They say this is low season for coastal tourism, a time of year when overcast skies are the rule and that has been the case the past few days. For CB overlanders that’s not necessarily the case as we share the space with a Chilean RV, a German four wheel drive converted fire truck, a Swiss Sprinter cab and around the corner a German pick up camper shell parked in the overflow lot.
It’s a bit like an organized campground anywhere inasmuch as we say hallo and nothing further. The Europeans are going north and the Chileans too but we go south.
And with that Swiss are gone, the Sprinter van left this morning.
Layne is hoping some friends we met in Colombia might arrive soon to feed her appetite for connection and conversation.
Me? I’m ready to move on but I can see why we are staying here a while, it’s our last chance for ocean swimming for months, a year perhaps as the southern ocean is freezing cold and inhospitable to swimmers like us. Until we get back up from Ushuaia next year we will see no karate swimming.
There is also the possibility of meeting travelers here, people we have overtaken so we have to pause for a while to give them a chance yo catch up. And then, aside from the swimming and the people there is the altitude.
Living at sea level is lovely, with not enough humidity to sweat, no biting insects and cool nights for good sleeping. Layne’s high altitude cough has gone, she is sleeping better and the aches and pains of life at 10,000 feet, the freezing cold mornings, are all vanished by sea air.
Of course I have ambitions to climb high in southern Peru but we may have to skip Bolivia a country that finding much welcome tourists. They are in one of their perennial throes of political indecision and yesterdays failed coup has probably laid the groundwork for the next one. Meanwhile foreigners are not able to easily buy fuel. That’s off putting in a Soviet sort of way. 
At this point we are sitting still mapping a possible route south full of ruins and Incas and notable sites like Machu Picchu which I have seen so much reproduced online I find myself pondering less scripted places to see in the Sacred Valley.
I want to go to Cajamarca to see the room where Atuahalpa ordered his people to deposit sufficient gold and silver to have Francisco Pizarro set him free. Instead Pizarro had him garroted.
The lines at Nasca ought to be seen with a fly over to learn what the fuss is all about and even before that the ruins at Chan Chan north of Lima merit a coastal stop.
There’s lots to see and we have a 90 day permit but we want to be at the southern tip of Argentina in early December during the austral summer but before the schools are out for Christmas when tourism booms during their summer holidays.
It’s a balancing act and we are making it up as we go along, seduced by easy beach living
Easy but odd; power’s off again this morning so the internet is down and our 220 volt converter is off. Luckily we try to keep our house batteries charged so Peru’s frequent black outs don’t affect us directly.
Monday through Friday the beach is almost entirely empty. On weekends there may be the odd cluster of people but the space is ours. Even the campers next to us rarely cross paths on the sand with us screen less so in the water. How often can you find such solitude?
A little beach melodrama advising the abandoned property is not for sale.
He loves it here and he has a vote.
We have tried Pisco Sours the national drink and we like them.
To find an argument to move on right now seems rather difficult. I’d probably do better to shut up and get back to my Kindle. I am reading LAST DAYS OF THE INCAS and Amazon suggested this so it’s up next, adventure stories from the Andes. You might like it and I say that as I find the author’s style very readable.
Not a bad place to pause and ponder.
I’m glad to be alive.
