Peru I

Peru, period of

February:
17 - Piura
18 - Chiclayo
20 - Huanchaco
21 - Chimbote
23 - Caraz
24 - Huaraz
25 - Huacho
26 - Lima

March:
2 - Huancayo
3 - Huaytara



Peru... Land of many expectations....
You may recall in the previous post some comments I made about the driving behaviour of Ecuadorians. Well, Peru raised it to a whole new level. Whoever thinks Colombia is dangerous should come and drive in Peru.
But that´s not quite the first thing that hit us when we entered this famous country, it was the smell that literally hit us, and it came from kms upon kms of garbage littered along the highways, and the closer we were to a city , the bigger the heaps of crap, with kids playing in them, and dogs feasting on it as well. Lovely.

The houses also look like modern ruins, most don't have a roof, especially in rural areas, and it's full of walls with no apparent purpose. Generally, I couldn't figure out if a certain construction was in the process of being taken down, or built up. Whatever the case, that process was certainly no longer executing....Not very impressed so far, this better get better.


Not more than 200km inland we got our first police introduction. That´s the other thing Peru is famous for, crooked cops, and these ones didn´t disappoint. Except they´re not exactly smart or prepared (you´d think they´ve had plenty of trial and error exercise), and the excuses to get some bills from us were beyond ridiculous:
"you´re going too fast" (never mind the double-deckered buses blowing by at 120kph)
"no I´m not, 70kph in a 80kph zone" (I know cause I was busy taking pictures just before that)
"aah..but the speed limit for motos is lower, motos are very dangerous, you know.." (shit, this gringo speaks spanish)
"ya, ok...and where is the sign that shows the moto speed limit?"
"on a yellow sign, from where you came from"
"OK, lets go check it out"
"aaaaa...wait here please"
They all went to consult with the mafia boss across the road, where I was summoned shortly after and given another lecture on the dangers of speeding..swoooosh! another gigantic bus blows by, spreading dust, plastic bags and other shit on us. I give him a sarcastic smile, while Caroline starts shooting pictures of the scene!
Another minute of deep thinking and he gives me the papers back, "you´re excused this time!". We leave promising each other never to pay a cent to these assholes, we couldn´t believe how crude and ridiculous the whole thing was....

Not long after, we encounter these brave souls riding fully loaded on these tiny bikes. Reminded me of the movie "The Motorcycle Diaries". Great spirit!

The coast of Peru is a desert, a loooong stretch of sand, and definitely different than anything I had seen before, with big dunes, and a bit of a fresh air from the Pacific.

Of course I had to do my version of the Dakar, you can`t get to the desert and not try to ride on it!

Except, these bikes are gutless, even at sea level, and I couldn´t go faster than second gear in the sand.

Mission Accomplished!

Obligatory dune shots.

Another moment I had been waiting for, from watching motocross and rally shows on TV, wishing I was there to feel the heat, the sand, the excitement. Well, there was a lot of first two and a bit of the third :-)

As a friend of mine Adrian called it when he saw the video, Radu the Desert Lizard :-)


The first big-ish town we arrived in was Chiclayo, it was allright. We went to see the market, it was one of the biggest ones so far, lots of little alleys, and an overwhelming amount of merchandise,

Including love potions! There was even a sorcery section...

Just a funny sign, they import everything I suppose.

Next on the list was Huanchaco, a town by the ocean, with lots touristic ammenities. We first waisted a good 2 hours trying to find reasonable accommodations (without success) in nearby Trujillo. It was advertised in our guide book as "well preserved colonial", but it wasn't much left of that era, so we opted for the alternative beach town. We found a great cheap hostal with an enthusiastic owner, sold!

Next day we went to see the Chan Chan ruins, one of the biggest sites in Peru. Kinda interesting, except there was no info anywhere, we had no clue of what we were looking at. We were later told that this is how it works in Peru, you always have to pay a guide, it's the same everywhere.
Instead we had Dean, a crazy fun Italian we met back in Baños do the guide work, and we had a lot of fun that way ("to you rait a ston, and to your left e bigger ston")

Here we have a recreation of an enemy attack...

Another unique Peruvian curiosity is the bald dog. Yes, it looks straight out of a horror movie, but it's a real sweet dog and they are also useful, if you get past the looks. You see, they are the real "hot dogs" as in their temperature is a couple degrees higher than other dogs so they have had therapeutic jobs during Inca times (imagine wrapping that thing around you like an electric pillow)

The thing is, they are just like any other dog, except nobody touches them. So they really enjoyed our attention and they were very gentle.

Back to our hostel, guess who shows up all packed up like a mule? Our bikers from a few days ago with their small bikes. We thought they were locals with a Che Guevara dream, but in fact they were 2 German guys and an Italian girl that during their backpacker trip saw these Chinese 125's selling for $1000 in a Colombian store and decided to continue it the right way :-)
Great guys, we enjoyed spending the evening with them.

We all barely squeezed into the hostel's restaurant.

A church perched on top of the town's hill

Next evening was a reggae night, and this is the result....don't remember much the end.

On the way out I decided to try riding on the beach (another thing I always wanted but CSA robbed me of any opportunities)
However, it looks better on paper, and I got stuck...See video above.

Some more highway pictures

Further south near Chimbote, as we were preparing to engage in a difficult, long, hot canyon road, Canyon del Pato (at 2pm, that is), we meet these 2 riders coming the other way. We talked for almost an hour, they were from Belgium, and they were doing a similar trip, but going north. We were lucky to have met them, the road in front of us was a good 6-8 hours, we would have been stuck there in the middle of the night.

So we turned around, and restarted the next day, bright and early (at 9am....)

That beautiful tarmac soon changed into a hellish rock course and it was HOT!

Some rough cut tunnels

A small oasis in the middle of all this dry landscape

All this is giving me ideas

I was overheating so this felt like heaven...

In the background you can see an old road that was no longer in use for obvious reasons.

Not as impressive as seen with the naked eye, but still worth adding it.

a hydroelectric dam

Later on we arrived in Caraz where we put the bikes in the hotel lobby once more...

Another picture of a cute plaza, I'm sure people reading this blog had enough of them....

The background mountains were spectacular.

We wanted to do a small detour towards a Lonely Planet recommended destination, Parque National Huascaran, in the Cordilliera Blanca (access "road" at Yungay), and after a few kms it looked like this was going to be more than just a blip on our agenda. The views got better and better, with towering mountains on each side of the road, and white peaks in the distance. One of those is the Huascaran peak at 6768m!

And postcard-perfect picture. Ok, maybe not a very expensive postcard....
This is Laguna Llanganuco.

We stopped to eat some great local food (we sampled everything and it cost us a small fortune, she charged us for the samples as much as for the full deal)
The owner of this touristic llama was taking a nap under the tree, so I attempted some communication with the beast. You can clearly see she's not impressed with my antics, and I was expecting a spit any moment...

I touched a llama's ass!

They're soooo funny, with their decorations and goofy faces!!

We asked the local french volunteer slash park ranger what else we could see and she recommended we do the mountain pass we could see in the distance. "How long?", "Oh not long, maybe half an hour". I don't know why I still bother asking this question, people are crazy, they thing we have a rocket up our asses and we just fly over whatever terrain happens to be on the way. It ended up being more than an hour, and we went as fast as we could...

Beautifully coloured laguna, flanked by a perfectly vertical stonewall.

The views from up there were absolutely incredible, and apparently we were very lucky. The Belgian couple had the entire mountain range covered by clouds, and another biker we met there said he had been waiting in the area for a week to see the magnificent Cordilliera Blanca, and this was the first day it cleared. It is rainy season here after all.

This is on the other side of the pass, where the mountain looked very different.

Fresh snow..! Had to try it.

The zig-zag line in the background is the road going up the mountain, pretty cool.

A video of the ride down the pass. Caroline at her best.


Same lake from above

And probably one of the best picture of this trip so far.

A video of the ride back by the lake.

We then rushed to Huaraz, 60kms away, as it was getting dark.
Huaraz itself isn't much to see, but it's a great starting point to explore one of the most spectacular mountain ranges in the world.

Next day the plan was to make it to Lima. On the way out, we saw this river, aptly named Dry River. It was dry, sure, but not empty. In fact it was filled with garbage, a river of it, and dead dogs, and pigs feisting on whatever they could find....Yikes.

Hours later (and not much distance later, on a really bad road), we got our first introduction to the Altiplano, which is something that looks like a plain, but it sits at a lofty 4000m. It was bloody cold, and we stopped in a little town to warm up and eat some mountain trout.

...and fresh cheese!

We even had a little circus going, they were following my every move in unison.

Later in the afternoon, Paul, and BMW rider from Texas caught up with us (he has a true iron butt, he had left that morning from the same place we did, - a day before).

Amusing for the blog, but quite scary considering what he was carrying.....

Yes, that means "danger, fuel".
He even waved at us.

Monkeying around....

Paul is a funny guy and has an interesting work concept. He has a marketing company, and works while traveling. Every few days he stops and teleconferences the whole day. Not bad, ha?

We didn't make it to Lima, it was getting dark, and the cops were harassing us (and Paul was yelling at them), so we decided to stop in Huacho. BTW, no matter how much I try, I can't remember Peruvian city names.

"Welcome to my city, stranger, now pet me!"

They pimp out their rickshaws!
I remember well this town, because another ATM ate my bank card....Aaaaarg!!!

Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of the "grand" entrance to Lima. What a dangerous dump...We got bumped, yelled at (we yelled back, and almost burned my 139dB horn), and after another pathetic police attempt at extorting money, we made it to Miraflores, which is the sanitized rich quarter of the capital.
The hostel wasn't very cheap but we had a whole dorm to ourselves and met a another BMW rider. He was recovering from an accident months before that damaged his wrist (it was glued back crooked) and was now waiting for bike parts to arrive.

Caroline befriends with the Hostel's resident cat

Close to the sea, the city is permanently engulfed in a thick cold cloud, that makes beach-going a bit of strange activity...Nevertheless, the beaches were full.

The area was pretty ritzy.


A section of the cliff had a "lover's park" adorned with this encouraging sculpture.

No less than 20 tennis courts..! The bourgeois was out.

After geting bored with Miraflores, we decided to give Lima another chance and visit its centre.

Clinica "Good Hope". Only hope was left of this building..

Police services brought to you by the bubblegum-flavoured soda Inka Kola.

This was straight out of the Lion King cartoon. We now know price was a big factor at the auction

The traffic was absolutely MAD, see below for a movie.

In the main Plaza de Armas, an old crowd control machine was rusting away...we think it was still functional, but it was more amusing than fearsome..

Unique architecture in the main plaza.

Plaza San Martin.

We took the bus back to Miraflores, and it was an interesting challenge to understand how the system works. See for yourselves, it's a small miracle we made it....

Ok, time to leave, it's all too easy to linger away.

The Panamericana south of Lima is peppered with beach resorts and life-sized adverts. Some are quite ingenious.

They just cut the dune, what the hell, it's soft anyways.

Another dog in heaven. This one was as stiff as a branch when Caroline was rubbing him. This sentence could easily be taken out of context.

Days before we had met a dutch guy that lived in Peru and he highly recommended us a circuit that wasn't on any travel book or biker forum's to do list. Needless to say, we were very excited to take it, and it sure didn't disappoint. The road is mostly unpaved, but with the little traffic it had was in very good condition and it allowed us to spend more time looking up. And boy, was up beautiful! The access point is at Canete and goes up to Huancayo.
Here, some peasants cross this flimsy bridge ready to collapse with heavy loads on their backs, then up, up the hill.

We were a bit too optimistic about the distance we could cover that day, and found ourselves with the night falling in the middle of the boonies. About halfway to the next big city, I saw a sing on the side of the road about a touristic area, and it had all the cool icons backpackers like (bed, food, excursions, etc) I figured this was a developed resort of some sorts, so we decided to take the 8kms detour to it. Well, it was a rough one, and when we got there, it was just a cute little mountain town, with barely electricity. We did find a basic hostel (really basic), had some food in the only restaurant/convenient store, where kids gathered around us like you do when you go to the circus and see a three legged dwarf. They were cute though, and very uninhibited.

The next morning, a white girl shows up while we were packing and turns out she's a volunteer for an international organization (Peace Corps, I think) and just spent 4 months of a 2-year commitment to help the indigenous population , trying to balance their traditional way of living with a better awareness of environment issues.

I was very impressed with her commitment, way to go Kate!!

A kid watches us from a safe distance

The town, on the way out.

The area is very beautiful, and you can see the traditional way of cultivating on the slopes in "stairs"

They have doors so animals don't wander too far. There's easier ways,....

The rapids were fascinating, so violent.

Another water crossing, quite deep, Caroline wins again.


Another flimsy bridge, this time I walked it.

A little video of a nice section


An awesome place here, the top of the canyon was narrower than the bottom.

Back out in the open, Caroline finds some sheep dogs, and spends the next 20 minutes gaining their trust. It's not just the people that don't trust the gringo man...
But with food and lots of talking, she succeeds.

Soon it got colder, and with a looming rainstorm it was time to layer up. That requires a full strip, and I'd like to use to occasion to ask manufacturers of "high-end" motorcycle clothing, why do waterproofs sit under the jacket/pants??

The road continued to impress, with a high mountain pass on the side of canyons.

The road had lots of bike-sized rockslides.

Finally got a good shot of one these fancy intercity buses. These things are absolute monsters, they have lots of amenities (some advertised wireless internet !!) and they go 120-140kph. Greyhound can only dream of this.....Weird to see this in such a poor country.

We have no pictures for Huancayo, as it's a bland town and incredibly noisy, drivers are genetically attached to their horns, and they use them more often than they breathe, almost drove us insane. The motel was very crappy, too.

We left early the next morning (thanks cabbies!) and we stopped to take a break and grab a bite in Huancavelica. Immediately we got surrounded by a gang of shoe-polishing kids, and no matter what we said, they kept repeating their mantra, we only got rid of them when we entered the restaurant.

And the restaurant had on the menu an item I've been debating to try for a few weeks now, but the waitress assured me it was a local specialty and they took pride in preparing it well. So I gave into having the famed CUY, which is basically fried guinea pig (although it can be prepared in many different ways).
Tastes like chikin' only with less meat and more work....but what a great picture!

Some indigenous people thought a good place to take a piss is right by our bikes. We don't get much respect around here...

The road after that got really bad, but it made up for it with more awesome views.

The one lone sign on the entire road.

Fabulous views, this is why we came here!

Another shy shepherd dog, success again!

Every now and then, the road got really bad...

Another postcard-perfect picture.

Where am I going......?

The quintessential Peru!

The town in the distance was abandoned.

Many hours later we finally hit pavement, and it had a name, Ruta de los Libertadores, they were rightfully proud of it, it was great but at this point we weren't enjoying it all that much as it was getting dark, and the temperature dropped to 4 degrees Celsius.
We even got a glimpse of snow.

Riding at night is not something you should do in a place like this, but the sunsets are fantastic. We were above the clouds at this point, which you can see in the valley.

...And the valley had lights = town = sleep!!!
Nevermind that it took another half an hour to actually get there (lots of twisties)

Found a cheap hotel, and in the morning we were rewarded with clear skies and a great view of the valley from our hotel room.

Pretty poor maintenance record on this place

We were trying to figure out if they were still trying to build it (judging from the picture above, it was a looong project).

Main plaza had this on display, a record of the wonderful driving skills shown by our peruvian friends. The truck was practically new.

Nature takes over unfinished business.

Sun-dried meat, spiced up with fly spit (!!)

That's it for now, next is Peru Part II