Lima!

Not all days are as wonderful, challenging and life affirming as we have experienced on this adventure and today was one of those exceptions. We departed our Nazca farmhouse at around 08:00am, prepared for the 400km drive into Lima and all that the great city would come to offer us. All the cars were running smoothly and as usual we filled them all to the brim with fuel before exiting Nazca. There are absolutely no apparent problems in Peru at the moment from political upheaval nor shortages of anything. We are far more relaxed now than when we entered this fascinating country only a couple of days ago.

 

Almost immediately we left the city of Nazca we knew we were in for a very different day. The roads were considerably worse, the traffic far more congested (particularly the lorries) and the heat unremitting! After about half an hour of ducking and diving between the slow moving traffic we arrived in a village which had lost its two bridges. Although the bridges were being rebuilt the traffic was held up for about 25 minutes allowing the contraflow to work. It was going to be a long day!

 

 

The Lagonda’s don’t like the remorseless, slow moving traffic so David decided to drive on through the traffic and after an hour or so wait for the Rolls to catch up. By 11:00am we had done 100km, a quarter of the days total. At this rate we wouldn’t be in Lima until 20:00-21:00. We were waiting on the side of the road when a string of messages came onto the phone, the Rolls had dropped all its oil can we return immediately! Was this a terminal moment for the Rolls? I take the view that unless the fault is catastrophic, most if not everything is mendable so we turned around and fired up the afterburners!

 

 

 

We could at least see Chris and Barbara on ‘Find My Friend’ and about 5 minutes from reaching them were told that the Rolls was back on the road. Still dropping oil but, as long as we could find more it was going to be manageable.

 

We were coming into the city of Ica and the traffic and the road got even worse! We battled on through the chaos and the heat, the cars once again getting hot and the drivers and crew even hotter…on and on we crawled, up and up went the temperature gauge…and finally we were through. The road opened onto a smart duel carriageway, the cars reconvened at a petrol station with an air conditioned rest area (bliss!), more 20/50 oil was purchased for the Rolls and on we went.

 

 

 

From there on until we reached Lima the road and the traffic was manageable. It wasn’t great but it was entirely doable. Every time the Rolls’ oil pressure disappeared Chis popped another gallon in and on the old girl motored. We mustn’t forget that the Silver Ghost was designed in 1909 and built in 1925. It’s a far more senior car than the young whipper snapper Lagonda’s built in 1934.

 

Ariosto, from Aston Martin Lima, had told me that he would meet us at the Repsol petrol station at Asia Beach, about 100km south of Lima and there he was as David and I cruised in. We were followed about 10 minutes later by the Rolls and then about 5 minutes later, Nigel’s Lagonda went steaming straight past. Someone hadn’t been monitoring comms!

 

Ariosto is a critical figure in our adventure. Early on we knew that we couldn’t get to Cartagena without a replacement set of tyres for the Lagonda’s after about 10k km. You cannot buy tyres for the Lagonda’s nor the Rolls anywhere in South America, they would need to be imported. We came with 4 new tyres on the cars and two spares on the back but we knew we needed a new set in or around Lima. I googled Rolls Royce and Aston Martin (who purchased the Lagonda marque in 1946) and found that the latter has a dealership  in Lima and that’s where I met Ariosto. Immediately I contacted Ariosto he wanted to help with our adventure. He has arranged the importation of spare tyres for us, garaging for us to service and repair the cars, guided us into Lima and I think has a number of plans during our stay over the next few days. 

 

 

We followed Ariosto into Lima which was reasonably straightforward. As usual a police checkpoint hauled us all over under the pretence of us not having our lights on but in reality for the guys to have their photos taken! Smile and engage and we were off again, into thicker and thicker traffic, the two Lagonda’s sticking doggedly to the tail of Ariosto’s Jeep whilst the Rolls was lost into the sea of traffic behind. Finally we were off the Pan-American Highway and doubling back to the garage Ariosto had arranged, the gates opened and there were three empty work bays ready for our cars. It was a slightly surreal moment, the garage in Lima full of Ferraris, Porsches,  a concourse 1950’s Buick, 350 Chevies etc etc. Chris pulled in about five minutes later having battled single handed through the traffic aided by Barbara’s experienced and calm navigation.

 

 

We will probably be ready to depart on Friday but my new co-driver is arriving at 06:00 on Saturday and Bumble is on her way back to join us. We have been strongly advised not to try and battle the traffic out of this city during the day. Perhaps we will be leaving at around 04:00am on Sunday. When David, Chis and Nigel return for the garage and todays labours we will be able to re-plot and re-plan.

 

We are half way though South America and our attention needs to turn to the longer term challenge of how to circumnavigate the Darien Gap and how to get our cars from Cartagena around to Panama. We still don’t have permission to drive through Costa Rica so we might have to arrange trucks when the time comes. Central America will be an undoubted challenge but we have a growing community of parties trying to help us and we are very happy to accept any help that is offered!