So today, I decided to drive, on my motorcycle, to Mollendo, and Punta Bon Bon, if I had the time.  Lucia and I were thinking about going for a long time, but she got upset at me yesterday and refused to see or talk to me.  Consequently, yesterday was a pretty boring day, and my upset woman tolerance level took a dive, so today I decided to make the drive by myself, if she didn't make herself apparent before I left.

I was pretty happy with the drive.  I did most of the drive there in 5th gear, since it's pretty much 7000ft downhill, the whole way.  I hit 97kph on my Chinese enduro; nice.

Mostly, the drive is through mountainous desert or altiplano desert, but it's the valleys that are spectacular, with such green in contrast to the yellow desert mountains.  I imagined that parts of Italy look very similar.  When I finally saw the ocean, I was pretty stoked.  I first arrived at this port city, which was pretty wierd, but cool.  Then I headed to Mollendo, which kind of reminded me of Ocean city or something.  Lots of people on the beach, with umbrellas, and water parks, and stuff.  Isn't that kind of wierd that people go to a beach, to go to a water park?

The waves were pretty fucking good.  Double overhead and not a single surfer.  It was a bit closeout, but damn, there were some nice clean ones to be had.  I have got to move to the fucking beach in this country.  It made me sick, just looking at them.  Fucking waves.

Anyway, so then I headed to Punta Bon Bon.  A few less people than Mollendo, but not by much.  Much fewer buildings, though.  I couldn't quite figure out why people drove past all the beautiful beach between Mollendo and Punta Bon Bon.  Those two places were the only places I really saw people.  Marketing, I guess.  The only thing that made Punta Bon Bon special was that there were people there.  The funny thing is that the biggest waves were in those two cities, also.  Generally, beach goers like relatively flat water, but whatever.

I bought a watermelon, stuffed it in my backpack, and started driving back to Arequipa, but on a different route.  The route back was a lot better.  It was warm, sunny, and had a smooth breeze.  I saw a field fire, right next to the road.  Naturally I stopped to watch.  It was beautiful.  After driving down the road a bit further, the large pieces of ash started raining down on me, which was actually really cool.  They were like little black feathers, floating down from the sky.  It was wonderful.

In the desert Altiplano, I could see for a long way.  Nothing but open road.  I would really have liked to have a street bike at the point.  I'm sure I could have relatively safely hit 200mph.  Maybe it's better that I didn't have one . . . 

The drive back was uneventful, except for the vastness of nature.  The sky turned from being sunny and warm, to being cloudly, cold, and on the verge on raining.  Welcome back to Arequipa, in the Summer.