Peru
November
4, 2012 - I crossed the border into Peru a few days ago. It
was relatively painless, probably one of the better border
crossings to take. Mind you, I avoided the Pan American highway
crossing and went for the crossing at Huaquillas.
The target for day one in Peru was Piura, a large town on the coast and quite far into Peru. The desert of Northern Peru is incredibly uninteresting but unlike Baja, there were some very long stretches of absolutely straight road that made for great day dreamers. There was no traffic at all for hours it seemed and the mind could work overtime as the bike practically floated by itself. Ultimate helmet time.
Piura came and went, and the next day I headed for Trujillo. On the way there, I had the unique opportunity to combine business and pleasure. I pulled off at six degrees south of the equator and peered into the desert. And there it was, a large shimmering salt lake, part of Growmax Agricorp. It's always good to go and take a look at your own investments.
Growmax is about to start producing potash and other minerals using simple solar evaporation. It's a sideline business to Americas Petrogas, an Argentinean oil company I invested in about five years ago.
More desert lay ahead and I pressed on, zooming out on the GPS to see how far I could go before cities would start to appear on the map. All twelve satellites were at more than 75 percent strength, something only seen when far out at sea usually. Emptiness redefined. I had a blast.
Arriving in Trujillo, I parked the bike in the lobby of Hostal Colonial, a huge compound with more than fifty rooms I estimate. It's a very friendly place to hang out and they got everything right.
Right in front of the hostal, a wedding was taking place later in the evening and I ran back to grab my camera.
The photographer was a bit of a strange character. He ran up to me and asked what I was shooting with while his assistant was duly waiting with some lights for the bride and groom to appear from the bowels of the church.
Trujillo is a very pleasant little town. I loitered around taking pictures pretty much every day.
On day two of my visit, I booked a Spanish speaking tour of the Chan Chan ruins, in part to force-feed myself some Spanish. It was a hopeless effort, as the guide rattled on at warp speed to the point where even the locals had to ask him to repeat himself.
Chan Chan is somewhat interesting. Although a decent set of pictures will do you more good than visiting the site itself.
The toy museum was a nice change from the mildly boring anthropological museum.
Tomorrow I head into the mountains, away from civilization.