We continued north on the PanAmerican Highway through small towns until we reached the large city of Chiclayo, Peru. Marnie was pulled over twice in the morning.... both times we came across the "small town police road block" ...just no way to avoid them. The first officer was very polite and professional, after asking for the license and registration he waved us on our way.
About one hour later, Marnie came across another blitz.... this time, I had to work a bit harder. It started with courteous hello and request for documents, followed by the "your window tint is not permitted in Peru"... here we go. I did the talking while Marnie handed over the documents, told him our story and he disappeared...he came back and asked me to go speak with the "Jefe"...is: guy sitting in police car with sun glasses on. I offered the most sincere respects to "el Jefe" and we chatted a little bit of where we were coming from, where we were going and who I worked for.... another business card, couple of pins and the Jefe was happy. He wished us well and we carried on.
Once we finally reached Chilayo, we were impressed with how busy it was and our trusted Lonely Planet had suggested some restaurants. Marnie was behind the wheel "fighting" traffic on an apparent market day. We ended up in the middle of a market, surrounded by tuk tuks honking and squirming their way around the truck. The green Defender gets it's fair share of looks and thumbs up as we navigate these towns....or perhaps it's Marnie behind the wheel thats generates the honking... in a good way :)
Eventually we found the restaurant and enjoyed a lunch and decided to take our time in this city.
It was my turn to jump behind the wheel and as usual, I was following the GPS directions out of town....unfortunately, it was only 30 km later that I noticed we were NOT on the PanAmerican (1N) but on a secondary highway (1B)....both highways ended up in Piura, Peru but the 1B was slightly longer route..by 44 km... so I pressed on heading north.....the road was deserted and easy to drive, the scenery became more jungly and less desert and I had been happy with the decision, until ...
We were just south of Chulucanas and crested a small hill when I noticed some people on the road up ahead. I slowed down, noticed it was a "road block" and immediately started scanning the situation. I was waved to pull over by a guy with an AK47 slung over his front vest. I was looking for the usual signs of a legitimate police road block...the group of "officers" had vests but I could not read the insignia, there was a truck with lights but no markings. As the truck stopped a lady walked up and asked for all the usual documents....I politely asked her if she was "police" and she immediately told me "yes" and they were conducting a drug operation...the area was known for drug trafficking and they needed to inspect EVERYTHING in the truck.... I relaxed... somewhat and started explaining what we were doing and where we were going. She still asked to see all the documents and called over her Jefe... at least there was a "chain of command" which was a good sign.
I kicked into high gear and offered my respects to the officer in charge and welcomed them to search the truck. At this point, I was standing at the back of the truck surrounded by curious, armed plain clothes officers listening to my "funny" spanish. However, my stress was not coming from the officers but from the hundreds or so "vespas" (ie: hornets) flying around my head and landing on my legs. All the officers didn't seem to mind the fact we were all standing in some hornet infested area, so I figured I was "safe".... besides my preoccupation was not the sting of hornets but from something else.
As one officer looked through the back of our truck asking about the Kraft Dinner boxes, the Jefe realized we were a harmless family of crazy Canadians driving through northern Peru's main drug route... you might of guessed it by now... another business card to the Jefe and some more pins to everyone and we were all shaking hands laughing. This would have been a great opportunity to grab a picture but we were just relieved that we came across a legitimate police operation and be on our way.
We pressed on and decided to reach Mancora, a surf town on Peru's north west coast. We promised the kids if they were willing to endure an extra 2 hours of driving we would spend the following morning at the beach! We pulled into Mancora around 8 pm and glad we did! Party Time!
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