Piura

It’s always fascinating to be in the middle of nowhere and make it all work in places off the gringo highway. Yesterday we rolled into Piura, northern Peru’s hub city. The five days of riding to get here gave us a good taste of what riding through the desert to Lima and beyond (2000+ kms) would be like. It actually appears to get much more desolate and remote as the road goes south. So ya, five days is good J

The riding is actually quite good. The dry desert air is fresh, the pavement is good, visibility is unlimited, and the temps are quite reasonable at mid to high 20’s. With a nice breeze blowing it can be downright pleasant. The biggest challenge is the mental fatigue of slogging along a seemingly endless road, with little to nothing breaking it up. With virtually no towns or other human activity along the way, rest stops become random spots on the side of the highway where Amy finds a nice rock to sit on. Remembering to carry enough water (and Oreo cookies!) becomes a life-threatening consideration. With no stops of interest on the horizon, the whole thing just takes on too much of an eco-challenge theme, and not enough of a fun travelling theme.

Peru so far has been great though. It’s fascinating to experience the incremental changes that come from riding a bike another 50 or 100 kms down the road each day. Coming from Columbia, Ecuador appeared a little bit rougher and a little bit more run-down. Coming from Ecuador, Peru seems a little bit rougher and a little bit more run-down. Basically there’s less pavement (i.e., more dirt), more disintegrating buildings (that bombed-out building look), and the vehicles have taken on a more smash-up derby look. Interestingly, for some reason there are a lot of old-school volkswagon bugs around. ??

Peru definitely has better food. The best so far. Coming from Ecuador, the land of plain white rice, it has been a gastronomical fiesta for us. Yesterday, coming into town hot and hungry, we were blown out of our seats by our plates of arroz con pollo (rice with chicken). We were of course thinking we were in for the usual survivalist pile of white rice and hunk of chicken. But no! What met our table was a delicious plate of mixed curry rice with roasted chicken and a side of papas a la huancaina (potatoes with a creamy cheese and egg yolk sauce). We couldn’t believe how tasty, and unexpected, it was. It made our day. It’s amazing how important the little things are. Although as any traveller knows, food is no small thing!

So Piura. Actually a very nice city from what we can tell. With the usual picturesque and serene el centro square (Plaza de Armas here in Peru), and a scattering of colonial buildings mixed with shops and cafes, it has a fairly modern feel to it. And, we saw our first signs of Christmas with the downtown dressed up in Feliz Navidad (Merry Christmas) decorations. A bit weird since Christmas is the furthest thing from our minds as we eat ice cream and look for shade.

Our mission for today is to ready ourselves for air travel. We fly to Cuzco tomorrow.  Readying ourselves means converting 11 pieces of cycle touring luggage into 2 checked bags and 2 carry-ons (not to mention the bikes). Not an easy feat. But we have a system involving taping panniers together that should work. We hope. If all goes according to plan, we should be in Cuzco tomorrow afternoon. More on that soon. Hasta luego.