Day 33 – Saturday, February 28, 2026

I started the ride at 6:30 Peruvian time - which in Chile translates to 8:30, so not that early (being only 40 km from the border) - the sun was shining bright. I rode through the Heroic City of Tacna and, by chance, came across a bustling market.

A heroic city

I love markets - this one had a special wibe. Alas, while my bike was on the truck, the rear light that I had purchased in La Serena fell off, so while the policeman at the entrance told me I would not find a bicycle light, I knew I would. Guess who was right (though I paid a touristic price for it).

Market stalls as far as the eye could see

Market stalls as far as the eye could see

There was everything and anything for sale

I had spent six years in Pakistan, while Peru is a lot more developed and cleaner, still, some memories of that time flooded in. There was a blind man singing a nice song, with background music blaring on a speaker - it gave the place a special wibe. Also reminiscent of my stay in Asia were the tuctuc`s running around.

Not unlike in Asia

Now an excruciating climb out of town waited for me - the sun was glaring at me. Then, a few kilometers later a pretty fun roller-coaster ride began, with light traffic, I was gulping up the miles.

Some 40 km later I saw some green - and was relieved to see signs of population. This place was called Tomasiri and serves as the northern border to the free-rrade zone I had entered in Chile. A customs officer actually had my bags opened (nothing but mildly smelling clothes). I took a rest, drank a cool apricot juice, then marveled at the lush green pastures, with cows gazing peacefully (really!). The "culprit" for this was a river with quite a lot of water.

Cows were the last thing I expected to see a few miles prior

Quite a contrast

This river was the source of everything green

Got a yummy and refreshing fresh apricot juice

Not long thereafter, I found myself in a very arid, very barren sand desert, with strong side wind. The first thing I did was that I switched over to biking on the left side, so I could see the oncoming vehicles and not be tossed around by the wind. The sand in quite many places formed smaller dunes on the side of the road and passing trucks would whirl this around - right into my mouth. There was a looong climb, then I was presented with a large drop.

Not the nices rides of all

Starting the drop

This led me to a small settlement called Camiara, where there was a military base. Next, I spotted a truck driver laying peacefully in the shade of his damaged Volvo truck. I offered him some water.

Peru has tanks, too

Laying on the road in shade of the truck

After a big climb out of this village, I noticed the next town was 80 km away and would have to climb 1,000 meters - and only two hours of sunshine were remaining. Ouch. Luckily, there was a turn-off towards the coast - and a settlement was just 25 km away. It was not a hard decision which direction to take.

After the turn, I felt like I was on Mars and played a bit of a Mars Rover, to entertain myself.

Yes, Martian surface for sure

It was just 25 km to a settlement called Ite - an easy ride, as it(e) lay practically on the coast. Despite it being downholl, I needed two hours to cover this, as there was a mega headwind blowing from the ocean.

Looking up a barren hillside, I saw three animals climbing up. I zoomed in on them, still cannot tell what they were. Some large mountain goats? Anyone? The funny thing was that even though they were quite far away, I shouted at them. They stopped, looked at me, then deemed me as danger and started speeding uphill, hiding behind some cliffs.

Three animals

Yet again, the barren landscape was dissected by a river - and, as we by now know, it was all green around it. In fact, when I finally reached the outskirts of Ite, it turned out it was a farming community. Sunflowers, corn, horses, cows, geese - geeze! Who would have thought! Just take a look at my Mars Rover pics again, not far away.

Sunflowers, wheat and barren hills in the sunset

Geeze, geese!

I was greeted by sone friendly dogs, I created a bit of a traffic jam when sharing my bread with them.

I managed to cause a traffic jam on this scarcly ridden road

Finally in the settlement, I found a restaurant/shop, where I had not a tarkonyos ragúleves, not even an újházi tyúkleves, but a potato soap, or krumplileves, even Mr. Kádár would have enjoyed. The influence of Hungary is all over the world (it seems). I rounded off the meal with a delicious cheese cake, which I believe wss on the house.

Pretty good potato soup

I started asking for an accommodation. The friendly daughter of the initially friendly store owner mentioned that none of the three accommodations indicated on Google Maps were open, but I am welcome to pitch my tent vis-a-vis the restaurant. She actually spoke quite good English.

Then a strange thing took place. The daugter offered me to use the bathroom, which had a shower. I double-checked with her whether I may actually take a shower, she said yes. I was in there for about 15 minutes, having bathed in refreshing cold water; was just brushing my teeth. I was just about to open my heart to Peruvians - when I heard an older lady screaming in front of the door and there was an extremely loud banging on the door. By that time I was nearly done with my evening rituals, still had my things spread around. I opened the door and the father rudely yelled at me, saying this is not a public toilet and I had no permission to use it (this was all in Spanish, but I understood the words, "private" and "permission". Hmmm, it was like twice that I asked. So my heart now only bears the Chilean nation, plus maybe the daughter - definitely not the father.

I then had a peaceful night in my tent, nobody bothered to bother me. i chopped off a further 110 km from the to-go distance, with 1,000m of ascent. Not that I was super worried, but I started calculating: I still had about 1,200 kilometers to Lima and my flight leaves on the 19th, meaning I should reach there by the 18th (to get ready for the flight, pack my bike, etc), meaning I had 16 days of riding left. Now if something came in between, like some bike issues, it would be a bit tight. Either I would catch a bus or postpone the flight to a later date. Let´s see how it went.