into the hills - peru

1 Four nights in Lima and out. Jeffs on the missing list again. Matters of the heart this time. Eros uses a lot of arrows down here. missing me at the moment though. A good thing, coz of my time schedule. Mikes hungrey to get going. We all decided to ride together till The ends of Bolivia. We have different agendas from there. Lima is huge. A long city of different shades. I stayed in the miraflores light part. Walked miles around the darker centro. old colonial buildings again. mostly grey and peeling. smells of beef heart skewers in the smokey air. People all over. weathered smiles or cracked stares. Its all a lot to take in. Riding out took an hour or so. Follow the coast and ya cant go wrong. Back into the desert. The day is long and we do good miles. An hour before the notorious dark gets us, my clutch cable snaps in 2. Oh ! mike and i try all sorts of naive bodge jobs. nothing works. Ica, a historic town is only 5 or so miles away. A man and his mate pull up and mike asks them if they wouldnt mind sticking my bike in the back of their truck and take us to a mechanico in Ica. They agree, with a payment of 20 dollars. im happy with that. its that or i dont know what. After cramp in all limbs from staying stiff trying to hold the bike on the truck we get to a tiny mechanics whole in the wall, with a self painted honda sign above. a new cable and im away, in the dark to sleep at a parratt infested oasis named huacachina. sand dunes like sky scrapers circle this lagoon, where dune buggys fill peoples days with nut case driving and rolling, along with sand boarding and discos forever. Nasca isnt far now. we get there deciding not to fly over the lines, coz of the steep cost and after being told by loads that you cant get a decent view anyway. turns out thats a matter of opinion. I climbed a viewing tower and saw some sort of pattern in the surface . it dosnt matter what people think of them. this is a vast plain of dust with mysterious carvings covering that dust. Let the theories rain forever. mind you, Why would Aliens need a landing strip. surely if they managed to navigate here from 15000000000000 light years away, they could find away to actually land ! At Nazca im chuffed to see the road to cusco turns east up up and away again. the road is deserted. it carves its way around the yellow dunes soon to become yellow and brown rocks. vegitation shows up again, in stark cactus. straining for life. We roll high now, looking back at the pacific in the dusty distance. in the forground those dunes darkening by the falling sun. the direction we go is straight up. i know im above 4000 metres these days coz my moodyness shows up and i struggle to even get off the bike at a stand still. Im well low on gas now. a village turns up with the 5 local inhabitants all sitting on their steps. Gas comes from a shed in a lemonade bottle. its 84 octane but im pleased as a fat fish to see it, in all its dark brown wrongness. 10 miles up, the bike chokes to a stop. sheeeeet ! im stuffed now. we are very high. its freezing. breathing is very hard. But as luck would have it again. this isnt quite exactly the middle of nowhere. 3 buildings 100 yrds on the left . one large official delapidated building 100yards to the right. I cant believe that in one of these buildings is an old lady on her own and she has 1 gallon of 90 octane for me to buy. the universe works for me again ! one of the other buildings is ruined , no one home and the other has a charming mum and daughter outfit that sell everything a man needs in this raw place and likes to laugh at this soppy englishbloke, without a clue. I wish i could remember their names. mum is hard as rock, but can laugh like a banshee. daughter is only 6 i guess but isnt sshy and has had to grow up fast up here alone with just mum. She lights a parafin lamp after climbing chairs to reach it. These grubby cheeked kids i meet, have got right to me. lovable laughing interested little humans, who all grew up to quick. its too late now to move from here. this andian plain gets very impossible dark and even colder in the evenings. After coca teas we land at the official looking place opposite. it is a hostel of sorts. mike and me end up in this dark room, that resembles pure horror film. bats included. we screamed once and shivered the night away with almost sleep. What a sunrise. the land is all golden glowing felds. the sky is so so big blue and white. Alpacas blend in with the terrain and scare ya , sticking their necks into the roads, followed by a charge , just when a motorbike is on them. The road rises higher over the clouds then back down into the valleys. All climates today. ending up a night in abancay. a large town spread around a mountains curves. Cuzco tomorrow and machu picchu awaits. This road is one of the best riding i have ever ridden.

I met this bird right !

Huacachina parrat

.mum and daughter help me be a laughing stock up here very high altittude, syphoning dodgy 84 octane out. The bike has a real struggle above 4000 metres with teh lack of air. so when ya put low grade petrolin the poor beast hasnt a chance. i got lucky again up here to find the 90 i needed. was a pleasure spending a night with these 2 and this atmospheric land

next morning coffee and goodbyes.

Puquio - peru

the high plains . dont blink though coz this vast nothing can become a jagged high something in a flash of flame

looking down on the weather. not beng part of it yet.

desolate high andes

lalalalallammas, could be alpacas. im not sure yet.

Peruvian andes

the villages are all over and at any altitude

cusco suburbs