The Pan-American Highway, Route 5

 

At dinner tonight Nigel mentioned how much his mother is enjoying the posts of our adventure and that by lunch time her phone battery is dead so I was determined this evening to get up to date on the blog. I hope that Mrs Gambier (snr) continues to enjoy the blog as much as we are enjoying the adventure.

Today we will drive the Pan-American Highway, perhaps one of the most famous roads in the world and I had no real idea of what to expect. The road stretches from Ushuaia at Cape Horn, where our adventure was supposed to start (thank you Maersk and Argentine Customs!), all the way to Purdhoe Bay, Alaska.

We left our windowless hotel rooms as early as we could and after a depressing awful breakfast hit the road. What a road it proves to be. Initially we drove along straight, smooth tarmac with the pacific Ocean on our left and, flat desert alternating with massive sand dunes on our right. This was replaced by more rocky and wild sea and even more monumental sand dunes with more twisty and testing roads.

 

 

 

The bird life along this coastline is phenomenal, with the guano demonstrating the volumes of bird life along this coast. We stopped to watch a squadron (probably not the collective term, but appropriate none the less) of turkey vultures swooping above our heads. And on and on the coast goes.

 

Outside the major towns there is no petrol available so beware drivers! Keep refuelled at every opportunity. Nigel has got the point and put in about $3 worth this morning! The cvoast is interspersed with fishing communities, what appeasr to be cement plants, chicken farmers (many of whome are derilict) and holiday homes.

 

 

We meet our first police checkpoint where a nice young officer deals with Nigel’s and my paperwork quickly and efficiently. Chris’ on the other hand is taken away for further examination.  I think this had more to do with a rather scary senior lady police officer who was in attendance with her personal videographer! We never did find out what that was about.

 

 

Off we went once more looking out for coffee and, if we were lucky, some breakfast. Unfortunately outside the towns there is little opportunity to buy coffee or petrol. Eventually we saw a place which looked promising and pulled over. It was a peculiar amphitheatre with a swimming area and large slide with lots of families enjoying themselves. Once again no coffee but at least there were ice creams! Barbara generously gave her few soles but now we had no cash between is except for dollars.

 

 

 Lunch was taken on the roadside and surprisingly the fried fish was absolutely fine. Although fired to within an inch if its life the surprising crisp fish was rather good, and most importantly had no on-going impact on any of the team.

 

 

And on we pushed, after being stopped once more by the loacl constabulary for a photo op, eventually finding our beachside AirBnb at Las Cuevas, 380km from where we started. We had no supplies so we headed into the local town of Camana for supper. Following Chris down two one way streets the wrong way failed to dent our appetite and we had a delicious supper. Another fantastic days motoring in South America. Viva Peru!