On Christmas Eve, whilst the four of us were sitting chatting before dinner about 6pm, two bikes rolled into the car park in front of us, and it was our old friends Troy and Tracy.

They had ridden from Lima, after getting a new tyre fitted in the morning for Tracy. They had pushed on through and decided to join us for Christmas Day.

We had a fun evening, catching up, laughing and listening to Paul’s rubbish songs (such as Donald where’s your trousers etc), introducing the American’s to the horrors of British humour.

It really has been nice here, staying at Nasca in the Hacienda Oasis hotel, the people are really friendly, and the food has been simple, but tasty.  

Christmas Day arrived, an ultra sunny day, and we idled away the morning, chatting and looking at maps (except for Troy who went out for his daily run, and a scout about town).

At Nasca, there are the very famous Nasca Lines, these lines are known as geoglyphs – drawings on the ground made by removing rocks and earth to create a “negative” image. The rocks which cover the desert have oxidized and weathered to a deep rust color, and when the top 12-15 inches of rock is removed, a light-colored, high contrasting sand is exposed. Because there’s so little rain, wind and erosion, the exposed designs have stayed largely intact for 500 to 2000 years.

It is believed that the majority of lines were made by the Nasca people  from around A.D. 1 to 700.

Wendy & John had decided to visit the tower along the road to view the lines, but Paul and I, Troy and Tracy had decided that we would take the flight over the lines.  After a bit of stalling, we finally asked the owner of the hotel to book it for us, and this racing driver minibus man turned up for us straight away, and whipped us as fast as possible up to the tiny airport.

We were weighed at check-in (which came as a shock), checked in by passport, and asked our age (Troy almost got away with being 22!). We were then shepherded through security by some very formal security guards, and Tracy had his penknife taken away.

Once at the tiny 8 seater plane, we were made to sit according to our weight, which actually meant Paul and I behind the pilot and co-pilot, with the T’s behind us.

Earphones were put on, and in moments we were in the air, flying low in this tiny bit of metal……. We were given a running commentary by the co-pilot, about the images that were set out on the ground, as the plane rounded once around to the right, before tipping right over to the left, so that we could all see out of our windows.

Now, the T’s are regular flyers in small aircraft, being that they live in Alaska and have done so much travelling.  I had been in a small aircraft once before, and Paul not at all.  It was fun, and was all going well until Paul caught my attention and signed that his tummy was a bit dicky, in fact all the colour had drained from his face.  He grabbed the sick bag, and managed to hold on to his tummy until we landed.  It turned out that both Troy and Tracy had suffered similarly because of all the turns and swooping.  I was the only one that made it feeling not too bad!

After returning with the racing minibus driver to the hotel, a little reflection time and some frozen lemonade (yum!) we decided it had been well worth the trip, and the looping tummies.

The rest of the day we carried on idling, enjoying pisco sours interspersed with the odd swim.

A great day was had by all.

This morning we have said goodbye to Troy and Tracy who are moving on for their next adventure, whilst John and Wendy, Paul & I are staying for another night. Probably have a few more Pisco sours, do some packing and some swimming.

So, here we are in Nasca, in the desert for the celebration of Christmas.  More importantly perhaps for us a good few days rest.  

We left Ica yesterday morning, and it was only as short ride of 100 miles to Nasca, where we had arranged to meet up with British couple, John and Wendy Decker.  We have known of John and Wendy for over a year, since we had our sidecar attached to the bike by Watsonian Sidecars in the Cotswolds.  In fact we had seen their bike with the sidecar being attached to it in the workshop when we had gone to collect ours last November, 2015.

Paul & John had been communicating via a website forum since then and they have been following our journey since we left.  John & Wendy began their journey in Buenos Aires in November 2016 and have been riding North ever since, having already visited Argentina and Bolivia before coming into Peru.

We chose the Nasca Hacienda Oasis hotel which is a lovely little place in the desert backing onto the mountains, with friendly staff.

We arrived just past check-in begin time at 1pm, and ten minutes later we heard the pop-popping of another bike, turned and there they were. We had finally met John and Wendy.

We spent the rest of the day getting to know each other, swapping stories and laughing.

For the next couple of days we shall be resting, swimming, enjoying the warmth of the desert.

We also heard yesterday that Troy and Tracy may also be joining us tomorrow, so we shall look forward to that too.

STRESS ALERT!!

Ok so Peru has turned out to be the most challenging of the countries we've visited so far.

We left at 7.20am this morning to try to avoid the traffic of Lima city- even then it still took 30 minutes to negotiate about 10 miles, and with Paul having to employ his most defensive riding skills. There are no apparent rules to driving in Peru, only perhaps when it seems we may have been doing something wrong by "officials"

Everything is just that little bit more tricky for us because of the width of the bike and sidecar. Once we'd made it back onto the Pan American highway this morning, it wasn’t log before there was a toll booth. As you know before, we have had various difficulties with these. We saw that we would not fit in the designated gap for motorbikes, so we pulled to the side of a very wide booth lane to ride around the barrier. Perhaps understandably there, the lady in the booth had to ring someone first to see if we can go for free. Once agreed, she allowed us through. However, this morning, at the second barrier, we were not allowed to do that, there two workers who were insistent that we drove through the too narrow motorcycle lane. They were not interested that it didn't fit. Our tempers were very short, because of the traffic challenges, and there may have been some shouting!

I got out of the sidecar and moved all of the plastic barrier aside, while the men walked behind me putting them back after Paul rode through. All well and good, until halfway, there was a metal barrier that we could not get past. Paul started yelling, and I moved the plastic barrier out further. A further 6 men appeared  and they all started shouting and waving their arms that we had to carry on through the lane where we didn't fit. I too started yelling, everyone was yelling, no,no!  Eventually they decided that we could move the plastic barriers and go into the other lane, before making Paul return to the motorcycle lane again.

It is so difficult to understand this way of thinking, when other rules are blatantly ignored.

We have found some genuinely good people in Peru, but the majority, so far, do not smile, are miserable, rude to everybody, and don't seem to respect each other.

We are heading further south, where we are hoping that the way of life is calmer, cleaner and generally brighter. We are optimistic of this as we have been told it is lovely.

It is amazing how a smile, an act of kindness, and a welcome can change the day. It seems pretty embarrassing to shout and make a fuss, but in this instance I suppose going with the flow means communicating in the only way the people understand.

Along the road, the contrast between the crystal turquoise sea rolling onto the sandy beaches and coves and the tumbling down buildings surrounded by rubbish and rubble is a real trick for the brain. The intermingling of salty sea whipping up your nose combined with the tang of urine, which seems to line everywhere you go

Sometimes it becomes very tricky to gain perspective on this great and wonderful journey. To not be living exactly in that moment whether it be a moment of pure stress or pure joy.  As Christmas approaches, aftr six months on the road, we are really looking forward to meeting up with John and Wendy the other sidecar couple at Nazca tomorrow, for laughs, reflection, sharing and recuperation.. One thing I do know is I have never felt as vitally alive as I do now. To experience life in a way that I have only read about. I don't think Paul or I will ever be the same again.

After a couple of busy days on the long stretch of the Panamerican Highway to Lima, Peru’s capital city, we arrived in good time, about 1pm.

The previous day had brought its usual set of challenges, with the wind high enough to whip around the side of my sidecar screen and open my visor for me, and toll booth stress, where we rolled into the truck lane, and were made to get off and push backwards into oncoming traffic, so that we could take the dirt ‘motorcycle lane’, which is free.  Otherwise, I guess we’d have had to pay a truck price. There seems to be different rules at each booth, sometimes they’ll just raise the arm for us.

The endless noise has become an accompaniment to our lives, the blaring music, slightly off tune tv’s, banging, digging, tooting, shouting, oh boy, it’s good to get some respite in a motel room at the end of the day.  The buzz of life is tremendous here, colour flashing everywhere, reminding me of the busiest ants nest I’ve ever seen, with all these people claiming their space in this life, in a way that we just don’t seem to have to do at home.

Anyway, we probably both had a sense of ‘phew, nearly there into the busy city’, as we were making our way towards Motos Del Peru, for an oil change and new tyre.  We had been communicating with Felipe from the shop for over a week, and he had arranged a Backpackers Hostel for us to stay in for a couple of nights.

Famous last words, we suddenly found ourselves rolling to a stop, and of course, that’s where the real Lima began.  Two hours later we had moved about 3 miles, the weather was scorching, and the tempers were rising! It was a tough experience for sure, inching along, with the constant lane changing by others, and never really seeing a reason why you have to wait for so long.

Of course, eventually we made it through, and started to make our way along the further 10 miles we needed to go, with me shouting out the turns, and Paul doing a wonderful job of maneuvering the mad traffic.  We made it onto a highway that was fairly smooth going, and were happily riding along until a policeman stepped out in front of us with his stick raised.  We could not understand what he was saying, whilst he bashed a few times on the windscreen of the bike with his stick but thought the upshot was, motorcycles are not allowed on this road, you silly foreigners!  He let us go on………. Thank goodness.  As usual, we hadn’t seen any signs telling us that it was no entry for bikes, and it seems hard to understand why he was more interested in us than stopping people for running red lights, or driving like lunatics, but hey, what do we know.

So, we arrived at Motos Del Peru, somewhat harassed, and you can imagine our delight when a) they’d never heard of us b) they are fully booked and c) the bike and sidecar doesn’t fit through their door.

After a time of deliberation and a call from the Service Manager to Felipe (who it turns out is an associate of the shop- more of a hinderance maybe, someone who does PR, and Internet management), we were asked to return at 8am, and the job would be done outside the shop.

So, off we went, and found the hostal, had a look around the nice area of Miraflores, and were asleep early, in readiness for an early rise this morning.

We arrived at the shop at 7.20am, so determined were we to avoid the heaving traffic, and as I write we are waiting to go back and collect the bike with new tyre, and oil change.  Fingers crossed!

This has been a good morning, we have found some useful bits of shopping, I’ve had another haircut (including a great head massage), and we found a supermarket that sold imported European goods! We bought cheese and salami, how exciting is that, I guess you’ll never know unless you haven’t eaten it for three months……………..

After leaving Piura yesterday, we headed out along the Pan American Highway down to a little port town called Pacasmayo.

The road was long and straight and took us through desert landscape, with some winds gusting, and blowing sand across the road. The journey was quiet and enjoyable until we reached the busy town of Chiclayo where our planned route had us riding through the busy city centre.  No matter, we had a look at some shops, and the tiny yellow ‘beeping’ taxis on the way past.  One taxi driver asked Paul the size of our engine, and was delighted to tell him that his taxi had the same, 800 cc!

Out the other side of Chiclayo, the road remained busy, with some very ‘assertive’ multilane driving, despite there being actually only two lanes, with those little Tuktuk’s getting in everywhere particularly when a loaded truck with cane hanging down over the windscreens and all over, came chuntering along.  All in an interesting day’s ride.

It’s a bit disappointing, especially after Ecuador to see so much rubbish lining the roads, just sitting on top of the sand.  In the larger towns and cities, this does not seem to happen, but they obviously have no infrastructure in the village or roadside places to deal with this, so it’s difficult to control.

We passed a lot of mango factories, where the workers were just being dropped off in coaches, and lining up for their day’s picking.

Pacasmayo when we arrived is a nice little port town. It has an especially good ‘Malecon’ for the nightly promenade along the seafront.  It’s great to be back by the sea again, this time the Pacific Ocean, not the Carribean like last time in Panama.

Pacasmayo has a large pebble beach, a pier, and apparently really good surf. Paul was told by a local that they get the highest waves in the world, and 40 km south from the town are the longest waves.

We have experienced mainly desert lands since entering Peru, but interestingly, we have been reading that the country has many climates and microclimates, apparently experiencing 30 of the world’s 32 climates all in one country.  This is mainly due to the Andes mountains and the wind currents.

We could experience here warm desert, cool desert, sub tropical, humid tropical, savannah desert or monsoon weather, but for now at least we seem to have left the rains behind us.

We intend to carry on down the Pan American Highway following the coast, as we have a service booked for the bike in Lima, Peru’s capital on Wednesday.