We headed out of Camana with not much hope of scenery as the road turns inland. We were rewarded with lots of nothing to look at. Flat desert with a few rock formations here and there. Maybe 80 miles of nothing combined with more nothing – thankfully we didn’t have much for cross winds.
We were quickly into the LARGE city of Arequipa. We had already decided our map didn’t jive with what the GPS said.
We were pretty sure we were in for a run around in the city trying to find the right road out of town to Juliaca. After fueling up we got some directions from the gas dudes…. “Couple blocks down this way then boom!, straight out of town!” They did the classic Latin American arm waving gesture – sort of like throwing you in the direction you should go.
Well thats how it always starts. First off you have to remember there are no signs pointing to the next cities. What you think is a main road may go about a mile then turn to dirt and dead end. The GPS would show us on the right road, only to have it turn into a dirt road and end in someone's yard that you think is a junk yard, but really is 
just all the other cars that could not find their way out of town… So we rode around some more and some more and some more. Dan must of asked at least 10 people “donde estar Juliaca or Puno??” I would say all 10 pointed to different parts of the city…they would use they're arms like left, right , left then kinda like they're bowling swing it up and go “boom” straight out of town…. Each time we would head the way they would say and each time we would end up at dead ends and one ways. sometimes one ways that dead end!!! So after almost 2 freakin hours of going round and round looking for a way out of this town. We were pretty stressed out and tired of it all.
We were to the point we would have even settled for the wrong way as long as it got us the hell out of that place.
We did finally find a road that lead to Yura. Which was not were we wanted to go, but we saw on the map a road that led from Yura to Juliaca. It was longer but we had had enough of riding around a noisy, diesel smoke laden, and dusty city. Just before arriving in Yura a split in the road appeared and bingo a sign to Juliaca! Both the map and GPS were totally off. We took the turn and started up the pass. We set a new record on the trip for elevation as the road climbed to 14,700 feet. We had to stop at the top and put on more gear. It was COLD! We took some crap in the first part of the trip about how much cold gear we were taking. Let me tell you, we were glad we had it.
We stopped at some tiny little berg of a town to grab some chips and try to warm up.
This kid was just sitting there with a couple motorcycle tires – trying to sell them. There wasn’t a single motorcycle visible in town except ours – not sure what he had in mind but maybe he found the tires and had big plans.
We arrived in Juliaca without any more trouble and checked into a nice hotel right downtown.
We went out for a pizza. Dan ordered a large pizza with pepperoni, mushrooms and cheese. Or so he thought… The lady kept asking more and more questions and Dan kept trying to clarify it but… she arrived with a large cheese pizza and we started eating it wondering where the rest of the toppings were… Then she arrived with a large pepperoni pizza, followed by a large mushroom pizza….
We only got through 2 of them.
Cheers!
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