Bruises, Bribery, Bodges and Bulldust

My first order of business in Perú is lunch. Everywhere is "No Hay" at the border so I ride on to the next town. A child comes out of a comedor and I ask for lunch. Standing under huge pictures of food, she shakes her head and looks at me as if I were insane. In San Ignacio I ask the guy at the Posada if he has hot water. Oh you don't need that here, very warm. I ask if he has a fan. Oh you don't need that, it's very cold here.. I buy some Peruvian Soles at a TV store and pile down the rocky road to Jaén. The dusty grey becomes a lush green as I hit the river valley and rice paddies take me back to Vietnam.

I buy a map from a guy called José who shows me pictures of himself in US special forces uniform in Lapland. He gestures as I pull away that he is going to the church to pray for me. Obviously not hard enough, José, as a few hours down the road I hit a particularly slimy patch of road and my wheels and my body go in three different directions. The bike somersaults and chases me up the road but luckily does not land on top of me. I was listening to MBV at the time so I blame Kevin. I glue the mirror back on and try in vain to fix the indicator which has also been ripped off. One pannier is a dodecahedron again and the windscreen is frazzled down one side. But what I'm mostly thinking about is my two cracked ribs. This blights most of my  eight weeks in Perú. Breathing at high altitude with a dodgy ribcage is no fun, I can tell you. Even getting out of bed is agony for a fortnight and most nights I fall asleep in a codeine hug.

But anyway, like the horse that threw me in Idaho 12 years ago, I have to get back on and I ride, stiff as a mannequin on to Chachapoyas. That's when I realise the handlebars have been bent out of true...

Lovely mountain town and from here I take the rough and bloody scary road up to Kuelap. This is a pre-Incan mountain fortress town to rival Machu Picchu. Difference is I am almost the only soul there.

Cool little round houses, some completely reclaimed by the cloud forest, in one place restored.

I sleep in a little hospedaje in Maria, a tiny hamlet up near the site. Her registration book shows that I am the first guest this month. The TV only has one channel. Next morning I am relieved to find a dense fog hanging over the road as I descend to Tingo. At least now I can't see that 1000 metre drop!

I ride on down the beautiful Rio Marañón valley to Leymebamba where a local expat has a tranquil garden with feeders for the startling variety of hummingbirds - Little drug-addicts.

Opposite is a fascinating archaeological museum. Normally an oxymoron for me. Ghoulishly, the thing that grips me most are the mummies, buried in a foetal position and wrapped in a sack with a stitched-on face.

The mountains chuckle at my ant-like dance in the switchbacks. On the opposite wall of the valley is a barely-perceptible chicken-scratch. Four hours later, it is the road I cling to.

In Celendín, I am a disturbing phantom that must not be acknowledged.....
......but they're the ones wearing Dr Seuss hats.

I had been warned off this town as it has been hitting the headlines with its deadly clashes between gold miners and police over the water-poisoning techniques the US company uses. I smile nervously as a party of workers, complete with lights on their hardhats, sits at the table next to me while I eat my piccante de cuy (spicy guinea pig)

This lovely guy helped me rivet my pannier back together.

They know they're on to a winner with those hats.

The road up over the pass out of Celendín. Such greasy mud in one section that I fall. Another guy on his bike falls twice so I don't feel so bad. I help him up and he helps me up. My bike weighs about 4 times his!

And then down to the arid coast.

I stay in the bustling little seaside town of Pacasmayo and then ride my longest day yet, 670km down the sandy desert coast to Lima. Nina Simone and Eardrum accompanying the alien landscape perfectly. I am stopped for an hour while they blow stuff up.

I have heard bad things about the police on this route and sure enough near the end of my ride, I am pulled over and the policeman blahs on about speed limits and points at fines in his little book. I play dumb. Not hard after 10 hours in the saddle. Finally, he sheepishly says "$20?". "No entiendo" I say. He shakes my hand with a crestfallen acknowledgement of defeat and lets me go. A recent shakedown, caught on YouTube by a biker has made them skittish...

The outskirts of Lima are a strange orderly sort of shanty town with little prefab wooden shacks in nice neat rows out in the desert. Then comes a chaotic version of the same. In the hills around the really urban part, the shacks are bright colours and seem to melt into the grey sand.

A brief night in the traffic mayhem and claustrophobic garua (fog) of Lima. I pick up a package that Emma sent for me nearly 3 months ago that includes a replacement for a faulty heated grip. Now that will be handy in those chilly mountains! On the way two thuggish cops on bikes pull me over. They are very disappointed to find all my papers in order and no reason to shake me down. A really evil pair. Thus far my interactions with the police or the army have all been very friendly. Perú is different. The only reason these two finally let me have my documents back is that I keep smiling and make a joke about pronouncing my name. Here everyone says "Gooee". After a quick change of tyres I am speeding down the coast again. I would have taken the more scenic Andean route but am now racing against time to meet up with my Dad in Cuzco. I stop in the bizarre tourist bubble of Huacachina, a little lagoon a few miles out of Ica, also wreathed in a surreal blanket of fog. I park alongside the 9-seater sand buggies that take tourists out for adrenaline highs on the dunes.

I ride down through Nazca and there is a little observation tower so I get to see some of the famous lines albeit obliquely. At the top I chat to a couple from Sydney riding north on F650GS singles. I give them my Ecuador map and they give me their Bolivia.

Up to Cuzco, stopping in chilly Challhuanca. A swooping dream of a ride. But poor Jim is on my mind. A close friend of Emma´s, he died in a bus that plunged off these roads two years ago. The driver was trying to chat up a girl sitting behind him apparently. I take my time.

With the altitude, over 4500m in places, comes an extra-terrestrial light than pierces and purifies all in its path. It might as well be the moon, but the vicuñas find it homely enough.

And the same goes for hardy locals.

Another symptom of the thin atmosphere is a faltering in my engine that cuts in after a long time in the saddle and only above 2000 metres. This is another issue that troubles my stay in Perú as I go through a hundred possible causes with useless local mechanics, the Chinese whispering of Internet forums and my own cackhandedness.

Notwithstanding, I make the fabled city of Cuzco in good time to meet my Dad. We have been planning to climb Machu Pichu together for several years and we can't help but grin like fools when we realise that we are actually finally doing it. Cuzco is a beautiful town even if it is over-touristed and has the best eating in the country. I settle into the comfy tourist plans of my Dad.

In Chinchero we see how the locals squash cochineal insects between their fingers to release a purple-red dye that they fix with salt and use on their weavings, spun on a dangling spindle.

The salt pans near Tarabamba are just too photogenic. I dip my hand and crystals grow on my fingertips.

I buy an apple.

And, after lunch of alpaca, we visit the Inca site at Moray. One theory has it a laboratory to study plant growing, another has it a hanging garden to worship the earth.

Next morning I have to get my bike up the unfeasibly steep steps of my guesthouse courtyard. The little grey-haired old lady says she will help. Um, are you sure...? Once passers-by see us struggling they jump in to help. All done with such cheeriness. Can't help thinking people back home wouldn't be so kind.

The Cathedral is surprisingly interesting with strange paintings of earthquakes and The Last Supper with old J and the Apostles chowing down on Cuy (Guinea Pig). Judas has Pizarro's face.

We bus up to Saksaywaman, the Inca fort that looms over the town, marvelling at perfectly fitted stonework.

In the evening we are treated to a ´Folklore Dinner´. Amped-up panpipes in nauseating Mozart workouts. I am rescued by a friend's phone call.

Then the main event. We take a train, at an unearthly hour, through gorgeous scenery to a bus that winds up a scary-steep road to the rugby scrum that is the Machu Picchu turnstile. But despite the crowds, it really does deserve its wonder-of-the-world listing. The complete and well-preserved city is quite something, but coupled with the indescribably beautiful location, it really blows you away. I want to blow our guide away mind you. She starts and finishes every sentence with "My friends", a sort of Peruvian water torture. Then there is the torture on the train back. The staff treat us to a ´fashion show´, i.e. trying to sell us overpriced alpaca shawls to a background of deafening panpipe chillout that inexplicably loops for an hour after. Or was that just my fevered imagination? Oh well, at least the conductress modelling is exceptionally hot..

Wonders of the World dispensed with, I now have another mission. A week to get to Lima to meet Emma. I have just enough time to make that mountain route I couldn't do on the way here. After the first of many dismemberings of the bike, attempting to fix my engine stutterings by replacing the spark plugs and checking the injectors, I cruise down the road to Abancay. Jimmy, who runs my guesthouse is very excited by my bike. His parents downstairs are less thrilled to have it parked in their shop...

Yet another in a long line of showers that fail to get warm and I go bang on the zapateria door. I have a big argument with the guy there who tells me my boots won't be ready til later. It's already an hour past when he said they would be ready and I make him stomp downstairs and finish the job. Well after all we are in Huanca territory now. No really, before the Incas there were the Huancas. These days they don't beat around the bush and spell it with a "W".

Despite this the driving is no more homicidal than elsewhere. I head for Huancarama. Mostly the roads are a spectacular dirt bike heaven. Nearing Laguna de Pacucha, I climb the ruins of Sondor, built by the Chanka people high on a hill, probably to avoid those bloody Huancas. ...Alright, maybe too much time alone...

After a night in Andahuaylas, breathless at 3am, I breakfast on Arroz a la Cubana and head up even higher. The usual roadside striptease to don my thermals. Up over a pass where random ruins distract me.

and then down into a baking valley. A truck, impossibly far below, digs gravel from the snaking river bed.

After a lunch stop in a dust blown nowhere, I come to a roadblock at the village of Ocros. The road is closed until 5.30pm ¡Diablos! I just missed the start of the closure by 20 mins. I could have skipped lunch and made it... I wait in the shade and fiddle with the bike - checking the air filter and breather hose and making a cunning anti-vibration device for my panniers out of a bicycle inner tube.

I wander around the little hamlet.

and chat to a toy-like old lady. She is a Quechua speaker so the conversation doesn't get very deep.

I um and ar about staying here. They tell me the road will be closed the whole morning tomorrow too and in the end I make entirely the wrong decision and press on at 5.30pm. I find myself stuck in amongst all the backed-up trucks, choking in their dust and as it gets dark, teetering on the edge of precipices that can only be imagined. Then comes slippery mud. Up at 4500m it is pitch black and icy cold. Did I say icy? Yes, then the hail starts. Sheets of it. I try to stay sane as the moon appears between clouds and lightning flashes. I am a little bubble of discomfort and endurance. Nightmarish forms of workmen and diggers swim through my vision. Junctions I have to just guess which is the right way. A security truck passes me with a bright white light on its rear. I latch onto that light like a baby duckling but eventually it outpaces me as I try to avoid skidding on the hailstones that either sting my face or clog my visor. It is an utter nightmare to the point of being an out-of-body experience. I have the same feeling as on the yacht to the San Blas. Just hold on and focus and you will be delivered. And so it is. After 3 hours and unable to feel the controls, I suddenly pop out onto a stretch of tarmac that feels like satin. Almost immediately I am pulled over at a checkpoint. He starts asking for documents but soon takes pity on my bedraggled state and sends me on with warm words about how it's only one more hour down to the twinkling lights of Ayacucho I can see beckoning far below me. The constellation resolves into streets and then individual lights. I check into a satisfyingly over budget and swanky room and spend a good 20 minutes under a scalding shower. Hot wine and pasta and I sleep the sleep of the dead.

Ayacucho is a lovely town. The deep blue sky mocks the night before.

The markets are full of witches potions

and ladies line outside the church selling coca

"Bin Laden" insecticide?!

And quails eggs with mayo

beautiful architecture

It may be a consequence of my surname but I love making repairs. Just as well - everything I have is broken and worn-out at this point. My tank bag has a broken piece of elastic. Back home it would get sent back to Germany, arguments would be had over warranty and six weeks later I would probably end up buying a whole new bag. Here, a guy sitting at a ancient Singer in the market runs around to another stall, finds me a piece of elastic and then cleverly fixes it up better than new. 10 minutes and 15p. I love the ingenuity that poverty inculcates in people in the developing world. My boots have big holes in the heels. I ask around and a guy carves pieces of rubber to fit and then sculpts them on with hot glue. I sit there in my socks watching a card game opposite and the market´s ebb and flow.

The rain lashes down of the Plaza de Armas in the evening

All forms of navigation, both electronic and paper-based take the day off as I hit the rough roads to Lircay and on to Huancavelica. Thank god for mileposts, my only connection to reality today. I am feeling bullish and the bike snarls around the rocky roads in a most pleasing manner.

Another hailstorm. At least it´s daylight this time.

Huancavelica is pretty but cold. I breakfast on Ajiaco de Olluco a manioc and cheese mixture. The Iglesia de San Cristóbal is sublime and half the town is washing its clothes in the runoff from the Baños Thermales.

There is plenty of useful information.

I buy nuts and raisins from locals with big sack fulls. Why are they all so miserable here? Maybe it's carrying your baby on your back for miles with no oxygen or shoes that does it.

Huancayo is an irritating town. All police whistles, car horns, stinking rivers and the only place with nice food has Sting on the HiFi. Torre Torre is quite nice with its strange rock formations.

On my way to Jauja, I visit the Convento de Ocupa. Incredible collection of paintings. One room is painted in acrylics, walls and ceiling in an unfathomably elaborate and dreamlike depiction of the story of the Franciscans. There are rooms full of stuffed anteaters and tigrillos and a library whose floor creaks like an old ship and the walls grown under the weight of 25,000 crumbling books on every subject under the sun.

I spend the night in Tarma and then find the Tarmatambo ruins, only really notable  for the incredibly drunk guy who waves his ID in my face and tries to usher me down a cliff face road which I narrowly avoid taking.

The main road down to Lima almost scrapes 5000 metres. I virtually pass out walking 10 yards for a snap.

After a 4.30am ride across Lima, Emma is delivered to me. Minus a bag that arrives two days later. But plus a new mirror, indicator and warm gloves. What a good girlfriend! We swan around Lima drinking sunny glasses of wine and giggling at strangely 2D boats at La Punta. Lucky girl, she gets to:

• watch people soldering my panniers back together in iffy parts of town
• wait around for hours while my handlebars are straightened
• wait around for days while my valve clearances are not checked and then after a massive wild goose chase finally actually checked (No Carlo, you can't tell by the sound of the engine and anyway, how exactly did you get that BMW certification?)
• witness the only actual bribe of the trip thus far. Officer O. Tardio, shame on you. He pulls me over for running a debatable stop signal from a traffic chick. He then takes my licence and makes us follow his rickety little bike to the police station. He stops along the way to talk more, clearly after cash. I judge that he will actually make me pay the $400 fine at the station so I offer him $60 which he takes after finding another, darker place to hand over the cash.

We visit the beautiful ceramics of the Larco museum as recommended by my sister who was here a quarter of a century ago. Who would have thought, sex education in pottery.

I am stopped by cops twice more. Once for being in an express lane. No signs but apparently motorbikes are not allowed. Smiles win through though. On leaving Lima we are stopped at the exact same place as when I drove down 3 weeks ago. Apparently I shouldn't be in the overtaking lane. But I was overtaking! I wear this guy down over the course of 20 minutes by pretending not to understand. Finally we are released.

So we ride up the desert coast.

Emma spends her time writing caustic TripAdvisor reviews bemoaning sadistic plumbing and sad pasta. In her projectionist role, she screens regular episodes of "Madmen" on her iPhone. Sometimes the luggage taps me on the shoulder and I let her off to pee shielding her from oncoming voyeurs.

The ruins at Chan Chan are cool with a team of workmen touching up the adobe with syringes of water.

We witness the very best in Peruvian beaches. Trujillo has a golden mile of sewage and a decaying statue of a mermaid with the homely touch of a decomposing dog at her feet.

The Toy Museum

Huanchaco beach with its odd reed canoes

So many cemeteries, so little time...

So many milkshakes...

So many parades

So many shacks in the middle of nowhere

Hemingway's hideout at Cabo Blanco is serene, even with the oil rig now slap-bang in the middle of the bay. 

 Churros in Chiclayo

The downside of Piura is no sleep. Children. Dogs. Plumbers. Should all be shot. The upside is the poster in the cafe where we have breakfast, a collage of George Clooney, assorted superheroes and a quote from the bible. Really sets you up for the day.

Máncora is nice. If you like surfers deafening you with shite techno all night. During the day we sip cocktails,  watch kite surfers and sunsets and dine very well indeed.

We plan to stop in Olmos, on the inland route back to Chiclayo but the only hotel is run by a mad old lady and has a gory crucifix over the door. A communal bathroom like a barely started and then forgotten DIY project and cockroaches crunching underfoot were a poor sell too. So we eschew the crucifixion and push on for Chiclayo even though dusk is approaching. Riding in the dark for an hour is never a desirable option on these roads but we make it OK and head straight to our favourite pizza place we found last time through.

As we leave Trujillo the second time we check out the excellent modern art museum, complete with hairless dogs on guard. Beautiful nightmares by Chavez.

In Chimbote, we hold our noses against the stench that comes in waves from the local fish processing plant and eat in a grand old hotel on the Malecón. Or we would have if the view wasn´t just one urinator after another pissing from the boardwalk silhouetted poetically against a sunset. Here the scent was a cocktail.

From Chimbote we take to the mountains. Absolutely stunning ride up through the Cañon del Pato. The long tunnels roughly hewn out of the rock are trippy. Once above 2000 metres, the engine starts playing up again annoyingly. We get to Caraz and eat in on an island in a duckpond in a very cool little restaurant. Huancaina trompeta music with its odd time signatures rumbles out of great furry speakers and I make a note to hunt down a CD in the market.

We inch up steep and crumbly hairpins to Laguna Pampacocha´s Andean idyll to commune with the piggies

and chat to a friendly old indigenous lady with silver plaits outside a lost-in-time cemetery.

We press on for Huaraz and squeeze the bike into yet another unlikely sleeping place at Benkawasi run by the affable Ben. His printer friend lets me use his photoshop to forge my Peruvian insurance. I only need a week's worth but they will only let me have a year´s!

Coñococha is a fascinating little T-junction of a town all flurries of bus-changing and bales. An indigenous woman gets me a gallon of gas from the back of her shop and we strike out on the remote road to Huánuco

I fall in love with Perú all over again

Huánuco comes as a traffic-tortured shock but the hotel is a lovely old rambling place with gorgeous old tiles

On up to Cerro de Pasco, the highest city in the world. It is not an attractive place with its odd grey box houses scrambled around a huge hole the Spaniards dragged silver out of but it does come with the compensation of a nice chat with a woman in a Chifa. She mostly rails against her US English teacher who is teaching her the wrong pronunciation of everything. In fact all Yanks are racists she reckons. Responsible for the crime, poverty and bad healthcare in Perú. I just enjoy the fact that my Spanish holds up to the onslaught.

We get a bit lost amongst beautiful lakes and mining operations....

... but find our way to Canchacucha in the Bosque de Piedra (Stone Forest). The only accommodation is a very rough little room in a compound owned by a tough little old indigenous woman. There is a thick pile of blankets to combat the bitter cold. Emma is not convinced.

I love the place for its scurrying piglets and guinea pigs, its perfect starlight and untouchable way of life.

We rug up and wander among the strange weathered stones

The only restaurant in town is also the disco. Flashing lights are a far-off rumour here so coloured circles and stars will do. It takes a lot of patience, but eventually the world's most unhelpful and sullen waitress feeds us

Emma was right about those blankets

The bike barely starts at this temperature. But look! One more for the cemetery album.

The rough ride down to Canta is stunning with flamingos in the startlingly coloured lakes.

We stay in an odd hotel with huge mirrored windows. The enormous garage is bizarrely inside the lobby and I park next to the reception desk. We walk up to the posh hotel on the hill and at first we move tables because of an unpleasant smell. When it follows us we realise it's the waiter that smells of pee. Unwisely we go ahead and eat our chicken burgers. I am plagued by vengeful guts for the next two days.

We are woken abruptly in the morning by birds attacking their reflection in the windows.

We wander the little town

As I leave the hotel, next to the reception desk, I witness the bad toilet to end all bad toilets. Imagine the toilet in Trainspotting but brrr.... so much worse...

We decamp a few kilometres down the road to Obrajillo.

Hmmm.. those balconies just need a couple of gold-rush whores...

People throw rocks into a big hole in the road where the stream crosses. I help push the car through.

An hour while they bulldoze a big derumbe (landslide). We sit in the shade by the river and eat nuts

We have a lovely last meal at an Indian restaurant in Lima and toast the happy news that she has been accepted for the Reykjavík Talent Campus and then, after another nasty o'clock ride to the airport, sit tongue-tied over a bread and cheese picnic. A hug and then she's gone.

Back in my solitary existence I set to on a pile of chores. I locate air filter oil and clean my filter, have my jeans patches patched, upload my photos and the peruvian music I have bought despite tragic bandwidths and evil computers attempting to delete everything, buy green paper to print my insurance (apparently it's not legal on white!), discover that ALL the bearings in my bike, wheels and steering are shot and replace them, do battle with the DVLA and their contradictory rules about my tax disc, hammer my panniers square yet again, watch Emma´s distance away on Google Latitude jump from 4m to greater than 5000km, walk all over town for a camping stove and food in preparation for the Salar de Uyuni, get my boots shined... surely that's all?! No! I get in the shower with my panniers to clean them, stick my Bolivian map back together, talk to Em sitting in London Fields in the sunshine specifically conniving (successfully) to make me homesick, email a guy in Nairobi about my engine problems, google lambda sensor, eat Bodin de Piña, a delicious bread and milk desert, avoid annoying partypackers....

I MUST be roadworthy now.

Ten miles south from Lima I find my pannier rack is snapped in two places.

I find Martin, friendly Soldadura, to melt it back together in a shower of sparks.

Gringos zipline over my tent as I cook pasta on my new stove in Lunahuaná. I just think about going home to Emma. My OCD dictates I must camp on the Salar de Uyuni before I am excused. Clean plate syndrome.

The ruins at Centinella, near Tambo de Mora. I climb a crumbling pyramid.

In Pisco, friendly Walter asks me why I didn't bring the bike in through the double door to the side? Because you held this skinny door open for me and watched me struggle with it for 5 minutes, that's why! The town feels Truman Show. The 2007 earthquake has left it curiously Milton Keynes´d.

Today is the first day I am able to fully exercise without my ribs being an issue. I was even able to sleep on that side a little. Seven weeks of mending.

I ramble dustily across the sand to the little bay of Lagunillas in Paracas National Park. The tracks weave and crisscross willfully as in La Guajira.

The black rocks and sealions take me back to the Galápagos.

I eat Ceviche at a restaurant on the water and remind myself for the nth time that I really don't like seafood. The pelicans do though and loiter around the kitchen door looking shifty.

The Cathedral. An impressive rock bridge until the 2007 earthquake.

In Ica, I see mummies, skull-stretching and trepanning.

and talk to the owner of the restaurant El Otro Peñoncito who, on discovering my musical leanings recommends me Wireless Jazz. Sounds awful. In fact it was Huaylas Jazz, a fusion of traditional Andean music and Jazz. God...

Egg sarnie for breakfast

and scramble up a hillock for another gawp at the Nazca Lines. At lunch I read Guevara´s Motorcycle Diaries, the original inspiration for my trip being the film. Pah! Their motorbike only made it across one border to Chile! It's a long tiring ride along the rugged coast with its towering surf and it's dark when I finally arrive in Camaná. I eat my chicken and chips while watching the retarded girls-against-boys gameshow that always seems to be on. I don't realise what a funny little off-season place I sleep in til the next morning.

The desert plains, fringed with snowy peaks that never seem to get closer despite the taut-as-a-bow-string road, eventually usher me into pretty Arequipa. As I sip wine, I decide this is the most beautiful of legions of Plazas de Armas.

The streets wind and whisper alluringly.

The Monasterio de Santa Catalina is an absorbing city-within-a-city, its own streets inside cloistered walls.

Earthquake damage here too

Friendly Juan at Hostal Nuñez kindly lets me operate on my fuel pump in the tiny courtyard. I gather container to siphon the fuel out. I gag on a few mouth-fulls of petrol and wash them away with delicious pakoras from Lakshmivan down the street. Then off for a spin up towards Mt. Misti.

Up at 4000 metres I test the engine. Nope, still rough. I will have to get a new fuel pump it seems.

I ride for Puna on Lago Titicaca.

And on its shores, after a mile of kangarooing, I bypass the fuel pump electronics. My curses echo across the water as far as Bolivia as I fumble a wire and melt my Fuel Pump Controller in a puff of grey smoke. A helpful indigenous lady tries to hold a cable for me. I am less than polite to her.

I let both the bike and my head cool down for a while.

I limp into Puno. The bike is fine as long as it has more than half a tank of gas but I stall completely and dangerously on the road up to the gas station. I shiver and gasp in Puno for a couple of days organising a fuel pump and controller to come from Austria to La Paz which I am gambling I can reach. I install a little switch so I can turn off the fuel pump without delving into the innards at every stop.

And visit the touristy Islas Flotantes.

The islands are made from reeds and anchored to the bottom, the lake is very shallow here. They feel like squelchy bouncy castles to walk on. I have the same Petit Prince sensation as in the San Blas Islands. The women wear strange psychedelic floppy nightcaps.

I test out the bike along the lakeside and annoyingly get caught by an unexpected aduana checkpoint without my documents on me. At first they want to impound my bike but after a little wheedling settle for holding onto my phone while I go back to Puno and get the papers.

I ride out to the tombs at Sillustani. One still has the ramp used to construct it.

My last view of Perú, as I head for the border at Yunguyo, is the shimmering light across Lago Titicaca filtering down from the Snowy peaks of the Cordillera Real of Bolivia.