Mid Peru

Location:	Chala
Mileage:	13,650

Today we fight the battle of Lima rush hour. Although the Pan American acts as a ring road around the centre, the traffic, like any capital city around the world, clogs the main thorough fare. It is utterly filthy, all manner of vehicles jostle, making five lanes from three, a screeching of bleeping horns and revving engines as buses cut in and smaller cars weave slowly in and out of every tiny gap. Lima traffic takes no prisoners.

Kevin is pumped with adrenalin, taking his space and somehow holding the monsters at bay as we edge around the city. It is not the traffic in front that casues us the most grief but what is behind, as more than once blind drivers almost smackinto the back of us before swerving at the last minute into an invisible space. I am glad I cannot see the wing mirrors as I hold on, nostrils clogging with black smoke, as we creep further forward.

The bike is not happy. The temperature starts to rise, little by little. There is no air cooling here and there is not relief from the jam. As each ten minutes rolls by, another bar clicks upwards. The race between the red zone and moving roads is on. It is painful towatch each notch appearing on the bike. Until, sitting there amidst the clouds of muck, we hit red. We cannot even pull over here to give the bike relief - not only is there no way out of the metal maze, this is not the part of town that you want to rest up in.

It is nothing more than pure luck which sees us crawl past the main artery leading off the Pan American and into the city and then suddenly leave the traffic behind. As the bike leaps forward, with speed almost instantaneously, the temperature drops. We breathe a huge sigh of relief. Within ten minutes all is normal and it is a clear road that will take us down to Nasca.

The Nasca Lines are one of the few ancient monuments, we are able to see in Peru from the Pan American. A third visit here and a quick climb to the top of the look out tower so we can remind ourselves of some of these weird and wonderful pictures in the sand.

From Nasca, the roads are long and straight and we keep good steady speed, but as the road heads back to the coast, the wind really builds up. It is the first time we have had to contend with really strong winds here. With the wind and the sands comes a new hazards as small dunes drift across the roads and sand snakes before our eyes. In places it is deep and the huge trucks wind across the road back and forth to avoid the worst. We come into Chala early evening, but take a strategic decision not to continue under the conditions we have to ride in. Better to be there to ride another day.