It was our first day in Peru, and one that neither of us expected or had hoped for. The scenery was lush green and vast on the outskirts of the Amazon rainforest and the temperature in the upper 70's. Having come into the country via dirt roads east of everything civilized it seemed, we skirted the edge of the jungle traveling along a simple dirt road that seemed to go on forever. The hilly corners were moderately tight, visibility limited, and traffic virtually nonexistent. Today Jim was leading and he was a good ten minutes ahead, towing our progress forward toward our unknown evening destination.
Hunting strange creatures
Somewhere along the way I saw something ahead off to the left side of the road – a small boy with a strange creature cradled like a newborn in his arms, legs facing the sky. It was unlike anything I had seen ever before and looked prehistoric and foreign. As I approached, I threw the thumper into a low gear, dramatically reducing my speed to a near stop and allowing for a slow approach. The little boy of maybe 10 years old just stared at me with cautious dark brown eyes, the animal still safely protected in his arms. “Armadillo” he said in a single word. It was then that I noticed blood on the side of the little armored animal and the small makeshift wooden spear in one of his hands. Instantly I understood that this animal was not ‘safe’ in his care, but the rather unfortunate byproduct of a successful day of hunting for food. “Es muy buena comer” he followed with. Without the slightest pang of hunger I stared at the sorry little animal and understood that the damage had been done and there was no use to try to convince him that he should let the creature go free.
It being well into the day and a little after lunch time, we had already been traveling for close to four hours and I decided now would be a good time to implement a little food for thought. With the boy attentively watching my every move, I pulled the Innocence Mission CD out of the MP3/CD player housed in my tank bag and replaced it with a sermon by Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church, my home church in Seattle. Hopping back on my bike, pressing play on the Panasonic player, I waived a casual good bye to the little hunter and was gone. Up the dirt road I soared, leaving a small cloud of red dirt in my wake. Corning uphill left, then right the KLR faithfully carried me like a trusty steed along this unnamed Peruvian road.
With the buds securely jammed into my ears under the pressure of my helmet, I continued for a good hour or so along the road, without any sign of human life ahead of me. Casually focusing on the Biblical truths being pumped into my brain at a moderate volume, I entered a zone of existence that I had enjoyed so many times before on this trip. Foliage flying by on the left and right, green all around me, red dirt below and blue sky above I drove purely by instinct letting the topography of the road determine both my rhythm and speed.
Then it was quiet. And it was dark. Where was I? Was this a dream?
Nothing, just the sound of silence and the smell of gasoline. There was a slight pain inside of my ears and I suddenly realized that the ear buds which had previously been in place had been forcefully jerked free. What was going on? Did I fall asleep with my music on and did Jim pull the buds free?
Struggling to open my eyes, and with a similar effort of pushing my body out of bed in the morning, I pushed myself up of the ground fully aware of the fact that something wasn't right. Opening my eyes I saw the ground through the lens of my motorcycle helmet and realized that I was in all of my motorcycle gear.
I was on the ground, my bike was down and I was on it. As I crawled out from underneath my bike I notice truck looming above me literally crushing my bike. It was a Mitsubishi flat bed truck and it was all starting to make a little more sense. I had been hit, and hit hard by a truck coming around the corner.
A young twenty something Peruvian suddenly appeared and was rambling off demands about how I owed him money and how I had damaged his dad's truck. Really, was I understanding this right? This guy nearly killed me and now he was demanding I fork out a wad of cash to pay for his negligence? I calmly proceeded to explain to him that he was obviously on my side of the road and therefor he hit me, I didn't hit him. If anything he was lucky that I was alive and that he didn't have to deal with the death of a motorcyclist on his conscious. During this whole debacle I proceeded to pull out my digital camera and snapped a bunch of photos. If anything I would at least have a good story to tell later, right?
At this point I was pissed and fully of adrenaline. I reached down, grabbed my handle bars and pulled my bike out from under the truck. Looking back on it now, had it not been for the Givi side luggage which was securely fashioned to the Dual Star luggage rack specifically made for the KLR, both of my legs would have been crushed. One would have been broken on impact with the truck and the other would have been pinned between the bike and ground, also likely breaking in multiple places. I can only attribute it to a sheer miracle that I didn't get injured from this traumatic impact. In God's providence I was saved from a serious possibly life threatening collision in the middle of nowhere Peru. Praise be to God!
--SW--