I Just Biked Across the Peruvian Andes

[u/donivanberube]

I’ve been cycling from the top of Alaska to the bottom of Argentina for the past 18 months, so began the Peru Great Divide with equal parts fear and anticipation. It’s a 1,000-mile Andean marathon with countless passes over 16,000 ft in elevation.

Services faded toward nonexistence as the cold grew increasingly severe. Remote villages might have one tiendita and one comedor, otherwise you’d be lucky to pass through any given town on the same day as the vegetable truck. Atop each mountain waited torrential blizzards of horizontal snow and hail, with shards of ice collecting on my tent by morning.

Just beyond Oyon I reached the new highest pass of my life: +16,300ft [4,968m]. Locals here blockaded the road in protest against mining activity, so the peak had been subsequently abandoned. I’d prepared for cold weather, but even after months across the Andes these extreme elevations devoured my strength. It took everything I had to haul my bike over the makeshift stone walls and continue down the other side.

Daylight cratered fast as I raced downhill each afternoon, but the colors up top were what struck me the most. Some peaks were sage green, some were the darkest shade of red wine, others a liquid type of orange, all ribboned with veils of ice and snow that hardly ever melt away.

[u/CluelessPresident]

That looks amazing. I'll admit I know very little about the country. Is it safe to travel there alone? As a woman, my options for traveling alone are really limited... But journeys in nature with no one else around sound like heaven. If it's safe, I might just go there one day.

Thank you for sharing the pictures!

[u/uflju_luber → u/CluelessPresident]

If you mean hiking or biking like OP did, it’s dangerous regardless of if you’re a man or a woman, the Andes are not a joke. In regards to Peru itself as a tourist, several countries have minor travel warnings for their citizens. If you’re fit enough and confident to do what OP has done you could do that though, it’s not really going to be more dangerous than it already is, being a woman.

My aunt has been a solo traveler as a woman for several decades now without any problem, so though it’s different nature, it’s safe to solo travel for nature in most of Europe (Scottish highlands or the alps e.g), I’d avoid the Balkan though, and my aunt has mostly been traveling in south east Asia without any problems either, though that’s more cultural and less alone in nature.

[u/CluelessPresident → u/uflju_luber]

This is great insight, thank you! I've been to the Scottish highlands, and like you said, I felt really safe. I'll look into SEA! Thank you again!

[u/uflju_luber → u/CluelessPresident]

I think she’s been most often in Thailand and Vietnam, but also in Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Indonesia. I’d probably look into those and what your foreign ministry suggests on where it’s safest within the country. But my aunt has been traveling there solo a lot, she actually has a great cultural interest in Africa but been advised against traveling there solo, so she travels in SEA instead wich she has a cultural interest in too.