CYCLE SOUTH ♾ (BLAZING A TRAIL THROUGH 17+ COUNTRIES. ALL TRUE ADVENTURE AND ACTION!)

Agreed. They’re doing it all freaking ass backwards if’n yer askin’ me.
Had the same thoughts, how cool it would be to run into them.
They rode RIGHT PAST Ben on a loaded DR. Obviously an Overlander. Nary an attempt at a hello or interaction. Oh well.

Huaraz sunset the night before I head further South.

Do Harley riders wave? Charger in the back of a truck!

Didn't clear it with the director so they couldn't interact

They're probably a bit stressed by now, wishing they were on lighter bikes.

My bet it they are sticking to at a minimum well groomed roads this time. I don't see the Livewire being a very capable back country bike.

I'm not super excited by this edition of the long way series. Not trying to take anything away from any one but hypothetically that trip could be made on RR bike with the proper planning and mapping. Plus they are only going to LA from what Ive heard. Why not go "all the way up" to Prudhoe Bay? Just feels more like a publicity stunt for the HD bikes than it does a Adventure Documentary

Well said...my feelings exactly.

...and Harley has just halted production of the Live Wire ... charging issues ..

It was a nice fantasy that there would be a chance of running into the Long Way Up crew, but now that the reality sets in, based upon Ben’s direct observation and the attention to their bike’s charge condition, etc that MUST be hampering any ability they have of actually enjoying the endeavour, its just Hollywood.
Being the bike nut he is, my guess is that Boorman is chomping at the bit to ditch the electric pig and grab the next Chinese 200cc Pulsar he sees go past and really ride.

I just checked into the Hostal at Pedregal Peru, just south of Barranca on the coast. Place is fairly new, clean, but no wifi and no hot water.
And the town itself is so nondescript that I may just skip the after-nap walk for dinner and grab something from my kit. PB&J or Tuma salad goes fine with Cuba libre lol
The pic is my lunch stop somewhere on PE16 while descending from the 13,700 ft peak on 16 down to sea leveling

Cal. Remember the place’s name?

Great. I took that road in July (from Huallanca to Barranca), nice to get out of a cold southerly wind at altitude but a bit damp and overcast on the coast when I was there.

Sorry to many years ago but looking at the map there appears to be lots of choices.

Not at $20/night.
Trying Airbnb now. I’m a cheap bastid

What an adrenaline filled day.

I pulled out of the completely nondescript and forgettable Hospedaje outside Barranca around 9am. The bed was ok. The room was new.

The restaurant there was closed. No food in the area. Construction and laughing and yelling workers (who were nice enough) were there at 6am working. Dogs nearby didn’t stop yapping all night. Firework bangs going off regularly until after 3am. Yada yada. Not much sleep last night.

I’m not one to complain. You all know that. Accept what is and learn and live. In the end it was muy barato and secure for Sunny. Hard to put a price on having all you own safe.

So anyways, pulled out, made it to the main Pan America highway and headed South towards Lima.

And I thought it was supposed to be warmer along the coast?!?! Very cool and overcast and drizzling for the first two of the four hour ride.

Goal one was to find a tienda with a “Racarga Claro Aqui” sign, as I need more data. The plans I’m buying cost 10 sole. That’s about $3.50 and doesn’t include much data for online surfing.

But it does include unlimited Facebook messenger and WhatsApp. So there’s that, but the Hospedaje had no wifi (or hot water) and my data was gone so Google Maps wouldn’t give me a route to the Airbnb home in Lima where I now reside.

So.....find a store to recharge my data on my Claro SIM card. Easy right? They’re fucking EVERYWHERE South of the border....right?



So there I am, riding along the coast, cold air cutting in, rain prohibiting riding with my face shield up, which I normally do. And the winds....Jesus H. The winds.

The road is 2-4 lanes varying except when entering towns. The scenery becomes something out of an ancient Egypt film. What first appear in the distance as cloud-topped mountains are in actuality gigantic sand/rock dunes. Some so large there are roads and villages on them. In fact the highway itself seems like some science fiction landscape laying on top of endless sand.

I’ve heard someone recent say Peru and it’s coast doesn’t offer much as far as “beautiful coastline” photogenic qualities.

I disagree. The vast, seemingly endless expanses of sand are in themselves mind blowing. Especially with the ocean right there beating it into repeated ripples of orange and brown and beige as far as the eye can see.

The pace for the first two hours was relatively high as far as how fast I’ve ridden the last few months. At times tooling long along at 70mph, Sunny smoothly and strongly doing her thing (she feels turbocharged at sea level after riding at altitude the last few weeks). A bit of vibration from the old chain, but a new one is going on tomorrow along with:

new tires, clean air filter, new sprockets. Skid plate off, bottom of motor and front of swing arm area will be degreased. Bike will be washed. Right now she’s filthier than she’s ever been.

At times the ribbon of pavement would turn away from the sea and climb a bit, normally to facilitate a small town’s existence on one side of the road or the other.

Lots of industry here and there in the desolation, like post-apocalyptic scenes from a Mad Max movie.

Thousands of small brick “shacks “ for a lack of a better word, here and there scattered facing the ocean. I never saw a single person in or around one. Strange.

Finally found a small store that sold auto fluids that had the familiar Claro sign out front.

Pulled up like a cowboy in the blowing dirt and sand, left the helmet on and walked in and asked for the 10 sole recharge on my data.

She took 20 minutes walking around with her pink flip phone and could not get a cell signal in order to call in her code to activate my data.

Finally she gave up and begrudgingly gave me the 10 sole note back.

I was now hungry (had self brewed coffee and a banana for breakfast) and still needed data.

WHAM!

You’re now in Lima’s endless suburbs. And the traffic. Lord. I thought I was prepared. (I was in reality). Just as I was getting into the groove of lane-splitting and filtering (in Peru, on a Moto, you can quite literally go anywhere on the road you like in dense traffic , with nary a honk or bad attitude from drivers. They’re not only used to it, they do it themselves.)

Suddenly I remembered what I needed and pulled into a densely populated intersection and lo and behold the tienda in front of me was a pharmacy and had the Claro sign.

Right next to it, a restaurant with cartoon chicken logo and many clients.

Perfect. The phone recharge took literally 2 minutes. The pork skewers and fries were good. I gave one chunk of fatty meat to a sleeping old dog as I was gearing up to leave. He looked at me lovingly and ate it up, then as I swung my leg over Sunny and fired her up, the old bastard stood up and barked and chased me!! He was too old to do much though.

At one point the traffic became way more dense and stopped completely often. At those times I tried to filter through it all, but Sunny has a fat ass and it’s hard.

Twice today in stop and go vehicles bumped into my right pannier. Thankfully I was going slow and didn’t go down or even veer much. The bus driver knew he fucked up and apologized. The taxi acted like it was my fault. I just blasted off into the fray.

Finally arrived first at Big Trail Center Peru and met the gang that’ll be working on the bike tomorrow and chatted a bit.

Then 5 blocks west to Clau’s house where I’m staying.

She lives with a couple family members and rents the upstairs bedroom out. And it’s VERY affordable and maybe the nicest place I’ve been since Cuenca. HOT water. Insane bed. Huge bedroom. Big flatscreen. I love Airbnb!!

Took a hot shower and then fell fast asleep until about 7.

Walked a few miles to Kennedy Parque and hung out with the hippies and artists. Had dinner, met some locals and smoked some herb with them over beers in a pub. It was really nice!

I really like the center of Lima.

And please excuse me if this sounds sexist. I truly try not to be.

Lima has the highest density of beautiful women I’ve seen so far outside of Cuenca Ecuador. There. I’ve said it.

So tomorrow is bike refreshing.

Then just check out the city. Maybe download the app needed to rent the electric scooters (which are parked all over Lima). It looks fun and I bet it’s cheap.

Boy it’s going to be great to have not just fresh tires, But fresh GOOD tires (MotoZ Tractionator GPS set).

The sprockets they have are the factory gear ratio (15T front, 42T rear).

Since I built Sunny I’ve been running the very slightly lower gears (15/43). The idea being to have a slightly lower first gear to assist getting going off road and saving the clutch getting the heavily loaded bike moving. At the expense of a little high speed efficiency.

I figure the stock gears will be fine, because ahead of me in Chile and Argentina are some long, long, long straight road sections where you sit on top gear for hours humming along.



I’ll try to get pictures from the Nikon tomorrow night to you.



Enough rambling. Time for a drink!

"Lima has the highest density of beautiful women I’ve seen so far outside of Cuenca Ecuador. There. I’ve said it."

This comment is worthless without pictures...just sayin'.

Beautiful post man. Really brings your current locale alive to me as somebody who hasn’t seen it firsthand.

Great video. They sure can dance.

Beautiful is correctimondo. Make sure you go down to Baranco. You can walk there from Miraflores. Its very turn of the century with great food and bars.
Cheers on the ride