Crossing Lima

I left Huacho under a foggy morning, it was cold and I have to wear some warming cloth, I'm not paying more attention to local forecast that calls for 31 Celsius when is 8......in any case a good piece of advice for a rider is this....keep always a nylon or plastic liner with you to wear on top, they are great, you can buy the most expensive riding suit but will do nothing against rain and constant wind hitting your chest. The cheap or expensive plastic liner is magic......

The scenery was not much different up to Lima, sand, dunes and sea sporadically. As you climb the big dunes, the fog will cover the road and reduce substantially the vision. Suddenly you'll have some small towns' or this gathering of houses in the sand that makes you wonder what are they doing there !!!

Lima is huge but crossing was fairly easy, you stick to the panamericana that cuts the city in half. In some sense there are a lot of similarities with Quito, crowded, houses built on the sides of the hills, barely hanging there. I saw people carving areas to generate a flat piece of land and install there this wood/leaf wall houses, walking in areas with 60 degree slopes......unbelievable !!!! now I understand those catastrophes when the rain wash out a complete neighborhood, those houses are build without any solid support to the soil.

Crossing Lima, that takes an hour aprox, you have a highway and you can see sporadic beaches with nice constructions that I assume belongs to the wealthier Limenios and are week end houses, not so many though.

As I was leaving Lima you can see some changes in the scenery, crops and vineyards start appearing and you can appreciate a more solid commercial activity, less mototaxis and better houses. Looks like south of Lima is where Peru is more developed, please do not take this as more than a comment coming from a casual witness (is not documented with any numbers).

My next stage is Arica but is far from here and I'm afraid it can't be done in a day unless I ride 12 or 15 hours, I decided to stop close, ride only 200 km today and stay at Nazca to approach the next desert crossing that Juan warned me and is going to be long.

If I can I'll try to see the Nazca lines (not really sure what they are yet) and leave really early tomorrow to Arica, this will leave me at the doors of Chile.

Jorge