Nazca Racing - Lima Gay Ghetto - 24 Apr 2003
And so back to the bike journey
Bye-bye Abancay
Nazca ñ a small piece of Egypt in South America
Pan American Blues
ìI know a bear whose aunt lives there.î
And so back to the bike journey
Even with all of the gear aboard and Hippy on the perch, Bertha seemed to handle OK if without much precision. Dark was gathering as Williamís wife lead us off in a taxi to find a ìcheapî hotel for the night. Abancay persisted in its frustrating way. For some bizarre reason, all the hotels here were more expensive than in other towns. It was hardly a tourist destination and did not justify its inflated rates. Weíd had a pretty grim day all round and when we eventually managed to crash out on a bed, poor Hippy broke down. I did my best to console, but fear that the day had taken so much out of me, too, that I was ineffective in my cuddling.
I had managed on adrenalin all day, and when the immediate danger was over the adrenalin disappeared and the stress boiled over into a row and tears about the days frustrations. I felt ignored, uncared for and now that I had nothing else to occupy me, my wrist was killing me. It has swollen and I could hardly move it, eating tea was a one handed job that night. Now I was struck by how little regard Pat had given me all day, and his love and care for Bertha and how engrossed he had been on Bertha. Pat was all apologies, but there was still a nagging feeling that when push comes to shove he felt more guilt about damage to Bertha than the possible consequences of dropping me on the road.
I was not sad to be leaving Abancay. Although we met some lovely folk who helped us out grand style, the town will live in my memory for its potential trip ending moment.
Still a long way from Lima and now hampered by a handicapped Bertha who needed to be nursed all the way. Fortunately we had given ourselves an extra day to get to the capital never suspecting the circumstances that would lead us to needing it. The first target was Nazca, which was directly on the main road route and so needed no diversions to stop and get mystic energy into the scarf.
It was a slow start for various obvious reasons: the road out of town was an un-surfaced nightmare and the subsequent 100 km following the river bottom had sections of completely undermined or missing road; Hippy was clearly nervous about getting back on the bike and although she did not say as much you soon get a feeling for the state of mind of your passenger; Bertha, of course, felt quite different to ride ñ nothing too extreme but enough to inspire caution.
Yes I was nervous, but that day I felt I had no option but to continue by bike. In actual fact there was no reason why I could not have continues by bus and met Pat in Lima. That day I felt none of the normal enjoyment of riding the bike and it felt more like a chore, than our chosen mode of transport.
The road quality improved and then the weather deteriorated. It was definitely going to be one of those days. Dropping down through the clouds into a small town for lunch, the natives were acting very peculiarly. We aimed to find a venue offering hot soup and stuff. At each restaurant we were about to turn into there was a group of locals outside who wagged their fingers and pointed down the road. Each time we heeded their advice and moved on even though we knew not their reasons for recommending another gaff. Finally we were flagged down by a policeman who asked all the usual stuff and then pointed out a restaurant where we should eat. God knows how the good citizens of this town were going to share out the commission for getting the two gringos into the restaurant.
And God knows why they had selected this restaurant for us. There was a faint whiff of eau de diesel as we entered and when we asked why that was so, it was pointed out that the floor had been cleaned with the self same hydrocarbon product. As a result the highly polished concrete floor had turned into a skating rink. Further questioning did not yield any sensible answers as to why they had used diesel. It did little for the flavour of the food, which needed all the help it could get. Poor Hippy ordered the fried rice which was a mistake which may well have come back to haunt us.
Weather got even worse as we returned to 4,600 metres and progressed through cloudbanks, hail storms, drizzle and close to freezing temperatures. All of this was not so surprising. Weíd been in the high Andes for long enough to know what the weather could be like. No, the real shock was passing over the final ridge of mountains and the scenery changing from murky, misty llama pasture into cactus vegetated semi-desert scrub in space of about a mile. The transformation between Mendoza and Santiago had been nothing like this and clearly the tropical latitudes give rise to much sharper changes in climate. On reflection, not such an amazing transformation. You had to be there.
Nazca ñ a small piece of Egypt in South America
Beating our previous free wheeling record with an outrageous 23 miles of fuel free coasting, the heat rose and rose as the Nazca plain came up to meet us. Nazca as a town seems to exist solely to service the world fascination with the desert figures made by the Nazca people. Seemingly the incredible figures attract the same clientele as the Egyptian remains. As a side effect the people of Nazca have adopted the same traits as the Egyptians who live near Luxor/Cairo/an other interesting site of antiquity. They will not leave you alone; ìHotel, Very clean, very cheap.î Try saying these with a South American accent and what you believe to be an Egyptian accent and you will hardly notice the difference. Yes, here is a town that thrives on extracting money from tourists. Machu Picchu was extremely tranquil and cheap by comparison.
We found the hotel that we had spotted in the guidebook even though we had been lead astray by a stream of hollering cars that had taken us in the opposite direction. We thought that theyíd give up when it was clear that we had a map and had worked out which way we were going. Instead, the cars that had been taking us down the garden path now formed up in line astern and followed us to the hotel where they all no doubt claimed that they had taken us there and claimed the commission. We left them to argue their relative cases with the management and escaped with the bike through a back gate.
Regrettably we had to eat and so had to endure the same ìRestaurant. Very clean, very cheapî routine. (Actually, although clean so far as we could make out, not cheap). Strangely few people touted air flights over the plains. The margin must be too small.
In the end we could not deal with the aggressive hawkers for the restaurants and grabbed some chips and sausage from a roadside stall that had no hawkers or tourist pricing. It was a relief to find a little corner of civilization in this town.
We slept very well considering that the heat was now getting to be tropical at night. It was probably the ample supply of oxygen that we had been missing for so long. Now we had just a day left to get up to Lima.
There is a cheapy option for Nazca figure spotters. By what some consider to be a gross miscalculation, the Pan American Highway cuts through some of the mystical figures that make up the Nazca lines. Personally, I have great sympathy with the Peruvians. The Nazca plain is a plain and so by definition is far easier to build roads on than non-plain surfaces. When you donít have huge amounts of cash, the cheaper option is often forced upon one. The up side of this ìtravestyî is that you donít have to make a huge detour to see the figures. When Hippy read the bit out of the guidebook that described a viewing tower, which cost a dollar to go up, I somehow pictured something the height of Eiffel/Blackpool. Ah, well. The views from the top of a couple of the smaller figure were actually very good considering the elevation of about 12 metres. We resolved to come back and do the flight over the desert to see the rest.
Pat of course produced the scarf to give it a little more magical power for the end of the season.
It was to be expected. The pan American Highway in Peru is a bit of a trial. Bertha was breathing freely and making huge amounts of power. I hadnít really believed Mike Poelman about this ëcoming down from the Andes effectí when he told us about it months ago, but it is quite remarkable. Having coasted down from 4,500 metres where the Bertha was really rather struggling and then turning the engine on back down at pretty much sea level was akin to riding a completely new bike. Now we were able to blast past pretty much anything on the road in short order and so overtake with reasonable safety. Of course the modified steering geometry was not encouraging me to go frightfully fast.
The central hassle involved in making progress to Lima was the other motorists. It was a Bank Holiday weekend and the world and its mother had packed up their 4x4s and were heading south. No problem, you might think as we were heading north. Just a few scary moments meeting the eyes of overtaking madmen coming towards us. Iím sure Big Al must have got the red mist on occasion as he freighted around a squabbling cargo of small Watsons on hot summer days. Once again, forgive me fatherÖ
When we got to the dual carriageway, things did not really improve. As usual I was on a mission. Hippy hates it when I get on the ìIím going to single-handedly point out to other motorists what the Highway Code saysî, high horse. Indeed it is pathetic. However, it is a rock and a hard place problem. If I undertake a road hog Iíll get it in the neck form the pillion seat as indeed I will if I hang behind said road hog flashing lights and blaring horns. Sometimes you just canít win.
Still a little nervous about the accident a couple of days earlier I was not enjoying the danger on this road. Mentally I tried to rationalise the situation, why should the Peruvians be able to drive safely on the motorway, they are used to driving on dirt and in the mountains where using the smoothest bit of road is the order of the day. Given a 6 lane tarmac motorway, they probably just enjoy having the space, and do not see the rational for staying in the inside lane. But when you are in the middle lane overtaking a truck, a lane hog is in the outside lane and a careering bus blasts up behind the lane hog, beeping its horn and not attempting to slow down, but instead swerves into your lane to undertake missing the front of the bike by cms ñ I just felt terrified, and wanted to be somewhere else doing something more conventional.
For me the ideal would be to slow down, and to ease up when the mad drivers appear and just give them all the space they need to have a crash away from me.
ìI know a bear whose aunt lives there.î
Entry into Lima was via a particularly pants piece of urban stressway. Put together the following elements and remain calm if you can: long, hot, stressful ride from Nazca; no discernable road signs; horribly pot-holed surface; extremely aggressive small bus drivers (small buses, not sure about drivers); filth everywhere; engine overheating causing it to race. The bike was still tuned for high altitude. I guess it will be a distant fond memory when we get to Delhi.
This was like riding in Cairo with the disadvantage that drivers not only weaved randomly from lane to lane, but here they are not as aware of the other traffic. So instead of moving into a gap in the traffic - they just move. As the buses carved us up, and taxis squeezed us out of lanes and bicycle rickshaws weaved undaunted into spaces cms wide, I was becoming more tense. The area of town we were coming through was horrible, piles of rotting vegetation covered what was meant to be a central reservation in the dual carriageway. Unkempt stalls lined the edge each side of the each carriageway and people milled about shopping and joining in the random movement of the road. So whilst trying in vain to find landmarks to navigate through Lima, I was also trying to watch for light fingered sorts how could take advantage of the heavy traffic.
Our hotel was described as a popular haunt for gay travellers. No skin off our nose. It also fitted into the cheapest hotel in town category and we had been told that we could get the bike into it. I could not vouch for the first but the second did not look at all likely given the number of steps up and down through the entrance foyer. The very nice boys on reception found a set of planks to navigate the steps with all of which shot out from under the wheels on the slippery floor as soon as bike weight was put on them. Resorting to the usual power and wheel spin method left lovely rubber streaks on the steps but no one seemed to mind. Nice boys.
It was like the end of a marathon. Weíd made it to Lima in time to catch our flights with no further damage to Bertha. Indeed, Bertha seemed to be getting more and more powerful the further north we got. Regrettably, we had arrived slap bang in the middle of the Easter festivities and so there was no chance of being able to get Bertha into a frame straightener before flying out implying that we were up for a long stay in Lima when we got back from Cuba. The city did not seem all that special. Rumours of the place having been concreted over during former administrations were easy to believe and only the odd building here and there had any architectural merit.
Internet was found (not as easy as you may think on Easter weekend in a devout country) opposite the Rochdale College of Technology. How mad is that? All web sites associated with Copa airlines failed to reveal a method of reconfirming flights and did not supplement the erroneous telephone numbers that we had been given. Given the reputation of Lima airport and the need to reconfirm flights several times we were starting to get worried as to whether we were actually get on our flight.
Back at the hotel the yellow pages revealed another number for Copa airlines but the guy behind the desk thought it unlikely that we would reach them as they only worked when there was a flight leaving. Back to the internet to find their timetable so we could guess when to ring them. No joy. I consoled Hippy that we had a printout for our electronic tickets that had confirmed written on it and, on the advice of another traveller; we had a printout of our bank statement showing that payment had been made for the tickets. We would have no problems.