Dear Everyone,
By now many of you are aware that differences in wants have caused us to separate for a portion of our trip. As a result you will now get twice as many contributions to the blog! Lucky you! But I am getting ahead of myself. First I must catch everyone up on our time altogether in Peru. So where we last left you Colin had left for Lima and me, Braydon and Patrick were on our way to Trujillo.
Riding through Peru and Chile can only be described as surreal. For all of us it was the first true desert experience. We went from riding on the Moon to Mars and all the while in a very long, very boring straight road. That said, it was a nice change of pace to be able to cover ground quickly and before we knew it we had gone the 700+ kilometers to arrive in Trujillo.
There we had a lovely time being shown around by Patrick’s aunt, Liana and got to see some very different ruins from what we had been used to.
Besides exploring Chan Chan and the Temple of the Moon, we just enjoyed the city and spent time with Liana before moving on to Lima in a few days. One long and desert-filled ride later we arrived in Lima where we caught up with Colin and met some very lovely people that I unfortunately don’t have any photos of! Lima was a nice place, but besides sorting out Colin’s motorcycle we didn’t do anything to noteworthy. It was there however that I had announced my intention to make for Ushuaia, Argentina. Up until that point me and Patrick had wanted to go, but we were disappointed to discover that on our current timeline, we’d be arriving in May… and this is an example of some of the roads at that time of year:
We didn’t particularly feel like being that guy, but after some thought I decided that it was important enough to me to make it to Ushuaia that I would be willing to either extend the trip or save the rest of Peru and Bolivia for another trip. Thankfully, Patrick shared my desires so I would not be going alone, but it didn’t end up fitting into what Braydon and Colin wanted out of the trip. No matter, we would miss each other and it felt strange to discuss being apart after five months together. So when we left Lima, Patrick and I had to say goodbye to Colin… and it was a bigger wrench than we expected. It felt wrong somehow, like we were leaving home again… but there it was and we were on our way to Huacachina, Peru, a desert oasis, with Braydon and Susanna, a darling Swedish girl (who we named new Colin), for some fun in the sun before our long trek south. And this is where we ended up…
In Huacachina we relaxed by the pool, soaked up the sun and went dune buggying and sand boarding in what was basically Peru’s equivalent of the Sahara. For all of us this was our first, nothing but sand, desert and it was both awe-inspiring and so very cool. Nothing is quite like sitting on the top of a dune and seeing nothing all the way to the horizon.
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After a few days though, it was back on the road for us. And part way through our next ride after looking at some very cool Nazca lines from not nearly high enough, we had to say goodbye to Braydon.
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Again, it felt wrong and was a big wrench… clearly Braydon didn’t take it so well.
From there Patrick and I began an epic 3-day journey that involved riding from dawn until dusk through desert flatter than Saskatchewan. Including a 2-hour border, we managed to cover 2400km until both our chains broke and stranded us in Copiapo, Chile. All things considered, we were lucky to get to a city and it was nice to have time to relax. With new chains in hand we made our way to Santiago in a leisurely and uneventful way. Here are some highlights from the whole little journey!
Now we find ourselves in Santiago where we are getting all the gear and spare parts we can. Patrick’s motorcycle had been burning an insane amount of oil and we just discovered the culprit! A broken piston… unfortunately that means we are here until Wednesday and Patrick has to spend quite a lot fixing his motorcycle, but soon we’ll be on our way again and we’ll keep you updated on our journey to Ushuaia. It’s been lovely catching up. Hasta luego!
