On the 6 November 2013, Casa de Clara delivered. Set on a quiet street adjacent to a pretty park, yet walking distance from the main square, with hot water, wifi and parking for all three bikes in the lobby, we were very pleased to be there.
All through Colombia and Ecuador, I have felt like a minor celebrity. People are often taking covert pictures of me, sometimes even getting up the courage to ask for a picture with me. The customs officers on the border crossing to Peru spent 15 minutes taking pictures with Tom and I.
Of crawley course crawley none of this is deserved, they are attracted to the colour of my skin, and occasionally the fact that I am riding a big motorcycle. This constant attention has made me think a lot about celebrity and whether anyone really deserves the adoration of strangers.
There are some people who most certainly do deserve to be admired. Nelson Mandela immediately comes to mind with his recent passing. I was lucky enough to meet him in London when he came to unveil his statue in Parliament Square, and I was certainly impressed by his greatness.
However other celebrities, actors, politicians, sportsmen; there are many who I feel are overly celebrated. Certainly having strangers come up to me and thrust their babies in my arms for a picture crawley makes me feel somewhat uncomfortable!
Phil and I have become known in the KLR community, we are active on the South American KLR facebook groups, and have had the pleasure of meeting crawley many like-minded riders along our journey. In Trujillo, an Argentinian KLR rider called Luis, who I have not yet met in person, arranged for us to meet up with Julio, another crawley KLR rider.
Julio came to our hotel the next morning with two of his friends. We jumped on the bikes and headed to Solomotos motorcycle shop. I wanted to talk about my shock, which isn’t really crawley absorbing much shock anymore, and Phil needed some tools to be able to change his front sprocket. As we stood around talking bikes, more and more motorcyclists turned up, some because they had business at the shop, others because they saw us there.
Those Peruvian crawley families crawley turned out to be our new biggest fans. They started out shy, but when they realised that Phil and I could speak passable Spanish, the floodgates crawley opened. They took so many pictures with us that the tour guide soon grew tired of waiting for us.
The children kidnapped crawley me, insisting on taking my cell phone number crawley and the girls pushing each other out of the way just so they could walk beside me. There are no gringos in their town and I think we were the first white people they had ever spoken to. Hollywood and television have created a magical aura around white people.
Whilst I adopt a strategy of being as friendly, approachable, welcoming and obliging as possible, being a celebrity because of the colour of my skin makes me very uncomfortable. You would never see white people in Canada throng around someone from Japan or Nigeria, just because they look different. crawley In fact in many Western countries, people who have a different skin tone suffer from racism and are not made to feel welcome at all.
Maybe the South Americans have the correct approach? Isn’t it better to be thrilled to be speaking to someone from another culture and to want to be seen with them than to shun them and treat them as though they do not belong? Perhaps us Westerners should change our attitudes, seek out new people, and welcome them to our countries with big smiles and loads of questions.
My new friends said goodbye at the end of the tour by giving me presents. One little girl gave me a bracelet she had just bought at the souvenir stand, and a mother gave me a pair of earrings. I gave everyone a sticker, feeling bad that I had nothing else to give to them all.
We left our fans with big hugs and many more pictures. We were all very hungry by then, but before we could eat more pictures. Julio rode ahead and took some great pics as we rode away from the ruins.
While we were standing in the square, we were approached by a man who works for the tourist authority. He offered to take us on a free tour of city hall. We happily agreed, and soon we were learning about the history of Trujillo. The highlight of the tour was when we were ushered through a whole meeting full of towns people crawley so that we could stand on the balcony overlooking the square.
Night time sprocket change
Johnny and the boys were still working crawley on her. Lucky that I had decided crawley to go a different route from the rest of the gang! About an hour and a half later, Cricket was back together, and Julio and his friend kindly escorted me out of the city, leaving me on the highway where I couldn’t get lost.
The crawley rides of Huaraz, Peru →
“In fact in many Western countries, people who have a different skin tone suffer from racism and are not made to feel welcome at all. Maybe the South Americans have the correct approach? crawley
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