FUN in PERU

There is an acronym we used to use at work called FUN. (Freaking Useless Nonsense).

Today was a FUN day.

Some background on this trip. I am traveling in Peru with Special Agent Nancy, who I have traveled with a number of times before. Covid made transporting our bikes to South America rather difficult and expensive, so we planned on buying bikes through Toby at - aroundtheblockmotoadventures.com - Facebook

Toby has a Buy-Buyback program that is pretty good. You can buy a bike through him, ride it as long as you like, and as long as you follow certain rules he will buy it back for a set price. He then completely rebuilds the bike and sells it to the next person. A great way of traveling South America, but the largest bikes he normally does this with are 300cc bikes. He can get bigger bikes, but they are very expensive in Peru. Our plan was to ride a ton of miles daily, and the thought of riding around on such a small bike did not thrill me. Nancy bought a Honda 300 from Toby, but I chose to rent in Cusco. I chose an Africa Twin 1,000cc bike, which fits me well. Rather large and heavy for off road, but our plans had us on mostly paved or well maintained dirt roads. Gotta love plans.

This morning, we started out in La Union, Peru, heading for Huanuco. We got a fairly early start, skipping any real breakfast as it is usually impossible to get anything substantial that early. Toby is a good source of information, but sometimes things change. We had two choices, Google Maps said either one would take us a little over 5 hours. A short day. Toby told us that one route was "A Little Bumpy" and that we should not take it. The other might have a few delays due to construction. There was supposed to be "some" construction on either of these roads, and some on the road that both would connect with. We went with the recommended road.

If you remember from a previous post, I cannot get the fuel filler door open. That means I cannot get fuel into the bike. I "should" have enough gas to get most, if not all, the way to Huanuco. My bike sucked up a lot of fuel getting to La Union, where I discovered the fuel door issue. The plan was to call Toby if I am out of fuel, and he would send someone for me. Plans.......

Construction started right after we left La Union. It was pretty bad, but since it was supposed to be intermittent, we were not concerned. This is where we should have gotten local information that was Current. The FUN here is that in Peru these days, they are trying to improve many of the main roads. They don't do this half-assed. They rip up the entire road, and have construction going the whole way. Rather than finishing one section, many kilometers are worked on at the same time. For us, today, that meant that a seriously FUN day. The first part that we road was some of the worst roads I have ridden. Big trucks making ruts, mud, water crossings, surfaces that change instantly, busses, cars, everything. A real Shit-Show. The first 45km took us 3 hours. The next 35km looked the same, and after that it was supposed to be a bit better. At this point, I was sucking so much fuel that it was guaranteed that I would not make it to Hhuanuco. The big concern was being stuck someplace bad, with no cell service to call for a ride.

Nancy said to put my bike on a truck now. She was exhausted from the 3 hours of Shit, and didn't think it made sense to do another 3 hours and be stuck someplace bad. I disagreed, but usually when we disagree, her advice is the better choice. I gave in. We called Toby to send the cavalry. He said he would, and he would send water, and food or charcoal for the dog. That was going to take some time to set up, then it would be hours before anyone could get there, they would not get here until after dark. It was just after 11 when we stopped. We were low on water and had no food other than a dog that decided to hang with us, BUT we were under cover, and there were a lot of trucks going by. Unfortunately we were seeing none that were not commercial or construction trucks. That means they cannot help.

Nancy and I have different ways of dealing with problems too. She is a take action NOW person. I am more of a sit and think things through first kind of guy. Sometimes these techniques have a way of just working out. Nancy paused for a bit while we thought things through. Then she took action. The delay meant a lot of trucks went by before we started asking them for help. Once we did, Nancy stopped any truck that looked like it would work, and asked. Always better to send the woman to ask for help. Shortly after this, a truck pulled up.

We explained the situation, and the guy looked at us and said "TOBY?"..... Yup, the first truck that really looked like it might work was someone who lived in Huanuco and worked with Toby on local dirt bike racing, among other things. What are the chances? Now remember, we were 35km from the end of the Shit-Show, then another 45 km of less of a shit show plus maybe 15km of paved road.

David and Victor were our guardian angels. There was a toolbox in the back of the Honda Hilux Crew Cab. Short bed made even shorter. There was no way both bikes would fit in the back. I was going to ride the little Honda 300, while Nancy was going to ride in the truck. They removed the toolbox, re-positioned things, and we tried to lift the beast into the truck. No way the three of us were going to get that done. David moved the truck up against a hill, and with an extra guy we flagged down and Nancy's good advice, we were able to get the beast on the truck. Then wedge the toolbox in and a bunch of ratchet straps and we were good to go.

Now back to the shit show. I went ahead while the truck bounced and slid somewhere behind. Every once in a while I would stop and they would catch up quickly. It was looking like we would get to Huanuco a little before dark. It was tough riding, but the little honda was a whole lot easier to ride in this crap than the Beast. It was even fun, if under-powered.

Then I got to a place they were blasting. There was a gate down, but another biker asked the nice lady to open it up for him. I went through too. 11 km (20 minutes) down the road they stopped traffic, and all us bikers hung around trying to communicate. I was told it would be until 5:30 before the road was opened. Maybe a 30 minute wait. I tried contacting the truck with Whatsapp, the preferred communication method here, but could not get a response (they had no signal baclk at the gate). Since I still had 49 km to go, around 2 hours at that hour of the day, I was not going to get to Huanuco until an hour or so after dark. Not a fun ride, but OK by my books.

Nancy was 20 minutes back up the road, and was told the gate would not open until at least 6pm. That is a different calculation. Now you are talking about not getting to Huanuco from there until at least 8:30, two or 3 hours after dark. She did not know how far down the road I was, she made the only sensible decision based on the information she had, come back to the gate and store the bike there. I finally got a hold of her using the InReach tracker, which has messaging capabilities through satellites. She said to come back and store her bike there. I didn't know why at the time, so I went back, weaving through the now oncoming traffic.

Remember the nice lady at the gate? Well, she let us store Nancy's bike outside of her place. Having seen how she handled a bunch of angry truck drivers that wanted to go through the gate, we were pretty comfortable no one would screw with the bike.

Now it was getting dark. Even in a 4 wheel drive truck it was a crappy ride. And this was the "Good Section" of the road. We did not get to Huanuco until after 9pm, when we had to unload the bike at Toby's.

I had expected to have to go back to Nancy's bike the next day to ride it back, but Toby had another guy do it.

We originally met David and Victor about 1pm. I don't know what there plans for the day had been, but I am pretty sure it did not include hauling us around until after 9pm. I love biker people. And Peruvians. All that we have met have been friendly and helpful.

All in all a FUN day, mainly because of the FUN of going full nuclear on 140 km of road all at once.

Our shelter and possible lunch.