Days 52/53/54 - Lima, Peru

The next 3 days were spent in Lima, enjoying the large Peruvian capital city of 8 million people.  We stayed at José and Lisa's home (Lisa is RobC's daughter).  Fantastic hosts!!!!

RobC and his Lima family.

Little Laura, 27 months old.


The first day was dedicated to laundry, having the motorcycles washed, tracking down tires and a body repair shop for the Jessie pannier I managed to deform with the utmost grace and dignity.  We drove around to 4 of the larger motorcycle shops, but couldn't find a 19-inch front tire for RobC's 1150GS.  The other thing, we could only find 140/80 rear tires. Both of our bikes typically use the 150/70 size, thus the new ones would be a bit narrower and a bit higher.  We finally located a Metzler importer and planned to pick up the 2 tires I needed and a rear tire for RobC.  He was going to continue using the front he had, as it still had quite a bit of tread.  After 10,000 miles, 15,000 km for me, his tires still looked quite good, but my front was past the wear indicators.  I'm a little hard on front tires.

The second day José and I went to pick up the Metzlers but while enroute RobC called. Being a former Lima buyer for a large mission, he wasn't about to give up on getting his front tire.  He found a KTM dealer that had our tires including his rare 19-inch front, but the brand was different.  Continental TKC-80 knobbies.  YES!  We detoured and headed for the KTM shop instead.  We got there, looked at the tires and I bought 2 sets for the same price I would have bought one set back home, 370 USD.  They were going to send the rare 19-inch front from the warehouse across town and we could pick up all four tires the following day.

We had to get a shot of the BMWs in front of the KTM shop in Lima.  Yes, controlled access to the showroom ... like many stores.

The third day was all about the bikes and, as we suspected, it took the whole morning just to pick up the tires.  No, the 19-inch tire did not come in as we were told, so we picked up the three tires and strapped them to the bikes.  We then made our way across town to the warehouse where the fourth tire was located.  To get into the warehouse we had to first show our passports, slide them through a slot at the guarded/barred kiosk and then had to be systematically let through a series of locked doors, much like a prison.  Unreal.  When we got to the warehouse I also noticed that two of the tires we had bungied to our bikes were the wrong size so we had to make our way back to the KTM showroom after we were done at the warehouse.

Around noon we left the bikes at an independent repair shop to get the tires mounted and my pannier fixed (the KTM dealership did not do any service work or tire mounting at all, strictly a show room).  By the way, the BMW shop was also just a showroom and had very little in the way of accessories and they didn't have any tires.

We then went with Rob's family to La Mar for lunch ... wow!  This restaurant belongs to the famous Peruvian chef and restauranteur, Gastón Acuria, who is building restaurants all around Peru and in different countries. The menu ... well, it reads like a novel!!!  Sooo much selection.

José and Laura, inspecting an assortment of "causas" - a base of yellow Peruvian potatoes, decorated with different toppings.

5 different kinds of Ceviche. Let's see, there were: traditional sea bass, exotic with special sauce, mixed, Japanese style, and mussels.

Saltado de marsicos Pacifico.

Northern coast rice and shellfish.

Proud Opa RobC and granddaughter Laura.

After lunch (and a nap) we picked up the bikes from Motoperformance on Ave. República de Panamá (block 53-for reference).  The work they had done was top notch.  I was very happy with what they had accomplished in straightening my pannier and they serviced my chain when they mounted the rear tire.  Excellent! Ready for departure tomorrow, continuing south and inland toward Cuzco, after 3 super days in Lima.


Following are some miscellaneous video clips we couldn't upload previously due to poor Internet connections.

White (murkey) water rafting, Baños, Ecuador
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_F6sgK39fg

Quito, Ecuador, city driving - as it should be back home.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PRwVe8LmRo