Northern Peru

Our first night in Peru was in a town name Piura. It had a pleasant town center and plaza. We stayed at the Costabella. Interestingly named since we were not even close to the ocean. At the hotel was about 30 Peace Corp Volunteers and employees. Most had come down from their assigned mountain villages to watch the Superbowl...no, no, I mean for a regional meeting with the Lima staff. In the small world department, one of the volunteers went to high school with Chris's son. Once we left Piura it didn't take long for us to get into some serious deserts. A pleaseant surprise for us was we passed many of the famed Peru police and not one stopped us. In reseaching this trip I read a number of incidents about motorcyclist being stopped 4 and 5 times before reaching Lima. All we got were friendly waves or blank stares.

A big hazzard was in the small towns. The little taxis dart in and out with out warning or care about what's coming.

We reached the highly recommeded beach town of Huanchaco, Ecuador. It is just north of the large city Trujillo. We found a reasonably priced hotel on the beach. As Chris was inside checking in, a trio approached me an immeditely started talking about our motorcycles. It soon became clear they were the owners of the 2 motorcycles I saw parked in the hotel's court yard that prompted me to stop in the first place. They turned out to be an absolute delight to meet. Little did we know our paths would cross several times.

Meet Mike, Guillermo and his lovely daughter Patricia. They are from Brazil and were on a month long ride around South America. Guillermo is a world class traveler. He has riden his motorcycle through Europe, Africa and more. The astonishing thing about Guillermo, although he doesn't look it he is 75 years old. We spent some time together sharing stories. It was a challenge since their first language is Portuguese. You can find out more about Guillermo and his adventures at www.bebemo2003@yahoo.com.br .

Huanchaco is a clean, well run little beach resort town very popular with the surfers. The wicker things sticking up in the sand is a traditional surf boat the locals use for fishing.

Oh yeah, I do seem to vaguely recall something I said about rainly cold mountain days....