Some fresh fruit , cold water and our staple of bread and avocado went down like a gourmet meal at a Michelin ranked restaurant . We were on easy street . Judging by our map all we had to do was follow the main route , shown on the map with a thick yellow and red line , and we would easily find our way to Pataz . Though , given our experience with the misadvertised road to Calemar anything could happen .
As it turns out the road back up into the mountains was a real treat . We passed through a pretty little town called Chugay . The plaza was really cute and it was filled with people relaxing and socializing . We got a few looks as we passed by with our super machines ( most people think we are riding 1000cc Hondas ). We both waved and kept following the road up into the mountains . Ah yes , this is nice . Beautiful green fields spotted with farm houses filled our field of vision . Down in a valley below we saw a horseman rounding up his goats . We nicknamed the area little Mongolia as that is what the scenery reminded us of . While we have never been to Mongolia ourselves , though it ’ s definitely on our list , so we are basing our comparison on videos and pictures we ’ ve seen .
It was getting to be THAT time of day , and there wasn ’ t a whole lot in the way of roadside camping . To the right was a drop off to a valley ( about 75m ) and to the left was a hill ( the top of the mountains ). It was a hike just to walk off the side of the road for photographs . Good old Garmin indicated there was a town up ahead so we agreed to figure things out when we got there . The town turned out to be more of a village , but we were able to purchase gas . We were quite a site for the locals , my guess it not much motorcycle traffic comes this way , at least not the kind carrying ‘ fancy ’ luggage . Alberto organized gas and I talked to some curious children . Based on what we could see there was lots of potential camping options as the town was in a flat plain so we started riding to scope things out . It took us a few tries but we eventually followed some tracks in the grass to a farmers land .
Alberto took off his helmet and approached the house . He spoke to the man of the house and asked if we could camp for the night . The wife told him to offer his spare house but we assured him we were quite happy in our tent . The man of the house had his own 250c motorcycle so we checked out each other ' s bikes . Our hosts were amazing . They brought over some dinner ( potatoes , veggies , and chiclo ) and commented on how impressed they were with how fast we set up our tent . We climbed 2500m of elevation from where we started our day to where we finished it . That is another great thing about Peru , one there is a road to take you almost anywhere you want to go and two the elevation and terrain changes you can experience in a single day are unlike anything I can get back home .
In the morning our hosts once again gave us some delicious breakfast , which we gladly consumed . There had been some overnight rain , and the clouds were looking very unfriendly . We knew we could just go back to the town and hit the main road but we had been told about a shortcut that saved 20min . Since we were already basically on the shortcut we decided to give it a try . I have barely made it 10min down the road when I lost the rear in some mud and the bike was down . One thing about our bikes is that they don ’ t like starting after a fall . Usually we just kick start or hill start them but neither of those was an option in this case . My feet were slipping so kickstarting was a wee bit tricky . II did eventually get it started through commitment and lots of gas but the rest of the shortcut was extremely muddy from the overnight rain . Both feet were down and many saves were made . Alberto was ahead of me negotiating a steep uphill when I saw him start to slide backwards and basically lose all traction . He was not making it up that hill . I parked my bike and went up to push him through it . He then took my bike up for me . All this was happening at 3700m above sea level , so we were breathing pretty hard . Just getting up that hill alone was 20min , so our shortcut was one of those longcuts .