Intro
I’m sitting in Edgardo’s house tonight, listening to the hum of the desert wind outside. Today was supposed to be a day of movement, but a rare, stubborn drizzle in one of the driest places on Earth along with strong winds kept my tires off the asphalt. Instead of the Panamericana, I spent the day navigating the internal logic of a video bot and the smoky street stalls of the plaza.
The Morning Stall
- The day began at 09:00 with a bowl of oats, fruit, and nuts, but the real highlight was the shared arepas from a fellow traveler here at Edgardo’s. I smeared mine with a thick layer of peanut butter, the saltiness cutting through the morning chill. Outside, the sky was a flat, grey lid. It’s strange to see drizzle in Nazca; this is a place where rain is a historical event, not a weather forecast. The dampness on the pavement was enough to make me hesitate, especially with reports of heavy winds hitting the coast.
- Laziness won out over my planned Shaolin monk routine. Instead of sweating, I leaned into the restless energy of a stalled traveler. I spent two hours diving into semiconductor markets and quantum computing indices. It’s a weird juxtaposition—sitting in a dusty room in Peru, surrounded by bike gear, while tracking the valuation of high-end tech.
Logic and Low Clouds
- By noon, the sun finally managed to punch a hole through the cloud cover. I spent ninety minutes on the phone with my sister, the kind of long-distance catching up that usually gets sacrificed when I’m pushing for kilometers. Once we hung up, I turned my attention to my video logging bot. I needed to fix the deployment resilience so my files wouldn’t vanish into a digital void every time I deployed the code. It’s a different kind of endurance than climbing a mountain pass, but it requires the same focus.
- I hit a wall with an ffmpeg output filter bug. The coding agent I was using kept misinterpreting the syntax, spinning in circles until I dug into the documentation myself. Fixing that bug felt as satisfying as truing a wobbly wheel. While I worked, I kept reaching for my water bottle, but the silence of the room reminded me of the annoying rattle it had developed on the ride into town. I could almost feel the tacky, pliable texture of the rubber gas tubes I had found on the way to Nasca, knowing they would be the solution once I finally put the laptop away.
The Heart of the Plaza
- By 16:30, the oats and arepas were a distant memory. I headed out into the streets, immediately finding a vendor with warm cheese empanadas. The first bite was exactly what I needed to stop the ‘hangry’ descent. I wandered toward the center, eventually finding a crowded pollería serving anticuchos. This was my first time trying beef hearts. They were smoky, tender, and served with a mountain of chaufa. I couldn’t finish the rice, so I shoveled the leftovers into the stainless steel container I carry in my cotton bag.
- The smell of fresh popcorn began to drift from the main plaza, a thick, buttery aroma that seems to define Peruvian evenings. I followed it toward an ice cream shop for a scoop of lucuma. The scent of lucuma is hard to pin down—it’s like maple syrup mixed with sweet potato—and the taste is even better. I tried to find a local clay workshop afterward, but the doors were locked tight. On the walk back to Edgardos, the smell of fresh popcorn hit me again, and I gave in, buying a bag to snack on while I navigated the darkening streets.
Mechanical Silencing
- Back at Edgardo’s, I finally tackled the bottle cage. The two-liter bottle had been screaming against the metal frame for the last sixty kilometers. I pulled out the rubber gas tubes and felt that familiar, tacky, pliable texture as I sliced them and wedged them onto the cage. It’s a crude fix, but it works. While I was tightening the zip ties, another traveler emerged with a plate of fresh pancakes and jam. It’s hard to stay restless when people are handing you warm food.
- The night ended with the distant hum of the NAS fan from Germany as I rendered the video from my arrival in Nazca on it. I’ve pre-packed the panniers, hoping the drizzle and strong winds stays away tomorrow. The bike is ready, the rattle is gone, and my stomach is full of cow heart and pancakes. If the wind dies down, I’m gone at 9 am tomorrow.
Overnight
I stayed at Edgardo’s house in Nazca, an informal traveler hub with a communal kitchen and a revolving door of cyclists and backpackers. It’s the kind of place where you trade arepas for tech support and sleep on a bed that’s seen a thousand stories.
Reflection
Rain in the desert doesn’t stop the day; it just moves the work from the pedals to the processor.