain what it is that inspires us cyclists so. It’s a challenge against nature, but to ride that valley was something we just had to do. Fortunately as we descended the road became less steep but was still crazy. Virtually no vehicles come down this side and almost none go up, they head away up another road out of the valley, so it was just us and the views of the climb to come.
We could see trucks coming down opposite it. Those drivers must get danger money. The hairpins, half destroyed by landslips are treacherous. One particularly badly damaged one was simply too narrow and tight a turning yet on they came. One driver took at least 10 minutes and finally made it with about a 100 point turn, just for one hairpin. The trucks are fully loaded with coal, rocks, or in this instance wood, the weight must be immense. Hats off to those guys!
We made it down, camped, and now for the climb. Our guru, Matt P, described it as a steady blast, so much easier than expected, it took a while but that was due to him stopping repeatedly to just look at that view. He was spot on. Tom made all of the hairpins, I struggled on about 6 and got off and pushed. I could have dug deep and made a couple that I walked but I didn’t want to tire myself out. Slowly we climbed on and up. We got thumbs up from the car drivers and a wild-eyed grin from the truckers. We cycled almost as quick as those guys drove. Then far, far, too soon we rode the last hairpin and we were at the top. We stood and looked down and across the valley, Tom took about a zillion pictures and we hugged! What a ride, and yes it lived up to all our expectations.
Only of course this being Peru meant we weren’t actually at the top of this particular hill, just at the top of the hairpins. We were only halfway. Pallasca, with a promised good cafe was away up there and so it was back on the bikes and upwards. Ride done, the food was as good as expected and we readied ourselves for our next challenge.
A 50 mile descent through a narrow canyon, the tarmac long destroyed by a cyclone and the usual suspects, the first of 35 tunnels, dangerously narrow with deep drops to certain death in the raging river below, then a 50 mile ride out, the rest of those tunnels and more narrow death defying road conditions. Could we be more excited? Bring it on!
