Day 52: Chepèn to Chimbote

175 miles

I’m not sure how I was able to do so well in the wind yesterday. I went to bed and woke up this morning with a lot of confidence in my ability to do big days in the wind on the heels of Yesterdays 200 miles, but today has evaporated any confidence I had in my ability to really fight this wind. Yesterday the forecast called for headwinds of 22 miles an hour straight on. At times, it was a little offset, but in the afternoon it was a direct headwind, and I still managed to get to 200 somehow. When I woke up this morning, the forecast said the wind was only about 10mph, but it immediately felt stronger and way more direct. I feel like I just cannot move forward. I don’t trust the forecast anymore in terms of what it says about windspeed. I was struggling to stay upright. The forecast said it was just 10mph, but I feel like I’m biking in wet sand. I feel a little bit dejected, which I hate to say because this wind is such a mental game. I feel like I can’t win against it right now. It really has me in a chokehold.

I had big plans to get started nice and early this morning, but getting settled last night took way longer than expected, and I didn’t want myself to get less than five hours of sleep. I woke up and finished some of the food that I got at the supermarket last night and then continued to work on my saddle. It took about 30 minutes for me to get the seat cleaned up and back in the bike with all my bags back on. It’s now just as it was before I tampered with it when I first noticed the crack. I’ve wasted so many hours on this thing trying to fix it and trying to find a new one. My calculations are that I’ve lost an entire day of biking to this seat post. A day of wasted time just for me to be no closer to a solution than when I first noticed the crack.

I’d wanted to be biking at around 3:00 AM but instead I wasn’t on the road until 6:00. I was quite mad at myself, but when I look back at the situation there really wasn’t much I could do about it. Getting good food here has been so hard. It takes so much time out of my day. I look back at my days and wonder where all the time went. I’m only spending about 14 hours biking and six hours a day sleeping so I should have four extra hours that are unaccounted for, but there are all these little things that keep adding up. Like my quest for food and hotels. It’s really frustrating. I’d love to just focus on the biking for 16 hours a day and sleep for 8 a day. I’m getting super tired of all the logistical stuff that I have to take care of. At this point, finding food is such a burden for me, which is an insane thing to complain about. I’m a spoiled brat. All I want to do is focus on my bike but that’s not how life works.

There is undoubtedly a beauty to this landscape. It looks like I’m on Mars. There’s absolutely no vegetation to speak of. It’s just rock and sand. As I made my way out of town, I began to see some of my Peruvian mountains. They cast shadows over the city as the sun began to rise and their silhouettes became illuminated, revealing rumbling mountains. Because of the desert it’s impossible to tell their scale. They could be 2000 feet or 10,000 feet and I would have no idea. Everything looks really big because there is no reference point. The range extends deep into Peru all the way back to the really big mountains in the Andes. I’m not sure if these mountains in the coast are considered part of the Andes’s Some of the mountains deep in Peru are 20,000 feet.

It’s super hazy here. Uncomfortably hazy. It ruins the view. I’m not sure if it’s a natural haze coming off the coast or if the pollution from Lima and other big cities further south which is getting blown up to coast. It’s entirely possible that the smog from Lima is making its way into the air that I’m breathing right now. The wind is whipping up the coast and pollution from rush-hour in Lima from a couple of days ago could very well be hanging around in the air right now. Because of the smog, some of the bigger mountains disappear and are just blue shadows in the distance. I can see them as mere outlines of deep blue set against the sky blue background that is all glossed over in a veneer of black haze. The mountains look like a piece of paper that was ripped in half like the rough outline of a mountain and then framed against the sky. The desolation is occasionally interrupted by some sand dunes. They seem to pop up with no rhyme or reason. They slope against the wind and sometimes rise to hundreds of feet. There is virtually no vegetation, but the landscape is still punctuated, just by man instead of nature. More common than vegetation is the trash. Plastic bags in particular seem to fly along freely. Unrelenting wind carries them along until they get caught on a rock, on a fence, or in the dead remains of an old shrub. Trash litters the road and the landscape around it. I’m not sure if there’s actually more trash here than anywhere else I’ve been on this trip, but there is nothing to hide it so it’s all out in the open for everyone to see. Everything‘s out in the open and there’s never any moving force besides the wind to carry the trash further away from the road. Everything is there, stuck until someone comes along and picks it up. But it looks like no one ever comes along and picks up the trash. I guess it’s not as sad to see trash here as it would be to see it in the forest. There seems to be no sign of life here. I know there are little critters and small flora thoughts Trash is trash and even if it looks like the plastic is stuck, it is slowly breaking down and will find its way into the ocean eventually. In the meantime it is very unattractive. Even though it looks like the landscape is completely devoid of life, animals and plants that I can’t see do live here.

The mountains that I can see really seem to be my only saving grace right now. Without them, the landscape would be incomprehensibly boring. I still find it very boring, but it helps to have these mountains to look at. They are always around, but often far away. Sometimes the range ducks inland and I’m left on the endless flats. I suppose it is actually better that there aren’t always mountains right on top of me because when they do come back, it gives me something to look forward to. It’s hard. It feels like I don’t have much to look forward to in the coming weeks to be honest. This landscape is incredible, because it is novel and unique, but if I’m being completely honest, I really don’t like it that much. It all looks the exact same. I’m not very excited about being out here for the next two weeks with this damn wind. If it weren’t for the wind it would be easier to put my head down and power through this section. With the crippling wind it’s difficult to even pedal, much less power through. The wind is extending the time I have to spend here by about 50%.

As the sun sank behind the mountains I got my first up close and personal look at the mountains I’d been watching from a distance all day. The road slowly climbed up a great valley before turning towards the coast and cutting straight up through a mountain pass. This was my first true mountain pass of Peru. I wasn’t really expecting a climb here. If you look at the map, it looks like the road stays right along the coast, but it dips inland here and there to meet cities that are purchased a couple miles off the coast. I didn’t think there would be big mountains right on the coast until I got closer to Lima, but I was mistaken. I do love the mountains, and I was excited to get into them. I wasn’t super stoked that I had a terrorizing wind screaming down the valley as I climbed up a 15% grade. Nonetheless, this was my favorite section of the day. From far away, I saw great sand dunes that climbed up the side of the mountain. They rose and fell like waves with increasing severity. The largest dunes were indistinguishable from the mountains that they turned into. The wind has shaped and sculpted these mountains for so long that entire mountain ridges have been turned into dunes. The sand has coaxed out every possible space where the wind swirls and relents. As I climbed, the dunes to my right pitched up above the road. The wind swept fine particles straight into my face. They tumbled across the road like snow in a blizzard. With the strongest gusts the sand flew through the air and stung my legs. It accumulated on every surface and piled up wherever it could. Cars parked on the side of the road quickly developed little dunes in the lee of their tires. Walks became a curved bank where sand deposition built and every road sign built a streak of sand and its wake. To my left a mountain rose. From a distance, it looked huge, but as I climbed up the pass, I realized that it had been more of an optical illusion. It wasn’t more than 2000 feet tall, but the lack of vegetation had made it look like a monster. It looked like a pile of mud that someone had thrown down. Over thousands of years it had gotten washed away and little rivets and steep ridges had emerged. It looks as if at any moment someone could come back to reclaim their mud and scoop the whole mountain away. The ridges dropped away in sharp little fluted valleys from the very uncommon rain that occasionally comes to wash them out and away. The mountain looked so imposing, yet also so fragile. The sun got low and the haze turned the entire sky into a dirty pinkish orange. As I gained in elevation, I turned my head and could see ridgeline after ridgeline popping up along the coast. The further inland I could see the bigger the mountains got. As I crested the pass at over 1000 feet I couldn’t help but feel a little bit of love for the landscape. This is certainly not my favorite terrain. I prefer trees and the wind will forever be my enemy here, but it is undeniable that there is a stark beauty to this landscape. I might as well be on another planet. It’s such a novel area for me right now, but even as I ride on, and that novelty disappears, it will be impossible to lose an eye for this beauty. Mountains are mountains and these are just a different strand of mountains, but I still love them.

It’s not as easy to love the cities here. In fact, I have an active distaste for them. Even if I’m not a fan of the mountain landscape here in the desert, like I said above, the mountains still have their own beauty. I’ve always found that in my opinion, man-made infrastructure only detracts from the landscape. It’s hard to make a building that adds to the beauty of nature. I think nature is significantly more beautiful than anything we can construct. That’s why the nicest homes and neighborhoods always have big tall trees and sprawling gardens. That’s why grass is a sign of luxury and wealth in desert communities because it’s a little taste of nature. In the tan, sandy, desolate wasteland that is coastal Peru, sometimes it can be really hard to find much beauty in the land and there seems to be no nature at all. Hence, when you put a city in the middle of this landscape—a landscape that’s already not that easy to look at—the city is invariably pretty ugly and only detracts from the landscape. There’s no hiding here. Everything is wide open. Unless the mountain is blocking your view, you can see for about 5 miles in every direction until the haze closes in. Every single building or piece of trash or even footprints that humans leave on the landscape is very noticeable. Development stands out from far away and trash litters the desert from miles around, as the wind picks up everyone’s trash and carries it away. The architecture here is very bland. Most houses are built out of roughly hewn planks or bricks. Every house looks the exact same. In the towns, none of the roads are paved. Everything is covered in a thick layer of dust and sand. Wind whips through the cities, tearing apart signs, carrying dust and trash through the air. Some people attempt to burn their trash, but that only leaves trails of smoke in the sky and the acrid smell of burning plastic, which burns my eyes and nose. The dogs aren’t very friendly. They run out and bark at me. The city centers can sometimes have some beautiful architecture, but with nothing to constrain the cities in terms of the natural environment, they sprawl on forever and the further away from the city center you get the more dilapidated the buildings become. The sand picks up off the ground and pelts everything in its way. Every building eventually turns the same color. This sandy grey permeates everything. The sun is relentless and bakes the color out of the city. Some houses attempt to fight back. They are painted bright shades which stand out from the desert. But ultimately, even the brightest colors begin to fade under the pounding sand and baking sun. The houses aren’t that beautiful, so one doesn’t really want them to pop out against the desert anyways. The bright colors also make the surrounding houses look that much more sad. There seems to be no way to win. These cities are just plain ugly. There’s no sugarcoating it from my point of view. Others may disagree and I hope that’s the case, but I find it really hard to find much beauty in the cities here outside of the historic city centers. It makes me a little sad. I’m not having a very fun time biking through here, I don’t want to linger. Thinking about all the people who live in these houses, which are honestly little more than shacks on the edges of these big cities, is really sad. There’s no running water or sanitation on the high barrios. There isn’t even electricity in some of them. There’s no greenery anywhere. Perhaps if I were raised here and knew nothing else things would just be the way they are and I wouldn’t know any different. I’m obviously spoiled coming from the background that I have, but nonetheless, I find this place really depressing.

I’m starting to feel quite lonely again. In Colombia and northern Ecuador I felt like I was talking to a lot of people. I would rarely talk to anyone for longer than a minute, but a lot of people would approach me and we would chat a little bit. When I was biking along, I would wave at people and they would wave back at me. Sometimes people would yell words of encouragement or school children would chase me along. Since entering Peru, I feel like all of that has disappeared. When I wave at people their eyes gloss over and their head turns. School will look at me and then turn away. Drivers will honk, but they never wave. I feel like people are ignoring me. It helps to be seen. Not from the perspective of “oh I’m out here doing something cool. Acknowledge me!“ But when people wave to me or talk to me it helps to feel like I’m not an outsider. Those quick conversations I have with people or even the exchange of a friendly smile go a long way towards making me feel like I have some friends in the world. It really is true that everyone should smile a bit more. It sounds elementary and cliche, but you never know when a simple smile will make someone’s day. I say this because I’m in a position where a simple smile does have the power to make my day a lot better. I can pivot around one split second interaction. That’s how fragile I am right now. I haven’t had a single wave returned in Peru. I feel like people are playing that childish game where they ignore you. But somehow it’s even worse than that. It’s like they know I’m there, but they just don’t care enough to say hi. Maybe I’m just being dramatic, but it’s like the people are reflective of the landscape here. Everything seems a little dull and dry. I have very fond memories from my time in the mountains of Peru. Everyone was so nice and I had made a lot of friends. Perhaps it was because I was a tourist on the beaten path. The coast seems a lot different. When I was in Peru in 2021 I only spent one day in Lima and I remember not liking it much. There’s undoubtedly a different culture along the coast than there is in the high mountains. How could there not be? It’s like a different world down here.

Timing my arrival in Lima to coincide with the open hours of bike shop it’s going to work out perfectly. I had picked out Casma as a good town to stop at for the night. I had hoped to make it to Casma which would’ve made today closer to 200 miles, leaving a shorter day for tomorrow. But I’d gotten a pretty late start and let the wind get into my head today. I took a very long break in the late afternoon. This meant that I was only going to make it to Chimbote for the night which was fine.

At 7:00, even though I only had 40 km left, I felt like I had an eternity to go. I had a shallow grade but long distance climb up from the bottom of my descent. It shouldn’t have been that hard, but the wind was pinging me head on and I was in my head about it. I just wanted to get to a hotel for the night. I knew that it would be difficult to average much over 13 or 14 miles an hour so 40 km was almost 2 hours of riding. Eventually I made it into Chimbote. I was staying on the south east side of town, which was a good 10 km from the city center. The road was heavily congested and people were milling all about. The drivers were rude to me and I was getting tired. I was very happy when I finally made it to my hotel. The first place wouldn’t let me take my bike into my room so I told them I would take my business elsewhere, the second place was much nicer about my bike. I even washed my jersey in the sink for the first time (first time since Panama, so first time washing this jersey). Although washing might be a generous term. More like rinsed for a minute then gave up because it’s too dirty. I just wanted to go to bed.