Peru in state of emergency!?
 

We are in La Paz, Bolivia right now headed up to Peru to meet a friend in Huaraz. I am hearing bad things about Peru right now. People here are saying it is very dangerous for Gringos on moto on the small less traveled roads (Our Favorite). They say the PanAm would be much safer, but we want to go thru Cusco, and all the small places thru the mountains to Huaraz on all the cool dirt roads.
Does anyone have any on-the-ground info about Peru?
Thanks very much.

jim and matt
just sent you an email.
good luck,
chris

Hi, just read about your plans to go to Peru. We are in Buenos Aires at the moment and yesterdays ENGLISH newspaper held reports that there was a state of emergency declared last week in Peru but no one is taking any notice of it and they are still marching and protesting in Lima and various other parts of the country but did not mention where.

We was in Puno in late september last year and we got caught in a two day strike. The strike started the day we were about to leave, the hotel manager advised us not to leave on our motorbikes. Two days later and back on the road towards La Paz, Bolivia we saw evidence of some of the trouble that had taken place on the roads. Smashed bottles and bricks were everywhere on the road, you could see the remains of the burning fires they used to block the roads. I was riding in front, Annette, and even though the strike was over,I was still scared that I would ride around the corner to protesters that were happy to throw bottles at us. Its also a nightmare trying to dodge all the broken glass.

We had heard that they had hailed bottles and bricks at tourist buses that had tried to get past on their way to La Paz.

We are here for another week in Buenos Aires and we buy the paper most days if we see anything else about the situation we will send it on.

I would say stay put for a while. If you read other travellers stories most people stay put when there is a strike in a country in South America.

Hope this helps
Annette and John

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Annette and John

I emailed my good friend in Lima about it and he said not to worry so wen went for it. He was right- no problems (other than a bogus speeding ticket just south of Huanuco- we got Gringoed)
All is well or at least as usual in Peru!

OK, all is not well here. The Senderos just took and released some hostages close to where we rode thru. See my post in travelers advisories. But at least there arent any riots!

the following is an informed local's opinion:

the route from cusco to huaraz is very safe except for a specific area in
the abancay-huacavelica side. no problems with strikers at all. its not
rainy season anymore so the roads could be (a) damaged due to the rains of
summer of repaired or in decent shape already. here are my impressions

border: u know them bolivians.

lake-puno-cusco: flat road. no problems except altitude. nice places to c :
urcos, specially, its market, untouched by tourism. bartering, et al

cusco abancay: road is well travelled by local buses and u should encounter
smaller towns with gasoline supply. meandering starts

abancay ayacucho huancavelica intersting and no gueses i understand there
are many precipices and high mountains... meandering, trucks gasoline
should be sparse except for the environs of ayacucho, grrreat town to stay
at.

huancavelica huancayo there is a railroad in this area should be fair.
gasoline, plenty, trade route

from here i would recommend huancayo down to the coast to lima because the
mountain roads north of huaraz are uncertain and unknown to me.

lima huaraz, 100 ks of coastal desert and climbing. good stuff.

alternative: from abancay there is a road that goes down to nazca re the
famous nazca lines) interesting road, not new, good traffic. very high
points.

alternative (better) from ayacucho down to pisco, the libertadores road
great, very ft, new and leads to the town of pisco on the coast, great fish
food and paracas reserves,

all the towns mentioned should have facilities for fixing.

All above seems accurate to me. But would reccommend direct route through dirt roads to Haunuco then to Huaraz, instead of down to the coast and back, which is not scenic. Only problems we had were crashes! Gas was plentiful, but very dirty (black, even but seems to burn fine).
The road from Huanuco to Hauraz was phenomenal and tops out at over 16000 feet with views of both Cordierras Huaywash and Blanca! Stretched the throttle cable much at those altitudes!

For what it's worth, yesterday I crossed from Copacabana, Bolivia, and today rode to Cusco. Everything seems tranquilo. Just the usual insane Peruvian truck/bus drivers to worry about (forced to the shoulder eleven times in one day!) and a busted fork-seal from the potholes.

James

Currently in Peru and have ridden half the country. The teacher protests have finished and the country is quite mellow right now. Though one should still be cautious in the eastern jungle cocoa growing regions. This country is too incredible to miss.

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