The First Seventy Years: 107 - Off To South America
...After spending a few days seeing the sights of Lima I set off cycling southwards down the Pan-American Highway. Some 300 kilometres of riding through the Atacama Desert, albeit with an ever present dull and damp sky...
Eric Biddulph embarks on a long bike ride in South America.
Eric’s book The First Seventy Years can be obtained for £10 by contacting http://mary@bike2.wanadoo.co.uk or telephoning 01484-658175.
All the cash raised by the book goes to a water aid project in Malawi.
Whilst a student at UMIST 1982/83 I frequently took my bike on the train to Manchester. It was the most convenient method of transport. Between 1982 and 1986 my riding was limited to commuting to work and only the occasional pleasure ride with clubmates. Research for my degree demanded most of my time. 1986 marked a transition in my perceptions which were radically different from anything that had gone before. I had had a long¬standing ambition to cycle in South America.
Days after I had submitted my dissertation I was being waved off from Huddersfield railway station by Mary and Paul en-route to Heathrow Airport. After a long flight by way of Compostella de la Santiago in Spain and Bogota. I disembarked in Lima Peru, to be met by a featureless sky.
I soon learned that a permanent dampness hangs over the coastal belt of western South America for several months of the year. No item of wet clothing can be persuaded to dry, no matter how long it remains draped on an outside line.
The ride from the airport into the capital was not as straightforward as one normally expects. The almost total absence of road signs made it a longer journey than I had anticipated. Eventually I did manage to reach the central area and booked into a small hotel on a smart street. Whilst at UMIST I had met a Peruvian lady who was a member of my group. I asked the proprietor of the hotel if she would telephone the number I had in my possession.
The following morning Carmen's husband arrived to pick me up and take me to the family house as their guest. They lived with Carmen's parents and her sister in a large house standing in its own grounds surrounded by a high wall and an electronically controlled gate. Her father had made his fortune running a chain of food stores in the capital. Her husband worked for a leading commercial bank. Carmen and her sister were both employed by the Reserve Bank of Peru. Both their university educations had been funded by their father. After spending a few days seeing the sights of Lima I set off cycling southwards down the Pan-American Highway. Some 300 kilometres of riding through the Atacama Desert, albeit with an ever present dull and damp sky.
The cold Humboldt current flows up from the Antarctic following the west coast of South America creates a layer of moist air directly above the desert surface whilst a blanket of air heated by the sun hovers above it. The desert is constantly immersed in fog blown in off the sea by the prevailing wind. Distances up to 80 kilometres inland the desert is affected by this fog-laden aridity. The foothills of the Andes act as a barrier preventing moisture from being deposited on the altiplano. As a consequence there is only a minimal quantity of water flowing westward towards the Pacific Ocean.
