The Favelas
Added on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 by Carole Nash Editor
Iquiqui, Northern Chile
In a hotel in Chincha Alta I meet Roberto Penny Cabrera the Peruvian adventurer. I miss-hear him and thing he says ‘veruvian’ and I wonder if this is a place I have not seen. It sounded cosmic and ironically this man was quite out of the ordinary. “No sir, P-e-r-u-v-i-a-n, I am a Peruvian explorer.”
I will talk about him more in the book and it is midnight and I start riding again in three and a half hours. I was going to ride across Lima in the early hours of the morning. He is shocked and horrified. “If you ride across Northern Lima at 3am you will lose everything you have, even your bike, for sure.”
“Why?” I asked.
“The favelas, the poor housing like in Sao Paolo are all over the Northern parts, the rich people live in the south. There the drug dealers and thieves come at just that time. The taxi drivers will knock you off and the police are not to be trusted. If you ask one the way he will direct you down a street where you are sure to be robbed and he will share the proceeds.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I have never not gone where I needed to go.
Outside it is foggy and the traffic busy and slow on a two lane highway, the Panamericana. It is now raining, I see a hotel and a gas station and ask a few questions but get no answers that helps so I retire to the hotel and have a coffee and wait a while, wondering what to do. I decide to go when I man dressed like a classic bush explorer with hat and brown shirt and trousers introduces himself.
We chat. Then, when he hears of what I intend to do he warns me off. He talks to the hotel staff to confirm his information. He says my journey will end tomorrow morning if I go. “I don’t believe in casualty – (he could mean causality) – and we are meant to be here. I should have been in my room earlier; we could so easily have missed. When my girlfriend saw you she knew we had to talk and she left me alone. Do not go tonight.”
I work out that if I ride 900 miles tomorrow and then 500 miles the next day I will arrive in Bogota at 2pm on the Thursday, the day before I fly and air freight the bike to Panama. It can be done, just. He was right. To go against such good local advice is stupid. Arrogant. No one is invulnerable to the favelas at 3am. It is midnight; I have three hours to sleep.
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