30 July: It’s been a great 4 days chilling at Puerto Verde – nice campsite, some daytime music over the weekend from the restaurant on site and just taking in the Peru national day celebrations.
31 July: One of our best socialising evenings in a long time thanks to a motley crew of overlanders that all decided to stop at a rather random “EcoHotel” for the night which was really very scruffy and we have no idea where the “eco” part was. Just goes to show, it is so often the company and not the physical place that makes for good times and memories.
2 August: Two nights ago we had one of the best nights of socialising in ages with a United Nations group of both overlanders and locals, tonight we have an Australian couple camped next too us and it has to be the hardest conversation we have had in ages, it would probably be easier to communicate with a Peruvian in our broken Spanish rather than pull teeth from the Aussie’s who just seem so disinterested in others and life in general, they only answer questions and never ask any. A very hard couple of hours.
4 August: The Aussies left today and conversation has not got any better or easier, in fact the husband didn’t even say cheers. Perhaps he is just grumpy about us beating them in the rugby a few weeks ago…. Anyway at least there is no longer a black hole of energy in camp anymore.
6 August: After the Aussies departed, Gertrude & Keith from Oregon, USA arrived and the vibe has been great since then. We briefly met them in Cuenca about a month ago but this time spent many an evening and lunchtime chatting. All round been a good few days. As a bonus Stuart had some fun surfs
7 August: A long day with the usual tasks of shopping before hitting the road for 5+ hours. Ended in a very nice truck stop, even have grass out the back of Mr to sit on while we have supper. It is a large yard so expect it to get very full with trucks but quite sure we will sleep well.
8 August: Both of us were pleasantly surprised by the scenery today, especially seeing as on our way north a few months ago we hadn’t thought much of the desert and its litter, perhaps having really low expectations helped but certainly some parts are quite spectacular in their dry ruggedness. Sadly, there is still no escaping the terrible litter scarring the landscape.
11 August: After a few days chilling in Chancay, just north of Lima, we braved the Lima traffic today in order to get to the Landy mechanic. He was very busy when we got there but had ordered the brake pads so we paid for those and headed out of Lima to install them ourselves in the dusty parking at Punta Rocas surf spot. Hopefully Mr J won’t have to be embarrassed by anymore bad squeals..
15 August: Overall it has been a nice and chilled last few days at the little oasis outside Ica as we stall for time waiting to sort out new SIM cards for our phones from South Africa but this morning it all went a bit paw paw. The SIM card deliveries all got messed up, so Stuart had to throw his toys out the cot with the couriers, Tania had a small seizure and then just as Stuart was sitting down to answer an email from the couriers the one lens from his new reading glasses popped out – the frame has randomly cracked and broken!
16 August: Got the good news that the SIM card had been received in SA by Tania mom and also dispatched with DHL today so we left the oasis headed for Cusco, hopefully they will arrive only a few days after us.
17 August: shattered tonight after a very long day crossing the mountains and a disturbed sleep last night at 4000m asl. 10 hours to do 320km which wasn’t helped by a 2-hour delay for a stop and go roadworks. At least Mr J brakes worked but are back to squealing terribly again! Met a really cool couple (Nic & Violet from France) at the toll plaza last night and then sort of followed each other today on the road, at one point we hung back to wait for them as their Sprinter van lost all power on the hills. We stopped at the top of one mountain pass to have lunch and wait for them, Nic & Stuart both assume it is a turbo issue but at least they are able to keep moving as breaking down on this route which is very remote and mostly above 4000m would not be fun.
21 August: The campsite in Cusco has been really full the last few days with a real United Nations of people (French, Austrian, Swiss, Estonian, Argentinian, USA and Finns). It’s been good having chats with all of them but sadly it never ceases to amaze us how the “germanic” ones always seem to have very strong opinions on South Africa and think they know everything about our country, our people, our security situation and so on and so on. Things got a bit heated around the fire last night when we decided to put them right on a few aspects after hearing one too many strong opinions for the umpteenth time. A 3-week vacation and subsequent following of the news because “you think it’s the greatest country on earth if it wasn’t for…” does not make you on expert on it.
24 August: Received our new SIM cards via DHL from ZA today. After a few hiccups we were really amazed with the service received, a call centre agent even phoned us here on our Peru number to discuss the problems and resolve it. Glad to be reconnected with SMS roaming for banking security as well as for other simple aspects like getting Stuart back onto WhatsApp without a temporary fix like he had to do in Ecuador a few weeks ago.
26 August: Having detected a leak from the pump that transfers water to our sink from the internal tank, Stuart stripped out the water system in order to remove the water pump. When building the rear of Mr J we tried to maximise space so some things like a water pump got stuck in really hard to reach places making it quite the job. After taking apart the pump he found one broken plastic valve cover inside and superglued and clamped it overnight and surprise surprise when we reinstalled the system this morning there were no leaks. Pretty sure it will be a temporary fix but if it can get us to Brazil where RV’s are more common we can hopefully source a replacement.
27 August: a very long day in Mr J, roughly 7 hours for only 250km but overall a truly spectacular drive. We left Cusco, climbed the mountains, descended a bit and then climbed the last bastion of the Andes ultimately summiting at 4785m asl and then over the last 100km descending 4000m to drop into the start of the Amazon. Pulled into a tiny gas station just before sunset and enjoyed sundowners next to MR j listening to frogs and monkeys. It’s a little warm and sticky which is a wonderful contrast to the last few weeks of cold and dry, even if we had to light a coil to keep the bugs away. An even bigger bonus is we had no brake issues, perhaps due to some careful nursing of them by Stuart (we spent a great deal of the descent in low range 3rd to 5th).
28 August: Had a rather disturbed sleep last night which was weird because we were in a super small town and were the only ones overnighting at the gas station but somehow any passing cars sounds seem to reverberate off walls and then we had roosters from early. So were on the road early only to get stopped 15km later at a stop and go (we were the 3rd vehicle) for a landslide which as we got to discover would be in place until 12:00. In fact, we only got to get moving around 12:30 so had a 4,5-hour delay and only pulled into Puerto Maldanho close on 5pm.
29 August: Rest day after 2 very hard days driving in which we have gone from cold and high altitude (4800m) to the Amazon basin and seriously hot weather (38 degC). At least we are in a cool little lodge camping surrounded by beautiful forests.
30 August: Got an early start today as we had roughly 4 hours driving to the border and had a smooth run only to discover that the Receita Federal (customs for car) take an extended lunch break and so had to wait nearly 2 hours for them before we could proceed. Road was a bit rough on Brazilian side of border but still made good time over the next 100km. We couldn’t help but laugh when we pulled in at a new pousada and because of language difficulties the owners immediately fetched their teenage daughter to come and translate (it is so typical of Brazil to have a teenager who speaks good English). The warm welcome and joyful nature makes it good to be back in Brazil