Finding First Gear

So I bought a bike... and started a blog!

I guess I should start with saying I have met plenty of people who have done this, which is where the inspiration to do this came from.  So before you say I'm crazy, know that I am crazy, but safe.  Believe me my driving is much more safe then the typical Peruvian bus driver.  So that's my disclaimer.

So up in Huaraz when I was staying up at The Way I started to ride moto's (being trucks or bikes) and realized that riding a motorcycle would be the ideal way of travelling through South America.  Justin, my crazy Aussie friend, thought the same thing.  We talked about potentially buying bikes and riding up to Colombia, but I figured it would never actually happen.  So I left Huaraz with the possibility of meeting Justin in Huanchaco.  After meeting a girl in Lima telling her this plan and her asking me why I didn't think it was going to happen I responded "oh, I come up with these crazy ideas all the time, they never happen".  She told me I had to do it, I had to make one of these crazy ideas work and this is the perfect opportunity to do so.  After thinking about it, I realized she was right, I have to do this.

So to Huanchaco I went and spent the days surfing and lounging around dreaming about life on a bike and then bam... Justin randomly showed up one morning from Huaraz and we made plans to go to Trujillo the next day and look for bikes.  If it wasn't for this crazy Aussie I probably would of never been able to pull this off and it certainally isn't because of his bad Spanish speaking skills, but more because of having someone to laugh at the ridiculousness of trying to buy a bike in a foreign language that you can hardly say you speak.

So we took a combi to Trujillo and got off as soon as wee saw a Honda dealership.  I walked in and saw a xr125 pointed and asked, "caunto es?"  Justin walked up and saw a xr 250 and did the same.  Then it took about four hours of using google translate going back and forth trying to figure out what each other were saying and we had bikes, but no plates.  Off to Huanchaco we went.  I have to admit I was a little nervous riding back, but soon found out that one learns how to ride in Peru quickly.

We are currently waiting for our plates in Huanchaco, which should take ten days since we talked the manager into it.  I am pretty sure he is just going to offer a bribe to speed up the process.  When we went back today they said they wanted to take a picture of us with our bike when we bring them in to hang on the wall.