Why this ride
A one-way ride of 691 km, Lima to Ica - roughly 9 h 30 in the saddle. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,350 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Peru Coastal Panamericana South: Lima to Huacachina
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 691 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 9 h 30
- Journey
- One way; return travel is separate
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Lima
Lima sits on the edge of one of the driest deserts on earth, and yet it is a city of more than seven million people, held together by a grey sky that locals call la garúa, a damp, low cloud that hangs over the coast for much of the year and rarely produces rain. The city's coastline rises in cliffs above the Pacific, where the districts of Miraflores and Barranco look out to the surf, and parks, cafes and paragliders occupy the clifftops.
Read the complete Lima write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Lima is where the day begins. Next is Paracas.
2. Paracas
The Paracas peninsula juts into the Pacific from the Peruvian coast, a dry, red-and-ochre tongue of sand and rock where no rain falls for years, and it is as strange and beautiful a place as any on the Panamericana. The Paracas National Reserve covers a huge area of this coast and sea, with dramatic cliffs, empty beaches, and a Red Beach whose sand takes its colour from volcanic rock.
Read the complete Paracas write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Paracas comes up about 542 km into the recorded legs. Next is Huacachina.
3. Huacachina
Huacachina is the kind of place that looks like a joke the Peruvian desert is playing on you. A small lagoon, ringed with palms and old-fashioned lamp posts, sits in a bowl of enormous sand dunes five kilometres from the city of Ica. Local legend says it formed when a princess, bathing, saw a hunter, dropped her mirror and fled; the mirror became the lake, and her robe the dunes. The truth is rather drier, a natural spring that has been dwindling for decades as water is pumped out for farms nearby.
Read the complete Huacachina write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The route ends here after 691 km.
Leg by leg
Lima to Paracas
Lima → Paracas is 542 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Paracas to Huacachina
Paracas → Huacachina is 149 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.