Day 147
I left Huaquillas and headed back out of town to take the road to the vehicular border crossing. When I arrived at the Ecuadorian side of the border crossing I found that only the customs were located there so I headed in to the office to have my TIP cancelled. This was done very quickly at not cost. Ten minutes later I rode the 4 miles or so over the International bridge to the Peruvian side of the border where I parked the bike and went to find the Peruvian immigration office.
To my surprise I found that the immigration offices for both countries were located in the same office.I waited in a small queue to get stamped out of Ecuador and when that was done I went to an adjacent window to get stamped in to Peru. All very organised and very seamless. Then I went to the customs to get my Peruvian TIP. All I had to do was to show my original bike registration document, my passport and my driving licence, no copies of anything were required. So different from Central American borders.
The customs guy came out to check the numbers on the bike and then about twenty minutes later I was handed my paper copy of my TIP. Again this was issued for free. All I had to do then was ride to the actual customs checkpoint at the exit and show them my TIP. The whole border crossing had only taken about an hour and I then rode in to Peru
I rode South on route N 1 and about 20 miles or so in to the journey I noticed that the road was very close to the sea so I spotted a small dirt road that led down to the coast and I took it. About 500 yards later I arrived at the most pristine beach that I have ever seen.
As I was riding back to the main road a large bright green coloured Iguana lizard ran across the road and dived in to a water filled ditch. I stopped to photograph it and as I did so it ran over the water without sinking and disappeared in to the reeds at the other side.
As I continued to ride along the coast I was soon disappointed to see that Peru had a similar litter problem that I had previously seen in all of the countries in Central America. Litter swamped the side of the road everywhere that I looked.
I rode on for the next couple of hours and as the road turned inland away from the coast the landscape became very arid and dessert like and during this time the bike odometer turned to 10,000 miles.
At the town of Sullana I joined the main road South from Ecuador, also called route N 1, and I refuelled here. About 20 miles South I passed through the town of Piura and then entered what I can only describe as an uninhabited desert with a road running through it.
The ride was pretty boring but apart from that a very strong gusting wind coming off of the sea was constantly blowing the bike about on the road. Riding in such strong side winds was not only tiring but the wind also blew large amounts of sand over the road and at times I was riding through mini sandstorms.
However when I rode through PIura I did not know that that was also my last opportunity to buy petrol until the town of Lambayeque which was 150 miles away. As I got to about 60 miles from Lambayeque my bike went on to reserve and since I had only previously ever ridden on my reserve for about 20 miles before refuelling I did not know if I would make it to Lambayeque before running out of petrol. Fortunately about 10 miles after going on to my reserve I saw a hand painted sign at the side of the road saying Petrol For Sale.
I rode off of the road and up to a shack where I enquired about buying some petrol. A woman went back in to the shack and reappeared with a large plastic water bottle full of petrol which she the poured in to my fuel tank. I did not know how much petrol was in the bottle but I presumed that it was a US Gallon which is about 4 litres. It cost me 25 Soles which is about 6.5 USD and which is about almost double the price at a petrol station but beggars can not be choosers as they say.
I refuelled in Lambayeque and then looked on-line for somewhere to stay for the evening as it was by now late in the afternoon. I found a cheap hotel with secure parking for 50 Soles (about 13 USD) in the nearby city of Chiclayo and I headed for it.
The roads in the city that took me to the hotel were horrendous as they were full of lots and lots of very large potholes and the occasional missing drain cover. The roads were also swarming with hundreds of three wheeled mototaxis that were playing Dodgems with every vehicle on the road including my bike. When I eventually got to to the hotel I found that the surrounding streets were in a complete mess and flooded in parts with about 12 inches of water.
The woman in the hotel told me that some of the surrounding streets had been like this for a few years but no one seemed to be doing anything about it. She also showed me to the nearby secure parking garage where I was able to leave my bike with most of my bags on it for the night. This was a huge bonus for me as it meant that I did not have to carry all of my bags up to the 4th floor in the hotel. Another bonus was a hot water shower in my room. As there were limited options for food near to the hotel I took advice from the woman who gave me the name of a decent restaurant.
I took a mototaxi to the place but the young guy driving it was a maniac. I spent the next ten minutes sitting in the back as the guy roared off the wrong way up a one way street causing chaos. He then drove through red lights, cut up everyone else on the road, overtook on the inside and then on the outside in to oncoming traffic. It was an insane ride and I was glad to get out at the restaurant uninjured and very surprised that he had not actually hit anyone during the journey. In the restaurant I had a very nice steak for about 50 Soles and I even tried a local beer.
Not wanting to have another go on the real life Dodgems I decided to walk back to the hotel via the city centre which I found to be both modern and quite clean. I then did my usual thing and took a couple of photographs of the place before heading back to my hotel to get my head down for the night.
