The border crossing from Ecuador to Peru was another story. The road to the border had some of the best views so far and far less traffic so I really enjoyed the twisties J I may convert to a twisitie rider yet…not. The border took forever not only did we need to wait in long lines to do the passport control but getting 13 bikes and a truck though customs took 5 hours.  This meant spending half the ride to Mancora in the dark, not fun. There are no street lights and when I say dark I meant dark. I have really bad eyesight at night as I see halos around all the lights. When I could see the back lights of the bikes in front of me it was ok as I just followed them but when they took off at 120km/hr I slowed down to 80 as you literally couldn’t see a thing. If a dog ran across the road or if there was a pot hole there would have been no chance of me seeing it in time to do anything, so I just went slow and tried hard to see how the road twisted in front of me, but finally we arrived in Mancora.

Mancora is a little back packers super town and quite cute. We have a rest day today and are all enjoying it.  I did my laundry, checked Gadget out thoroughly. For the last 3 days Gadget has not started in the morning or after lunch, the start switch is just dead and the only thing we can think of is that there is a contact issue since it is dead easy to push start and he’ll start within 2 meters . So I took the starter switch off and spraying it with some contact spray. The really strange thing is that Gadget started perfectly today, very unusual, I still took the button off anyway and am hoping the problem will not return as that could indicate something more serious. I hate electrical problems and I hate intermittent problems even more.

Other thank looking over the bike I had ample time to explore Mancora, swim, eat and just relax.

exploring the local market with Rand and Henry  fresh fruit for lunch

 this is what I looked like for most of the day

Tonight we’re all going out to dinner and will be celebrating Leigh’s 71^st birthday.  Leigh and Cathy, who also rides but is riding pillion this trip have been married for 51 years and ridden all over  the world.  They are the most awesome couple I have ever met, they are Cleary still in love but also just seem to get on flawlessly and are good friends. I hope  Joern and I are the same when we are in our 70s (I suspect we will be)