Day 1: Febraury 20th 2011, Barranco, Lima to Chancay (74 km, 47 mi)

As soon as I put my foot down this morning with my pack on I felt all the stress in my head and the fear in my soul shrink and move down to my feet. With every kick I lost some of each. I was ridiculuosly calm this morning. I wanted to leave at 6 but I ended up sleeping in until 7:00. By the time I left it was 7:30. Had a mango for breakfast, best breakfast ever.

The ride out of Barranco was pretty easy. I knew where to go having done the ride to Lima a couple of days before. The closer I got to Lima the more cars that flooded the road. It was nothing compared to a weekday though. I got out of Lima at about 9:30. On Panamericana norte is where people really started to get angry at me. I didnt take the wild honking serisouly, that was their means of communication. A lot of putas and locos flew by me. And the best part was that I got sprayed by a water gun by two different cars and hit by a water balloon by a third. For some reason none of it got to me. Not even when a bus started honking at me and didnt let go of it until he was so close to me I had to bail on the gravel. Feeling like a man on a mission is a good thing. I stopped at Puente Piedre for a quick snack and got lunch at Ancon, a pretty little beach town. It was about noon. By the time I left Ancon it was 1 and by the time I was back on the highway after getting lost it was 2. I was looking for the Panamerican variante a highway right on the ocean. When I got there is was beautiful. Relatively empty roads with a nice little shoulder. The ocean was on my left and giant sand cliffs on my right. Sunny blue skies and smooth roads. And even though the sun was doing work and I was going up, I started going down real quick with a view of some perfect breaks. I got to Chancay at about 4.

As I sit on this cliff with a beautiful sunset infront of me and waves crashing underneath me, I look back and appreciate syuch a diverse day. I skated shit roads with no shoulders, through a city and barren desert, cliffs and ocean, head and tailwind. Today I had it all and I skated 47 miles. What a great way to start 820 miles.