leaving lima

finally left lima after staying a few extra days....view of cityscape from coast road, even desert looks like rain

plan was to go to nazca and see the lines then head over toward cuzco and macchu picchu. ride out was good start and mostly desert sand dune-mountain riding...good road , good time making. got about an hour from nazca and things turned a bit odd.....first some dude laying naked in the sand along side the road-freak... then pulled in for gas and simons clutch cable broke...shite stranded. what now. saw a truck and asked him to put the bike in back he said ok for $20. done. loaded up the bike and off. luckily it was all close to a town as the rest of the ride had been pretty desolate. got to dealer and he had plenty off cable, thread it in and all fixed in about 10 minutes and charged $1.25....funny how things can go from total stuck one minute to fine the next......

fixed the cable right in front of shop, muchas gracias

road along coast part of the way and stopped for a break near this....1000´s of seaguls beach

lima

Feels like 2 cities.....MiraFlores/surrounding area modern and the rest of Lima. contrast in this 10mil pop. is not manhattan to ghetto, its manhattan to trash dump in ghetto.... exaggerating there are beautiful 500 year old buildings everywhere but its incredibly dirty and MF is only area that feels safe enough to go out at night.
Driving…. a treat like every other city…..aggressive lunatics. so strange because everything else about latin america lifestyle moves at a snails pace. next to me a semi reversed on the interstate smashing into one car pushing it 10 feet back into the next for another 20ft. Why? Who knows. I have been trying to figure out why the mad driving in all of the countries and the only thing I can come up with is lack of intelligence. I read that the average iq of latin americans is the same as north american teenagers….true or not I don’t know but if that is the case it would explain the mad driving.....adults with teenage driving mentality. ...donkey or llama?ride out of the mountains and over to lima lead to great ocean views cut into sandcliff coastline road…. When arrived to mf right away noticed two things…great night life….. and police everywhere for APEC trade meeting with world leaders…even bush is here (though most Peruvians would prefer it be obama as they all go off when I say im from US.) Too bad they’re not talking OPEC…peru could use the price of gas lowered. Paid $6.30 gallon for 95 octane today, highest price of trip. been here for a few days, oil chang in the morning and back on the road

colorful suburbs.... modern and old city

staying just off kennedy park...lot of art sales chicken and rice for seemingly 75 straight days.......eyes lit up when i saw this mcdonalds and attacked it!

nogringoland

Why everyone looking at me like an alien? attention is kind of flattering but it gets old quick when everyone doubletakes then rambles something to whoever they are with or points with a smile and nudges a friend telling them to look…..the last few days I have been in central peru way off the beaten track. off road and gravel riding up and across the mountains stopping in tiny towns where I am pretty sure Im the only gringo they have seen in person or one of just a few in their lives. What clearly stands out the most is my heigth…If there was a pick-up bball game I would dominate… crushing every attempted shot back into their starring little heads! I am a giant up here! People look with friendly faces most of the time, occasional “aloe hi are u” picked up from tv. they have Tvs up here? Yep, satellite at the one village restaurant always blasting at full volume. pure truth…latin america does not like silence… ever. Music, tv, horns,… whatever noise its always cranked up.
back to village freak for a day… (maybe its because i park the bike inside)

it’s a strange feeling when people spot you out as different, stare, point, giggle, whatever…at the beginning of the day its ok, by the end….enough and turn that shite down.

riding is incredible but in altitude this high the bike doesn’t have its usually power. Some of the road conditions have definatley pushing my skill level on big bike….good practice for Bolivia where they say the roads are sand horse shite. simon goes down...
Highest point reached just under 15,000 ft. getting off the bike to take a picture is like running a marathon.

After crossing rugged peaks you get into mountian highlands with zigzagging roads and no life in sight, complete away from everything like I remember feeling on fishing boats. Admittedly after a few days I was glad to start seeing civilization again on the way back down even if its generally filled with garbage stank smells, horns blasting for no apparent reason, however I am starting to think there is a code. 1 for watch out, 2 beeps for need a taxi? Three beeps for hot chick walking, and programmed tune beeps for im bored with nothing to do but honk for no reason.
they still point… just not as much. one of these dogs is doing his own thing....they didnt want to play with him because as lambs go, he just wanted to buck and headbutt

and i thought i was getting old

spent my birthday in a 10,000bc city.

( some say, others 1000ad... who knows)
Chan Chan doesn’t have the sex appeal of other ruin areas ive visited on the trip but it blows them away in terms of historical dating. Chan Chan is pre-Incan inhabited by Chimu people. who lived there for 11000 years until discovered by the Incans who then conquered. ruin area is huge covering miles of ground and very simplistic in its nature. located about 300 yards from the ocean…. pretty smart to have an irrigation system in the city way back thenchimu were water people…..evident in their architecture where the x designs represented fish nets and borders of fish, seals, and seabirds on almost every wall.

They are still excavating a lot of the grouds. site was discovered in 1890.

kept thinking star wars movie..... luke skywalker came walking down a corridor

Went to Huanchaco, a surf town about 10 minutes from Trujillo, Peru afterward for a few beers and some beach. popular tourist destination...lots of bikinis.
They have traditional chimuca boats that ae weaved out of straw grass... people still use to fish with, like a kayak but knee or stand on
Back to Trujillo, beautiful 1500 Spanish style city, second biggest in Peru and found an English style pub to finish off the day. Tomorrow back into the Andes....