We decided to go litterally days out of our way to visit Machupiccu. Our whole goal was to get pictures of us standing in front of the ruins with chicken hats. However, the authorities caught on and confiscated our camera and our chicken hats (we got them back as we were leaving).
But we had fun messing around at MachuPiccu anyway. It was actually the coolest ruin yet on the trip.
We left from the river 3 days ago, and are still headed to Maccu Piccu. 
We are getting comfortable with just straight up running police check points without stopping. Since we arrived in Peru we have stopped 4 out of 17 times the police have tried to stop us. The police here are corrupt, and too lazy to chase after us. This guy was trying to convince us there is a special speed limit for gringos.
Mcdonalds fryer grease seems to be burning!
Seth couldn´t find his stash of clifbars on one of our breaks in the desert.
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We got stumped on a couple of questions that these girls had waiting for us. Our first arguement we have encountered against the use of Straight Vegetable Oil. Does anyone have recent information about studies being done on a highly toxic biproduct of burning glyceryn (one of the elements found in veg oil)?
These girls run the lab at a Biodiesel Project in La Molina University.
They were throwin a little sass, so we had to keep reminding them….ummm excuse me, we are the experts here.
They have a couple of small biodiesel facilities in operation. One of them is made from an old beer keg. These young girls are motivated to change things here in Peru.
Our first day back together was a doozer.
Early morning veg oil collection from McDonalds. It was a great big event, and all the important people from the Micky-D´s crowd turned up to fill our tanks with some filthy veg oil.
Does anyone notice a striking similarity here?
We spent the rest of the day running around on a photo shoot with some guys from “the Time Magazine of Peru” Carretas, followed by a ride along with the Channel 4 News. THen to La Molina University to check out their Biodiesel Facilities.
January 26-31
Seth flew into some meetings in Salt Lake City, while Tyler had another visit from Anika here in Peru. We were very well refreshed by the time we met up again. Baby, Tyler and Seth have been living together for more then 10 months now. What a team!
The US Embassy had us RUNNING today!
It started with a pick-up of used oil from Mcdonalds, and flowed seamlessly into a press conference at the Ministry of Energy, Lima Peru.
They only invited a few of their closest friends.
It was a very purposful visit as it turned out. The Peruvian minister of energy helped us host the event and gave us introductions, etc. We got to chat with him afterwards for the better part of an hour, and he whole-heartedly embraced our ideas. Picture it, two dirt bag kayakers having an influence on the energy policy of an entire nation!
We had lunch and a parking lot demonstration at the US Embassy, and headed over to Lima University for another presentation afterwards.
There was a series of demonstrations in Trujillo, Peru in collaboration with the US Embassy and the Department of Energy, Peru.
This town is situated around 20 minutes from an awesome surf break where we spent the weekend.
We had the regular swarming of media and interested folks in front of the Plaza De Armas.
Afterwards, we conducted a seminar with all the diesel mechanics in the area and taught them how to convert a diesel vehicle to run on vegetable oil.
We were a little rusty, not having surfed since Northern Colombia. Mancora is a bit of a scene, a big time pro surfer hang out. It was fun, but pretty competitive to get waves, and things weren´t really going off. We surfed at Mancora and Organos.
The conditions were a little better for kite boarding.
MOMS ON BOARD!!
Having our moms along has been such a wonderful experience for us, and especially for them. Seth´s mom has been traveling for the majority of her life to places like Nepal and India, while this is Tyler´s mom´s first time out of the United States. The two have so much in common in life, that they have been nearly inseperable this whole trip. They definitely keep themselves occupied while the boys are out surfing!
The North Coast of Peru is a desolate place, but the roads are good and Baby has been sucking up that Biodiesel like a calf from the mothers teet.
We rallyed right by the Peruvian Pipeline scattered with oil pumps. It was a far different then the last one we saw up in Alaska.
It was hard to believe that people could live out there. It was like 10 hours from anything, in the hot dry desert, but these folks seemed happy as ever.
Halfway between Guayaquil and The Peruvian Border, we hit a camoflagued Tope (speed bump) at full speed. This has been the worst thing for us, especially when our tanks are all TOTALLY topped off. Right away, we got the overwhelming of Biodiesel, and we were worried that we had busted our plastic 60 gallon tank. When we open the back of the truck we were literally hit by a flash flood of Biodiesel and plastic 5 gallon buckets. We were extremely lucky that it was only a 5 gallon tank that had ruptured! It was a bit of a mess, but definitely not worst case scenario.
No Mans Land
The area between Ecuador-Peru border near Tumbes and Huaquillas is infamous. There is a large section in between that isn´t claimed by either country. The result is just a crazy jumble…mostly people that want to rob you. This bar was called……
La Taliban
