Peru I: Gettin' High

It was pouring rain when we drove across the international bridge that connects Huaquillas in Ecuador to Aguas Verdes, Peru. At 8 AM we were the only vehicle on the road so it was a nasty shock to see the crowds when we arrived at immigration. The internet was down and the lines were long but on the plus side this border had both immigration posts in the same building which was one of the reasons why I chose it. We eventually got on the road at noon after a reluctant customs officer gave Pferdi his import permit. I’m not sure what his problem was but he checked out the bike on the Ural website and then went outside to see it “in person” which was kind of funny because there was some strange guy sitting on it getting photographed. Bloody cheek!

Everyone says to skip the Peruvian coast but after chilly Ecuador we were ready for some heat and besides, being Irish we really do like the desert. This one was very brown and very empty except for an abundance of trash along the highway. The first stop after a crossing is always a state of suspended animation for us. Our bodies may have arrived in a new country but it can take a few days to haul the mind over the line to join them. That said, with the same diet following us from place to place, I’m not sure it makes any difference which flag we’re eating under.

It’s always wise not to plan on driving too many miles on the first day. For one thing it’s impossible to predict how long the border paperwork will take. Mancora was overpriced and had a party town reputation but it was a decent distance into Peru without being too far and we found a quiet place run by three Siberians of all people. The waves could be heard beyond the garden wall and everything was done with great care and quality. The taps didn’t come out of their holes when you turned the water on, the windows had no gaps (a plus with all the mosquitoes) and there was even a shade on the overhead light! These are the little things one really appreciates when living in Latin America. The few other guests were Russian and it was disorientating to eat breakfast on the patio and hear them chat.

From the Pacific to the mountains you drive through the most desolate of landscapes. The desert continues after leaving the coast, as do the unofficial dumps. The road slices through a hazy, sepia-toned emptiness and the smell of burning waste penetrates your nostrils. You keep the visor down and wait till it’s safe to inhale. Turning inland there are towns so poor that waking-up there every day doesn’t bear thinking about. We stopped in Piura and even though I can pretty much picture every place we’ve ever spent the night in this one eludes me. I do remember searching for a Peruvian SIM card there and on the way seeing several large iguanas in the front ‘garden’ of a maternity hospital. And that’s good. As long as I can remember one thing about a place, I can feel in control.

The next day mountains appeared on the horizon. We made such good time we decided not to overnight in Olmos and push on. I was relieved; the only listed hotel did not get nice reviews. It was only 2 PM when we began to climb but the weather was already turning gloomy. We reached 4,000 meters and the clouds came down and kissed us, like Harry Potter Death Eaters. The road, a two-lane in theory, was very narrow, and there was no shoulder and often no guardrail. With the fog and the switchbacks it was impossible to see what was coming around the corner. There wasn’t much traffic which was just as well as nobody used their lights anyway. On the left side there was sheer rock and a drop on the right disappeared into the clouds. In spots the road had simply slipped over the side, leaving torn, ragged asphalt and loose gravel. The best of the local maintenance crews left a couple of orange barrels and yellow tape as warnings, the rest of them made do with a few red, sand-filled plastic bags. There seemed to be no end in sight and I began to worry that the unreality of the fog and constant turns would disorientate Fran and he’d make a mistake. Or something wicked would this way come and make a mistake for us.

I was never so glad as when we started to go down and a pathetically weak sun pushed through. Almost at the bottom, we rounded a bend to a vision of hot, red desert, as unexpected as the Muscovites in Mancora. We began to sweat in the jackets, Fran, now in third gear, felt like a rebel and his pants dried out. When the river came into sight I hung out of the sidecar and we followed its curve all afternoon. Pferdi was a poet, delighting in the dips and the swerves, flying with a rhythm I didn’t know he had. We passed the occasional village and got snapshots of how Sunday afternoon is spent in this lonely corner of the world. Families were eating lunch together outside while further along a woman lay on her back gazing at a man sitting in a doorway, her hand raised to touch his cheek. They were both surrounded by goats. Later the picture reversed, this time a man was flat on his back. A woman cradled his head in her lap while she ran her fingers thru his hair. Some scenes were so surreal that by the time we passed the turkey vultures guarding a large, prostrate pink and white animal I barely batted an eyelid. That is, until we landed in ‘Thailand’. All that rice we eat and I’d never once given a thought to where it comes from. It comes from here. There were miles and miles of rice paddy fields, palm-bordered squares of emerald green with the mountains reflected in mirrors of still water. After the parched canyons it was achingly beautiful.

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Returning to civilization with a bump we stopped in Jaen to consult the map and find a hotel. A man approached and told us to take care. ‘Not sure what exactly he was referring to but we did seem to be the only white faces on the streets that evening. It was just another mountain town and we’re finding people here much more reserved than we’re used to. After 6 months in Colombia we’d begun to think it was normal for the locals to smile and give a thumbs-up and buy us fruit cups at gas stations. It’s a bit strange when it all stops but I bet if we sat down with Harry and Meghan, they’d know exactly what we’re talking about.

Walter in Chachapoyas was not only an administrator in the Peru moto support group, he was also a doctor. He showed up at our hotel the first night and in spite of his having no English we ate a great meal together without any trace of awkwardness. The town was picturesque, an old white colonial city with pedestrian streets and friendly cops. Everywhere we turned local women in tall hats and petticoats carried children on their backs, and lots of other things too. They were all spinning sheep’s wool using spindles that they carried everywhere, like an extension of their arms, the way western women carry handbags. They looked like they were weaving their own candy floss (cotton candy).

We wanted to visit the mountain-top ruins of Kuelap but the ‘road’ up there would have taken years off Pferdi’s life and probably ours too. Instead we took a mini-bus and after nearly 2-hours of going up, and up, we knew we’d made the right decision. On other days we drove around the countryside but the roads really were quite bad with Pferdi rattlin’ and bangin’ and God knows what falling off. Out with Walter’s friends one night we added some excitement to the evening by having our front brakes fail on a very black, back road. But it was a good thing really because two days later we were back in high mountains and if it had happened there we would have been swimming in the proverbial creek.

Moving on to Leymebamba my youngest sister told me to stop sending home photos as her kids were getting scared. The little village had an excellent museum with mummies in glass cases. With their knees up under their chins they were wrapped so tightly they were only half their normal adult size. My favourite was a bag displayed in glass which had a small head, four legs and a tail. The description was in perfect English: “Bag Made Out Of A Desiccated Opossum”. I bet Louis Vuitton doesn’t have one of those in his collection. In the village square sat a little stone church and around the corner the typical green police station. We spent the night in the only accommodation available, a very basic hostel, just us and an elderly Belgian couple. It was one of the few times we had no choice but to leave Pferdi on the street but I thought, the cops can look out for him. It wasn’t like they were spending tons of time on the drunk sprouting platitudes in the square all night anyway.

This being Peru we were soon back crossing passes and passing crosses; the high altitude roads frequently marking the demise of their lonely commuters. This time it was a single lane, but two way road with two high passes, 3900 meters and 3800 meters respectively. We were looking down on the clouds again with lots of rain but thankfully little fog. Sometimes small waterfalls and gravel gushed out of the rock walls, flowed across the road only to disappear over the other side. I think waterfalls have right of way here. It got so wet I had to keep handing Fran tissues to dry his glasses. Again the switchbacks made it impossible to see what was coming and I admit I wondered about us going over the side, and how long would it take for anyone to miss us. If we were dead it wouldn’t really matter; it was just interesting to ponder.

We eventually wound down to a river with an oasis. It was roasting but it didn’t last. We crossed to the other side and climbed again. It was back to one lane and a truck with a load of furniture and an old woman on top had to reverse several curves to let our uphill traffic through. If this had happened on the mountaintop I think I would have needed my sick bag. The cacti disappeared and there were now black sheets of rain over the next mountain range. It looked very, very lonely, the way only a Sunday can. (It’s funny how we seem to always do these drives on a Sunday. Maybe it’s a good day to ask for divine intervention.) We met no traffic on this stretch and when we began to descend it was a relief to see Celendin below. It had taken most of the day, 5.5 hours, to drive 140 km. Our average speed was 28 km p/hour and we got into 3rd gear twice, once when leaving Leymebamba and once on the outskirts of Celendin, But better late than never and at least nobody had to come looking for us with a crane.

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When you’ve had a day like this, all you want at the end of it is a good meal and a glass of decent plonk before tumbling into a hot shower and bed. There was a festival going on in the main plaza at Celendin, the sole purpose seemingly to throw as much water as you can over everyone you come into contact with. Groups of teenagers were standing beside large bins filled to the brim and nobody seemed safe. We sidled along the sidewalk, there’d been lots of giggling from little girls and their mothers when we drove into town so I don’t think we were fooling anyone. They’d just decided to leave the two foreigners alone. We found the only restaurant that had the lights on and wasn’t one step up from somebody’s front room. The only option was a late set-lunch menu (known in Peru as “el menu”). As usual the chicken soup was tasty but the bits left at the bottom of the bowl, while no claws, were disturbing in their color and unknown origins. It was a case not of disgust but simple fascination but it was something I could have done without. Of course the acceptable plonk was out of the question (to be honest, it had never really been in) and we made do with the fruit juice with its half a ton of sugar. In a moment of uncensored madness I confessed to Fran that even a Denny’s (American diner-style restaurant chain) would be preferable but of course this was lunacy. What Denny’s has waitresses emptying stone fountains with juice jugs and running out onto the street to pour them over passers-by? And what Denny’s for that matter even has a stone fountain?