The Altiplano: Nazca to Cuzco - Nov 18

We planned on leaving Nazca at 5:00 to see if we could reach Cuzco in a day. I was going to go with Doruk and Patricia, the Turkish/Peruvian couple staying at my hotel and riding the Chinese bike with the disappearing parts. It seemed like a good plan... after all the man at the hotel said it was light by then. Of course, I don´t think he was ever actually awake (or sober) at that hour, so why did we believe him? We finally got going at 7:30 when it was light, and pretty much had no chance of making Cuzco in a day.

I had read that the road from Nazca to Cuzco was one of the best motorcycle rides in South America, so I was really looking forward to it. It was a great ride... after the first 100 miles of pure crap and construction. It took us almost 5 hours to do the first 100 miles. We were told that the road was closed on the way to Puquio, but fortunately we were able to get through. We had enough delays without that.

THEN the road did get good. In fact it became fantastic. From Puquio we started climbing, and climbing, up to the altiplano (high plains) at more than 15,000 feet. This picture is some of the scenery in the lower altiplano... where there are still trees. Eventually these give out and there is nothing more than some small scrub and grass.

We passed through one of the national reserves at 15,000 feet, land only suited for llamas, alpacas, and vicunas. We saw herds of vicunas, and had to keep a sharp eye out to keep from hitting them in the road.




















Between the very high altitude and lack of sleep, at one point I was feeling VERY tired. It was becoming impossible to concentrate on the road, and I know that at that time I have to stop for a while. I told Doruk I needed a 10 minute nap. He said he wasn´t tired and would just sit and wait for me. We pulled off the road and laid down on the dirt. Within about 2 minutes all three of us were sound asleep. Patricia woke first (after about 45 minutes) and said that cars -- the few that there were -- were honking because they thought we were dead at the side of the road! At that altitude there is about 40% less oxygen, and it really takes it out of you. My bike also feels the altitude.

At about 5:30 we stopped for gas and I decided to stay the night in Chalhuanca. Doruk and Patricia went on, as she wanted to visit her ex maid in the next city. I had no interest, and didn´t want to be driving in the mountains after dark.

The next day was more beautiful scenery. While the altiplano can really appear (and often is) bleak and barren, it can also be absolutely spectacular.

At one point I was pulled over on the side of the road having a drink and another motorcycle went by. He turned around and came back to say hello, and it turned out it was Fraser, a Brit I had been corresponding with by email, but had never met. Small world. We rode on to Cuzco together and spent the next two days together while I waited for Karen to arrive.

Nazca... Strange Lines in the Sand, and Mummies - Nov 18

My last stop in the lowlands before heading up through the altiplano (high plains) was Nazca, famous for geometric lines and figure drawings in the desert. Nobody really knows who or why these were created, and theories range from pre-historic civilizations practicing religious rituals to alien beings who left landing instructions and pictures of things they saw.









I took a short (too short... half hour) flight to see for myself, and still have no idea. I am, however, leaning towards the aliens and I think that that is why the Men in Black (posing as Secret Service) were in Pisco.



However, you decide for yourself.

Outside of Nazca, I went with a biker couple from Lima and Luz, a woman from Santiago who was on the plane with me, to visit the pre-Incan tombs at Chauchilla. This was about a 20 mile ride on pavement, followed by a 5 mile jaunt through the desert sands. I had no trouble with the sand, but the couple from Lima were on a little Chinese made bike and pieces kept falling off into the desert. Quality Pays!



The tombs themselves were dug into the ground, the inhabitants mumified, and were well preserved due to the absolute lack of humidity.

Next stop, high into the Andes to visit Cuzco, Machu Pichu, and Lake Titicaca.

Pisco, Isla Ballestra, and the Sand Dunes at Huacachina - Nov 13 - 16

Pisco, Land of Liquor and Critters

Pisco, while famous for the liquor of the same name, is presently not a very interesting place. One of the main reasons is that they had a 7.9 earthquake last year, and much of the city was destroyed. Fortunately, there is still enough pisco (the liquor, not the city) left for a few million pisco sours. I´m trying my best to reduce that amount significantly as I travel through the rest of South America.

The week after I was in Pisco was to be the APEC meeting in Lima. Laura Bush was supposed to make a trip to Pisco, so from time to time I would see a strange guy in a dark suit and sunglasses (even at night) with an earphone. It was either the Secret Service, or Men in Black. I´m not sure which, but then again I´m not sure there really is much difference between the two. In any event, I felt quite safe... both from George W. and any other alien beings that might have been in town.

Pisco is also the jumping off place for Isla Ballestras. This is a ¨mini Glapagos¨ according to the tour operators. While that is typical tour hype, it is a good place for seeing (by boat) a significant sea lion and bird rookery.

The sea lions seemed to have been warned of our coming... or else they can tell time since all the tourist boats come at the same time. Several hundred came out to welcome us.

The pelicans also choose this area as a breeding ground, and there must be a million there.

Unfortunately for the pelicans, but fortunately for us, they must share these rocks with their mis-placed cousins from Antarctica... the penguins. Penguins near the equator, you ask, you must be kidding.

But nay, I´ve encountered these little guys before while diving in the Galapagos. I can hardly wait to meet their big cousins in Patagonia.

From Sea Lions to Sand Dunes... on to Huacachina

From Pisco I kept on through the desert to Huacachina, a true oasis. There is a small lake fed by underground springs, that creates this oasis among some of the highest sand dunes in the world (500 meters / 1600 feet).

There seem to be two major sports in Huacachina. One took place nightly in my hostel and involved salubrious amounts of Pisco. The hotel had a nightly BBQ for about $6, which included food and an unlimited quantity of Cuba Libres or Pisco Sours. For the backpacking kids traveling on a budget this was the equivalent of a Michelin 5 star experience, if they could remember it in the morning.

The other sport was sandboarding, like snowboarding but warmer.

Lima: Flying High...On A Kite 11/10/08

OK, so sometimes I just have to do it... whatever "it" is. So there I was in Lima, staying with my friend Jim Sanford. I met Jim in Canoa, Ecuador and he invited me to stay with him. He has a beautiful apartment right on the water. He also likes to fly paragliders... basically a big kite that you hang from and jump off a cliff. Fortunately (for Jim) he can do this off the cliff right in front of his apartment. It being a beautiful Sunday in Lima, we walked along the park and watched all the paragliders sailing through the sky.

Now you have to understand, yours truly is Afraid of Heights. Like, seriously freaked. But that bothers me, so sometimes I just have to do stuff to get over it. Like, yesterday, hanging from a kite 600 feet off the ground. This is not something one does alone when one (certainly not this one) doesn't know what they are doing. You go in tandem with a supposedly seasoned professional. So, after a bit (ok, much) convincing by Jim I just had to give it a try. Here are the results:

First, the takeoff. It's easy: You just hang this kite off your back and walk off a 300 foot cliff. (Then you brown your shorts)

Then you sail all over the cliffs and the ocean. You also try REALLY hard to avoid the buildings. My pilot happened to like the updrafts from the buildings, so we did a lot of really close inspection of many of Lima's finer apartments for sale... generally through the 20th floor windows. These guys can go forever with the right wind, but I was only up for about 20 minutes (although it seemed like much longer).

Landing, of course, is another matter. You just hold on and hope to hell you don't go over the

edge!

Finally, we made it back to earth and I could breathe again. Marco, my pilot, was back up with another tourist two minutes later.


Did I get over my fear of heights... Nah! But can't let that keep me on the ground.











The rest of my Lima visit was somewhat anticlimactic, although Jim and I had a great time. I also got a lot of work done on the bike, along with some new tires to get me through the next stretch of the trip. But enough of the big city, time to get back into the desert!

Trujillo: Colonial Town, Ruins, Sand, Colombians and Hairless Dogs - Nov 6

From Chiclayo I went for hours across more desert. Instead of staying in Trujillo the first night, I followed the Lonely Planet´s advice (easy to take with a grain of sand here in the desert) and headed for nearby Huanchaco at the beach. Why wasn´t I surprised when the weather turned cold and windy. The town was pretty much deserted, so the next day I rode on to Trujillo proper.

Trujillo is another old colonial city, but this time there were some really interesting color patterns thrown into the already very interesting architecture. All in all, it´s a very pretty city.

The next day I rode out to visit Chan Chan, another old pre-Inca city. This one is different than most, in that it was build entirely of adobe (mud and straw), while the other ruins I had seen were stone. It is a huge complex, which they are working to resore.

Meet the Colombians

At Chan Chan I was approached by three Colombian guys and a Peruvian who asked me about my bike and my trip. Turned out the Colombians were also heading for Tierra del Fuego on motorcycles. Unfortunately, one of them had had one of his bags come open on the desert detour from Chiclayo and had lost all of his documents (passport, bike registration, etc.). As it turned out, he wasn´t able to get them replaced in Lima and had to go back to Colombia. The others went on, but we lost contact. Asi es la vida.

We spent the day and evening together and had a great time. We went over to the Peruvian´s (Talo) house, ate, and played around on his 4 wheel ATVs. Turns out his kids (ages 4 and 6) are absolute hotshots on these things. Yours truly, however, was not. But it was fun. You can never have too many toys!

Bald Puppies

Also at Chan Chan I met my first Peruvian hairless dogs. This is not a joke. These dogs are bald as a billiard ball. Friendly, intelligent, but ugly as sin. Kind of feels like petting a piece of leather, or cuddling up with an old football. It has been suggested that this breed would be the perfect First Puppy for Obama´s family since his daughter is alergic and they are hypoalergenic. But did I mention UGLY?

Next, on to Lima.

Chiclayo, Desert Odyssy, and Cops: November 4 - 5

Living in Panama has given me a real appreciation for quality driving. Panamanians are wonderful, friendly people until they get behind the wheel. Then they turn into complete maniacs who will do anything to get 5 feet ahead. But compared to the drivers in Peru they are absolutely fantastic! In other words, Peruvian drivers make the Panamanians seem like Canadians (¨You go, eh.¨ ¨No please, you go first.¨ ¨No please, after you, eh.¨) . The Chiclayo drivers are some of the worst in Peru, and arriving in Chiclayo was a bit of a nightmare, but eventually I found a hotel in my price range that had parking. This is always a major consideration for me, and is often difficult especially in city centers.

The major attraction of Chiclayo was actually in the adjacent town of Lambayeque: The museum of the Lord of Sipan. This was a series of tombs from the Moche culture that were found in 1987, and had not been raided. The tombs contained both the bodies of the Lord of Sipan, and those who were ¨volunteered¨ to accompany him into the next life, as well as many objects of ceramic, gold, and jewels. It´s Peru´s version of finding King Tut´s tomb, and every bit as impressive.

Odyssy in the Desert

Leaving Chiclayo on the Panamericana, I soon came to a roadblock and was told that the bridge was out. I would have to take a detour through the desert. You have to realize that I had now hit the vast expanse of Peruvian desert that I would deal with for the next few weeks. All of Peru´s coastal area is sand... lots and lots of sand. And it extends from Chiclayo all the way to Chile! Miles and miles (and more miles) of empty sand!

Finding the detour was tough enough. Of course there are no signs, you just keep asking enough people and eventually you find the detour. And then begins a dirt/sand track of about 25 miles through the desert. It would have been tough enough given the ¨road¨, but the trucks made it a nightmare. Basically, because of the trucks in front of you visibility was about 10 feet. Couldn´t see, couldn´t pass, and couldn´t breathe! By the time I came to actual pavement (more than an hour later) I looked like I had been dropped in a vat of talcum powder. Then it was a few more hours of more desert to get to Trujillo.

As an aside, a few weeks later I met a couple of Brits who had come to the same roadblock. A couple of kids told them that they could get past the bridge if they rode their bikes down the stairs and back up the other side of the dry river bed. They tipped the kids a buck and that´s just what they did. Boy, was I pissed when I heard that! But then, of course, I would have missed out on a good story. And more desert scenery, which actually was in some ways spectacular (although I did get my fill of it.... but I still have the entire Atacama desert in Chile to ride through).

A Note on Cops

I had been warned (common knowledge among bikers who read the web sites) that the cops north of Lima were the most corrupt in the country. Up to this point I had had nothing but good experiences with police in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. I was frequently stopped at police check points (and just as frequently waved through), but usually the police were just bored, curious, and pretty friendly. The questions were always the same: Where are your from? Where are you going? How big is the motor? How much does your bike cost?

These guys even wanted their pictures taken with me. It also doesn´t hurt if I tell them I used to be a cop.

I have only had one experience on this trip with a cop actually trying to get a bribe from me. The conversation went something like this (and by the way, I wasn´t speeding... I knew that the cop was there and was following a truck doing exactly 60 kph):

• Cop: You were speeding
• Me: No I wasn´t. I was doing 60 kph just like the truck in front of me
• Cop: The speed limit is 45
• Me: No it´s not, I just saw the sign and it says 60
• Cop: There´s another sign that says 45 over there
• Me: That may be, but you had a big truck pulled over there blocking the sign
• Cop: I can confiscate your license until you pay the fine
• Me: That´s fine, but I wasn´t going any faster than allowed
• Cop: Well, give me some gas and I´ll let you go
• Me: I can´t, I only have enough gas to get to Trujillo
• Cop: There´s a gas station down the road. You can get more there.
• Me: I don´t have any more money. I need to go to an ATM in Trujillo
• Cop: Get the hell out of here.

It´s a game. Kind of like bargaining with the vendors. Most of the cops have been great, but occasionally you have to play the game with them. so far I´m up on points. Let´s hope it stays that way.

Next stop, Trujillo.

Northern Peru and the Amazonas Province - Nov 1 - 3

Well, I´ve been on the road now for seven weeks, but only 3200 miles. That´s what happens when you take it slow and try to experience the countries... not just get through them. Just like I planned. I´ve met several bikers who are doing a similar trip much faster, and I don´t envy them. Getting to know the people and places is definitely the way to do it.

On November 1 I entered the Amazonas province of Peru. This isn´t really the jungle part of Peru, but leads to it. The conditions pretty much sucked... more rain, road construction, and a lot of mud. Eventually I arrived in Chachapoyas, in the mountains.

Chachapoyas is (another) pretty little colonial village, but with a lot of pre-Incan history. On Sunday I took a tour to Kargia to see the sarcophagi (burial sites) left by the Chacha people before the Incan invasion. The tour consisted of yours truly, a Japanese guy who didn´t speak much Spanish, our guide, and the taxi driver. It was about a two hour car ride to the site, and given the steep road, dirt, and an abundant amount of mud I was glad I wasn´t on the bike. Anyway, the tour only cost eight bucks... well worth it for not having to deal with the terrain.

After we arrived at the nearest village we had to hike a couple of kilometers to the site itself. Steep and muddy, just like the road.

While we were struggling and slipping through the slime a local family passed us by. I don´t know if they have claws on their feet, or just suction cups, but they certainly passed us like we were standing still.

Finally we got to the burial site itself. In many ways it reminded me of the Toraja burial sites on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia that Karen and I had visited. The Chacha buried their people high up in the cliffs. Anthropoligists theorize that they must have lowered themselves down from the top of the mountain. Then they placed the bodies (at least of the rich people) in elaborate anthropomorphic sarcophagi. The poor (of course) were buried in much more modest graves.

These sarcophagi are about 9 feet tall.

The next day I decided I had enough of the rain and mud and took off for what I hoped would be a bit better climate in Chiclayo. I had to leave Chachapoya early because they closed the road at 7:30 am for construction and didn´t open it again until 4:30 pm. So it was an early start in the rain and the mud, a quick stop for breakfast after the road-block site, and finally some good road and weather when I got to Jaen. What a pleasure... dry pavement all the way to Chiclayo!

Goodby Ecuador, Hello Peru - October 31

My favorite poem, and what I think has always been my philosophy of life, is Robert Frost´s ¨A Road Less Traveled¨. And that´s what I decided to do to get from Ecuador to Peru. Not necessarily smart, but definitely more interesting.

Most people cross the border at Macaras, but I decided to take a 200km dirt road from Vilcabamba to Las Balzas.






It wasn´t a bad day, but definitely the physically hardest riding I had done. 200km of winding, steep, dirt with a couple of streams and mud stretches thrown in for good luck. Oh yeah, and did I mention the fog?





During the 9 or 10 hours it took me to get to Peru I think I saw about 5 other vehicles. This was definitely the middle of nowhere. But the scenery was spectacular

Finally I arrived at the Peruvian border. For those of you used to crossing into Mexico or Canada, this is not like those border crossings. First of all, there is nothing there. A couple of huts, and that´s it.

On the Ecuadorian side, I had to wait for the customs officer to come back from Peru, where he had gone for lunch. OK, it´s just across the bridge, but it sounded a bit strange to me.

Now, the border crossing itself is interesting.

First, you have to realize that I had just ridden in on what was essentially a narrow, dirt cowpath (in the background of the picture above). On the other side of the border, into Peru, was an equivalent piece-of-crap road. But joining these two, at the border itself, was a beautiful, two-lane paved highway that must have stretched for all of 200 feet! Some government official must definitely have a brother in the bridge construction business!

I asked one of the people at the border why they had built this miracle of modern engineering to join these two horse trails. The answer: ¨Maybe for when they pave the roads.... like in 50 years!


The Peruvian side of the border was equally impressive. It took a while to go through immigration because the immigration official had gone home to take a shower. Since I needed to get to the next town with a hotel before dark, I was forced (with the help of a local guy who was obviously guarding the bridge) to roust him from his shower to come and stamp my passport.

I finally made it to San Ignacio where I spent the night. Paved road in the morning... something to look forward to!

Vilcabamba: Last Stop in Ecuador - Oct 28 to 31

Leaving Cuenca was a pleasure... at first. About an hour of nice flat paved road. And then, of course, it all turned to crap . Construction, mud, wet roads, and fog.

Are you seeing a pattern here? Welcome to South America.

At one construction site I stopped and imagine my surprise to see a clone of my bike... same model, same color, same panniers: A true twin. Now, most of us doing the South American loop on a motorcycle tend to have something of an idea about who else is on the road through various web sites. We use these to give and get information, and meet up with other riders. So I was somewhat shocked to see a tall gringo woman that I hadn´t heard about standing next to the bike.



Sylvia Owen is a dermatologist from Montana, and had left Montana at about the same time I left Panama, so she was really hauling! When the construction site opened and they motioned us to continue, on we rode. Unfortunately, they had jumped the gun a bit and there was a string of dump trucks backing up on the one- lane road. We pulled over, a ditch and cliff to our right and trucks to our left, to let them pass (missing by inches). It was fine for the trucks, but then came a flatbed loaded with a bulldozer.

This caught Sylvia´s bike and I could hear her screaming in fear that she was going to be pulled under the truck. I was stuck and couldn´t do anything but blast my horn until finally the truck stopped after dragging her about 10 feet. Needless to say, she was more than a bit shaken. I persuaded her to come with me to Vilcabamba to ¨decompress¨, and on we rode.




Vilcabamba is a small village noted for the longevity of it´s people. It is a beautiful, tranquil place in the mountains. The hotel (Hotel Izhcayluma) was excellent, and the German owner Peter does a great job. I´m not a super fan of German food, but in this case the fare was excellent.








We also met Joseph and Doro, a German couple driving the most outrageous vehicle I have seen. Their ¨camper¨ was obviously made by the same company that made Rommel´s tanks, and they had driven it around the world for the last three years. I ran into them again in Peru... it´s hard to miss this thing.






Sylvia left after a day, and I stayed on. I´m getting really good at decompressing... not easy for what Karen calls a super-type-A personality. Oh well, I´m trainable, although I did have a bit of bike repair to keep me busy.

Cuenca: A Real Gem - October 24 - 28

Guayaquil failed to impress me (big, dirty, uninteresting), and so I left after a day there. The ride to Cuenca was a particularly tough one; OK, it was a holy bitch! After the first hour I headed into the mountains and the road got BAD. As I hit the cloud level it was foggy and wet, slippery mud, with visibility about 10 feet. I was able to average about 15-20 mph. At one point traffic was stopped for about an hour waiting for a construction site to be cleared, but we were all entertained by watching the boulders roll down the hill from where they were working up above. The word of the day was ¨DUCK¨. Then of course they had to clear the road.

The road kept climbing for hours, eventually reaching a pass of more than 13,000 feet. For those of you not used to driving at this altitude, engines need oxygen to work... and there isn't much there. The bike loses a lot of power at that altitude. It was COLD! In might be near the equator, but altitude trumps latitude every time.

I finally started back down the hill and into the Parque El Caja s (more on that later) and the scenery was spectacular.

Eventually -- cold, tired, and more than a little dirty -- I reached Cuenca.

Cuenca is a very nice colonial city of about a half million people. The central area has many beautiful old buildings, along with the obligatory dozens of cathedrals.

Part of what made Cuenca fun was the group of "kids" (aren't they all these days) that I met: Sandra (German), Markus (German) and Robin (Belgian).

Sandra and I went hiking in Parque Nacional El Cajas, an area I had ridden over on my way to Cuenca. Hiking at that altitude isn´t easy ( actually, it´s fine if you don´t need to breathe), but the scenery is incredible.

There's an old village in the park that use to be a way-station for travelers going from Guayaquil to Cuenca 150 years ago when the trip took about a month. Now it's maintained as a kind of museum, although we couldn't get in until we found a caretaker with a key.

Part of the village is underground... this was also a silver and gold mine. One of the more interesting rooms was the bathroom. An odd assortment of skeletons, stuffed snakes, and even a toilet!

Sunday, I went with the ¨kids¨ to the market at Gualaceo. This is a small town about an hour by bus (and 60 cents in cost) from Cuenca. A typical local market, but I always find these interesting.

The highlight was going to lunch in the municipal market building. There were different section s for different types of food. We opted for the roast pig, and I´ll tell you that for $2 we feasted. Crispy skin, tender meat, and appropriate accompaniments. Mmmmm.

And I was even told that it was guaranteed kosher (I think that´s what they said. Although it could be that ¨quosheir¨ means something completely different in Quechua... like maybe ¨taking dirty money and pulling pork with the same hand gives the meat better flavor¨, or something like that.

The next day we went to Baños, not the famous one, but a village near Cuenca. While we weren´t impressed at first with the facilities (just looked like a swimming pool, with some steam rooms up above), it turned out to be a great day. We sat around in the hot pool while it pissed rain all afternoon. Met some very interesting local people who always come on Mondays. Why Monday? Because they clean the pool on Sunday night. Good reason! There was also a fun group of Ecuadorians in the steam room. About 12 raucus, middle-aged businessmen who also come every Monday and spend the afternoon sweating and drinking. Sandra was excluded (men only steam room), but Markus, Robin, and I had a good sweat and a great time. No pictures permitted!