January 7th & 8th, 2010

Ok, so as of last episode Mike and I had figured out the timing for getting his replacement passport in Lima on Monday a.m. This gave us a day to chill out along the coast and we basically got caught up on emails, blogs, Skype calls, and generally goofed off.

In case someone steals our bikes we have sourced alternative transportation. Here you can see us practicing leaning our new rides into a left turn. Darn horses are tough to counter-steer!
This a.m., Friday the 8th, we tried to head out early and make as many miles as we could. Got all packed up by 6:30 and the KLR would not start. Great! Yesterday I even started it a couple of times just to check it. To think I could have searched for a battery yesterday instead of goofing off irritated me a bit. Fortunately when I pulled the battery I found that the loose connections I corrected the day before had caused the cells to run dry. I added some water and she fired right up. Whew! I would hate to either push start it each time or leave it running all the time. Both options leave a LOT to be desired when traveling down here.

After stopping at an ATM for Mike we headed down the road at 7:30 and had a route that was fairly straight and relatively flat. It also was through desert which people had warned us about being crazy hot. Fortunately for us it was overcast today so we had pleasant riding weather.

Here is a shot of our scenery while traveling today.
Quick beverage break along the Panamericana

Yep, pretty desolate out here. Glad I have a large gas tank.

So we are riding through desert with sand drifting across the road all day when we run across this, a rice paddy! It was just about the only green we saw all day. Where do they get the water?

This gas station had girls pumping the gas.

After riding 400 miles today we stopped in Trujillo Peru. We drove to the town center(pictured) and found a great three star hotel for $35 with nice rooms, secure parking, wifi, and breakfast served at our requested 6 a.m.

Mike had a scanned copy of his moto title so we hunted up a copy place and had another "original" made. They will never know the difference and they don't care as long as numbers match and you have lots of paper.

Church across from our hotel

It was a great day of riding. No mishaps, minimal time being lost, and good traveling weather. The desert was new to us so we enjoyed the difference. Tomorrow we will head for another coastal town on our way to Lima and try to get there early so we can go for a swim before dark.

We are very grateful that Scott made it home safely. He will have quite a story to tell the rest of his life!

Stay warm and thank you for reading-John