{"id":2445,"date":"2026-04-22T20:42:54","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T20:42:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spokesandshoes.com\/wordpress\/?p=2445"},"modified":"2026-04-23T02:10:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T02:10:34","slug":"day-256-2026-04-20-the-high-road-to-santa-clara-gravel-grits-and-grumpiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spokesandshoes.com\/wordpress\/2026\/04\/day-256-2026-04-20-the-high-road-to-santa-clara-gravel-grits-and-grumpiness\/","title":{"rendered":"Day #256 – 2026-04-20 – The High Road to Santa Clara: Gravel, Grits, and Grumpiness"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Intro<\/h3>\n

I pulled out of Cachicadan at 9:45 AM, my lungs still feeling like they were lined with wet wool after a week of hacking through this high-altitude cold. The sun was out and aggressive for mid-April, turning the steep gravel of the 3N national road into a shimmering, dusty ladder. I started the day with a focused mind, but the Andes have a way of grinding that focus into irritability by sunset.<\/p>\n

The Vertical Morning and the Swiss Oasis<\/h3>\n
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  • The day didn\u2019t offer a warm-up; it offered a wall. To find the 3N national road, I had to claw my way up the 500-meter incline sitting directly above the village. My breakfast of peanut butter, bread, and fruit felt like a lead weight in my stomach as I hit the first switchbacks. For a ’national road,‘ the 3N is a bit of a joke\u2014it\u2019s a narrow ribbon of gravel that sees maybe one truck every twenty minutes. The Rio valley opened up below me, a deep green gash in the earth, but I was too busy managing my breathing to look at it for long.<\/li>\n
  • A few hundred meters before the 3,440-meter peak, the monotony broke. I spotted a camper truck parked on a precarious shoulder. It belonged to a Swiss couple, and we spent fifteen minutes trading stories in the thin air. It was a rare moment of social normalcy in a week that has felt very isolated. After we parted, I hit the summit at 1:00 PM and inhaled three bananas in rapid succession. The descent into the next valley should have been a reward, but on this surface, it was just a different kind of work, vibrating my wrists until they went numb.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    A Trujillo Feast and the Bridge of Doubt<\/h3>\n
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    • By 2:30 PM, I rolled into Angasmarca. I was hungry enough to eat the handlebar tape if I had any, so I hunted down a local spot serving traditional dishes from the Trujillo region. I started with Shambar\u2014a thick, hearty wheat soup with pork and beans\u2014and followed it with Patasca, a heavy hominy soup. The textures were dense and salty, exactly what my body was screaming for after the morning’s exertion. I stocked up on apples, bananas, and three liters of water from a small botica before making a tactical error.<\/li>\n
    • I decided to take a shortcut off the 3N to save time. The 3N on the other hand would have been longer and offer even more climb. The shortcut led me down a series of deteriorating gravel paths to the Piscochaca bridge. The structure looked like a collection of prayers; the base appeared as though a single heavy rain would flush the whole thing into the canyon. I crossed it quickly, not wanting to test the engineering, only to realize that the ’shortcut‘ had delivered me to the base of a final, brutal ascent.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      The 9km\/h Grind and the Blue Foil Finish<\/h3>\n
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      • The final 5.5 kilometers were a special kind of hell. I had to gain 350 meters of elevation on a surface that was less like a road and more like a beach. The crunch and slip of loose sand and stone under my back tire became the soundtrack of my failure. On the first three switchbacks, the tire simply spun out, refusing to bite into the grit. I gave up on the pedals and began the slow, demoralizing process of pushing the bike around the corners. My average speed for the day dropped to a pathetic 9 km\/h.<\/li>\n
      • The sun dipped behind the peaks, and I didn’t reach Santa Clara de Tulpo until 7:15 PM, well after dark. At the edge of town, a group of residents sat under a single flickering street lamp, swaying with drink and shouting invitations for me to join them. I was too tired and irritable for mountain hospitality, so I pushed past them toward the main square. I found a hotel and called the number on the door. The landlord arrived a few minutes later, leading me up a staircase so steep and narrow that we had to manhandle the bike together just to get it into the reception area.<\/li>\n
      • The room was a trip. It was clean enough, but the floor was entirely covered in a mysterious, crinkling blue foil that shifted under my feet like a tarp. I didn’t ask what it was hiding. I finished the night downstairs with a plate of grilled chicken and fries, washed down with a mug of hot cedr\u00f3n tea. The scent of lemon-verbena from the tea was the only thing that managed to settle my nerves before I crawled into bed, listening to the blue foil rustle every time I moved.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

        Overnight<\/h3>\n

        I stayed at a quirky hotel on the main square of Santa Clara de Tulpo. It featured a shared bath, a staircase that felt like a ladder, and a floor covered in blue foil. It was weird, but it was out of the wind.<\/p>\n

        Reflection<\/h3>\n

        Gravel and sand are the ultimate speed killers; no matter how hard you push, the Andes will dictate the pace.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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        Route summary<\/h2>\n
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        • Date: 2026-04-20<\/li>\n
        • Distance: 41.23 km<\/li>\n
        • Elevation gain: 1107 m<\/li>\n
        • Elevation loss: 897 m<\/li>\n
        • Duration: 9 h 45 min<\/li>\n
        • Time in Motion: 4 h 34 min<\/li>\n
        • Average Speed: 9.0 km\/h<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/section>\n
          \n \n <\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/section>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          Intro I pulled out of Cachicadan at 9:45 AM, my lungs still feeling like they were lined with wet wool after a week of hacking through this high-altitude cold. The sun was out and aggressive for mid-April, turning the steep gravel of the 3N national road into a shimmering, dusty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spokesandshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spokesandshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spokesandshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spokesandshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spokesandshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2445"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spokesandshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2447,"href":"https:\/\/spokesandshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445\/revisions\/2447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spokesandshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spokesandshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spokesandshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}