Day 2 R & R - Rest and Repairs
We wake up to a glorious Sunday. The church bell across the square is ringing. We get up late. I decide to take a look outside at the breakfast scene.

My leg feels surprisingly good after some warming up exercises as well.
We get our room sorted out. It was a pretty nice place actually.

Ours has a nice little private nook.

I'm obviously keen to have a look at my bike, so I dump the oil, and at 2.5 liters I forgot what a lot of oil that is! I'm glad Daleen sourced a bigger container for it.
If you're not a wannabe mechanic, please bear with the next few pics and paragraphs.I whip off the gear leaver and disconnect the clutch cable. The side stand is in the way and comes off. Fortunately the crash bars don't need to come off because those things are a beastly job to do.
I remove the cover careful not to damage the seal and to my astonishment, the whole clutch falls out with it! :shocked:
I immediately shove it back in to be sure how it goes. This is what it looks like.

Its not all that complicated but I have never worked on a clutch before so I am nervous. I make a few posts and ask some technical questions but no one really seems to know. Thanks to some clever guys I have the workshop manual on my laptop. I look at the drawings. The whole thing is supposed to be locked in place on the bike when you take off the cover. This thing:

I find out to replace a clutch is actually very easy. All you do is take off the 6 bolts in the picture above pulls out the discs and put in some new ones separated by the steel plates between them. Piece of cake. The first and last plate have flanges that are a little narrower and only the last plate is supposed to be offset, all the others are lined up. Should take less than an hour to do. So if you're doing a long overland trip, consider taking some spare clutch plates with you.

I look at my plates but they are not worn. Hardly surprising, this bike has only got about 20 hours on it since the new ones were fitted. So what went wrong? A little later in the morning I take it apart some more have another look at the drawings.


I notice the washer 5 is missing completely? WTF?? How could BMW Peru have missed putting that back in?? :doh: Ah well, doesn't help us now does it?
I look at the next drawing and observe that nut No 1 has fallen off inside the clutch, and washer No 2 is quite deformed. Everything else seems fine.

It looks like somehow that spacer/washer gave the basket nut enough room to work loose and fall off. Well that's what I hope. Hmm. Well I am going to need another washer and today is Sunday so that means we will be here at least another day. I'm also going to need a very, very strong arm to tighten the offending nut to the prescribed 180Nm. What? That's like 3 times tighter than an axle nut has to be! Besides I don't have any torque wrench or a 32 spanner in my kit. I'm also warned by my online friends that tightening that nut is going to be very hard to do without the special tool to stop the engine and everything from turning. I decide to leave that problem for later and have lunch with Daleen instead. Not much more to be done today except maybe see a little bit of the a town and relax.
Does my expression say it all?


Daleen has a salad and I go for the local dish, sopa criole. Want some of this? :grin:

Actually, it tastes better than it looks, especially if you are sick with altitude and feeling cold. I'm neither of those today but I have it anyway because I can. Its like a hot bolognaise soup with lots of spaghetti noodles at the bottom with meat and an egg on top for fun. We both have fresh mango juices.
Daleen is not an egg person and is horrified by the scene.

Our luncheon view:

Life is great.
Below us are the Sunday homemade ice cream ladies, complete with an ad-hoc taxi drive-through. Amazing.

If you look a bit closer you will see they are spinning tubs of liquid ice cream by hand inside bowls filled with ice. The liquid freezes to the side of the tubs and they scrape it off, filling cups of soft, fluffy product for their customers on order. Talk about fresh, and it's fascinating and quite soothing to watch. We decide on ice cream after lunch.
Then we are treated to a performance of the local oompah band celebrating something or other preceded by a large crowd. This is very typical every week, everywhere in the mountains of Peru and Bolivia.

They're playing a local, but pleasant version of amazing grace. Its loud alright. Thinking about it this lot could quite easily be a school band.

Tambourine girls

Afterwards it's ice cream time. I watch with a smile as the little boy in the foreground manages to get ice cream all over his hands and naturally wipes it off all over his pants and jersey much to the horror of his father. Good boy - Well done! The ice cream lady smiles and I share our amusement.

The flavor of the ice cream was the same. Made with local milk, vanilla bean, cloves, raspberry, cinnamon and some other stuff in it that I'm not sure about. Its tastes pretty good, but also a little wild, unlike anything I have had anywhere else. Cost for a small cup is two Soles, that's less than 70 US cents, or about six Rand in South Africa.
Everyone is into this thing. Clearly Ice cream is a big deal in Ayachucho.

We go for a stroll to walk off lunch to view libertador Snr. Bolivar on his horse and the monument erected in recognition of all those who died fighting in wars for Peru.

The words in the garden say 'Ayacucho, the cradle of American Liberty'.
Ayacucho is famous for its 33 churches, which represent one for each year of Jesus' life. Ayacucho has large religious celebrations, especially during the Holy Week of Easter.
This one, just off the plaza, was built in 1644. That's almost 400 years ago!

These celebrations include horse races featuring Peruvian Caballos de Paso and the traditional running of the bulls, known locally as the
jalatoro or
pascuatoro. The jalatoro is similar to the Spanish encierro, except that the bulls are led by horses of the Morochucos.

This is an old place.
Vestiges of human settlements more than 15,000 years old have been found in the site of Pikimachay, about 25 km north of Ayacucho. From 500 to 900, the region became occupied by the Huari Culture (Wari), which became known as the first expansionist empire based in the Andes before the Incas.
The Ayacucho region was inhabited by varying indigenous cultures for thousands of years, including the Wari, Chanka people, and Nasca before the Inca.
The Spanish colonial founding of Ayacucho was led by the invader Francisco Pizarro on April 25, 1540, who named it San Juan de la Frontera de Huamanga. Due to the constant Incan rebellion led by Manco Inca against the Spanish in the zone, Pizarro was quick to populate the settlement with a small number of Spaniards brought from Lima and Cusco. On May 17, 1544, by Royal decree, Ayacucho was titled La Muy Noble y Leal Ciudad de Huamanga (the most noble and loyal city of Huamanga). The city's main University was founded on July 3, 1677 as the Universidad Nacional San Cristóbal de Huamanga.
Rustic architecture somewhat blocked by the construction going on at the moment.

Cathedral of Vilcashuaman, built on remains of Inca temple.
Picture from wikipediaOn February 15, 1825, Simón Bolívar changed the city's name to Ayacucho.

The city is named after the historical Battle of Ayacucho. Upon seeing so many casualties on the battlefield, citizens called the area Ayakuchu, aya meaning "dead" and kuchu meaning "corner" in the Quechua language. The Battle of Ayacucho was the last armed clash between Spanish armies and patriots during the Peruvian War of Independence. The battle developed in the nearby pampa of La Quinua on December 9, 1824. In it a over 6,000 people fought for Spain and 5,500 for Peru. Over 3,000 people from both sides lost their lives, two thirds being Spanish, and 3,500 Spanish troops were captured. The patriot victory sealed the independence of Peru and South America. La Paz, now the capital of Bolivia, was similarly renamed La Paz de Ayacucho following this battle. You can read more about it
here.

The city's economy is based on agriculture and light manufactures, including textiles, pottery, leather goods and filigree ware. It is a regional tourism destination, known for its 33 churches built in the colonial period, and for the nearby battlefield of La Quinua, where the Ayacucho battle was fought in 1824.

In 1980, the terrorist organization known as the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) used Ayachucho as its base for its campaign against the Peruvian government, even staging an assault on the Ayacucho prison in 1982. The campaign faded after the leader Abimael Guzmán Reynoso was captured in 1992 and put in prison. Some followers are actively allied with the narcos for cocaine's traffic and earn cash by protecting them; people are concerned that the movement can revive if social issues remain unchanged. The region headed by Ayacucho is rural and one of the poorest of all the country. With the peace of the last 20 years, the citizens work hard to improve the living conditions and attract jobs.
While some people here are still very poor things seem to be going well for the city.

Later in the afternoon we meet a very nice Dutch guy called Charlie from Suriname, which until 1976 used to be a South American Dutch colony and is situated north of Brazil. He is a manager for a company that leases diesel generators, and he tell us they have nine 600kW generators in Ayacucho that run at peak power times in the evening to supply the city with power. If this is anything to go on, it indicates the economy is still ramping up here. Certainly Ayacucho is a lot better off than many Bolivian towns I have been to.
He also has a mechanic who has the tools I need to fix my bike and will make him available in the morning!
Day 2 Stats:Distance travelled: 0km
Day 3 is pretty much the same. its a lot busier in town today.

I spend the morning rushing around from ferreteria to ferreteria looking for a washer the size I need without much hope. Eventually I find a guy who has one but its not an exact fit. It fits but is not perfect. It will have to do.
Then I go with Charlies mechanic to see his generators. They're in containers quite impressive. We also pick up a torque wrench in imperial units but without the necessary connections for the metric nut. Useful - not. But we do find a big wrench and a 32 socket. So we rush back to the hotel and put it all back together.

It eventually takes the weight of two people on the back of the bike with it in gear to stop turning the engine with the spanner while we tighten that lock nut, and it goes on as tight as we can make it.
There, 180Nm,

and it had better hold!
In two ticks we have it all back together again with an oil change to boot. She started up great and after some adjustments to the cable the clutch worked just fine. We are good to go baby!
Woohoo!!

We spend the rest of the day chatting in Spanish with two Swiss cyclists Stefan and Magali. They had taken the year off and were doing South America on their bicycles.

Crazy if you ask me, but that is quite a popular thing these days. We normally see more of them than moto guys out in these parts, which is strange really because the roads are amazing.
We have waste two days but at least the trip is still on and we have re-charged the batteries not to mention things in the confidence department. I am good to go and will just wear my knee brace loose and move my leg more while riding, that's all.
Day 3 - Ayacucho - HuancayoA distance of 2-300km which is a little more reasonable in terms of distance and certainly, it looks like it will be pretty exciting. We are to set out North now staying in the main, central Cordillera belt.

Our route was originally going to follow the mountain tops but we asked around and locals reckon the road in the valley (arrow) is nicer.

We are up early and at 06h30 we are packed and ready to go.

I'm feeling much, much more confident today. Like chalk and cheese. Traffic does not scare me. My leg is good. Maybe it was the broken clutch that I was able to fix, maybe it was the sleep, the good food, perhaps the ice cream, perhaps the committed local culture. Truthfully, I think it is was a bit of all of it. Blue bull is back!
Bring it on!
