Diary Entry
The car stays intact when driving out of Lima, but new problems arise anyway. During one of the frequent police checks, I notice that the car is no longer registered. The small check card must have slipped out of my pocket at some point in the last few days. And away.
Luckily the policeman doesn’t want to see them and we can continue. Nevertheless, we now have to see if we can get a new one to be able to cross the border into Ecuador.
Day 4 without a breakdown
The day is monotonous. The weather is cloudy and we drive hundreds of kilometers on the unromantic Panamericana. The barren landscape just flies past us. The highway now has multiple lanes and trucks thunder in all directions.
We now have to celebrate when we have a day without a breakdown with the car. I still notice new damage to the car. The extra front lights must have been on for the last few hours and the heat from the lights melted the plastic covers. At least Leon had fun in the driver’s seat.
In the afternoon we stop at a truck driver’s shelter. The area is not considered very safe. In the IOverlader app, many travelers report armed robberies on their campers. So we look for a place with light and security. The place is safe but very noisy. From seven o’clock in the evening one heavy truck after the other arrives and sets itself up. But even in the middle of the night, trucks come and go with a great deal of noise.
Day 5 without a breakdown
There really isn’t much sleep at night, but it was safe for that. A highly motivated old man gives me coffee and tea from the small restaurant.
Finally, the toilet that we’ve been waiting for all night is unlocked again.
We continue on the Panamericana. It’s either through a landscape of dunes, a desert of boulders, or an ugly city that looks like the last resort of civilization after a nuclear war. At least it gets partly greener. We see some rice fields and sugar cane plantations.
We stay overnight at other trucker hangouts or gas stations for the next few nights. While the route is consistently very dreary, the small town of Tortugas on the coast provides a ray of hope.
