Every time I leave a nice hotel I feel like I’m starting a new adventure. I also like to leave with all my little jobs done, clean clothes and clean shaven. The trip started well as my back tyre was still inflated after I’d pulled the wire/nail out. I had a few minutes to adjust to riding again and then it was full on into Lima morning traffic. My old iPhone works well as my navigator and after about half an hour it had taken me out of the city chaos and on to the Pan American Highway. The highway is pretty good and often two lanes, except where it chokes itself as it goes through towns.

I find that no matter how fast I ride or how many trucks and buses I pass, or roadworks I avoid, I always end up only averaging about 50km/h. I think it’s because I stop to take photos or to check out the odd thing I see. Or take a pee. I also try and stop and drink some water but I fail pretty miserably at that. I also stop for something to eat which can be a bit of a chore. There’s always lots of places but they are often empty or look dodgy. If I find a place with a couple of trucks outside, I’ll often stop there and the food is usually cheap or good or sometimes both.

I often wonder if I am the first Australian to eat at some of the places I go to. This was a nice little place with an interesting stream and irrigation system next door. Being in the desert I’m often intrigued about where they get the water from. This is most likely coming from the Andes somewhere. The landscape is still pretty barren and with rubbish but I’m still enjoying it. I had to ride through a cutting in a big sand dune in the middle of the road. I’m sure that would have been easy to cut out but hard to maintain.

I turned off the highway at Cerro Azul and headed towards the mountains. They are huge, enormous, gigantic, immense and any other adjectives you can think of. As you get closer to the mountains the sand starts to get covered with agriculture and little towns pop up. I never really feel like I am climbing rapidly but I think that’s because the bike just powers up the hills effortlessly and I’m focused on my riding.

The road heading to Canon de Ucho started to narrow but was still a nice road. It was about a four hour ride uphill to the canyon but I opted to stop in a small town with a name I can’t remember, and about 30 houses and a couple of homestays. I didn’t want to ride any further as it had been a long enough day and it would have been getting late when I got there. But more importantly I only wanted to stay at 1500m and not 3500m where the canyon was and then feel sick and not enjoy it. I found a building that looked like it had rooms but no one was there. A guy passing on a motorbike stopped and asked me what I wanted and next thing he was on his phone and a lady turned up on the back of a motorbike and whilst apologising she made me a bed, gave me a key and left. No towel, no toilet paper. But a safe place to sleep and safe bike parking. Hostal Saman.

She returned later, still apologising about something. I’d found a beer and a place that cooked me some chicken and chips, so I was fine. The place made me feel like I was in the Himalayas somewhere. Not that I have been there (yet). Very beautiful and quiet. I went for a bit of a walk and stumbled on a dam. Most of the roads heading inland follow valleys and a river. Considering the heights of the mountains, the valleys are proportionally wide and long. I’ve just had a thought that the reason some of the rivers down along the coast don’t seem to flow much is probably because of dams.

I left around 8:00 next morning and there wasn’t much traffic on the road which was fortunate as in some places it was only 3.2m wide. It was such a nice ride. I stopped heaps of times just to look or to try and photograph it. After 2 hours of riding, I finally arrived at the canyon. In some ways it was an anticlimax as it was only slightly better than the entire ride up to it. I checked out the little town nearby and then turned back to the canyon to take some pics. Three guys on bikes had turned up there in the meantime. They were from Brazil and were on bikes they had rented in Lima. We had a nice chat and they took a couple of photos for me which was nice. Then it was just me and the Canyon. And the odd truck. I had a little bag of trail mix and some water and then decided to drop my elevation by 3600 metres. I could have almost rolled the whole way down.

It took me just over three hours to get back to the coast and the Pan American which was much quicker because of less stops. I wasn’t sure how much further south I could get that day and so I stopped for a late lunch and while I was eating my under cooked chicken and drinking my warm coke I just picked a town off the map and booked a cheap hotel and headed off. Hoping that my accommodation place was a better choice than my restaurant choice. The town was called Pisco.

Turns out I had chosen well. The place was only $20AUD but had a nice big room and safe bike parking. I ended up extending my stay. Twice. I was hoping to have a Pisco Sour in Pisco but turns out I’ve had one before and didn’t like it, so I stuck to Pisco beer. I did a lot of walking and a lot of planning as I had a few interesting places coming up and I wanted to make sure I was partially organised and visited everything. Planning where you are going next actually takes a lot of time.

The beach at Pisco was Peruvian. I don’t want to keep putting down the beaches because I am out of season, and they are deserted. I’d like to think they are much nicer in summer and full of people. Sort of like visiting a nightclub and then returning there the next day to replace a smashed toilet bowl. A previous plumbing life analogy. He’s the pics of the foreshore and the beach. You decide.

They did have a nice old jetty. I think I like structures. I tried to get arty. It’s obviously had a tough life but had probably seen a lot of stuff. I won’t add an analogy this time. I will throw in a picture of a garbage truck though. Not unlike how they used to collect garbage when I was a kid with the only difference being the truck passes bye every day and has really loud music so that you can hear it coming a mile away and bring out your rubbish.

A highlight of Pisco though was when I wandered down the road to find some street food. I found a few stalls on a corner cooking stuff on sticks over the coals. Looked perfect until I put my glasses on. Another childhood memory. Everything was offal. No thankyou. That wasn’t the highlight though. I headed in the opposite direction and saw just one charcoal BBQ on the street in front of a house. I put my glasses on and it was chicken. It didn’t quite look like a food place but also didn’t look like someone’s house.

 After discovering how bad my Spanish was, they dragged out a woman from inside and embarrassed her into talking English with me. I think our standard was similar but her pronunciation was much better than mine. Turns out all the people were family in some way and they often cook on the street and feed a few needy neighbours and sell a bit of stuff as well. Next thing I had a plate of chicken and a beer and was on the street cooking. I was beginning to think they were trying to set me up but then she told me who everyone was and one of the guys was her boyfriend. I think she said there were 13 people living in the house. It was a lovely interaction and when I went to pay they wouldn’t hear of it and wished me well on the rest of my trip. So nice.

The next day I was organised and ready to do a big 25km trip south to a place that gets talked about all the time by travellers. I went there and have no idea why.