Mountain biking in Huaraz, and Lima

On Saturday I went mountain biking with Julio Olaza, the local trails guru. He´s quite famous in the area and knows the singletrack in the surrounding mountains better than anyone, according to Lonely Planet. It was a splurge at $48, but you have to do these things sometime don´t you? Besides, I have been spending well under a tenner a day so far so I thought I´d treat myself.

It was my last day in Huaraz but I wanted to fit some biking in as I´d heard it was a world class location for it. Julio´s driver took us 1000m up into the Cordillera Negra, an arid set of hills which protect the snow on the Cordillera Blanca from melting in the warm pacific winds. The town down in the valley that you can see in the picture below is Huaraz. It´s about 30km away and 1000m down. That got me grinning.





The first few kilometres were double track, a good warm up for what was coming next. Then Julio took me down 18km of singletrack, virtually all down hill and nice and dangerous! There were some really rocky sections, lots of startled looking locals and the occasional pig sitting in the middle of the trail. There were views like this most of the way down.





I´m looking forward to what mountain biking I may find in Ecuador, and Cusco in Peru later in the trip.

Later that day I got on a night bus to Lima, and managed to stay here a whole 36 hours before deciding to get out again. It´s not so bad, it´s just more expensive than the rest of Peru and not nearly as exciting. I´ve got a bus to Trujillo in an hour. It´s nearly half way to the Ecuadorian border and has lots of ruins and beaches and things. I´m heading to Ecuador but taking my time about it - on the way I plan to shock other travellers and locals by trying to tan my pasty skin. Perhaps I´ll learn to surf too. Somewhere up the coast is the 'longest left handed wave in the world' apparently.

Meanwhile, here are a couple of pics of some nice parts of Lima.