Dec 20, 2004
Northwestern Peru is about as ugly and desolate as a place can be. The last thing you see before crossing into Lima is a town half built in the sand, in a big bowl below the autopista into town. Dogs bark and you see the occasional person wander, but for the most part, the town is deserted and falling apart, the blowing sand blasting the bricks back into sand.
Lima goes from bad Mexican border town to nice place they only accept
dollars in about ten miles. Home to 8 million people, most of them drive taxis and like to cut motorcycles off in traffic. Due to the Latin American distaste for using the brakes or signaling a lane change in dense traffic, there are several traffic circles with the statue of the local hero or an angel with a trumpet, and the better traffic circles are surrounded by TGI Fridays, Chilis and Starbucks. Chinese restaurants, called Chifas, are everywhere, and they basically take the classic South American Arroz con Pollo,(rice and chicken) and add soy sauce.
Gas is almost $4 a gallon, if you want something the bike will actually run on, and most of the stations have female attendants who put it in for you. At the toll stations, the attendants wave us to the side, so we can bypass the booth and not pay. At one of their bypasses, I knocked a pannier off and Mark had to ride through the garden, and across the lawn in order to take the shortcut.
Northwestern Peru is about as ugly and desolate as a place can be. The last thing you see before crossing into Lima is a town half built in the sand, in a big bowl below the autopista into town. Dogs bark and you see the occasional person wander, but for the most part, the town is deserted and falling apart, the blowing sand blasting the bricks back into sand.
Lima goes from bad Mexican border town to nice place they only accept
dollars in about ten miles. Home to 8 million people, most of them drive taxis and like to cut motorcycles off in traffic. Due to the Latin American distaste for using the brakes or signaling a lane change in dense traffic, there are several traffic circles with the statue of the local hero or an angel with a trumpet, and the better traffic circles are surrounded by TGI Fridays, Chilis and Starbucks. Chinese restaurants, called Chifas, are everywhere, and they basically take the classic South American Arroz con Pollo,(rice and chicken) and add soy sauce.
Gas is almost $4 a gallon, if you want something the bike will actually run on, and most of the stations have female attendants who put it in for you. At the toll stations, the attendants wave us to the side, so we can bypass the booth and not pay. At one of their bypasses, I knocked a pannier off and Mark had to ride through the garden, and across the lawn in order to take the shortcut.
We are about 4400 miles from the end of the continent, and the Atacama desert and Chilean glacier fields await us. I am thinking about getting rid of my tent and tripod, and the ATV case I have on the seat behind me, to make the bike a little less susceptible to cross winds and to lower the center of gravity a bit.
At 2 PM I can pick up my laundry and will have clean clothes for the first time in two weeks. It will be nice not to smell and look like an English backpacker.
No comments:
Post a Comment