Trans Americas 2009 - The Blog

Another morning that I woke up probably before I should, as an extra half an hours kip would not have gone amiss... but at least getting up at 5.45am when we have a 9am departure gives me time to catch up writing the blog (with no Internet it will have to wait until later to upload it). Breakfast was good, some nice bread and jam to follow the small omelette, which should keep me going for the rest of the day. With just a relatively short 170-odd miles to do there's no rush to leave, which is just as well as my bike won't start again. Rather than keep trying, I enlisted Jeff's help and we systematically check the plugs again and conclude that it is almost certainly a fuel supply problem. In order to get it running we pour some fuel directly into one of the cylinders and crank the engine again, and it finally kicks into life, settling into a steady tickover as though nothing was wrong at all...

When we're finally ready to leave I hook up with Aaron, who was kind enough to volunteer to wait with me until my bike was running. At least riding with him has the advantage that his GPS has good maps of Peru, but it still doesn't stop us riding the wrong way down several one-way streets as we head out of town. A few miles down the road we stop at Yungay, the site of Peru's worst earthquake disaster when in 1970 the Ancash earthquake caused a massive landslide that buried the village and most of its 20,000 inhabitants. Underneath clear blue skies and with the distant snow-covered mountain Alpamayo in the background it's hard to imagine such devastation affecting the area. All that remains now is a mound with a statue on, the ground consecrated as the mass grave of those that perished...








Leaving the rest of the group still taking pictures, Aaron and I forged ahead, the road leading past a few small villages where the local women wore splendid tall hats, like overgrown stetsons, and where the children, in their smart school uniforms giggled and waved as we passed. In the fields there were people working the land, bent double planting crops, and we saw at least a couple working oxen in muddy fields... Passing through this land that time forgot we rose higher into the mountains, climbing steadily on a pot-hole ridden road, joined by Simon who we passed in one town as he was trying to fathom out the way the road went, the town transformed by roadworks making the route notes useless. We climbed higher and higher, topping out at over 4,100m (13,500ft) where we stopped at a small wooden shack for a coffee. Walking down the street was a little old lady selling hot corn on the cob, for 1 sole a piece (about 20p) so we had to try some. It was odd tasting, not sweet like normal corn on the cob, but tasting more like potato with a hint of corn. Good, though...





As we were preparing to leave, several others pulled up so we encouraged them to buy some corn, the little old lady doing her best day's business in years...





We then left the others eating their corn and continued on our way, glad to be descending from the high altitude and cold air, the road winding its way quickly down the mountains in a series of well-surfaced bends, the riding much better than on the pot-hole ridden ascent. The views were simply stunning, the scorched brown mountains closing in on either side as the road followed the contours down to the coast, where it intersected the Pan Am.





Once we reached the Pan Am we headed north for a couple of miles to see the adobe brick fortress at Paramonga. This impressive structure covered a large area to the side of the Pan Am highway, overlooking the coast and spread over a number of nearby hills. The main fortress was built on several layers and occupied around 1200-1400AD. Aaron and I climbed to the top for some good views towards the town of Barranca where we're staying and back up to the mountains we'd ridden through this morning. When we were done and on our way down, we passed Simon and Richard & Karen who were on their way up, and when they reached the top they waved so I could take their photo... which gives you some idea of how big the fortress is...





Aaron and I then rode on to the town of Barranca, and when his sat-nav appeared to lose its way, I took over leading using mine as a guide, the compass feature pointing the way to the waypoint that marked the location of the hotel. What it didn't do was let me know the road I'd turned into was one-way, but I guessed as much by the tuk-tuks that careered towards us on both sides of the road. We played chicken for a while before turning off and working our way round the one-way system to the hotel, thankful that as driving standards are so poor, no-one seems overly upset when a couple of strangers on big bikes ride the wrong way through town... At the hotel we performed the usual routine of showering, phoning Tracy, emailing, and getting some local currency from the ATM, then I went for a wander round the local market before the others arrived. Dinner was in the chinese opposite the hotel, the food pretty good despite the rest of the town being pretty basic...

And so, off for an early night. With over 450 miles tomorrow to Nazca, I'll need plenty of sleep...