6. Lima, Peru
Day 127
I had a great sleep last night so I am ready to go at sunrise. I am not sure why but the most hotels put me at the very top floor. Same here, 4th floor. And I have to go 3 times to get all my gear up and in the m morning down. That’s why I don’t need to go to the gym and losing weight …
My goal today is Lima. I want to change oil and filters on my bike and the the general check before I head south.There are very limited opportunities along the way until I get to Santiago in Chile. I book an apartment near the BMW dealership so I don’t need to ride across the town to get there. I book my place for 3 nights to give me chance to plan my next adventure and to catch up on everything.
My buddies changed their minds again and abandoned their attempts to go to the mountains for the same reason I am not going there. However, they will ride only to outskirts to Lima. They didn’t have anything booked so I send them the location of one of my possible overnights right on the beach. I’d like to stay there but I need to go to the city.
The ride today is 100% on Panamericana. Nice, wide, safe 4 lanes. Very windy with sand dunes everywhere. It is a desert here. It very much reminds me Sahara Desert. We are moving along nicely. I have my cruise control set to 100 km/h. It is a relaxing ride.
We stop few times and Jesse tells me if he stops we should keep going as he will be taking some pics and vids for his social media stuff and he will catch up. So when he slows down I just wave and continue on. He and Kathleen go only about 70 km before Lima. When Jesse is not catching up I stop before they suppose to turn off from the freeway. I open my phone and there are dozen messages from Jesse. He had a flat where I passed him 20’ ago. Damn! And he has no tools. He is stranded there by himself. Kathleen’s phone is not working so I get an exact position from Jesse and put a waypoint on Ks GPS. She is going to the same place w Jesse tonight so there is no point for me to go back. I’ll check if they need help when I get to Lima. I said goodbye to Kathleen who turned around and went back to rescue Jesse. She has all the tools and compressor as well.
After that drama sorted out for now I had towards Lima. I hit the traffic jam 40km! from my place. Stopped. People are doing stuff you would go to jail for 10 year in Canada. When in Rome … I am doing the same thing. It is hard to describe it, I haven’t seen anything like it. Give me Bogota traffic any day. The worse thing is that the locals don’t know it is a madhouse here, they don’t know anything else. Milimeters and brass balls saved me many times here. This was THE most stressful street riding I have ever done. And I don’t want to repeat it. EVER. I am not sure how come I am still in one piece and there not even a scratch on my bike. Enough said.
BMW dealership is on the way to my apartment. A huge facility combined for cars, bikes and also Mini brand. I get there, ride straight inside. I go to the office and tell the young guy there what I need. He fills out all the forms and tell me to come back to pick up the bike tomorrow. Oh, now so fast, Grasshopper. I tell him I need to go to my apartment first. No problem he says. I will be back in about an hour.
I find my place which is about 1 km from the dealer. No problem to get in, doors have digital locks on them. I drop all of my bags and I am back at the dealer within 30’. I leave my keys and bike there and walk back. I seems that I am in a very posh hood in Lima. All the high end stores are around, two Starbucks within 5’ from me. Many restaurant and shops. The US embassy is here. BTW, it is one of the biggest building around. Massive! And it is busy here. I walk around for a bit, have a dinner and call it a night. But not before I watch the first World Cup XC ski races …
I checked with my guys and they managed to fix the flat tire and got to their hotel. So all good at the end.
The next day I just chill. I go for a breakfast and lunch, walk around and do some work on my laptop. Gotta take an advantage of fast internet. I pick up my bike in the afternoon, all is done. And it is CLEAN. I can’t even recognize it. I am considering putting on new tires but they don’t have what I want and mine are still good. I am not gonna do the hard core mountain riding as previously planned. I brave the Lima traffic again and ride to two other stores to check if the have tires. They do not. That’s it then. My tires are good till Santiago de Chile IF I don’t do any crazy stuff off road. I have to pick my battles now.
Nice dinner at the main drag here and back to watch ski racing …
Day 128
It is an easy day after a good night sleep. The main job today is to catch up with my website and to change money. That’s a whole different topic. Basically, I have bunch of USD for Argentina. Cash is king there. But they do not change anything but $100 bills. I have only $20s from ATM so I need to change them. I went to the bank and they told me as I don’t have my account there, I should get out of there. Not in the same words, but … I tried Western Union with the same result. At the end I went to normal currency exchange office. The lady there was super nice but told me she doesn’t have enough bills for me. I should come after lunch. And I did and she change all my used $20 bills for crisp, new $100 bills. That’s how you would launder the money if you need to, I guess. Mission accomplished.
I did my flight planning for tomorrow and it should be awesome ride and even awesomer destination! I should have some spectacular pictures. But that’s tomorrow ;-)