Down but not quite out

I should have realised that bad things were to come when my first night in Peru was ominously terrible: I had finished the border crossing with about half an hour of sunlight left to me. I spun past the straggling shanty of a border settlement and took the first track I could find off the main road. This shortly led me to a wood and what has, traditionally, been perect camping territory. I whipped out my cooking kit and got the rice and veg combo onto cook before having a look around. What I saw was this, spiders. Hundreds of bloody huge spiders, dangling from their webs between the trees, fangs glistening with arachnic intent. I'm not one to freak out about insects in general so i kept my cool. Found some open ground around a path through the wood and layed my sleeping mat down. By this time it was dark, I dug out my torch and flashed it around, thousands and thousands of tiny beads of light flashed back at me. It took me a few moments to realise that these beads where spider eyes reflecting the torch light back at me. My heart jumped, instead of the relatively few creatures confined to the trees, I was surrounded by legions of the eight legged beasts carpeting every possible surface. Supper would have to be to go. I packed up as fast as I could, taking care to leave any unwanted guests behind, and hit the road. Finding a new camping spot by torch light was going to be a little hit or miss but I thought I had hit the jackpot when I found another side track to an unused field. I had my food while inhaling the scent of mint I had crushed beneath my feet, congratulating myself on a job well done. That was untill I lay down and realised that I had landed myself slap bang in the middle of a swarm of mosquitos. The blood sucking did not let up till after I was back on the road with the dawn and my skin was a painfully itchy pattern of red blotches.

The next few days took me down through pampa (prarie land) to the coast and into unrelenting headwind kicking up sand and dust, from the desert surrounding my road, into my unprotected eyes. This three day struggle along the barren coast was terrible but as I reached the town of Paijan, cane fields and shelter from the wind I was just half a days ride from Peru's second biggest city Trujillo and a planned stop off at the world famous (cycling-world that is) Casa de Cyclista's. I was in good spirits and after twenty minutes of cruising through the fields of cane I saw a few guys by the road side next to their moto-taxi (the Peruvian answer to the rickshaw), not an unusual sight and I waved them a greeting. At this moment the foremost hombre drew a long kitchen knife from behind his back and wielded it in an unmistakingly threatening manner. I was only a few meters away from him and that distances was rapidly diminishing. My natural instinct was to swerve away, out of slashing range. This manouvre killed my speed and the bandito was able, after a couple of strides, to just grab the last item on the bike, my helmet dangling from the rear. He managed to drag me back in and taking a firmer grip hurled me into the center of the road, my bike landed on my chest and I was pinned against road. In an instant my attacker was joined by two more ladrones as they attempted to rip off my bags while dragging my bike to the side of the road. I clung onto the bike tight, with two of my panniers between the bike of the road and my leg round a third they were only able to get one of them. When the assailant with the knife realised his efforts at dragging the bike away were being hampered by my grip. He brought the knife a little closer to my face than comfort dictated and I let go. Two of them picked up my beloved machine and chucked it into the roadside ditch before making good their escape.

It took me a while in my shocked state to realise that leaving my bike behind was not benevelance on their part but a practicle measure, they couldn't have fit it into the moto-taxi and by chucking it into the ditch they reckoned on buying themselves enough time to escape. They were right. My bike had a gear lever ripped off, both rims were bent and the handlebars were at right angles to their accustomed position. I took stock of what was missing: one bag out of four it could have been worse. That's when I realised it was my bag containing my passport, my bank cards, my money, my camera, and the two most irreplacable items: all my photos on their memory cards and all my notes and contact details of those I had met along the way. At that point I have to admit that I thought it was game over and thiss thought hit me like a tonne of bricks. And if it had not been for the help and support I received in the Casa de Cyclista's this might well have been the case. This amazing place, home to any itinerant cyclist who finds their way to Trujillo (and most who cycle South America do), gave me a place to stay, other traveller's to get advice from and distracted me by hosting a world record, by a co-resident, of spending an incredible 33 hours wheeling round the main square in his wheel chair, without break. Acting as support team in this event helped me get over my problems and after 11 days in Trujillio I had a money card couriered out from England, my insurance was handled, a new passport ordered and most importantly Luchio, finest bike mechanic in Latin America (no exageration) and the man behind Casa de Cyclista's, had worked his magic on my bike and it was now better than new and I was ready to head up into the mountains.