Andes Trail Stage 12, Aug 15, 2019

Andes Trail Stage 12 of 109 Macará, Ecuador to Chulucanas, Peru, day 17 of 142

Photos at Strava: 124.7km, 727m climbing, 4:24 (total elapsed time about 9 hours)

No big post today, internet and myself not working fully.

We left the hotel at 8:13 and quickly got to the border. Getting out of Ecuador took a little while, maybe 30 minutes. We rode across the bridge border and got in line to enter Peru. Long long story short, it took until 1pm! It was tiring and painful and locals were upset, as were we. Suffice to say, our fastest riders went last and they were out by 1.

I started a bit earlier and made it just over 50km to lunch but was out of power and hammered. Lunch was great but soon we all fired up and pacelined the next 75km to the hotel at 30-45, no stops. My impressions were: poorer, more animals in the road, more garbage and drier. All rivers were dry as a bone.

I haven’t felt as used up in years as when we pulled in. Weak and tired. Soup was so so great. Cold shower was a-ok. The town is super loud due to millions of tuk-tuks (Moto taxi in Spanish). We first had the last of the beers in the hotel, on credit since none of us had any money. Then to the ATM for soles, then dinner. Andrew, Martin and I lucked out and had a fantastic ceviche dinner with more large beers and the most awesome juices ever. Then back and that is that. Can’t write more. Tomorrow 147km will be “interesting”.