Piura to Chimbote, Peru 21 Jan 2012
Desert, desert and more desert interspersed with a few towns and some greenery, long straight roads, sand blowing across the road and into my eyes, very windy, the usual slow trucks (50kph), villages and speed bumps plus going through the big towns is a nightmare, clogged with traffic and no signs so keep having to ask for directions, one Police document check, they were very good natured, mostly doing 100kph or less so wasn’t expecting any problems, stopped for the night after 620 k’s and 8.5hrs.
Chimbote to Lima, Peru 22 Jan 2012
Left early and the same again desert and more desert with some spectacular views, road became an almost freeway of 4 lanes about 150 k’s out of Lima and I get pulled over again, 2 crooked cops who had it down to a fine art, they even had a small translator device and said I was speeding, I was going 100kph with the rest of the traffic and they singled me out, they started bargaining by writing down numbers and I was getting fed up so I gave them SOL$100 ($35) and rode on, maybe I should have waited them out, 10min later another stop but this time they were pulling everyone over for a document check, crazy.
Got to the outskirts of Lima and a worse than usual mess of traffic, the drivers in this country are the worst so far and this is a Sunday, I had marked out waypoints on my phone GPS but the main avenue I was going ride down was closed and traffic was being directed down side roads which made it worse, a mini van bumped into my right pannier and sent me wobbling but I managed to stay on and kept riding, no damage, finally got to my hotel at 1300, 432k’s in 7:10hrs.
Went for a walk to get something to eat and water and even though this hotel is one block from the coast in a good neighbourhood there are bars and walls with spikes everywhere, most of the the ATM’s don’t have interbank connections and dispense a max of $140 with a $5 fee, fairly primitive compared to the other countries I have been through.
Chris's space 
So nice to keep up with all this, you are moving very fast! Peru means Machhu Pichhu, no? 🙂 That duck truly doesn’t look too appetizing, I agree…
I ordered not knowing that Pato meant duck, hahaha, very fatty, tough and undercooked, the rice was good a sort of pulao.
Fast, I feel like I am crawling, follow the map down to the tip of South America and you will see how far I have yet to go and I have to get there by the end of Feb before it starts to freeze.
“19 sun coming up” is a very nice photograph.
That was the best of 4 clicks taken while riding, I push the throttle lock on so the bike keeps moving, pick up the camera and point in the general direction while looking at the road ahead and hope for the best. The vistas through the desert are astonishing with their variety.