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Published: July 29th 2015
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Distance driven today: 30km/19miles - in a tow truck!
Cumulative distance driven: 10,915 miles / 17,566 km
Today’s trip: From Lima’s Nana suburb where the bike suddenly died to our hotel
As we were returning yesterday late afternoon from our ride on the world’s highest railway and road, it happened. We were driving into one of the Lima suburbs, looking forward to getting to our hotel after a very long day, when the engine suddenly died. All attempts to restart it yielded no result. It was 6pm by that time, and Zoe and I had already been on the road for the last 10 hours, and we wanted nothing more than to arrive at our hotel in Lima, take a shower and crash out in our beds. The plan was to leave Lima early today, and head southbound. We quickly realized that we clearly weren’t going anywhere, and that we didn’t even know if/when we can continue our trip. As it turned out, we wouldn’t get back to our hotel for another 8 hours!
After pushing the bike into a side street, away from the heavy and noisy traffic on the main road leading into Lima, we
spent about an hour troubleshooting. I pulled out the motorcycle manual, tried to isolate various possible route causes, come up with reasonable hypothesis for the sudden stop, eliminated impossible causes, and generally tried to methodically diagnose the reason why the motorcycle engine would not start. Despite her tiredness, Zoe was equally calm, actively trying to help me reason through the situation. After I went through all the possible reasons I could think off, and performing various checks in order to detect the possible cause, I concluded that we unfortunately were dealing with an electrical issue, or most likely with some sort of electronic failure. Turning the ignition key on would only display partial pre-check readings on the main display, while the kill switch used to start the engine seemed to be completely powerless.
Facing a circuit or electronic circuit malfunction has always been my main concern during this trip, as I know that there is very little I can do to fix it, without having a trained and authorized technician around. Let alone trying to deal with it when it is dark outside, at a busy intersection along a noisy suburb 30km/19miles outside of Lima. Once we determined that
we would not going to be successful in starting the motorcycle, Zoe and I quickly decided to put together an action plan. I guess the project management experience I have accumulated during my work life, combined with the crisis management experience practices I learned when I studied emergency management during my doctoral work, came in handy. Our plan called for finding a tow truck to get us and the bike back to our hotel, where we could safely park the bike in the locked garage. The next step is to then tow the bike to an authorized BMW dealer who can diagnose the issue, and hopefully fix it.
But where do you find a tow truck when you don’t have a mobile phone, have pretty much no clue where you are and don’t even know the Spanish word for tow truck (we know now: it is called camión de remolque)? Zoe suggested we approach a police car that was parked at a nearby intersection patrolling the traffic. Two very helpful young policemen took an active interest in us and our stranded bike. They spent about 45 minutes calling around to locate a tow truck that
could come and pick us up. However, motorcycle tow trucks aren’t exactly common in Peru or Lima, let alone late in the night during a national holiday – it is Peru’s largest holiday as the country celebrates its Independence Day during 3 days, with all business and offices closed. Once the police officers finally found a tow truck, we were told that it would arrive around 10ish. Zoe and I left the motorcycle and our helmets in front of the stationed police car, while we went to a nearby restaurant to get dinner. We seized the opportunity during dinner to discuss the situation, assess our options, and generally to re-calibrate our expectations for the coming days. It was clear that we were not going anywhere for a while!
At around 11:30pm the tow truck finally showed up. It took a while to load the bike and to secure it on the flatbed. The tow truck, which had probably seen its best days back in the late 1980’s (!) had just one cam strap for securing the bike. The owner used ropes and an old chain, in addition to the only strap, to secure the bike; not exactly ideal for a securing a big and heavy bike for a long tow truck ride. But seriously, what option did we have at 11:30pm, outside a South American capital, after having been on the road for over 16 hours straight, and just having ridden down from one of the world’s highest roads junctions? Because of the poor way in which the bike was secured, and the age of the tow truck, it took over 2 hours to drive the 30km/19miles to our hotel. We arrived just before 2am, and by the time we had off-loaded the bike and parked it in the underground hotel parking, Zoe and I had been on the road (in one way or the other) for over 18 hours.
Unfortunately, the current Independence Day celebrations in Peru mean that all offices and businesses are closed until Wednesday. Our current plan is to tow the bike to the BMW dealer first thing on Thursday morning when they open and have the issue diagnosed. Depending on the nature of the problem, and how long it will take to fix, we will have to adapt the remainder of our trip accordingly. Having to wait for two days just to find out what’s wrong, and having no sense of a timeline for fixing it, is admittedly a bit frustrating (the least to say). Then again, it is part of the nature of a trip like riding the PanAmerican highway. In other words, as it looks right now, we are stuck in Lima for quite a few days before we know if, and hopefully when, we can continue towards Bolivia and Argentina.
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