After more than a month of driving chicken bus roads, where our typical day’s average speed hovered around 20 to 30 kilometers per hour (12.5 – 18.6 mph), it was heaven to be on the Panamericana cruising along at a blistering 80 – 100 kph (49.7 – 62 mph).
We were so enamored with the smooth asphalt and warp speed we were able to more-or-less ignore the pervasive, endless-border-town creepiness of the Panamericana.
As I hummed along with the first music pumped out of the stereo in months, I plotted the hundreds of kilometers we’d make in the remaining hours of the day. I planned to drive deep into the night to make up for the many hours of errands and provisioning we expended before our departure.
My mental map was well up the coast toward our destination at a small coastal village for a GivingPictures project when my daydreams were shattered by an explosion from the rear of the Fuso.
Click here for the rest of the story: http://www.hackneys.com/travel/peru/docs/thepromisedland.pdf
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Sure sounds a lot less ominous after the fact!
Interesting tire story. In my career of traveling by road all over the US, I’ve had my share of shopping for a tire or tires in some of the darnest places. On the whole, though, your experience eclipsis mine by a mile (several kilometers?). However, I have spent a fair amount of time waiting for a tire shop to open in some out-of-the-way burg, all the while hoping and praying that they have the right size tire for some of the strange vehicles I’ve managed to acquire and drive over the years, such as a Jaguar 120 sedan, which had big ol’ 16-inch tires (or tyres, if you prefer the British spelling, which, of course, the Jag manual did). Spent several days in El Paso, TX waiting for it to come in. I didn’t have enough money to buy the tire AND stay in a motel, so I ended up sleeping in a roadside park outside of town. No Fed Ex or UPS in those days. Had to wait for the tire truck from Dallas to get there. Man, I was anxious to get home, too. Had a girl friend waiting for me. No cell phones in those days, either, so I had to do a lot of collect calls from a phone booth. No particular fear of bandidos, however, although they were probably there; they just didn’t find me, praise be.
I have always tried to avoid driving at night in areas of the unknown.
Wow! How scary for you both. Glad it all worked out and may the rubber be with you on your future travels! đ