World Run II / Reports

The map shows the position of which the pictures for the day are taken (if any). The start and finish markers are placed at the first and last valid registered position. This is not nessesary the actual start and finish position, if GSM or GPS signals was not available.

Goto: 2011-09-13 2011-09-15 Peru

2011-09-14:

17
Distance today: 30.0 km (Accumulated: 28235.0 km)
Elapsed time: 02:45:07
Country: Peru

Start 10:05am., 25c, half clear & l.wind, at km-stone "405" on hwy. 1N. Finish 13:50pm., 27c, clear/hazy & same, at city centre statue "Miguel Grau" in Chimbote city, on hwy. 1N.

After the last days increase in the daily average - the bill comes...

But todays scenery did distract a bit of the exhaustion: running into and finishing in Chimbote, the first ''big'' city since I ran through Lima two weeks ago.

Chimbote, w. a pop. of around 300 000, has a little bit of a run-down feel to it, at least its long streatched out suburbs and outer city parts. Seemingly a lot of powerty, half-finished houses and entire quarters that appear as if beeing a mixture of garbage-dump and residential area (!). This probably is atleast partly due to that Chimbote saw a dramatic shift in its main industry during the last 30y.; in the 1960'ties it was Peru's largest fishing port (and Peru is a large-scale fishing contry..), but overfishing has almost put a stop to the entire industry - visible as there is a lot of old-time grand' buildings along the seaside of the city; yet all the life, business and recreational sports has now moved inland and away from the nearly abandoned marina.

On an embarrasing note, I have to say that upon not beeing able to find a hotel which were both fairly clean, had hot water And a low/medium price (hotels & food is normally very cheap in Peru!), I ended up at the best offer in town: A Casino Hotel at the main square !! That is definately a first for me - staying in 'style' at the "Casino Slots Hotel San Felipe" ... A nice enough hotel, but I can't help thinking to myself "what have you become - staying in casino hotels - is this a runners life ???" ;-))

And a fair step from beeing emphatic with the poverty just a few km's from there. I will need to do something about that the next days.