Some interesting Rocks

Jan 23 Tacna to Ilo

From Tacna we take a small detour to the Northeast in order to see some petroglyphs. They found a very impressive collection of these ancient writing in the most unlikely spot, in what appears to be a dried up gulch.

Then it is back to our original plan of following the coast up to Ilo, we figure that at least the coast line changes a bit and would break up the repetitive desert scenery. The sight of green fields and watermelon stands was a welcome sight, Brenda is a bit of a watermelon addict, so we stop and purchase some fresh picked melon. The ladies are nice enough to cut the red part off the peal and put it in a baggie for us, well not just for us this is how they roll down here.

But first lunch.

It was a nice treat and helped to keep us hydrated in the desert heat. The coast is as expected, rolling hills with twisty pavement all the way to Ilo. We only had one more stop before Ilo which was at another SUNAT/Aduana checkpoint. They wanted to see the bike documents from the border, at least they didn’t ask to search our luggage like they did for the bus behind us. It appeared they intended to take all the cargo out of the bus and search it all, lucky for us that the officer gave us back our paperwork and said we were done.

After that it was smooth sailing into Ilo, but then the fun started with finding a place that had parking. We ended up parking the bikes in a “parkade” for the night, just no other options available. Once again things work out the way they are supposed to, the “parkade” or as it is called here Cochera, is also a motorcycle repair shop. Perfect, we can maybe get Brenda’s skid plate fixed. The guy has a nice little shop set up but does not have an aluminum welder, instead I settle for a couple of u-bolts and some rubber spacers to rig up the skidplate the same as mine. It should not be a problem for the rest of this trip, and we can get it repaired properly in Montevideo over the summer. Well we will have to wait and see how that works out.

We now have to decide if we are heading back inland, which means an increase in elevation and the very high possibility of rain, lots of rain as it is the rainy season in the mountains. We have been in contact with our Austrian buddies on the little Chinese bikes and some of their photos are ridiculous. These ones are what the “highway” into La Paz looks like.

So as you can see it is much wetter than where we currently are, but we will have to commit to it sooner or later as we can’t stay on the coast forever, plus we miss the color green so much so that I bought a new green shirt.