GPS
Peru Route: July 13 to October 9, 2008
Here is our route in Peru.
Each day has elevation profile, map, and GPS information.
Other recommended information sources::
- We used the trip notes from 2bike.be,(at the bottom of the page) which are quite detailed and very useful. They include total elevation and what shops and hospedajes are found along the way.
- PDFs of daily route notes from Florian and Rebekkah are gems of information. These are rehashes of a set that has been carried by many cyclists.
- Also, Pius and Stefan of panamerica.ch have done a great job with more consolidated elevation profiles than we show here. Take a look at their Peru map page and study their route profiles in PDF format. They took our same route from Trujillo to Bolivia.
- Maps: We used the Rough Guide Map of Peru most of the time, and thought it was pretty decent. ITMB also has a map, and Lima2000 has a pretty decent map that you can get within the country.
- GPS: Guiacalles.com in Lima has a full GPS map for sale, but it cost about $150 and we decided to forego it. It is locked to the serial number of the GPS you buy, and you can't just buy it online. You have to call them.
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Ecuador border to Cajamarca
The route we took is difficult and opened only in 2000 or so, so most cycle tourists seem to go the Panamerican Highway from Loja, Ecuador to Trujillo, Peru. This is fairly fast, but they all hate it. On the contrary, we really loved the mountainous way we went, even though it's challenging.
From the border there is a gentle but long climb of 1300 meters and then a descent into San Ignacio. It's mostly downhill then to the valley of the Rio Marañon at just 400 meters of elevation. We took a turnoff and went through Bella Vista instead of staying on the main road through Jaen. This saved many kilometers and was a pretty pleasant (dirt) road cutoff. We took a small ferry across the river just beyond Bella Vista.
After returning to the highway and getting to Bagua Grande, we started the beautiful climb up the Rio Utcubamba to Pedro Ruiz. Because of road construction we had to take a combi from the intersection there to Chachapoyas. Then lovely dirt road to El Tingo (Kuelap) and Leymebamba. From Leymebamba to Celendín is a huge climb and drop to the Rio Marañon again; we did it in a potato truck. Then from Celendín to Cajamarca is one pass - there is pavement on the Cajamarca side. We took a bus from Cajamarca to Trujillo.
| Ride | date | miles/km | Elev ft/mt |
|---|---|---|---|
| Namballe, Peru to San Ignacio, Peru | 2008-07-13 | 28/45 | 4300/1327 |
| San Ignacio to Tamborada | 2008-07-16 | 45/73 | 1650/509 |
| Tamborada to Bagua Grande via Bella Vista | 2008-07-17 | 43/69 | 2034/628 |
| Bagua Grande to Pedro Ruiz and by combi to Chachapoyas | 2008-07-18 | 42/68 | 3600/1111 |
| Chachapoyas to El Tingo | 2008-07-19 | 23/37 | 518/160 |
| El Tingo to Kuélap by car | 2008-07-20 | 1/2 | 4000/1235 |
| El Tingo to Leymebamba via Revash | 2008-07-21 | 35/56 | 2332/720 |
| Leymebamba to Celendín by potato truck | 2008-07-22 | 89/144 | /0 |
| Celendín to Cruz Conga | 2008-07-23 | 21/34 | 2539/784 |
| Cruz Conga to Cajamarca, Peru | 2008-07-24 | 47/76 | 2122/655 |
Trujillo to Huancayo
The route from Trujillo to Huancayo is pretty standard (and fairly difficult) for bike tourists. You ride a little ways south on the Pan American Highway to 15km south of Chao, then turn into a private road, climb up to the Cañon del Pato, up to Huaraz, then either through the national park or around the paved road and over a 4700 meter pass, then through several ups and downs until Huánuco. From Huanuco it's pavement up and over Cerro de Pasco then to Huancayo. There´s an excellent elevation profile on panamerica.ch showing this stretch.| Ride | date | miles/km | Elev ft/mt |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cajamarca to Trujillo (by bus) | 2008-07-26 | 1/2 | /0 |
| Trujillo to Chao, Peru | 2008-08-16 | 42/68 | 1456/449 |
| Chao to Chuquicara | 2008-08-17 | 46/74 | 2500/772 |
| Chuquicara to Camp 8km before Yuracmarca | 2008-08-18 | 30/48 | 2063/637 |
| Camp near Yuracmarca to Huallanca, Peru | 2008-08-19 | 13/21 | 1794/554 |
| Huallanca to Caraz, Peru | 2008-08-20 | 25/40 | 2700/833 |
| Caraz to Huaraz, Peru | 2008-08-22 | 43/69 | 3600/1111 |
| Huaraz to Cátac, Peru | 2008-08-24 | 23/37 | 1800/556 |
| Catac to Conococha | 2008-08-25 | 29/47 | 2237/690 |
| Conococha to Pachapaqui | 2008-08-26 | 25/40 | 1978/610 |
| Pachapaqui to Huallanca, Huánuco, Peru | 2008-08-27 | 30/48 | 2405/742 |
| Huallanca (Huánuco) to La Unión | 2008-08-28 | 13/21 | 190/59 |
| La Unión to Tingo Chico | 2008-08-30 | 20/32 | 1204/372 |
| Tingo Chico to Chavinillo | 2008-08-31 | 23/37 | 2270/701 |
| Chavinillo to Huánuco, Peru | 2008-09-01 | 45/73 | 1787/552 |
| Huánuco to Huariaca | 2008-09-04 | 43/69 | 3667/1132 |
| Huariaca to Huancayo by car and bus | 2008-09-05 | 1/2 | /0 |
Huancayo to Lake Titicaca and the Bolivian Border
From Huancayo we took the dirt road through the canyon (Rio Mantaro) for 5 days to Ayacucho. Many people take the partly paved route over a high pass to Huancavelica instead. From Ayacucho we took a bus to Cusco - the dirt road from Ayacucho to Abancay is very difficult, and we were tired. From Cuzco there's just one pass and it's easy, then mostly things are flat to the Bolivian border. All paved, sometimes smooth and sometimes not.Take a look at the excellent elevation profiles for this section on panamerica.ch (only to cusco).
| Ride | date | miles/km | Elev ft/mt |
|---|---|---|---|
| Huancayo to Mariscal Cáceres | 2008-09-13 | 49/79 | 2700/833 |
| Mariscal Cáceres to Camp before Anco | 2008-09-14 | 41/66 | 2083/643 |
| Camp near Anco to Mayocc | 2008-09-15 | 27/44 | 1456/449 |
| Mayocc to Huanta, Peru | 2008-09-16 | 20/32 | 2047/632 |
| Huanta to Ayacucho, Peru | 2008-09-17 | 30/48 | 2381/735 |
| Ayacucho to Andahualas by bus | 2008-09-21 | 1/2 | /0 |
| Andahuaylas to Cuzco by bus | 2008-09-22 | 1/2 | /0 |
| Cuzco to Quiquijana | 2008-09-29 | 44/71 | 485/150 |
| Quiquijana to Sicuani | 2008-09-30 | 44/71 | 1824/563 |
| Sicuani to Santa Rosa | 2008-10-01 | 42/68 | 2677/826 |
| Santa Rosa to Calapuja | 2008-10-02 | 71/115 | 593/183 |
| Calapuja to Puno, Peru | 2008-10-03 | 44/71 | 869/268 |
| Puno to Ilave | 2008-10-07 | 35/56 | 1410/435 |
| Ilave to Yunguyo | 2008-10-08 | 49/79 | 2033/627 |
| Yunguyo, Peru to Copacabana, Bolivia | 2008-10-09 | 7/11 | 528/163 |
Ecuador route notes for touring cyclists, including map and GPS info
Some notes about routes in Ecuador that are probably only interesting for people planning to tour here:
- Our Route, Trip Log, Notes, and GPS Tracks: Our complete maps and notes are now up..
- Maps: We carried the ITMB Ecuador Map. Although I hate the ITMB maps, this one worked. In addition, we bought the excellent book of strip maps published by the Instituto Geografico Militar, which is available in good bookstores in Ecuador, like Libri Mundi in Gringolandia in Quito and at other sites. There is also a general tourist map available in tourist offices. Its biggest benefit is the extensive charge of distances between cities.
- GPS Maps: We were unable to find any GPS maps to download into our Garmin GPS. If you know of any, please send us a note or leave a comment here.
- We came in from the north, at Tulcan, which is where most cyclists coming from the north would get to. By the time we got to Ibarra, the traffic started to get irritating on the Pan-Am.
- Approaching Quito, we kept on the Pan-Am. There's a turn where most of the traffic goes the more direct route (not on the official Pan-am) via Tabacundo.
Colombia Maps and GPS Information
The most commonly available map of Colombia (outside the country) is the widely available one from ITMB (International Travel Maps). As usual theirs is quite poor, but since it was the only one we could get before arriving in the country, we bought it.
However, we were able to get some excellent map resources at the national institute of geography, the Instituto Geográfico Agustín Codazzi, and that did us very well. They offered a number of maps, but we bought their set of route maps "Mapas de Ruta", that gave 1:750,000 renditions of the major highway stretches of the whole country.
There are also a couple of widely available travel guides for the country, with lots of great information, but they're big glossy books with lots of ads and they're extremely heavy. One of these is the Guia de Rutas Por Colombia and another is published by the big telephone company Telefonica.
We also found GPS maps of the country that we loaded into our Garmin GPS. They were helpful, but certainly not perfect. They're free, and you get what you pay for. You can get them here.
Central America Maps and GPS Maps and other resources for the Bicycle Tourist
It's not easy to get good, detailed maps of Central America, and you need them if you're going off the main routes.
Note that this site has complete maps from the GPS track of our trip. You can see all of them under "Route Maps" in the menu. The Central America route maps and info are here.
For maps, we used the following:
- Guatemala: The Rough Guide Map of Guatemala and Belize. (Make sure to get the current edition.) It was generally accurate and indestructible. ITMB also has a Guatemala map which is widely available, but all of their maps are hopelessly inaccurate. Be very careful with any map, but with an ITMB map you have to always be suspicious.
- Honduras and Nicaragua: We had to use the widely available ITMB maps, as nothing else was available.
- Costa Rica and Panama: There is an excellent Rough Guides map to Costa Rica and Panama in one map.
We didn't do too well at coming up with GPS maps for our Garmin GPS, but did find the Caribbean Map Project based on US military sources. It covers most of Central America from eastern Guatemala on down (and much of the Caribbean and Venezuela). However, the data is amazingly old. read more here... lee mas aquí... »
Mexico Map and GPS Resources for the touring cyclist
If you're seeking the back roads of Mexico, you need good maps.
All of our routes are shown on the hobobiker under routes - we have maps and the distance and elevation information. The Mexico routes and info are here and if you need anything else we can give you we'll certainly try to provide it. Send us a note.
We delighted in two geographic resources for Mexico.
- The Guia Roji "Por las carreteras de Mexico" available from Amazon.com and in bookstores and the like in every major Mexican city. It is up-to-date and has excellent detail. We just ripped out the pages we didn't need.
- In our Garmin GPS we used the excellent Bicimapas GPSmap available from Mexicomaps.com. It wasn't perfect and in some cases missed new roads, but it showed some amazingly good detail.
