Today – snow.
My fingertips are still sore from it. The rain in Ayacucho never stopped. All night long it fed into the pipes that poured out onto the concrete outside my window. It’s a cold sound that makes me want to permanently bury myself in the hostel’s thick wool animal print blankets.
But at 6:40 am, the ritual begins:
Check GPS for time
Lay under the covers, staring at the ceiling for 30 more minutes
Pull myself out of bed, put on my riding underclothes (which I’d wear in public with boots anyway), unplug and pack charging gadgets
Go out and look for coffee. In Peru, it’s hard to find.
At 7:30 the rain is still coming down. People in the streets walk fast with pained looks on their faces, as though this is something they’re not used to. All the business doors are shut. Only one place serves coffee: hot water with a couple spoonfuls of NesCafé and some sugar.
The streets run red with mud, from piles of it dumped at construction sites. There are random dirt roads everywhere – all deep, slippery and treacherous. Completely packed, my bags lined up in the hallway next to where my bike is parked, I now finish gearing up. I pile on all the layers of clothing I own: wool long johns (which go over what I’m already wearing); fleece over-shirt; riding pants; boots; down jacket; riding jacket; rain suit; high-vis vest. I’ve transformed into the StayPuft Marshmallow Man, 50 pounds heavier and inflated like a blow-up doll.
I am faced with:
Challenge no. 1: Get the bike out of the hospedajae hallway without dumping it
Challenge no. 2: Ride out onto the street without getting stuck in the mud
Challenge no. 3: Figure out how to get out of this maze-like city, in the rain, without going in circles
Challenge no. 4: Cover 250km (150+ miles) of ground and get closer to Cusco.
And so it happened. I found myself on a road that spiraled up and out of the city; instinctively I followed it in the right direction, up and around, and up and up. After 20km, the air became thicker and colder. The road just kept meandering into the sky.
Soon everything was white. The mountain tops, the road, the air itself. Snow was everywhere, obscuring the highway at the edges, accumulating in lines that tires never reached to wear away. My fingertips were going numb.
What the fuck was I doing here? My limbs were beginning to freeze; the chill was creeping into my bones. I couldn’t see 20 feet in front of me, and I expected to be obliterated from behind at any moment.
I came to an intersection. An excuse to pull off and re-assess. There were collectivos (small public busses) parked, and underdressed passengers were outside taking selfies and throwing snowballs at each other. One of them rushed up to me, rallying his friends to pose and take a picture of us all. (Sometimes it’s in fact feels good to be reminded that I’m the one who isn’t normal…).
Not long after, the sun came out and revealed how beautiful the landscape was. There were patches of blue sky and clouds of mist shrouding the mountaintops. I found a spot to pull over and look at it all…
…and I wasn’t cold anymore.