September 1973. One of our first road trips in Peru, a circular route taking in Pisco on the coast south of Lima, before heading up into the Andes to Ayacucho, before heading north to Huancayo, and then back down to Lima. I’m sure the trip today is much easier than 43 or 44 years ago.
On the first day we drove south just as far as Pisco, spending one night there before attempting the next stage over the mountains to Ayacucho. Apart from the coastal Panamerican Highway and the road from Huancayo back to Lima, which were paved, the others were dirt roads in various states of repair. At the highest point on the road between Pisco and Ayacucho, we encountered one particularly stretch of muddy road that I thought we just might halt our trip. But with some expeditious maneuvering, I managed to extricate us from mud almost up to the axles.
The road up from Pisco.
If I remember correctly, the road dropping down to Ayacucho seemed to last forever, a long and relatively gentle decline. It was above Ayacucho where I took this photo, one of my favorites in all I took during our three years in Peru.
Staying at the turista hotel just off the main square, we spent a couple of nights in Ayacucho, and enjoyed its pleasant climate, lying as it does in a wide, fertile valley, just below 2800 m above sea level.
North from Ayacucho the road crosses a wide, high altitude plain, dotted everywhere with cacti. Further north, it follows the steep-sided valley of the Mantaro River, and is carved into the side of the mountain. Maybe it has been widened today, but back in the day, it was so narrow that traffic flow was one-way only on alternate days. This had to be factored into our road trip planning of course.
It was an easy day’s drive between Ayacucho and Huancayo, and we spent a couple of nights there. As the International Potato Center (CIP) had its highland experiment station close to Huancayo in the Mantaro Valley, and Steph and I would travel there almost every week during the potato growing season between November and May, we took the opportunity of passing through Huancayo to check a few work-related items before passing through on our way back down to Lima along that familiar road that crosses Ticlio at almost 5000m.
This trip must have lasted about seven days, maybe eight. With the others we made, as well as the various potato collecting trips that I made as part of my work, we were fortunate to explore many parts of this beautiful country.
Here is a list of those trips:
A balanced diet . . . 