17th January - 2nd February (Entry 16)

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Road miles to date: 24,757

Following a break by the sea in a hostel overrun by the Argentine equivalent of gap year students we set off early for an arduous journey through the desert. Despite the twelve hour ride and the intense high winds coming off the coast, the scenery was spectacular and varied constantly from dry, rocky mountains to miles of nothing but white sand to small communities of huts scattered among dry brush to rice paddies and swamps to shanty coastal towns and dusty cities. Sadly so much rubbish lined the roads that the smell was not too savoury for a lot of the journey, despite the beauty. Flytipping is apparently the way Peruvians in this area rid themselves of rubbish as we saw at least one car pull over to a ditch and saw the driver shamelessly empty three full sacks from the boot and many a plastic bag or bottle came flying out of bus windows.

One particular highlight of the ride was a pitstop for lunch in a trucker cafe deep in the desert. Desperate to relieve ourselves and short of any privacy due to the miles of flat open space, we were directed to the restaurant toilet out in the desert. A literal shit hole would describe it sufficiently, although many a trucker had missed the actual hole. Were it not for the fact that its walls provided the only shield to protect our modesty from the road we might not have found ourselves laid up in bed the next day suffering our first illness of the entire trip.

We hadn't originally planned to go the entire way to Huanchaco but by 4pm we decided we had come too far to stop halfway so persisted long into the dark. We arrived late and fell into the nearest bed exhausted and blown apart by the desert winds. It had been such a long time since we'd undertaken a ride of this length that we forgot the lasting impact it leaves for days afterwards.

The next day we took it easy and visited the city of Chan Chan, an enormous expanse of adobe (a mixture of sand, clay, water and straw or sticks) walls which cover twenty square kilometres of desert and date back to AD850. The city was constructed by the Chimu kingdom and is thought to have housed 300,000 people until it fell to the Inca empire in AD1470 following an eleven year siege. The remains of the city were impressive considering their age and we managed to view the central citadels and admire the detailed walls before the beginnings of weakness set in and we walked the long empty stretch of desert back to the road to hail a bus.

The next day was spent not too far from the toilet as we attempted to spend some time on the beach and watch the famous Caballito de Totoras (little reed horses) which are vessels made from reeds that have been used by fishermen for over three-thousand years. They are particularly famous in Huanchaco and are believed to be one of the earliest known surfing vessels due to their shape and the method in which they ride the waves back to shore.

Feeling better the next morning we set off on another mammoth coastal desert journey to Huaraz, dipping inland to ride the Canyon del Pato along the way. The Canyon cuts deep into very arid, rocky mountains and was formed by the Rio Santa that runs from the Cordillera Negra to the Cordillera Blanca - two Andean mountain ranges that run parallel from the Canyon to Huaraz. The road running through the Canyon and along the Rio Santa is unpaved and rugged - factors improved more so for the magnificent dry and deserted landscape that lined the way. We passed countless deserted villages, a few mine entrances and rode through thirty-five one lane tunnels, meeting a fair few trucks head on along the way. After three and a half hours of riding, wondering where we could get food and petrol we eventually came out the other side into a small village where we had turned up late for lunch at its only restaurant and ended up eating tinned tuna, crackers and ice cream for lunch. Not a meal to help a stomach bug.

After roasting alive in all our bike gear through the desert, we ascended higher into the mountains and arrived in Huaraz, a city that is warm when the sun shines but otherwise is biting cold. The city sits ten thousand feet above sea level and is not a particularly beautiful place due to some pretty terrible earthquakes that succeeded in wiping out almost ninety-five percent of its architecture, however it is surrounded by the snow capped mountains of the Cordillera Blanca and the rapids of the Rio Santa roar through it, rectifying its less aesthetic image.

It soon became clear that Byron's illness from Huanchaco hadn't gone away and the day of riding through extreme hot and cold probably hadn't helped so we spent a couple more days than planned in Huaraz doing very little and trying to recover. During that time a vicious toothache set in for Isabel. After over eight months of avoiding any sickness on the road we supposed we had been lucky for long enough and sucked it up.

A couple of days later we were recovered and back on the road again, this time to Lima. That morning it was pouring with rain and fog had set in. After having already stopped for more days than we'd planned we didn't want to cop out of another day just because of the weather, plus we felt right at home after hearing reports of flooding and snow back in Blighty, so we made tracks back into the mountains. The ride took us even higher into the Andes, right up to the altiplano where craggy rocks jutted out of green hills and streams cut deep through wide expanses of green planes while local inhabitants dressed in bowler hats and bright coloured skirts and blankets herded sheep and llamas.

A few hours later we began to descend, thawing out our hands and feet as the altiplano turned to steep, jagged, overhanging rocks and sheer cliff drops with farmland and lush green pastures sitting far below. Slowly the greenery faded and we ended up back in desert rocks where we passed a French cyclist who we had met in Canyon del Pato a few days before. He had been riding ever since and was following the road without seeming to know where he actually was! The road followed dry rocky cliffs as we headed back towards the coast and the river bed that ran through them provided the only source of life for vegetation so for a good few miles we followed a valley of trees and crops surrounded by totally lifeless, dry mountains on all sides.

Eventually we hit the outskirts of Lima where the roads and communities formed a dusty, ugly, outer city metropolis. Although we hadn't had too much trouble on the roads in Peru, the concentrated numbers of drivers there created chaos as most fail to look before pulling onto roads, cut everyone and everything up in their way but beep their horns as if that is sufficient warning to tell others they are about to take them out, many indicate in the opposite direction of where they are turning and the majority of vehicles are clapped out, smoke churners that choke everything unlucky enough to be tailing them. Added to the fact we were back at sea level and on the coast, the end of the day couldn't have been more different to the beginning.

We found ourselves in an eccentric hostel right in the historical centre of Lima where we parked the bike in the lobby next to a huge Roman bust and under a chandelier. A quick exploration of the place took us to the roof where we were just in time to watch the spectacle of two tortoises mating, a peacock preening itself in the mirror, a caged, squawking macaw, a few washed out, dreadlocked hippies in desperate need of a shower, and a young, drunk French couple who had just been scammed out of two-hundred and fifty soles (about sixty pounds) for three drinks in a nearby bar.

The next morning after a hot, sleepless night being crawled over by flying bugs we decided we no longer like cities much and set off on the road again, this time for the more tranquil setting of a desert oasis. The ride took us directly along the coast through more varying desert landscapes and then onto a stretch of road lined with enormous popup billboards shouting out global brand names bizarrely contrasted by sprawling, tiny hut, desert communities sitting right beside them. We could only imagine that this part of the desert was where the relocated Dakar Rally may have run through as there is no other explanation for such extravagant advertising in so undeveloped an area.

We arrived in good time to Huacachina, just outside of Ica, and finally began to feel better, though only with the help of strong painkillers for the tooth. We took a walk about and clocked an equal number of Peruvian tourists as dread locked, linen trouser wearing Europeans. The next morning we sat under a palm tree beside the lake for a good few hours where a group of cheeky kids nicknamed Byron 'teacher' on account of the fact that he was reading a book that wasn't about Jesus Cristo. That afternoon we joined a dune buggy tour of the nearby desert and were treated by a mental driver, egged on by a bunch of screaming Argentinean girls, to a ride over the sand dunes that was not unlike a prolonged roller coaster ride but without the rails in a rickety buggy that cracked every time we went over a bump. The buggy stopped at a few dunes so we could go sand boarding which, since we hadn't taken any shoes and the sand boards were spitting out splinters and rusty nails, we discovered was a lot faster going down front first. We ended the trip by walking up the highest dune behind the oasis, learning just how unfit we have become, and watching the sun go down on the desert.

The next morning we were on the road again, heading inland towards Cusco. This ride took us through the Nasca desert and via the Nasca Lines. The lines are a series of ancient geoglyphs, the largest of which is over 650 feet wide, depicting mostly animals, trees and flowers drawn in the desert by shallow lines where the top, reddish gravel of the desert is removed to reveal whiter minerals underneath. Although the images were only discovered in 1927 by a hiker, it is believed they were developed between AD400 and AD650 by the Nasca culture and are of either religious or astrological significance. The most comprehensive way to view the Nasca Lines is to take an aeroplane over them but short of being able to afford the flight we came across a small viewing tower on the road through the desert. For a pound we could see the Hands and the Tree lines from the tower and got an appreciation of how amazing it is that the removal of so few stones to create the images has stood such a test of time.

The journey to Cusco was a long one and we broke it up with a night in Puquio, back up in the cold of the mountains where we stayed in a half built hotel that stunk of wet cement. We went for dinner in a nearby family run restaurant where, as in the rest of Peru, the whole family helped run the business, including all the children down to as young as six or seven. One thing that has stood out in this country, and most of the other Latin American countries we have travelled through, is how respectful the children are in families. We rarely see young kids playing up or crying in public and older kids are always helping out their parents, possibly because they don't have much choice but it has been refreshing to witness.

The next day we were back up on the altiplano at over fourteen thousand feet riding in bright sunshine past indigenous people watching their herds of llamas, alpacas, vicuña, sheep, cows, donkeys, horses, goats and pigs. The ride was once again majestic and despite the freezing cold when we were riding, a stop off in the sun to brew a cup of coca leaf tea felt positively tropical, under about five layers of clothes. It was on this road that we suffered the first casualty of the trip. Seeing a chicken ahead in the road we did what we always do and slowed down, beeping the horn a lot until it moves. This one though was literally playing chicken and didn't move until the very last second when Byron swerved to avoid it and it ran in exactly the same direction. A quick bump and flutter of feathers told us that its owners would be eating Pollo for dinner. After a long and winding ride we arrived in Cusco just as it began to get dark. A ride around the city in circles, up very steep, cobbled back roads eventually had us stopping at a hostel where we parked up, once again, in the lobby.

The next day we met up with Adam and Mackenzie (two Australian bikers doing the same trip) who we have always been a week or so apart from and hadn't seen since Nicaragua. We spent an entire day catching up with their travels, exchanging stories, grumbling over the same issues (crazy dogs, crazy drivers, crazy weather) and swapping tips. After exhausting the number of coffee shops we could visit in Cusco we eventually said our goodbyes with hopes to catch up again in Bolivia.

Early the next day we were on our way to Machu Picchu. Despite the extortionate expense we decided that we couldn't come this far and not visit the site so we took the hit and were on the first bus from Aguas Calientes at 5.30am no less, determined to at least get there before it was overrun with other tourists. Despite arriving in heavy cloud and walking for about an hour to the Sun Gate without seeing a thing, the clouds began to lift on our way back down and we were left in awe of such a spectacular setting. Although we had seen no end of photos, being at the site was a great experience and the outrageous cost was just about worth it. We explored as much of the site as we could and were it not for the ticket telling us we couldn't take food with us we would probably have stayed there all day. However our stomachs were calling and we pulled ourselves away to satisfy them. We went for a dip in the hot springs later that afternoon and found out why they sold the tickets far from view of the actual baths. We spent the next day exploring more of Cusco's coffee shops as the rainy season delivered its worst for most of the day.

Our next and final destination of Peru was Puno, sitting at over twelve thousand feet on the shore of Lake Titicaca. As with the rest of Peru, the ride was beautiful but this one turned cold and very wet towards the end, taking us through a hail storm and dropping us in the city freezing cold and soaking wet. It turned out there was a festival in Peru that weekend and we spent all night freezing cold listening to a terribly out of time and out of tune brass band practice the same song repeatedly under our window.

We took a walk about the city the next morning, making the most of the sun before the seasonal rains set in and ended up on the shore of Lake Titicaca taking a boat out to the Uros islands. There are forty-two floating islands about five kilometres from Puno and they are all man-made and inhabited by pre-Incan Uro people. The islands are constructed on the beds of reeds that grow in the lake and are then layered with over a meter high of reeds to create a secure platform which is anchored with rope to sticks that are stuck in the bed of the Lake. Houses, watchtowers and boats are all made from Lake Titicaca reeds and everything must be replenished constantly as the water quickly rots the reeds. The islands were originally defensive but have remained a way of life for the few hundred Uro who still live on them. It was fascinating to see and walk on the islands and although the flurry of tourists to these places can do harm, it is clear that the money it brings is keeping a lot of the residents from moving to the mainland.

Our last night in Peru was spent eating the national delicacy of Cuy (Guinea Pig) and Alpaca washed down with a new favourite, Mate de Coca (coca tea) before heading to a freezing cold hostel room and hoping for a good nights sleep. Tomorrow we will cross into Bolivia and set about finding out how to cross the Salar de Uyuni (salt flats) which we've heard have been closed off to travel due to bad weather. We're not so far from home after all!



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Comments

[Thor Anderson]

Great Stuff
Your ride blog has turned our to be a really enjoyable and informative adventure story. It's well worth considering publishing - it's so much better than most of the ride tales on the market. Keep it up and ride safe. Thor

[Samwel]

wizardLAD