July 12 - Lima to Trujillo

The drive out of Lima was as expected... fighting traffic with a healthy use of our horn while squinting through the smog.  Lima has some good neighbourhoods such as Miraflores and Barranco but once you leave those areas, the city takes on a different feeling.  Lima is known for being a polluted, dirty  and crowded capital and our drive out of the city certainly exposed it as such. 

Once we finally cleared the city traffic and continued north on Pan American I was able to appreciate the fact the truck was properly aligned with no wheel shake.  This allowed us to appreciate some young men balancing themselves on a flat bed truck at 90 km/h! 

There isn't much to see north of Lima, as the road took us through desilate, dry, vagitation free landscape.  It was great to be free of the slow, constant switchback driving of the Andes albeit we miss the visually stimulating sights, sounds and fresh air.  

The kids had a hard time adjusting to life back in the truck after day and half in a comfy Lima hotel...one of them even uttered "I'm tired of driving!".  We found they can easily last until about 4 pm in the  truck...after that...it's a steady downhill to fits and tantrums...including my own. 

All this driving has certainly allowed us time to reflect on why we decided to do this.  Is for the experience of driving through so many countries? Is it because we didn't want to leave Brazil? or simply because we all love adventure and this opportunity presented itself...so why not!  I often tell the boys that life offers us abundant opportunities to try and experience new things, we just need to be bold and go for it. 

We're continuing with our plan of making up as much time as we reasonably can se we can take it easy through Central America and enjoy some beach time. Also, we have to ship the truck from Cartagena to Colon and that could take one week or more...