Puerto San Antonio – San Ignacio – Jaén – Lagunas – Cutervo – Chota – Hualgayoc – Cajamarca
7 days | 479 kilometers | 9.480 meters elevation gain
I crossed into Peru yesterday with my Swiss cycling friends Dea and Gaetan. Our first impression was really good: the border guy gave us six instead of three months for our visa, people are waving and honking and throwing thumbs up everywhere and when asking for a place to sleep we immediately get offered three options. We choose the school.
We wake up around 5AM by some mothers of the children of the school that are preparing breakfast for all the kids. We get offered a cup of oatmeal drink. We pack up our tents and have our breakfast on the schools football field. Kids start to make their appearances nicely dressed in their school uniforms. Curiously they stop to look in awe at the gringos. A big circle of kids is forming around us. The least shy kids ask some questions. Everybody giggles. When the school bell rings they all say goodbye and sprint off.
Our route to San Ignacio is over a pleasant paved road that seems to be designed for a lot of traffic.
But no traffic makes use of the road. Besides a tuk-tuk here and there and three odd-looking cyclists. Instead the road serves as a drying place for coffee beans that were picked from little coffee fields in the area. Sometimes we almost cycle over one of these black canvases since they’re just on the middle of the road.
We arrive in San Ignacio without problems. The woman that we met a few days ago in the south of Ecuador told us she has a place for us to stay here. After some text messages back and forth we come to understand that her family has a hotel here. We get two hotel rooms and we don’t have to pay for it. Incredible.
We stay an extra day to rest the legs a bit. We try the world famous Peruvian ceviche at the local market and it doesn’t disappoint. The rest of the day is filled with ice-cream, beer and a quick wash of the bike.



The next morning we pick up our fourth member of our little cycling club just 5km out of town. He is a 28 year-old from Spain. His name is Jesús and his beard is longer than that of his namesake from Nazareth. We met him back in Cuenca, Ecuador. He wanted to ride with us, but his bike was still at the bike shop so ever since he has been one day behind us. And since we’ve had a resting day in San Ignacio, this was his moment to catch up with us. Why didn’t we just wait for him one day? Good question, I don’t know.
We meet him 5km out of town. After some hugs and catching up we start on a big descend towards lower altitudes. It’s getting incredibly hot, but still we manage to do 54km before lunch. We are amazed by the change in scenery out of a sudden: rice fields instead of mountain valleys. With the tuk-tuks driving around it almost seems like we are cycling in Asia. After lunch we spot a little river on the side of the road and we decide to do like the locals do: take a dip to cool off.
When we’re back on the bike suddenly a guy driving a motorcycle waves at us and stops. He tells us that since we are on two wheels we have a place to stay in Jaén for the night. Turns out there is this tight network of moto posadas, places for motorcycle travelers to sleep, mostly at houses of other motorcycle travelers, where we can make use of. We hesitate a bit, because we are already pretty cooked for the day and Jaén is like 25km further south.
After an ice-cream and a quick debate we decide to go for it. It did not disappoint. We are welcomed by Don Garza. He cooks us dinner and we buy some beers to share. He spreads the word of the four gringos in his house and thus minutes later his first moto-friends start to trickle in. We exchange stories and laughter. That night we sleep in his tiny apartment. He insists on sleeping on the couch himself and offers his bed to the couple. Me and Jesús sleep on the floor. Once again we’re amazed by the incredible hospitality of people all around the world.





After a hot and sweaty night we wake up in Don Garza’s house. He takes us out to try some local breakfast on the street. We try a new beverage called maca consisting of milk, sugar and corn which is absolutely delicious. It comes with a variety of pancitos: bread buns with omelette, avocado or plantain.
We say goodbye to Don Garza, with a bunch of other moto contacts in the pocket further down the country, and hop on the bike again. Around 8AM it is already freakin’ hot. The last days we descended back to lower altitudes and it didn’t go unnoticed. We take a long, long, long lunch in the shadow to escape the heat a little bit. We debate whether or not to take the cute little chicken hopping around with us but then decide not to because it would mean we have to share our food.
After lunch we start on a big climb. Within minutes I’m completely soaked in my own sweat. The salt stains make for an artistic design on our bib shorts. We end the day in a little town. Luckily there is ice-cream everywhere, no matter the size of the town. After a quick wash in the river we decide that the little football field makes for a perfect camp spot. Soon later all the youth of the little village seems to have found us and we play some football with them whilst cooking our rice and lentils. They ask a thousand questions, want to ride our bikes, want to go into our tents. It’s quite exhausting after a tough day on the bike where normally you just want to rest your legs in the camping chair. But it’s also kind off cute and funny. After the kids are called inside by their moms for dinner we have a quiet night.
Soon after we’ve woken up the sun rises over the mountain ridge and it starts drying the condense on our tents. This morning the kids visit again, this time wearing their school uniforms. We pack up and get going. A life on the move.
Today is a full-on climbing day. On the menu: nearly 50km with 2300 height meters and half of it on gravel. In the first town we ask about amenities and they tell us that there’s no tiendas or restaurants after this point, so we buy bread, tuna, mayonnaise, avocado and tomates to make ourselves a roadside lunch. Soon after we start climbing and the suffering begins. Wet to the bone. Climbing from 1100 to 2800m. From the heat back to the cold. We make it to Cutervo and immediately take a hold at the first salchipollo stand to have some fries and chicken.
We get invited for coffee and bread by a woman looking down onto the street from a roof terrace. The hospitality keeps amazing us. We thank heartfully for the coffee and start looking for Franklin a little further into the city. Via our new motorcycle community and our contact Don Garza we learned that there is a contact here that might be able to help us with a place to stay. We meet Franklin and he takes us to his little casa de campo just out of town in the rural parts of the city. He tells us it’s “a little bit up” and soon later we’re suffering again on super steep gravel roads. We want to swear, but we know we cannot since it would be ungrateful at best. The house is perfect with a little gas stove and plenty of space for us to roll out our mats. We shower outside in the cold by throwing a bucket of ice-cold water over our heads.






We wake up in the rural casita, make breakfast and coffee. In front of us is a relatively easy day today, jokingly we call it “half a rest day”, even though we still have to do more than 1000m of elevation gain. I guess it says more about the past days than about today. We chat a lot during the cycling and thus time flies. We make it in time to Chota to have a beer at the main park. And like always, a drunk guy starts bothering us, but we know by now that it’s part of the experience.
We have another contact in Chota via the motor club network, we are told that we possibly can sleep in his garage but he cancels on us at the last minute. No panic.
At this point we are pretty confident here in Peru when it comes to finding places to sleep. We start asking around for places to camp and soon later start talking with a friendly looking man. He offers us to stay with his family in his house. We follow him and it turns out to be another amazing Peruvian encounter. We meet the whole family and they are super sweet, friendly, curious and honored to have us. And in turn for us it’s really special as well. We are assigned two rooms that we can sleep. Than everybody dresses up in their nicest outfits and we go out to a chicken restaurant with the whole family. We take hundreds of pictures inside and outside of the restaurant. Tired but happy we roll out our mats in the rooms.



The next day the family offers us to cook lunch for us. It’s around 10 o’clock so we have to make a decision: or we either politely refuse the offer and go cycling now (we can still make it to our intended next stop) or we stay for lunch and make it a rest day. We decide the latter.
They ask us if we want chicken or cuy (guinea pig) for lunch. I don’t have to think long about this decision. “Cuy“. We can eat as much chicken as we want back in Europe, but I doubt we can find a place in our home countries where we can eat a hamster. It turns out the lunch becomes a true spectacle.
Apparently the family has a little business in buying small guinea pigs, fatten them and then sell them to restaurants. So they have twenty to thirty guinea pigs in cages upstairs near the kitchen. They pick out 5 fat ones and start slicing their necks. We just stand there, watching in amazement. Blood flows down in little streams on the floor. The next step of the process is to pluck the hairs from the bodies. First the dead cuys are put in hot and cold water to make it easier to remove the hairs. Then they get plucked. Gaetan and Jesús help out.
Me and Dea are more comfortable on the other side of the kitchen peeling potatoes. Razor blades are used to remove all hair. Next the bodies are cut in half. Most of the intestines are removed, but some are kept because they’re supposed to be delicious to eat, like the liver. One of the girls demonstratively swallows the gall bladder, because it’s supposed to be good for your health.
During all of this I watch in amazement. For the family it’s the most normal thing in life but for us it’s quite special. We never really see the real honest process of the meat that ends up on our plates. We only see nicely packaged sausages or minced meat on the supermarket shelves. If you eat meat, you also should be a big boy or girl by being able to kill the animal. And that’s exactly what happens here. I think its more fair then cowardly buying your meat in the supermarket. I wonder if I would be able to kill one of these guinea pigs, but that question will not be answered today.
The cuy are being grilled in a big pan on a wood-fired oven. We help out to peel corn. Everybody helps out in the kitchen and its so cozy. We eat delicious cuy, choclo (corn) and potatoes.







Still having lunch at the kitchen table the story goes that FC Chota is playing a game in the stadium today. My eyes light up and it doesn’t go unnoticed. So it’s decided: we will go to the football in the afternoon. It takes us two mototaxis to get everybody to the stadium. It’s chaotic outside the stadium, there’s a big line and the police is trying to keep everybody calm. We hear that the match is postponed since the fans are not inside yet. At one point the gates just swing open and everybody flows in. With our without ticket.
The local FC is taking on Jaén (where we were two days ago) for a cup match. The atmosphere is lovely. I see guys climbing over the walls to get to the game for free, the police looks from a distance nodding their heads showing that they tolerate it if they don’t tell anybody else. Everything is sold inside the stadium: ice cream, sandwiches, beer.
The vendors walk around shouting.
Than the stadium: the field is so bad that my local team back home would refuse to play, the stadium is still half in construction (like the rest of the city) and I wonder if it will ever be finished. Other walls of the stadium are already collapsed. There are buildings that rise higher than the stadium walls and have a free sight, those are bustling with people. I see mototaxi men stand on top of their tuk-tuk’s to see over those same walls. I love it. We win 3-2. At the end of the match there is some noise. The away players and the referees apparently cannot or will not leave the field. They have to use the same exits as the spectators and apparently they don’t think its safe. We see away supporters gathering in front of the gates and threatening to beat up the referees. Clearly they didn’t agree on some decisions they made.








We say goodbye to our new friends and make some last pictures. An incredible family and an incredible experience.
We get back on the bikes. Another day with lots of climbing but luckily the roads provide us with very steady gradients. We end up in the cutest village where we ask if we can sleep at the police station. We can. They even have a hot shower!
In the night there is some kind of celebration in the main square of the plaza. Indigenous ladies in beautiful dresses and with stunning hats serve a homemade hot beverage with alcohol. After the mesa a band starts playing and soon later we are invited to dance on the main square. Everybody looks at the four gringos from the corner of their eyes. Older people come up to us and ask if we want to dance with their daughter, co-worker or cousin. We dance until midnight when suddenly a scaffolding of bamboo with lots of fireworks mounted on it goes off. Crazy scenes. Time for us to retreat to the police station.
The next day is supposed to be an easy day, but it turns out not to be. Maybe the fact that we hit 4.000m twice plays a role in that.
We cycle through beautiful páramo: high altitude moorland. No trees, no vegetation, just one type of yellow grass and rocks. We get rained upon but luckily not heavily. After a crazy long descent we make it to Cajamarca for two well deserved rest days.
Jésus goes to stay at a WarmShowers, the swiss check into an AirBnb and I check into the cheapest hostel in town.
When I arrive there’s a package waiting for me. One that I’ve been waiting for for more than two months: my new suspension has finally arrived! I can get rid of my broken suspension and the PVC tube that was holding everything together. I get the new suspension installed (it didn’t fit exactly so it needed to be sanded a bit) with help of some friendly people that I find in the workshop of a company making ice-cream machines. Really happy with the end result.
The people here all wear these incredibly beautiful high hats. Dea and Gaetan invite me and Jésus over for a dinner at their place. We have a cozy night that we end up dancing in the streets because there’s some neighborhood party going on.





Finally your suspension is fixed, can we arrange you sending the pvc part to the nl? Veel plezier daar!
Is this a voluntary offer to start the MarijnOnABike museum?
Yes, it is. Still have to discuss with the boss at home, but would be cool. Than the whole bike should be there as well, and the cuy’s gal bladder in a jar.
It’s funny you mention this, in my new story I have a section where me, the Swiss and Jesús discuss what would be in “your museum” after this trip. The cuys gall bladder is not mentioned but a very good idea!!
Het verhaal van de cavia was al 😞 maar dan die foto’s……af en toe iets aan de verbeelding overlaten…..
Tja… dat is nou precies wat ik bedoelde met de hypocrisie in de vlees-industrie… Eten willen we het maar al te graag, maar het proces er voorafgaand zien?!
Wat een verhaal weer en dan die foto’s 😁
Denk dat ik vanaf nu geen vlees meer eet
En wat een top idee : een Museum.marijnonabike
Zo weer helemaal bij gelezen……wie maakt toch die prachtige foto’s van bovenaf? Heeft 1 van jullie een drone of zo?
Goed om te horen dat jullie weer bij zijn gelezen in De Bus! 👍 We hebben geen drone bij ons, de fotos van bovenaf zijn vaak vanaf een punt hoger op de berg genomen, bijvoorbeeld als er veel haarspeldbochten zijn
Weer genoten van de update Marijn. Blijft boeiend om alles te lezen.
En cheers van Kaat en mij.
Stay safe.
Altijd leuk om te horen Ans en Kaat, dankjewel! (en ook voor de biertjes 🎉🍺)