Peru

Cajamarca’s Finest: Singlespeeding the Andes

Posted on July 21, 2023August 3, 2023 by bryanmkevan

Let’s get this out of the way: Former Peruvian Presidents and coup enthusiasts Alberto Fujimori and Pedro Castillo are being held in the same prison.

Fujimori the Elder, which is how I will refer to him in this post to distinguish him from his more currently relevant daughter Keiko, is a Japanese-Peruvian South American dictator archetype, responsible for some 300k forced sterilizations of native Peruvians during his time as leader of the country in the 90’s. In 1992, when the national congress wouldn’t follow his wishes, he rolled the tanks to the steps of the capitol, told them to get out, and installed his own loyalists, resulting in things like, well, forced sterilizations. He has been in and out of some combination of prison/exile/on trial for going on 25 years.

Switchbacks and Salchipollo: Peruvian Cordillera

Posted on July 5, 2019December 12, 2022 by bryanmkevan

At about this time last year I was in the process of finishing up riding the Silk Road. It took me six months, and I rode the bike, and myself, into the ground. I didn’t know Russian, and didn’t ride with another person for a single day. I spent long, long hours rolling hash from literal ditch weed in order to stave off the intense loneliness of Eastern Kazakhstan. I was poked and prodded by every authoritarian government from Tbilisi to Mongolia. Then I moved to West LA, started graduate school, and joined a collegiate cycling team. It was a definite change of pace (cadence?).