Travelling North

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The long road north

The travel dossier entry makes it look so easy - 'we drive north through the Sechura desert to the tiny beach resort of Punta Sal'. It doesn't say 'we will abuse the driver by forcing him to drive for nearly 14 hours with as few rest stops as possible, give him almost no help when he has a flat, ask him to turn the truck in an area that would be tight for anything bigger than a small car, and still expect him to drive the rear wheels'. Nor does it say 'at every opportunity there is to make take a wrong turn, the guide will'. But it should.

If I had thought that the first travel day was long, this day was longer. We started earlier, finished later, and Lisa got Mark lost at every opportunity. Anywhere that did not involve driving straight through a town was an invitation for her to make a mistake in her directions. Today, it was amusing rather than being really annoying. It did not involve too many dramas, and most people she asked for directions were able to get us back on track without too much difficulty.

For all that, there was a real plus. Today was the day that Mark really started to drive the rear wheels. He was trained as a fire fighter in Melbourne, so he did know how to drive big trucks. But it was clear to me that he was only driving the front wheels. When we got to a speed hump, he would begin to accellerate after the front wheels had cleared the hump. The rear wheels would then thud into it and we would get a double bump in the back as first the forward wheels and then the hindmost wheels of the dual axle rear took the hump. Very unpleasant.

If my only contribution to the comfort of my fellow passengers was helping Mark drive the rear wheels as well as he drove the front ones, then that alone would have made the effort worthwhile. So, Mark, keep driving those rear wheels. I know that you can do it.

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Photos

Sechura Desert
Sechura Desert just north of Trujillo

Shanty dwellings - Sechura Desert
This photo was taken just north of Trujillo

Chiclayo
Chiclayo may have been a major town, but we weren't going to stop here, so I took a couple of quick happy snaps.

Irrigation Area
Where irrigation systems were, it was green, but there was a sharp dividing line when the desert resumed.

Close to Punta Sal
The nature of the Sechura Desert changed over the drive north. Near Trujillo, it was sandy and relatively flat. Here the soil have much more gravel, more vegetation and much greater relief in the landscape.