Out of Bolivia in a flash then into Peru. The ‘people’ part of getting your passport stamped is always the easy bit but it it’s the bikes that always cause the problems. This time they have a computer that is powered by money. It seems it will just not work unless you put a 29 Peruvian Soles note in your passport. Perhaps when the bloke takes the note and slips it under the desk there is a little furnace that burns the note and powers the computer – weird. I’m glad I’ve not got one of those at home, it would cost me a flipping fortune. The thing is, we don’t have the right (or in my case, any!) insurance and the little bloke says he can ‘overlook’ the issue and give us the necessary paperwork if we can ‘help him out’. It always astounds me when government officials ask for bribes but I doubt it will be the last time we do it oaths trip.

And if you were wondering where Jabba the Hut went after they finished filming Star Wars the wonder no more. He is working at the Peruvian border with Bolivia, his huge fat face pressed up against a glass partition with drool running down the inside. I’m sure I’ve got a dribble in my passport.

Off into Peru I go. It looks a lot more affluent than Bolivia already. The same farming seems to be practiced and the ladies with the small bowler hats are everywhere. What is it with these hats? Did they all used to have tiny heads or do they all worship at the Church of Stan Laurel? I just can’t see the point. Either way, they’re all extremely camera shy that’s for sure.

On towards Cusco, the home of Machu Picchu. The roads vary from smooth and fine to the shittiest tarmac on earth with 2 million potholes per 100 meters. It’s true, I counted, twice. Approaching Cusco and it descends into car carnage again. Its quite difficult to describe this part of the journey. First you need to get a 10000000watt spotlight to simulate the sun, then place it on the horizon and aim it directly into your eyes. Next, get yourself a giant tarmac woodpecker and let him loose for a couple of weeks to reek his havoc, then put gravel on a lorry with square wheels and have it drive round to randomly deposit it’s slippery mess in huge skiddy pebble puddles. Delete ALL the road markings and signs then go to battersea, grab all the dogs and let them loose. Now tell 50000 drivers that the first one to Cusco wins £10000 and there you have it, simples. How we get through these places without an accident sometimes really surprises me. We get a taxi on the outskirts and follow it in. It’s all narrow cobbled streets and steep hills. We’re following the taxi down a damp cobbled street when he jumps on the breaks. SHIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTT. My brake light stopped working so the other day I disconnected the back brake light switch to see if that was the fault. I also mistakenly disconnected the ABS sensor so I don’t currently have any ABS, THANK GOD! Karma has disabled my ABS and lets my wheel lock and slide for a second till I touch a kerb and stop. ABS would have put me straight into the back of the taxi without slowing down. We get to the hotel then once again drive all the bikes through reception and into the courtyard of the converted nunnery.

Day off in Cusco, and we were all obviously expecting to be able to visit Machu Picchu but no… it takes more than 24 hours to do the trip and has to be booked a few days in advance. Such has been the chaos, the fact that we’re only here a day, and the fact that we seldom know where we’re going to be more than one or two days in advance means that we can’t go. None of us are happy, but none of us are surprised either. It’s just another organisational cockup to add to the ever growing list. Pity though, we’ve come a long way. The locals have got the whole operation covered and it’s pretty well impossible to organise the trip yourself. Everyone tells us it’s ‘difficult’. There are about 15 changes of train/coach/donkey/piggyback involved and you have to get everything right. Pretty well the only way to do it is to pay £280 and go through a tour operator. They book all the train tickets in advance so there are no spare for ‘DIY’ers like ourselves.

Never mind, take a wander round Cusco and try not to be accosted or robbed. It’s quite a crime hotspot and there are police everywhere. It’s a nice town with the narrow streets, cathedrals and citadels. Lots of overpriced tourist tat too though. I go to an indoor market – total sensory overload, with the smells taking precedence. Meat to mint to pealed potatoes to lilies to sweat to musk in seconds. Dark alleyways with people sat on the floor selling god knows what. Guinea pigs , cows noses, peeled frogs, whatever your table requires is on sale. I need my haircut, badly, so I go looking. The town is full of massage parlours, all above board you understand, no ‘happy endings’… One of them says they cut hair so up I go. Its clear the girls are absolutely clueless. They can’t even clip the grade 4 to the clippers.

When I said I wanted a haircut badly, I think I’ve come to the right place. Once they’ve finally attached the grade 4 and then, after another search, found the switch, they’re off. They’re giggling and jabbering to each other and they each have a go clipping. One of them hasn’t worked out that the clippers are actually touch your head and she just waves it about at bits of hair that are sticking out. Imagine giving a flymo to a blind gardener and letting him loose on a football pitch, the effect would be the same. ‘Random’ would be a good word. I look like a tom cat that’s gone 15 rounds with ‘Bite, The Tabby, Tison’ the big ear chewing bruiser next door. Then they get the cut throat razor out do do my neckline. JEEEEESUS! They put foam on my neck and neck and in comes the blade. Any second now they’re going to cut my neck muscle, my head os going to flip forward and I’m going to be staring at my nipples. It’s a life or death situation for sure. In the nick of time, the main madam comes in and the girls suddenly look like kids caught playing with their mum’s make up. She tidies me up and takes all the tufts off and I’m just about presentable in public. Spend the rest of the day walking in the shadows, looking for a hat.

Cusco to Nasca – what can I say about today? How can I assemble letters on a page that can reflect a day like this? Today was a ridiculous day of epic proportions, just ridiculous, for lots of reasons. Just start with the road. This is getting like the tallest building in the world scenario. One is finished, declared the highest, then another is immediately being built. Now I declared Ruta 52 between Argentina and Chile the finest I’d seen but today it pales into insignificance with this route. It appears that when Peru went to the builders merchants for corners it bought every horseshoe bend in the place. Then it made a mould of its own and used a very efficient machine capable of producing the bends in infinite numbers, then it dropped the whole lot in this region and left them to tumble and fall amongst the mountains.

It’s mental. The first 120 miles is through jutting mountain peaks,
twisty turny switchbacks every inch of the way. Up up and more up, then down down and down again. 90% smooth tarmac but 10% polished turns/piste/rough road/potholes to keep you on your toes, especially when the piste starts halfway round a blind downhill bend… The morning is a mixture of fun and frolics punctuated by front and rear wheel slides and close encounters with the sides by some of the riders. Afternoon is a roller coaster alongside a wide fast running river.

Late afternoon is where the real fun begins. First up at 4500m again for a while in the freezing cold and wind along the high Andes plain. Down we come, fast and hard into a freakshow town. It’s dusk and the mountains between us and the destination are clouded in angry dark clouds with lightening forking down amongst the peaks every few seconds…great. We eat at a ‘restaurant’ that has about 2000 seats but is solely operated by a boy who looks about 20 but sounds about 5. The rest of the residents look like they spend their days sleeping in coffins as they test the light and peer out of doorways at us. Up we go into the storm. It quickly becomes clear that the surface up here is ‘unreliable’.

The roads are often covered in swathes of gravel, probably washed onto the roads from recent storms, and the only safe, useable area is right down the middle which is being shared by traffic in both directions. Then someone immediately turns the dark to pitch black and we’re enveloped by the jet black clouds heavy with evil rain. Lots of steep switch back blind bends and corner ‘guessing’, fighting with trucks and oncoming traffic, looking through steamed up visors..then….what’s that?… ummmm… that’ll be snow. Pitch black, snow and gravel on the road, perfect. Tiptoe on through the snow and continue climbing before the snow turns to big hailstones. The storm is still raging all around us and the hail is being driven by a strong wind. After an hour or so we pop out the back of the storm and finally begin our decent into the town with the warm beds we’re all dreaming of. It’s dry here thank God and a little warmer to dry out my hail/snow soaked leathers.

It’s switchback city again. Sometimes tight, sometimes with HUGE radiuses that take you round forever, then they get really really tight and very very steep with invisible drops licking their lips at the thought of a tasty biker meal. The descent is a surreal experience. The weather has slowed everyone down and we’re riding as a big group together. You know that bit in ET where lots of people with torches chase ET in the woods. Lots of random torch beams dancing around in the dark. Thats what the descent is like. You can see the beams of other riders in the switchbacks above you and they play shadow games to confuse you as you desperately search for the tarmac just out of reach of your own beam. Beams cross and uncross, disappear and reappear as they navigate the blind descent and avoid the drops. It’s a pretty fucking scary 30 minutes to be honest. Eventually we get to Nasca and our beds at 9pm. 7:30 start, 9pm finish, and in between 400 miles, that’s 400 miles of the most constantly twisty road I’ve EVER ridden. It’s too much for one day, its madness. Nothing compares to that, it’s the new No.1.

Out of Nasca and off to the viewing tower to see the famous Nasca lines in the desert. All the shapes can be seen from a small plane but all the planes are booked today. We should have booked in advance..again. I’m carrying a pillion today. Another rider has a tyre problem so I’m carrying his girlfriend for the day. We go out to look for the tower. I’m expecting a huge concrete structure with a lift and maybe a glass floored viewing platform, what we see is a 30ft construction that looks like it was made in a 6th form metalwork class. Climb up and take a look at a few shapes close to the road but they look more like the work of a drunk local out to make a few quid than mystic scribes from a far bygone race. Out we go across the desert as it runs close to the Pacific. Eagles cruise up and down the huge roadside dunes like sand surfers ridding the onshore winds as they drive up the slopes. The sea has a misty blanket that rolls over us and cools our hot metal friends in the heat of the day.

50 miles outside Lima we meet up with a group of Harley riders that are going to guide us to our secret destination. It always looks weird to me to see foreign people in full Harley regalia. Leather, high heals, tassels, the lot. Not my scene at all I’m afraid. I’m a pretty antisocial creature and I hate being forced into social situations against my will. Gimme a gun and I’ll do the world a favour… They lead us into Lima and through the usual chaos, out the other side and to someone’s weekend house in the money district. Just before we get there a motorist suddenly pulls out to overtake something coming towards me. Clear road, blocked road in an instant. I lurch right and my pillion lets out a little scream as we feel the wind of the car pass just past our knees. She’s an absolutely perfect pillion and and instantly reacts exactly as the rider does so it’s all over in an instant. The following rider later told me he thought it was ‘game over’. Luck, it’s weird how it doles itself out and who gets the prizes, but I’m thankful today for sure.

We get to our hosts house late that evening. He was the top man for Nestle and Nibisco in Peru and his weekend abode is a beautiful house in the posh end of town and what a house it is too. Pool, beautiful garden, tennis courts (2), basketball court, a windmill, servants. Blimey! They’ve done a huge meal too. They’re obviously well used to hosting big parties, not surprisingly. We’re all in sweaty bike gear and being served canapes by servants in pressed uniforms. If I took my boots of there is a 1 in 2 chance of killing all the expensively manicured fauna in a 20 mile radius. I’m sure I can feel my socks humming to themselves as we tuck our way through the courses. Free booze too, not that I partake you understand, but it soon has the more babble orientated riders in ‘Ibiza’ mode in the pool. The host is an extensively travelled motorcyclist himself and gives us a night to remember and never to be forgotten. Camping out on the warm squashy lawn is like a huge comfy bed.

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After a day of R&R and fettling, today we have to go through Lima and north. The host knows the city intimately and says we HAVE to leave by 6:55 otherwise it will be utter chaos. We leave at 6:56 and are quickly introduced to the Lima edition of ‘Carmagedon, a game for a million people’. Rules are easy, no rules. No quarter is given, no mercy, no fear and no hesitation. White lines are…well…I’m not sure what white lines are for as they’re universally ignored. 3 lanes marked, 5 lanes used. Cars, buses, lorries just drift about like pieces of flotsam finding the path of least resistance down a fast flowing river of metal. You can be riding alongside something, right next to the drivers door and it will just start coming towards you. Loads of the traffic seems to drive with the hazards on too just to confuse matters. I’ve never ridden is such aggressive traffic anywhere. You see a driver see you then pull out straight in front of you. A driver can chop you up mercilessly then open his window for a chat with you. Two hours, 20 miles, then ‘Carmagedon’ turns into ‘Tartris’. That’s like Tetris only played on tarmac. The object is to weave into and through gaps as the different shaped and sized vehicles move down the road. Filtering is impossible but you float through the holes in the traffic like a bubble trying to find the surface. You eyes scan constantly like that light on the front of Night Riders car ‘Kit’, constantly assessing each threat and calculating the appearance and risk as they appear and shut.

One mistake and it’s flashing blue lights and ‘game over’. This is a game for 20 players too and it’s a 360 degree, all action experience. Finally the traffic thins and we’re out on the PanAmerican heading north. Roads climb again through MASSIVE dunes built and maintained by the constant stream of sand whistling across the road, driven by the strong on shore wind. Now and then an oasis of green appears but it’s mostly scorch, dry and very windy today. Peru is a huge country and we’ve got a way to go yet. It seems to have everything here and I’d like to come back some day for a better look.

This whole journey is like driving through the layers of a sponge cake. As we move up through the continent we see everything from desert to lush tropical vistas. Today its the desert. Not too big this one but pretty hot. Somewhere between 35 and 40 degrees. It’s too hot for the clouds and the most expensive item on the menu is a shadow. A strip across the sand with the dunes rushing across from one side in their usual horizontal waterfall style in the wind. Every time a truck passes in the opposite direction you’re treated to an exfoliation using high speed sand blasting. Lots of small strip villages with rows of ‘houses’ along the road. One storey, one window, one door. I feel very much like the ‘have’ next to the ‘have nots’. They still have bars across their windows though to keep out the ‘have nothings’.

How low does the human food chain go out here? Peru seems generally to be a reasonably affluent country, and more so the further north you go. When we came in from Bolivia the ground was being worked by hand in the traditional way but up here the fields are tended mechanically. We even see a crop dusting plane buzzing the fields. They certainly have enough police anyway, there are traffic policemen EVERYWHERE. We’re in big group today and it seems to dissuade them from giving us grief. Others have been fined for nothing and the support truck was stopped 6 times yesterday and fined twice. Perhaps it’s the only thing keeping the economy going, just like the UK. Chase the tarmac up to Mancora, a resort on the pacific coast. Today’s hotel is not bad at all. Reflection pool,beautiful food, thatched rooms that look directly onto the warm ocean, nice! Swim in the oh so warm water, eat, then sit in a hammock and listen to the waves roll in in the dark

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