Finally Peru
Trip Start
Mar 31, 2006
1
16
37
Trip End
Mar 31, 2007
Tarma,
Peru
Thursday, August 10, 2006
I thought we were living in Ecuador we had been there so long and had forgotten how to cross borders. Well finally got out of Quito (day after I returned from Oz) and hightailed it as far as possible South and ended up in El Tambo (where we had stayed before) and then to the coastal border at Huajillas. Got there on a Sunday afternoon which, if we had known, was a bit of a mistake as it was market day and the direct road across was partially closed and the rest clogged with stalls and people. We got well and truly "scammed" by the money changers who passed off US$60 in counterfeit 100 soles notes. It was very difficult to see but several garages and shop owners pointed it out to us. Obviously it is such a serious problem that some shops will not return a counterfeit note as it is your responsibility to check. Anyway the border was its usual fun with very few signs and the normal "aduano" closed but we got through with no trouble except time and motored on to the nearest decent town, Tumbes, reveling in being in a new country
Inca hairless dog
. Got "scammed" again at breakfast but that was our stupidity!Our visit to the coast was really a working period as we had to survey all the waves as to shape and break for Fin for when he arrives in a few months time as well as finding suitable campsites. But our first stop was purely R&R to get some warmth back into our bones and oxygen into our lungs. We drove into what looked like a deserted hotel site on the coast at Punta Sal with me saying this is a waste of time and generally grumbling. Sheila was gone quite some time in reception and then came out smirking (she has this annoying habit of being right) with what turned out to be a magical campsite right on the edge of the sands and even though it was well over the odds in terms of cost we could not leave for three nights. Punta Sal is, as the guide book says, posh and we had not seen anything like it in Ecuador: rows of very luxurious looking private houses; obviously lots of money as the women be-sporting themselves were mostly slim (most of Latin America has just enough money to be fat, you need to be very poor or very rich to be slim).
After re-charging we motored down the coast on the excellent and mostly empty Pan Americana to Mancora which is well known as a surfing destination and where we stocked up on provisions and our daily Internet jab
Lagunas de Llanganuco
. Then we dropped in on Cabo Blanca (where Hemingway is said to have written Old Man of the Sea) but is now surrounded by oil well platforms at sea and on the land but also has the sweetest wave. Very down-at-heel but should suit Fin. Then hard motoring as we wanted to see the Tucume ruins before closing which we reached at about 4.30pm (after circling the town several times trying to negotiate the one-way system to where we could see the pyramids - silly us, you got there by ignoring the arrows as all the locals pointed out).They had closed the ticket booth but we walked through and up the hill to a viewing site overlooking all these massive mud pyramids and walls of what was once a major Sican site which was then finally taken over by the Incas. Quite awe-inspiring when you think it was started some 1,000yrs years ago and contains the longest adobe structure in the world. Came back and noticed a sign saying camping and spent a delightful night all on our own in a beautiful campsite right by the ruins. We were visited here by a revolting looking hairless dog which the guard said was specially bred by the Incas as it gave out lots of warmth and was good for arthritis suffers - pull the other one! Well we read the next day that this is true and Sheila is still feeling guilty at rejecting this poor dog.
From there we went to Lambayeque where there is one of the best small museums we have ever visited
One of the 36 tunnels
. It is devoted to the burial site of the Old Lord of Sipan which was excavated only 20 odd years ago so had not been desecrated by grave robbers or explorers of old. The copper and gold jewelry was spectacular and they had recovered material and all sorts of other items that had allowed them to piece together their lives and customs. It also had recreations of the layers of the burial site which were fascinating. From there we motored on at great speed through Chiclayo - as usual got lost but found a supermarket which is always a highlight for Sheila - and down to Huanchaco (another surfing resort) where we camped in the gardens of a hostal - a walled garden with a swimming pool and just us. One thing about camping it keeps the riff-raff away. Fin please note, the surf was stupendous.More hard motoring and a severe case of being lost through Trujillo a major town (I suppose I should not keep saying we get lost as it is simply the norm as there are virtually no signs anywhere) and on to Chimbote where we had been told of this very interesting and challenging road East through the desert and up into the mountains.
We did finally get onto a "road" after hours of searching and everyone told us it was going to the place we wanted and it was interesting and challenging once we had got beyond the irrigation it was beautiful and desolate but it ended up in loops, dead-ends and with no answers to our queries except disbelief that we should actually be where we were - wherever that was
Our first view of the peaks
! So very reluctantly and a little chastened we turned tail. We are a little concerned as it is a road suggested by an over-landing couple we met in Ecuador and they have given us all sorts of "interesting" and "challenging" routes. We got back to a little town called Santa just as it was going dark, which is where everyone said we should have gone in the first place and early the next day we headed out East again.The drive was stupendous going through some 36 tunnels, through narrow, deep canyons and everywhere looming over us these bare mountains showing their skeletal geology and generally giving rise to much oohing and aahing. For much of the journey the road was a very poor dirt road clinging to the side of the mountain and with horrendous vertical drops down to the valley. The road was only single width and there were buses and combi-taxis roaring towards around appearing round blind corners...terrifying. But very slow going at about 20km per hour but we weren't complaining. We got to the delightful town of Caraz before dark and had already seen more snow-capped peaks than we saw in two months in Ecuador. Poor little Ecuador pales in comparison to the grandeur of Peru - it was a clear day up through the mountains, absolutely one of the most dazzling drives we have ever done.
The two lakes in the area that we wanted to visit seemed inaccessible other than by a 5 hour hike (and I was still acclimatizing) so we were off to another lake but trying to find the town for that road we stumbled over signs for the previous lakes we wanted to visit and a road to them (guide books can be confusing or just plain wrong)
Suddenly around the corner
. We turned at Yungay a new town built after the last one was covered in a mud slide triggered by an earthquake 30 years ago that killed 22,000 people. They have built a huge monument over the site. People here live a precarious existence. We drove up another magnificent road for about an hour and a half to reach an azure lake surrounded by more snow-capped peaks stretching up to well over 6,000m. The lakes are at approximately 4,000m. We walked for a couple of hours from the first lake to a second smaller lake. We could have camped but my head was aching (this suffering from altitude is real nuisance as Sheila feels absolutely nothing other than being breathless). So we descended to Yungay to spend the night.
The next day we drove down the paved road South to a turn-off at Lake Conococha to turn East again to go over the Andes to Huanocu. Sheila had planned for a day to do this but in the end it took nearly two days even though the first part or parts was on a paved road. Most of the route was about as awful as it can get with whole stretches at about 10km/hr. But again we weren't really complaining (or not a lot) as it took us through more magnificent country and over a pass of 4,700m (the highest for our car so far). Bleak but beautiful with dazzling peaks all around
The road to nowhere
. This area called the Cordillera Blanca has over 50 peaks above 5,700m with the highest at 6,780m and although the glaciers are receding rapidly there are still some major blue ice scarps. We had to stop for the night at a little indigenous town where I disgraced myself by getting one of my wheels stuck in a muddy ditch and tearing up a water main, a very impressive geyser resulted! But I think the town was so fascinated by the antics of the "gringos" that I was forgiven; we had quite an audience over dinner (the fourth time we had had pollo frito in as many nights!).But the second day on this "road" I really did start to complain and we had a run-in with the "carreterras" (highway police - what they were doing on this road I have no idea) who stopped us and then saw we were not wearing our seat-belts; what a palaver and the upshot was money but since we played completely dumb - quite normal for me - they finally gave up and waved us on. I had been told by a Chilean that playing dumb is the best idea and it has worked several times: it worked with another set of carreteras who kept jabbing me in the arm saying "money, money for food" and we kept saying "why?" and finally they got bored as well. Sheila says we look their parents' age and they start to feel guilty. The life you see on these little dirt roads is also endlessly entertaining: suddenly coming into a little village on fiesta day where the men were wearing leather masks, black business suits and dancing with furled umbrellas and white handkerchiefs; the mixed herds of sheep, goats, pigs, cows horses and donkeys taken to the fields and brought home each day; and the ever-changing head gear of the indigenous women (evidently the Spaniards forbad their original headgear so they responded with conventional hats but every group with a slightly different hat)
Tucume adobe ruins
.Well we finally got to Huanocu (again cursing the maps for getting roads and distances completely wrong) and immediately were waved down by a brigade of car washers: what a relief, for a dollar a fresh looking 4Runner. They were doing great business from people coming off our road. I noted that most of the taxis traveling the route at break-neck speed (much faster than I dared go in a vehicle much more suited to the conditions) were Toyota Corollas surely the best advert for a car. We then turned South towards Tarma our destination for the night.
The road takes you through areas of much local mining activity with some of the worst environmental practices I have ever seen: tailings dams built right in the middle of river flood plains and rivers with all the rocks bright red. I have had several emails from people asking me about Barrick's planned mine in Argentina; they have an excellent environmental record and these protestors would be much better employed protesting the local environmental practices - or lack of them. But it is always exciting to me to see mines being operated in such challenging conditions and the unique ways each mine has of sorting out their problems. The highest coal mine in the world is in this area. The road also takes you through one of the largest high-altitude plains in the world with a large lake Lago de Junin all at over 4,250m - bleak but fascinating - and ringed again by distant peaks. Then rapidly descending to Tarma where we are now ensconced in the beautiful but dilapidated grounds of the Hacienda El Florida. This is a re-charge station and we will not move for another two days. My apologies for such a long blog but it has taken me a while to get back into the swing of things.
