Lima/Miraflores , Day 53-54, Rest day

Chilling, relaxing, sightseeing, maintenance and repairs on the bikes, route planning.

Tortugas, Day 55, 400km

Daniel fixed the cooling issue on his bike (sealing of the water pump drive was broken) and we were good to go. Leaving Lima was the worst traffic experience we had in South America so far. Lima, its suburbs and surrounding cities is a massive metropolititan region. Over 40km to get out of the city with horrible traffic, stinking cars buses and trucks. When we finally got out it was much better. We followed the Panamericana north to get some miles done because we wanted to spend some more time in Ecuador and Colombia. We stopped in a little village in a beautiful bay on the sea for the night. Tortugas is just off the Panamericana and reminded me of Greece with its white houses. There was no possibility to camp so we stayed in a little hostel.

Jayanca, Day56, 434km

We continued riding on the Panamericana. Sea to the left and dunes to the right. Nice but after a while very monotonous. We thought about taking a detour again through the Andes and Huaraz which must be very nice with lots of lagoons and snow covered mountains in the background. But we decided to continue heading north. Unfortunately we do not have enough time and have to leave out many things to see. Even 3 month is far to short to see everything between Santiago and Cartagena although we are travelling mainly on the west side. I don’t really get the fame about the Panamericana. Yes, it is the main north to south connection. But for travelling it gets boring after a while and around the bigger cities you get a lot of traffic. But what annoyed me most is the waste. Most of the South American countries do not have a proper recycling system and the people just throw it on the streets. But in some respect understandable. They are struggling to make a living and environmental protection is very down on their agenda. Surprisingly we found a nice, calm and clean campsite for the night.

Macara/Ecuador Day57, 319km

We packed our tents and headed on the east route to Ecuador. This route is not on the Panamericana and hence much less traffic. Beautiful backcountry roads and the climate changed dramatically. Hoter, more humidity and very tropical as we are coming close to the equator. Mangos and other tropical fruits are sold everywhere on the side of the road. On the last stop before the border we changed our last Peruvian Sols for some fresh fruits. Quickly many people surrounded us and wanted to take pictures with us and the bikes. At the Peruvian border it took us probably 1h to do the paperwork. But at the Ecuadorian border things got worse. First we had to queue at immigration because a bus arrived just before us. Then at customs (aduana) it took ages until we got the required paperwork for the bikes. Also here, a lot of people around us who looked at our bikes and took many photos. Apparently they all love big motobikes here (locals bikes only have 250ccm max) and the fact that we are from Germany and travelling long distances. Most of the people here never leave their country. When we meet people they always think we are American. But when we tell them “No soy gringo, soy Aleman” their face changes and they are smiling. South American people do not like North Americans. After 3.5h hours, the longest border crossing we had so far, we were good to go. It was dark already but luckily we found a nice little hostel on iOverlander just 9km behind the border.