Lima

I've been riding through the desert some more. and i'm pretty sure that the wind is ruining my life. you can tell by my hair and the plants behind me, that there is a lot of wind. and it is not going in the same direction i am going. the other day i was working really hard to go downhill, and i stopped pedaling just to see what would happen, and i stopped going forward on a downhill! that's how strong the wind is.

yesterday i rode into lima, which is a giant city of more the 7 million people. riding into big cities is hard on the touring bike, and there is pretty much no way around lima. the outskirts of lima are crazy. shanty towns piled ontop of one another, garbage heaped along the side of the rode with whole families picking through the debris, dogs sniffing out and eating rotten meat. the combination of exhaust and rotting garbage made breathing extremely uncomfortable. my navigational technique for large cities involves asking random people for directions, and then using a combination of pointing and pantomiming to get my point across.
as i'm biking throught the crazyness of downtown lima. this guy on a motorcycle pulls up along side of me end ends up inviting me to his house. he and his wife were both professional bike racers, and are currently training to run the new york marathon in under three hours! they are so, so nice. yesterday the husband Pedro took me to miraflores, the tourist district and we walked around and stopped at this fruit cart, and Pedro bought me imported plums from chile, and figs and this type of fruit called chirimoya. then we got gelato and i got dark chocolate with yellow and red rum rasins and toasted almonds. oh my god it was so awesome. and then we all went out for pizza and sangria, and pedro wouldn't let me pay for anthing. they are so nice!
this morning i told Pedro that my mom wanted to see a picture of all their cycling trophies. he had them all shoved under the stairs, and told the maid to take them all out and clean them bofore i took a photo. they really have a ton of trophies. it's pretty crazy, like first place in the whole country kind of cycling trophies. tomorrow i'll probalby head out and keep biking south. i totally screwed up on my estimate of when i thought i'd be here. alice and everyone is coming out to lima to visit me mid february, so i figure is should be about a week south of la paz, bolivia by then and can just fly back. my organizational skill are impressive as always. love,
-jessie