March 10-11, 2010

Well, after my lovely episode with the Policia Carreteras, I continued on south to Lima. I did not like this portion of riding.

wow.

Riding in Lima wasn’t exactly picturesque, nor really as bad as I’d been prepared to believe, but upon entering I discovered that my horn had died.  what irony, because Peru is the honking capital of the southern hemisphere. Even after a few weeks here I have yet to earn all the nuances of he ‘art of the beep’, but so far I can tell you I have observed beeping before passing, beeping while passing, beeping at oncoming traffic, beeping at animals, beeping for someone to move over so they CAN be passed, beeping to say hello, beeping to say goodbye, taxis beep at you as they pass to see if you want to hire them, beeping before tunnels, beeping before curves in the road, and, well, you beeping get the picture. It’s quite noisy out on the road.

Construction + traffic + no clear indication as to where to go = NICE!

I decide to follow this fellow.

Ah that’s more like what I was expecting…

So my (hornless) strategy is to tuck in behind this truck, and just follow him. I figure he will take longer t stop than I, he’s not going to change lanes so much, and people won’t try to merge into him. It works, and I get safely to my destination, Moto Performance Peru, after only 2.5 hours of circles around Lima.

I am impressed.  First motorcycle repair place I have ever been to where they have a wash stall for the bike (is that a hint?) Very good to wash the bikes FIrST before servicing them;  make problems easier to see and saves getting dirt into problem places.

Um. You think my bike needed a bath?

BEFORE.

AFTER.

Left my bike t the shop and took a taxi to the Flying Dog Hostal. Hostal Kitty–reminds me of Big Orange–only smaller.

March 11, 2010

So guess what?!? The reason my chain broke was because the mechanic in the Suzuki dealership in panama City put my (then new) front sprocket on backwards…so my chain was not traveling in a straight line. the torque on the chain put unnecessary pressure on my master link, and since that was literally the weakest link, ka-blam!

Here’s a picture of the 520 (emergency) master link I installed a few days ago, as compared to the size and strength of the 525 link I *should* have had.

sprocket, fixed!

The bad news is that there is not a 525 master link to be had in the entire city of Lima. Gaston called everywhere for me (prior to my arriving in town) and Ricardo at Moto Performance Peru could find one either. The only solution was for me to buy another chain (this makes the 4th one I have bought on this trip!!!) And no, the people that sold the 525 chain w0uld not sell just the master link. Grrr. So I had to pend $110 for something that if I had the $4 part… GRRR!

Voila! In and out the next day. It’s Friday nd I see no reason to hang around Lima.

A nice, clean bike to ride (complete with a new, honkin’ loud car horn–they could not find me a motorcycle horn). Ever hear a car horn that’s not under a car hood?

Getting out of Lima is a lot easier than getting in, and soon enough I know I  am headed to the beach by what’s for sale roadside…