Adventures in Peru
As many of you know, I had surgery last spring to repair my knee after completely severing my ACL in half and getting a bucket handle tear of my meniscus. The recovery process has felt slow and has been extremely painful, especially as someone who thrives on outdoor adventures and testing my limits. Forcing myself to slow down and prioritize self-care to regain strength has been one of the most challenging experiences, both physically and mentally, that I have experienced to date.
In the months since my knee surgery, I still cannot hike in the mountains, and my nerve damage hasn’t been improving. Since enjoying my typical backcountry adventure isn’t currently an option, this November and December my partner and I decided to reframe travel expectations by flying down to Peru to explore the country on motorcycles!
For the first month, we spent our time on the east side of the Andes in very remote villages. Most of the time, when we’d roll into a small village at the end of the day looking for a hostel or place to put our tent, many of the locals would come out and greet us. We were told countless times how they had only seen one or two “gringos” in their lifetime, and they would ask to take pictures with us and invite us to dinner. We felt famous in a way!
Because we were traveling in such remote parts of the country, we weren’t able to stay up-to-date on the latest news. When we traveled up and over the mountains through Huascaran National Park, we learned that the political climate had drastically changed. Peru’s President Castillo had been impeached and put in jail, and the entire country was in turmoil.
From that day on, we had to navigate huge roadblocks that had been put in place by local citizens. These were often so large, only motorcycles were able to pass. Some of the roadblocks were giant trees laid across the road or highway and then lit on fire. There were sometimes thousand pound boulders stacked up across a road and other times where there would be thousands of huge rocks scattered about. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of cars, trucks, semis, and buses would be stopped in traffic for anywhere from a few hours to days at a time.
At first, we were able to weave in and out of stopped traffic, road fires, strikes, riots, and burning trees because we were on motorcycles. After about a week of maneuvering around these different scenarios though, we realized it was too unsafe for us to continue our trip in Peru. I had already had to talk my way out of possibly dangerous situations on two occasions - it was time to evacuate! We decided to stash our motorcycles in the backyard of a hostel before leaving the country, and are currently waiting to see what happens with Peru’s political unrest. We hope to be able to go back soon to collect our motorcycles and camping equipment, and finish our trip in that beautiful country!
