Long Ride South

After breakfast in the hostel, we backed the bikes out of the hotel lobby, and got help from a friendly local finding the road to Cusco. We just randomly asked a man in his car where the road was, and he said, ¨follow me¨, and led us through the town to the round-about where the road began!

The very first curve in the road led us to a line of trucks stopped by a flagman for road construction. The truckers were out of their cabs, and sitting in the shade under their trailers…not a good sign! We were stopped there for about a half an hour. During this time, we chatted with some of the truckers, and one man picked a flower from a nearby tuna cactus for us to try. It had the texture and tasted kind of like a pomegranate fruit.

Ar first the road was not too bad, although it started out going straight up, at a ridiculously steep grade, with very tight turns and switchbacks. It kept that up for miles, while we could average maybe 30 miles and hour. Then we were plagued by lots of road construction and places where partial lanes were blocked with dirt or machinery or men working. Soon we were very high, 12,000+ ft, and the bikes were starting to run rough and not maintain high speed.

Then the road surface really deteriorated, and became as bad as some of the worst we had seen, with potholes and washouts and huge dips and ruts. Then the rain started, and got heavy, and it got crazy cold, below 45ºF. When we stop at one road construction point, we can see that some of the rain includes hail! We were wet and cold, our hands freezing, so we stopped at a lonely roadside restaurant for some soup and coffee. Then the trouble really started…

Just as we were ready to leave the restaurant and get back on the road, a crew of road workers comes into the restaurant, and tells us we have to drive back down the road, the way we came, for ‘a few minutes’, while they do some sort of road work near the restaurant. We do not really understand what they are telling us, and we argue and resist, but they insist that we go back about 1/4 mile, and behind a flagman barricade that is now set up there. We reluctantly agree, and drive back the way we came a bit, and stop behind the flagman, along with a truck or two already stopped there. We sit there, in the cold rain, for half an hour, and we get no answers from the workers present when we demand to know how long we will be held up. Suddenly, we see the work crew down the road all running for cover near the now closed restaurant, and a series of blasts go off just up the road. They are dynamiting rocks along the shoulder of the road! First a series of three blasts. Then a long pause, then two more. We wait in the freezing rain for another half hour, and nothing more is happening, and no one will tell us how much longer we have to wait. We see no construction equipment moving at all, and no more blasting. Both Levi and I are loosing patience, and I say ¨Let’s just go!¨.

We discuss this, and wait some more, but this situation is just not tolerable. We are freezing and soaking, and could be sitting here all day. So, we do it! We start our bikes, and roar past the frantically waving flag-person, and head down the road, past the restaurant and towards the blast site, determined not to stop for anything or anyone. Well, when we round the curve that blocked our view of the actual work area, we see that the road is completely covered in rock debris, just too completely for us to really ride through, and I have to come to a stop. The federal police officer that is with the road crew, comes running over to me, and threatens to take my license and write me a ticket if I do not turn back. I do not back down, and argue with him, saying that it would be possible for our bikes to get through. He says that they are not done blasting, and we must wait. He almost pleads with me, and assures me that it will not be much longer. Reluctantly, we turn around again, and go back, but only as far as the restaurant, which is open and where the balance of the road crew has been hiding. We go in, and order another coffee, much to the shock and amusement of the road crew.

Soon, the restaurant fills up with other stranded drivers and truckers. Our little protest has caused them to move the roadblock forward far enough for everyone to get to the restaurant. A great boon for the restaurant owner, who cannot dish the caldo out fast enough! We talk with a Brazilian tourist who used to live, in Gobles, Michigan, of all places! We hang out here another hour, while several more blasts go off around the curve.

Finally, the federal officer comes into the restuarant, looking as soaked and cold as we do, and tells us that we, Levi and I, can go, but no one else. We do not hesitata, but jump on the bikes and tear out of there. The road is still a mess, and we have to drive over lots of loose, broken rock debris, but we are greatful to be moving again. I am sure that if we had not challenged the roadblock, we would have been stuck there a lot longer!

The weather and road continue to be terrible. Rain is very heavy, it is very cold, and fog set in making visability almost zero. The road is nothing but potholes and washouts. The cold is so bad, that we are both shivering badly, and getting exhausted. We attempt to stop in a tiny town called Lucana, but there are no suitable facilities. We continue on to the town of Piquio, which is a mudhole, a true Peruvian Andean village, not on any tourist map. We arrive looking like two drowned rats. We locate the best hotel in town – no heat, no parking, but real hot water. We pay to park in a mudhole lot 5 blocks from the hotel. We discover that the rough road has broken one of the mounting bolts from Levi’s tail-case. This must be fixed before we can proceed.

It is a cold, wet night. We both shower to get rid of the shivers, and settle for easy local food. With no heat in the room, nothing dries overnight, but there are warm wool blankets on the beds!

In this hotel that we picked, they had a calientador for hot water;  that is a small, on-demand water heater unit that actually attaches where the shower-head normally goes.  We had seen and used a lot of them on this trip, and none of them had been at all satisfactory.  This one actually delivered a decent stream of almost hot enough water to be a comfortable shower!  What a pleasant surprise!  The complimentary breakfast that was provided, however,  left us very disappointed.

We headed south again, on the freeway, and were again treated to enormous, expensive, and impressive roadside advertisements.  The resort and beachside crap continued for several more miles and many more towns, until it finally petered out and the freeway ended and the pan-american sur became a good two-lane again.  We continued to make good time, back in desolate desert again. 

The fuel supply problem that had been plaguing me for days continued to get worse, and I had to stop more and more often to fill up the tank to keep running.  First it died after 100 miles,  then it quit after 70 miles.  Eventually, when we were in the worst possible place, a stretch of completely flat, empty desert swept with constant high winds, 50 miles from anywhere, the bike stopped and would not run at all.  I had no choice but to unload gear and get out the tools.  I disassembled the gas pet-cock, and flushed both the regular and reserve gas feeds.   I used a spare piece of hose to simulate engine vacuum and convinced myself that the fuel shutoff diaphram was working properly, and was not leaking.  This left only the supply to the carburetor, and the float-valve assembly as the possible culprits.  I could not PM the float-valve without removing the carb, which requires removing the tank and lots of other dis-assembly, so I did the only thing I could think of that did not require that major a commitment.  I sucked fuel back out of the float-bowl, back through the float-valve and down the fuel supply line.  I hoped that, if somehow some piece of rubber of other debris had lodged in the inlet side of the float-valve, that it might be drawn out and flush out of the open hose.  Whatever the problem was, this last-ditch attempt seems to have done the trick, at the price of a mouth full of fuel.   After re-assembling the fuel supply line, the bike started right up, and has run normally since.  Thank goodness and keep your fingers crossed!

In the middle of nowhere we came upon a tower in the desert, with a sign announcing the site of the Nazca Lines.  Very cool. (see Levi’s post for a few picts, or  http://www.crystalinks.com/nasca.html) A few miles later we made it to Nazca by 5:00 pm.  Levi connected with a person on the street while I was at an ATM getting cash, and got us a room at a decent hotel for cheap.  They let us park our bikes in the hotel lobby for the night!  We bought some laundry detergent from the front desk, and did some laundry in the bathroom sink.  Had our choice of a million restaurants in this tourist oriented town, and found a good dinner for little money.  The night was a bit noisy, as it was too hot to close the windows, and the street was active.

Entering Peru was a throwback to Central America, though thankfully without the unnecessary fees. Customs was directly across the bridge into Peru, three kilometers before Immigration, and was simply a shack with a couple old Peruvians sitting outside flagging down suspect looking vehicles. Our Colombian adventure-rider friend Oscar had advised us to come with photocopies so we didn’t need to go looking for them at the border, and though we made sure we copies of all the information we had that we could potentially need, that didn’t stop them from demanding a copy of the exit stamp from Ecuador, which we couldn’t possibly have made in advance. They directed me with a hand wave into the town to find a copy machine, and then I was in the thick of one of the densest and strangest border towns to date.

Hundreds of people milled across the border, dragging shopping bags, riding bikes, and selling things from carts. Joe’s tall white self had become an instant celebrity standing at our two giant loaded bikes, and had the job of trying to understand and answer the barrage of questions curious passersby may have, and of course pose for the occasional picture. In the heat of the mid-day sun – though equipped with my Ecuadoran hat – I ventured through the streets in search of an elusive photocopier. For some reason, Peru seems to be a sort of shopping Mecca for Ecuadorans, who perhaps suffer from less popular ports of higher tariffs, as directly across the border was a massive shopping center packed with endless allies of clothes shops. I even saw multiple stores selling mannequins within a block of one another! I asked dozens of people where to find a photocopier, and was bounced around the endless shopping walkways for more than a half hour with no luck. Being a Sunday, many of the copy shops were shut down, while others had broken machines or simply advertised making copies but didn’t even have a copying machine. I eventually found one that worked, and had copies made using some of the small bit of Peruvian money my Dad changed at the border, which we got a miraculous exchange rate of 3.3 Peruvian Nuevos Soles to the USD, whereas we’d been offered 3.1 by other money changers. For those of you out there who invested with Allen Stanford, please hold your advice till later.

Returning with the photocopies, I then had the great honor of filling out by hand in crazy small print to fit the forms, in duplicate, all the information for both bikes while the fat Peruvian customs agent glowered at me, obvious a big fan of his own job. While I was filling out paperwork, an Irish adventure rider on a 650 Suzuki V-Strom named Pat showed up and talked to my Dad. When I emerged, we waded through the crowded retail machinery and insane motorcycle taxi cabs, stopping once to get money at the ATM about a kilometer after the border that the money changers insisted didn’t exist. Immigration was thankfully easy to find, and after filling out the silly card, went through pretty quickly, but couldn’t do my Dad’s as well (which sometimes is the case). After trading places with him a guy in a green vest came up to me and insisted we had to pay for the parking outside the Immigration office, a completely insane notion. I bullshitted with the guy for more than 5 minutes, and re-asked him about the pay-for-parking nonsense, but he held fast, waving his ream of parking stubs and insisting that everyone has to pay. He also insisted we needed to pay for both bikes, at a rate of 3 soles a piece (slightly less than a dollar). I gave him four and told him it was for both bikes, which he agreed to and gave me one parking permit. Not long after my Dad returned and we hit the great western Peruvian highway.

And what a highway! I’d had several people tell me that the roads in Peru were the best in South America, and I was quickly inclined to believe them. Wide, freshly painted, completely devoid of potholes, with tons of signs, and graceful curves through the mountains, it was a beautiful thing for a pair of eyes that has seen the carnage our bikes have had to endure on this trip. Still in awe of the road, it brought us back to the Pacific Ocean, glistening and cerulean in the baking southern sun.

No matter how many times I see the Pacific Ocean, it's still beautiful

We stopped for a couple Peruvian beers and a massive plate of amazing ceviche, feeling the cool ocean breeze and breathing the fresh salty air. While we were getting back on the bikes, Pat from the border went by us, and when we caught up and passed him, he came into formation with us and began riding with us. Less than a mile later while I was in the lead, two dogs ran onto the highway, and the car in front of me smashed into the second at highway speeds, sending it sliding and spinning down the road and into the opposing lane. We’ve seen plenty of roadkill along our path, and with Joe’s cow incident, even another vehicle-on-animal accident, but there was something about how the dying dog’s companion stopped running and watched it skid to a twitching stop that I don’t know if I’ll ever quite get out of my mind.

Before long, the road curved back away from the ocean and beach, and dropped us in a vast and desolate desert. Because of my previous trip to Peru, I had a set of expectations for the terrain, the only type of which I’d seen before being jungle. To be sure, I had not expected the entire west coast of the place to be desolate wind-swept desert. I guess I stand corrected, huh?

Welcome to the jungle, we got lots of sand

I’ve been through what seems like an awful lot of desert before, criss-crossing the American southwest on numerous occasions, driving down Baja California, and cutting through a fair bit of the stuff in Mexico on this trip, but I’ve never seen anything like what I saw in western Peru. The sheer variation in it is still hard for me to wrap my mind around. There are parts that looks positively Saharan, with massive light brown sand dunes stretching absolutely as far as the eye can see, massive dark rocky mountains with light sand seeming to run down in rivulets, stretches of sand completely flat as far as the as the eye can see (which is a considerable distance in the desert) in every direction, parts somehow cultivated into fields in reclaimed land surrounded on all sides by arid wasteland, sand in every color of the rainbow, desert pushing right into the Pacific ocean complete with a cool ocean breeze, and even desert covered in fog!

Peruvian desert Sandwich: Sky, mountains, sand dunes, cultivated land, and wind-breaking shrubs

Sahara?

With fog?

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Our first stint was in the oil lands, that is to say desert covered in derricks and pipelines.

There's oil in them there pipes

And in this thoroughly Mad Max landscape, we were passed by several caravans of the most post-apocalyptic trucks imaginable: big ghastly iron semi-trucks with no cabs or smoke stacks. The driver sat on presumably the only chair, sometimes behind a piece of glass fastened between two boards, but often entirely in the elements, wearing goggles and a hat. They flew by, engines exposed, blue tarps flapping around undiscernible machinery, no visible cargo in tow, occasionally one lit headlight, abominations of motor vehicles and a wonder that more than one exists and runs. Man do I wish I’d managed to get them on camera!

We ended the day with some time to spare in the beach town of Máncora, and with our new friend Pat, found a room with 4 beds (one was a bunk so we used the top for storage) at a place with a poo, a bar, and wireless internet for about $6.50 per person. We swam in the pool, caught up on email, and swapped stories with Pat. Turns out the guy’s on a trip around the world, starting in Florida, on his way to Santiago, then flying to and crossing Australia, then flying to southeast Asia, then Europe again. If that didn’t make us feel inferior enough, he used his trip to raise a huge amount of money to help start Hospice in Ireland. Plus the guy’s a ton of fun.

The next morning, we had a leisurely breakfast and hit the desert in the late morning. Riding in our new 3-bike formation, we made great time through miles and miles of desert, often butted against the pacific, which helped vary the temperature between 110 and 60, but always with the sun beating down upon us unobstructed. We passed tons of cops, the most per mile yet, along the side of the road pulling over cars, and as seems to be our trend in South America, we saw cars in front of and behind us be pulled over, but were never bothered. The road was completely pothole free, mostly well labeled, and had only light traffic. We passed hundreds of “Zona Urbana” signs in the desert, but saw little of what I’d call urban zones, which helped us make fantastic time down the coast.

Typical Peruvian desert traffic

As the sunlight waned, we decided on the town of Pacasmayo as a reasonable place to stop for the night. The first welcoming sight as entered the town was a massive, ugly cement factory. A coastal town, we crossed our fingers that things may get better as we moved towards the ocean. We found a bustling coastal town with a fair bit of charm, and found a couple rooms at a brand new hotel. So new that while checking in, they were running my mattress up the stairs and assembling my bed. We moved in and found dinner at a packed chicken chicken restaurant and I had a strawberry shake.

Halfway through the night in the brand new bed, I woke up with horrible cramps and a bad stomach ache. I managed to get back to sleep, but woke up in the morning feeling even worse, and sporting a fever. It was clearly a case of food poisoning, and I’d eaten exactly the same set of things as Pat and Joe, save the strawberry milkshake. I gotta say, the milkshake was so not worth it.

We’d had big plans to get up early and get to Lima before the end of the day, but I was in no shape to move. I went to our complimentary breakfast, and promptly threw it up. Pat gave me some medicine for the cramps, which helped a little, but still whenever I got up, I felt awful. So instead I stayed in bed nearly all day sleeping, working on this blog, or completely vegging out to crappy movies with Spanish commercials. Joe and Pat went out exploring in town, and found it had a packed beach, huge pier, and some picturesque landscape. I made up my mind to make it out of the hotel room at least once in the day, so I schlepped my sick frame up to the beach for the sunset, and paid a Peruvian Neuvo Sol ($0.30) to go out on the pier. In the USA, the pier would have been condemned and you could be arrested for being out on it, in Peru they charge you for the priviledge of risking your life on the nearly kilometer long wooden pier, planks loose, missing, and rotting to pieces. Guard rails? Peruvians don’t need guard rails.

In the picture, it almost looks safe

We had dinner at a hotel restaurant on the beach, where I indulged in a couple pieces of bread and some tea, and happily kept it down. We called it an early night in hopes of trying our luck at an early start again. We were at breakfast at 7am, and Pat had worked his magic with the receptionist to score us an upgrade to eggs with our complimentary breakfast, but of course, there was a massive table of Peruvian women who were also staying at the hotel, and they all got eggs too. Go figure.

No trouble getting out of Pacasmayo, and we were making great time except one little cavaet: Joe’s bike, which had been having an issue with not drawing fuel from reserve for ages, suddenly started having more fuel problems, and before long, it was only making it 100 miles on a tank of gas, at which point he’d put our gas can into his bike and make it far enough to get to a gas station and fill up again. As our money supplies dwindled, the 100 Nuevo Soles bill that my Dad had gotten from the money changer at the border, and which had been in the back of his wallet, finally made its appearance at a gas station, where the attendants insisted it was fake. They showed us all the ways you could tell, all of which seemed like some sort of voodoo magic: rub your fingers over these two spots, look at the shade of purple on the 100, etc. The bill was utterly convincing to the untrained eye, even having a watermark and, we later found out, blacklight sensitive ink with the number. We tried it a few times and every gas station caught the fake, and finally one attendant showed that if you crumpled the bill up, it straightened out with tears, unlike the real bills. Damn. That 3.3 exchange rate really was too good to be true.

Doing the frequent gas station dance, we made it to Lima with sunlight to spare. Traffic quickly changed from nonexistant to furious. Miles from the city proper, the road turned into a four, then six,-lane divided highway, with aggressive Peruvian drivers at their worst. Lima unfolded before us like a bad movie, with each minute of ugly cinderblock landscape, streets covered in blowing trash, and drivers all but running us off the road making us wonder why we didn’t read the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and skip this one, and now that we were committed, all we could think about is when it would end. Sorry Lima, you’re no Slumdog Millionaire.

We finally got off the main drag in a quaint little neighborhood called Los Olivos that showed what a difference a few blocks could make, as things became markedly less seedy. We found a couple hotels, and thanks to having the best Spanish skills, I was in charge of checking them out. The second offered us a pretty decent deal and included parking, so we went for it… Except when I brought Joe and Pat to the garage and the people saw our bikes, they decided they could tack on the Gringo Tax, and insisted it would be more. Thoroughly uninterested in searching further, we took the place regardless. We then hit the area looking for food and found an Argentinian steak house right around the corner, the chef, an extremely friendly Argentinian, cooking amazing looking steaks on a grill on the sidewalk. We got the chef’s recommendation, and thoroughly gorged ourselves on amazingly cooked slabs of steak with salad and potatoes. It cost about $3.50 per person.

The next morning, Pat headed off in search of a tire, and we went to breakfast, where we looked through the yellow pages for options for our own bikes. When we came back to the hotel, the receptionist insisted we owed more money because we’d only paid for the night, and that we were supposed to be out at 6am unless we paid for the day. Plus we owed more money if we wanted to stay an additional night! Completely frustrated, we decided to leave right then, deciding we could wait on the tires till Santiago or La Paz, left Pat a note, and got back on the Panamerican out of Lima.

Traffic was terrible the first half of the ride. It was blazingly hot, large trucks and buses spewed choking black smoke all over the roadway and garbage flew like in a cartoon windstorm. After the north-south highway we were on intersected the east-west highway that led to the city’s centro, traffic died way down, and we actually started making time. Our highway met back up with the ocean just as Lima proper ends, and left us on a road through dozens of small little beach towns that exist as vacation spots for Limans. Blocking out much of the endless expanse of desert flanking the resort towns were a string of the most sophisticated and expensive billboard advertisements I’ve ever seen. These things were massive, 3-dimensional, and fancy as all hell. There was one for a popsicle brand that actually covered the top of a mountain with fake snow running down from the billboard.

We found a hotel in the surfing town of San Bartolo, and got to the messy business of changing our oil, the other task we’d given ourselves in Lima. We also removed the inline fuel filter we thought may be causing my Dad’s bike to not use all its fuel. Afterwards we walked our oil-covered selves to the beach, a beautiful cove with big curling waves packed with surfers, and more beach front restaurant than you can shake a stick at. We got suitably covered in salt, came home and showered, and had one last meal of ceviche before we left the coast.

The next day, the road curved away from the ocean and headed towards the town of Nasca, our turn-off out of the desert and towards Machu Picchu. Despite the removed fuel filter, Joe’s bike continued to stumble, and eventually with nearly a full tank, it quit in the most godawful place possible: a vast rocky plain, with strong constant wind blowing sand at us. In a last ditch effort, my Dad removed the fuel line from the tank and sucked fuel back out from the carb in an attempt to clear it of potential blockage, and miraculously, at the price of a mouthful of gas, the problem was finally fixed. Miles of more desert brought us through the town of Pisco, assumedly where the grape brandy gets its name, and suddenly every town was full of stores selling wine and Pisco.

While driving through more windy rocky desert, we spotted a private plane doing slow, repeated passes over the valley, and finally came up on an observation tower on the side of the road.

El Mirador

Not up on my Peruvian archeology, Nasca is home to the Nasca Lines, giant ancient line drawings made in the barren rocky desert thousands of years ago. We climbed the tower (1 Nuevo Sol) which affords a view of two of the drawings, a tree and a bird:

It's a tree!

It's a bird! Kind of.

There are apparently a lot more of the drawings out in the desert, but they’re only visible by air, and a plane ride sets you back about $55 per person, which was more than it was worth to us. And don’t try going exploring on your own, because the Peruvian government has been kind enough to landmine the desert to keep people from erasing the lines. How lovely!

When we made it to Nasca proper, while stopped and discussing where we’d stay for the night, a woman in a car pulled over and handed me a flier for one of her hotels. It was obviously fancy and beyond our price range. When we made that clear to her, she said she had 2 others, and could give us one for 40 Nuevo Soles (like $13), so we followed her a couple blocks off the main drag and checked the place out. The place had real hot water, a balcony overlooking the street, and they let us park our motorcycles inside the hotel (like literally in the lobby). Plus it included breakfast and time on the internet on their computers. It had to be one of the best deals we’ve had yet.

Aside from hosting the lines, Nasca is a big tourist staging ground for buses to Machu Picchu and Arequipa, two big tourist spots, and the town oozes tourism. But February is one of the slowest months here for tourists, and so waiters were in the streets outside their restaurants, waving menus and trying to get the few wandering gringos in. We had dinner at one of the few places not hawking on the street, and with the most reasonable prices in town. Afterwards, I tried to check out the night life, which was nearly nonexistant, but I did manage to get an absolutely amazing Pisco sour.

Nasca marked the end of our stint in the desert of Western Peru. The next day, we’d climb back into the mountains and head for Cuzco, where you can catch the train to Machu Picchu!

Pat was off to the Lima marina area early, as he was told that that was where the Suzuki dealer was located.  After he left, Levi and I went out for breakfast, where we stole a phone book, planning on looking for tire dealers back at the hotel.  But when we returned to the hotel, the desk clerk started in messing with us, telling us that we were only paid up until 6:00 am, and if we were going to stay during the day we had to pay again, and then again if we wanted to stay another night.  We knew that this was bullcrap, and we argued, but we got nothing but more crap, so we had to load up and leave, without being able to say goodbye or contact pat. We left him a note, and then struggled our way south through Lima’s horrible traffic.  It took hours and many close calls, but eventually we got clear of the awful city and continued south on a very good expressway, past numerous beach-resort towns that continued for miles and miles south of Lima.

One interesting aspect of this ride was the incredible advertising along the highway.  the most sophisticated and expensive billboard advertising I have ever seen.  Ads for upscale clothes, and electronics, and other consumer goods.  All huge, and in 3-d.  Absolutely amazing stuff, and obviously geared to a very upscale and wealthy market.  A sharp contrast to the shanty-town housing we passed on the sand dunes and hillsides along the highway!

We tried several small resort towns, looking for a suitable place top stay, and finally stopped in San Bartolo, a small beach-side resort with lots of hotels and restaurants, and little else.  We bought oil, and did an oil change on both bikes.  I found some fuel line and replaced the line from petcock to carb, hoping that that might fix the fuel problem, and even had time to hit the beach for a quick swim in the pacific.

It had been a very hot day, and became a nice, cool night.  We had a decent dinner, after having had a terrible lunch cooked by a girl who acted like we were just too much trouble to deal with.  Most folks here seemed not to interested in being friendly to us.  I don’t think many US tourists make it here.  At least we had a quiet night, as we were far enough off the highway for a change.

We were up super early, thanks to Pat, and after out complimentary breakfast were were back out into the Peruvian desert.  More martian landscape, with such variety and diversity that it was just amazing, but wearing and tiring as well.  More colorful mountains, drifted with yellow sand; dunes and rocks.  It was either terribly hot, or cold, damp, and foggy.  In selected areas, the desert had been cultivated and irrigated and planted with sugar cane, or other crops.  In those few areas, there were shanty towns nearby for the farm workers.  More squaller and poverty.  Everywhere we went, there were piles of debris along the road.  There was no way of telling why, but bricks and rocks and dirt and broken concrete block were piled everywhere, in some places for miles out into the desert.  Lots of areas in this desert were filled with burning piles of trash.  What came to me as a way to try to describe the scenery here to someone was to combine the mountains of Nevada, the deserts of Utah,  and the landfills of  New Jersey, and throw in the poverty and isolation of the Navajo Indian reservation, too.   Obviously I am being silly here, but that is what my bored mind thought of as we sped through this desolation for hours on end.

I continued to have gas supply problems, running out of gas several times and having to use the gas can to make it to the next station, which were very few and very far between.  I am baffled by what is causing the bike to not use the last 2-1/2 gallons of gas in the tank.

As we approached Lima, we encountered terrible traffic.  We had difficulty staying together, as the terrible drivers cut us off, and did stupid things for stupid reasons (or no reason!).  We finally got close enough to Lima center to get off the main road, and found what we thought would be a decent place to stay for a day or two.  We and Pat had planned om stopping here long enough to get new tires, and Levi’s bike need it’s chain replaced.  We found a hotel with a garage, and when we first asked they quoted us s/60 soles for all three of us;  when we went to pay, they insisted that it was now s/80 soles, with no explanation for the change.  That should have been a tip-off that we were in for trouble, but it was still a bargain, so we paid and unloaded.

We were all starved, and we found an excellent steak dinner at a nearby restaurant run by an Argentinian gentleman, who knew how to cook a steak!  It had been a long, hard day’s ride, but we felt good in having made our destination.

When Levi got up in the morning, I discovered that he was not feeling well, and did not want to ride.  We thought that Pat would want to take off on his own, rather than lose a day, but it turned out that he stuck around for the day, also.  So, while Levi stayed in bed and recovered from apparent food poisoning,  Pat and I explored the town, and caught up on internet and other chores.  I tried, in vain, to replace my fuel line, thinking that maybe that was the source of my fuel supply problem.  We cruised the waterfront, which was really quiet lovely, with old hotels and a boardwalk and a large public beach. Towards sunset, the boy was feeling well enough to go out with us for a walk, so we returned to the waterfront and walk out onto the really long and unsafe commercial pier that extended from the boardwalk out into the Pacific.  It is interesting, that in the US this pier would have been roped off and no-one would have been permitted to go out on it, as it was so dangerous and unsafe;  here, they charged you $.50 to walk out on it!  We were treated to a world-class sunset, and took some great pictures, which I assume Levi will post.  We stayed in our same hotel another night, and Pat assured us that we would get an early start the next day!

After I took a cold shower, the three of us went to town for a basic breakfast, and we are ready to ride,  We gassed up at the only station in town, and have to settle for 84 octane!  We rode south on a very good road, with very little traffic, but are almost immediately into the great northwestern Peruvian desert.

I had no idea that Peru had so much barren land.  We rode all day through a variety of desert landscapes;  beautiful and dramatic in their own way, but incredibly desolate and empty.  There were stretches of nothing but rocks and sand, or sand alone, from horizon to horizon.  Sometimes with some desert vegetation, and others without a single living thing visible.  Dunes and mountains were everywhere;  the mountains came in every color imaginable, and were often draped with blown sand.  the sand formed hummocks and small dunes that were sometimes anchored with plants,  In other areas, the dunes were huge, ‘C’ shaped crescents that appeared to go on for miles.  Sand drifted across the road, and blasted our bikes and skin. In some places the desert stretched right to the ocean shore, and became the beach.  Mostly it was ungodly hot – 90-100 º, but in some places we rode through cold, chilling fog.  The wind blows constantly.  Mostly flat, we rode fast and saw little traffic, but at times we climbed in and through the mountains.

The desolation and isolation applied to the human presence in this wasteland, as well.  Towns and villages were mostly non-existent.  We went huge stretches without seeing a single structure or human presence except the road.  There were no services for many miles at a time.  When there was a habitation, it was the worst example of poverty and squaller you can imagine.  Adobe or mud-and-wattle shacks on barren ground;  no shade or vegetation, inconceivable living conditions by our standards.  The few towns that exist in this wasteland, are desolate collections of shanties and shacks around dirt streets.  Larger villages, like Piura, are surrounded by shanty-towns that look like middle-eastern refugee camps.  The obvious poverty is depressing and dismaying.

I am having fuel supply problems now,  My bike stops running, even with 2 gallons of gas still in the tank.  Adding more gas (from our gas can) fixes the problem, but I still do not understand why the fuel is not getting to the carburetor,  We have to make extra stops for gas because of this, and gas stations are very few and very far between!

After hundreds of miles of continuous desert, we enter an area that is green, and are soon surrounded by rice paddies and other farms.  Before long we enter our first ‘real’ Peruvian town, Pacasmayo, a cute little beach resort town on the coast.  We all three find rooms in a brand new hotel, where we are the first guests to sleep in the rooms!  The bed I get collapses when I first lie down on it, and I have to put the mattress on the floor.  We have an issue getting hot water, but eventually we get a real hot shower.  The town seems friendly, and the many curious people we talk to seem to indicate that not many gringo tourists make it here.  We walk around town at dusk, and Levi and Pat have real milkshakes, and then (another) chicken dinner.

Entering Ecuador was relatively easy and straightforward once you got to the right places, but poorly labeled and time consuming. We got stuck there for a decent stretch of time when the border officials went to lunch and wouldn’t allow anyone into Customs. While waiting in line, we met a group of three Colombians on big Harleys also on their way to Tierra del Fuego. One rider named Oscar had spent a lot of time in the US and spoke perfect English, and they were all extremely friendly. They made it to Peru before us, and Oscar sent us a detailed email advising us on how to make the border crossing.

More impressive mountains of course, and nearly immediately we were amazed at how nice the roads were. Mostly gone were the incredibly steep, incredibly tight mountain curves. Riding a rugged mountain ridge, the mountain had been carved down 10-50 feet on either side to keep the road level, and continued that way for several miles! Drivers were also far more conscientious than they had been in Colombia and much of Central America. There were also far fewer motorcycles nearly instantly than there had been in Colombia, the reason for this becoming quickly clear upon reaching our first gas station, and confirming that unleaded was indeed $1.48 a gallon, and diesel down to a buck! Not to be too safe, not long into Ecuador we began the rain that we put up with at least once a day every day we spent in Ecuador.

Happy to be done with another long border crossing, we splurged and stopped for lunch. The only place we found open in the first town we passed sold only one thing called fritadas, so we had two orders of them. We got chunks of very tasty BBQ-ed pork served cold (probably just because of our awkward timing for lunch) with fried corn kernels, similar to what I’ve had before at Peruvian restaurants. The locals at the restaurant, as seems almost to be a tradition in Latin America, made sure they came to our table and welcomed us to Ecuador, albeit drunkenly. We ended our night in Ibarra at a decent hotel with breakfast included, and didn’t need dinner.

The next morning, we started down the road across the equator and to Quito. There was, of course, more rain and mountains, these less impressive than others we’d been through. We chose what I believed to be the correct of two routes to Quito, and came in where I’d have expected given some maps I’d looked at in the process, but we somehow managed to miss the so-called “Mitad del Mundo” – or middle of the world. Traffic worked into a frenzy as we approached Quito, but the drivers remained mostly reasonable and mostly didn’t squeeze between us inches away from spreading us across the highway.

Quito is a large, long, and skinny city, high up on a plateau and bounded to the East and West by giant volcanoes. Reaching only a little over 3 miles at its widest, and over 24 miles long, it’s divided into 3 primary areas from North to South. The north end, where we were coming in, has much of the new construction, high rises, new housing, banks, etc., the middle is the old downtown, full of old colonial and government buildings and plazas, and finally the south side is mostly residential and small commercial, the working class neighborhood. We went several miles into the north end before spotting a place called Hotel Dan, which was somehow cheaper than our hotel in Ibarra, had hot water, safe parking, giant rooms, an ancient elevator, a spa in the basement (not included), and right off the bus rapid transit line down to the city center.

John Martinez, who I’m not entirely sure how stumbled upon our blog, had emailed me some advice on Ecuador to try some local food called hornado and chochos. Not having internet at our hotel to figure out what these things were, I picked the first he’d mentioned – hornado – at random and we asked the receptionist where it could be found. The receptionist pointed us to the local market, which throughout Latin America is generally a large warehouse-like building divided into sections by shop types, and full of produce, meat, poultry, fish, handicrafts, and convenience stores, and some of the best bargain local restaurants. The receptionist gave great directions to the Santa Clara market, and we soon found ourselves in a blur of colorful shops, and unknown produce and meat

Go ahead, see how many you can name

I see a pile of tongues, but what's on the left?

Then, into the restaurant part of the market, we saw an amazing sight…

Could this full-size deep fried pig hanging out practically in the walkway of the market be hornado?

We looked up to the menu, and quickly made the connection between restaurants with giant fried pigs and those serving hornado, and ordered the basic plate, hornados with tortillas, a wallet-breaking $2.50 each:

Mmmm

Somehow between Central and South America, tortillas had become mashed potatos. Hornado itself was a healthy helping of amazingly tasty pork, and a couple pieces of the fried beast’s skin snapped off and served on the top of the plate. It was so unequivacally delicious that we decided to come back the next day to have it again. We also tried to pick up a white pineapple that we’d been told was similar to the yellow (on the inside) one’s we’re familiar with, but sweeter and less acidic. Though the many vegetable stands sold the stuff, they were also all sold out for the day, and told us to come back the next day. Perfect!

After lunch, we spent the $0.25 each for bus fair to the downtown and explored. I quickly found myself envying the awesome hats the indigenous people, of which there are a surprising number in Quito. We toured two very impressive churches and some large public squares. The downtown of Quito was bustling and impressive, and given its longitudinal layout, far more manageable as a tourist. There are only 3 main north-south roads, and each is easily spotted by the presence the bus rapid transit system, large buses on electric wires like in SF.

A massive church in Quito called the Basilica

British-style guards outside a government building on the Plaza Grande

Statue of the Virgin of Quito above the church on the Plaza Grande

After making our rounds, we returned to the hotel and asked about the spa. It was an additional $5 each, steep by Ecuadoran prices, but we decided to check it out anyways, and were far from disappointed. The place had a sauna, steam room (full of aromatic herbs similar to our experience in Costa Rica0, and hot tub. Most of the people there were Quito natives, and had no end of fun talking to us about our trip, all while sweating profusely. We showed up in the last 45 minutes the place was open, and while the natives managed to keep the place open a bit longer, we still got booted out before we’d wanted.

That night I did some research on the internet about the things we were supposed to do in Quito, and came up with a set of things we wanted to do the next day, so we decided to stick around. First up was a tourist trap recently built called the TelefériQo, a gondola that heads up to the top of one of the volcanoes, reaching a height of 13,400 feet. Thanks to the unbelievably cheap gas and labor costs, taxis around the city were amazingly cheap, and we were amazed as the cab drove up the volcano and offered impressive views before we even started the ferry ride:

The view from the base of the gondola

And obviously more impressive views as we climbed:

Halfway up, and the camera does it no justice

Finally, we reached the top, and had a few minutes of crisp scenery before the fog rolled in. Like pretty much all the mountains we’ve traveled through, the photos are a sad excuse for being there.

On top of the world!

We hit up the downtown again, and I found a black hat, and just generally had a good time walking through the jumping city. Then it was back to the market for round two of hornado and our second attempt at finding a white pineapple. On the way there, I spotted what I thought were chochos, a white native bean, and had a $0.50 serving of them, which came with more roasted corn, pickled onions, and spicy salsa on top. Deeeeelicious, as was of course the pork again. Plus we finally scored a big white pineapple, which is all it’s cracked up to be. Anyone want to start an importing business?

The perfect pineapple

We came back and made it nice and early to the spa in our hotel’s basement, and truly got our money’s worth this time, splurging on fresh-squeezed juices in massive plastic jars they served for $2. I had lime-ade made with 9 limes, sparkling water, and some sugar. We talked to a lot of new people, including an Ecuadorian engineer that designed oil drilling rigs who explained that Ecuador had most of the regions refineries, hence the low prices. Apparently Peru has a lot of oil, but no refineries, so they just ship it all over to Ecuador and the Ecuadorans sell them back gas at huge markups. Not something to look forward to given how much of Peru we’ll be crossing.

Getting out of Quito was expectedly difficult, with tons of traffic and lots of questionable intersections, when te primary roads changed names and directions. Luckily, given the city is long and skinny, it was hard to go wrong for long, and aside from the god of Road Construction once again giving us a ridiculous roadblock on our way out of town, we’d had more difficulty with far smaller cities along the way.

The road out of Quito was meandering, wide, and nearly completely devoid of potholes. Dirty mountains covered in sparse vegitation eventually led us to Riobamba for the night, where we stopped given the dearth of civilization farther south. There are a slew of hotels on the main drag of the Panamerican, and stopped by a half dozen of them comparison shopping. Prices ranged from $10 to a little over $22, with the expensive ones offering nicer rooms and real hot water. We picked one called the Hotel Altar that was at the high end of the price range, threw in breakfast and had a computer connected to the internet.

The computer was in use by some creepy looking white dude while we got all our things moved in and did some maintenance on the bikes, so we gave up and were going to head to town to use a ‘net cafe. There was still one native food on my list that we hadn’t tried yet for called cuy, which is the Spanish name for guinea pig served as food. Everyone I’d asked about it in Ecuador insisted it was fantastic, so I asked our hotel receptionist where I could find some. She gave me an intersection and pointed me in the “right” direction, and we hit the town to work up an appetite catching up on this time consuming blog. We struck out at multiple cafes, all seemingly disrupted by the day’s rain, which was getting progressively worse as we strolled around. We finally found one that worked and did some catching up.

After the obligatory internetting, we went in search of the restaurant with cuy. With weather degrading and the intersection the receptionist had given me seeming impossible to find, my Dad figured our best bet would be to use a cab. The cabbie said he could get us to a place nearby for $1, so we hopped in and crossed our fingers. The driver started out by taking us to the place he’d had in mind, and discovered it to be closed. That’s when things got interesting… He got on his radio and asked the taxi dispatcher if she knew where to get cuy in town, and in the meantime, he drove us around like a madman, us getting farther and farther from our hotel, and less and less clear on how we’d make it back. Riobamba ended up being a huge town, and in the dark, the rain pouring down and showing the poor drainage, we were carted seemingly aimlessly around by the cabbie, in a futile search for cuy, and bringing us farther and farther from where we felt comfortable being. Eventually, I told him to give up and asked him to bring us to a place called Asadero Texas, or Texas BBQ, that we’d passed on our walk into town. Another 7 or so minutes was lost on our way there when he needed to stop at a crowded gas station specific to taxis.

After a horribly wrong taxi ride, we arrived and gave the cabby $3, to which he seemed extremely grateful, seemingly expecting us to give him the originally agreed upon $1, despite his goose chasing. The restaurant itself was completely packed, and had a short menu, with the obvious choices being the “Texas” and the “Super Texas,” which were $4.50 and $7 respectively. We chose the former, and were treated to giant cut of T-Bone steak, extremely well seasoned and soft and juicy, served with 3 steamed potatos, an ear of corn, and a side salad. Try getting that for $4.50 in a restaurant pretty much anywhere else on the planet!

After making gluttons of ourselves at dinner, we went back to the hotel and found the computer locked, and the people at the desk insisted it didn’t work. The next morning, the mouse was even missing, completing the internet charade.

On the road at a decent hour the next morning, we headed south through beautiful rural scenery full of plump fuzzy sheep, grassy mountains, and tons of traditionally dressed natives staring at us as we went by. We made if quite far and began to see signs for a city on a road that split off from the Panamerican, and we eventually became convinced we’d missed our turn and backtracked, earning us brand new stairs. It was very cold, and beginning to really rain as we reached the town that had our turnoff, and it was quite obvious how we’d missed it. The only sign labeling it was bent horribly and extremely faded, and the turnoff was loose gravel and potholes. We made the turn only to run directly into a road block for construction, and we were the first in line.

The rain gradually picked up, and eventually became a full-on downpour. Though I was wearing my electric vest, I had it off most of the time because our bikes were off while we waited. We sat there on the side of the road while traffic piled up behind us, around our turnoff and onto the other road. We waited for more than 20 minutes before they signaled us to pass, and by then, we were soaked completely to the bone. The construction we’d been waiting for was a mile stretch of beautiful cement road they had half done and were preparing to lay the second half, and thoroughly wasting passing vehicle’s time in the meantime.

After we passed the road construction, we were on a truly awful road, the first we’d seen in Ecuador. There was loose gravel and massive potholes all over the place. In laying tons of drainage pipes, much of the road had been torn up and they invariably replaced the old concrete with unevenly piled rocks that stretched the length of the roadway. For the first 10 minutes after the construction, we were at a steady climb on the horrible stuff, the rain still pouring down, and my hands freezing inside my waterlogged gloves. After our climb, we hit more fog. The rain was hitting the ground and turning into steam. The steam swirled and boiled, visibility went down to near nothing, and it was as impressive as it was dangerous to watch the fullsize buses materialize out of the fog, mere feet away, and thankfully at a crawl.

The fog only lasted 10 slow minutes or so, but the road continued in its horrible state for a total of 48 miles. During those long and gruelling miles, we were stopped two more times by additional road construction, once at the end of the pass, where about 3.5 more miles of concrete roadway was half-finished. So I guess that’s only 45 more miles to go, while in the meantime, Ecuador holds the title for the worst road of the trip to date!

When we finally got off the mountains, we were on a vast, almost perfectly flat coastal plane, where the mostly perfectly straight road would actually curve around hills instead of bothering to go over them. Due to the terrible roads in the giant mountains and the long waits for road construction, we didn’t make it as far as we hoped for the day, and stopped in the town of Naranjal. We stopped at a gas station, and some very friendly people there advised on on where to look for a hotel. Their advice led us only to places with no hot water, so we tried elsewhere to no avail and ended up settling for a place right downtown in the small town where at least we could park our bikes off the street. The place had a third story balcony that was decent for watching people repeatedly cruising the street – like bored high schoolers used to do in my hometown, isn’t that right green car guy? – while finishing our small bottle of scotch and another pair of cuban cigars.

The next day was an easy ride to the Peruvian border, and my anticipation was flying high. Ever since visiting Peru in 1997 and having an amazing time, I’ve been wanting to go back, and this was the day to finally do it. I became markedly less excited, however, as we entered the Ecuadoran border town, which was instantaneously creepy. The main road discintegrated into a mad market street, with vendors and pedestrians everywhere, and still scooters, cars, and even buses somehow squeezing through. Despite our friend Oscar’s advice, one of the locals told us we’d missed the immigration checkpoint and had to go back to get our exit stamp. In the meantime, another pair of non-nationals on big bikes went by and waved. We caught up to them at the immigration checkpoint and they ended up being extremely friendly. One was a Californian who lives in Cuenca, Ecuador, and the other a German who’d been traveling on his motorcycle for over a year. Both had native girlfriends on the back. The line was long to get our passports stamped, but there was no hassle. We faught our way back through the mess of a market street and finally made it to the bridge to Peru, where we surrended our vehicle permits amid a bedlam of foot traffic, and entered Peru.

After a quick breakfast in the hotel restaurant, we finished up the air filter maintenance, and loaded up.  Today was an easy and fast ride to the border.  The border town situation, however, was one of the most ugly we had had to deal with.  First we had to backtrack from the border itself through this creepy, busy town to find the immigration hut to get our exit stamp from Ecuador, and stand in line for 20 minutes there. 

Then we had to fight our way onto a bridge, crowded with market stalls and foot traffic, to get to the Peruvian customs station, where Levi spent over an hour filling out forms for entrance of the bikes, while I tried to keep track of our stuff and satisfy all the curious locals.  We had come prepared with photocopies of all our basic documents, but, of course, they now wanted a photocopy of the Ecuadorian exit stamp that we had just gotten as well, so Levi had to march off into the crazy market madhouse on the Peruvian side looking for a photocopy place, which, being Sunday, was not easy to find.  It was here that I first met Pat, an adventure rider on a Suzuki V-strom traveling around the world from Ireland.  We met up with him again later, but he, of course, first had to backtrack, like we did, 3 km. back into Ecuador to get his exit stamp.  They just do not make it easy!

After customs, we went a few km. into Peru, and stopped again at the Peruvian immigration station.   This only took a few minutes for each of us, but before we could leave we got told we had to pay for parking in the lot outside the immigration building!  Welcome to Peru!  All in all, we made this border in just under 2 hours, which may be a record for us.

Away from the border, we stopped in a tiny Pacific coast town for some ceviche and beer – what a treat!  Soon after that we met up with Pat Cahill again, and we rode together the rest of the day.  We stopped for the night in a Pacific coast tourist town, Manicora, and had our choice of dozens of hotels and hostels.  We chose a very funky hostel on the beach, with typical hostel accommodations (rough rooms, cold showers, and bunk beds), but a nice warm swimming pool (don’t mind the scum) and a bar and internet for Levi.  It was a neat place to stay, with nice other guests, but kinda noisy and buggy.  It is now very warm and humid here, as it was all day.  Pat shared a 4-bed room with us, and we are enjoying his company very much.  He is a commercial pilot from Ireland, who is doing the global circumnavigation as a way to raise money for hospice service in Ireland.  He is a stitch with lots of great stories and a wonderful accent.

We all walked the town, and settled on a dirt-floor restaurant for a seafood dinner.  The Pacific here is beautiful, calm and warm.  A charming place in many ways.

After our complimentary breakfast at the hotel, we loaded up and immediately got confused on trying to get out of town.  The highway markings here are just basically non-existent, and following the correct path through the towns is a crap-shoot.  The road south started out OK, but in the town of Cajabamba, we took a wrong turn and went a few miles down the wrong road – the road to Cuenca.  We backtracked, and found the correct turn off, only to be stopped right there for over 30 minutes by a flagman for road construction.  We sat for those 30+ minutes in the pouring rain, freezing cold even with all our winter gear and electric vests on!  Here we were, barely south of the equator, and the temperature was barely 50º!  Even with our coat liners, we were soon soaked through and through. 

When we were finally allowed to proceed, we had no idea what we were about to get into.  For the next 50 miles, we were treated to the worst road, and road experience, that we had encountered on this trip to date!  The road had been torn up for repaving, but except for one-quarter mile at the start, and one-half mile at the end, no repaving had been done.  There were hundreds of cuts through the old pavement, that had been badly filled with gravel, which had then been washed out or humped up by other traffic;  landslides blocked all or some of the lanes, often around blind curves.  Huge potholes where everywhere,  some partially filled with gravel, and some not.  Sections of the road were missing, having slid down the mountain.  Washouts ran every which way across the roadway, and the grades were such that the trucks and buses barely crawled up the mountains.  We could not maintain evan a 25 mph average.  There were no places to pull off, no end to the rain, areas of dense fog, no shoulder, no services at all.  We encountered several areas where work crews with heavy equipment were working to clear landslides or major washouts, and at least twice more we were stopped by flagman for extended periods of time while the road was closed by machinery.  Some areas the road was covered with wet, slimy mud that was very hazardous for us. This was the main Pan American highway south, and it was just a mess!  With the dust, mud, and diesel exhaust, we were totally coated with dirt from helmet to boots, and looked like raccoons with black all around our faces except for our eyes.  Our clothes were wet and filthy.

After hours of this, we finally came to the end, and came down out of the mountains as well.  The road returned to normal, and flattened out, but we had lost too much time to attempt the border crossing today.  We stopped in the small town of Naranjal, and failed again to find a single hotel with hot water.  We settled for a place that offered secure parking, and cleaned up as best we could.

We had fried fish dinners that were OK, and pulled our air filters out for cleaning.  We sat on the hotel balcony, and watch the traffic on the street, consisting of more motorcycles than cars by a long way, and not one rider or passenger with a helmet!  We checked our tires for wear, and decided that Lima was where we would need to replace at least the rears on both machines.  We will be in Peru tomorrow!