The last week we have covered about 4000km, and counting. We've been getting up early - a few times we have been on the bike before sunrise, and still going after sunset, covering several hundred kilometres per day. 850 is our record, though it's not about that - the simple fact is that Valparaiso, Chile, is a long way from Máncora, Perú. All this moving changes the atmosphere of our travels a bit - but that is the way it should be. For the last year, we have not had any appointments to speak of, and now we do. Call it readjustment training!
Despite the miles and trials, or possibly because of them, we have managed to enjoy this last week. For each of us this long, long leg down the west coast of South America has been challenging. At least I get to do one of my favourite things all day long, even if my hands are freezing in the mornings (this thanks to my own refusal to buy heavier gloves, owing to my sentimental attachment to the old ones!). Em reports that meditation is the answer on the back. We have a copy of 'The Man From Snowy River' in the map holder on the tank, and spend some of the day reciting this famous and moving Australian poem inside our helmets. When curves and trucks are few, of course.
The views have often been spectacular, though they change very slowly. The Panamerican Highway alternates between skimming along the Pacific coast at little more than wave level, to flying high at 1000-odd metres above that, and above the clouds. Often between the two we climb or swoop down through thick banks of sea mist, generated by the cold water of the Humboldt Current, just offshore. The whole stretch is a desert, stretching between the coast and the Andes. The region lacks rain both because of the cold water of the Humboldt, and because of the rainshadow caused by the Andes. It's dry here.
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