Day 36 – Tuesday, March 3, 2026

The small settlement of Quilca was pretty - the view of the nicely lit church could have been in a Spanish town, too. I woke up once in the middle of the night and was amazed by the view of the valles lit by the moon...It is an example that a settlement kept be clean and tidy, probably by the power of the local community. Alas, there are many other places which do not follow this example and Peru - cities can be quite a mess.

Down in the valley, there so much green...

The valley meeting the ocean

Pretty view...

The first thing that crossed my path in the morning was a pig. It got a bit foggy afterwards, as I was riding in an area with actual signs of human settlements - in sharp contrast to the pervious day. There were small villages, a factory, a restaurant or two and large beaches with a mega car-park - which was completely empty at this time of the day.

Going home

Small seaside settlement

Bit of a fog

Here there was an interesting view. There was salt residue in adundance, making a valley look like an Alpine (Andean...) ski slope.

Red slope

I reached the seaside settlement of Samuel Pastor with a huge Mary statue, and close to it was a municipality event for the elderly, right on the beach. I stopped for breakfast and had to wait a long time for a rather sorry sandwich.

Municipal event for the elderly

Soon I reached Camaná, a bustling district capital. I had the feeling that every square inch is used for commerce, early every building is some kind of a shop, then the streets are mingling with food vendors, shoe cleaners, etc. This was authentic Peru - and yet again, apologies if I am hurting anyone's feelings - I felt a strong resemblance to Asia. Here I found a bike shop and had my front brake disc replaced.

Busy town

The town is surrounded by fields of wheat (yeah!) - it is March, so harvest was going on.

Harvest in full swing

Pretty purple flowers

Then it was back to the barren Atacama deserto (strong contrast...), where on a rather busy road (which shall stay busy for the remaining 800 km or so), I got to the nicely organized small settlement of Ocoña. I found a place to stay and stopped at a home restaurant for a soup, then found a street vendor lady selling a yummy cake.

Home cooking - really, the child of the family was playing in the neighboring room

At my accommodation, the lady was kind enouhg to wash my clothes, it is always nice to be refreshed. While walking in town, I witnessed an amazing moonrise.

Moonrise

Similar to Camaná, I had the feeling there are more shops and restaurants than inhabitants - Peruvians seem to be quite the entrepreneurs.

I had ridden just some 100 km this day, with about 1,000m of climbing.