Peru

Peru owns some of the best cycling roads anywhere. Like Ecuador, there are three distinct zones in Peru: coast (costa), mountains (sierra), and jungle (selva). We almost exclusively stuck to the mountains during our time there, but we talked to cyclists who enjoyed interesting routes in each region. If you're looking for a flavorful South American adventure, Peru, with its skyscraping mountain passes, expansive paramo, traffic jams of llamas, bustling markets, and much more, is the place to go.

Let's go for a ride!

Click here to see all of our blog posts from our time in Peru.

Our Route


We entered Peru in the tiny border town of La Balza, following little-trafficked and paved routes through the northern city of Cajamarca. From there we hit the dirt, taking back roads to Cajabamba and meeting the Cordillera Blanca near Pomabamba. We took the dirt pass over the mountains, reaching Huaraz after about a month of riding. Peru's Great Divide, a spectacular dirt route from andesbybike, begins just south of Huaraz, and we hike-a-biked through the Huayhuash before meeting the Divide in Oyon and following it to Huancavelica. The route continues south, but we veered off to Cuzco following the main highway through Abancay. From Cuzco we took a bus to the Bolivia border at Copacabana.


The Basics: Food, Water, and Shelter

Food
There are few supermarkets outside of Lima. The closest we found were large mini-market stores in the big cities, but really, who needs them? Markets are in every sizable town (usually within a few blocks of the central plaza) and are filled with anything and everything you could possibly need. Outside of the food you'll buy for cycling, check out the stands where cute ladies make fresh fruit juices, and the set price lunch meals, often for 6 soles (US$2) or less. We also really enjoyed the ubiquitous, ready-to-eat supplement powders made from pre-toasted grains and seeds. Peruvians add them to their breakfast smoothies or drinks, and we used them to supplement our meals in the remote mountains with great success. Look for siete semillas (seven seeds), kiwicha, quinoa, harina de habas (fava bean flour), harina de macas, and chia seeds.

How can you not love these markets?

When traveling, be reassured that pretty much every small town has at least one store and a lady who will prepare you a hot meal. These stores are usually surprisingly well-stocked and often have some basic vegetables!

Our general menu was created with ingredients readily found in any small store. If we couldn't complete all our shopping in one town, we could probably find the rest of what we needed in the next town.

Sample Menu
Breakfast 1: crackers with jelly, and fruit if available

Breakfast 2: Power Shake of oatmeal, powdered milk, chocolate powder, chia seeds, crushed peanuts, seven seeds powder.

Lunch: Mini pizza: bread with cheese, tomato sauce, and oregano

Dinner: Instant noodles (Ajinomen is the ubiquitous brand) with nuts, veggies, ground flax seed, and seasonings
As with our travels everywhere, we did not carry a stove through Peru and had no problems eating cold food. In fact, I think we enjoyed our dinners more because, on very cold evenings, we could eat them while in bed! For more information on going stoveless, see here.

Water
Where we traveled in the mountains, water was readily available, both in small towns and in streams. We purified all water with our Steripen. Be aware that water taken from downstream of the numerous mines in the mountains areas is likely not good for drinking, even after purification.

Shelter
There are farms everywhere in Peru. Around 12,000-13,000 feet (3,600-4,000 meters) the farmland starts to transition into open ranchland, and once above this threshold, camping is possible anywhere. We always aimed to camp in these high altitude areas. A few times we were stuck camping in farmland and simply asked the local farmers for permission. No one ever turned us down, but sometimes all the dogs, donkeys, roosters, etc. got a bit noisy.
Almost every small town has an informal hospedaje where a double room costs 20-30 soles (US$6-9) for the night. In bigger cities we paid 35-40 soles (US$11-13 for the two of us) for the night. Since lodging in Peru is so cheap, in populated areas we often stayed in local places instead of camping.

Cycling at Altitude 
If you take a mountainous route through Peru, or even cross the mountains at some point, you'll likely be biking above 14,000 feet (4300 meters). Although I was initially quite nervous for this, it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. Our highest altitude increased gradually until, after a while, we didn't even notice the thin air any longer; it felt normal. I would definitely recommend against tackling any of the routes we did immediately after arriving from sea level.

Wild landscapes

When we were biking at altitude, we used the same strategy that hikers use: get into a rhythm. In some sections we needed to keep up a certain speed in order to keep our balance, and quick bursts of speed left us panting and out of breath. For steep or rocky sections at high elevations, sometimes we got off our bike and walked, other times we powered through them and then took a break.

Coca leaves, available anywhere in the high Andes, are chewed or made into tea by locals who live at high elevations. We drank this tea for several of our highest altitude expeditions (above 18,000 feet, or 5,500 meters) and found that it eliminated altitude-induced headaches with great success.

Health 
Any cyclist will probably tell you they got sick in Peru. We did, too, numerous times. World Health Organization guidelines for avoiding sickness in a foreign country are simply not feasible as a cycle tourist, but we did purify all our drinking water and wash all our vegetables with purified water.

Luckily, if you do get sick, Peru has many health clinics.  The fastest and easiest way to fix yourself is to go to a pharmacy; many antibiotics are inexpensive and available without a prescription. If you want to know exactly what pathogen you have, and thus what medication to take, find a laboratorio clinico. The friendly people at these places will take a fecal sample from you and diagnose your parasites in just a few hours.

Repairs
We always made sure the mechanic knew what they were doing before letting them do any serious work on our bikes. All shops let us use their tools to do the work ourselves if the mechanic was incompetent or not around. From our experience, the best places to acquire specialized parts or do any kind of significant bike repair were Huaraz, Cusco and Lima.

Larger markets have a section of ladies with sewing machines (costura), and men with shoe repair machines (zapateros). These wonderful people will happily repair torn clothing, sew bags, or replace zippers for a few soles. Zippers, new clothing, or bags can often be found in the market as well.

"Gringo!"
Peruvian locals throughout the country have an unfortunate habit of calling anyone not from their village "gringo!" Since gringo has a negative connotation in the U.S. and Mexico, we were initially dismayed that everyone was using it. However, we soon realized that most people don't employ it in a negative way; they characterize everyone, including themselves, by their skin color and heritage. Body language and tone of voice became more important indicators of a person's attitude towards us than the words they were using.