Huanchaco to Barranca, Peru, 330 miles
After our stay in Huanchaco, I thought about rewriting Amie’s Peru slogan “land of goats and garbage.” How could such a magical land have such a shitty slogan? Well, no sooner than when we left Huanchaco, I realized it had to stand (but maybe we could drop the “goat” part). Trash is everywhere. The stench of burning garbage (with a hint of rotting fish and sewage?) was thick in the air. This place sucks! Everywhere people are, is filthy and ugly. Everywhere people are not is barren and completely devoid of life. No birds. No plants. Nothing. It was surreal and beautiful, but as soon as we turned a corner back into civilization, it was back to a stinky dump.
We had enough of sand dunes and wind and thought turning into the mountains would be a good idea. We left the hotel before Adam was ready and agreed to meet in Huaraz. We never made it. The road off the coast deteriorated fast and before we new it was gone completely. This was 1.5 hours in. When I asked how much further we had to go on dirt road, a senor responded with 140km (about 85 miles). Seeing how we were moving at about 20mph, and it was 2pm, we’d never make it before dark. Too make it even more challenging, we were told it starts to rain in the mountains around 3pm. Feeling defeated, we turned around and road the 1.5 hours back to the coast—back to the wind, and the stink.
The bike was thrashed by the wind, blown from lane to lane; lucky for us there wasn’t much traffic. I tried to explain to Amie that the faster we go the less the wind will move us, but she wasn’t buying it… so we were stuck at around 60mph for hours…. On long, sandy, straight road.
For some reason in Ecuador at high altitude I was getting great gas mileage, like 50mpg. Yeah, it was a lot of down hill (the bike came off the plane at 10,000 feet above sea level) but still it was great gas mileage. Now, I think I’m getting like 30-35mpg. Maybe it’s the headwind, or passing the trucks, but I burned through half a tank of gas in less than 100 miles (33mpg). I mention this because the gauge read empty while we were in the middle of no-where. Amie was kind enough to point this out just as I was trying to figure out how to tell her we were going to run out of gas in the land of the sand people. We got in our most wind-resistant crouch, crossed our fingers and toes, and kept the RPMs low. We killed the engine and coasted on the declines; we were pulling out all the stops… I knew roughly how far we had to go for the next town and it was tight. I was doing the math over and over in my head... Just then, a cop standing on the side of the road motioned us over. No problem I thought, cops have been so friendly. Famous last words.
Before they could say anything I said, very concerned “How far for gas?! I’m completely out!” They didn’t care. These two sleazeballs wanted $$$. One guy asked for my license and passport. Another called me over to the car. I noticed the extra long pinky nail (tell-tale cocaine abuser sign) and was convinced this was a shakedown. Holding my passport and driver’s license the “officer” pulled out a little handbook and opened to an ear-marked page with the following highlighted in Spanish: “Not respecting the speedlimit is an infraction with the penalty of S/360. The drivers license is to be with held until the penalty is paid.” Now I don’t know if this is legit or not, but s/360 is like $120 and I don’t think any of these sand people can afford that. He proceeded to tell me I was 6km over the speed limit and his friend down the road had me on radar and called him on his cell phone. !?!? So much BS I had a hard time keeping a straight face. He filled out a piece of paper in his best effort to make things look official. Then he gave me back my passport and said I wouldn’t get my license until I paid the $120. I had no problem with this as I have 3 drivers license (I thought ahead!), but since these guys are so corrupt I was concerned if I just drove away he would call his other buddies down the road and the whole thing would happen again. I opened my “dummy wallet” (which has only the cash I need for the day in it) and showed him $16 and said that’s all I have. He said I must have more, traveling as I am. I told him I had a mastercard and used western unions. He bought it, but was clever enough to come up with “ OK, give me the $16 and we’ll follow you to a gas station that excepts credit cards and you can give us 10 gallons of gas. And that will cover your ticket and you can be on your way.” I was trying not to laugh as I thought, can this “police officer” be serious?! Can he think I believe that I can pay off my ticket by buying him gas?? Insane. Anyway, I said, “Hmmm… I would rather just take the ticket, get a hotel here in town, cause its getting late, and deal with this at the court house tomorrow. I would rather pay the fine, then give you gas. That doesn’t seem very official to me.” This made the other cop uncomfortable and he walked away from the car and called someone on his cell phone. Then Coke-Pinky said “Hmmm.. Let me call the General and ask him if we can let you off for $16.” He picked up his cell phone, hit some buttons, and had a conversation with what I believe was a dead line. “Yeah, uh huh, he says he has $16. Yes, he is sorry. Ok. Ok. I’ll let him go this time with a warning…” All BS. I wanted to choke the guy at this point, but hey, they have the guns. $16 isn’t the end of the world. I wanted to take down his badge number and the ticket, but couldn’t find a pen handy, so decided to swallow my pride (happening a lot on this trip), pay the $16, and be on our way…. Very slowly.
With one problem down, it was high time to get back to crouching and our quest for gas. Luckily, we found a place, a bit further than I expected, but we made it. Thank god to. This was not the place we want to be stranded. Of everywhere we’ve been, this feels the most unsafe. I guess if the cops are bad, what hope does the town have? Usually when we arrive somewhere everyone stares but there faces says something like “whoa, look at that! Who are they? Where are they from? How fast does that motorcycle go?” But here the faces say “hmmm… they have money. How can I get it.” Not a good feeling at all. To make matters worse, the cops burned up about 30minutes of our precious daylight and the sun was setting fast. First was the town of Paramonga, no hotels. Then there was the town of Pativilca, a total shit whole. I wouldn’t want to stay in any of the hotels we past, let alone Amie. It was getting darker and we were getting desperate. In Barranca, we passed a bunch more cops, and I held my breath each time. We finally found a decent hotel and I asked if he had a room, they did, but no parking, even though I could see a garage door and secure parking lot. When I questioned he said he was having problems with the door. I gestured it was a deal breaker, and he didn’t seem to care. !??!?! What is with these people… To wrap up an already long blog entry, we eventually saw a nice hotel sign on the road, I pulled into a gas station asked the gas-guy where it was, and $25 later we were feeling much better about life. Bike’s safe, we’re in one piece, and aside from the smell of fish rotting in the sun, the hotel is nice.
We had enough of sand dunes and wind and thought turning into the mountains would be a good idea. We left the hotel before Adam was ready and agreed to meet in Huaraz. We never made it. The road off the coast deteriorated fast and before we new it was gone completely. This was 1.5 hours in. When I asked how much further we had to go on dirt road, a senor responded with 140km (about 85 miles). Seeing how we were moving at about 20mph, and it was 2pm, we’d never make it before dark. Too make it even more challenging, we were told it starts to rain in the mountains around 3pm. Feeling defeated, we turned around and road the 1.5 hours back to the coast—back to the wind, and the stink.
The bike was thrashed by the wind, blown from lane to lane; lucky for us there wasn’t much traffic. I tried to explain to Amie that the faster we go the less the wind will move us, but she wasn’t buying it… so we were stuck at around 60mph for hours…. On long, sandy, straight road.
For some reason in Ecuador at high altitude I was getting great gas mileage, like 50mpg. Yeah, it was a lot of down hill (the bike came off the plane at 10,000 feet above sea level) but still it was great gas mileage. Now, I think I’m getting like 30-35mpg. Maybe it’s the headwind, or passing the trucks, but I burned through half a tank of gas in less than 100 miles (33mpg). I mention this because the gauge read empty while we were in the middle of no-where. Amie was kind enough to point this out just as I was trying to figure out how to tell her we were going to run out of gas in the land of the sand people. We got in our most wind-resistant crouch, crossed our fingers and toes, and kept the RPMs low. We killed the engine and coasted on the declines; we were pulling out all the stops… I knew roughly how far we had to go for the next town and it was tight. I was doing the math over and over in my head... Just then, a cop standing on the side of the road motioned us over. No problem I thought, cops have been so friendly. Famous last words.
Before they could say anything I said, very concerned “How far for gas?! I’m completely out!” They didn’t care. These two sleazeballs wanted $$$. One guy asked for my license and passport. Another called me over to the car. I noticed the extra long pinky nail (tell-tale cocaine abuser sign) and was convinced this was a shakedown. Holding my passport and driver’s license the “officer” pulled out a little handbook and opened to an ear-marked page with the following highlighted in Spanish: “Not respecting the speedlimit is an infraction with the penalty of S/360. The drivers license is to be with held until the penalty is paid.” Now I don’t know if this is legit or not, but s/360 is like $120 and I don’t think any of these sand people can afford that. He proceeded to tell me I was 6km over the speed limit and his friend down the road had me on radar and called him on his cell phone. !?!? So much BS I had a hard time keeping a straight face. He filled out a piece of paper in his best effort to make things look official. Then he gave me back my passport and said I wouldn’t get my license until I paid the $120. I had no problem with this as I have 3 drivers license (I thought ahead!), but since these guys are so corrupt I was concerned if I just drove away he would call his other buddies down the road and the whole thing would happen again. I opened my “dummy wallet” (which has only the cash I need for the day in it) and showed him $16 and said that’s all I have. He said I must have more, traveling as I am. I told him I had a mastercard and used western unions. He bought it, but was clever enough to come up with “ OK, give me the $16 and we’ll follow you to a gas station that excepts credit cards and you can give us 10 gallons of gas. And that will cover your ticket and you can be on your way.” I was trying not to laugh as I thought, can this “police officer” be serious?! Can he think I believe that I can pay off my ticket by buying him gas?? Insane. Anyway, I said, “Hmmm… I would rather just take the ticket, get a hotel here in town, cause its getting late, and deal with this at the court house tomorrow. I would rather pay the fine, then give you gas. That doesn’t seem very official to me.” This made the other cop uncomfortable and he walked away from the car and called someone on his cell phone. Then Coke-Pinky said “Hmmm.. Let me call the General and ask him if we can let you off for $16.” He picked up his cell phone, hit some buttons, and had a conversation with what I believe was a dead line. “Yeah, uh huh, he says he has $16. Yes, he is sorry. Ok. Ok. I’ll let him go this time with a warning…” All BS. I wanted to choke the guy at this point, but hey, they have the guns. $16 isn’t the end of the world. I wanted to take down his badge number and the ticket, but couldn’t find a pen handy, so decided to swallow my pride (happening a lot on this trip), pay the $16, and be on our way…. Very slowly.
With one problem down, it was high time to get back to crouching and our quest for gas. Luckily, we found a place, a bit further than I expected, but we made it. Thank god to. This was not the place we want to be stranded. Of everywhere we’ve been, this feels the most unsafe. I guess if the cops are bad, what hope does the town have? Usually when we arrive somewhere everyone stares but there faces says something like “whoa, look at that! Who are they? Where are they from? How fast does that motorcycle go?” But here the faces say “hmmm… they have money. How can I get it.” Not a good feeling at all. To make matters worse, the cops burned up about 30minutes of our precious daylight and the sun was setting fast. First was the town of Paramonga, no hotels. Then there was the town of Pativilca, a total shit whole. I wouldn’t want to stay in any of the hotels we past, let alone Amie. It was getting darker and we were getting desperate. In Barranca, we passed a bunch more cops, and I held my breath each time. We finally found a decent hotel and I asked if he had a room, they did, but no parking, even though I could see a garage door and secure parking lot. When I questioned he said he was having problems with the door. I gestured it was a deal breaker, and he didn’t seem to care. !??!?! What is with these people… To wrap up an already long blog entry, we eventually saw a nice hotel sign on the road, I pulled into a gas station asked the gas-guy where it was, and $25 later we were feeling much better about life. Bike’s safe, we’re in one piece, and aside from the smell of fish rotting in the sun, the hotel is nice.
Mike pretending he's an astronaut
Mas dunes
Some senoritas on the road to Huaraz
Mike couldn't stop...
Rough road
Cuddle break
More sand than we've ever seen in our lives
More sand than we thought the world had
Sand People at work
posted by Pedro and Maria at 2:28 PM
1 Comments:
Like a chapter out of 'Dune'
Liked the astronaut motif shots
Cuddle is good
$16 and your blog entry becomes priceless
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