As well as being famous for the surrounding archaeological sites Chiclayo is also famous for South America’s most comprehensive witchdoctors’ market ‘Mercado de Brujos’. So Court and I went hunting for a remedy for the infection in his leg from the bike accident in Colombia. He saw a wich doctor while we were there and got some potion with cat bones in it. Yum.

I must admit that as much as I love traveling with Court and Sylvan I am struggling with the pace. The first morning we left three hours after I was hoping to leave. The second day it was a three hour shopping stop. Plus we are stopping every thirty to forty minutes.

But then the benefit of being others kicked in when we were able to stop in a gully just off the road and put up the tents and camp and cook by fire for the night. Wicked.

Getting to the gully wasn’t so easy as Sylvan dropped his GS twice going in and my bike got stuck in the sand on the way out. But it was real adventure and I am combating the waiting issue by reading a novel while I am waiting for them.

So far Peru is great. The customs officials were lovely and the three of us got through in an hour. It is finally warm and a total change of scenery riding through the desert with the wild flowers along the side of the road. It does seem poorer than Ecuador and the facilities are worse.

It is funny riding with the guys as every time we stop they are surrounded by other blokes which never happened to me when I was by myself. In fact they all go when I am left with the bikes and come back when the guys come back.

I am also not going to so ready to follow the gastronomic advice of locals as this dish was suppose to be the local specialty and instead it was just gritty meat on yucca.

They call it the Valley of Longevity as the people who live in this village in Ecuador are extremely long lived. They think it is because of the climate, water quality and that they are nice to each other. My vote is on the water.

After eight months on the bike my fitness level is very low so it was really nice to have an opportunity to do some of the walks. I decided on two medium to easy ones just in case I wasn’t up to it so was pleased to finish the medium 3 hour walk in 2 hours. After six and a half hours of walking my feet were knackered but hopefully I was a bit fitter as someone recently said to me that I was too fat. Now I just need someone to tell me I am stupid for not spending more time learning Spanish and I will have all my negative motivation sorted.

Court’s motorcycle belt still hasn’t shown up so I decided to head off and hopefully Court and Sylvan can catch up with me. At some construction work I ended up on the wrong part of the road and when I tried to pass one of the trucks something happened that almost pushed me over the cliff. The front wheel was about to go over and I dumped the bike and ended up with my top half and the front part of the wheel hanging over the edge. After the construction workers finished yelling at me (I think they were as frightened as I was) they picked my bike up off me and finally made sure I was ok. I was a bit shaken for the rest of the ride.

Therefore I would like to thank my parents, grandparents, sisters, family in New Zealand, family in Canada and friends in the UK, New Zealand and those I have met along the way for all the love and support they have shown me with a special thank you to my mother who gets all my ‘what am I doing’ phone calls. I love you all.

Turns out that Court is waiting for a belt for his bike and can’t go anywhere until it arrives from the US so I just had a day bumming around. I spent three hours trying to upload my photos but the internet connection just wasn’t letting it happen. Then I had to cook a reciprocal dinner and was pretty happy to be with other people thinking it would be great if they played cards so taught them canasta.

I got an email from Court and Sylvan an American and French bloke on their bikes that I met in Cali saying that they were in Zamora not far from where I was so I decided to catch up with them as they are keen to ride down to Peru together. It was brilliant, I got there and they fed me dinner and breakfast the next morning. It turns out they have picked up another traveler Selena a dog who they have cut a hole in their top box so she can ride with them.

Guayaquil is Ecuador’s largest city (2mil) and is a maze of highways. I asked a transit police truck how to get through Guayaquil towards Cuenca and they led me through 10 miles of town and then 25 miles out of town onto the right road. Thanks to the Ecuador Transit Police. I would also like to thank my travel angel for helping me get through the miles of foggy road under construction and making sure the truck that swerved towards me swerved away again.

I spent a couple of nights camping on the coast and went back to do the whale tour again. This time I only saw the whales breach a couple of times but then this pod of about 80 dolphins swam along side our boat. I also did some snorkeling.

Lots of people ask me if I get lonely riding by myself. But always when I need it the most I meet really nice people like the Austrian girls who were on my whale watching trip as well as meeting up again with Myles from Ireland who I first met in Honduras. Finding this poem by Bryce Courtney (who wrote the Power of One) helped me make a living changing decision years ago. Actually the path sounds a lot like some of the roads I have ridden.

Dare your genius to walk the wildest unknown way

Go where you’ve never been before. Dream up a destination, a path to follow, a wildest unknown way, over rocks and scrag, across high hills where the winds bite cold with malice, through deep mysterious valleys where the wild things roar and echo and rumble and stamp and hiss great clouds of steam from their terrible hugging ways.

Dream the impossible dream and start walking towards it.

On the way you’ll be beaten up, chewed, spat out, mauled, ripped apart, given up for lost. Quite soon you’ll learn what it feels like to be beaten up, chewed, spat out, mauled, ripped apart and given up for lost.

This is called ‘experience’ and it’s very, very valuable in life, because what you mostly learn from it is that you were more afraid of what might happen that what did happen. Most successful outcomes are achieved by calling a series of conventional bluffs.

One bright sunny morning you’ll discover that the wild and unknown way you took is carpeted with moss and strewn with tiny flowers. It has become a familiar path, a well trodden direction which has put you miles ahead of anyone else and much, much closer to achieving your once impossible dream.