Lima to the rainforest

We blew through Lima as quickly as we could, after some admin tasks and a little bit of work on the bike. Thankfully I had some help for this latter, as to go looking for bolts, tyres, zippers and the like without local knowledge would have taken well longer, quite apart from sending me off to the dodgy parts of town. Although our bike is quite old, and wears its mud and dust with pride, it attracts lots of attention at times in South America. Mostly, this is harmless and makes for a bit of a yarn, but on the recommendation of our new contact in Lima, the shopping was taxi-based. How is it we have a new contact in Lima, you ask? Rodrigo was one of several limeños good enough to respond to my query through Horizons Unlimited, and had time between his vet sci exams to help out.

Getting from the city to the selva - the rainforest - involves getting over the Andes once again, our umpteenth 4000m + pass. We are getting used to them, and nowadays bang an extra jumper on before we start.

A world of slow trucks and narrow road later, and the chill evening had us diving into a funny little hostal at 3700m in La Oroya to ask the usual questions: 'can we park the bike?', and 'is there hot water?' We could, and there was, and we didn't leave the place for the rest of the evening. No TV, and we were stacking our stuff against the door in a vain effort against the draughts, but it did the trick.

Breakfast was in a new town, after I flunked the 'lamb soup first thing' test in La Oroya (Em opted to go hungry). A sunny day's ride down into the foothills, a couple of photo stops and a pleasant surprise when a road marked as dirt was in fact (mainly) newly asphalted. We stocked up with camp food at La Merced, and headed towards Oxapampa, sussing out possible camp spots as we went. A signpost (rare enough these parts) promised us a waterfall not far off the road, so we ventured in across the footbridge,

sat on the bridge over the waterfall, discussed campsite, greened out and got scared of the jaguars. A previous post reveals the result!

Anyhow our day in the outpost town of Oxapampa was not wasted, though we didn't expect to end it at our favourite host mum's house again.

Teresa welcomed us with open arms, and even cooked our dinner for us after Emily had left lentils to soak in her kitchen! We'd been exploring out in the sticks and got ourselves well wet, but somehow host mum had her timing right and we walked straight into a hot meal.

Next day out early, heading for the real rainforest, we hoped, out of reach of the chainsaws in the Yanachaga - Chemillén National Park.