A Wayward Journey

Inca Kola, a bright yellow soft drink that tastes like liquid bubble gum, is perhaps Peru’s most famous claim to fame. It’s an interesting story – or so I’ve been told. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of any of this, but here’s the story as I understand it.

The Lindley family started bottling the yellow soda back in 1935 and Inca Kola quickly became a favorite amongst Peruvians. It was a staple found in every village no matter how small and the company was, hands down, the biggest success story in Peru.

Then along came Coca Cola. As they are wont to do, Coca Cola offered to buy out Inca Kola. The Lindley family said no.

Coca Cola came back with another offer – a higher one this time.

The answer was still no. Inca Kola was a Peruvian company and would remain that way.

Negotiations continued, with the Coca Cola Company upping its offer in each round. Inca Kola held their ground.

Although the exact figure is unknown – reported to be in the many hundreds of millions – Inca Kola decided at some point to sell - with conditions.

Condition #1 was that 50% of the company would remain in the hands of the Lindley family in Peru.

Condition #2 was that Inca Kola would always remain its own entity. You will never find “Bottled by the Coca Cola Company” on a bottle of Inca Kola.

And Condition #3 was that the CEO of Coca Cola personally fly down to Lima and publicly admit defeat. Inca Kola had triumphed in the takeover battle.

Is any of this true? I dunno – but it makes a great story. Each time I drink a glass of the yellow liquid bubble gum, I silently send up a toast to the Lindley family. It takes a lot of guts to take of a major corporation like Coca Cola and win.

Kudos!

(If I’m just spinning tales here and you know the real story of Inca Kola, please post a comment!)

John got another video finished - highlights of cycling Ecuador.  I think this is his best one yet! 

In time, we’ll forget about the wind and sand.  We’ll look back on this desert crossing with fond memories – we’ll romanticize it all in our minds.  The incredibly gorgeous desert landscapes… the sand stretching on for miles and miles… the bright orange sun plunging precariously quickly toward the horizon…

Ask me in two weeks and I’ll tell you about all that – I won’t remember the layer upon of sweat, grime, sand, and sunscreen coating my body, the endless miles before the next restaurant where we could refill our water bottles, or the gale force winds threatening to blow us off the road.  Well, maybe I won’t forget the gale force winds…

That being said, I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to see thousands of plastic bags clinging to the bushes blowing in the wind – it was a sign that civilization was near.  And then we arrived at the toll booth and the guard came out and told me they had bathrooms over there – with showers.  A huge grin spread across my face – “Did I hear you say… showers?”

We pulled into the town of Morrope – yes, a real town with real streets and buildings (although small, mind you) - and we pulled up in front of a restaurant and parked our bikes – we were ready for food!  Not that stuff that passed for food out in the desert – we wanted FOOD!

“No, we don’t have food.  We’re still preparing it.”

Our spirits plunged, but ice cold soda would do until we made it into Chiclayo.

A few minutes later, two men pulled up on a motorcycle and came in and sat down.  They talked with the lady and ordered something.  A few minutes later, she came out with two huge plates of food – with rice and meat and veggies and…  Food!

“Excuse me!” I called out.  “Is there any food?”

“No – we’re still preparing the food.  We only had two plates left.”

Something is wrong with this picture…

But we made it.  We made it across the most remote part of the Sechura Desert.  Yes, the desert continues – will continue until we decide we’re ready to head for the hills.  But from now on we’ll have towns every day or so – no more of this 3-days-between-towns stuff for quite a while!

Kilometers today:  70
Kilometers to date:  18123

We had had to walk about a kilometer off the road to find this tree to shelter us from the wind the evening before.  That meant we had to walk a whole kilometer back to the road before we could even start riding.  Fortunately, we were all feeling better.

The Sechura Desert continues.

…and keeps going…

Even though it was all sand and wind, it was interesting to watch the desert change.  For a while it was pancake flat.  Then it got little “pimples” all over it, and then it turned into an area with huge sand dunes.  It was never the same for more than a couple miles.

As sad as it was to see plastic bags waving in the wind, it was a sign that we were nearing civilization.

Finally, we started seeing a few houses again.

And flowers! Flowers need water and simply don’t grow in the deep desert.

We made it!  But our day was not over yet.  We ended up spending 1.5 hours looking for a decent hotel!

We’ve emerged from the desert - three days with only wind and sand as our companions.  We’re all fine, but in desperate need of showers!

…and we thought we had wind yesterday… Compared to today, yesterday’s slight breeze was nothing but the merest hint of a puff of air. Today we had wind. Wind with a capital W. Gale force gusts that threatened to blow us off the road. As though someone with lungs the size of the Pacific Ocean was blowing with all his might.

And on top of that, three of us woke up with diarrhea this morning. (Last night, Daryl ate a bunch of granola bars while waiting for Davy and I to get back with dinner, so hardly ate anything. The other three of us chowed down.) Unfortunately, we are in the middle of the desert and simply could not take the day off. We packed up and headed out into the wind.

We struggled along for a while, but eventually Davy couldn’t do it any more. He climbed on the back of the tandem and Daryl took the single. We stopped every kilometer or two for a break. Slowly, but surely, we made progress and ended the day with 55 kilometers behind us. 55 hard earned kilometers, I should add. The good news is that we were all feeling better by afternoon.

What I want to know, though, is how in the heck do kids get so much energy? I mean – after a tough day of cycling, those little buggers should have been exhausted.

But when we called it a day and started heading back off the road to find a campsite and Davy saw the sand dunes off in the distance… “Can I, Mom? Please?” As soon as the tent was set up, they were off.

An hour later, just after the sun had disappeared for the night, they reappeared – looking like sandmen covered head to toe. Sand covered their faces, necks, arms, and legs. Sand in their hair, ears, noses, and belly buttons. Sand, sand, sand.

And that presented a problem. How in the heck does one clean two boys with sand adhered to all their sweat and sunscreen? Without water? We have enough water to get us to the next restaurant tomorrow, but certainly not enough to clean a couple of kids.

In the end, I brushed as mush sand off as possible (“Ow! That hurts! It’s like you’re rubbing me with sandpaper!”), then wet my wash cloth with a bit of water to wash the rest off. I ended up using nearly two bottles of water, but I guess it’ll be worth it. I hope so anyway. We’ll find out tomorrow if we make it to the restaurant before we run out of water…

Kilometers today: 55
Kilometers to date: 18,053

The worst part of camping in the desert is getting to a campsite in the evening and then getting back to the road in the morning.

The boys manage to play no matter where they are or what they are doing!

The wind had already started by the time we got on the road and blew hard all day. Plus, three of us were sick.

No matter how sick we were, we had no choice but to continue on - we had to get out of the desert.

One of the restaurants we stopped at. We could generally get at least one meal per day at a restaurant. The rest of the time we ate snacks I brought with me from Piura.

Although they aren’t much, we were very glad to see the restaurants!

It was a non-stop battle against the wind.

Daryl loves riding on the tandem.

When Davy could not continue on, Daryl took over the single and rode a whopping 30 km against the wind!

We took a lot of breaks as we were all pretty wiped out.

As we traveler farther into the desert, vegetation became even scarcer.

Mile after mile after mile of nothing but sand and wind.

How long would it take for the wind to blow Daryl’s footprints away?

There was no shade whatsoever. Daryl got creative in finding shade where he could!

Both John and Davy were feeling pretty sick at this point. It was a struggle to get any forward movement at all.

There’s not much shade out there at all! In the middle of the day, the only shade is directly under something. In Boise, you can ALWAYS find shade on the north side of a house even in the middle of the day. Out here, we found a bush, but there was not a single inch of shade on the side of it - the sun was literally straight above.

I was very surprised to see a family out in the middle of nowhere.  They were collecting plastic bottles to turn into the recycling center to earn a little extra money.

This sand dune was right next to our campsite.  The boys couldn’t wait to get over there to play!

WHEEE!