Peru or bust!

 

Having rejigged our plans for entering Peru we have now reached the moment of truth! We have been reading so much over the last few months about the civil unrest in Peru and although it has largely been up in the Andes around Cusco and Puno there has clearly been issues throughout the country. We won’t know unless we try. The indications from the Overlanders Facebook pages are positive so we remain optimistic that the route we have chosen gives us the best chance of reaching Lima. In Lima we have 10 new tyres waiting for us at the Aston Martin dealership and the promise of a service for the cars, so to Lima we must, one way or another, get!

 

 

We tried to leave at first light at 7:00am but Luis wasn’t up, the gates were locked and we weren’t going anywhere! Despite, at vast expense, putting petrol in all the cars the night before we still had 90km to go before finding more. The petrol in Putre was purchased from a lady selling it from behind an unmarked door from jerry cans at $50 per 20ltrs, we all estimated differently and hoped that we had enough to get us to the next fuel stop. The road dropped 3.2km over the next 90km and we rolled into the petrol station registering empty (infact we still had our reserve of perhaps 30km). Once again the lesson remains “fill the tank at every opportunity”. We filled our tanks and jerry cans in preparation for what might face us across the Peruvian border. Along the roadside you can see the debris of lorries whose drivers have forgotton that old adage "come down the hill in the same gear you go up`'.

 

We soon joined, what at first sight, was a long queue of cars but after 30 minutes in the burning sun we were in the border compound and working our way through Chilean exit desks, Chilean customs desks, Peruvian immigration and Peruvian customs. Once again no-one seems to have any idea what our supposedly universal Carnet de Passage is for and we are issued with a Temporary Import Permit. After a straightforward 2 hours we are in Peru.

 

 

What was a little shocking was the number of walking immigrants, mostly of African heritage, who were not permitted to go through the border post but diverted off to one side. We never discovered what was around the corner for them. It was a sad procession of souls.

 

Our arrival in Peru showed absolutely no sign of civil unrest whatsoever!. The traffic is moving normally, petrol is readily available and there appears to be no shortage of any kind. I am told that it might be different on the Andes but certainly on the pan-American Highway everything appears normal.

 

There appears to be a two hour time difference in Peru which I don’t quite understand but by the time we arrived in our hotel in Tacna it was only 12:30. We spent the rest of the day resting, replotting and organising our next accommodation (a combination of AirBnB and Booking.com). We are now slipping into a fairly straightforward routine with different members of the team taking on different responsibilities. Chris and Barbara are becoming absolute experts at booking accommodation, whilst I have taken on finance and Nigel is becoming adept at social media. This is despite my daughter referring to our social media strategy as ‘very 2012!”.  I’m not really sure what that means, which probably proves her point!

 

We are in Peru and now turn our minds to Lima and beyond, particularly the challenge of the Darian Gap.

 

There is not much one can write about Tacna apart from like every City on South America it has a cathedral. However we did manage to find a rather good fish restaurant for supper. I’m not sure why but I was very tired by supper and went straight to bed when we got back to the hotel.

 

. A good long nights sleep was just what was needed and as always, tomorrow is another day!