Hitchhiking the World: Chap 6 (Peru)

---February 11th 2016---

I entered Peru at 4pm on February 11th. I still had 3h of Sun light and 3h to find shelter in this new country. I needed two rides to reach Tumbes, and another three to reach a small beach side town. As expected, the border between Ecuador and Peru proved to be quite a big change. I was leaving behind the vegetation for the arid desert of Peru, but also, I was leaving the cleanest country to head back into trash filled roads. Ecuador and Colombia are two countries that are working on minimizing their visual pollution (nature filled trash). Ecuador may have a good lead on its neighbouring country, but clearly Colombia is on its way, but for Peru, there is still a lot of works to be done.

As I got in town, I started my usual night quest for sleep. I got a ride through town, but didn’t see a single abandoned building or any other roof. I may have reached the desert, but the clouds are still menacing. I finally reached a bridge and decided to use it to my advantage. Being close to some stagnating water, I expected insects, and lots of it, so I put up my tent. As I was getting ready to go to sleep, a sound caught my attention. I turned around, and got surprised by a local guy. “Sorry, I didn’t know you were there. I just need to work a little bit on the water pump” said the local. I didn’t understand much as cars were passing over our head. “Sorry, I hope I’m not in the way. Do you think it’s ok if I camp here for the night?” I responded. “You’re good, don’t worry. I just need to work for a few minutes.” It stayed like that and eventually he left, and I got to go to sleep. The next day, another guy came to play with the pumps, but this time, I was sleeping, so I didn’t bother, and as for as I'm concerned, he didn’t bother me. I guest most people aren’t going to bother someone who is sleeping, we all know how annoying it can be.

Finally up, I packed my gear and headed for the road. One ride, two rides, and already, I’ve found a place to sleep for the night. It’s barely 10am and my second ride of the day offered me to stay in his house in Talara. That’s perfect, I need a day break to repair a few broken gears and buy a few lost items.

After a weekend of relaxation, I got back on the road heading south. I found a ride through town, but once I got out, my luck ran out. Hitchhiking proofed to be quite hard on the Pan-American. On the other hand, the desert of Peru leaves vast empty space giving the opportunity to get very long ride. As I was waiting at a troll, a couple from Ecuador stop and offered me a ride all the way down to Chepén, 388km south. I chose to stop in this particular town because I knew there was a road heading to the mountains. All I had to do was to cross town. As usual, I asked a few people where was the road heading out of town, and eventually, a taxi offered me a free ride through town. Now on the right road, but not yet out of town, I kept on walking asking random people for indication (more to reassure myself than anything else), and as I got closer to the edge of town, I asked two guys for direction, and after enlightening me, they asked me where was I planning to sleep. I answered I was going to try to find a place to camp, and without hesitation, they invited me for a night at their place. The house was small and didn’t have much protection against mosquitos, so they had a tent over their beds for protection.

The next morning, I got a ride from the cops to the police station of the next town, and as I asked for direction, they told me the road I had in mind wasn’t a good road to hitchhike one, and so they offered me another ride through town so that I could hitch my way to the actual road heading to Cajamarca. A free bus ride later, and I was in la Ciudad de Dios, the intersection heading to the Andes. It took me half-an-hour to get a ride to the next town, from where it took me an hour to find another ride, but this time, all the way to Cajamarca.

Cajamarca turned out to be a town full of incredible people. As night was rapidly setting itself, a lady and her son offered me to camp on their property for me to rest for the night. They would have invited me inside, but after seeing the mess and lack of walkable space of their house, I realised why they offered the property. They didn’t have much, not even electricity, so when they offered me a lunch, we stayed outside for the Moon light to light us up. As I grew tired, I excused myself and headed to my tent, but just as I got in, it started to rain. Rapidly, the mother offered me to bring my tent under the porch for the roof to protect my tent from the rain. They offered me two thick knitted sheets for mattress and an extra sheet of plastic to protect slightly more my tent from the weather.

In the morning, after saying goodbye to the mother, I raised my thumb in the direction of Cumbe Mayo. I thought it would be a hard hitch since I was heading in a region without much population, but as usual, the hardest road, turns out to be the easiest to hitchhike on. Three rides later and an overall 15min wait, I was at destination. As I was walking through the monolith surrounding a grass valley, I realized my camera was broken; I couldn’t focus anymore, leaving every picture fuzzy. The only way to get some sort of focus was to bang the camera, and even then, the focus could only be centered leaving the side fuzzy. This bad news meant that I needed to find a new camera. I had two options: head to Trujillo and find a shop where I could find a new camera; or head back to Chepén where I knew a place that sold some. Not wanting to walk endlessly through Trujillo, I decided to backtrack to Chepén, and so I did. I got a ride back in Cajamarca, where I was offered food, and as I was walking through the decently large town, I managed to hitch a ride. The couple owned an agriculture farm, and invited me for another lunch; two meals in a row. They offered me a few fruit for snack and I got back on the road to find a truck heading back to the Ciudad de Dios, from where a taxi driver offered a ride to the camera shop. After buying a new camera, I headed to a field for me to camp, but rapidly, got kicked out, so I walk down the road and found another area to camp.

The canyon of Cumbe Mayo

The next day, after a small motorcycle ride to Guatapé, an 18-wheeler stopped and invited me to tag along up until Chan Chan, some ruins located on the periphery of Trujillo. I walked through the ancient city for two hours followed by another hour of walking through the desert to reach the Pan-American Highway. After a ride in town, I got to use the technique learned in Colombia of muling. I found a red light, and as a truck stop by, I jumped on it; a city has never being that easy to cross. Unfortunately, being a hitchhiker and not a muler, I didn’t wanted to ride the totality of my ride using this technique, and so at the first opportunity, I jumped out of the truck. I was at a road construction block in the middle of the Peruvian desert. Seeing that I jumped out of the truck, the near vehicles realised I was illegally exploiting the truck, making them all refuse to help me. Instantly, I got scared, hitchhiking was going to be much harder than I though. But, once more, my luck got me out of the situation at surprising speed. It took me only 10min to get a ride three town farther. Looking back at this experience taught me one thing, muling is good to get out of town, but don’t jump of unless you’re in a town.

The famous Chan Chan Ruins

From town, I got a ride heading back to the Andes. My next destination was the Laguna LLanganuco, 4800m higher. The driver took a small dirt road zigzagging along the faces of mountains. We drove for 3h until we reached a tunnel in which a couch bus broke down. There was no way out of the tunnel as heading back wasn’t much of an option. Of course being that far in the mountains also meant we were not going to get any help until the next morning, leaving us with one last option: push the bus by hand. Easier said than done. As we all know, a couch bus is quite heavy, and doesn’t have a whole lot of surface to push, take that and add a dirt road going uphill and you have a hell of a challenge. After a few tries, we got to push the bus a good five feet, but that was it, it wouldn’t budge. To our luck, some guy also stuck behind the bus had two long ropes. We attached them to the front of the bus tripling the amount of people capable of helping. We pushed and pulled the bus uphill another thirty feet, just enough for one of the truck to squeeze itself out of the tunnel and help pull the bus out. It took us nearly two hours to get out of that tunnel. It definitely slowed us up, but I got a funny story out of it. We drove to the next “town” (two houses at an intersection), and I was dropped off. I hung out with the bus driver and camped in the parking lot of the small restaurant.

It seems that push a couchbus uphill is a bit harder than it seems

The next morning, I walked to the bridge intersecting the two roads, and waited. I didn’t know it yet, but this was to be the hardest hitchhiking route I have ever hitched on, and it lasted a full day. The road taken the night before, bringing me to the intersection is a scenic road with nearly no traffic. I waited 1h55min to see a single car pass by. Thankfully, this car stopped. We climb in altitude as the colorful mountains slowly got covered with shrubs and later trees. Eventually, we found another broken car, this time, it was the cops. We helped the cop out, and kept on climbing. When I got in town, I took a small break to eat and as I hitch in the direction of Yungay, an excavator stopped to pick me up; yet another first. I got to say, I was very surprised to see him stop. I didn’t get to ride the front shovel, but I got to squeeze myself in the cabin.

How offen does an excavator stop

Now in Yungay, I had to leave to bigger road and once more head for the mountains. The road was getting more and more remote. There was barely a single car heading for the park, making walk much more that I liked. I required two taxis and a car to reach the Llanganuco. The view was amazing, even before entering the park as the high valley exposed an immense cliff with another valley cut through it by an ancient glacier. Once in the valley, I got to stop at the first Laguna, where gorgeous turquoise water created a lake. In the far back of that lake was a snow-capped mountain. Is was weird thinking that less then 24h ago, at was at sea level, fighting the heat of the desert, whereas now, I was surrounded but snowy mountains. After having visited the Llanganuco, I hitched a small truck to exit the park. Definitely the hardest ride I’ve ever had. I was sent to the back of the truck, with the chicken. All I had for comfort was a back filled with cardboard boxes as the truck would bounce up and down, left and right, and I would be thrown all over the place with it. This bag forced me to bend my back forcing me to hold a horribly uncomfortable pose for over 2h. My feet were numb, my head felt horrible with all the bouncing, and the same goes for my neck, and my butt. To add insults to injuries, as we climbed, the temperature dropped down and it started raining. And with all the vibrations, reaching for the sweater in my bag was impossible, so was getting my water bottle to hydrate myself. All the heavy shaking in this closed space got me feeling sink as my stomach kept on being crushed by the bouncing. Now I didn’t throw up, but I wasn’t very far from it. The worst was that I could get out of the truck as there was no traffic on the road, and no place to spend the rapidly coming night. There was at least one nice thing that I got out of this more than painful ride: the view. As we climbed up, the nearing mountains started to clear up from the clouds. Extremely high and pointy mountains covered in snow and glacier exposed themselves, letting my mind focus one something else that the rough condition I was forced to go through. After a full hour zigzagging one of the mountain’s face, we started our decent. Not much better, we took over an hour to knit our way down. Finally, as we got in the lower part of the valley, the truck stopped. I jumped out immediately to stretch a little bit and let my head relax, and as I stretched, the owner of a hostel started talking to me. I told them about my adventure, and seeing that I was in pretty bad condition (the hard hitchhiking day, lack of eating, the truck ride and the 4800m in less than 24h), they invited me to stay for a night at their hostel; without any expense. It felt amazing. I was out of this hellish ride, got to take a warm shower (my first since San Jose, Costa Rica), got to eat, and had a bed for the night.

2h stuck crossing this hellish road

As I was packing my bag, the owner of the hostel offered to stay an extra day, sort of a day off. Still physically tired, I gladly accepted their offer. They had planned a day visiting a local dairy farm and offered me to tag along. We took the bus down to the next valley, and once off of the bus, we started walking toward the dairy farm. Not too sure where to head, we quickly got lost. Thankfully, as we were heading the wrong way, we found a local worker who gave us better direction. Once at the farm, we got to taste the local cheese, visit the farm, and got invited for lunch. Later in the afternoon, we got back on the road and started walking toward the house, hoping for the bus to pass by; no luck. In fact, we walked for nearly 3h and didn’t see a single car pass by. This most certainly was the longest I’ve being on the road without seeing a single car, but not having the true time at which we left, nor at which we arrived, and not hitchhiking, I can’t say this was the worst I’ve seen. Needless to say that after 3h, walking in the high altitude of the mountains, I got back pretty tired. It didn’t take too long for me to hit the bed.

The next day, I felt it was time to head back to Yungay and head toward my next destination: Huayllay. Getting my first ride wasn’t going to be easy. Based on my last hike, I notice the lack of car heading back toward Yungay, and even less going to other way, also an option. It took me quite some time before one of the minibus stop and accepted me aboard. We zigzagged up, and right before starting our descent, we stopped for a pee break; the view was magnificent! Unlike my first ride on this road, the clouds had managed to position themselves behind the mountains, rather than in front. On both sides of the valley, huge white mountain caps were surrounding us. Between them: Huanduy, the highest peak of Peru, and second highest of South America. The needle which is his summit left behind a trail of cloud reminding us how powerful the wind can be at high altitude.

The view was definitely much nicer than two days before

That night, I managed to reach Huaraz; where, stuck in town, I was forced to spend my night on the porch of a house in construction. All I had to prevent people from seeing me was the dark of the night, and an even darker and shadowy spot camouflaging me, as for my bag, a small cement wall was hiding it. Needless to say, I didn’t slept much; sleeping like a homeless isn’t great sleep, especially knowing you have a computer in your bag, which isn’t very well hidden. So, at 5:30 in the morning, I got up, packed the few things I took out the night before and walked toward the end. Well, I managed to hitchhike two taxis bringing me to the edge. My day look promising, but I rapidly realised it was just an illusion. It seemed I was the first ever hitchhiker to have ever tried this road, as not only no one seemed to stop, but every car would ask me for money. From Yungay to Cerro de Pasco, everyone with a car is a taxi. Even the local assume the role of taxi driver when they go from city to city, making hitchhiking extremely hard and frustrating. To my great surprise, after being refused many ride, fault of money, a taxi saved me once more. Unfortunately, not to long after, it broke down; back on the road. I stayed on the side of the road seeing car passing by until a motorcycle stopped; I hopped on and we left. Not long after are departure, we got to a construction jam. Being on a motor cycle, we got to pass every car that was in line, and by the same mean, everyone who had denied my companionship. Rather than laughing at those bastards, I smiled and saluted them. I guest this gesture was appreciated as the two next rides I got were truck who I passed without stopping which I passed during traffic; I guess it’s good Karma.

I finally got out of one of the truck to head toward Chiquian. Boy was that a bad move!!! I just got even deeper into hitchhiker’s nightmare. I wanted to bypass the major city by using the mountains road, but after reaching this tiny town, I realised that wasn’t an option, and I was stuck in a dead end with only taxi and couch bus to get back out. As every time I got into dead end, I persevered and eventually, a cab driver invited me in. We climbed back toward the high plateau got dropped at the intersection of a foggy and creepy road. The cold from the altitude mixed with the water molecules floating in the air made my wait very uncomfortable, but eventually, my misery stopped as a cab driver once more invited me for a drive. We had a long drive and talk for quite a while. I asked him a bunch of question about his cab driver live, but as we got closer to our destination, he told me he wasn’t a taxi driver but a police officer. I sure did feel awkward as I had told him all the illegal thing I have had to do during my trip, but instead of trying hide what I had say, I kept on going, now trying to use my illegalness to my advantage. As the fog was turning into heavy rain with thunder roll breaking our conversation every now and them, I told him why I needed to break the law once more that night, leaving him in an uncomfortable situation: letting me break the law or forcing me to sleep under the rain. Finally, as we got closer to town, and as the downpour was getting harder and harder, he offered to pass by the police office as he would try to get me a pass-by for the night. He tried, but without success, but instead, told me the church might be able to help me. I tackled the weather for a few minutes and got to the church. I tried to reach the town’s Padre but without luck. Knowing a cop had told me to try, I thought it was something normal for this church, so as tired as always, I took my sleeping bag out and lay down under the Holy Water, the only place long enough for me. I instantly fell asleep, but about an hour later, a door woke me up. I saw a shadowy figure walk my way across the church. It didn’t look like the Padre based on its shape, but as it got closer, I saw a young lady wearing a thick sheet as protection from the cool air of the church. Puzzled seeing a gringo sleeping on the cold tiles from the church, she came toward me and asked me why was I sleeping there? I explained the situation, and asked her if it was ok with her. To my disappointment, since the Padre wasn’t in town to give his benediction, I could stay in. Feeling bad to leave me in the rain, she offered to let me sleep on the church porch, and to keep my bag inside for theft protection. Obviously, this sounded like a pretty awesome idea, so I accepted, and once more, the gringo sleep on in the street under everyone’s eye. Despite being the obvious attraction of the night, the few thunder rolls left and the coolness of the altitude, I slept like a baby.

As I was trying to find the town’s exit, I started talking with one of the town’s security, which turns out to have kept an eye on me all night to make sure I wasn’t bothered, and after a quick laugh at me, whistled at one of the taxi driver to drive to La Union. From there, I started a hard hitchhiking day through rain, dirt, and bumpy road all the way to a small town where I was left in near darkness. Having another fifteen minutes of light, I pulled my thumb out and to my surprise, especially after the day I’ve had, got a ride to the next town. This time, I arrived in pure darkness, but as a reward for my temerity, I found an abandoned house where I found shelter from the ongoing rain. I have to admit being quite lucky since even if it rained every day from Yungay to Lima, I only got hit for 5min (right before Lima), as it would either rain while I was in a car or during the night, where I found shelter every night.

Just another 5-stars hotel

After a day in the dust and without any water left, I walked back toward the gas station where I found the guys from the night before. Surprised to see me, they offered me to hop once more in the truck. They drove me to a mining town where I was invited to eat while one of the guy had to bring something to the mine, and got back on the road for Huayllay. The closer we got to the park, the dark the sky was. Eventually, all hell broke loose and a crazy downpour mixed with hail hit us. It felt quite depressing as we could see the park from where we were, but luck stroke again and just a mile out of the park, the rain stopped and as I explored the stone forest, the blue sky appeared.

I took about 2h to walk along the rocky hills of Huayllay. I got to see different formation such as the Mexican and the Turtle, some ancient pyrography, but the cherry on top of the Sunday was the Cobra. The size of the natural tower most certainly made me feel small, but when I saw the picture of me standing next to it, I felt insignificant.

Can you spot me?

It was now time to aim for Marcahuasi, my last park before Lima. I hitched to the town of Huayllay, and walked to the exit saying Lima, but as it turned out, I walked to the exit leading to the mining field. I accidently got in the mining field with one of the engineer, thinking that was the right way to Canta, and got to hitchhike around the mining roads. It sure did feel weird walking along this moody maze.

Once out of the mine, I realised I wasn’t going to make it to Canta, so I decided to head back toward Huayllay. I walked around the now dark town, and found what looked like an abandoned house. Not too sure based on the thing I found in that house, I decided to put my alarm early in the morning and hit the hay before anyone could find me. Despite my best effort, the next morning, at 6am, as I climbed out of the house, I got caught left handed by the owner of the house. He walked toward me asking where I was from. I explained the situation in my best Spanish. “Hola, I’m from Canada. I’ve being hitchhiking in the region, but got in town late last night. Since the sky was menacing from raining, and I had no money for a hotel, I decided to find an easy shelter. This was my only option. I’m truly sorry for trespassing, but I could camp on this wet grass knowing it was going to pour on me all night.” He listened to me with a smile and replied by saying “I’m relieved you’re Canadian, I just wanted to make sure you weren’t any local guy. It’s too bad you didn’t ask, I could have helped you last night.” We shook hand and he returned to his house. Once more, being a gringo helped me get out of trouble, and once more, I got to see the kindness of Latin America.

I managed to get my first ride quite fast, and for the difficulty level of the road where I was dropped off, my second surprisingly fast two. I had the choice between to roads, the one heading to Canta or the one heading to Huaral. Normally, they are both about the same difficulty level (hitchhikingly speaking), but the road heading to Canta was in construction. I had the “privilege” to tackle 100km of construction roads. There was absolutely no traffic going through this road. My first ride brought me in the middle of nowhere, a middle of nowhere like I’ve never seen, hours from the nearest village, never the less town or city. At least, he asks the guy he was going to see to give me a ride down the road; they both worked on that road construction. A while later, still in this no-man-land, my driver told me he was at destination. I got off, and started waiting. I definitely got luck as one of the construction bus decided to break the law and stop to pick me up. I got down to kilometer 32. From there, no one wanted to pick me up as they all thought they weren’t going far enough, but I managed to argue with one and got a few about 20km off of that “I’m not going far” ride. From there, I had 12km until next town, but once more, those 12km were not worth picking up for as they only take a few minutes by car. One thing that has pissed me off more than anything in this trip is to see how little people seems to realize the difference in time walking and driving has. I’ve had many people not picking me up because they were only going to the next street, hours walking. Finally, a pickup-taxi picked me up to next town, were I got another construction bus ride to Canta; finally, civilisation.

I had no more money on me, only 5 sols (Peruvian money, about 1,75us at the time). I had no more option, I needed to aim to Lima and get some money out. I knew I could of hitch to Marcahuasi first, but the road wasn’t good, and it would of added another 2-3 days with less than a dollar a day.

I got a first ride slightly down the road until it started raining. The old man driving decided to drop me there and turn back to Canta. Alone on the side of the road, I walk under one of the heaviest rain since my departure. I was cold and wet, but I knew I was heading to Lima and had someone’s contact, so I wasn’t down already.

Not too long after being dropped, a bus stopped and picked me up. I told them the usual “No tengo dinero”, but this time, I wasn’t lying. They offered me a few snack and drove me all the way to Lima. The funny thing about this ride was the way law works around the road construction sites. Rather than working on one side of the road for traffic to keep on going, they close the road for an hour. But if you don’t like this, you can just scream at the person holding the stop sign and go through the construction truck without ever getting any permission. No something you see where I’m from.

Lima was for me a place to rest as I had the phone number of a guy telling me I could stay at his house for a weak. But as I got in town, I realised I was on the outer-edge of the city, 4h car drive from the center. I walked with my thumb up on the rushing street of the outskirt of Lima, and without wasting an instant; a truck pulled over and hosted me in. They drove me to the center of the city, and when I showed them the paper with the contact information of my host, they told me he didn’t live in Lima, but in the Huacho, another 4h north of the city, in the Province of Lima. That proved to be bad news as I was stuck in a huge city without any place to sleep. One of the guys invited me to shower at his apartment; at least, I could come out of Lima clean.

After taking my shower, I decided to try getting out of the city. I had a few minutes of Sun light, but rapidly night came to slow my search for a way out. I found a gas station and decided to go talk to every truck that would halt there. I rapidly made friends with the security guards and one of the mechanics working there. It took me up until 1am to find a truck capable of bringing me out of Lima. Unfortunately, I miss understood where they were going, and ended up stuck once more in the middle of Lima, but this time, without gas station. I had very few options left; sleep on the street or hitchhike all night.

I started walking along the near deserted highway, and to my surprise got a bus to except me freely for a few kilometers. At the intersection of two highways, I got off, hopped over the fence, and raised my thumb once more. This time, it took me little bit longer, but once more, a bus saved me and stopped. At the end of the bus ride, one of the passengers gave me a few dollars for me to take one more bus out of town.

As I was waiting for my bus, I made friends with a family heading to Ica, and as I told them my story, and all my crazy experiences, they offered me a couch bus ride to Pisco. We waited and waited until 3:30am came about. Finally, our bus had arrived. We got in and I knock out on my seat up until 6am when the Sun woke me up.

At 7am, I got out of the bus, and started hitching toward the desert of Paracas. I walked for quite a while, but eventually, got three rides down to the desert. From there, a family picked me up and brought me to the beach. I went for a swim, and once more knock out on the sandy beach. I woke up before getting Sun burns, and realised the beach wasn’t the best spot for me; I needed to keep moving to stay awake. I walked back toward the Pisco, and got a ride from one of my earlier ride. A few rides later, I got to Ica, and finally to Huacachina.

Huacachina is a well-known place in Peru, especially for their Tubular ride. Of course, I wasn’t going to pass by this crazy opportunity. I purchased a ticket for the two hour ride got in the buggy and there we went. The buggy climbed the dunes, and as we got to the summit, the action started. We started to ride around the dunes picking up more and more speed, climbing steeper and steeper hill, followed by their descent, always steeper. We stopped at a first dune, and were given sandboard. No one tried to stand up on them as the driver had given quite heavy warning, as for me, I had dine a little sandboarding before in Idaho, and so there was no way I was going to slide down on my butt. My first try wasn’t crazy, but I got down, my second was a little better, but my third was a major failure as I just tumbled down the hill. We got back in the Tubular and kept riding. The ride was getting even more intense as we would drift of the side of the different dunes surrounding us at incredible speed. We were thrown left and ride, and up and down. We finally got to a second dune, this time, it was twice the size. Once more, I took the sandboard and started sliding. I picked up speed like I have never picked up speed on one of those. I actually got too scared to finish the descent and through myself on the ground, but I wasn’t vanquished. I climbed the hill, waxed my board again, and tried it once more, this time I got all the way down, and collected enough speed to start climbing the dune in front of me. We drove to a third dune even bigger and with a blind spot as I would have to improvise the end of my slide, and finally headed back to the road.

After so much time on the road, I guess its time for a little offroad

Sun was now at rest, but I wasn’t. I needed to find a place to sleep, and I was tired. After nearly two days without sleep, I needed to find a place to rest in peace. I walked for about an hour and a half toward the edge of town and found a small field where I put up my tent. I slept like nothing could bother me, and nothing did.

The next day, I had to stand quite a long time on the side of the road until I found a ride to the next town, then another, and another. Some people had given me a few mangos for the ride and finally, a truck pulled over and told me to hop in one of the PVC pipe doughnut for a ride toward the Nasca Lines. As I got in, I got surprised by at least ten Colombians riding in the truck illegally. They were heading toward Bolivia for a Football match (or Soccer). They seemed friendly, and when I saw they were eating mango, I offered them a few more as I had two bags full of them.

A little down the road, we stopped to refill on food and water, but thing didn’t get the way I expected. One of the guys robbed one of the local stores, he got caught and a fight between the local and the Colombians started, a verbal fight, without punches of course. When I realised I was in a truck with crooks and that we were going to be stuck there for a while, I decided to jump off the truck and hitch another ride, but it turns out they hadn’t limited themselves to the store as they had also stole my cap, which was attached to my bag. I jumped back in the truck and started to look around to find it, and told the guy to give it back, but as I was looking, the other fight stopped, and the truck got back on the road. I was now stuck with robbers and couldn’t get out. The next hour was horrible, I wasn’t sure what to do, to that point, I had told them my hat had fallen, making sure not to confront them while stuck on a moving truck with nowhere to go. That being said, I sure didn’t have the smile I had at the beginning, and every time they talk to me, I would close the conversation. Finally, once at the Nasca Lines, I got off, and decided it wasn’t worth fighting for as I would waste another half hour, so I jumped off without saying bye and got to the lookout. That was it, on February 27th 2016; I got robbed for the first time while being hitchhiking. It took me over 55’000km and over 277 days on the road for this to happen, so yes it is possible to be robbed, but it is still very unlikely.

Still not knowing they were going to rob me

I paid the 3 soles to go up the look out and saw two of the many drawings left by the Inca thousands of years ago. Maybe my mood affected my perspective, but it sure was a letdown as the only two drawings we can see weren’t the most impressive. Disappointed, I tried to hitchhike to Nasca and got a small ride from a motorcycle to the next lookout where we can only see straight lines and no drawing. I talked with my driver and he invited me to stay at his place for the night, but as the conversation was going, I noticed there was something else on his mind. The guy was clearly gay, and he enjoyed a little too much hugging me for my unfortunate ride with the Colombians. I needed to get out of my invitation, but without looking bad. Time was my way out. It was 2pm, so I told the guy to give me his phone number and I would call him in Nasca at seven, when he would come back from work. On the other hand, I told him I still had a lot of road to Cuzco and I was going to keep hitchhiking, so if I were to get a ride before nightfall, I would be calling him. I guess I got lucky since I not only got a ride out of Nasca, but a two day drive all the way to Cuzco.

I indeed got a ride to Puquio where I slept on the flatbed of the truck for the night. I slept quite well, but woke up covered in water. At 5am, the driver woke me up, so I packed everything but my sleeping bag, and got in the front to keep sleeping for a little while. About an hour later, some guy stopped us and asked us to help him out. Due to the heavy fog from the night before, he had crashed his truck in the ditch. Having grappling hook, we decided to help him out. We backtracked to the crashed truck, and started filling the ditch with rocks to help level the truck and eventually have it roll out. I help the best I could, but altitude sickness was showing itself and so I tried to minimize the heavy lifting while still giving a hand. With the help of another truck, we got to pull the 26-wheeler out of the ditch. I got to say, as far as safety goes, we are far from the norms I see at school. No one wares a helmet, and guys are under the truck when we were lifting it. At some point, as our truck was lifting the other, I noticed it was starting to tilt, to the point where no more wheels were on the ground, only the extra support, I screamed to stop lifting, and the guy stopped a released the cable, but the other truck also fell down, fortunately, the guy playing under the wheel only got hit to the head by a floor of the truck, and no one got hurt, but still, rather than wait for extra professional help, they just kept working as if nothing had happened and taking the same risk. Talk about a different lifestyle.

We kept on riding all day and part of the night, but eventually, I was starting to feel sore from the many hours stuck in a sitting position, so I called it a day, and hopped off the truck. I knew I was close the intersection heading to Urubamba, and eventually the Machu Picchu. I walk around town, and found a house in construction. I sneaked in, put my alarm for early in the morning and went to sleep. His house turned out more useful than I thought as a down poor hit the town during the night.

It took me few rides, but I managed to reach the end of the road heading to Machu Picchu by 10am the next day. I wanted to take the train, but it turns out they didn’t except more passengers at that station. I had two options, hitchhike back to Urubamba and take the train, or walk the train track’s trail all the way to the ruins. Due to budget issues, I thought the trail was my best bet, thinking I might be able the hitch the train on the way back. That being said, 28km were separating me from the touristy town of Machu Picchu. It took me 7h45min before I got to town. There, I got to eat at an expensive restaurant, as there is nothing cheap out there and got an email from my parents.

Finally, km 110; the end of the hike

Hi Eric,

As we don’t want to slow you down on your trip, we have decided to pay you a plane ticket to come meet us in Bolivia like we have planned. Like this, you can keep on hitchhiking down south, and you won’t be stuck in the cold of early Patagonian winter. We took a flight that is stopping in Cuzco, giving us the opportunity to visit the Machu Picchu. Does it work for you?

Now that was some news. I now didn’t have to pay the 30us to enter the ruins, plus the 45us for the train back, plus the way to expensive food, all I had to do was walk back toward civilisation and enjoy the Machu Picchu under more relax condition. I sure hopped I had read this mail before walking 28km, but better now than after.

I walked back to the edge of town, and found a place to through my tent. I didn’t get to sleep well as I was just five feet from the train track, and as it rained for a good portion of the night leaving few ponds of water on the corners of my tent. The next morning, I got up, packed my stuff, and started my walk. The three blisters under my foot didn’t take too long to find another two companions to annoy me for the next 7h of walking along the train track. This hike had one more annoying thing, it finished on a dead-end road with no traffic, and so instead of walking 56km over two days, I got to walk 62,5km, definitely a personal record. It took me few rides, but I managed to win Urubamba by nightfall. Devastated by my walk, I walked through town, trying to find a place to eat, and eventually, walked to the next town to find a place to sleep. After more than an hour searching for protection from the menacing thunder show down the road, I found what I thought were the toilets for a construction site. I got in, took care of my blisters and went to sleep. Unfortunately, I rapidly realised that it wasn’t a construction site, but a private house. The guys living in the house had not seen me, but I most definitely didn’t wanted to be kick out in the middle of the night when one of the guys were to use his bathroom, only to be surprised by a crazy gringo sleeping on the floor, so I got up, put my pants and knocked on their door.

“Hi, sorry to bother, but I was walking, trying to find a place to shelter from the coming rain, and when I saw the that the second floor of this house in construction, I supposed no one was living here, so I decided to spend the night sleeping on your bathroom floor. I’m terribly sorry, and if you guy want, I can pack my stuff and keep on searching. Do you think it’s a problem if I spend my night in your bathroom?”

The guys laughed and told me it was ok, but only if it was for only one night. Perfect, I have a place to sleep, protection from the rain, and I can sleep in tomorrow. The bathroom floor was a little too small, but it didn’t matter.

The next morning, I hitchhiked toward Puno, bypassing Cuzco, and managed to reach Ayaviri. From there, I was invited to try the local Kankacho (lamp) which was incredible and discovered to existence of Tinajani, a beautiful canyon in the region. Rather than keeping on heading toward Bolivia, I decided to explore the canyon. Reaching it a bit late in the afternoon, I didn’t get to explore it fully, before having to look for a place to sleep. That being said, nature had provided me the luxury of a shelter: a cave. Yes, for the second time of my life, I get to be a caveman. The cave was deep enough to protect me from the rain, far enough to hide me from the road, and had a soft and nearly leveled sand floor. This has to be one of the best nights I’ve got to sleep outside.

Call me Eric the Caveman

The next morning, I got to explore the canyon, and hitchhiked twice the same motorcycle, once to the farthest point of the canyon, and another (totally random) once I was in the other side, heading back in town.

I found a little restaurant as I wanted to taste one last time the delicious Kankacho, and took the opportunity to plan my next move in Bolivia. I stayed for two hours, and as I headed to pay the lady that owned the restaurant, she told me “It’ll be 13 soles.” I instantly realised there was a problem as she had told me previously it was 10, but she replied by saying, “Yes the meal is 10 soles, but you use your computer, so now it’s 13.”

“Why is that, you don’t have internet, that doesn’t make any sense” I replied a little frustrated.

“No, but you used the electricity, so its 3 soles more.”

We argued for quite a while, as I believe she needed to tell me I had to pay for electricity consumption before I started using it rather than after. This gives me the opportunity to make a decision, not the other way around which is just using me as a way to make money. Finally, after realising she wasn’t going to back down, I just threw her (figuratively) 10 soles, and walked out. I felt insulted by her. This was the first time someone had asked for money for electricity use, I knew she just wanted to take advantage of me. Thankfully, without even trying, I got a ride out of town which got my head out of it.

With that ride, I got to Juliaca. As I was walking through the city, an older lady started talking with me, and as I explained my story, she stopped one of the bicycle taxis, and offered to pay for my ride to the center of the city. That helped me cross a big part of the city, but from there, I walked. Finally, after a long walk and two other car rides, I reached the exit of Puno, and another two rides later, I had reached Juli.

I tried to hitch one last ride hoping to reach the border, but luck wasn’t on my side. Furthermore, my luck only got worst and worst throughout the night. I found a small abandoned house on the side of the road, and decided to stay there for the night, but in the middle of my sleep, (it was 9pm, but I fell asleep at 7pm) I got woken up by a flashlight blinding me and telling me to get out. I tried to talk my way through, but despite all the incredible people I’ve got to meet throughout my trips, I will always find that one person who just doesn’t give a damn about anyone but themselves. So, not having any other options, I walked for another hour despite the more and more painful blister growing and getting infected on my feet, and finally found a place where I could put up my tent. Finally, a place to sleep, I thought, but no. At 1am, a huge thunderstorm raged out in the near distance. I looked at the sky above my head, which was full of stars, but could see a cloud slowly eating them away. The rain never got to me, but needless to say I didn’t sleep well.

As I was walking to a nice place to hitch, I noticed a thick dark line falling from the cloud. I didn’t knew what it was, and looked quite odd. I started to think it was a tornado or a twister, and within five minutes, the thick line had grown and was now connecting the cloud with Lake Titicaca. This was a tornado!!!! What are the odds of hitchhiking toward a tornado? The weirdest of it all was that despite not being standing too far from the tornado, there was not a glimpse of wind; it was a perfectly calm day with a blue sky above my head. This tornado definitely was the result of the thunderstorm from the night before. This crazy moment lasted a good fifteen minutes, ten of touchdown. I asked a few people about it, and it turns out no one had ever seen one in there live, so I guess it isn’t a common thing. Furthermore, no one I talked with had seen the tornado. I guess I’m luckier than I thought.