Back in Peru - The Bite Goes On - 18 May 2003
Back to Lima to get love and attention for Bertha
Back on the PanAmericana proper
Police breaks
Politics in Casma
Back to Lima to get love and attention for Bertha
Things back in Lima went reasonably smoothly. When we got to our hostel our stuff and the bike was there, which is always a bonus. It really did feel like we had been on holiday and we were returning to reality and everyday hassles. That afternoon Pat wasted no time and went of to try and find a bike doctor to straighten the frame of the bike, whilst I set about catching up on the washing and spent the afternoon on the roof of the hostel scrubbing our clothes.
There was only one convincing sounding bike shop in the yellow pages and so I gave them a ring and arranged to go round and let them have a look. Lima is a big city and the map I had suggested they were just around the corner. Hmm. I got there in the end and found a bike mechanic working on Berthaís younger sister. She only had 22,000 kilometres on the clock (Bertha now has about 115,000) and I instantly put in an offer. He was not having it. After I pointed out a couple of things wrong with the bike such as worn suspension mountings he began to take me seriously. He knew of only one frame fixer in Peru and gave me his address. This time I was wise to Lima and got directions, too.
Pat had had no luck, the best mechanic he could find was reluctant to repair the bike on the basis that he would have to cut through the frame and weld it back together and then it would be weaker than it is at the moment. I suggested that he could stiffen up the joints with a couple of gusset plates but he was still reluctant. It transpired that actually, as the bike was going in a straight line this might be more accurate than a job he could do. I left quickly.
Donít really know what happened to the next couple of days, but I remember a lot of insides of internet caffs and eating Chinese. But we now had clean clothes, a full tank of petrol and most of the journal written up. It was time to do something of interest.
A bit of culture....and why not ... Peru has loads of it. Off to the museum and the ruins of Pachacamac. This meant my first ride on the bike back in Peru, and I have to confess that I was not really feeling very confident about it. The mad Lima traffic and the randomly erratically moving minibuses carving us up on the PanAmerica did not help. If you have to chose a place to gain confidence on a bike, give Lima a miss. Needless to say , I spent my time on the back wondering if I could feasibly continue our journey by bike.
The museum, probably left me more confused than enlightened. I had hoped to understand the chronological sequence of the different cultures that were a precursor to that of the Incas. Instead I came away with a head filled with names I could not pronounce and a general feeling that there seemed to have been at least a dozen distinct cultures which were either wiped out and taken as slaves or absorbed (who had previously done the same to myriads of smaller groups) by the Incas: - the Nazca, Mapuche, Tiwanaka etc etc.
I was quite amused by the Perucentricity of the museum. Not that surprising, really, but it extended to comparing different empires of the world at concurrent times by showing the Greek empire as being a dot for Athens with a small dotted ring around it, the same for the Romans. Meanwhile, for the areas of cultural development in Peru at the same period it shaded in the whole of the country. Lies, damned lies and statistical diagrams. As Hippy points out, there were so many little centres of culture (each pretty much developed to the same extent) that came and went with alarming regularity it was pretty much impossible to make heads or tails of it from a 4 hour visit.
The smoggy haze of Lima reached out to Pachamac south of Lima. It is a huge pre-Inca site that was taken over by the Inca as part of their Empire growth. It made sense that there was no point in building a whole bunch of new pyramids when you can just bung your own temple on top and reuse it. Unfortunately, being made of adobe for the most part and with foundations of beige sand and a smoggy atmosphere it was not very photogenic. The area that the ruins took up and the mere size of the stepped pyramids was enough to give the impression of a once vast city of great importance. It was also enough to whet our appetites for further ruins further north.
From what we have seen of pictures of other sites, there is a lot more of interest back from the coast. Pretty much all of the coastal ruins were made of adobe which is not the most enduring of materials. The only saving grace was that many of the pre-Inca groups had a policy of covering over their former sites of worship with sand when they moved on.
Back on the PanAmericana proper
It had been good to get a taste of what was to come with the luggage off the bike but now we were faced with the real challenge for our nerves. Leaving Lima was pretty grim. The city limits are stretched out along the highway and the buses that run out to these outlying regions are about the worst. Though there are plenty of ìStop here and weíll have youî signs all over the place, no one takes a darned bit of notice. Worst still was the method of turning back to town. Simple ñ do a U turn. This on the PanAmerican highway with its four lanes of hooning traffic. No one seemed to give a damn. The kerb stones that demarked the central reservation had simply been pulled out overnight at some time or other. We progressed with care.
Lunch was needed so we stopped at a garage and made use of the diner alongside. The menu seemed expensive and so Hippy was turning away when the waiter pointed out that each of the dishes was enough for two people. So we ordered a portion of duck with fried rice (the cheapest thing on the menu) only to be served up with two heaped dishes of that self same. We contested this as we expected to be ripped off for two portions on the bill but he assured us that one portion/two plates, so what, itís all the same. We didnít argue and gave him a reasonable tip for once for having been so practical about it all. A duck dinner for a quid each. Mustnít grumble. By this you will realise that Hips and I were moaning about the idea of paying two quid each for a duck dinner. How tight are we?
Up the road, a bit of a large adobe mound reared up in front of us and I turned to Hippy to seek confirmation that we would stop and look in. The pile, Paramonga, was nicely situated for views but had little detail remaining to make it particularly interesting. But.... There was a brilliant little group of English tourists on an archaeological holiday. So whatís so brilliant about that? There was a ìgazeboî set up on the local football pitch (you know, one of those side less tent affairs) where a buffet lunch had been laid out. The clients were sitting in a semi-circle of directorsí chairs dining off trays that had chilled glasses of Chablis balanced on them. It was the gleaming panama hats and beige slacks that really set it off. Rather lovely. Only the Brits could accomplish this with such garden party style on the desert coast of Peru. Their tour guide was something of a mild mannered, archeologically informed Jeremy Clarkson. As we were packing up to leave, he poled over to invite us to dine. How we regretted spending that two quid when we could have had a free lunch if weíd waited.
We chatted for a while, though about which sites to go and see. He had spent a good time working around the Machu Picchu/Olantaytambo and was pretty much au fait with the current school of Indiana Jones archaeologists who are just after the glory rather than real scientific research. I thought the whole history of the pursuit was littered with such folk. They were heading the same way as us and so we said our cheerios knowing full well that theyíd blast past us later in the afternoon.
We allowed them a little time to catch us up by spending a little time with the police. This was not our choice. What happened wasÖ. We were innocently proceeding down the PanAmericana at well under the speed limit. As we crested a hill there was a police patrol vehicle pulled up at the side of the road with an officer with his foot up on the bumper tying his shoelace. At the exact moment that we passed he straightened up and blew his whistle. I couldnít believe that the method of requesting a motorcyclist wearing a helmet driving at 50 miles an hour, experiencing all the associated wind noise was blow a whistle at the very moment he passed and so I ignored it and carried on.
I did nudge Pat and suggest that we should stop, working on the basis that it is better to stop and be dismissed than give them excuse to annoy us.
I watched my speed really carefully after that. Sure enough about 5 minutes later as I was doing about 40 km per hour in a 45 limit I saw a set of lights coming up behind me. I pulled over and the passenger got out and came up extending his hand to me. ìVery pleasantî, I thought while actually believing that this was strange behaviour for a policeman.
ìYou didnít stopî
ìI stopped as soon as I saw your lightsî
ìYou didnít stop when I signalledî
ìIím sorry, what signal would that beî
ìI whistledî
ìThatís all very well, but I am wearing a crash helmet with a full face that allows no ingress of soundî
Would that my Spanish were so good. But this was the general thread of the conversation. He asked for documents and then summoned me over to the car. He engaged in rapid conversation with his mate and they sprang a new line on me.
ìYour observations are not good. You did not see usî
ìYes I did, your colleague was tying his shoe laces on the bumper of your vehicleî
That had them reeling as they obviously realised that I was more than aware of their presence at the side of the road. They then tried to spring a fine on me for not stopping. I was getting a bit porked off now. Many people had told us that the police on the PanAmericana north of Lima are permanently trying to scam cash out of foreigners. I called his bluff and said that we would go to the station to discuss all of this with his superiors. He bottled. Pat 1 Feds 0.
I restrained myself from saying ëI told you soí. Ok fair cop hippy, but I think it is probably true to say that these guys will try and trump up any old charge and are generally lazy sods and so if you ignore them they probably wonít bother to follow. In future I will stop, promise.
There was another chance for the archaeo-coach to catch us up and they did. This time we were pulled by the cops again! It was a bit more of a friendly pull, though as they were giving us advice on the road ahead. The advice, though, did not turn out to be so good. ìThe road is blocked ahead with mudî This seemed hard to believe as the PanAmericana runs through the desert plain that makes up the coastal zone of Peru. We have all heard about sides of mountains falling away and huge river torrents doing untold damage in Peru and so we assumed that a swollen river had brought down a load of muck from the interior and swamped the road.
The nice policemen (for a change) radioed ahead to see if there was any chance of getting a bike through and it turned out that there was. The same advice seemed to have been given to the tourist coach as when we got to the next roadblock they were still with us.
The police at the next roadblock assured us that there was no way of getting through and turned us back. When weíd got about a quarter of a mile the bus was coming up so we flashed them over for a conflab. We decided all to go back to the roadblock and see what they would then say. This time there was no problem. It seems that all we had needed was a local bus driver to talk them round. We followed their wake all the way to the town where the mud blockage was only to see them turn off just before Casma. We continued into town and the road was lined with trucks for about a km. We squeezed through between some that were close together and then there was nothing, just town. No mud. Zip.
When we checked into the hotel I checked with the manager and with his intonation and my helmet off it turned out that the blockage was caused by a strike. (mud = barro, strike = paro sound similar to untrained ears). This didnít mean that the police were wrong to try and stop us and with hindsight it may not have been so wise to ride through industrial action.
The hotel was quite nice but the neighbours were trying to say the least. Now that weíre back out at the desert coast of Peru, all places need to be well ventilated and so minimal sound insulation is provided. Next door owned a gramophone or some such but only possessed one piece of recorded material to play on it. The resulting cacophony played at full blast all evening was ìThe Marseillaiseî with words in Spanish. My, were we relieved when they gave over at about 9.
Then a restaurant which was one door further down the road took over. It seemed that it was the 25th anniversary of a local political party and so songs were sung and speeches made with typical political amplification. As the applause was very thin, I nipped out to peep through the door to find that there was a crowd of about 6 people soaking all this up. I could not work out whether the playing of the Marseillaise and this rally were in any way associated but it would certainly explain why there were so few attendees.
We braved the picket line again in the morning to get to the local ruins, Sechin. There was little happening and the truck drivers were allowing vehicles through their blockade but giving folk a hard time. The drivers were their own worst enemies and failed to make any progress. As there was a one lane corridor down the middle of the trucks, they obviously had to wait while someone coming the other way cleared the obstruction. Clearly this is a concept beyond the Peruvian mentality and so they calmly looked each other in the eye and waited until space was found for someone to back up and thenÖetc. If the police had had a couple of chaps directing, there would have been no problem at all for ordinary motorists. Wisely, perhaps, the police did not show their face at the epicentre of the blockade.
Further up the road, a stray group of truckers were teasing the trishaw drivers by tipping them up onto two wheels nearly to the point of overturning before allowing them to continue on their way. The trishaw drivers were making a killing out of the situation transferring bus passenger from the blockade 2km away to the other side of the second blockade. Other groups were setting light to tyres on the road. We were totally ignored, though, and so we carried on our way. I, I have to confess was a little more nervous, worried that although they seemed to only be targeting people on motorised transport we did rather stand out as the only gringos wandering about, and that may be enough to become a target.
The ruins are located a few km off the PanAmerican on the road to Huaraz. Buses and other local vehicles had found a back road to avoid the strike and so a few truckers, or I suspect a group of local thugs, had hidden themselves in the plantations by the road to hurl rocks at the buses. Weíd seen some evidence of this in town, many of the buses with broken windscreens and side windows. Now it was clear that the police had decided to clear up this area and were crawling up and down the road in their 4x4s with riot gear-clad officers hanging onto the back. Every now and again they would stop and chase a few thugs back into the bush or manage to catch the odd fat one who couldnít get away. At one point there was a volley of gun shots which was a bit worrying. Patrick is the king of understatement. Hippy casually remarked that theyíd scared a beautiful bird of a tree. It was lovely - salmon pink in fact. Silver linings.
We chatted with the folk standing by the road as we went and they assured us that none of the aggro would be targeted on the gringos. We watched out anyway. Sure enough, there were no problems and it looked as if the problems that the buses were having getting through the old riverbed crossing may not really have been worth their while. It was good watching from the safe distance of the ruins the strikers preventing buses using the old road. We could see that they were holding up the tourist bus we had seen the day before that was vainly trying to get into town to pick up its clientele for a days site seeing. I felt for the poor tour operators trying to explain to their clients that on the very expensive holiday they had paid for they may not see all the sites because a bunch of locals were simply preventing them continuing and they had no idea when it would stop.
In fact the only problem we had all day was getting lost in the hills behind the main site. Itís all a bit odd really, I almost always know which direction Iím facing. My old gran used to have a theory the northerners have an inbuilt compass in their heads. It is the first time I have ever completed a full circle around a hill top and not realised it. Hippy pointed this out and I was happy to concede that Iíd cocked up. Hippy then refused to believe that I had any idea how to get back to where we should have been. So we had a rowÖÖÖ.. And then we found our way back.
The Sechin ruins are about from about 400BC, and the people of the time clearly had a sense of humour. There was a huge wall with life size carved depictions of people in all manner of strange poses and hairstyles. Clearly mohawks and ponytails were the in thing and John Travolta dancing is nothing new. Thanks to the strike we were the only visitors and could enjoy the place in peace.
On the way back to town there was still no trouble and Hippy passed the time counting the parked up trucks (180 buses and trucks) ñ probably in an effort to avoid talking to me. When we completed our calculations we reckoned that there were enough trucks to fill a 2 km stretch of single carriageway. This was only part of the total amount as we joined the queue half way along when we emerged onto the PanAmerican. It may not seem that much, but you have to remember that there are not so many trucks as you will find on the M25 in the whole of Peru. I did notice that the town was doing rather well out of the strike with buses of passenger stranded frequenting the hostelries and restaurants ñ the cynic in me did wonder whether it was a bit of a ploy to boost custom during the low tourist season.
The news that night showed similar strikes in Lima and Cusco. Hopefully, then, we have avoided the other hot spots. Thanks to Trish and JP for making us rush through Southern Peru or we may have been forever stuck in tourist infested Cusco.