Sunday 6th December. The theory was that getting out of Lima on a Sunday would be easy as very little traffic. Had breakfast and ready to go by 8am. One thing I never tried was how to load a motorcycle so that everything thing that I needed was to hand. I’ll get it right by the end of my trip. Bike loaded and I was in all my full body gear. Down to reception. Sorry our card machine is not working. Do you have cash? In Peru you can use dollars or Peruvian soles. Well no I don’t have enough of either. Off with the bike gear and walk to the bank. Fortunately someone was already at the machine and couldn’t get it to work so I didn’t panic too much when my card didn’t either. I opted for a dollars cash card but had never used it. Off to the next bank where I got money. Back into gear etc and off to the fuel station. Vehicles are filled for you here as too many people would just drive off. My Peruvian friends cannot believe we have self service check out in supermarkets!
I checked the map again and set off. The road names are sort of hung over the road. It’s difficult to describe and just as difficult to follow. That’s my excuse for having a tour of Lima harbour. Eventually sitting at lights beside a car and able to point and say panamerica norte si??? Si, correcto.
There are no pictures as I could not see anywhere suitable to stop. Most of the way was dual carriageway with a very narrow gravel shoulder. Basically even if I had stopped you would have seen sand sand and more sand. O and at random intervals small shanty towns. What the people do and where they work is a mystery. In the distance there are large things that look like chicken sheds. Don’t know if they are. And occasionally green belts with maize or bananas growing. One interesting point was when the road was single carriageway and I thought it was now dual and I had somehow missed the turning. It’s only because I was on a bike that I was able to squeeze past the two lorries and three cars overtaking coming towards me at speed.
I did stop at one of the many fuel stations for a coffee. If anyone can remember Camp coffee its sort of like that poured into hot water with evaporated milk in.
It was hot and very windy so I was glad to get to Huarmey. I found the street the hotel was on but no hotel. I have been using booking.com and have arranged some hotels. I asked locals which caused much debate. I looked where they said. I stopped at the local police. There seems to be a local police, a national police and a transport police. I passed three check points but they were all busy so never got stopped just as a wee aside. The local police brought up the hotel on his phone and got me to follow him. Somewhere in the following hour I lost my webcam which I had stuck in my pocket for safety. Anyway still following my friendly police man, onto the national police. I think i was the most exciting thing to happen today. How could a hotel have a website showing a map and not exist? In the end I was taken to another hotel. Bit more expensive but at least I have somewhere to eat and sleep.