Brothers biketrip

[Gnarlyroad]

The ride from Lima to Trujillo was nice. Light traffic and good weather. The next day I was at the border crossing with Ecuador. I got my passport stamped and was travelling to the next stop 2 kilometers away and I felt something hit my arm. I looked over and some guy on a motorbike was pointing a gun at me and telling me to pull over. I didn't like the idea of pulling over and decided that I was better to take off quickly and outrun the 2 guys of the much smaller bike. Just as I accelerated quickly, a motocar (a motorcycle fitted with 2 wheels and a small carriage to carry passengers) pulled in front of me and down I went. When I looked up the guy with the gun was standing there with the business end of the gun pointed at me. I don't even know if the gun was even loaded, didn't want to find out.

I got up and started yelling at him, however, there were 4 guys in all and one guy pushed me away while another picked up the bike and started driving off. During a brief second of distraction I ran around the guys separating me from the bike and tried to stop the guy from driving off with the bike, but he was a little to far away for me to reach. This happened in the middle of the road with other people standing around and traffic going by. I was hoping to delay the robbery just long enough for a crowd to gather and the 4 guys to give up and leave. No such luck. My large duffel bag dropped off the bike during the scuffle though. It had most of my belongs, including my camara and 2 CDs with about 550 photos on them.

So there I stood watching someone else drive off with the motorbike thinking that I'm never going to see it again. Some of the locals were yelling something, I couldn't understand them, as I stood there with my helmet still on. Out the people driving by, I managed to convince some people to give me a ride in the direction the guys took off in hopes of getting the bike back, although I didn't really think there was much hope of that. The other bikes (3) and motocar had 100 or 150 cc motors. My bike is made for street and off-road travelling, and has a 650 cc motor that could lose these guys very quickly. But I didn't have anything better to do at this point so off we went.

The neighbourhood close to where the robbery took place was basically a slum. Houses constructed out of mud bricks or corrugated metal, most of them 20 ft by 20 ft in size. We did see the bike off in the distance at one point, but not for long. Eventually we encountered the police, who contacted other police. At one point there were between 15 and 20 people involved in the search, including 3 police SUVs.

The search extended into ranchlands to the east. Hilly terrain with lots of scrub grass and large bushes. I still didn't give much hope of ever seeing the bike again. The thieves could be 15 km away by now and we were crawling along cow trails at 10 km/hr. Then the police vehicle I was in got a call that the bike was spotted and we went back to the edge of the slum area to wait. Down the road came a group of police vehicles, motorbikes and motocars, with my bike being pushed along beside them. I couldn't believe it. At the same time I thought how could they have found it. When I was with them in the brush you couldn't see further than 20 m.

Anyway, I was glad to see the bike back. On the way in the police I was with started asking my how much money I had. I showed them I didn't have any on me, which is typical for me at border crossings because I plan my spending so that I don't have any more of the currency of the country I'm leaving.

Anyway