The Barren Coast

The town is relatively quiet so we sleep in a little bit but are still out of bed and looking for breakfast by 7am. There is a lady across the park selling some kind of syrup drink but we pass and end up at the same little restaurant that we ate supper at.

Mama comes to serve us and make sure we get a good breakfast of break, coffee, eggs, and fruit juice. I assume there is enough tourists in the area that she knows we don’t eat the heavy breakfasts that the local men are eating. Mostly they are eating a dinner plate of rice with bread, a piece of chicken, some onion salsa, and some sort of sweet hot tea. That is alot of food for breakfast but I guess they work hard and may not have a lunch break.

Pushing our bikes out of the lobby of the hotel always draws a crowd so we are used to the looks and stares as we put on the last of our gear, as a show of respect and thanks we always say good-bye to our hosts and thank them for the accommodations. I also asked him where a gas station was and he waved his arms and said one block that way and then look on left, we never seen the station but maybe it was a private residence that sold gas, in any case we were out of town and heading up, again. This time we managed to put on the rain gear before we got wet from the clouds, it also allowed us the pit-stop to put the fuel from the jerry cans into the bikes as the fuel lights have been on for a while now.

We are pleasantly surprised that it does not rain and soon we are descending again. As we break out of below the clouds we are greeted by lush green valleys filled with fields and livestock. The folks up in the hills are not rich, but they are not hungry either, they live a basic farming lifestyle, doing all work by hand with the aid of oxen or mules. Much like everywhere else we have seen so far in SA.

 

 

We zip through a bit of a valley then it is back up the mountain range once again, this pattern repeats a couple more times today before we find the town of Cajamarca, well actually just a small suburb called Banos de Canon (more hot springs like Radium). The town has a nice feel and we are pretty beat up from all the curves and constant concentration, there was also a 20km section of muddy road construction, so we are just as mentally tired as we are physically. With the bikes parked in the Hotel owners living room we take a walk to the market to get our fruit and some supper. We opt for the street vendor selling roast chicken, but she ended up giving us fried chicken instead. Oh well, KFC local style it is. The lady below finally smiled with us, but it took some work on my part, she was a tough nut to crack. The bundle of bananas and three mangos cost less than $1CDN. We have to pinch ourselves, because at home you know how much that would cost and the mangos would have no flavor. We people watch in the park as we eat our chicken and fries. A stray dog joins us and patiently waits for some scraps, we usually scraps for the strays and to our surprise this guy would not eat a French fry, once again the dogs are smarter than us.

After a quick fruit breakfast we are on the move again, it is getting close to Christmas now, so we wish our hostess Feliz Navidad as we drive away. We stop for gas in Cajamarca and are glad we stopped in Banos del Canon for the night. The city bypass is through an industrial area as usual, but it gave us a nice vista of the city as we traversed the valley wall around, then past the city. Lush green as many others. Today we should make it to the Pacific Coast of Peru, we have read that all the nice beaches are in the North so we are curious what we will find in the Chimbote area. Chimbote is a typical start point for the Canon del Pato circuit which is a highly recommended route in the motorcycle world. We are a bit surprised with what we find along the coast. The first big change as we descend down to sea level is that the lush green valleys are traded for barren rock and blowing sand. The smell of fresh mountain air and tilled fields is replaced with dry air laced with the aroma of rotting fish. The twisty mountain roads that require constant concentration are now endless straight lines with sand drifts trying to swallow them up. It makes us think we have landed on a different planet or on the scene of a Mad Max movie.