The surface between the pass and La Poma is a complete hodgepodge and would make climbing the pass from the South harder.
On the descent the road was more rocky than sandy as well as being fairly narrow. Be prepared to get your feet wet crossing the many streams and muddy on the small sections currently being worked on. I cycled at a leisurely pace and clocked 7 hours and 45 minutes of actual cycling with m ascent and m descent.
La Poma to Cachi; less intense day of cycling and a very leafy municipal campsite awaits with a good supermarket just over the road.
Cachi to Angastaco; initially the road follows the river through diminutive villages but soon it abandons the irrigated oasis in favour of the much drier canyon landscape inland which is almost devoid of any shade.
There are plenty of small shops in the more populated places and Molinos has a pleasant shady plaza where I lunched. Angastaco is one of those places that is always just round the corner, in this case over the next undulation.
