Outta Ecuador Into Peru!!!!!

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OK, alright we are back on the road finally!! We have crossed into Peru and are aways into the country staying with one of my old professors from Evergreen. He and his family have let us stay at their house during a very busy time of year. The whole town is filled with people attending the festival for the patron saint of the city. Last night we attended a Cumbia concert and danced until 3 and left
before 99% of the crowd. But, let's rewind!

We descended out of the mountains of Ecuador after leaving Cuenca. We rode through miles and miles of banana plantations and arrived at Santa Rosa and stayed with our last fire station crew. Many thanks to the firefighters of Ecuador!!!!!

But, I think I will just write interesting stories that have happened to us, because that is more fun!

As we entered the border town in Ecuador (called Huaquillas) we saw a Colombian bakery, and since we wanted bread we stopped. As we were sitting enjoying bread and yogurt a man walked up and proceeded to pull his 2-year old son's pants down and allow him to pee on the pan-american highway. CooL!

Crossing into Peru consisted of walking down a crowded market street and all of a sudden a welcome sign to Peru shows up informing you of the border. Then, we are surrounded by moto-taxis and the chaos of the Peruvian highway.

We have camped out a lot so far here in northern Peru. The coast of northern Peru is mostly a dry sandy desert dotted by small desert towns. We have enjoyed amazingly clear beautiful skies for star-gazing and the dead silence of the desert...punctuated by braking semis avoiding potholes and oil derricks.

We have also weathered some of our worst riding conditions here in northern Peru. Many of the towns are separated by 20-150 kilometers of pure desert and sand (oh and plastic bags). This creates two things; wind and sun (and the pleasant sound of bags waving in the wind). The past several days we have spent the afternoon riding into a driving sandstorm of a headwind. Literally sand dunes are blowing across the highway and we have to drop into our lowest gear and ride about 3-5 KPH. Those of you planning this trip...start in South America and go South to North, you will thank us. Our faces, bags, sleeping rolls, bikes, everything you can thinkof (yes everything) fills with sand. Ask yourself, how to urinate? Good times!!

Peru is the first country where people really try on swindle us on our money. Some examples; "I give you 13 breads at 10 cents a piece...that will be 1.50". A woman tried to sell us 1 banana at .50 cents, the going rate is 8 for 1.00. People sold us honey mixed with sugar water, thus the honey tastes like smoke because they cooked it on firewood to melt the sugar into the honey. When we are on our bicycles people yell incessantly at us, when we get off people shut up.

We have had a mixed experience to start Peru. It is not an easy place for two women to cycle through (very few people recognize I am a guy). We are on the receiving end
of both positive and negative comments. Bicycling is interesting because we tend to see both the extreme best places have to offer, but also the worst. The trick is to take it all in stride and attempt not to be negative towards the next people we see on the side of the road if the previous people have been disrespectful. The most interesting thing we have heard up until now is about two bikers (guys) who rode north. They told us nobody hassled them. Maybe Merilee and I are more sensitive or maybe as "women" people feel it is ok to hassle us. We don't know.

But now we are staying with the wonderfully generous and nice family of my professor. We greatly appreciate their support as this is a very busy time of year. It has also been great for me to see old friends and for Merilee to make new friends. Hopefully we will be graced with tail-winds soon. And if not, we are headed into the Cordillera Blanca in a few days!!!

Photos; Merilee eating CUY!!!! (guinea pig), scenes from the North, Eric silhouette, Lima is FARRRR!!! yarrrrrr, Merilee pushing her way through where the Panamerican used to be....DEMOLISHED by 1000 meters of pure rock slide!

Video! Time to spread a little Christmas cheer! Cheers! Happy holidays from the Bomberos of Santa Isabel in Ecuador! Actually it was pretty funny because they were decorating the tree when we rode up and the strung the lights and let the songs play until the wee hours in the morning! Rockin'! But, really I got fed up and turned it down, but it still drones on in my head.