Don Morgan 24th March 1936 - 1st May 2007
I had to return to England from Peru a couple of weeks ago. My Dad was gravely ill in hospital. I had been staying in Cusco with Nushka, who had come to visit me for a short holiday when I received a text message from Gareth’s wife Julie saying he may only have hours left. I am very happy that I was able to call him at hospital the following day. Amazingly, he sounded exactly as himself and in good spirits, although he knew he had little time left. I am so relieved that I was able to talk to him; to thank him for the help and inspiration he has given me, and to tell him I love him. He died in his sleep that night, in the morning of the 1st May while we were in Lima waiting for our flight to London.
We buried him on the 11th May at Offa’s Orchard, a beautiful green burial site, near Gladestry in Wales. It is close to the small village of Brilley where Mum and Dad lived after retiring from Kent. Many close friends and family attended the funeral.
I had a remarkably simple journey from Quito to Banos on the Panamericana – no stopping at junctions or waiting at traffic lights for me - I whizzed along apparently being saluted by policemen. I discovered later the convoy I’d joined contained the vice-president of Ecuador. From Banos I took a road through the Ecuador’s Amazon region towards Macas. After a couple of hours the road had become so bad that I began to consider that perhaps I wasn’t enjoying it anymore. There were huge muddy holes and boulders all over the place, but as I’d already come so far there wasn’t much point in turning around. However, I loved being deep in the real Amazon jungle with the green humidity all around and vivid butterflies fluttering up from puddles in the road. I dropped the bike twice, once stopping for a careering bus coming the other way (young lad on the bus behind jumped off to help me lift it), and another time by bouncing the bike rather too enthusiastically off one of those boulders. This time half a dozen soldiers who jumped off another bus helped me. By this time it was getting dark and I was hours from my destination. I asked a couple of guys in the next rather unpromising-looking town I came to where I could find a hotel. It turned out to be the ideal place to stop. There was a hotel a couple of kilometers away with nice clean rooms, food and even a swimming pool! All deep in the middle of what looked very like nowhere. Lovely, friendly people there too. The next morning and on the recommendation of local people I took a road that wasn’t on my map towards Loja in the South of Ecuador. It started off nicely tarmaced and headed higher and higher over the Cordillera Central, which is the name for the northern end of the Andes mountain range. The views were stunning until the clouds came down, which combined with the pouring rain reduced the visibility to almost nothing. The tarmac gave way to gravel and mud at about the same time.
It was dark and getting cold long before I arrived at Loja. On the mountains the fog had returned which meant I couldn’t easily see the potholes and mounds of earth that had been piled here and there on the road. At about 9pm as I was rounding a bend I saw the shape of a man collapsed at the side of the road. I stopped and turned my bike around to shine the lights at him. He was very old, lying on his side and poking with his walking stick for his hat in the ditch beside him. I handed him his hat and asked him in my terrible Spanish if I could help. I couldn’t understand a word he said to me. I gave him my water and tried to help him to his feet. I thought his house was probably the nearest shack I could see and wanted to take him there. His legs were so weak he couldn’t stand and he didn’t want to be lifted. I stopped some of cars that came past. Every single one of them sped off in panic as I tried to explain that there was an old man in the road who needed help. The battery on my bike had gone flat by now and I realized all I could do was try to make him more comfortable. I gave him the money I had with me and moved him further to the side of the road. I cut some branches from nearby bushes and placed them in the road ahead of him, which is what people do to warn traffic of a broken down car. Then I left. My intention was to stop at the next town, at a police station or whatever and tell them about him. But it was 50 miles and 11pm before I reached any kind of town and I knew no one would be interested. I spent an uncomfortable night in a cheap hotel. I imagine he didn’t last much longer.
I’d had enough of Ecuador. I felt sick that those same people who were so kind and helpful to me couldn’t be bothered to help carry a dying man a few meters to his house. I wanted to leave Ecuador as quickly as possible. The border crossing to Peru was a relief. No touts, just friendly boarder officials and no money to hand over at all.
I stayed one night in the city of Piura, northern Peru and left for Trujillo the following morning. I had long and hot ride through the beautiful Desierto de Sechura, frequently stopping to photograph the landscape and towns I passed. At one spot I found a large green-blue saltwater pond around which a thick crust of pure-white salt crystals had formed. I’d intended to spend a whole day in Trujillo visiting nearby Inca sites before leaving for Lima. However, I discovered that two bearings in the rear suspension had failed making the rear wheel was very wobbly. I adjusted it as much as I could and phoned Nushka to tell her we wouldn’t be able to use the bike when she arrived. It was very disappointing.
I rode to Lima nervously, and took the bike to the BMW dealer the next day. On the way to Lima a couple of Peruvian policemen pulled me over. The fatter of the two officers swaggered over to me aiming to intimidate me I assumed. He said I’d been doing 100kmh and demanded I pay a $100 US fine. I told him I knew I had been doing 80 because I have GPS on my bike and its extremely accurate. ‘Ah,’ he said ‘the speed limit’s 70. Didn’t you see the sign?’ I admitted I’d not seen one. So after a bit of negotiation and pretending not to understand what was going on I paid him and his mate $10. Satisfied, the two of them sent me on my way. However, I wanted to see this sign I’d apparently missed and headed back the way I came. There was of course no sign. So I rode back to the cop car and stopped right in front of it, climbed off the bike, demanded their names and numbers and my money back. Amazingly, they handed the cash back to me without a word! I didn’t care about their numbers.
Since the bike was broken Nushka and I had to leave Lima on a bus with the traveling public. First we went to Pisco for an enjoyable boat trip to the Ballestas Islands. The Islands were once at the center of a large bird poo industry, but they are now a reserve for marine life and birds. Our guide proudly pointed out an enormous but strangely inept drawing of a candlestick carved into the side of a hill above the ocean. It looked to me as if a bulldozer had made it. We took another a bus to Nazca to see the famous Lines. We couldn’t see anything of them from the bus even though the Panamericana cuts straight across the Nazca Desert (it was built before the significance of the lines was properly understood). The next morning however, we climbed aboard a little aeroplane and for half an hour took a bumpy flight over the desert. The pilot circled over the most significant drawings, the monkey, the condor, the so-called space man etc, giving us a wonderful view. Unfortunately, after about ten minutes we had both stopped going ‘woo, look at that!’ and were mostly concentrating on controlling our rising nausea. It took most of the day to pass, which was not ideal preparation for our unair-conditioned 15hour journey to Cusco. Cusco is a beautiful colonial city where people trying to sell trips to Machu Picchu or polish your shoes constantly bother you. The remains of the former Inca Capital of Cusco are clearly visible in the amazing stonework foundations on which the Spanish built their gaudy churches.
We took an early train from Cusco to Machu Picchu. There were too many tourists there of course, but the whole delivering and taking away of visitors is at least run with military efficiency. We wandered around with our hardly English-speaking guide for a while and then climbed an Inca trail to the top of a nearby peak in the pouring rain. It was incredibly slippery and precipitous, and quite scary. Nushka was very pleased with herself to make it to the top. Unfortunately we could hardly see our hands in front of our faces in the clouds and rain when we got there. But it was wonderful, a place Nushka has dreamed of visiting since she was a little girl.
I will be flying back to Lima on Saturday 19th May to continue my journey.
We buried him on the 11th May at Offa’s Orchard, a beautiful green burial site, near Gladestry in Wales. It is close to the small village of Brilley where Mum and Dad lived after retiring from Kent. Many close friends and family attended the funeral.
I had a remarkably simple journey from Quito to Banos on the Panamericana – no stopping at junctions or waiting at traffic lights for me - I whizzed along apparently being saluted by policemen. I discovered later the convoy I’d joined contained the vice-president of Ecuador. From Banos I took a road through the Ecuador’s Amazon region towards Macas. After a couple of hours the road had become so bad that I began to consider that perhaps I wasn’t enjoying it anymore. There were huge muddy holes and boulders all over the place, but as I’d already come so far there wasn’t much point in turning around. However, I loved being deep in the real Amazon jungle with the green humidity all around and vivid butterflies fluttering up from puddles in the road. I dropped the bike twice, once stopping for a careering bus coming the other way (young lad on the bus behind jumped off to help me lift it), and another time by bouncing the bike rather too enthusiastically off one of those boulders. This time half a dozen soldiers who jumped off another bus helped me. By this time it was getting dark and I was hours from my destination. I asked a couple of guys in the next rather unpromising-looking town I came to where I could find a hotel. It turned out to be the ideal place to stop. There was a hotel a couple of kilometers away with nice clean rooms, food and even a swimming pool! All deep in the middle of what looked very like nowhere. Lovely, friendly people there too. The next morning and on the recommendation of local people I took a road that wasn’t on my map towards Loja in the South of Ecuador. It started off nicely tarmaced and headed higher and higher over the Cordillera Central, which is the name for the northern end of the Andes mountain range. The views were stunning until the clouds came down, which combined with the pouring rain reduced the visibility to almost nothing. The tarmac gave way to gravel and mud at about the same time.
It was dark and getting cold long before I arrived at Loja. On the mountains the fog had returned which meant I couldn’t easily see the potholes and mounds of earth that had been piled here and there on the road. At about 9pm as I was rounding a bend I saw the shape of a man collapsed at the side of the road. I stopped and turned my bike around to shine the lights at him. He was very old, lying on his side and poking with his walking stick for his hat in the ditch beside him. I handed him his hat and asked him in my terrible Spanish if I could help. I couldn’t understand a word he said to me. I gave him my water and tried to help him to his feet. I thought his house was probably the nearest shack I could see and wanted to take him there. His legs were so weak he couldn’t stand and he didn’t want to be lifted. I stopped some of cars that came past. Every single one of them sped off in panic as I tried to explain that there was an old man in the road who needed help. The battery on my bike had gone flat by now and I realized all I could do was try to make him more comfortable. I gave him the money I had with me and moved him further to the side of the road. I cut some branches from nearby bushes and placed them in the road ahead of him, which is what people do to warn traffic of a broken down car. Then I left. My intention was to stop at the next town, at a police station or whatever and tell them about him. But it was 50 miles and 11pm before I reached any kind of town and I knew no one would be interested. I spent an uncomfortable night in a cheap hotel. I imagine he didn’t last much longer.
I’d had enough of Ecuador. I felt sick that those same people who were so kind and helpful to me couldn’t be bothered to help carry a dying man a few meters to his house. I wanted to leave Ecuador as quickly as possible. The border crossing to Peru was a relief. No touts, just friendly boarder officials and no money to hand over at all.
I stayed one night in the city of Piura, northern Peru and left for Trujillo the following morning. I had long and hot ride through the beautiful Desierto de Sechura, frequently stopping to photograph the landscape and towns I passed. At one spot I found a large green-blue saltwater pond around which a thick crust of pure-white salt crystals had formed. I’d intended to spend a whole day in Trujillo visiting nearby Inca sites before leaving for Lima. However, I discovered that two bearings in the rear suspension had failed making the rear wheel was very wobbly. I adjusted it as much as I could and phoned Nushka to tell her we wouldn’t be able to use the bike when she arrived. It was very disappointing.
I rode to Lima nervously, and took the bike to the BMW dealer the next day. On the way to Lima a couple of Peruvian policemen pulled me over. The fatter of the two officers swaggered over to me aiming to intimidate me I assumed. He said I’d been doing 100kmh and demanded I pay a $100 US fine. I told him I knew I had been doing 80 because I have GPS on my bike and its extremely accurate. ‘Ah,’ he said ‘the speed limit’s 70. Didn’t you see the sign?’ I admitted I’d not seen one. So after a bit of negotiation and pretending not to understand what was going on I paid him and his mate $10. Satisfied, the two of them sent me on my way. However, I wanted to see this sign I’d apparently missed and headed back the way I came. There was of course no sign. So I rode back to the cop car and stopped right in front of it, climbed off the bike, demanded their names and numbers and my money back. Amazingly, they handed the cash back to me without a word! I didn’t care about their numbers.
Since the bike was broken Nushka and I had to leave Lima on a bus with the traveling public. First we went to Pisco for an enjoyable boat trip to the Ballestas Islands. The Islands were once at the center of a large bird poo industry, but they are now a reserve for marine life and birds. Our guide proudly pointed out an enormous but strangely inept drawing of a candlestick carved into the side of a hill above the ocean. It looked to me as if a bulldozer had made it. We took another a bus to Nazca to see the famous Lines. We couldn’t see anything of them from the bus even though the Panamericana cuts straight across the Nazca Desert (it was built before the significance of the lines was properly understood). The next morning however, we climbed aboard a little aeroplane and for half an hour took a bumpy flight over the desert. The pilot circled over the most significant drawings, the monkey, the condor, the so-called space man etc, giving us a wonderful view. Unfortunately, after about ten minutes we had both stopped going ‘woo, look at that!’ and were mostly concentrating on controlling our rising nausea. It took most of the day to pass, which was not ideal preparation for our unair-conditioned 15hour journey to Cusco. Cusco is a beautiful colonial city where people trying to sell trips to Machu Picchu or polish your shoes constantly bother you. The remains of the former Inca Capital of Cusco are clearly visible in the amazing stonework foundations on which the Spanish built their gaudy churches.
We took an early train from Cusco to Machu Picchu. There were too many tourists there of course, but the whole delivering and taking away of visitors is at least run with military efficiency. We wandered around with our hardly English-speaking guide for a while and then climbed an Inca trail to the top of a nearby peak in the pouring rain. It was incredibly slippery and precipitous, and quite scary. Nushka was very pleased with herself to make it to the top. Unfortunately we could hardly see our hands in front of our faces in the clouds and rain when we got there. But it was wonderful, a place Nushka has dreamed of visiting since she was a little girl.
I will be flying back to Lima on Saturday 19th May to continue my journey.
posted by motomit at 9:35 AM
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