Through the back door into the Canyon del Pato
Discovering motorcycling heaven in the little-visited northern Andes of Peru
When the team at Ecuador Freedom Bike Rental suggests a route, chances are, it’s a good one. So we abandoned our plans of following the coastal Pan American Highway from Ecuador into Peru and crossed instead at the tiny jungle border of La Balza, where chickens roam and a friendly dog demands cuddles while the immigration officer persuades an ancient computer to register your entry. According to the recommendation, we would follow beautiful mountain roads leading directly to the colonial towns of Cajamarca and Cajabamba, far away from any popular tourist trail.
And they weren’t wrong. But what we didn’t anticipate was the remote off-roading heaven we would find as an accidental result. Tourists have heard of the Canyon del Pato, where the Cordillera Blanca and the Cordillera Negra mountain ranges converge. With over fifty tunnels, snaking through rocky gorges, the road is considered an epic drive, not to be missed. And our plan had been to pop inland and ride the length of the canyon.
But we never returned to the coast. The mountains had us captivated; with their villages lost in time, where the main mode of transport were donkeys and women wore wide-brimmed hats and the traditional Andean layers of multi-coloured skirts that cheerfully bobbed up and down, falling just short of the ankles. When Maria pulled over to take a photo of a family strapping a bucket to a rudimentary wooden load rack atop a donkey’s back, they grinned and gave her the thumbs up, as fascinated by her steed, as she was by theirs.
We wild camped in riverside meadows and stocked up on water and food in small town squares. Folks here may be living remotely, but they are obsessed with volleyball. And with the towns climbing the steep mountainsides, the streets were often the only flat area big enough for a game. So a net was tied across and everyone would be involved, either playing, or watching from the sidelines, exchanging the latest gossip. Motorcycles would simply duck underneath, but if a truck came along, the game was paused and the net lowered, for them to drive over it.
Though being the main road, the 3N was wonderfully twisty, winding in and out of valleys, with views of the switchbacks we’d find ourselves on next. Just south of Sausacocha it loops westwards, and we decided we would take a shortcut, directly south, meeting up with it again around Angasmarca. Back home, Maria seeks out the smaller non-highway roads, knowing that they will mostly range from single-lane black-top to gravel forest service roads, and perhaps a section of dirt here or there. But in the northern Peruvian Andes, no sane person would choose an unpaved road over the main paved one, unless they absolutely had to.
These roads are the most basic dirt, hewn into the mountainside and riddled with rills and ravines created during wet weather, then hardened into treacherous tire traps in the dry season. But we’d brought off-road capable bikes, after all! Lea, Maria’s overloaded, carbureted Honda NX250 struggled a little at these high altitudes over 10,000 feet, but we didn’t want to miss out! Aidan’s fuel injected BMW F650GS hardly seemed to notice the lack of oxygen. So in the absolute worst-case scenario, we figured he could always tow Maria. We took it easy and revelled in the challenge. But some sections really were too tough for Lea bike. On the sandy road littered with loose gravel, she just couldn’t get enough momentum around the tight bends to get up the incredibly steep inclines. The engine chugged and died, and we had to push and heave more than once. But we got away without any clutch-straining towing maneuvers, and the occasional well-graded gravel roads, servicing the mines up here, provided some relief.
In search of a route south, we turned down a sandy double tire track through the grass. It became more and more overgrown, and soon it was but a rock-strewn single trail. This definitely wasn’t a road anymore. Standing on our pegs, scanning the grassland, we spotted a trail with loose rocks the size of tennis balls that seemed to lead in the right direction, even if it looked rather disused. Tricky river crossings almost sent us over the edge as we bounced our way into the valley. At the bottom, a viciously barking mongrel protected a locked gate. He alerted the armed security guard, who was very suspicious of our unexpected appearance. When he realised we were just some seriously lost travelers, his face brightened up and he said something in a thick, mumbled accent. We eventually deciphered that this was mine-owned land, and he wasn’t allowed to let us pass. He did assuredly point the way we’d come, then waved to one side. There was nothing for it, we had to fight our way back up. It was late in the afternoon and exhaustion from wrestling the bikes around in low-oxygen air all day, began to affect our off-roading skills. The stony, riverbed like road we eventually stumbled upon, exactly where the guard had pointed, felt far more tricky than it should have been. But at least it led us back to the 3N and its glorious, potholed black-top.
Outside Pallasca the surface had recently been renewed, and the smooth black ribbon was sporting freshly painted stripes along the edges. But our outdated paper map showed the Ruta 100 as the main road; and it was heading more directly to where we wanted to go. Of course we’d seen with our own eyes that the 3N was now, if not before, the main thoroughfare, but curiosity got the better of us. When we found a lady selling gas from old laundry liquid canisters, we took it as a sign. She had enough that we should be able to make it to Chuquicara, the next fuel stop down Ruta 100.
An almost hidden, sandy, and impossibly steep track out of the back of town had us precariously slipping and sliding around tight turns, feathering the brakes and decidedly not staring at the abyss, lest the bike follow where we look. When the slopes finally released us onto more level ground, an avalanche of sharp grey stones blocked the way. The culprit, a now somewhat subsided river, was just beginning to forge a new bed between the melon-sized rocks and a few men were climbing about trying to clear a path for their car. Hands clenched in a white-knuckle grip, we put our guardian angel to work and wrestled the bikes across, miraculously arriving upright on the other side.
After this, the road became dangerously narrow, following along the steep slopes with a hazy valley far below. On a bike it was an easy ride, and we had time to recover and enjoy the vistas. The midday sun bleached the yellow ochres, oranges and wine reds of the slopes, and where they would fit, small houses clung to the rocks, and goats and vegetable patches seemed to hold on in impossible positions. When the hard-packed dirt started twisting into the canyon in tight bends, we honked like mad, hoping that the occasional truck flying round the blind corners would hear our punily beeping horns. I doubt they did, but we managed to squeeze past each other anyway.
At the bottom, the road hugged the canyon wall above a fast-flowing grey river, sometimes edging so close, a slight mistake could result in an involuntary bath. Luckily, the hard-packed surface itself was easy enough to ride. Down here, Lea had caught her breath and was zippy and responsive. This was high-adrenaline motorcycling heaven! We braaped along in pure focus, always scanning for movement above that indicated imminent rock falls. The air was dusty and hot, and the barren canyon walls altered between warm yellows and oranges, beige-grey, and deep red in a mesmerizing play of colours. In the evening, we pitched our tent by the river, cooled our boiling bottle of wine in the flowing water while daring a refreshingly cold sponge bath, and settled for dinner in the balmy night air under the stars.
We reached Chuquicara just as supplies ran low and treated ourselves to a hearty lunch at one of the roadside restaurants. Topped up on fuel, water and snacks, we doubled back to the junction and pointed our wheels first east, then south along the 3N towards the Canyon del Pato. The dirt road remained on the fun side of challenging and the canyon walls playfully closed in. Rock overhangs became more frequent, seemingly threatening to come crashing down, yet feeling strangely protective from the loose gravel above. The river splashed below, sometimes disappearing from view, sometimes flowing gently into small valleys that opened up just enough to make space for a few green willows in stark contrast to all the yellows and oches of the harsh rocky landscape.
A verdant valley in the distance grew into more vegetation than we had seen in days. Getting closer, we began to spot the houses of Huallanca. A sign above the road confirmed that this was the section of the Canyon del Pato that was firmly part of the tourist trail. We had reached our original destination, but we had arrived via the back door. The vistas of the road twisting through narrow gaps between the towering rock walls above and the roaring river below, disappearing into roughly hewn tunnels, and dashing out into the glaring light only to dive into the next tunnel before the eyes could adjust, were exactly as the interweb had promised.
But after the last few days of remote Andean adventures, high altitude challenges, and ecstatic canyon braaping, the Canyon del Pato felt rather tame. Before we knew it, it opened into a valley and returned us to civilization, ready or not. I suppose we did need to stock up on supplies, but I was already missing the wild and lonely ruggedness of the mountains and canyons of northern Peru. To this day, it remains a highlight of all our moto travels, and I am super grateful to the Ecuador Freedom guys for their fateful route suggestion.
