Day 14 (4/5)

Seagulls woke us up early this morning on the beach. We had our morning coffee, packed up, and were on our way in pretty expedient fashion. Before we left we made sure to have a final conversation with our host Alex… Here’s a kid who had to flee his native country of Venezuela a few years back, has travelled through all of South America and is now living in this small beach community. He couldn’t have been more upbeat and positive despite his travails. When you encounter people with stories like his, it quickly puts one’s life in perspective.

We expected a pretty boring day making our way down the coastal highway. After stopping to do some deferred maintenance on our bikes… i.e. tightening and lubing our chains and making a repair to Claudio’s windshield… we ran into a situation we hadn’t expected. And, that was a series of road blocks. These weren’t construction related. These were political. Turns out like countries around the world, Peru is being impacted by the ongoing pandemic related inflation and the more recent Ukrainian-war related spike in fuel prices. The combination of high unemployment and high inflation has driven people here to the streets. We’d been seeing news of protests on the television and a few times over the previous day we’d witnessed long columns of trucks lined up along the side of the road, imposing stoppages on the delivery of essential goods. 

Around noon today, what we encountered were a series of blockades on the highway including burning truck tires (see picture). We were waved through the first one we encountered, but at the second one a few miles later, the large crowd of protesters made it clear we were not to pass. To be clear there was no threat… simply and firmly… we were not to pass. There was no discussion to be had and so Claudio and I turned around, quickly assessed the situation, and found that there was a road 10-12km north that headed inland and came back to the coast further south. We figured this was a our best bet, but as we started back north out of town, Claudio noticed a road leading down to the coast and so we decided to try that first. Our thinking was that without having to retreat 10 or 12km and take the longer detour, we might be able to make our way on secondary roads along the coast past the blockade. Turns out we were correct, although the secondary road quickly turned into a narrow path past the local dump and through a series of fields. Let’s just say our off road riding skills came in handy. We made it though and emerged on the highway a mile or so past the blockade. Getting back on the highway was a little like being behind enemy lines… i.e. there was no one on the highway headed our direction save for a few locals. 

From that point on the riding was pretty much what you’d expect. Droning along at 55-60mph on a four lane highway. I took a couple of pics just to give a sense of it. What you’ll see in the pictures and what we witnessed is that this part of the Peruvian coast is pretty depressing… a series of coastal shanty towns with garbage strewn about, laid against a barren landscape and shrouded in fog. We were able to find ourselves a decent hotel just north of Lima and are hoping that we are able to continue our journey south tomorrow un-interrupted. We’ll see.

From Claudio

Machete

Machete at hand, a solitary man shouldering a bundle of grass harvested from the giving mountains, slowly sways the sharp metal marking time. His steps do not move him forward, it is the earth rotating under him: he just meets it as it comes towards him, allowing enough purchase to advance, bringing home closer and closer, with the lowering sun blessing the end of the day. 

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