Dog on wheels, couple of miles, bits of chook.

The border crossing into Perú was smooth, as was our negotiation of our first request for a bribe from the cops. Christ, man, we worked hard for this money, and honestly, too. Our funds are not up for grabs by dodgy people in uniform, thanks. Word amongst the motorcycle travellers seems to indicate that Peruvian plod is constantly on the scam, so we should be able to have some fun with that!

Into Perú by a few dozen kilometres, and who should we come across but the dog on wheels mob, spoken of so fondly and so recently! We had first met them in Argentina. They were in their usual order of march - Kerry up front, Jochen a hundred metres back from her, and Tarmo the Labrador/Husky relaxing in his kennel/chariot just behind Jochen's back wheel! Check their website out here, especially if you speak German (in English too).

We'd been thinking of going another eighty-odd km up the road, but decided that town could wait until morning, and instead hung with the three of them in a little town called Juli. Our terribly helpful host mother (really the owner of the hostel we picked, but definitely the mothering type!) walked us into town to show us where all the churches were before letting us off the hook to go for dinner. We found ourselves wishing she had been as informative about restaurants as we scoured the town looking for something other than chicken and chips.

We found a place that served something different. Different indeed. I think each of us found the sight of a bloated chicken foot in each other's soup pretty entertaining. Funny that the joke was over for each of us when the pale toenails turned up in one's own soup, despite the predictability that they would. Emily's reaction was strong enough to scare the rest of us! Tarmo, lying under the table and no doubt wondering what the fuss was about, coolly disposed of each of the limbs as they were disdainfully tossed his way. Later, we got some take home beers and went 'home' for a yarn.

The next day Em and I intended to cover about 500km, a week's pedalling for them, especially given that it involved a couple of thousand vertical metres. So we farewelled each other in the morning, over a breakfast of bananas and bread, thinking it unlikely that we would catch each other again on the road.