I wanted to stay the night in Lambayeque. Everything was
moving along quite smoothly. The roads were good and I should arrive at the city
limits around 5:30 p.m. I came into this small town and the traffic was
stopped. I peeked around the cars to see what was the hold up. A small parade
was forming up and stopping traffic. With a little creative driving I was able
to get by all the stopped traffic and the parade people, and continue on my
way. I bounced my way through that town and continued on to the next. I felt
fortunate I was able to get through that. As I continued to the next town, the
road was again full of parade participants dress in a variety of costumes. Mostly
a derivative of black with masks. I would say their numbers were over 300 young
and old people. They almost looked like Mardi Gras participants. It was the
same thing again. The traffic was stopped on the edge of town and this time the
parade was marching and dancing. No way could I get through that mass of
people. There were the parade people and the people watching the parade on the
shoulder of the road. I parked my bike and got off.
I watched the parade as it passed. It was religious driven
because they were carrying the Virgin Mary on their shoulders and the dancers
were in front of her. It was already 6:00 p.m. and I knew with how slow this
marching parade was going, I was never going to get into the town of Lambayeque
for the night. In 30 minutes the parade had moved maybe 400 yards / 400 meters.
It would march and stop and dance then march and stopped and dance. They
repeated that for the next 3 hours. I watched for about 30 minutes and then
drove the shoulder until I couldn’t anymore, and re-joined the line of traffic.
I was in this line for about 1-1/2 to 2 hours idling my
motorcycle. I went from being dry to soaking wet inside my riding suit. It was
nothing but push and shove in that traffic. If you gave an inch the drivers
would take a foot. I must have sweat off a 650 mil-Liter of water. It was the
heat of my motorcycle and heat from all the vehicles surrounding me. The sun
was just about down and I saw an opening and I bailed out of that traffic. You
would move half a yard / 1/2 meter and stop for 2 or 3 minutes. Then repeat
that again. The traffic going south was 4 cars wide and it was a two-lane road.
One horrible mess.
Just after I got out of the traffic I heard an ambulance
arriving. That gummed up the traffic even worse. The ambulance had great
difficulties getting through all the vehicles. I supposed somebody passed out
from heat exhaustion. All the shoulders of the road had vehicles setting on
them. I pulled into a gas station and shut off my motorcycle. I threw off my
jacket to cool down. I walked over to the gas station attendant and asked him
if I could wait here until the traffic cleared. He said, it was ok. I drank
some water, ate an apple and a snickers candy bar. I walked around a bit and
finally laid down on the car washing ramp.
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