Intro
I rolled out of Nazca this morning with a focused mindset and a bike that finally felt ready for the long stretch toward Arequipa. The sky was a clear, piercing blue at 16.6°C, but the orange wind warnings from SENAMHI were already humming in the back of my mind as I hit the smooth asphalt of the Panamericana.
The Pharmacy Spa and the Giant Blades
- Before leaving Nazca, I spent the morning in a domestic blur, scrubbing the floors of my room at Edgardo’s and leaving 70 Soles on the kitchen shelf as a quiet thank-you. My last stop was a local farmacia to top up my SIM card. While I was waiting, the clerk offered me a tester of heavy-duty sun protection. I didn’t hesitate. I spent the next five minutes in what felt like a ‘pharmacy spa,’ coating every inch of exposed skin in a thick, medicinal-smelling white paste. It was a greasy, tactile shield against the desert sun that would stay tacky on my arms for the rest of the day.
- By noon, the ‘invisible wall’ made its first appearance. I was moving south, and the wind began to hammer in from the side. The landscape shifted into a high-tech graveyard of giant wind turbines. As I pedaled past them, the rhythmic whoosh-thump of the massive blades served as a constant, vibrating reminder of the energy fighting against my front wheel. Despite a massive net elevation loss of over 1,000 meters today, I was grinding in my lower gears just to maintain a crawl. The turbines didn’t care about my descent; they only cared about the air they were harvesting.
Roadside Treasures and Fried Fish
- Around 14:00, I hit a small cluster of houses at a crossroads. The smell of hot oil and salt drew me into a roadside shack where I put away a plate of fried fish and rice. It was simple and exactly what I needed to offset the 24.5 km/h gusts that were now trying to push me into the brown, rolling hills that lined the pavement. I packed my leftover chaufa from Nazca back into my bag, knowing the night would be long.
- The afternoon became a game of scavenging to pass the time. The Panamericana is a strange museum of lost things. I spotted a pair of 3M safety glasses sitting in the gravel, miraculously unscratched, and tucked them into my kit. A few miles later, I found a blue lighter. I tried to flick it to see if it worked, but the wind was so aggressive it wouldn’t even let a spark take hold. I shoved it in my pocket anyway, a small trophy from a very long, dusty road.
After Dark on the Panamericana
- The sun dipped below the horizon at 18:24, leaving me with 26 kilometers of absolute darkness and a road that felt increasingly lonely. This was the moment I had been dreading but also the one I had prepared for. The traffic was sparse, but the trucks that did pass were ‘bulky’ monsters. Riding in the dark, you don’t see the wind change—you feel it. When a large truck roared past, it would momentarily block the gale, creating a weird, vacuum-like pocket of stillness.
- The real danger was the violent jolt of air returning the second the truck’s tail cleared my front tire. It was a physical slap that threatened to buck me off the shoulder and into the sand. I had to lean my entire body weight into the wind just to stay upright, my knuckles white against the bars. By 20:30, I finally reached the junction to Lomas. I slumped into a chair at a tiny restaurant and ordered a Caldo de gallina. The hot, fatty broth was the first thing to make me feel human since the sun went down.
The Guitar-Playing Smiley Face
- The final seven-kilometer push into Lomas was a blur of exhaustion. I rolled into town at 21:40, nearly twelve hours after I started. I didn’t shop around; I took the first hospedaje sign I saw. The room is surprisingly well-maintained, but the highlight is a plastic fan sitting on the nightstand. It’s shaped like a giant yellow smiley face wearing a hat and playing a guitar. It’s the kind of kitschy, ridiculous object that makes sense when you’re too tired to think.
- I’ve finished my Spanish lesson on Duolingo, showered the salt and the ‘pharmacy spa’ sunscreen off my skin, and now I’m listening to the wind rattle the window frames. Today was a masterclass in how irrelevant gravity is when the wind decides you aren’t moving. I covered nearly 94 kilometers, and I think I fought for every single meter of it.
Overnight
I’m staying at a local hospedaje in Lomas. It’s clean, quiet, and came with a quirky fan shaped like a smiley face playing a guitar, which is exactly the kind of surreal comfort I needed after a night ride.
Reflection
Wind is a more formidable opponent than any mountain pass; elevation loss means nothing if you’re cycling into a wall of air.
Route summary
- Date: 2026-08-18
- Distance: 93.84 km
- Elevation gain: 422 m
- Elevation loss: 1028 m
- Duration: 12 h 10 min
- Time in Motion: 8 h 54 min
- Average Speed: 10.5 km/h