Day 34 Huancayo to La Esmeralda Bushcamp

At last we awake to a blue sky and it's warm again.  I feel good after the rest day and we set of a couple of hours late as one of the trucks needed a new tyre and it had to come from Lima.  The police lead us out of town but unfortunately slightly wrong, which needed an unscheduled off-road bit to get us back on course!
We soon started climbing on a well surfaced road for about 20K.  We later turned off towards Izcuchaca, the village where the lunch would be.  It was not long after the turn we had a really great descent down into the valley which was smooth and a mixture of fast and testing.  The scenery today was beginning to unfold and quite a few photo opportunities were taken.  Lunch was reached and Didier had set it up on an old bridge near the start of the town.
After lunch we immediately went onto the un-paved road that followed the river along it's course.  The surface was not too bad and after around 30K we say the flag indicating the bushcamp site which was in a glade just off the road.  The usual pitch tent, get changed routine before a slightly later dinner due to the later start.  A small campfire was lit and enjoyed after a day of around 100K and a day where we had climbed quite a lot but had dropped in real terms from around 3200 metres to around 2800 metres.

Calcification as the water drops into the river.

Lunch stop on the Old Bridge.