This blog is coming from you from “No Mans Land” between Peru and Chile where we have been stuck in-between the 2 borders since 10h15 this morning. It is now 18h15. This blog is also done on my phone, so dont expect too much.
We had a lovely evening last night in a local eatery. There was no Hotel and only a Hostal, but it had parking in the garage and it was clean, and as we had descended a little we only had 2 Horse Blankets on each bed.
We are still at the border, I have now switched phones as my main phone ran out of battery power, and the new I-Phones are very fussy with regards to Charging and therefore it refuses to take a charge from my Motorbike Charge Point.
I have also now switched from doing this Blog on the phone to using my Lap Top as it was very difficult typing on the screen. I pulled some of todays photos in onto the Blog on my phone, but they are now in the wrong order, and I see I have just been informed that I am running out of my Travel Roaming Data Bundle, so I am not going to re-do the photos in the correct order, sorry, tomorrow’s blog will be better. So let me just comment on the photos below;
We went through the Peru Immigration) and exited, then the office for entering Chile was right next door, so we entered Chile, but then we had to do the papers for the bikes and that was where the problem started as although we received emails from SUNAT (Peru Customs) that the Suspension of our TIPS (Temporary Import Permits) was being lifted and that the normal 90 days we were given will begin ticking again. They said they had the right to come and inspect that the bikes were still in storage. Our Fixer gave us some papers from SUNAT and we had to wait for 24 hours so that they could come and inspect our bikes, but after 24 hours we could go and the paperwork would be completed by Customs. Well, the man that had to process the forms did not do it and now it is a problems exiting Peru. We are now sitting on the grass in front of the main Customs office and watching the Sun Set. We are told that these offices are talking to the Head Office in Lima and that it might be resolved in another 3 hours. If not we must return on Monday, but the problem is that we have already been entered into Chile, but our bikes are stuck in between the two borders.
We eventually figured out how to get stuffs out of the Vending machines using your credit card, in Spanish.
This was our view for most of the day until we were promoted to Head Office at the border.
We are now at the Pacific Ocean, and it is much further east than Lima, so we also lost two hours as there is a time zone difference of 2 hours when we cross the border.
When we stopped at the border Tex left his lights on ad when we were asked to move the bikes this slip-up was discovered, but using the copper wire we bought from the electric Pie soon made some Jumping Cables and got the bike started.
Our Breakfast stop was at a market after we dropped down from 3000m to 200m into the desert. This must be the Scale Master on the entire Continent.
There was no coffee and eggs for breakfast today:
We ate Alpaca for breakfast, with mielies and Potato, our second course was deep fried pork pieces and pineapple juice. The orange stuff is chilly sauce.
As we now no longer going to go through Bolivia we needed to get rid of all the fuel we bough in preparation for the fuel shortages we were expecting in Bolivia, so we set up our own little fuel-station and filled the bikes.
We still had lots of twists for the morning, most were dropping to sea level. our headaches faded and my bike started feeling herself again.
Our Hostel Lady and baby posed with us for a photo before we left this morning.
The Andes Mountains are truly spectacular :
But as we dropped the scenery became drier and the road straighter.
DadAss in front of a dry river bed:
The desert towns were very ugly and dull
And here are more photos of Breakfast; (sorry for the bad Blog tonight, it is now completely dark and the Mosquitos are having dinner.
And this is where it ends today folks. We have considered our options if we can’t continue through the border with our bikes, we will have to leave them in No Mans Land and take a taxi into the 1st Border Town in Chile (yes, I am already nervous.) We will then have to come back on Monday to sit around a bit more, Lekker Man, Lekker
Hope you are alll having abetter weekend than us.
XXXXX
Fleisch
how come Greg always gets the nice chicks ?