I forgot to publish this post! It was originally written February 15th, we have long since passed Huaraz.
See our Strava here: https://www.strava.com/athletes/markandnic
See our Google photos album here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/8sK1ryrupSjneZ9BA
Despite the title of my last blog post, we are indeed waiting in Huaraz. We arrived well before our tires are expected to show up, hoping that they would arrive early and we might be able to keep moving. No such luck, however, and we are instead expecting to wait for five days for them to arrive. We are a little anxious being off the bike, but excited to take the opportunity to relax, eat lots of fruits and vegetables, and work on our Spanish.
When we realized that we would be spending some time here, Mark immediately started looking for Spanish schools and with the help of a very friendly bike shop employee, found a school that was willing to accommodate us on short notice! Our instructor is a Peruvian native (she is actually a native Quechua speaker, but learned Spanish from a young age and after living in Canada for many years speaks English as well) and we are enjoying the opportunity to learn more about Peru from her. We had our first class yesterday, and were quickly reminded of how great it is to have someone to answer our many questions, but also how much mental energy it takes to be learning in this way!
Besides working on our Spanish, we’re taking the opportunity to get all of our laundry clean, air out our tent, and plan out our route through the rest of Peru. Hopefully too, we’ll be able to get into the national park for a day or two before we get back on the bike.
After the steep climbs and some challenging muddy conditions in the northern Sierra, we can hardly complain about a few days off, but we do already miss being on the move, and will certainly be ready to roll when our tires arrive.
Thanks for reading!
-Nic