Terranova Expedition: The Road to Huaraz

Troy spent the first part of our trip to Huaraz, pissed off and upset that he had dropped our last Helmet Cam and broke the lens.

However, that was quickly forgotten when he got cut off by one of the three wheeled moto-taxi's and had to dump the bike on the pavement at 70km/h.

I was ahead (with the camera) when it happened, so I didn't get to see it, I just remember riding back, and he had already picked up the bike and rolled it off to the side.

He was looking a little adrenalized, but otherwise was totally unhurt. The bike had a few more scratches, but was none the worse for wear.

As he went down he and the bike started to spin around, so he ended up sliding on his back, with the bike bearing down on him. He had the presence of mind to push the bike away with his feet, before sliding to a stop on the highway.

Only real damage was that he shredded his motocross jersey in the back.

Shredded jersey from getting cut off by Moto-taxi

We picked up from this small set back and began the trip to Huaraz, which means we would be climbing back to altitude. From sea level, we would make our way back above 10,000 feet in a matter of 5 or 6 hours.

The road was good, even after we made the turn off to head up to Huaraz. The sand dunes gave way to some smaller rocky hills, as our road wound it's way higher and higher into the Andes.

We were making fairly good time, and had reached a construction zone, where they stopped us. On the GPS looked like we only had about 45 km left to travel.

We asked the construction folks how long it would be to make the next 45 km, and between the two of them, they came up with an answer: 4 hours by bus, we would likely be a little faster.

What? 4 hours for 45 km….!!!!!

After we were held up for 30-40 minutes for the construction, they finally let us go through, and as we passed the zone, the road turned into a muddy, slippery awful mess. As we tried to keep our overloaded motorcycles upright in the slimy clay mud, we watched as the sun slowly started to dip into the sky. If we got caught on this road after dark, we would be spending the night in the tents by the side of the road.

There was no way we could navigate this in the dark. We could barely do it in the sunshine.

Up, up, up we went, as the road got worse. I was cursing the front street tire I was forced to put on a few days ago in Loja, Ecuador (It was the only front tire that we could find that would fit my bike)

The slower you go, the more the bike slips around, but the faster you go, the worse it's going to hurt when you crash, so we both tried to find a happy medium, which mean about 10-25 km per hour, depending on how wet it was. At this rate, we could see why this section was going to take 3 or more hours.

We have some good video of the road, but were in too much of a race with the fading daylight to stop and take any pictures…

Just as we were about to call it a day as the sun's finally dropped out of sight, the pavement began again, and we were able to pick up our speed, and not have to worry as much about plunging over the 3000 ft drop offs.

By this time, it was pitch dark, and the twisting, winding mountain road was illuminated by our headlights, when we rose into the Cloud layer, and visibility dropped to about 10 feet. So we were back to crawling along at 10 km per hour, peering into the fog, and hoping that we didn't drive over the cliffs in the dark

At about 7:00 pm, we crested the top of the pass at 14,000 feet, and began the descent into Huaraz. We could see the lights of the city from the top of the pass, but because of the great height we had to descend, it took us another hour in the dark and fog to make our way back down to the town below.

Finally, after a harrowing day long ride, we found our way to a nice Hostel, and dropped gratefully into bed, exhausted.

Coming up: Our first day in Huaraz, we hooked back up with Tutu, who had arrived in town by Bus, found a guide and took Troy rock climbing for the first time.