Riding like rock stars on the Peruvian roads

The way down from Huaraz to the the coast towards Lima was much nicer than the way up: we had wonderful weather which opened the view to mountains that had been hidden by the fog on the way up. We could not take our eyes off the Cordillera Blanca as we could see the entire mountain range, all the way up to the end of the tall summits. We were so excited to witness this before getting back down to the coast. The twisty drive through the valley and canyon were equally fun as we discovered landscapes we had not seen before. In addition, the other drivers made us feel like "big and important" people as they were flashing their lights at us, beeping the horn or waiving. Same for the kids on the side of the road, so happy to see big bikes. We had not been loved by strangers like than since Columbia, as it turned out that Ecuadorian were much more reserved in that sense.

A short pit stop in foggy Lima
On our way south to Lima, we found out about another sign of love for motorcycle riders: we did not have to pay tolls! Whereas in Columbia, there was a very official lane for bikes, here we were more in the category of bicycles where we did not have to pay but there was not really a lane for us. They just waived us through any small path that would not cause the toll alarm to go off. Works with us since it is free!

Closer to Lima, our first cop in Peru pulled us over. It started as a friendly conversion, then he asked for Chad's papers and asked where the "SOAT" was, apparently the mandatory insurance you had to have here. We pretended not to understand, spoke poor Spanish, showed him lots of other paperwork and tried to joke with him. After twenty minutes, he called his colleague who went straight to business: it was an infraction and we where to pay a fine in Lima or here if we wanted. We replied with a smile that yes, we were going to Lima. He started to write the ticket and given our lack of reaction, he looked at us, sighed and told us to go and not forget to buy our SOAT in Lima. Little did we know that he ended up being a nice cop who let us go.
As we approached Lima, the traffic became more and more crazy: the rule here is that there is no rule and that everything goes. Car, buses, trucks, moto-taxis alike were just navigating furiously in the traffic, not really caring about other drivers, including us. Chad almost rear ended a truck as it hit the break in front of him without notice and with not escape for Chad. Many drivers were cutting us off, forcing us to ride between lanes not to get killed: our acceleration powers saved us quite a few times. We knew about a hotel recommended by the French people we had met in Nicaragua which was in a safe area, Miraflores, close to the ocean and had a parking. It was an unsolvable puzzle to find it as there are no signs in Lima. Finally, a taxi offered us to follow him to Miraflores and after asking many other people, we found our hotel. It was a wonderful piece of heaven and quietness after the madness we had to go through. We had a relaxing night in the big city, getting used again to all the hustle and bustle after 6 days in the quiet mountains. We laughed when we saw all the American fast food chains lining up the boulevards. We were back into civilization.

The next morning, we went to check out what we came here from: paragliding from the cliffs over the ocean. We had heard that Miraflores was the place to go for this but unfortunately, there was a thick for and no wind that day. The paragliding company was very pessimistic about it improving today as it had been the same for the last few days. There was no longer any reason for us to stick around in the city and we decided to leave after lunch but not before doing a little shopping since we were in a big city. We were so easily tempted as we strolled through the big shopping center, something we had not done since we left the USA. We started by simple necessities such as toothpaste and shower gel but soon enough, we were in a library buying a book for Caroline who wanted to read in Spanish, stickers for our bikes and souvenirs. It was really time to leave before we blow off our entire budget here.

Visiting the "Galapagos islands for the poor "
We made all the way to Paracas that evening, about 250 Kms south of Lima. We had been into the desert for the entire ride but this coast was completely different from the one north of Lima. Whereas the north was completely empty and undeveloped, the south showed overwhelming signs of civilization. The entire highway was lined up with big commercial panels, most of them in 3D, advertizing for anything you could think off, something we also had not seen since the USA. It was unbelievable to see how provocative and sexually suggestive they were: for instance, a huge advertizing for Sprite was showing two sexy women in tiny swimsuit and a mile down the road, the same type of advertizing showed a hot naked man only “hidden” by a huge bottle of Sprite claiming that “Girls too enjoy the refreshing taste of Sprite”. All these sign were so distracting and crazy that we both almost hit a truck, reading them instead of watching the road.
Right at sunset, we reached our final destination: the little town of Paracas where we would take a boat early next morning to the Islas Ballestas. Waiting for our boat at 8am the next morning, we were in line with lots of other tourists to see the wildlife on the islands. We jumped in our little boat, put our safety vests and to the island we sailed in the calm morning waters. Our first stop was in front of a big sand dune where we were surprised to see a carved sculpture in the sand called the Candelabra. It has been there for almost 3,000 years and very similar to the Nazca lines, not much was known about it. This dune only had two to five centimeters of sand and under hard rock where the sign was carved. We continued to the islands and as we approached them, hordes of pelicans were flying around us. This is exactly why Caroline had been wearing a hat on the trip:)

We smelled the islands almost as soon as we saw them from a distance: guano has this distinct smell the reaches far away. It was hard to believe how many birds were there, either flying around or resting on the island itself. It felt like we were in the Hitchcock movie The birds, a little creepy... The islands were beautiful, with multiple arches and different colors ranging from yellow to crimson. We heard a weird and loud noise, like a werewolf maybe and under an arch spotted all the sea lions. There were so many little ones, squirming like little puppies, and scared when a big daddy one would “bark” at them. Further, we observed big red crabs, hanging off the rocks of the island and finally were surprised to spot quite a few penguins. But the birds were really the stars here as there were so many of them: in the best years, they covered the islands with two meters of guano per year, allowing humans to harvest the sought after fertilizer. Now, there were less birds each year and less than half could be harvested. There were so many species to look at: huge pelicans, black Comoran and many others whose name we can't remember. It was a treat to see so much wildlife, especially so close to the caost and one the way back, we even had a big group of dolphins swimming and jumping along our boat.

Back in Pacaras, we packed our stuff and were ready to hit the road once again. It was only 11am in the morning but it was already blazing hot. We liked this little port town a lot but we had some exciting stuff coming up on our travel agenda: wineries, trying the national drink called Pisco and finally resting in an Oasis in the middle of the desert. On the way to Ica, our jump off base for all these cool things, we saw so many chicken farms, again spotted from far away thanks to the smell. There were an unbelievable amount of chicken farms right in the middle of the desert, close to the highway. No wonder they eat so much chicken here. Now we know where they come from: the huge and never ending Peruvian desert.