Sunday, February 6, 2011

Peru: Mancora, Huanchaco, Huaraz

February 2nd
That day I left Cuenca in Ecuador to get to Mancora in Peru, the road was under construction and the detour offered a nice scenery.



Just before the border to Peru, many banana fields like this; 
You follow the signs to the Ecuador-Peru border until you see a sign: "welcome to Peru" and then drive back because you first have to exit a country before entering another one... Found the immigration for my exit stamp and then had to drive back a few kilometers more for Aduana, to get my bike out of the country. 
Entering Peru tru this border place was a real charm, absolutely no line ups as you can see, Immigration and Aduana are 2 traillers side by side, and it was free, awesome! 
 Got the the town of Mancora because it's in the way, and there are nothing else before or after... It's has a cool little bar and restaurents strip along the beach and going to the beach.

Many little motorcycle taxi everywhere driving dangerously slow and anyhow, they change lane without even looking so you need to watch out, same as Canadian drivers... and also they'll do anything to pass someone that would manage to drive slower than them, so watch out for the opposite traffic as well... 

Had a hotel and spent the night at a Internet coffee working on my blog, the next morning bumped into Marcus again, he decided to leave no too after I left Ecuador. 
Next Destination: Huanchaco, just because someone recommended it to me, and there's nothing else where you can go anyway, just desert everywhere... 

Then I saw a big line up of cars and trucks, I get in front of everybody as usual and saw the road was blocked at 2 places, they made a fire in the middle of the road. It was easy to get around the 1st barricade. 
Tire burning; on strike because they didn't have water. 
Checkout my video on how I got across :)

By the way it's my first video so maybe the next ones are going to be better edited.
My only regret is not having made a video of me going both side of the roadblock and seing the whole lineup from both side.

After that it's just desert: a whole lot of nothing
Gas station after maybe 200km, you better gas up each time you can here in Peru.  
Many mud houses 

 And I arrived in Huanchaco just in time for sunset, 600km later.
Met as I was looking for an hostel, met with Todd (left) and Sean (right), both from Nebraska, they recommended a nice hostel "J&J hostel" with ocean view. They offered me a beer and a cigar, nice.

They were curious about my trip and the bike, it ended up Todd bought the same bike as me 2 days later... Funny. 

 Also a nice strip
Had breakfast with Todd and Sean, this surf instructor almost got me into surfing, he was very friendly and seriously  I always wanted to go surfing, maybe I will, soon enough. 
He sowed me his shaping room, where he was making surfboards. 

Trujillo: just drove tru quickly. 

My next destination would be Huaraz, in the mountains, to make it different to the flat deserts at the coast highway. 


Here I reached 4200m high, and Huaraz is in the background, some nearby mountains are over 6700m high...

In Huanchaco: many cargo bikes like that, actually in many places in Peru.

Many pirate video stores like anywhere in south america 
my 1st chinese meal I had in ages, it did not make me sick :)  And the Inca Kola you can find everywhere here. 


 Then I left to Lima, which is outside of the mountains near the coast.




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