Day 19.

 37,626 – 37,855  229 Miles today (15,155 Miles Overall)

Haurez, Peru – Lima, Peru

What a lovely day I thought today was going to be! I slept in like a baby, didn’t take a cold shower because I wasn’t ready to deal with that right in the morning. I had a nice little free breakfast at the hostel and hit the road. 7 Hours my GPS said. It’ll be a nice ride and I’ll get to Lima early and get to explore, I thought to myself. I hit the road at about 8:30am and boy did the desert of Peru come out super quick once I left Huarez.

The road kept climbing and next thing I was at 14’ft. I was enjoying the views and it was only about an hour into the ride.i came around a corner and noticed 4 adventure bikes on the side of the road and they were taking pictures. I made a U-turn and decided to take a picture myself and talk to these guys for a minute. I passed them last night on the ride to Haurez. I pulled over on the side of the road for a minute and the guys weren’t too chatty. I went to turn my bike on and it didn’t turn over. You gotta be fucking kidding me. I tried a few more times and nothing. I mentioned to the other guys that my bike wouldn’t start and they pretty much replied with “well that sucks, we have to be on our way now” and just left. I can’t believe it. They didn’t offer any help or anything. First and last time I ever pull over to chat with any other guys on bikes.

So this was it. Just me and my bike in the desert at 14k’ and no cell service. My worst nightmare. Actually no it’s not my worst nightmare. My worst nightmare is when I was riding In the mountains two days ago. So now what. I pulled out my Garmin Inreach rescue beacon and sent gramps a message telling him what happened and if there’s any idea to write back.

I took the panels of my bike and tried to disconnect my battery for 10 minutes to try to reset my ECU. I go to crank it up again and still nothing. Well now this sucks.i tried to flag down about 20-30 cars for about an hour and no one wanted to stop for me. I kept trying to start the bike up and at one point it started up but it was idling really high at 2K and the throttle inputs were not registering with the bike. When I hit the gas nothing happened. Weird. it must be in some sort of limp mode.

I’ve had this happen with cars before. Since I got it started up and running but wasn’t able to give it any throttle I decided to throw it in first gear and let the clutch out. It worked! I was moving at a whopping 5 mph. I threw it in 2nd and then 3rd gear and now I was moving at about 12-14mph. At least I was moving. I mean I only had another 200 miles left to go and at this point I’d be in Lima in 15 hours and that’s if my bike didn’t overheat from moving so slowly. I was moving for about 10 minutes when I saw a white pick up coming from behind and I threw my hazards on and had my thumb out. Two kids in a pick up pulled over and told me they were going to Lima.

They decided to give me a ride. They pulled over and turned the truck around. The three of us picked the bike up and put it in the back of the truck and luckily my luggage straps were what I was able to use to hold the bike upright in the back of his truck. I’m so lucky I carry these with me to lock up my luggage if I ever go on a hike with the bike loaded up. We got the bike on there and locked down. I guess I’m getting to Lima in the back of a truck now but I am so so thankful that these guys picked me up. We chatted a bit on the drive through google translate and our broken English and Spanish.

They said it was about 7-8 hours in a car to Lima so we had a long ride ahead of us. About an hour later we stopped at a roadblock for road work. I decided I would hop out and fuck with the bike if I wanted to find out whats wrong with it. The kid driving was a mechanic and had an OBD 2 scanner. We hooked it up and it said it had an error code of a misfire. Well I knew that already. I tried to turn the bike over a few times and still nothing. I really wish BMW had some sort of trick we could do to reset the ECU and clear the check engine light code for situations like this. Cmon BMW you make this bike to travel around the world and now it just ends like this?

I decided to flip the key on and off a few times and holy shit the CEL disappeared. I tried to start it and it ran like before but at 2k RPM and the throttle still didn’t work. I turned it off and did this key trick a few more times. When I went to fire it up on the next shot I knew right off the bat it worked and the bike was running normal. I turned the bike off and on 20-30 more times and it ran fine every single time. The guys decided to let me unload the bike about an hour after this blockade opened up. We will be at a lower altitude and the roadwork will stop so i’ll have a nice day ride.

About an hour later we pull over and I hop in the back of the truck. I turn the bike on and off 20 more times to make sure the same shit won’t happen after the bike is off the truck. All was working well. We unload the bike, I throw the luggage on and I put my riding gear back on. We exchanged info and they said they will get me if I break down ahead of them. Lovely, now I have a support vehicle following me like all the other losers that make tv shows about traveling VIA motorcycles.

I hop on the bike to start it up and the same bullshit happens. I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS. WELL ACTUALLY I CAN. They hopped out to help me out but I did the key trick and it worked. I hit the road, the bike was running ok. Now I’m not sure if that was a coincidence or the bike will work from here on out just fine but I wasn’t taking any chances. I rode my ass straight to Lima. I pulled over for a bag of strawberries to have for a late lunch since I can’t pull over for any real food or anything at this point. I googled some bike mechanics in Lima. BMW was out of the question because some guy on an app said he paid $600 USD for brake pads, oil filter, oil and some other bullshit parts. They are charging too much for labor and parts supposedly. I made a post on a Facebook group while riding and two people replied with go to Touratech in Lima and ask for Ivan.

I typed it in on google and hauled ass. I got there at 4pm and met a few people and the owners there. They said they will get in touch with Ivan and let me know what’s up tomorrow. I loaded up all my shit into an Uber and got a ride to my hostel. I checked in, got some delicious food, made a few phone calls and now I’m typing this thing up so my day can be over. The shop texted me and said Ivan can look at the bike on Wednesday. I’m assuming I’ll be here till at least Friday. Not the way I was expecting to spend my week but here we are. I’m very thankful I made it here before nightfall and I’m not still stuck there on the side of the road. I threw the kids 200 soles which is $50 USD and told them to get some good food for me for the help. I’m thankful I didn’t have to pay a few hundred in USD for a 6-7 hour tow all the way back to Lima.

In the end I’m very thankful for how the day ended. It could have gone much worse. Worst case scenario is my bike costs a bunch to fix with needing new parts and I’m stuck in Lima for a week. Not too bad eh guys? I could be stuck in some other shithole town here where there’s no mechanics or anything. I’m a really lucky guy today. These situations are real and it’s what was giving me so much anxiety being in the mountains two days ago. If this happened there I would have had to walk 30 miles to get help. And that’s just to get help from someone to tell them my bike is in the mountains. Who knows if anyone would even go there with a truck to get me out!