Intro
I’m writing this by classroom light on a concrete floor in Morsilla Baja, surrounded by empty desks and a chalkboard. The day began in the Cajamarca region under a heavy, overcast sky that didn’t promise much beyond a long, grey grind on gravel. It was a day of slow vertical gains and a sudden shift from the isolation of the high peaks to the cramped warmth of a village school.
Flatbread and False Starts
- The day actually started at 3:00 AM, though I didn’t want it to. I must have left my earplugs back in that hotel in Cajamarca, because the rooster’s crow was sharp enough to pierce right through my skull. He went again at 4:00 and 5:00, a persistent, rhythmic hammering that made sleep impossible. By the time I crawled out of my tent in the unfinished dining room where I’d camped, the host family was already busy. Breakfast was a heavy, fried flatbread cooked in a pan of hot oil. That specific oily crunch was the best thing I’d eaten in days, especially when I pulled out my own jar of peanut butter and sliced a banana over the top. I shared the jar with the kids before they headed off to school, watching them scrape the last of the brown paste with a bit of wonder.
- I didn’t get the wheels turning until 10:00 AM. The start was demoralizing. The first three kilometers were a mess of sand and loose gravel that had my rear tire fishtailing with every other pedal stroke. The grit of slipping sand is a sound you feel in your teeth as much as your legs. It took a sharp right turn for the surface to finally firm up into something predictable, allowing me to settle into the 16-kilometer climb that would define the rest of my afternoon.
The 4,000-Meter White-Out
- The climb was a slow, 16-kilometer slog. At the 12-kilometer mark, I found a lone tree and sat in the shade to eat some dry breadsticks and a tin of tuna, looking back down at the valley I’d spent all morning escaping. The higher I went, the more the world began to dissolve. About 150 meters below the summit, the fog rolled in—a thick, wet blanket that erased the peaks and the road ahead. By the time my GPS ticked over to 4,000 meters, I was riding in a total white-out. There was no view, just the cold dampness of the clouds clinging to my jersey and the muffled sound of my own breathing. The dampness even caused small drops on the hair of may legs.
- It was eerie and silent at the top. I didn’t linger; there was nothing to see but the grey wall of the Andes. As I started the descent, the fog stayed with me for another hundred meters altitude loss before thinning out, revealing the road dropping away toward Morcilla Alta. The grit of slipping sand from the morning had been replaced by a fine, grey mud that sprayed up off my front tire as the speed picked up.
Shelter in Morcilla Alta
- Just as I hit the outskirts of Morcilla Alta, the sky opened up. It wasn’t a drizzle; it was a heavy, vertical downpour that turned the road into a stream within minutes. I dove for cover under the eaves of a house where a few locals were already huddled, waiting out the storm. We talked for about twenty minutes, mostly about where I was going and why I was on a bike. It took an awkward turn when one man asked me for money to buy biscuits for his children. I told him no, but it made me realize I should probably start carrying a few extra snacks to share in moments like that. It’s a strange friction, being a traveler with expensive gear in a place where people are struggling for the basics.
- The rain eased up just enough for me to push through the last three kilometers to my planned stop: a small schoolhouse by the road. I rolled up around 5:45 PM and found a teacher sitting outside, chatting with a few students. When I asked in my rough Spanish where I might be able to pitch a tent, he didn’t point to a field. He just gestured toward the building and told me I could sleep in a classroom.
Brake Pads and Broth
- By 6:30 PM, I was in the school kitchen. The teacher had invited me to eat with him, serving up a hot broth loaded with potatoes and pasta. It was exactly what I needed after the cold damp of the 4,000-meter pass. I had already prepped my own dinner, so I packed that into a plastic box to save for tomorrow’s lunch. We sat and talked until 8:30 PM, mostly about the school and the long walks the kids take to get here. The rooster’s crow from this morning felt like it belonged to a different week entirely.
- Now, the school is silent. I’ve spent the last hour doing some overdue maintenance, swapping out my rear brake pads which were nearly non-existent after the muddy descents of the past few days. I washed my feet in the schools restrooms, rolled out my mattress between the rows of small desks, and that’s it for Day 251. The floor is hard, but it’s dry, and for tonight, that’s the only metric that matters.
Overnight
I’m staying in a classroom at a roadside school in Morsilla Baja. A local teacher invited me in to escape the rain, providing a dry floor and a shared meal of potato broth.
Reflection
The weight of the climb is easier to manage when you know there is a dry floor and a hot bowl of soup at the end of the descent.
Route summary
- Date: 2026-04-13
- Distance: 17.14 km
- Elevation gain: 526 m
- Elevation loss: 373 m
- Duration: 5 h 19 min
- Time in Motion: N/A
- Average Speed: N/A