a self-supported bicycle tour through South America

Huaraz - Lima

Sorry for the slight delay in getting the blog to you (especially Andy, I know how you like the news) but we’ve been pretty busy!

So, Lima is almost over. We sit here in the departure lounge pretty glad we are almost at the end of our (hopefully) last major travel excursion that doesn’t involve us cycling.

We made it to Lima on the night bus from Huaraz, in a relatively painless manner with the noticeable exception of Jen, who was kept awake by the bloke behind us who started to snore! Ironically, I was silent throughout the journey which makes a change to most nights apparently, but for those that know me, it’s no wonder I never woke to hear him. Funnily enough, this morning when I woke up to breakfast arriving at the door for 6am, Jen asked if I felt the slight earthquake tremor a few minutes earlier. It didn’t surprise me that I never knew anything of it, as I slept through the October storms way back in the 80’s when our willow tree blew down and crashed through our neighbours’ roof!

As it turned out, our main purpose in Lima was to get our visa issue sorted out as the prospect of not getting out of Peru, or being deported hung over us like a black cloud; my main concern being that of Bubba, the soap and a Peruvian jail.

The absolutely useless Sheraton hotel, which we booked because we knew we needed assistance from the Concierge and Business Centre to get everything resolved, like visa’s, bike servicing, bike boxes etc were useless in a nutshell (apart from Emily who was very helpful!). We asked the Concierge (whom it must be said never frigging works, apart from between the hours of 3-4am on 29^th February) to help us because of the Spanish/English translation issue by phoning the Immigration Office to see where we needed to go? He then directed us to the Immigration office and yes we were told it was open on a Saturday until 1700. When we got there at 1230 the sign on the door advised that they closed at 1200. So, back to the concierge who then directed us to the airport to see a lady called Rita or some other chap (I forget his name). Upon arrival at the airport, a 30 minute taxi ride out of the city centre, we eventually made it to an office where a woman (Erica) sat. She kind of understood what we were asking; however when she saw our piece of paper with the name of Rita on it, decided to make a phone call to her. She told us to go upstairs near international departures and wait at some security counter for Rita to meet us.

Cutting a long story short, she never arrived, but another man from her department did. He went away and then re-appeared and basically said that as we were not flying and didn’t have a boarding card for a flight, we’d have to go to the central immigration office in Lima! And the office wasn’t open until Monday.

So, having spent all of Saturday racing around and achieving nothing, on Monday we got to the immigration office early at about 08:00hrs in time for opening. Again, we got the run around within minutes, and then eventually were sat down in from of a man who appeared to be able to stamp our passports. They were really confused as to our story. “You arrived by bike into Peru?!!!” I could see him thinking “Why haven’t they got a visa stamp?” Durh! Why do you think we’re here? We’re honest people trying to make this easy! As it’s somewhat of a long story I’ll try to keep it short. We ended up in front of the devil woman in disguise. I can’t think of the character from a film I saw, but she looked and sounded exactly like her. This woman was a man-hater, she obviously hadn’t had it in ages and I can see why! Unfortunately I should have recorded her vile voice and posted it on the site. After a lot of words from her and us not understanding a thing, a Bolivian man explained that the she-devil needed a letter in Spanish explaining exactly what happened and that it needed a Notario (kind of like a legal authority) to confirm the translation from our English.

Ok then. We raced back to the hotel to see if the illusive Concierge could help us but of course he wasn’t there. The hugely helpful Emily on the other hand came up trumps and sent us a few clicks across the city to an official translator who could help us ASAP. We arrived at the office, typed up a letter, she translated, stamped and signed it and we returned to the immigration office without bothering to get the Notario to stamp it, basically because we were running out of time, the immigration office would be closing at 13:00hrs.

Again, we were in front of the she-devil, now she was saying “ok, I help you. You pay 13 soles at bank downstairs”, off we went. Now we were presented with a queue of about 100 people lined up outside the bank to pay what is basically £2 each!

1.5 hrs later: Again in front of the she-devil, now she thumbs through my passport page by page for the 34^th time, and remarks that our letter does not have the date we arrived in Peru (this was in fact on the form she gave us and that we had signed in front of her). At this point, she started shouting; I started getting pretty pissed off and was about ready to drop her.

Anyhow, her assistant (superior) decided to show it to the boss-man and the forms came back with a stamp. The she-devil now reluctantly starting stamping the mountain of paperwork and translations we had accrued in triplicate and handed me my passport with a visa for 60 days..hoo-frigging-ray!

Once Jen had her passport and visa, we walked around the corner grinning and burst out into laughter having finally got the damn visa, like we’d won the lottery or something; it was finally over, objective accomplished.

Alongside all this we also had to get the bikes boxed for the flight to Cuzco (where we would visit Machu Picchu from). This is quite a tough task to explain in Espanglais. However, by a stroke of luck our dear friend Julio Olaza back in Huaraz recommended Peru Bikes. After a couple of emails to them, a very charming man and his younger assistant turned up to collect the bikes. They took them away and serviced, cleaned and boxed them all for the fantastic value for money sum of $81; and turned up the next day with them back at the hotel. This is the kind of service that is so rare, and if it weren’t for them, we’d still be in the Sheraton taping small boxes together in a vain hope to cover the bikes enough to protect them for the flight.

A small amount of shopping had to be done whilst we were here, namely some slightly better walking shoes than the crocs we have, oh and a haircut for me and some waxing for Jen.

Departure day came and we made our way in the hotel taxi to the airport hoping to check-in without too much fuss; I always worry about this part. It was chaotic as expected, and manoeuvring the sorry excuse for a luggage trolley, made life real easy (not). After working out it was more stable and headed in the intended direction going backwards we made our way to the check-in desk.

It will come as no surprise that they wanted to fleece us for as much as they could. They took one look at the bike boxes and got the tape measure out. After deciding that the box was indeed oversize, she informed us that we’d have to pay a surcharge. “Of course” I said, this was acceptable having read the luggage restrictions on the web. But she insisted that we’d have to pay $100 extra per bike! The tickets were only $50 each, come on! Anyhow, I insisted on speaking to the manager who turned up promptly and the discussion ensued. A few minutes later she saw my side of things and I think decided that it was slightly over the top charging an extra $200 and decided that we’d only have to pay $100 for the two bikes now (sometimes it does pay to challenge and argue the toss).

Finally for those of you interested, Lima makes London look like Lisbon! It’s grey for most the year with a horrible smog and overcast skies, apparently brightening up for a short three months when the beaches come alive. There is however pretty good surfing and paragliding all year round.

Speak to you in Cuzco! [Simon]