05/12 For a while today I rode through some of the most barren landscape I’ve ever seen. There were no trees, houses, people, cars, power lines… nothing. Just a cold wind and a lonely dirt road. Had some rain when I left this morning but 30 minutes later it cleared up. It was still a bit chilly so I was decked out in my cold weather gloves, waterproof socks, rain jacket and pants.
I figured out a couple things about mining towns last night. They blast an ear shattering air horn at least twice a day–once at 5pm and once at 5am. Miners also wake up very early. It sounded like there was a party outside my room at 5:30am. The mines I did see yesterday and again today were probably silver mines. Outside of Quiruvilca the road went from pavement to gravel.
Santiago de Chuco is a bit more what I’m used to for towns in Peru. It’s certainly nothing like Quiruvilca. Right before the town square a lady stopped me and asked where I had ridden from and then welcomed me to town. It was a great way to spend the first few minutes in a new place but things went downhill a little. The town drunks kept coming up to me every time I stopped to check out a hostel. I didn’t want to leave my stuff and go inside so I ended up leaving 2 different places before I could even see the rooms. I’m staying here for a couple nights for no reason really. OK maybe riding on Friday the 13th is a bad idea. 
Other than in Cajamarca, the internet speeds are horribly slow in every town. Ping times are usually 1500ms and higher which means no Skype and not much of anything else. Even checking my email can be impossible. It gets much worse after school gets out and the kids get on Youtube.
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