Intro
I rolled out of El Tambo at 9:00 AM, my nose still running but my spirits significantly higher than they were during yesterday’s miserable crawl. The plan was to tackle the 10-kilometer climb I’d bailed on when the rain hit, and for once, the gravel under my tires felt firm rather than like wet cement. The sun played a game of hide-and-seek behind the clouds, keeping me in a constant state of taking my jacket on and off until I finally gave up and let the mountain air hit my skin.
The Sheep Symphony at the Summit
- The first 10 kilometers of the day were a steady upward grind, gaining about 500 meters of elevation. It wasn’t remarkably steep, but the thin air at this altitude makes every pedal stroke feel like you’re pushing through molasses. By the eighth kilometer, my stomach was growling louder than the wind, but I’ve learned that stopping on a pitch makes it twice as hard to start again. I pushed through to the summit, where the wind was whipping so hard I couldn’t even think about opening a bag of snacks without losing them to the canyon.
- I dropped a few hundred meters into a sheltered pocket and found a low stone wall that looked like it had been there for a century. I sat there and assembled peanut butter tortillas, the thick paste sticking to the roof of my mouth in the dry air. While I ate, I was treated to what I can only call the ‘Sheep Symphony.’ A massive herd was grazing just up the slope, and their constant bleating—a chaotic mix of deep baritones and high-pitched squeals—echoed off the rock faces. They sounded like they were having a heated town hall meeting. It was the perfect soundtrack for a lunch break, a rhythmic, living noise that made the silence of the high Andes feel a little less heavy.
- The subsequent 13-kilometer descent into Baños was a dizzying run of switchbacks. The road clung to the side of a canyon wall, with vibrant green meadows falling away on both sides. I spent most of the descent with my fingers hovering over the brake levers, leaning into the tight turns and watching the town of Baños grow from a handful of white specks into a bustling grid of streets below.
The Police Seal of Approval
- I rolled into Baños around 2:00 PM, looking for a place to refuel before the final push. I’ve developed a rule on this trip: if you see more than two police officers eating in a restaurant, the food is guaranteed to be good and the price is guaranteed to be fair. When I saw a group of officers stepping out of a nondescript doorway, I leaned my bike against the wall and headed inside. A narrow, steep staircase led down to a hidden patio that opened up to a view of the opposite canyon wall.
- The place was packed. A group of three locals saw me standing there with my helmet and salt-stained jersey and waved me over to share their table. I ordered the picante de olluquitos, a dish of chopped Andean tubers that hit the spot perfectly. We didn’t talk much—I was too busy eating—but the hospitality of sharing a table with a stranger is a rhythm of life here that I’ve come to appreciate. I left the restaurant with a full stomach, unaware that the next three kilometers would be the hardest of the day.
The 90-Minute Wall
- The map showed only three kilometers from the valley floor up to Paracsha. In my head, that’s a fifteen-minute spin. In reality, it was a 270-meter vertical wall of sun-baked gravel. The clouds that had shielded me all morning vanished, leaving me completely exposed to the afternoon heat. The grade was so aggressive that my front wheel felt light, threatening to lift off the ground with every desperate pedal stroke.
- This was slow motion in its purest form. I wasn’t riding so much as I was performing a series of controlled balance acts at three kilometers per hour. My heart rate stayed pegged in the red, and the sweat was dripping off my nose and onto the top tube, mixing with the fine dust of the road. It took me exactly 90 minutes to cover that tiny stretch of map. When I finally crested the top at 4:30 PM, the sun dipped behind the hills, the temperature plummeted, and I scrambled to pull my rain jacket back on to keep from freezing in my own sweat. The landscape shifted instantly into soft, rolling green hills, a cruel contrast to the vertical hell I’d just crawled out of.
Bedsheets and Bucket Showers
- In Paracsha, a trio of young girls playing in the central square became my unofficial scouts, pointing me toward a building on the northwest corner that they claimed was a ‘hospedaje.’ Calling it a hotel would be a stretch; it was an active construction site. The interior was raw concrete and exposed wiring. To create a ‘room,’ the owners had simply strung a rope across a section of the floor near the staircase and hung two floral bedsheets over it to act as a wall. Two mattresses were laid out on the floor amidst piles of building materials.
- The smell of construction dust—that dry, alkaline scent of curing cement—hung heavy in the air. I negotiated the price down to 35 soles, mostly because the bathroom was a disaster zone of grit and the shower head hadn’t been installed yet. I bathed using an ice-cold bucket of water, splashing it over myself while shivering in the dim light. But the day ended on a high note. At 8:00 PM, the landlord lady called me into her kitchen for a communal dinner. She served a chicken estofado that was easily the best meal I’ve had in weeks. The savory gravy was rich and thick, loaded with peas, carrots, and potatoes. Sitting there, eating that hot meal while the wind whistled through the unfinished gaps in the walls, the 90-minute climb finally felt like it was behind me.
Overnight
I stayed in a makeshift room inside a construction site in Paracsha. The ‘walls’ were bedsheets hung from a rope, and the floor was covered in a fine layer of construction dust, but it was out of the wind and the dinner was exceptional.
Reflection
A 9% grade feels a lot steeper when the sun is out and you’ve already spent the morning climbing through the clouds.
Route summary
- Date: 2026-05-12
- Distance: 37.04 km
- Elevation gain: 878 m
- Elevation loss: 817 m
- Duration: 9 h 5 min
- Time in Motion: 4 h 7 min
- Average Speed: 9.0 km/h