Intro I rolled back into Cajamarca this morning on a bus that felt like a refrigerator on wheels. The sky was a flat, partly cloudy grey, and the paved streets of the city felt loud and abrasive after almost a week in the silence of the Chachapoyas highlands. I’m back Read more
Intro I’m sitting on a Virgen del Carmen bus right now, the engine vibrating through the floorboards as we start the long crawl back to Cajamarca. After weeks of grinding up 1,000-meter climbs on the bike, today was a different kind of verticality—one where the engineering was either high-tensile steel Read more
Intro Today was a departure from the rhythmic grind of the pedals, swapped for the stop-and-start friction of mountain logistics. The sky over Luya was a non-committal overcast, casting a flat light over the stone-decorated concrete paths that led toward the cliffside dead. Without the bike, the world moves at Read more
Intro Day 246. After weeks of pushing pedals through the Andes, today was about a different kind of friction. The sky over Cocachimba was finally clear, a mostly sunny canopy that revealed the full 771-meter drop of Gocta in two distinct, silver ribbons. I traded the bike for hiking boots, Read more
Intro The overnight bus dropped me into Chachapoyas at 6:30 AM, leaving me standing on the pavement with a head full of static and a body that felt like it had been folded into a suitcase. The morning was mostly sunny, but the air at the terminal was thick with Read more
Intro I spent the morning in the hostel kitchen in Cajamarca, my mind already halfway to Chachapoyas but my body tethered to a laptop and a pile of damp clothes. The sky was a non-committal grey-blue, partly cloudy and indifferent to the fact that I was trading my pedals for Read more
Intro Cajamarca is holding me still today, and for once, I’m not fighting it. My legs are still humming from the relentless 1,000-meter climbs of the past week, and a stubborn headache meant the bike stayed leaned against the hotel wall while I navigated the city on foot and by Read more
Intro Good Friday has draped a strange, heavy quiet over Cajamarca, a sharp contrast to the brutal 1,000-meter climbs of the previous days. The sky remained mostly sunny and indifferent to my exhaustion, reflecting off the paved streets and polished cobblestones of the historic center as I swapped my cycling Read more