Last day in Peru

 

We departed our comfortable hotel in Chiclayo at 08:00am for the drive to Los Oreganos, a beach resort on the  coast just south of Tumbres. Tumbres is the last town before we cross the border in Ecuador and we have been told not to waste any time hanging around. It has also been hard hit by Yaku so I’m sure doesn’t need three vintage cars milling around.

 

 

The drive out of Chiklayo was the usual battle between traffic and pot holes. The Rolls hit a deep pot hole and later it became evident that it had broken the strut supporting the rear nearside mud guard. Nothing a quick spot weld on the side of the road cannot fix. Otherwise it was a relatively painless, if slow exit and once more onto the excellent duel carriageway of the Pan-American Highway. It is a relatively straightforward but long run and the drive took us across the fairly dull, desert of northern Peru.

 

 

 

As usual cars were stopped by the police. Today it was firstly Nigel’s turn. Nigel was somewhat non-plused that the police had allowed the Rolls through, stopped him and then allowed the other Lagonda through. The police officer was having none of it, until he realised that Nigel’s determined lack of any understanding of Spanish meant that the whole saga was going to take a very long time. He was allowed to pass and quickly caught up with the small caravan of classic cars moving on up the pan-American Highway. Didier was also stopped, for the second time in two days. What is it that makes a Frenchman driving a British car so attractive to the Peruvian police. This time no papers were demanded, photos and pleasantries extended and we were quickly on our way.

 

At last as we drove north the terrain started to change with extensive banana and rice production. Also in the last stages of the day’s drive we passed through an extensive but small scale oil field with many dead ‘nodding donkeys’ and miles and miles of pipe sitting rotting in the sand.

We all drove through only stopping once for petrol and arrived at Loa Oreganos in time to enjoy the delights of this small beachside resort. The AirBnB looks over the pacific and the village is home to a small fishing community. This community attracts the frigate birds, the penguins and the giant turtles which feed of the waste from thee fishing boats. It was wonderful to see them all at such close distance.

 

The resort seemed to close down at sun down with only one or two places open for dinner. Rather reluctantly we selected one place and ordered, without any high expectations, grilled fish for all of us. We ended up with delicious freshly grilled dorado ad all toddled off home thoroughly satisfied.

 

Tomorrow we battle with the border crossing into Ecuador. Fingers crossed.