Even with the reality of our departure date, I looked at our map and just couldn’t resist the small red dotted line that crossed over this famous range.

If we had taken the highway we would have arrived here, in Cerro de Pasco, in about a week.  Instead, just miles into the highway with the insane drivers, the constanthonking, the trash lined streets, and the boringness of it all, we turned off the paved road. Thus to cycle from Huancayo to Cerro de Pasco we needed more than a week. We needed two weeks.