| Jeff Poulter & Graham Tillotson: 15th September 2004 |
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Sullana to Chiclayo
Gareth will join the boys in Peru at the end of this month, and Flip and I are going to Santiago Oct. 18 - 29 so the very long time of being apart doesn't seem so daunting now. It's definitely autumn in England this week, it will be spring in Chile when we visit, and it will be winter here when we return.
An ATM in Sullana
We're in a place called Sullana, not where we hoped to be this evening but we stopped here to find an ATM and fuel up. Just as we pulled up in the main square, Graham's clutch cable snapped. It would have been a fifteen minute job except that the "universal" cable repair kit from the leading German manufacturer contained neither a cable of the correct diameter nor a nipple of the right configuration. Hence an 'orrible job, jury rigged to get us to an hotel, performed on me bum for two hours in the main square with a crowd of never less that thirty people looking on. In silence. Very interested, very intent. I felt inhibited to even swear and this was a job that required manifest cursing to ease its progress. Eventually I realised that none could speak English so I effed and blinded with impunity to the complete oblivion of the assembled throng. And GT has a slow puncture in his rear wheel, so that'll need to be fixed tomorrow. Where tomorrow night?
Hunting a clutch cable in Chiclayo
We are in Chiclayo this evening, having left Sullana this morning at twelve. (I just had to ask Graham where we were as I forgot!). It was a fairly busy morning as we need to find spare clutch cables and also have one of the inner tubes that Flip brought out replaced in Graham's rear tyre. When we went to the bike park this morning his tyre was completely flat and, to be honest, I just didn't fancy sitting on me bum in the dust changing the inner tube and getting myself all crapped up again. So we set off at nine to find a bike repair outfit. I had hoped that it wouldn't be too difficult since the entire city was buzzing with Jialing taxi-bikes and they must need some servicing, sometime.
(Aside: as everywhere in Latin America taxis, motorcycle and otherwise, have "taxi" lights on their roofs which do not switch off when they have a fare. So, to announce that they are plying for hire, they beep their horns at you and anyone else that they think might need a ride. There are eight or nine million Jailing taxis here and half of them have replaced their horns with car alarm sirens so the city is battered by constant taxi horns and sirens. It's continuous and loud. You would not approve and, sometimes, you can understand the Rambo solution to such situations.)
We hadn't walked far before we found a bloke modifying a Jialing with a lump hammer. Excuse me my good man, do you keep clutch cables for Europe-only spec Hondas, the like of which you've never dreamed, and replace inner tubes? No Squire, but I know a man who does. Clutching map we returned to pump up GT's rear (Mmmm) with enough air to make it to the be-mapped garage. This strategy - for it was one of those - was for me to leap into a Jialing and Graham to follow. It was a resounding success. Arriving at the bike spares place "Racing Moto's" (sic) we found that, no they didn't repair tyres but they had a clutch cable that fitted. You could have keel hauled me with a kipper. What a result! Two clutch cables cost the equivalent of three pence. Better, the bloke drew us another map to find "Grifo Motor's" (sic) - they have the greengrocer problem with apostrophes hereabouts - who would undoubtedly insert the inner tube. As they did, within minutes, for two Nuevo Soles, about 60p in real money. So I gave the guy four, suggesting he buy the lads a drink. They'll probably get pissed on it.
How rude - Don't Stare !!!
So we left at 12.00, not without difficulty. You see, wherever you stop around here you're surrounded by a crowd who have often seen Martians but rarely chaps with big black bikes with aluminium boxes on the side. So, there we are trying to load the luggage outside the hotel as every Tom, Dick and Juanita tries to engage you in conversation. As ever, they make no concession whatsoever to the fact that you come from Mars and you cannot speak the local dialect at a million miles an hour. We cause traffic jams. Jialing drivers just stop in the middle of the road, turn off the engine and stare, quite unselfconsciously. This, naturally, causes yet a further escalation in horn and siren blowing. Amid the combination of bedlam, Babel and chaos, we're trying to fix luggage and fend off questions about our parentage and who we would like to marry out of the assembled crowd. Truly, it's bizarre. Much more vigorous here in Peru than anywhere else we've been. Indeed, as we arrived in Chiclayo this afternoon, GT stopped to ask directions and was immediately surrounded by six or eight people and it took him ten minutes and determined effort to extricate himself from the throng. Being English, he didn't want to be rude.
The ride from Sullana, some 250km, was straight roads, mostly through desert. The scenery had a different complexion to the north Mexican desert. Much flatter and, well, more desert like. Por ejemplo, we saw sand dunes just like the ones you see in piccies of the Sahara desert. Graham, naturally, wanted to take photos of the desert. Regardless of the fact that, inevitably, the results will be a line across the middle of the frame, sandy-coloured below and blue above, he proceeded to shoot in three formats: colour negative, colour positive and digital video. Luckily - and quite unlike Mexico - it wasn't searingly hot so I was happy enough to get off the bike and just to work some blood into starved buttocks. We travelled 200km across nothing. No pueblos, nuttin'. There was one junction on which was perched a pathetic adobe "restaurant" where we stopped for "coffee". This latter confection was unlike most others we've seen, and we've seen some extraordinary mixtures purporting to be coffee. This time we received the usual cup of hot-ish water apiece but, instead of the normal jar of faux Nescafe, we were presented with a small stainless steel jug containing a deeply dark brown, viscous liquid. It looked like warm Marmite and, actually tasted quite like it too. Warm Marmite with extra sugar. I tell you, some of the stuff we've poured into our bodies...no wonder the bowel reaction is immediate and angry.
Where is Dot Cotton when you need her !!!
Our hotel is, appropriately, the Europa. Our first task this afternoon was to find a laundry which we did a few blocks away. We negotiated with the owner to charge us by the kilo rather than the item which he finally agreed to do. We arrived with a black bin liner full of crappy kecks, expecting to walk away and collect beautifully clean and folded stuff on the morn. Instead, he insisted on taking an inventory. Thus, to our discomfort, our unmentionables were dumped on the floor while boss and wife (?) sorted underpants, T-shirts, socks and pantelones into piles. To see one's dirty laundry on such public display reminds us all (as if I hadn't seen sufficient churches to confirm the fact) that we are but animals after all. No higher, no lower. We eat, we sweat, we stain. We pay poor people to clean up after us. T'was ever thus.
We may stay here tomorrow and venture out to some quite famous adobe pyramids but we'll discuss that over dinner. Maybe we'll move on to Tujillio. We'll see.
Jeff 15.09.04 |
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