Sunday 25th August Final Post For Leg 20

We had all our clothes and Riding Gear Washed and returned to the bikes on Friday to store the clothes on the bikes. I made sure mine were dry, (but the bikes are stored inside the KTM Workshop, so much better storage than in Ecuador, which was under a plastic sheet roof.)

Millsy’s “Baby” was already in the wash-bay and they had already started working on Tex’s bike.

We found a Barber around the corner and most of us went for a little clean-up.

Our hotel had a little roof restaurant with a view of the city and its fog.

We went out for dinner with Ernesto, our Fixer, he took us to an authentic Peruvian Restaurant and suggested a few dishes. But the biggest “find” was his suggestion to try a Pisco Sour Cocktail, its made of Pisco, the local Wit-Blits” (like Grappa, distilled grapes, like Brandy, but then not left in wooden barrels to get the brown colour and to get softer like Brandy.) It gets Lime and Sugar and Egg White, shaken and served in an old-fashioned glass:

The restaurant was decorated with the Nazca Lines scratched into the plaster on the walls. These lines are in Southern Peru and we will only get to them on Leg 21. They are only visible from the sky and are made of stones packed in lines, many of them over a very large area:

Here is the recipe fir the Pisco Sour:

Traditional Dish, the steak is cubed and fried with onions and tomatoes:

Pisco is also drank with the coffee after the meal, it is very strong, like what we know as Wit Bliss, (remember, Mampoer is made of any fruit, but Wit Blits only of grapes.)

Click on this video:

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We spent to the up-market area at the beach where all the new hotels are built, there is a very modern Shopping Area, all the Brands had a shop there. I was very cold and I wanted to buy a puffer Jacket from North Face, the sleeveless type, it was a perfect fit, until I saw they wanted R5000-00 for it, I decided to rather get the flu or a severe Cold as the medicine to cure me would be far less then the cost of the Jacket.

On Saturday morning early Rocky and Millsy started their travels back, they canceled their returning flights and booked new flights which were sooner, (as we are returning from a different airport as we ended our trip in Lima and not in La Paz.) Peens and Danny-boy took the Rally Car and drove off to the Oasis South of Lima. Then the 3 remaining members (Pie Tex and I)  were off to the Museum.

See this type of Cactus ?

We have seen two sites in the North, and will see many still in the South and East on Leg 21, but all the “artefacts” has been removed and all we viewed were the Ruins, but it is only half the picture, one need to see the “Artefacts” to complete the picture, and this is what we saw at the Larco Museum. There are 45 000 items here:

 

Most of which are pottery, I found it mind-blowing to see the amount of pottery, (plastic changed our life,) and each vessel was  decorated and was a real piece of art:

Below are items that were put at the end of a stick, to form a club, (no not that type,) and it was carved from stone.

Their other weapons were spears for throwing.

Ceremonial dishes were made from gold:

And below are goblets, many of which were part of the rituals and ceremonies.

These ancient Peruvians were very sexual, and there is an entire part of the museum dedicated to the Erotic art depicted on the pottery, but as this is a family blog I will rather not post more than the mild pot below, but trust me, they ones I am not posting are VERY explicit.

More pottery, note the spout for pouring the liquid through which forms part of every one of their vessels :

STOP SCROLLING FOR THE PHOTOS, READ THIS:

I made lots of notes and was going to summarise the info my very Blond & Senior Brain tried to “Capture.” But, as most of you will not read it, and one of you already knows everything I would say, I decided to rather show you the photos and very few facts, and then you can go to the Proff. Google and make yourselves more clever.

What I learnt from this trip to the Lanso Museum was this:

• Just because the Spanish arrived in 1532 and found the Inca’s Ruling the Lands, we think that all the history here is Inca based, but by the time the Spanish arrived there was a history of 5000 years they could trace back, of other tribes that came before the Inca, the Inca was just the last, but all these tribes, like the Moche, Florescent Epoch, Virus, Formative Epoch, Cupisnique, Chimu, Imperial Epoch, Mochica, all these are referred to as the Ancient Peruvians.
• These tribes were not going to war to expand their territory, they went to war to find someone worthy to sacrifice to the gods as they were very dependant on the weather, and every 18 to 25 years they had severe weather patterns, El Nino, with floods or drought, and instead of blaming the internal combustion engine, or global warming, they begged the gods to help by offering the blood of some deer and a few guys they went looking for and who they beat in battle.
• In battle, the aim was to expose your enemies head, by removing his head-gear in battle, thereby embarrassing him and also being able to kill him with exposed head, but, they chose to strip him naked and tie him up with a rope, (this scene is depicted on many pottery,) and then his blood is used for a sacrifice to change the weather back to normal.
• The area in which they stayed, in the desert, close to the sea, was in fact a very fertile area as many rivers running from the Andes Mountains mouthed into the sea, so there was enough fresh water for drinking and Irregation of crops, and they domesticated animals and started farming, thereby they stopped being nomads, where as in Africa the people kept moving after better grazing, and never really settled on the scale we see here. And the cold current flowing in the sea brought so many nutrients and the fishing was easy and abundant, (remember, we are just down from Galapocus Islands, still the place I would like to go Scuba Dive as it is just off the charts I hear, (watch this space.)

Apart from Pottery there were also Textiles woven from cotton and wool from the Alpacka.

They also had many Stone Carvings:

Below is a Breast Plate they wore for war and for ceremonial purposes:

Their clothing would be decorated in a  theme with carvings they would attach:

Some Jewellery :

Sceptre’s

Nose Jewellery :

And for the ears:

More for the nose

OK, I will post a few selected photos, but the rest has been censored :

Read below to understand more, it was mostly symbolic:

Are you tired yet???

My last Blog of a trip is always long as I always have lots of time to think, just me and myself in the helmet, talking, singing and thinking, (something I am capable of in spite of what my friends say.)

Well the good news for you must be that this time I had no time to think, no long open roads speeding past, this trip was concentrating day after day and less singing and more screams as a Hair-pin turns nasty, like a local scooter taking short-cut and placed himself smack-bang in the middle of the Line you chose through the bend.

So nothing philosophical this time.

But I thought I should just summarise some observations:

• Ecuador is the most under-rated country I have traveled through, what a lovely country, and people.
• What made this trip special was that we could take the off-the-beaten-track to kill time as our storage point changed and we had 8 days extra.
• Because we spent all that time in the Andes we never had traffic or saw tourists. Locals would freak out when they saw our big Adventure Motorbikes, they had never seen this before. And being so remote comes with extra risks, but we have been doing this for over 100 000km, and we are now “Old and Wise” (well not all are old and not all are so wise.” So with high risk comes high reward, and this trip we were rewarded, BIG Time. There is no place for your ego along a slippery road.
• Culture in both Peru and Ecuador is visible everywhere, and in every bigger town where we had stayed there would be traditional dancing by kids on the square in the evenings, almost like Line Dancing.
• The people in Africa are Happy People, unlike the Chineese, and Scandinavian or Russians and even the Europeans, and the people of Ecuador and Peru are happy.
• In spite of the 11m people in Lima, the city is spotless, and the residential area has so many parks, I honestly could live in Lima, if the Language was not such a problem. And parking is charged per minute, at R0-75c a minute, or $0-04, so I would need a scooter, and the mist in the Winter would break my Spirit.
• It is the 3rd time that Danny-Boy joined our trip, at the beginning when he was still at school when we started in London, then in America he joined us for a Leg and now this Leg, and it is good to have the influence of the youth on our trip. We learnt a lot from him about Navigating with Google Maps, but more importantly planning a route and setting up Way-points, Garmin GPS is great but I find that you need to use both of these instruments strengths and not just rely on just one or the other. I now use Google Lens to transcribe written words into English, and Google Translate App to talk to people. I am definitely getting more clever as I am getting older, thanks Danny-Boy.

Last night, after the Museum we went to the biggest square in Lima, and the vibe was amazing, and look at the buildings:

Coils

We walked along the roads closed for vehicles and it felt like Istanbul. I needed to use the bathroom and because I am such a good-person I refused to walk into KFC and just use their toilet, so I told Pie and Tex to wait for me as I was going to order 12 Wings, go to toilet, and collect the wings on my way out, and then we can walk and eat a Starter. But something went wrong, I placed the order and instead of just trashing the Chips and the Cokes that came with the wings, and simply just keep the wings only, I tried to change the order to exclude the chips and cokes, and I thought the kids behind the counter understood me, but at the toilet I looked at the credit card slip and saw I paid more than double for 12 wings, and it was going to come without chips and cool drink, I think. When I got back to the kids at the counter they said “20 MINUTES,” I tried to ask about the double price for half the items but it was lost in translation, all I knew was that I paid the same amount for 24 wings plus 4 chips and 4 Inca Cola but my slip said 12 Wings. So I got woes, (upset,) called the Manager, who was just another kid, and with Google Translate canceled the order and insisted on a refund, I think my scene might be on TikTok today, but that was when I realised I am now needing to go home, see my lovely wife, sleep in my own bed, hug my dogs, speak in my own language, I want my other life back, genoeg is genoeg!!!!!!

And oh boy, did I get my wish, painfully.

Tex and I left for the airport last night after KFC non Dinner at 22h00, at 1h30 my flight took off to La Paz, Bolivia. After a 2 hour flight I had to move my watch forward 4 hours, so, arrived at 4h25, and then chaos at the Passport Control as I needed to re-submit all my documents again, fill in all the Visa application forms again even though I already had a visa. And as I did not have a local Sim, and as Vodacom does not trust me enough to let me Roam, Google Translate was as helpful as a bicycle to a fish. They wanted to see my hotel reservation, I tried to explain that instead of entering by motorbike at Copacabana (where I had a hotel booking) I was now flying in to catch connecting flight, so no booking. I was tempted to do another Tik Tok Hit but knew I would then sit in the Transit hall for 24 hours, and those benches are not comfortable, been there, done that. But eventually it was just me and the few Passport Control people and they wanted to go home to sleep, so they helped and stamped my Passport after 2,5 hours of begging on my knees. So eventually I had booked a hotel and was  in the taxi heading into the city, built between two mountains\hills. I slept for a few hours and now having lunch on the roof of the hotel. Will explore the city later, after this last Blog.

The hotel also has a restaurant on the roof and the city does not look to inviting:

Tomorrow I fly before “Sparrows Fart,” around 4h30, to Santa Cruz, still in Bolivia, then 2 hours later connect to São Paulo Brazil, and then 5 hours later connect to RSA, arriving 53 hours after Tex and I got into the Uber last night, Lekker man, Lekker.

There was more bad nest from our Fixer, the process to start releasing our motorbikes on our return can only start once we have emailed the entry stamp in our Passports to him on our return, and then, depending on our luck and Murphy, it could take between 3 and 5 days to release our bikes. I am still wondering what we will do for 3-5 days, we have seen the city and it it pointless to fly to see some of the sites we are in any case planning to visit by bike, so how do we fill 3-5 days on our return in about 8 months from now????? We have time to figure that out, I am thinking Galapagos Islands, I can arrive a week early, send them my entry-stamp, get the process started, then fly out and return 3-5 days after the others have returned??????

Thanks for riding with us, we are honoured. Hope you will join us again in April next year.

LUV JA MADLY

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Fleisch