Day 341 Friday 15th August Trujillo to Santiago de Chuco 191km

As you know, we have two newly-joined members, or Charlies Angles if you prefer:

Last night we went for a walk at the town square where it was clean and friendly, the buildings built by the Spanish were maintained and there was a similar vibe as in previous towns, except they were preparing for some festival and were erecting many stalls for the vendors, at some places the vendors had already moved in and was serving traditional food and drinks.

Tex had his riding boots cleaned while Pie and Rocky were spending their money at the local aphrodisiac stall. There was a lady singing and people were dancing, before they even drank the local drink which I bought for us which tasted like a honey liquor that was fermenting.

Click on Video below to down-load:

After dinner we decided it was a good time to sort out Peens’s back-brakes which he lost 3 days ago, so the repair happened on the street, a teacher who was taught by a South African teacher walked by and started telling us how this teacher changed her life and inspired her to become a teacher herself, then Millsy proudly spoke of his lovely daughter, Hella, who is also a teacher in Thailand, she spoke such good English.

This morning we went to our 1st Tourist sight on this Leg, to Chan Chan. This is where the Chimu Culture people lived, about 30 000 of them, from 850 to 1470, when the Incas conquered them. there is an area of about 20 square kilometres that was dug-up by archaeologists, there are 9 palaces but we only looked at 1. It is difficult to picture this palace as the roofs are missing, they were made from a woven reed mat that was placed on wooden support and then covered with mud. The area in now covered with a real roof to prevent any further erosion from the rain. So when you look at these photos, ignore the modern roof and just look at the mud structures.

We broke our budget and hired an English Guide for R300-00. It was well worth it as there were no signs in any language telling us what we were looking at. So I took a few notes and I hope you will read and not just scroll to the pictures, as I suspect most of you will do as I know you, well, ok, those I know will scroll.

The walls were built using sand, straw, stones and crushed sea-shells (which acted like cement.)

Behind us on the phono below is where their wells were for water.

They used several items in daily life to be depicted in the structures, below is the Fish-Net

As they lived on the coast and were fishermen, the fish also feature, and the Pelican as there were thousands of Pelicans then and the guana (poo from the birds) were not just used for fertilising their crops, it was also exported to their neighbours.

A squirrel meant the land to them.

These were very primitive people and the Moon was very central to their culture (the Sun was the Incas spiritual God.) These people suffered with changes in the weather (floods`) and would sacrifice young women to the Moon God.

If the king died all his many concubines and all his servants were buried alive with him to serve in in the after life.

Their most valuable item in those days were…….. no, not gold but……. seeds.

We looked at our options last night and voted as to what we do with the extra days we got after changing our final destination, and my vote was that we tuff-up and do the shitty highway through the desert and then go around Lima to the South of Lima where there is an oasis and many cultural sights, including the Nazca Lines, stones packed in the shape of things or pointing to things, as I thought the rendered of this blog has had enough photos of gravel roads and looking through hair-pins with me. I also said that we have had more than a week of riding in the Andes Mountains, lets reduce our risk profile ad his some straight boring roads, but as you can guess I was out voted, so after Chan Chan we turned our bikes East and head in the complete wrong direction as this Leg would have been heading.

We stopped for fuel and I told Pie I felt something wrong when I braked hard, he looked and told me that the guys from Luna Power Sports either did not screwed back the bolts or did not tighten them and there one side had fallen out.

It should look like this :

But looked like this

I caused great entertainment to the staff at the fuel station who told Rocky they were taking videos of me to put on Tin Tok.

So we removed the 2nd one from the other side and put it on the side without any bolts holding the axle in place. Then we hit the mountains.

Here are some of today’s photos. Luckily we only did about 40km of Gravel today, about a 5th of the day.

We had to try quail eggs, the lady warms them up in hot water and then shells then, they are served 4 eggs in a portion and you can have it with salt or chilly sauce.

Along the way we bumped into Mike who we met in Ecuador, he is French and riding South America on his own, he has taken 6 months off to do from Alaska to the bottom of South America.

Look what all the mining did to this river :

We arrived at this very small little town and sat on the steps of the square and drank a beer and ate peanuts while we decided which of the 2 hotels we were going to stay at.

We decided to each get our own room tonight at the staggering price of R250 per room, ($7-50) but dont expect too much, I am the luck winner of the room with leaking toilet as well.

Sorry, I just got this video from Pie and decided to include this at this late stage.

We stopped at a little village and I switched my bike off and took this photo, but when I wanted to start my bike it refused to start. I thought it had an air-lock and opened my fuel tank, then the fuel boiled out of the tank as we had climbed so high (4000m) and the quality of the fuel was very poor, so it boiled and splashed into my face. Pie then arrived and told me to let the fuel cool down and we drank a coke, but only after he took this video: (click below)

After the fuel stopped boiling DadAss still would not start and was flashing “Fuel Pump Failure.” So Pie disconnected the battery and re-set the bike and then she was good as gold, Pie has Magic Hands.