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There was a lot of road damage on our way south. We stopped at a large VEA supermarket in the large town of Tarapoto where Kirsten spent $50 US dollars worth of Soles on food. I sweated buckets looking after our motorhome that we'd parked at the side of the supermarket. We'd parked in the shade but it was still 33°C! It was late when we battled through traffic to get out of the town so we stopped at a petrol station and truck park on the outskirts.
The next day was a long driving day. There were 14 stretches of gravel road and so we only managed 25 mph over the 7 hours of driving. We also had to take a ferry across a river because the bridge was closed in Pizano. It was a bit of an adventure because there were no signs. We could see the bridge was blocked and saw a truck turning onto our road, ahead of us, at a set of traffic lights. We thought that might be the detour route so we turned left and then picked up some signs. It lead to an extremely steep gravel road going down to the ferry.
It was only a 5 minute ride and we got on straight away. There were two other cars with us. A woman came to charge us. She said it cost 40. Kirsten thought she meant 40 cents so she gave her 1 Sol. But the woman wanted 40 Soles = $11 US!!! No one else had to pay. They were just trying to rob the tourists!! We always have to be on our guard. We ended up giving 5 Soles as a tip and made sure they knew it was just a tip for the service otherwise they'll keep cheating tourists. We only drove for another 45 minutes afterwards and stopped at another 24 hour petrol station for the night. It was still 30° at 11pm.
We only had on and off sleep because of barking dogs and the heat got us out of bed at 8-30am. The next stretch of road was fairly good except for two stretches - 1.5 km of bad gravel and 800 metres of horrible mud! We stopped at the turn off for Laguna Dos Milagros where other travellers have stayed for the night. Kirsten walked up the steep gravel road to take a look whilst I opened everything up to try and alleviate the 34°C heat and prepared coffees. She was sweating buckets when she returned and said there's no shade, no electricity, it was too hot and the road would be difficult when wet.
After coffees, we set off again and hit a lot of traffic in another large town called Tingo Maria. There was no tarmac in the town just very dusty mud roads. The large number of tuc tucs were just whizzing between the traffic using any space they could find, regardless of whether they were driving on the right or wrong side!! Reminded us of India - heat, dirt, noise, chaos!
We managed to get out of the dust of the town and back onto the tarmac. We didn't drive much further and parked up at another petrol station at 4-15pm. It was quite early to stop but the heat was getting to us plus we would be heading back up into the hills and didn't know whether there would be any other overnight possibilities for us. Parking in the shade was a bonus so we swept out our motorhome that had picked up a lot of dust during the day. Another bonus - they switched on the pump so we could have refreshing cold showers. The shower was just an outdoor brick hut but it was heaven!
The next part of our journey was along a river canyon, gradually going uphill. There were a lot of Vados, road dips to allow water across, and several places where there was road damage. In iOverlander I had read one traveller describe the 60km stretch into Huanuco as "dismal", and it was!! We climbed up to 2,813m on a winding road that had some really bad stretches. We were following a lot of trucks and the massive potholes were rocking us sideways quite badly. Yes, it was dismal! Huanuco was very dusty with bad traffic and I needed to use my horn ... a lot!! After a police check we pulled over at 5-15pm and stayed on a restaurant car park for the night.
The following day was another long driving day but at least we managed 288km in around 8 hours. Our route took us up a bad road and over the 4,500m Cerro de Pasco, then along a superb road across a plateau at 4,100m with several lagunas. Three police checks slowed us down - by the third I handed over all our papers explaining what each document was without being asked!! Unfortunately, none of the trucks got stopped which meant I had to overtake them all again!!
From the plateau we drove up to 4,825m. On the other side there was a massive copper mine - they were literally taking off the top of a mountain!! It was quite a spectacular drive down the other side on the PE22, under various criss-crossing train lines and through a valley with numerous switchbacks and tunnels. We were stopped at the entrance to one of the tunnels for about 10 minutes to allow 3 huge caterpillars being transported on trucks up to the mine. We felt sorry for all the traffic behind them because they were slow moving and no-one would be able to overtake on the switchbacks.
We got stuck in heavy traffic going through the large city of Oyala at 3,800m and, after coffees, it was a nice drive down a canyon. We stopped 40km north of Lima at another 24 hour petrol station at 5-30 pm. We certainly weren't looking forward to the drive through Lima tomorrow. Three hours later, the security guard came to collect 5 Soles for overnight parking and told us we had to move 20cm to the right so other trucks could squeeze in next to and in front of us!! Despite that, it was a surprisingly quiet night!!
Our worst fears of 5 hours battling traffic and bad drivers through Lima, weren't realised! We left at 9-30am hoping to miss the first rush hour but we were in heavy traffic leading into the outskirts of the capital. But ... after that there was only one stretch of really bad gravel, and once we got onto the Panamerican Highway heading south, there was hardly any traffic! But the northbound traffic was virtually at a standstill! Unbelievably, it only took us 80 minutes to get through Lima. Then we whizzed along the dual carriageway south and past a huge amount of rubbish littering the sides of the road! Peru is really bad when it comes to rubbish. People just throw it out of their car windows!! Absolutely terrible!
There were three tolls to pay but the final one was well over double the normal price. We were told it was the price for the return journey. Arguing that we wouldn't need the return didn't get us a rebate!! Oh well, at least it was a good road except the coastal route is just a foggy desert at this time of year and not very nice at all.
We drove to Cerro Azul beach, where we stopped 2.5 years ago on our way north and had coffee and cake. It was too early to stop for the night because we'd got here a lot sooner than we thought. So we continued south and passed rows and rows of chicken coops that were extremely cramped. We vowed never to eat chicken again!!! Less than an hour later we bought a roast chicken at a supermarket in Chincha because it was cheap! So much for our vows!!
From San Clemente we drove inland for just over an hour, heading back into the mountains, and stopped at a restaurant where we could park for the night. The roast chicken was surprisingly tasty with bread, tomato and avocado! We spent over an hour working on the next part of our route for the GPS. It was going to be a real helter skelter ride, up and over various passes to get up to Cusco. We needed to plan it well because otherwise, we'd end up having to stop way too high overnight or having to drive in the dark to get back down to a reasonable altitude where we could stay. It didn't help that our software kept taking us on the wrong roads! We finally got it done but it was almost midnight by the time we got to bed.
