Day 96: Dinosaurs footprints in Sucre
We had been meaning to visit the world's longest dinosaur tracks, cretaceous titanosaurus, near Sucre since we had arrived in Sucre but of course we left it for the last day. The tracks had only been discovered in around about 1994 being revealed by a small landslide caused by some commercial earthworks. If you enlarge the picture below and look carefully at the tracks on the wall, which is actually a prehistoric swamp now turned on its side, you can see actual fossilised dinosaur foot prints (we think they were actually just made by a man with really big boots but hey who are we to say).
Day 97 to to 99: Bus trip from hell
We spent our last day in Sucre running around buying everything we possibly could need as we would soon be leaving Bolivia, the cheapest country that we would be visiting on our trip.
That afternoon we thanked our local families for having us, said a few good-byes to people we'd met in Sucre and headed off to the terminal terestria, bus station, to catch the overnight 12hr bus to La Paz. Given that we had a 40hr, all in total, all in total bus trip ahead I splashed out an extra 40 bob ($4) for the suite cama seat while Mark chose to go with our usual semi-cama option. This meant we went in different buses but still left and arrived there at the same time and since we would be sleeping the whole way there anyway we decided that wasn't a problem.
We both had a good bus trip and met up in La Paz as planned. 2hrs later we were on a what was supposed to be a 26hr bus trip to Lima, crossing the into Peru early on in the trip. We got to the border and didn't have any hassles really but of course as predicted the Bolivian officials turned to the page where our old visas were instead of looking at the page we had handed them and started asking why were over our visa expiration date. After politely pointing out the visa extension on the page we had originally handed them they tried to think up something else to hassle us about but couldn't so off we went. On the Peru side they just gave us another 90 days, even though we have already been in Peru for almost on 2 months, no questions asked!
The rest of the trip was pretty painful. The lady sitting behind us thought it was a great idea to take her 3 year old daughter on a 26hr bus trip which I could have told her from the start was a bad idea but of course she wasn't the one having her hair pulled and chair kicked for what turned out to be 30hrs was she?! Our bus only got to Arequipa at about 10pm instead of 7pm so by this stage we knew we were running way behind schedule but hey what else can you do besides just sit back and watch your 5th Vin Diesel movie for the night.
Luckily we had planned to staying with David in Lima, the friend we had met through the couch surfing website the first time we stayed in there, so we could go straight to his place when we arrived in Lima. Unfortunately, there's no wrest for the wicked and we still needed to finish preparing for our visit to the South African embassy the next morning but man it was good to be back 'home'!
Day 100: Visit to the embassy
While cycling on the southern coast of Peru we had watched the final of the Confederations Cup final taking place in South Africa and had seen an interview with the South African Ambassador to Peru, HE A Lesley Manley. During our cycling trip we had noticed that a lot of people did not know much about South Africa and that the Football World Cup would soon be taking place there. And so, I decided to get in contact with the embassy to find out if they could assist us with some promotional goods for the next leg of our cycle trip and included a link to this blog.
Counsellor Hester Pretorius responded very positively saying that she had had a look at the blog and that they would like to invite us to the embassy to meet the staff and collect some promotional goods. Given timing issues when we arrived in Lima we were not able to meet up immediately so, to cut a long story short, we were invited to the embassy on our return to Lima and for some hospitality and were asked to present to their staff on our experiences while cycling through South America. We of course were delighted by the generous offer and set a day and time to visit.
Being aware that the ambassador would be in attendance we were quite concerned about our rather ruged appearance and of course lack of attire for this level of company but figured if they had seen the blog and knew we were cycling around the continent the expectations couldn't be too high. I attempted to tidy the beard but got overly zealous and landed up making a nice big dent in it so off it all went. The embassy was in a somewhat smarter part of town so when we arrived outside of the embassy we felt quite out what with all the suits walking around but all we could do was laugh at ourselves, me in shorts and Mark in slip slops and sporting a lovely beard.
Once in the embassy it was all very relaxed and we finally got to meet Hester who we had been
corresponding with and were then introduced to Ambassador Manley who himself is an incredibly friendly and interesting guy. After setting up we met and presented to the Ambassador's wife, Charlise, the Ambassador and most of the staff at the embassy about our cycling and travelling experience in South America. We mostly focused on Peru but as the Ambassador is also the non-resident Ambassador to Bolivia, Ecuador and Panama everywhere we had been had some relevance. We were also presented with a gift of all sorts of exciting promotional stuff like little soccer balls, stationary and caps etc. that we are very excited to handout to the people as we head down the coast (fortunately all very light so doesn't add much weight to bikes).
It was great meeting everyone one at the embassy, it was like being in a little piece of South Africa but just in the heart of Lima. There are also quite a few Peruvians working at the embassy who we enjoyed chatting to trying our best to use the Spanish we had learnt so far. That evening we met up with Hester and Frans from the embassy and enjoyed some great conversation over what will be one of our last good meals and drinks for a while. It was just so interesting hearing about their lives here in Lima and also their past postings and experiences elsewhere in the world but over all just great to be in the company of some good old South African warmth and rather zealous chit chat.
Day 101: Collecting bikes and prep
This morning we woke-up a little tender having only got in after midnight and having enjoyed a good couple of German beers with Frans the night before but we had had to be up early to collect our bikes as planned. We collected our bikes from Mark's family friends place just up the highway and given it was peak hour traffic we definitely had a baptism of fire back into the cycling world but man it was good to have our bikes back!
We have tested out our new MSR DragonFly camping stove, packed out bags, done our last minute shopping and we are all set to set off for the roughly 2 month trip to Santiago first thing in the morning!
Thanks to everyone who has made our time on and off the bikes so interesting and so much fun!
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