I frequently spend whole hours thinking about food.

 

Food in Peru is basically chicken and rice, pizza, Coy (Guinea pig which I don´t like), Alpaca (ditto) and yet more bland chicken and rice.

 

O for some home cooked food...  Mum´s Sunday roast.  Cheese on toast (has to be top quality cheddar on brown toasted bread), proper cereal like Alpen or Shredded Wheat with Sainsbury´s organic milk.  A good Indian or Thai curry (tho´yesterday I coooked my hosts a Thai which has eased the cravings a little).  Bacon sandwiches, a recurring theme, usually in the mornings after a heavy night.  You can´t seem to get HP sauce anywhere outside Blighty which for me is as essential as top quality bacon and toasted brown bread in the creation of a top  bacon sandwich.  Cheese generally.  My own fridge packedwith a decent splurge in Marks and Spencers.  Etc etc.

 

Still, it´s off to Argentina next week, home to the superb $5 steaks. 

 

 

A highlight of my trip has been the two or three weeks I´ve spent up in the North of Peru, motorbiking with two top blokes Peter (English) and Franco (Peruvian). 

 

Starting at the lovely town of Cajarmarca and heading North on Suzuki 650DRs Peru is superb motorbiking territory.  Epic mountain climbs up to 3800 metres along rock strewn tracks, jungle dirt trails, desert highways and virgin asphalt through pretty villages;  you never know quite what the day´s road conditions are going to bring.  Some of my favourite roads, the challenging dirt ones, and an interesting mix of third world hazards, which in Peru´s case includes not only the usual massive trucks, children, psyhotic dogs but also colourful Peruvian indians, donkeys and the occasional Llama.   

 

I didn´t fall off on this trip, :-) and I got really into re-discovering my off road riding skills.  Standing up on the pegs, putting the centre of gravity on the bike to it´s lowest point, shifting my weight on the pegs to turn on loose gravel, I nearly perfected the cornering drift, getting the back wheel to slide under control around the corners.  The guys rated my riding which is a compliment, at least it is from Peter, the senior guide.  He´s never fallen off.  But the young Franco, fell off twice, which of course was great ammo for piss taking while downing umpteen Pisco Sours (the strong, national drink) in the evenings. 

 

I shouldn´t get too cocky though.  I had one of my biggest motorbiking scares ever on this trip.   Riding through the coastal desert area on the Pan American Highway, at night, we came across yet another tightly packed three truck convoy.   Pete went first and passed all three trucks safely.  I absemnt mindedly followed, my decision making blunted by eight hours in the saddle and numerous Pisco´s the night before.  As I drew level with the third truck and thinking the exit was clear I was dumbstruck when a massive truck appeared in the oncoming lane out of nowhere.  In fact the road had swung around to the right into a blind corner, obscuring my line of sight.  O fuck. Not only was my visor smeared with remains of dead bugs, making seeing anything in the blaze of headlights difficult,  I could not locate any gap between the second and third lorry.  The only option was to trust in luck and go through the tiny gap between the oncoming truck and the one I was overtaking.  I made it, but was shaking afterwards.  Playing Russion Roulette on a motorcycle is not a good idea.  I´ve known too many mates who have had serious injuries to risk being such a twat.  Anyway, lesson learnt.

 

Reaching the jungle town of Yurimaguas we got trapped as one of Peru´s frequent labour strikes closed the whole town down, with roadblocks making it difficult to escape.  After three days we´d had enough river trips and hotel food, so we took the decision to leave and blag our way out.   Most of the roadblocks had convenient motorcycle gaps in them.  Others required extensive bullshitting, showing a newfound interest in workers rights plus spreading a little goodwill money to ease our passage through.

 

The rest of the tour passed off with out incident. I loved it so much I´ve come back to Cajamarca in part to do some more biking with Pete, who´s now become a good mate.   I love the country too.  Except the food.

Not really had a chance to do much writing in the last couple of weeks.  Blame bad keyboards, lack of change, and hangovers.  But I´ve added a couple of picks from an epic two week tour of the north on Suzuki DR650 dirt bikes with two top blokes Peter and Franco.  More soon when time allows which should be soon as I´m back in the north chilling for a week in Cajamarca