Foggy Days

A burst of sunshine got us swimming for a while then the clouds rolled in and summer resumed its normal pattern of cool cloudy days. We’re barely in the southern hemisphere so that might be winter but whatever. 

It’s California style fog, low clouds and a misty shore. It’s still pretty livable even if the swimming looks unappealing. 

I can’t say fishing looks appealing but it’s their job and they are out there riding the swells. 

The one that got away: 

We’ve been studying the road ahead and our plan now is to leave here Monday, or if the sun comes back maybe Wednesday. 

Our next stop down the coast would be Piura a town that is not described nicely in iOverlander where armed robberies have been reported but there is a decent secure campground. 

I’m curious to see more of this strange country though most of the tourist attractions are inland in the mountains. 

More high mountains are ahead between here and Chile. 

Enjoying the beach is good but there are many miles ahead. Ushuaia awaits. 

And that’s the direct route:

Beach Combing

The sun refuses to break through the seasonal cloud cover so we are preparing to leave and drive south. 

The main question is: will our laundry be dry by Saturday night? If it is we drive Sunday morning for Piura the next large town four hours south of here by Google maps. If the laundry isn’t dry we will postpone till Monday. On such details do plans turn.

The idea is to take the coast road before driving to 9,000 feet at Cajamarca to see how we do back at high altitude. Then we drive back to the coast and take another hop south before turning inland again to see the White Mountains - the Cordillera Blanca. 

The coast road is described as boring, a mix of dust and desert, trash and industrial farming on the plains and in my imagination it sounds like a drive through California’s Salina’s Valley but the reality will doubtless prove me wrong. After Piura, a city of no merit at all from what we’ve heard though there is a supermarket and a secure campground,  we will drive further south before turning inland to the historic city of Cajamarca. 

A fellow overlander in a large expedition truck is leaving before us to go inland and drive the mountain roads  but I took a look at Route 5 and Route 3 and they are not going to be much fun for us. Three days of this sort of thing on a narrow paved road in the mountains just seems tedious to me. 

“I like driving,” Bernhard said and so do I but there are plenty of mountain passes ahead that are unavoidable so one that is voluntary I’ll skip thanks and take the coastal route instead. After Cajamarca there are ancient ruins near Trujillo back on the coast as we drive south towards the snow covered peaks inland. And from those white specks we go back to the coast, skirt Lima if we can and continue south to the Nasca Lines and the Inca capital of Cusco. Theoretically we could go east to the Brazilian Amazon but we’ll probably drive south to Lake Titicaca and then back to the coast to Arequipa and the Chilean town of Arica skipping Bolivia for the time being. Bolivia is a mess for overlanders and to go there would probably drive me to drink prematurely. 

Meanwhile, after we hashed out a Peruvian plan for our immediate future I went back back to dawdling and I tried to take Rusty for a walk. He refused but his hunter instincts came back briefly and to my astonishment he caught and ate a crab. He looked pleased with himself. 

He used to catch iguanas for us when we first got him, his contribution to our survival until he realized he got food regularly every day without having to hunt. 

I saw a dead flamingo on the beach the other day and all I saw now was a pink feather. 

A navy ship has joined the fishing fleet at anchor in the open road south of the campground. It’s a weird spot as it has no visible protection from the elements. 

The weather forecast promises sunshine all week. If true we might not be leaving so fast.  What an interesting dilemma. 

Camp Life

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.