Mark and Neil Trekin' South: Rio Santa, Peru

When we we're riding into Piura on Friday night we noticed a lot of people riding in the back of these big open trucks and small crowds of people on the side of the highway. A lot of people. It looked like they were coming to or from work on these huge farms in the area. There were also many trucks loading and unloading various kinds of produce at various places along the highway. Anyways, it's obvious agriculture is big business here and it employs a huge number of people. There were big shanty towns on both sides of the highway so I suspect most of these workers are migrant. Their living conditions didn't look that great as some of the shelters were palm thatch walls and had no roof. There wouldn't have been any plumbing either. We were warned about safety in this area and this is probably part of the reason. You know...desperate people, desperate acts. I'm not judging or anything. It's just interesting to see.
On Saturday morning we left Piura and headed across the Desierto de Sechura. It's about 200 kilometers from Piura to Chiclayo and it's all desert. Unfortunately, at least from the highway, the beauty of the desert is ruined by the sight and smell of garbage along the side of the road. It looks like the garbage gets trucked out from the city and just dumped in the desert, even right along the highway. It's hard to believe nobody can see how wrong this looks. It was still nice to see the desert but it would have been nicer without the garbage. When we got south of Trujillo we hit the coast and the sides of the highways became less cluttered with trash. Good thing. It was getting depressing.

Desierto de Sechura

A major mode of transport here. Everywhere here. We saw one heaped about three times the height of this. Unbelievable.

This truckload wasn't bad. We saw one with a load that overhung about a third of our lane.

Lots of dunes driven by the wind off the Pacific.

Yeah, it was beautiful.

We were planning to leave the coast the next day and head inland so we stopped at Santa. It's a very small town on the coast near the mouth of Rio Santa. For such a small town it had quite a few hostels and we found very affordable accommodation. It was a really nice town but you couldn't tell from the highway. That's one of the things we've found along the way. Sometimes you have to take a closer look. You know...the book and the cover thing. We were able to park the bikes in a very nice garage where Neil changed a couple of spark plugs. His bike has been farting a bit so he thought he might have a cracked plug from the overheating in Acapulco.

Nicer than Wade's garage. Real ceramic tile. Sorry buddy.

I'm thinking of buying a toilet seat and carrying it like a spare tire.

This morning we were on the road before 7:30 and had an incredible ride up the Santa Valley to Huaraz. I think it was about 260 km but it took us until 1:30 or so and included about 100 km of rough gravel. Words don't do it justice so I won't try.

Rice paddies.

They don't let just any idiots up here. Only some.

This is for my daughter Meagan. Cool folds in the rock.

A village along the way.

Where's Neil?

Another one for Meg.

The horizontal line is the road.

There were a few coal mines like this.

There were so many tunnels I didn't count. They were all a narrow single lane. Some were quite long and all were dark. Some had buses in them. That was awesome.

Another village. Sorry, can't remember which one.

Huallanca, Peru. Duke Energy is a big thing here.

So there is this cable going to the other side of the river for a cable car. It was hardcore. Not sure how they got it across as it was a long way above the river and a long way across. Not sure if you can get the perspective here.