Cusco – Caycai – Wild Camp – Pajchanta – Chillca – Phinaya – Corani – Macusani – San Anton – Wild Camp – Puno – Wild Camp Titicaca – Pomata – Mirador Tiquina – La Paz
14 days | 970 kilometers | 11.390 meters elevation gain
It’s been a while in Cusco. I’ve been enjoying a free stay at the Casa de Ciclista “Wasicleta” after Arjo took his plane back to the Netherlands. I’ve caught a cold as well which delayed my departure a bit more. But today, I decided, I will finally get back on the bike again. Still with a stuffy nose, but we’ll just take it easy. I say goodbye to the friendly people of Wasicleta and roll out of town. The road leads me steep up a hill and immediately I have to get off and push my bike up the 25% gradient. But with a smile, ’cause I’m feeling the excitement of getting into the unknown again. The road leads me alongside all kinds of old Inca sites, of which the stapled pyramids are also perfectly visible from outside of the gates. I reach the sacred valley of the Incas, where I have lunch in a cute town called Pisac. After lunch I continue the road upstream, but with a tailwind, alongside the river Urubamba. I leave the asphalt and already do the first part of the big unpaved climb of tomorrow and reach a cute town called Caycai.
It’s 15:30, I’ve made some solid progress, it’s a beautiful day and the sun shines. What else could a bike traveler wish for?! I ask around the friendly people of the village for a place to sleep. The parish is closed, the little hospital doesn’t have a patch of grass. I guess putting my tent in the middle of the plaza will do in this quite town.
But I set out for one more exploration in search for a school that I found on my map. The location seems to be wrong as I stand in front of a house and not a school when I get there. A lady looks at me with surprise and I explain that I’m traveling by bicycle and am looking for a place to put my tent. We talk a bit and soon after she tells me that I can sleep at her place. Wow, even after 1.6 years on the road I’m still amazed by the hospitality in this world. Something to remember and learn from.
Her name is Patty. I help her out with getting the stuff out of her car, play with her two beautiful young girls and hang around. I can take a cold shower, which is great. The only thing is that she talks fast and I don’t really understand everything that she’s saying. She’s talking about a movie, my take is that I remind her of a character of some sort of movie. But I could also be completely wrong. Than she asks me if I want to join her to visit Rainbow Mountain tomorrow. Hell yeah! Rainbow mountain is a tourist attraction that I decided to skip, but visiting it like this would be perfect. Patty tells me that we will leave at 04:30 in the morning. Time for bed then I guess! I sleep in her son’s little bed and I just fit. I sleep between spider man posters and under a football blanket tonight.




The next morning I’m ready at 04:30 but still I don’t really now what’s going to happen today. I decide to just go with the flow. To my surprise we don’t take her car but walk to the edge of town to wait for a taxi. After 20 minutes a white luxury van approaches us. Patty tells me to get in. To my surprise there’s all sorts of gringos in the van: Ward from Belgium and Raquel and Casper from Denmark. We seem to be having a personal driver as well. Patty takes place in the front of the car.
I greet my fellow Europeans in the car but everybody still seems a bit sleepy at this hour. After an hour we start talking a bit in English. Ward married a Peruvian wife and started a family here in the Sacred Valley. Raquel is from Peru and convinced her Danish boyfriend Casper to move here. “But, guys, what the hell are we doing in this van together??”
Remember that I told you that Patty was talking about some kind of movie? Well, apparently she is in the crew of a big Peruvian movie production. She is the person that arranges everything, from locations to requisites to supporting roles. And apparently for today’s scene they need some white guys to play “security guards” and that’s why I’m in a van with all kinds of other Europeans. Casper and Ward will play the role of security guard. At least, that’s what I think up until this point.
We drive three hours up to the location of the film set of today. The local community receives us in their adobe houses and they’re cooking breakfast for us. We’re welcomed by a big filming crew, I’m amazed by the amount of people: sound technicians, producers, make-up artists, a medic, camera men and much more. The location is beautiful, we’re at 4.800 meters in a beautiful valley with green, red yellow and grey cliffs, alpacas everywhere and beautiful old ladies herding them. After breakfast we walk up to the set. Lots of people are preparing the set with requisites, tents have been placed around.
Then they suddenly tell me to put on a costume as well. I was secretly hoping that this would happen, but yet I didn’t expect it. Adrenaline shoots through my body.
I have to put on black boots, black pants, a bulletproof vest and get a surprisingly real-looking gun pushed in my hands. The next thing I know people are putting me in make-up, giving me the script and making sure everything is tip-top. We walk through the script with the movie director. The scene is as follows: two old indigenous guys are walking the old Inca-trail in search of there roots. However the land of this part of the Inca-trail has been bought by a foreign investor and is now “private property” on which they cannot continue their journey. In the scene the two old guys approach us, we tell them it’s private property, a small discussion and scuffle follows after which they walk back where they came from. By the way, one of these old guys appears to be a very famous Peruvian movie star that also played a role in Transformers II.
We start shooting the scene and I suddenly feel like a superstar: people giving me a blanket (4.800m, so it was darn cold), patting the dust of my pants and doing my hair in between takes. A guy with this typical clapping board indicating which take we’re filming, guys with big sticks with these fluffy things attached to the end that record the sound, crazy fancy camera equipment. The movie director tells us what we can improve after every take, like “look angrier, hold the gun like this, et cetera”. Eventually we film all day.
At the end of the day it’s “a wrap” and we shout it out, we hug and celebrate together. The people from the movie want to pay me for my services but I kindly reject. I had fun and (if they don’t cut me out of the final edit) will appear in a Peruvian movie, how cool is that?!
The movie is called Basilio y el Mar and it’s quite a big production that will be aired nationally and internationally (they were even talking about Cannes?!).
The trailer can be seen here: https://vimeo.com/847534328
At the end of the day we get dropped off and I spend another night in Patty’s house.









Patty is out early again to shoot some more movie scenes. I sleep in. I promised Patty to help out her grandma to clean the house a bit and do the dishes. After that I get back onto the road starting with a 20k climb on gravel, 1200 meters altitude gain, which falls heavier on me than I’m used to and which takes me 6 hours. Out of shape? My cold that’s playing me parts? We will never know.
The women here wear vivid dresses and colorful hats that look like cute little parasols. They look funny. I cycle past a truck where tens of people are scrambled upon the roof. They carry bags with potatoes and yuca. The truck is 100 meters away facing a different direction but still it feels like they are all looking at me. I decide to take it to the test and wave abundantly. Within milliseconds 20 hands and 10 hats shoot up into the sky to wave back at me. I giggle. Soon later I help an old man, with a skin of leather, carry a bag of potatoes, much too heavy for his frail body, up a hill to his earthen house. When he shakes my hand to thank me I see and feel the rheumatic lumps in his hands. Life is not easy here.
I pitch my tent in a patch of woods out of sight of the road. No moon, so it gets dark very fast.
No water, so no breakfast. I have to wait an hour and a half before a rain storm passes over, luckily under a shelter. After most of the storm is gone I put on my shoe covers, rain pants, raincoat and gloves: it’s cold. I arrive in the dark but make it to the last campsite before I will cross the Ausangate Cordillera tomorrow. The Ausangate is a beautiful mountain range with beasts towering up to 6.300m and I’m going to take a hiking path to push my bike up and over it. Tomorrow could easily become a very, very tough day and it makes me a bit nervous.
There are 20 tents here of students who are following a course to become mountaineer guides. All the students are having fun with loud music in the nearby baños termales, but I’m going to bed early. In the morning I have the least chance of bad weather so I put my alarm at 5AM.
I am treated to a mighty spectacle of a bright, clear starry sky with the horizon all around me lit up by flashes of lightning. Only in places like this you notice how incredibly powerful nature can be.






I’m pretty exciting for today because I have no clue what to expect. I’m going to push my bike over a famous hiking trail straight through the Ausangate park. I wake up early and get going early. It starts off quite well as I can still cycle some parts, but after a couple of hours it’s only dragging, pushing and lugging my bike up tiny and damn steep paths. The weather is not great so I’m not treated to the best views, but there are points where a curtain of clouds suddenly is drawn away and am presented with amazing views of ice walls right next to me. I fall a couple off times, get exhausted, but conquer pushing my bike up to 5.100m. The whole afternoon it rains and in the descent I can only think about how I want to get back to a road. Later I reach that unpaved road where I can finally hop back on my bike and make it to a little town called Chilla. At first it seems desolated, but I guess all the people are just inside due to the rain. When finally some people show themselves they ask if I want a room: hell yeah! It has no electricity, no bathroom, no sink, basically it’s just a room with a bed. But it’s all I need right now.
In everything I feel that my body is still wrecked from yesterday but I manage to get myself back on the bike. It turns out that today will be a beautiful ride with better weather and thus better views on the Ausangate mountains, which I’m still pretty close to. I am surrounded by glaciers and snowy peaks. Thousands of alpacas look for the last bits of grass next to the unpaved road. I climb to 5.070 meter altitude and after a short downhill end up in some sort of party in Phinaya where people try to get me drunk.
It turns out the school is celebrating an anniversary and they love a gringo to join their traditional dances. After a day like this I don’t need much beer to get a bit foggy in my head. Just before I get too drunk I ask if a can put my tent up somewhere around and they point at some kind of greenhouse. Which eventually is a brilliant idea to keep me warm(er) and sheltered from the ice-cold wind here at 4.700m.









It’s ice and ice cold in the morning and the wind cuts right through everything I’m wearing. A friendly teacher of the school gives me a breakfast of alpaca meat and potatoes, not my usual breakfast but I guess it will warm up my engine pretty good.
Another beautiful day evolves. I cycle up to my new altitude PR: 5.109m, but it doesn’t go without notice: it’s freaking hard to breath up here and the steep gradients near the top make me stop every 100m or so. The rest of the day is basically downhill. I end up in Corani where the ladies of the little hospital offer me a bed in an unused labor room. The directress of the hospital is super kind and also insists on preparing a bucket of warm water for me to throw over my head in the shower. Amazing! I walk around town a bit and have dinner at the pollo restaurant across from the hospital and end up making pictures with the whole family. They even invite me for breakfast the next day.
Breakfast is delicious soup, but I thought I would be having a cozy breakfast with the family, but it feels more like I’m a guest at the restaurant.
Got rolling pretty late but I have an easy day in front of me. Another day without rain on the road!
Along the way some shepherds tell me that there are more cyclists up the road. In a beautiful canyon full of rocky walls left and right I see two other cyclist on the other side of a kilometer-long hairpin. We wave. Later I meet them in the next town. It’s Björn that I already met on the Ausangate trail and two friendly Dutchies Vera and Laurens. Björn will get going but I have lunch with Laurens and Vera . The first Dutch cicloviajeros that I’ve met on the road! We share stories and the road for the rest of the afternoon and stay in the same hotel and have dinner together.
The Dutch will take a rest day (they follow a different route anyway) and Björn half a rest day. I am the only one setting off in the morning towards Puno. It’s a pretty boring day, back on tarmac. I descend to the Altiplano, a high plateau stretching from here all the way to the border with Argentina in the South. I feel a bit sad but I don’t know why. I end up in San Anton where I pitch my tent in the town’s recreational park.







I get woken up at 04:45 by the deer that lives in the recreational park. I guess I’m off to an early start today. I prepare myself some breakfast and soon after start pedaling. It’s a flat day with headwind. At the end of the day I do groceries and cycle a bit out of town, where I find a big grassy area just underneath the hills to pitch my tent. It’s funny because for example in Colombia I would never have camped in plain sight like this. I just have a little bit more faith in the people of Peru and that just changes everything. I cook myself a meal of noodles, it’s a lovely evening and not too cold. When it starts to drizzle a bit I don’t even mind. I love to be cozy in my tent with the sound of small raindrops on the canvas of my tent.
When I wake up around 6AM I start to notice that I’ve descended quite a bit the last days and that I’m pretty low at the moment because it’s already freakin’ hot when I wake up. I zip out of my tent and see a clear blue sky. That’s been a long time.
In only a shirt and with plenty of sunscreen on I depart. I cycle into the ants nest that’s called Juliaca, straight through the nests’ main artery. It’s teeming with people. I see little carts with fried chicken alongside the road, old ladies sitting on the curbs with in front of them their sheep’s wool for show. The street smells like exhaust gasses and the sewer system. I crawl through traffic jams of tuk-tuks, collectivos cut me off. I see kids eating their marcianos and spoiling some of it on their shirts, ladies on every streetcorner that press oranges into juice on their little carts. I leave the mercado, even busier, on the left for what it is and turn right. At a certain point the streets become wider, more tranquilo and the panaderias make place for industrial buildings and car companies: I’ve made my way through the ant’s nest.
The rest of the day is boring with straight roads leading to the next big town of Puno, where I check into a hotel and roam the city for the rest of the evening.
I have my favorite breakfast ritual in Puno: I first roam the streets to look for little street carts, I find some in front of the market, they sell little sandwiches with avocado, meats, fried egg or platano and they are accompanied with beverages of quinoa, oatmeal or macca. But the best thing is: to have a little conversation with the ladies and to just sit on these little plastic stools and watch life start up in the Peruvian streets: ladies opening their market shops, old guys with their newspapers under their arms, kids in their school uniforms playing around on their way to school, the businessmen in their spotless suits buying their breakfast.
Today is a day alongside the mighty lake of Titicaca. The sun is warm but the wind cold and pounding into me from the south. In the afternoon it’s rush hour on the road as all the cows and sheep have to be moved from the banks of the Titicaca lake to their habitats, shouted forward and herded by ladies in beautiful skirts and hats. The moon is up early and contrasts neatly with the blue sky.
Time for some Titicaca-facts. It’s the highest elevated lake in the world that is navigable (meaning boats can pass safely) sitting at 3.800m. The lake is getting smaller and smaller due to evaporation and was seen as a holy lake by the Inca’s (but then again, was there anything those guys didn’t think was holy??).
With lovely temperatures and a dark blue mass of water next to me, for a moment, it feels like I’m cycling next to the Pacific again in Central America. I ask for water at the house of some friendly people and have an animated conversation. Here, the Quechua language has been swapped for another old Inca language: Aymara.
I make my tent in between some rock formations next to the lake. I notice that I’ve missed the deafening sound of crashing waves. A hail storm blows over (I thought I got rid of that by now?!) and I’m up for a quiet night.






A super nice morning ritual follows. I make coffee, make my oatmeal breakfast and sit in my camping chair looking over Titicaca lake. I make my way over gravel to Llave where I have lunch and then via Juli to Pomata. I get a super nice phone call from my friend Pim that is thinking about joining me on the bike for a bit. In Pomata I take a room and dinner from my last Peruvian soles. Tomorrow I will cross yet another border.
The next morning it’s not far to the border. I feel a mix of nervousness and excitement deep in my belly. On the one hand I feel that it’s hard to leave this country that I’ve felt so good in and on the other hand there’s always this excitement, this tickle in my stomach. A new country, new culture, new things to discover, a new currency, new words, new food.
The border crossing is extremely quit and relaxed. Locals stroll from Peru to Bolivia and vice versa without any checks, as if they’re strolling along a shopping street. No pushiness, no hassle, no chaos, what a tranquility. It takes me some time to find the right buildings to get my ‘out’ and ‘in’ stamps but then I’m in Bolivia! I’m super excited and send a video message to my family groups app. “I cycled all the way from Canada to Bolivia”, every time, again and again, it’s hard to believe it if I say these words out loud. After this first period of adrenaline and excitement follows the period of observation. Do I see changes with Peru? I still see unfinished houses everywhere. The kids as friendly, observing and curious as in Peru.
I do see different advertisements painted on the sides of the houses (After “Inca Cola” in Peru, here they apparently have another competitor for Coca-Cola called “Quinoa Cola”). And still those ugly political campaigns painted on those same walls.
I arrive in a city called Copacabana and I’m overwhelmed by sudden loads of tourists. Apparently this is a touristic place. The city honors its name, I see docked yachts and beaches. Luckily Bolivia still has those perfect lunch menus for as little as 10 Bolivianos (€0.75) where you get a meal and a drink. I have lunch, get money from the ATM and a sim card. After which I cycle on and realize time has been flying and it’s already getting kind of late. Only an hour later I realize that I passed a timezone which made time fly so suddenly. But in this cycling life, I realize, the only thing that matters is when the sun sets. Which means that the sun today will set at 7PM instead of 6PM so I still have enough time to reach my intended camp spot in daylight. I cycle along the ridge of a mountain, have to climb quite a bit, but then whizz down to the little ferry boat that will take me across to the other shore of lake Titicaca. On the boat I get to talk to a beautiful Bolivian lady, which provides perspective: hopefully Bolivian girls are a bit more attractive than their Peruvian neighbors. I climb some more to a lookout point where I install my tent, cook and sleep.
My headlamp, phone and powerbank are empty: it is time to get to La Paz…
Dear dear dear Perú,
To be honest, I didn’t know much about you and didn’t know what to expect from you. I only knew about Machu Picchu and your Inca past.
But wow, how you’ve impressed me!
So I wanna say “gracias”. Gracias for showing me your beautiful culture, land and people. You have always approached me with a mix of shyness and curiosity, but thankfully the curiosity always won.
Gracias for your hospitality, you’ve let me sleep in your school’s, camp in your parks, invited me in your home’s, gave me potatoes for the road, invited me to parties and offered me sips of your beer.
Gracias for teaching me the difference between a llama, an alpaca and a vicuña. Thank you for showing me that the word ‘gringo’ is not necessarily meant in a bad way judged by the big smile and your sincere eyes when you greeted me with this word.
Gracias for showing me your vibrant colored dresses, your beautiful hats and the little kids in your manta on your back staring at me with these big, black eyes. You’ve shown me your deep valleys, spotted with cacti, and your high mountains, covered with snow and glaciers. At times you were brutal, with your sudden hail and rain showers and your thunder and lightning rapidly blowing through the mountains. Not to forget, your altitude made it hard to breath and conquer your numerous passes. But this brutality made it unforgettable, conquering your rugged terrains, seeking shelter in abandoned houses, beating my altitude PR time after time and eventually cycling up and over 5.100m. From a guy from Países Bajos, the Low Lands, these are absolute mental numbers.
Gracias for showing me your food: delicious ceviche, trucha frita, papa rellenas, marcianos, alpaca meat, cuy, lomo saltado, aji de pollo, cow’s head soup, caldo de gallina, and much more. I’ve truly enjoyed your juices of macca, quinoa or avena accompanied with some pancitos con palta o huevo in the morning and your almuerzos in the afternoon.
Gracias for showing me that agriculture doesn’t necessarily need to be mega stables and fat chicken in small cages, you’ve shown me your agriculture: every family a few cows, goats, llamas or small crop fields. It’s not without reason that your fruits and vegetables are the most delicious I’ve ever tasted. You’ve also shown your ugly side: your indifference about throwing your garbage anywhere but in a trashcan and your devastating mines. Although I do understand that the latter is your biggest source of income as well.
Anyway, gracias and thank you for everything, I think you are the most beautiful country I’ve stumbled upon this trip.
Nos vemos! Ciao!










I wake up super early. Dark clouds hang over the lake. I feel like it will start to rain soon and I don’t want to pack in my tent wet so I start packing and start cycling without having breakfast.
I have a big day in front of me, 110 kilometers, but I just want to get to La Paz. I’ve been looking forward to La Paz. A big city, recharging my physical and mental batteries, cleaning my clothes et cetera. It turns out that today it will be raining ALL DAY. The places where I take a halt are to get some food but mostly to be dry for a bit. After four hours of rain, even my brand new raincoat starts to leak through. I’m wet and I’m cold but I’m getting closer to the capital of Bolivia. The highest capital in the world sitting at an astonishing 3.600m.
It’s getting really crowded now on the road. Thousands of collectivos are finding their way towards their destination. It starts to become a real fight to enter the city. I get hit in the face by clouds of soot, slalom between buses.
I dodge collectivos that are trying to cut me off because they have to drop off people on the right side of the road, exactly where I’m cycling. They seem to not see me, or they just don’t care about me. I hit the hoods of cars to let me pass. With blood, sweat, tears and one wrong turn I eventually make it to the exit to the toll road leading into La Paz center. Paid, which means there’s barely any car on the road from this point. I’m suddenly treated to an eagles eye view of this two-million-inhabitants metropole. Wow! The toll road drops me 500 meters into the city center on perfect asphalt and with a two lane road just for me. Safe to say I’m enjoying it to the max.
I get permission to stay in the Casa Ciclista in La Paz, run by Christian, a nice but bit absent-minded father of one. He gives me some hot tea and some food to warm me up, tells a bit about himself and the house and leads me to the ciclista-side of the house. I get appointed a mattress on the ground and get to meet my fellow ciclistas: a Brazilian, an Argentinian, a French couple and a Belgian guy. Nice!

My time in La Paz starts off quite terrible: I get super sick. Shaking and sweating I lie on my mattress. I have zero energy, but with a last effort I am able to get a painkiller into my mouth. I have diarrhea and need to go to the toilet all the time, which means I have to get up, descend the stairs to make my way to the toilet and vice versa to get back into bed: a true battle of attrition. After two days sick in bed I slowly get better, but the diarrhea doesn’t go away. Eventually I randomly meet a guy, we get talking and I tell about my diarrhea, he writes down the name of some kind of antibiotics cure and tells me it will do the trick. It’s 10PM but the numerous pharmacies are still open. Without prescreption and for the ridicilous amount of 6 Bolivianos (€0.50) I get the antibiotics cure. After a couple of days the diarrhea goes away and I start producing the best poops of my life. I feel like my entire gut system has just been reset. (Too much information? Sorry.)
I meet a very nice and sweet lady from La Paz, her name is Maria Fernanda and we can talk for hours. We eventually have three dates.
Laurens and Vera, that I previously met in the south of Peru, eventually also arrive to La Paz and also check into the Casa Ciclista. Them, me, Thomas the Belgian guy and his friend Sander decide to do an overnighter from La Paz to a camping in the Valle de la Luna close to La Paz.
On a Friday night we decide to check out the local football club FC Bolivar play their last game of the season. Laurens, Sander, Thomas and me immediately get adopted by the fanatics on the Curva Norte and we enjoy the 90 minutes of complete party on the stands. After which we end the night partying in the city until the early morning. A band of brothers has been formed with these guys. And especially with Sander and Thomas I get along very well. The last week in La Paz I spend most of my time with them. Thomas has been backpacking in Brazil, took a flight to La Paz where he wants to buy a bike and start cycling. Sander has been cycling the Peru Great Divide and has bought a plane ticket to Guatemala to continue his bike journey there. With the three of us we find a bike for Thomas in the Casa Ciclista that we can buy. The days after are all about fixing up this bike and getting Thomas ready for his bike adventure. We start planning to go on a short bike trip with the three of us until Sander has to go back to La Paz to catch his flight. It turns out it will be hard to leave La Paz: Sander still has some problems with his bike that he cannot seem to fix. If on Thursday we finally want to leave La Paz all hell breaks loose over La Paz with thunderstorms and lots of rain. We decide to delay one more day. On Friday, exactly two weeks after I reached La Paz, a bit longer than intended, we finally set off. Me and two guys from Belgium with which I will develop a real good connection over the next few days. But that will be for the next story.









Wat een spannend en prachtig lang verhaal om te lezen wat ik in 2 keer heb gelezen en weer enorm van heb genoten Ook fijn dat je weer gezellige mede-fietsers om je heen hebt en nog wel uit Belgie !!
Lees ook dat je gedated hebt met een Fernanda , een toevalligheid of heten alle vrouwen daar zo ??
Super vervelend dat je zo ziek bent geweest ( op afstand heb ik weinig voor je kunnen doen helaas) maar gelukkig ben je er weer bovenop gekomen mede dankzij de anti- biotica kuur .
Met hernieuwde kracht ga je weer op pad en kijken wij uit naar jouw volgende avontuur
Kijk goed XXX
Great vibes from your peru experiences! Thanks!
Looking forward to see how your acting career develops!!
Take care
Enjoyed again your travel stories a lot Marijn! Take care, stay safe/healthy and enjoy the beers 🤪
Thanks Bjorn!! Super lief 🫶🫶🫶
Gossie Marijn….. wat heb je weer veel meegemaakt in Peru en wat heb ik genoten van jou dankwoord aan Peru. Het was in 1 woord weer super om het allemaal te lezen beginnende met je filmcarrière. Ik heb het altijd geweten🤣. En ik vond het ook grappig om te lezen dat jij een overnachting in het ziekenhuis had op de verloskamer. Ik kan niet wachten op je volgende verhaal en deze was zeker weer een lekker biertje waard.😉
A las orillas del Titicaca
grabé tu nombre sobre la arena
Vino la ola y lo borró todo
Y de tu nombre no quedó nada
PS What an adventure! I am looking forward to watch that movie.
Be glad it wasn’t porn.