Spending the night in a hotel room was a nice change. We had a small breakfast in the diner next to the hotel and – after checking our e-mails in a hotel nearby – we hit the road again. Before we got to Peru, we developed the habit of refuelling the car as soon as our range dropped below 200km. In Peru, however, we refuel every morning. It’s not always that easy to find good quality fuel (most common in Peru is 84 octane, but Rodrigo’s V8 is not happy with that) and reliable petrol stations can be few and far between!
We drove through beautiful desert landscapes on very straight roads (easily 20km without turning the steering wheel). Every now and then we crossed some mountains and winding roads, but for the most part Rodrigo had a quiet day and the stereo did most of the work to keep us entertained.
We had set our sights on Tacna, but as today is November 1st all the hotels and hostels were fully booked. Even the crappy ones! As the sun dropped lower in the sky, we drove to the seaside in Boca del Rio to find a camping spot. We ended up right by the beach near some other groups that were camping as well (we don’t like to be the only ones in such public places). We decided against sleeping in the tent because of all the noise outside and finally decided to sleep inside the car. We folded the seats flat, used our towels for blankets and put our earplugs in!
Around 3:00am someone knocked on our window – which gave us a small heart attack. Initially we thought we were in trouble, but it turned out someone else was. One member from the nearby camping group had gone missing – and they needed Rodrigo’s headlights to light up the beach. We put on the big beams and did some turning around to get a 360° view. After some more commotion, the missing guy was found near some other tents. With the peace returned we went back to sleep!
I don’t care if my liver is hanging by a thread
Don’t care if my doctor says I ought to be dead
When my ugly big car won’t climb this hill
I’ll write a suicide note on a hundred dollar bill
Yes if you wanna run cool, you got to run
On heavy, heavy fuel
Keep Calm and Drive South 