Patapampa riding down to Colca

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Patapampa, Arequipa

You can enjoy this ride on the way from Arequipa to Colca, or after you arrive in Chivay with some acclimatization for a ride above the 3500m.

The ride starts at 4900mt height. Nearly 15,000 ft. Once at the highest point: Patapampa, you may choose from the downhill trail by the singletracks or the road, both ways take you to Chivay.
The thing is that we prefer the tough way, so the road is not an option. The singletrack is quite an intermediate level, not too steep and is mostly fluid even with a hardtail.  The Patapampa trail to Chivay is like 1 to 2 hours depending on what trail you choose, so is always better to hire a local guide, we recommend finding Pedro Samayani and he will help you with all stuff you need.
Once at the valley, you may choose to continue by the main road to Yanque village or by the gravel road on the other side of the Colca River, crossing Chivay to add a loop if you will stay at Chivay or end in some of the points on the road if you will not going to stay at Chivay village.

Tambillo on the way to the jungle

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From Tambillo to San Ramon

Tambillo is a forgotten small town in the jungle of Jauja, the province best well known as an Andean place.

After many visits we found that the adventorous way we were looking to reach the Central Jungle without riding by the main highway was by a gravel road with very low transit, almost none.
So to get to this place, you can go by car to Ricran village, then taking the detour to the highpass of Tambillo and start the ride down to the Jungle.
We started from 4600m at Tambillo distrit, straight down to Monobamba at 2000m approx. riding down crossing many altitudes and climates. And as usual in these places weather is always an enigma. You can get cold, web, rainy, misty at the top and you can continue wet  all the way down or reach a sunny and very hot day.
After Monobamba, the downhill turns not as fast, from this village we must ride and pedal to reach Vitoc, the entrance to San Ramon city, the main city at the entrance of Chanchamayo valley, known in the country as the Selva Central.
For your records the ride takes around 6 hours dropping nearly than 4000m by gravel road, anyway if you are tough a brave you can can start pedaling from Ricran and climb a 1,000 mt for a couple or three hours before the downhill ride.