Cañon del pato, Santa, toward the North Pole

Duck Canyon is the way down to the coast from Caraz. Starting as a groovy, curvy early-morning ride, it soon became a challenging, hair-raising jaunt downhill, above and parallel to the deep canyon (no ducks in evidence), through dozens of rough-hewn tunnels on another rough dirt road.


Some of the tunnels had me holding my breath a little - it's an odd feeling riding into a pitch-dark hole that curves out of view ahead of you. I took my sunnies off for the second tunnel, but it was still a bit of a startler!


Spectacular trip, but by mid-morning we again had had enough of the sharp knocks, and I heard myself promising the old bike a nice, smooth trip along the Monash Freeway when it gets home! Boring I know but we all need a carrot sometimes!

Anyhow, this was to be a long day. We had left Caraz without breakfast, and somewhere along the line enjoyed unripe bananas, sweet biscuits and a lovely whine for morning tea. Pushing on, and now able to enjoy the luxury of asphalt, we lunched in Santa before heading north. The coast of Perú spends a lot of the year blanketed under a thick sea mist, caused by the Humboldt Current, and we were hoping to get out from under this cloud for a sunny little beach holiday.

Dune-filled deserts, long straights and the idiocy of Peruvian driving made the afternoon stretch on like the road before us, but with care and some long stints in the saddle we made it to charming little Huanchaco well before the sun set over the Pacific Ocean.