Travel Log Week 6

Monday 7.8.00 Ica to Chancay via Lima ( Ica GPS est S14.1/W74.8) There was no breakfast available at the Christian Hotel, and the hooters were now in full swing again outside, so we decided to get back on the road and find some food later on. Loading up in the comfort of the foyer was great, then rolling out through the doors and onto the road, perfect. We still could not believe the amount of noise in this place, it really is incredible, there is so much noise it reaches the point where you take absolutely no notice whatsoever of any horn, trumpet, warble, alarm, whistle shout or siren, it is pointless trying to work out who is saying what to who! We'd also noticed that now there was no-one in traditional dress at all, it is all "western" style clothing, jackets trousers and baseball caps everywhere, now that we are off the High Andes. We found our way back out through the town square and picked up the Pan-American again, on the way out of town we noticed a huge sand dune towering over the town, maybe that will cut down some of the racket when it gets there! The road turned west again running across the Pampa de Chunchanga, which is basically a desert, but has big fields under irrigation, including massive circular ones with 500m long gantries on tractor wheels which creep around constantly spraying, on some of these fields there were pure bred Friesian cattle looking very healthy, but again the other side of the road was pure desert, with more dunes blowing down the wind. More dodgy pickups and knackered old Ford 150 farm trucks on the road, and for the first time lots of '70s American sedan's, mostly full loaded and running as taxis, we'd seen none in the mountains at all, not surprising given the state of the roads, and fuel is not that cheap. After adjusting the venting in the Rukka gear for the heat, ( sorry to keep going on but it really is great stuff, and when we went from this heat into the cold sandstorm the other day, we just did up some zips again while riding along, warm again, no problem!) we got back to the coast at Pisco, where they make a most alcoholic spirit, and ran up the narrow plain between the mountains and the sea, completing our 5000 miles and stopping at a Repsol station in Chincha Alta for lunch. It was the smartest station we'd seen since Argentina, complete with chocolate & cookies from the USA, so we splashed out on all sorts of odd things. After a fuel up, we carried on towards Lima, again plain desert with about 25 miles between the ocean and the mountains, sometimes riding only yards from the Pacific, sometimes further over towards the mountains, but once again simply miles of Chicken sheds the sight of which made the chicken recepies sound a little less appetising now. We had planned to stop short of Lima, but suddenly we hit a miracle, our first Dual Carriageway/Motorway of the continent, and it took us through the mountains straight towards the city, though even here you had to be careful, in some places large boulders had fallen onto the carriageway, the size of a breezeblock, though John did not notice them, looking at the view again! We got carried straight into Lima, and suddenly we were in heavy traffic, it is a much bigger city than any we've been to so far, and sure enough, the motorway do not go straight through, but split into several smaller carriageways heading to different districts, so not knowing what signs to look for we had to navigate by the position of the sun. By this time we we re surrounded by buses, and it seemed like we'd hit the bus lane into the town centre, so we went with the flow, no choice really, dodging the buses which cut in and out without warning dropping people off and throwing out clouds of diesel. We ended up in some nice City Centre squares, with imposing buildings around lovely mown grass lawns and tall palm trees, which a guy was peeing against! We fought our way into a lane full of small yellow taxis, and went through the central plaza, nearly stopping at the Hilton, but it looked like you could not park in the foyer, so we decided to look for a better hotel. Unfortunately the tide of cars now took us towards a rough area of town, and we found ourselves hemmed in a traffic jam with yet more trucks & buses, all stationary but revving up and beeping, and if you did not move forward that 6", you got hooted and nudged, and John ended up wedged between 2 buses and held upright by the panniers. Fortunately they did move apart and released him, but it was a bit scary. The pavements were literally knee deep in rubbish, old boxes, cans, tins, plastic, car interiors, wood, old fruit, etc, and in amongst all this a guy dressed entirely in strips of old plastic sheet, living off the pickings. It was quite a sight, houses all packed onto the surrounding hills in the opposite way to La Paz in its bowl, but we started to force our way through with our horns going, and eventually the crush cleared and we made progress out of town. Having found the Pan-American again, started looking for somewhere to stop but it was still mayhem either side, and we decided to keep going till the next town, Chancay, which was on the coast, and find a Hostel somewhere on the front. We climbed away from Lima looking down on the city lights, and rode up the Motorway to Chancay, and turned into the town, which quickly looked like a mistake when as usual we attracted loads of attention. The only Hostel we saw looked dodgy, and while we were stopped outside it, a guy who was drunk or stoned started talking to Adam, initially no problem but then he started to get a little less friendly, so while keeping smiling and talking, it was time to move rapidly on, and we shot back up to the highway. There was a Hostel on the roundabout, which looked half finished from the outside, but then a lot of buildings here do look like this as there is little rain so no need for much of an exterior finish. It turned out to have secure parking underneath, so that was good enough. It was again only staffed by two people, and despite having a super menu with tasty seafood dishes, there was actually only chicken or beef on offer, but to be fair it was good when it came. After a long, very tiring day, we had a couple of beers, and went to bed, noticing that each floor had individual iron grille doors on it with electronic locks, and the staff had to let us upstairs, not sure quite what to make of that? Never mind, at least no horns tonight!

Tuesday 8.8.00 Chancay S11.33.485/W077.16.033) to Trujillo (GPS S08.06.764/W079.02.037) Fortunately, the staff were on hand to let us through the gates and down to breakfast, which they now said they could do for us, and it turned out to be almost the same as dinner, except without the pancakes and "Black" beer malted lager ), and we felt fit for the road. Sitting in the central atrium, we could now see that there was no roof at all, just a canvas cover over the top, we were obviously right about it not raining much! Today's plan was to go to Chimbote and stop, where there are some adobe pyramids built by the pre-Columbians, and this would put us in reach of the border with Ecuador. With the weather a bit overcast again, we fuelled up, and picked up a useful tip on tyre changing for all you people who find it a chore; what you need to do is get a knife, cut the wire beads off the insides of your new tyre which makes it nice and bendy, put it round the outside of the worn tyre which you leave inflated, then put some duct tape around in a couple of places just to stop someone else pinching it. So simple and no need for spanners or levers, job done in minutes and no sweat involved! John says to the boys in the shop, please get extra tape and Stanley knifes in right away, and introduce this method on all your tyre jobs as soon as possible please. Now even more suspicious of other vehicles on the road, we carried on up the coastline, soon it turned a lot more fertile with big sugar cane plantations and orange groves, a different technique here to Argentina for transporting the cane, pick it up in a loading shovel and drop it into special trailers like car transporters which have steel wires on winches to pack it all in, seems to work well. We did pass a horrific road accident, a head on between 2 trucks, both units totally destroyed and burnt out, and the road covered in crushed cans of sardines, not a pretty sight. The coast was still dry away from the rivers, and we again pulled up on a headland to look at the Pacific rolling in, absolutely beautiful with the rollers breaking, Pelicans fishing, and huge sandy beaches just blowing sand up onto deserts which then run up to the mountains only 10 miles inland here. Some of the dunes are huge, and in places again cover the road, and blow miles inland and quite a way up the slopes, over the top of the foothills and sit in the valleys the other side. Once again the temperature of this wind whipping off the sea was quite cool, and we were adjusting our gear all the time to cope. We passed a large adobe fort just off the road which was really striking in the sunshine, and had a chocolate break for lunch; it's not as easy as you might think to get chocolate here, loads of sweet biscuits but not many solid bars of choccy! We caught up behind a large Overlander bus, and with surprise noticed it had a British "Q" plate, the first Brit plaque we'd seen here, and at the traffic lights in Chimbote had a quick conversation with the Aussie driver, who said that they had not run through Columbia for over a year now, and to try shipping from Guayaquil in Ecuador, so everyone is saying the same thing. Chimbote turned out to be a combined Oil Refinery and Fish Factory, so Paul's idyllic picture of a beachfront Hotel with palm trees and the Pacific was way out, and the wrong kind of seafood too! We decided to keep moving, and head up across 120km of desert to Trujillo, as we had light and time tonight; before long we re-passed the Overlander, and it was great riding on good road through the desert, with only one small oasis town in the middle, wonderful. Trujillo is a big town, and we rode into the centre and looked about for a place to stop, and chanced upon the Hotel SanAndres, just the job with a tall metal gate to the car park alongside reception, friendly staff, and a pool upstairs. After unloading and settling in, we went out for a walk around the centre which is small, built by Pizzaro in 1534, and looked for a restaurant & Telefonica. No food on offer, but plenty of Internet Cabins, and we managed to get a line in one of these, to collect some mail, though it crashed before we could send, the guys there said again that the Peruvian phone system is not good, but it really is impressive how many people want to get onto the net to learn about computers and the rest of the world. After all that walking about, we ended up back in the Chinese restaurant attached to the hotel, and had and excellent meal, though we had to improvise a pudding of Duraznos ( Peaches ) & condensed milk. It was really nice catching up on news from home over dinner, thank you all, and then we had the luxury of Cinechannel, but tonight it was Another 48 Hours repeated, so the telly addicts snored while Adam typed out the report!

Wednesday 9.8.00 Trujillo to Puira (GPS S05.11.630/W080.37.311) After a good breakfast "Americano" all round, we got going in good time to make the long run up to Puira, out of town after a long delay while they tried to phone Mastercard, and passing through miles of irrigation projects, which turned out to be Asparagus. Seriously, we'd noticed it from 20 miles out last night, lots of plantings, and now we could confirm that we'd just ridden through the biggest beds ever, 100 acre plots of it, with more coming on line, mile after mile in the desert sand. Makes our little garden plots look a bit sick! Also, for the first time in the towns along the way we started to notice Yamaha Tricycle Rickshaws, everywhere else it is Honda CG125's cut down, in fact 95% of all the moto's are Honda XL's of various ages and sizes, they have sold a few here! The Yamaha's were very smart SR125's, but it is weird seeing yellow Hurricane Hannah graphics on a Rickshaw! We were aiming to cross the Desierto de Secchura, famous as the place where Iguana's roam, but at Chiclayo we took a wrong turn ( easy to do with no signs ) and followed the old Pan-American around the outside. By the time we'd been through loads of small towns and seen the pyramid at Tacume, we realised we'd gone wrong, and stopped at a roadside cafe for a drink. The cafe was typical, bamboo and tin roof, dirt floor, western girlie pinups and the festive Christmas decorations still up. John sat under a washing line for shade, but it turned out to be beef jerky drying out in the sun, so he attracted a few insects afterwards. After a hot water and camp coffee, we decided to retrace our steps for 30k, and pick up the new road straight across the desert, as it would be quicker than this road through all the villages, so off we went. We had just about got back to our route when Adam had to slow down for a Donkey loaded under sugarcane to cross the road, however once he had passed, a couple of kids ran out, and how Paul missed them he doesn't know, the little girl dodged both ways and fortunately Paul guessed right, and under full brakes just missed her, but it could have been a very serious incident, and once we'd cleared town, we stopped for a quick catch of breath. We then set out across the desert, 200km almost dead straight, and into the sunset, and it was quite something blasting along at 70+ with nothing much either side, seeing for miles in front & behind. After a while John had dropped back, but it was probably only so he could come flat out past the other laid on the tank, so no problem , but when there was no sign of him after half an hour, time to pull over & wait. After 10 minutes, time enough to replace the top box if that was off again, it was obvious all was not well, and just then a pickup pulled up, the driver jumped out and said our amigo was broken down back there, maybe 20km behind. So, about turn and back into the wind, after 20 miles we were beginning to wonder if we'd missed him, then an oncoming truck driver flashed and pointed behind him, so we kept going. After nearly 40 miles, there he was, being helped by a Carreteras crew. We had all passed them just coming onto the desert, and they'd followed on behind after a while, and almost immediately come across John, who had initially thought the road was a bit funny, then stopped to check the front tyre, then finally figured out the back was flat, so we now had a full house of rear punctures. Yet again it was a nail, though from the chafing mark on the tread, it must have been in a while, and just finally flown out. They'd not got the tools in the Landcruiser to get the wheel off, so they had gone and grabbed a kid out of the local tyre shop, who had brought his two spanners back, the wheel had just come out when the other 2 bikes returned, and the Carreteras had offered to run John back to the tyre shop to fit our last new tube and re-inflate it. This was good as it would save our emergency refills, and they said one of their men would guard the bikes as there were Bandits hiding behind the sand dunes who wait for people to break down. We did not know whether to believe them, but it was a good plan anyway. John went with the tyre kid, on a hunch which proved to be correct; he did not have any levers, but a pickaxe and two sledgehammers which may be just the job for a truck tyre, but not an ally motorcycle rim!. John just managed to stop him landing the first blow when he realised what was about to happen, and did it himself with the help of the Carreteras Sergeant who got stuck in, and between them they got the tube swapped, and re-inflated, and the bead nicely popped, just as John described it should to the kid! The kid was chucked back into the Landcruiser, he still looked petrified to be hijacked by the police, John paid the boss, and they went back to the bikes to refit the wheel. The others had waited in the dusk with Sr Flores the Carreteras officer, who said it may rain ( there you are, rain in the desert! ) and for sure the wind was very salty and damp, the ocean was only 20k away. It only took a few moments to refit the wheel, and we were ready to go, but you could now see odd lights out on the desert, so maybe there really are bandits out there. After recovering Paul's jacket which we'd lent to Sr Flores, it was farewell to the Carreteras again, they really do a great job, and they have a sense of humour too; they all have top of the range brand new Landcruisers, much better than most other vehicles, and on the way out of town they'd quietly coasted up behind a goatherd who was busy herding his flock home, and suddenly let all the horns go off, scattering goats in all directions and giving the herdsman a heart attack! Sorry, but John laughed his head off as well as them! So, under way again in the dark, we decided it was safe to carry on up the road as Paul & Adam had already seen most of it, and Sr Flores said it was 100k to Puira, this proved correct, and with a top up from the Jerrycan on the two bikes which had done the "extra" miles, no problems! Apart that is from speeding coaches coming at us, often with headlights close together in the centre, making it dodgy estimating their distance and speed, they really are the rudest drivers around here. We got into Puira in good time, and found the Hotel Vicus, again a yard next to the restaurant, perfect, and they served real seafood, we chose "cerviches" which turned out to be like rollmop herrings, but mixed chopped seafood pieces, chewy but tasty. No danger of Cinechanel tonight, so we planned out the run to the border tomorrow, hoping to cross and make Guayaquil, the main port in Ecuador, leaving Friday clear to research ways of getting over to Panama, or anywhere else but Columbia!

Thursday 10.8.00 Puira to Guayaquil, Ecuador According to plan, we were ready to go on time, and after saying farewell to our hosts, who had now figured out what it was all about, we went round for fuel, thankfully MasterCard went a little more smoothly today. We got back to the PanAm, and headed north to the last big town in Peru, Sullana. There was quite a different feel about this region, we'd noticed a lot of chapels in session on the way in last night, and there was a lot more vegetation about, in fact we heard that the area had bad floods about 3 years ago, and is just recovering, there is only 1 bridge across the river in Puria still. The run up to Sulllana took us through more fields and scrubby landscape, then across an area of paddy fields, a brilliant emerald green standing out against the brown background. We saw horses for the first time since Argentina where we'd seen men with horses & carts fixing the roads and doing fencing, here some were a bit scrawny but they were evidently being used for work and riding, mixed in with the beef cattle. There was a lot of work being done, many people out in the fields, and new irrigation going in, though to put it in perspective, apparently there is still 25% less land under cultivation than at the height of the Inca empire......We crossed over the river Chira at Sullana, and soon the landscape dried out again as we ran out to Talara, the most westerly point of South America. We were now back amongst the foothills of the Andes again, it seems remarkable that yesterday in the middle of the desert was the first time since we climbed onto the Andes at Monteros in Argentina 3 weeks ago that we had not been able to see a mountain anywhere, and now here they were again. This region has oil, and there were "Nodding Donkey" engines pulling it up to the surface, and rigs offshore when we got down to the coast. The road switchbacked up and down from cliffs to beach and back, at one point we saw a team of 2 donkeys pulling a cart of firewood uphill, and the guy was behind pushing as well, these people do work hard! Eventually the road ran back down to the coast, and once again we were alongside the Pacific, this time no Fish Oil factories or smell, just a beautiful beach, fishing boats and settlements looking more like resorts than anything else we'd seen yet. We spotted a couple of really tempting places to stop, one amazing new place on top of an outcrop, and so nearly called it a day to rest up for the weekend, but after a break down on the beach to watch the pelicans again, decided we had better keep our schedule up to try and spend Friday researching the shipping situation. We refilled before the border, using the last of our Peruvian Sol's, the formalities out of Peru were simpler than avoiding the attention of the money changers and "assistants", it seemed there were 20,000 Ecuadorian Sucres to the US$ but we were not too convinced! The other side of the border was mayhem, people pressing around, a string of assistants offering their services, but the paperwork seemed to be a problem. The guy on the gatehouse could not do the Importation Documents for the bikes, so, leaving one of us at the bikes, we had to walk up the street through the press of people to another office, and see the main man. The letter from the Ecuadorian Embassy helped smooth the way, but he used a stamp to enter the details of the bikes in our Passports rather than give us a proper form, which seemed odd. That completed, we were free to continue to Immigration, 3km out of town. The Officers here were fine, and after quick check and form fill, we had 30 day passes done, and retired to the cafe next door for a cool down. It had been our busiest crossing so far, and we'd done well, keeping clam and cheerful, even when a row of big stall umbrella's got knocked over by a Police truck and fell down on Adam and his bike, these things happen! We observed the opposite approach when a bus pulled up and a couple of tourists jumped out to have their Passports stamped for exit, and got into a row with each other and everyone else when one could not be found, they were all still there when we left, including all the other passengers on the bus, with the Military Police now involved! Straight away, the countryside changed to a more tropical feel, with trees and shrubs appearing, some lovely leafless trees with huge yellow flowers, more of the purple bougainvillea (?) we'd seen cultivated in Peru, here growing wild, and soon, some rain forest trees like baobs (?) we think, but all very different to what we'd been riding through only 20 miles before. The road to our relief was tarmac, and good, we'd heard many horror stories from the Peruvians about the roads being dirt again, but so far so good, and we made good time north. Despite several Police checks, which were no problem and usually resulted in good wishes, we were soon dropping down alongside forested mountains to the gulf of Guayaquil, and as it got dark, we were in amongst the biggest banana plantations imaginable, a bit like the Asparagus, mile after mile of them all irrigated, and with blue plastic bags fitted over the bananas themselves, and trucks pulling out onto the road fully loaded from all directions. The smell was totally different down here as well, we'd not smelt damp earth since our morning in the Argentinean rain forest those weeks ago, and here all of a sudden there were flies, big moths and other things which turned out to be bats as it got dark. Passing through a couple of small towns we took it very steadily, even more so when we hit a section of large potholes in the road, the buses were swerving all over the place to pick the smooth lines, and oncoming traffic has to use headlights on main to pick them out, but at least most vehicles had lights, and the standard distance apart. We ran along at a steady 45-50, the problem with this was that John had picked up a tailgating Ford farmtruck which sat about 1' behind him, not enough steam to overtake, and not willing to back off. After 15 miles of this we decided to pull into a gas station for a break and let him by, but he pulled in right behind, unbelievable! However, it turned out he only wanted to buy us all a beer, which he did, and we had a good chat, he'd apparently enjoyed following us, and was just about to turn off down his road, but it looked as though he'd already had a few before he bought us a round! We accepted the beers but said we'd drink them later, so Paul had a smoke with him, another good cultural exchange, and we were soon surrounded again by other interested people.We set off again, avoiding some really deep square edged potholes, sections of road dug out 6" deep and primed for re-sealing, but not finished, or coned off! We found the junction for Guayaquil, and the road in was super, straight down and over a big bridge, along with taxis and pickups totally overloaded with bananas, one taxi had no lights, wobbly wheels and the arches hanging off, but no problem, she still runs, so keep taking those fares. We found the centre of town easily enough, it was well lit and signed, and we pulled up outside the UniHotel, which did not have any room, but the Bellboy Wilson Velez made some calls and got us in just round the corner at the Sol de Oriente, and got our bikes into the multi-storey belonging to his Hotel chain, which was really kind of him.Walking back round to our Hotel, we noticed on many of the street corners were guys in caps with pump action shotguns, "Security" Wilson said, but it did make us feel a little nervous to say the least! So, objective achieved after an eventful day, we were in Ecuador ready to start finding the best way up to central America in the morning, with a visit to the British Consulate our first port of call. We'd really enjoyed our time in Peru, again we'd found the people very welcoming and outgoing, the political painted hoardings for the 2000 elections all said " A country with a future", and this certainly seems to be true, though again if anything it is probably the politics which hold it back, as most people seem very patriotic without actually seeming to trust their politicians too much, but that's often the case in many countries. Certainly the resources and geography of the country are wonderful, we'd love to come back just to ride the PanAm from Arequipa up to Sullana again, it is surely one of the best biking roads in the world, and we will not forget the sheer pleasure of swinging those bikes around the mountains on wonderful tarmac for a long time, and of course there was also the incredible run over the top from Lake Titicaca, and as for the stay on the Lake itself, well, once in a lifetime you get to do something like that!

Friday 11.8.00 Guayaquil, Ecuador According to plan we were at breakfast on time, and aimed to get round to the Consulate to see what they could suggest. Wilson had also offered to try his contacts, and we were due to see him after his shift ended, so after John had fitted in a massage ( he hasn't been to the gym for weeks and is missing his training programme! ) we set off, in the worst taxi we could find, the passenger doors had only the top hinge left on, as the bottoms were rusted out, still, another experience. The Consul was away, but Chris Bailey the vice consul and Rocio Torres got straight on the case, filling us in with the likely pitfalls of various options, and putting some calls in to various people. We went down to see one of their friends at a shipping company "Timsa" in the docks, they had a boat leaving on Sunday, but there was no time for paperwork, and in any case it has become very difficult to get passengers on cargo ships these days because of the contraband situation, apparently the US Coastguard now operate as far down as here in an attempt to cut off drug routes, by stopping ships in international waters nearby. The next Timsa boat leaves on the 24th, which would be no problem with paperwork, but is way too late for us. We then found the shipping agent recommended in the excellent Footprint South American Handbook, but it appears he has closed down, his office is in a tower block, and all the doors to the offices had huge steel shutters on them, "security" seems to be quite a problem here. We checked out the DHL office, also having guards on the door, but no parcel yet, so it was back to meet Wilson, who had made lots of calls for us. We went round with him to see another shipping agent "Flamingo" in a superb office on the 16th floor ( but again huge steel shutters on the outside of the door), they could maybe get us on a boat on Tuesday, but their colleague who clears Customs paperwork checked through our stuff, and said the "Passport Stamp" for the bikes done at the border yesterday would be insufficient for Export, indeed we would not be able to ride out into Columbia, even if we wanted to! He kindly took copies of all the paperwork, including the Downs letter and the Ecuadorian London Embassy one, and said he'd see his friend in Customs on Saturday, and prepare the ground for the correct Temporary Import Documents to be done as well. It turned out one of his daughters lives in Yorkshire, small world isn't it sometimes! After this it was back over to the Consulate to ask if they could do us a Reference letter, to help with the Customs paperwork, no problem, and we should be able to collect it Monday morning. We had also contacted Terry Hurst of Expedition Freight who had shipped out our stuff to Punta Arenas, and he'd kindly put us in touch with his local contact for airfreight, so we had done all we could toady to research our options. Job done, we offered to take Wilson out to dinner as he'd done so much running around for us, he suggested a restaurant run by a friend of his which had a roof made of glass with fish swimming around, so it had to be tried really! Wilson and his wife Mary ( her birthday today) turned up later in a taxi which was our favourite so far, a Lada with the propshaft so knackered he had to keep changing gear, and it seemed like the back axle was about to fall out as well, every time we went over a bump, it was lock to lock to keep it in a straight line, undoubtedly the most dangerous vehicle we have ever been on a public highway in. Chris Bailey had said that insurance here is an optional extra....... As promised, Trattoria de Enrico was superb with yet more security guys outside with shotguns and run by a Columbian, Mauricio; the walls are made out of boulders with water running down, and you sit there looking at the roof which is the glass bottom of a fish tank with the water illuminated and big carp inside, another amazing experience for us! Mauricio recommended the Lobster Thermidor, so we had that with Chilean red wine, it was fantastic, Mary had the biggest shrimps ever, and we finished off with a lovely pudding and the best Columbian Coffee we've had yet. By the way, Mauricio also said don't go to Columbia, he only ever flies in and out! After a suitable break, we went off to a Club and danced about ( Paul resting his leg out for endurance!) to some really rather good Latino tracks, met a Californian guy called Carlos who works for a shipping agent and may be able to help, then moved on to another club for some more action, it was now 2.30 in the morning and we'd been at it all day, so the older ones went off to bed while Paul flew the flag and eventually ended up back at Wilson's place for a nightcap. He won!

Saturday 12.8.00 Guayaquil After the exertions of the last couple of days we needed to recuperate and it was nice to take some time out for a leisurely breakfast. John decided to get his hair cut in the Beauty Salon in the Hotel and claimed he looked even better for it. Meanwhile Paul reappeared with Wilson; Paul was on top form but Wilson not quite so good - apparently they'd knocked off a bottle of Rum between them last night and Wilson was still getting it together in time to start his shift. Paul and John decided to go sightseeing while Adam tried to get the reports emailed back to UK and they got out into the streets to see some action. There is a lot going on here as in other places we've seen, street sellers of all sorts of items, the usual sweet & biscuit stalls, but there are big differences, such as seeing Policemen riding 2 up on an old ER125, the pillion guy having an AK47 machine gun in his arms! The nightime "Security" scene is a bit wierd, John popped out of the Hotel front door last night to buy some chocolate from the stall on the corner and the guy running it had a sawn off 410 shotgun around his neck so no danger of pinching any bags of crisps there. John reckoned his total stock value must have been $US 20 which makes you wonder. Another strange thing is that the country is apparently just about to ditch it own currency, the Sucre, and convert to the US$ completely and unlike the fierce debate at home with the £/Euro everyone here cannot wait till full conversion in September. The benefit appears to be much improved stability, the elimination of speculation and the reduction of inflation. It seems strange to be paying for stuff with another countries notes quite openly in the streets and shops and a taxi ride anywhere in the city centre is 1$US. Other strange sights were a guy selling Rabbits and Puppies on the street, holding up one of each and shouting his prices out; the fruit sellers have a huge variety of stuff, Avocados, Dates, nuts, etc as well as all the usual stuff, and once again the Orange salesman were pushing their 3 wheel carts around with PA speakers running off truck batteries to shout their wares. The fresh coconut stalls looked really tempting too. Paul at last found a good coffee shop serving proper fresh ground Columbian and had to have a couple it was so good. Strolling back through the park there are tame Iguana's climbing in the trees and wandering around on the paths, and turtles swimming around in a shallow pond, really nice too see, and quite happy being amongst the people. We could not work out why they don't run away but apparently they breed so well that other parks have been populated from here.

We had found the Telefonica shop and by now were only slightly surprised to be frisked by the guards on the way in and then to see all the staff behind grilles and all the cabins locked till you were cleared to enter one. Unfortunately yet again the phones were hard wired with no way to plug in, so no joy there. Wilson offered to take us to the movies in the evening and after a good Chinese just opposite the Hotel, £1.50 each, off we went to the new Mall which is huge (we had to be careful not to lose Paul, he'd spend weeks in there) and at one end is a superb cinema. The seats were fantastic, fully adjustable, and you could virtually lie down; the film was in Spanish but we got the gist of it very quickly - Eyes Open was about a guy who had to have plastic surgery and became schitzoid, or maybe reborn. Anyway, it was good and would translate well to english. Afterwards it was off to another Club including Wilsons' niece Andrea who loves dancing and back to our Hotel pretty late. Funny thing though, we keep seeing stunning looking women coming out of the lifts and jumping into taxis, whatever time of night it is. There is a Club on the 14th floor with loud music all night, maybe they all go there?

Sunday 13.8.00 Guayaquil & Salinas We had said to Wilson we wanted to go to the beach for the day, as we could not do any organising and have not yet basked in the sun and we missed out on some wonderful surf in northern Peru to get here. Chris Bailey had said as well that Salinas is the place to go, so with Mary and their son Fabian it was over to the bus terminal to get a trip out of town, as Salinas is about 100k out of the city, and we couldn't get everyone on the bikes! It was a change to be in a bus rather than trying to avoid them out on the road and we were pleasantly surprised to find it roomy and well built. The conductor was just like the collectivo (minibus) drivers though, hanging out the door touting for extra business and on the way out of the city, at each road hump when the bus slowed down, they picked up more passengers until it was full. Also, guys selling all sorts of food jumped on and travelled to the next stop while selling their wares - hot freshly made meat pasties, deep fried potato cakes, water, fruitjuice, yoghurt, goats cheese, apples, oranges etc. You could eat a 3 course meal no problem, far better catering than National Express back home and much cheaper too. The coach gradually started dropping people off and eventually we arrived at Salinas. It was a short walk down to the front where we haggled breifly for an umberella and some seats and made camp for the day.

The beach was lovely, Yacht Club over on the left and hotels curving around behind, quite a few people around, but it was the middle of winter here so not too many. We were instantly surrounded by people selling jewellery, hats (we managed to restrain John here) sunglasses (but he did buy a better looking pair than than the awful Uvex ones we've been taking the piss out of!), necklaces (he bought a sharktooth one) and a guy with a complete set of sharks jaws which we'd have liked. Lunch was some of the Goats cheese, very nice on buscuits, plus a helping of meat, lentil & plantin served by a vendor on banana leaves which was excellent. There was all sorts of other food, we tried fresh coconuts to drink and eat, and had a round of ice creams, very relaxing. John went swimming, though it was "cold" - not to us, almost a perfect temperature. Eventually Paul decided to risk the knee and have a go, and found it helped ease off the muscles which had tightened up after his clubbing sessions!

Wilson had found a couple of guys who rented out big boats, so we asked them to quote us for loading the bikes and us and running up to Panama City. They took all the details and said they would have to check out the paperwork needed and would ring us on Monday lunchtime to let us know a price. We quite liked the idea of taking a small boat, as it seemed the big container ships would not allow passengers, but were a little concerned that the boat had looked just like the one out of Jaws, which we hoped was not a bad omen! Late in the afternoon we decided to make a move back and stopped for a Pizza on the way, which turned out to be individual portions and a bit limp, but kept us going. The bus back was similar in that it went the long way round to load up as full as possible and it was quite late for Fabian to be out when we got back to the city limits, so we hopped off and picked up a taxi, which was actually a rusty farm mazda pickup with a half roof over, made out of an old metal shed. No rear lights and holes through the bottom, but a nice ride sat in the back, and safe to film from, which it had not been where we jumped on. We hopped out back at the hotel, Wilson & Mary took Fabian home and picked up some food for his birthday party at school tomorrow, while we retired sunburnt to our room. We were just getting settled down with Cinecanal, when Adam thought John started shaking his chair, and John thought Adam was shaking the bed, but after a moment when the lampshade started wobbling around as well, we realised it was actually an earthquake and the whole building was moving around! It lasted maybe 30 seconds in small but very firm movements, quite unnerving, and then subsided. We sat there waiting for the big one but nothing more happened, so we relaxed again. Another new experience for us, with our current trend for arriving in "unseasonal" conditions, look out California if we come that way!

Link to next update: Week 7