All things considered, the stay in Lima was a positive experience. Both bikes were set up, and the Flying Dog hostal was an excellent place to stay. We met some new riders, and certainly got to know how to navigate Lima's crazy traffic.
The hostel was right across the street from a park, which was nice. There must have been about 30 cats who live in the Park, and who are taken care of by the local municipal folks. The park itself, and the streets are very busy, and of course there are a lot of folks out doing their Christmas shopping.
This may be Willy's Peruvian cousin, from another Mother.....
We met Hector and his wife Carmen. They were having some work done on his BMW, so he and I spent a few hours waiting while the wrenching was completed.
They have just finished a tour of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Peru, and are heading home to Argentina via Bolivia. A great couple...
I saw a local cop with a Contour Cam on his helmet...they are just keeping up with the times...
This rig is from Alberta. The guy was crashed in the truck: probably spent all of his dough getting the rig to SA...
Unfortunately when they were cleaning the Triumph Tiger, they pressured washed it, and one of the connections for the Garmin was wrecked. We spent a few hours going around Lima trying to get replacement parts, but to no avail. That means I am now the navigator...at least I found lunch.
This guy wanted to talk bikes, and did not want to go to school...
The Nasca Lines are samples of pre-history that I have been hearing about and reading about since I was a kid. There is lots of informatinn on the web about them, and this
Nazca site has a few photos of the lines from the air.
There is a tower built beside the Pan American and it is supposed to give one a view of the lines.
I guess with all the hype and my heightened expectations, I was expecting more than what we could see. There were flights being offered, which I suppose would do the lines justice...
We met Peter from Switzerland, who was riding a F800. Another geezer riding the world...
Soon after the city of Nazca, we turned east of Peru 26, heading for Cuzco. This is a shot of the worlds' highest sand dune, coming in at over 2800 meters tall...
After the giant dune, we began to climb, and climb, and climb some more. I stopped counting switchbacks after 100...We were clearly leaving the coast plain and heading into the foothills of the Andes Mountains...
These guys are guanacos, and were feeding beside the road....
The weather to the east was not looking very inviting, and it was starting to get cold. I was feeling the effects of the elvevation change. I was short of breath, and somewhat dizzier than usual...
Beautiful bunch of cactus growing at elevation...
We were running out of light, and air in my case, so we found a hotel in a small town on the route..
It was very cold in the village, and of course we were tired from the ride from the coast. We had a couple of servings of coca tea, which seemed to help with the altitude sickness...
Certainly helped get rid of some of the cold...
We had an early start the next day, and immediately started climbing some more. This guy was checking us out...
We reached a plateau area, and the sky was a wonderful blue, and the surrounding mountains had tinges of snow on them, from the storm that we missed yesterday...
I was trying to get a screen shot of the the Garmin, indicating that we were at 4527 meters. No wonder I was huffing and puffing....
Thousands of llamas and alpacas in the valley...
At the very height of land, there was a small village, and they were holding some sort of celebration in the school yard...
The kids are windburned, sunburned, and happy. We passed two shepherds who were living in a stone shelter at the 3500 meter level. These people are tough....
