How to get there:
A good place to start is the town Chiclayo, airport CIX, with
good connections to Lima. Drive towards the town Chongoyapa,
but turn left just before at location S6.62878, W79.40763 onto the road
that serves the local mountain area to the north-west.
This road serves the nice mountain village of Miracosta. You will pass
through another village Tocmoche about 20 km before Miracosta. You may
upload a driving track (gpx format) here.
The road is mostly good, often single lane and dirt except in the very beginning.
However, after rain a few sections, in particular the first half after the village Tocmoche
may have mud and be difficult unless you have a 4WD.
The town of Miracosta is a local center for this mountain (farming) area. It has a community building,
a town square with free public WIFI, a church and a hotel plus some other community offices.
It is a very nice, small, somewhat isolated community well worth a visit.
Route:
From Miracosta, drive to location S6.40286, W79.26829, fork left here.
A sturdy 4WD with sufficient ground clearance may in principle,
drive all the way up to the Lagunas.
Mostly a good 4WD road, but there area few challenging sections. This road
may also gradually get worse due to increasing water damage a few places.
However, the road has a fence
across it to keep cattle separated, near location
S6.38950, W79.24618, at about 3480 meter of elevation.
Thus, one should not drive any higher. In fact, before this,
near location S6.39039, W79.24999 at about 3400m,
there is a large level grass area very suitable
for camping and parking. There is a small creek there
as well. If driving the rough road,
then this is the place I would recommend to park.
Turning around near the fence may also be difficult.
We parked lower than this place, a track (gpx) may be consulted.
Continue up the road to the first large lake, Laguna Clara, at 3730 meter.
Fork left here and follow the broad and easy ridge directly north to the summit.
The summit is marked with a very large and well built cairn.
A track of our walk is posted on Peakbagger.
Comments:
We started driving already at 0600, from the town Chachapoyas, about 500 kilometer on roads
of variable quality. We were still pretty confident that we would arrive well before dark.
Not so, after turning onto the final 66 kilometer of Peruvian mountain roads to access the
remote village of Miracosta, progressed slowed as the road got worse. Darkness came as we
arrived in Tocmoche, still another 20 kilometer to go. The road was wet with sections of deep
wheel tracks in mud, it was dark and fog was engulfing us. Adam was not happy, rather the
opposite, worried about getting stuck in this remote area. Still, progress was there and our
Toyota Hilux performed as expected. We arrived in Miracosta around 2000. A 14 hour drive.
One would normally not expect much from a location like Miracosta, but to our surprise,
this was a nice small village with a hotel. We quickly checked in there (the only guests)
and got a good night sleep after a long day of travel.
We left Miracosta around 0630 and drove to the access road, then continued a bit along
this, quite roough road. We parked before the location recommended above, water dammage
from a small creek made us decide to walk as we knew this climb would be pretty easy anyway.
The road was indeed very pleasant with flowers and a very gradual ascending slope. We passed
through two old gates marked with concrete pillars, however one had already fallen down.
From the lake, we continued uphill along the main ridge and located a large cairn on the
summit. It had taken us 3 hours from the car to the summit. Unfortunately, clouds (ie. fog)
were moving around and the view was very limited.
We left fairly soon to seek a place with somewhat more shelter. The descent was easy and nice with
more sun and less wind as we got down near the lake. We were back at the car after a 2 hour walk down.
We had been offered lunch when back in Miracosta. It was not very attractive to start the more than
3 hour drive back down, it would get dark as soon as we were down. As an alternative, we decided to
stay a second night in Miracosta, have dinner then breakfast the next morning before leaving.
After lunch, I went to explore the town a bit more. I discovered the town square and a big sign
telling that the town had free wifi at this central location. A few people were out cleaning the
streets and I also noted a few more buildings with special signs. There was a community house with
open doors, it looked like some kind of library where people could come and spend time. The children
were playing everywhere, to balance on the Miracosta sign in the park seemed very popular.
As I was using the wifi service, I was approached by a senior man, he indicated that I should
come with him to another public office near the square. I was introduced to the "governer" of
Miracosta and another man with some sort of public title. They wanted to write down our names and
ask why we were visiting. I told them that we were tourists that wanted to see their very nice, but
somewhat remote village. They liked this and indicated that we should have told them about our visit
in advance in order for them to make certain that our visit would be safe and successful. I politely
replied that it had been difficult to find out how to do this.
The next morning, after breakfast, several people assembled to see us depart. A young man presented
himself as Ari, the local school teacher. He asked if we were going to Chichlayo, to what I answered
afirmatively. However, it was finally the "governor" that informed us that it would be very nice if Ari
could get a ride. We quickly cleared some space in the back seat in order for Ari to get a seat.
It was obviously very good for him to get this ride directly to the city.
