Three Days in Peru

First I have added a travel map. If you click on Travels Page you will see where I have been or where I am as of my latest on line update.   Otherwise Peru is, well more real than Colombia or Ecuador.  Not that it is really new news.  I knew that there would be worse sanitation and that the people would be poorer.  But seeing it is different.  Colombia, with Peru and Bolivia is also among the poorest countries in the Americas, but people there were generally well educated.  Now that narco-terrorism is becoming more confined, I think that Colombians will be doing much better in the future. 

Day One in Peru:
I woke up, a little south of San Ignacio and went to use a toilet which was just a whole in the ground.  The TP which my hosts were using was old notebook paper, houses were all made of mud brick.  I was sent off with a fresh pineapple as a parting gift.  

 

 

The little rain in the night was enough to keep the dust down, but 10km down the road that changed and there was sticky clay that coated everything and made my ride a slog.  20km riding downhill along a river too me well over 2 hours.  Of course this and the previous 50 kilometers my map had shown as paved.  Then out of the dirt, pavement as I was starting to roll along well a man on a motor cycle pulled up beside me.  This is not too rare, but normally the driver simply yells GRINGO and drives off.  This time he was asking me to stop.  After a little hesitation I deemed him to be harmless and stopped my bike.  It turned out that he often houses touring cyclists and also had a friend 60km up the road in Jaen that I could stay with.  Though I was planning on riding farther, shortly after that my came off (but was still in the pedal) my multi tool had rattled to bits over the previously poundingly

bumpy roads, and I was dirty, hot so I decided to stop.  El Ciclista bike shop turned out to be the hang out for the local youth racing crowd and after my shower I spent the following four hours outlining training programs and strategies for a gang of 15 to 19 year cycling team.

Then we all went out and celebrated a birthday with Chicha (a fermented corn drink) and the local delacy, Kuy, or roasted guinea pig.  The later gets the locals very excited.  It is served up in quarters so that every serving includes a paw and claws.  There is very little meat (but it of course tastes like chicken) and the skin is as rubbery as eating a bicycle tube. 

Day Two:
I woke up and found that I would have a motorcycle and bicycle escort for the first 30km of riding which was nice.  I crossed the fifth most important bridge in Peru.  Which did not seem like much to me, but two tour buses were stopped and Peruvians were taking photos.  It is the only connection to Amazonian portion of their country.  The elevation in Bellavista is only 300m though the lazy rivers here are far from the Amazon.  It was hot, but nothing compared to Central America and the roads were surrounded with rice paddies.  As I started to think about camping I stopped in a store, which was an unlit room which had three shelves on the back wall.  I asked for tuna and was given a can, when I read the label it was anchovies.  I explained that tuna was a different fish from anchovies, and that I would prefer tuna.  Different fish piped up the husband, do you want salmon?  Sure, salmon sounds fine I replied, do you have some?  No the replied, we only have tuna, which of course was Anchovies.  At a later store I found a can labeled salmon but upon reading the can it was salmon like fish which was 3 things neither myself nor my dictionary had heard of and/ or anchovies.  

Shortly down the road I saw the disturbing sight of a young boy, dead beside the road partially covered by a tarp.  (Two weeks ago I had ridden past another body, which I did NOT see but Baptiste did, it was burning in a garbage pile.)  Camping by the river that night, in a town of 80 people I overheard my host gossiping that this was the second boy who had died this week, he was 18 and apparently perfectly healthy.  

When I asked where the bathroom was I was met with a confused look.  I tried again, showing my toilet paper to clarify my intentions, and was told to use the river.  I asked if anyone in the town had a toilet that I could use, but it turned out that everyone there craps in the river.  Mysteriously downstream fit young people are dying. 

Day 3:
The previous day I had been riding on a single lane dirt road, farther up the same river and found a nice resort amongst the dirt houses.  I asked how much it was to camp and the lady replied that their rates were $54 US per night.  I explained that I had a tent and just wanted to shower and possibly to eat at the restaurant and what would that rate be? 15 soles (around $6) including my own bathroom and two meals. There were a group of 10 European tourists there complaining about how sore they were from riding over these roads in Toyota SUVs, that the food was crap (as some were Vegan the rice, corn, potato and meat meal was the same minus the meat).  When you are over 100km from any paved road in Peru soy milk is not readily available.  It helped me to put my hardships into perspective.  By that evening I had crossed a pass at 3680m elevation.  I had been climbing continuously for 239km nearly three full cycling days.  The longest descent was 500m due to a mudslide which was climbed over rather than removed.  The first two and a half days were more gradual climbs beside a river.  

Near the top of the climb I met a family who had a pet eagle 

I descended 72km, crossed a bridge and climbed 35 km up the far river bank. 

Weekend, especially Sunday riding is dangerous in the country because most people on the road are drunk.  M-F drivers are noticeably slower, and give me a wider birth.  If you need to ask directions on the weekends usually I need to find women or children because everyone over 16 is passed out or on the brink of passing out.

I am sure that Canadians do not know much about Peru, I could not have told you what its flag looked like before coming down here.  When I tell people that I am from Canada, I am often asked if it is a large city. 

Here few people know more than 5 – 15 words of english but every white person they see gets to hear those words which include:

Meester, Good morning, Whats your name… of course when I first rode across the boarder into Mexico I could only count to five.

2 Comments

Leave a Comment

Username (required) :
Email (required) :
Web Site :
Comment :