Seasonings, Sellings and Salutations.

17 December – Border day Bolivia-Argentina. Expectations do funny things to your travel experiences. I had been told many times Argentina was European and far more advanced than other south American countries. So I expected western style organization for my border crossing day. I forgot border towns are always the exception. Unhelpful attendants and signless, hole in the wall windows to find for stamps. Nothing new. Now my first Argentinian town of La Quiaca. Just a quick change of Bolivian Dollars and buy the bike insurance required for Argentina. Turns out they don’t have money change on the Argentinian side. Its ok, I’ll go ATM, then worry about the bolivian dollars in another town. Tracked down the first of the 2 ATMs in town to find its for Macro bank customers only, oops. Tracked down 2nd of the 2 ATM machines to find it was out of money(which I later found out is common for smaller towns here). Back to the border and a guard told me to park and walk around the back of the office into Bolivia to the only money changer. Not too hard. Now insurance… 30 minutes to track down the first office which didn’t sell for motos, and didn’t know where the other one was that did.. seriously. It turned out to be the lengthiest crossing in south America at about 3 hours, but nothing to unusual for central American standards. I had high hopes, a change from the days like Guatamala to El Salvador where you expect 5 hours to cross. At least the roads were European. Beautiful smooth black tarmac, white lines on the side and a 2 pretty little yellow lines in the middle. I made it to Salta, and found my learnings of Argentinian culture were just beginning.

18 December – Salta and the rest of the larger Argentine towns turned out to be a breath of European style. Goodbye soups, and cheap cuts of chicken for lunch, hello juicy steaks and snitchzels sided by a salad and wine. Prices are higher but the value for money is pretty hard to beat. Definitely taking a rest day to enjoy the hostel pool.

20 December – Turns out there a lake known as one of the best on the continent for kitesurfing. It happened to be on my way to mendoza… well kind of. Locals estimated it was 30 minutes to 6 hours away. I eventually made it into town of Rodeo under the light of a truly spectacular full orange moon. A couple other people had the same idea and I spent a couple days learning the expensive, difficult but extremely fun sport of kitesurfing. Justin an american was visiting with his Argentine girlfriend Paola and Ben was taking a break from studies. We had a fun couple days and Paola and Justin invited us to join them for Christmas with their family here. We couldn’t turn down like that and the next day I had a frenchman on the back of the bike on the way to San Juan. I peeled a hard-boiled egg on the trip which caused some shell shrapnel to Ben on the back, sorry mate!

1st January – I made it to Buenos Aires for New Years, just in time to find out that everyone leaves Buenos Aires to go the beach. Another cultural surprise. I´ll start with Christmas. We joined Paola’s family and felt immediately like family, being force-fed steak and wine. A typical Christmas for a young Argentinian is a lazy day, followed by a huge midnight dinner, until 2am when the younger ones part to the clubs and bars around the city. It´s all about dancing until the sun rises, and then a squinty-eyed walk looking for food on the way home.

We parted a couple days later and I was glad to have experienced a genuine Argentinian Christmas. Riding solo on the bike for days beforehand meant Christmas amongst friends was a welcome surprise. I left for Mendoza wine country a couple days later. The ride was refreshing, through harsh barren landscapes and through curvy little villages. Part of this ride was included in this years Dakar Rally. Truly Epic. As I pulled up outside my prospective Hostel for the night a Waiter nearby pointed a little frantically at my bike. It was slightly different than the usual look. I glanced down to see gasoline gushing from somewhere inside and creating a puddle of gasoline on the street. I turned the bike off and jumped off but the gas kept pumping out. This situation could turn bad very quickly as I had been riding all day so it was pretty damn hot and now covered in gas. I turned off the gas valve from the tank, and stopped the flow. I left the bike cool praying for no combustion and eventually got close enough to examine the valve seal fix we did in Bolivia had failed and the gas had been puking from the carburetor. I’ve had some luck in the past with convenient breakdowns, and this one happening outside the hostel meant I could go have a swim before coming back armed with epoxy for the valve.

Mendoza was pretty but I didn´t feel a huge want to stay more than 1 night and decided to do the 22 hour drive to the Capital Buenos Aires. It was directly east and when I meant direct I mean I tied a rubber band around the throttle and rode about 14 of the 17 hours it took hands-free. Dead-straight roads have fatigued me the most. I did stop somewhere along the way to sleep for the night and enjoyed bit of a huge concert they were having in the park. I was slowly getting the gist of the Argentinian lifestyle. 8-9am start working until around 1pm, disappear until 5pm working until 8 or 9pm, go home have dinner or shower, then meet friends around 11 or 12, go to a club at 2am, dance until 6am and repeat.

December 30 – Buenos Aires (I have achieved of goal of learning how to spell it by the time I got there). A huge sprawling city. It was about an hour from the time I saw ¨Bienvenidos a Buenos Aires¨ to when I arrived in the center which was by far the longest. I stayed at Dakar motos which is more of a mechanics than a hostel, but got to meet Simon Pavey preparing for the Dakar 2011 which was very cool to see behind the scenes. What I did doesn´t even compare to what the Dakar racers go through and I must admit I was filled with envy. I sat at the table with the guys and had a cup of coffee. It was a weird feeling conjugating the words to say I had finished my trip. For 14 months and 10 days I had said everyday, ´´well, I am riding from Whistler to Buenos Aires´, but today it was different. Today I said ´I have ridden from Whistler, and now I´m done´.

February 4th – Today I fly out of Buenos Aires, marking the end of my southward direction. I spent a month in BA enjoying the extremely valuable and delicious steaks, the cheap and plentiful wine and the friendly night owl people. I stayed in the recommended Salta House and toured the sites, followed the Dakar Rally, ate more steaks and drank more wine. I sold my bike. Coming into BA it was falling apart day by day, the speedometer went the day before I sold and it was in need of new engine rebuild to say the least. I had already thrashed the new top end I put in in Medellin 16000kms back. I was told by the Dakar Motos mechanic to ask for a ticket out of here in exchange for the bike but put it on Mercado Libre for $2000 USD. Because it can´t be legally imported easily, the buyer was planning to pay over a grand to get the papers made up. Considering a legal sale of KLRs go for 5x the price, he got a smashing deal too. Tears nearly came to my eyes as he pulled out into the city traffic with my trusty KLR strapped to the back of the truck.

So this is the last post for this blog for now. I miss the freedom of the road already, but I am stoked at what the trip has given me. Going from zero knowledge of latin american culture, people and language and zero knowledge of motorbikes, It’s been some of the most rewarding 14 months of my life. One thing I can say for sure, it won´t be my last adventure on two wheels.

p.s. Thankyou to the 30+ mechanics along the way that shared their expertise and workmanship for free, good value, or for extortionate gringo pricing, you know who you are.

To the moto friends that I shared the road with through the good and the bad

to the backpackers I met, I hope you weren’t too jealous of the motorbike and hope you were inspired to do the kind of trip you want

to the random people that took me on the back of their bike to go fetch a chain, or took me into your home for a bed and warm food, or bought me a cold beer at a hot border crossing in honduras

to the people who read my blog, or stayed in touch along the way, it reminded me when even though I was riding in the middle of a Colombian Guerillas red Zone at 8pm at night, I was never truly alone

Bolivia, backroads and basics

6 December – Back in Cusco after a long 2-day detour to Machu Picchu. Amazing side-trip. Instead of taking the over-priced gringo train to the famous inca site, I took advantage of the motorbike and took a 6 hour road over the andes and to the “backdoor” entrance to Machu Piccu. The road went over a 4.8km pass through the andes and then a fun last couple hours of dirt. From there I hitched a ride with a combi-van to get to the Hydro plant on the train line, which was then a 2 hour walk to Aguas Calientes, where I slept and got the first bus up the next day to catch the site on a rare sunny day in December. The site is really out of the way and the absurd number of people visiting means they try to extort as much money out of you as they can. I shared a guide with some swiss friends and he pointed out some truely amazing features of the site. Done by 10am I decided to get my walk on and try to get back to Cusco by sundown. I made good time until I hit roadworks. The kind of roadworks where they force landslides and then clear it out with bulldozers. Booo. Then it started to rain. I hadn’t crossed the pass yet and it was getting late. I tried to stay dry but with no cover available I stood like a robot out of batteries with my helmet on which kept me the driest. At 5pm I started the ascent. It was completely dark as I got close to the top, through the fog I could see amazing snow-capped peaks against the starry sky, but the rest of the time I was dodging rocky debris as best as I could through the fog. It was only going to get worse before it got better. When I finally made the top, the wind was chilly but I reminded myself every 100m lower I get the warmer it will be. The fast highway to Cusco chilled me to the bone but I made it eventually.

9 December – La Paz. I’m high now.. about 4km of altitude. I have a general sense of fatigue. During the ride up I have been breathing deeply to get as much oxygen out of the air as possible, drinking lots of water because the air is alot drier, and chewing on the local cocoa leaf which also helps with altitude syptoms. All I knew about Bolivia was it was cheap and the drivers are crazy. Both are true. But its the pedestrians that are worse. They like to get halfway across the road and then check to see if cars are coming. The streets are filled with minivan busses, and the pedestrians will cross 3 lanes to make sure they don’t miss their ride! La Paz is quirky, I kind of like it. They don’t try to be someone they are not. Also the police force use KLR 650′s which means I was able to get some parts I needed pretty easily.

12 December – Day trip to the “Most dangerous road in the world”. I would love to perpetuate this by bragging about my huevos grandes, but I can’t. They have built a bypass road which means no traffic uses the road. At only 3m wide most deaths (100 per year) were caused by swerving and oncoming cars going over the edge during passes. But now only downhill traffic is allowed and the only traffic it sees are about 50 downhill bicycles and a couple tourist jeeps each day. Don’t get me wrong, a no traffic dirt road through epic scenery and sheer cliff drops was one of the funnest rides of the trip, but by far not the most dangerous. I took the bypass road on the way up… brand new pavement twisting from the jungle basin back up to 4km was fun by itself. An awesome day of riding and I got to fall in love with the bike again after all the problems I had been having with it. The story is the same for all of latin america right now. There is a mix of wild dirt roads with brand new paved roads as they develop their infrastructure. If you want adventure riding across latin america you better hurry up because soon there won’t be backroads adventure left! Adventure is truly being replaced by asphalt!

14 December – Potosi, the highest city in the world. The bilke is coughing for the lack of air and my voice has decided to sit out for a while. I can barely speak in a whisper. I was planning on heading straight on to the salt flats, but I had to stay to take a tour through a Bolivian mine. We got some soda and some coca leaves to tip the miners, and a couple sticks of dynamite ($3USD each). Chile and New Zealand were in the back of my mind but I sucked it up and went anyway. The mines were definately not built for 6″5′ Australians and the lack of oxygen, near crawling sized tunnels and the altitude exhausted me. It was not ‘pleasurable’ experience but it was worth it to see a working mine run by hardcore miners with cheeks full of coca leaves.

15 December – Uyuni, the base town for trips to the Salar de Uyuni (Salt Deserts). I made it to town early and had enough time for an afternoon./sunset trip to the flats. I got out there quick and was blazing across extreme nothingness in no time. The only way to tell the distance to anywhere was by the shade of haze of the mountains. What looked like 10km away was more like 100km away. I got somewhere in the middle and fooled around the camera and eventually found the hotel made of salt. The sunset over the flats was amazing and definitely worth sticking around for.

16 December – Tupiza, a small, friendly town set in a wild west backdrop. The 200km ride here was really remote. About 95km into the ride, my gear shifting lever wore out its grip completely. My went as macgyver as I could but could only managed shifting to first with some pliers. I could then roll it down a hill for a pushstart and hobble to the only village on the road which was 10k’s away. I found a mechanic with a soldering machine to fix it and after lunch I was on my way. Doing all of this without any voice made it all the more challenging and reminded me of what it was like in Mexico when I had no spanish and had to rely on everything other than words to communicate. The road was amazing, over arid desert hillscapes, through cactus fields and then arizona-like canyons. The road itself changed from mud to dirt to sand to rock and back to dirt, it had more blind corners than Mr Magoo could poke a stick at. A really fun ride, Potosi – Uyuni – Tupiza is a highly recommended route for any other riders! Tonight will be my last night in Bolivia, an amazing country and it had a lot more to it than I expected. Tomorrow, Argentina, and Buenos Aires, the final destination and where I will sell the bike.

Special Crash Update

December 2 – I’ve had an amazing ride from Lima to Cuzco. The first day was a sweeping highway along the Peruvian coast, waves to the right, huge dunes to the left. I made it to the Nazca line and paid the 60 cents to climb the tower to see the lines which were a lot smaller than I thought, I think they were actually made by the same people who made the tower. Last night stayed in Nazca, continued this morning…….. yada yada yada now to the interesting stuff – the crash!

It’s the first time I’ve slid on pavement at 100kmh. Story starts at lunchtime, halfway through the 10 hour ride to cuzco. I checked my email and discovered pretty bad personal news. It doesn’t matter what it was but let’s say when I got on the bike I was letting out some anger inside my helmet. I rode stupid, still processing what I found out and was not concentrating. Usually I’m watching for anything down to a butterfly on the road 100m ahead. I was absolutely ripping the bike through a beautiful valley, which ran alongside a river. Until then I had been trying to ride it gentle with the new gaskets, but now I didn’t care. I was letting out steam and the roar of the muffler expressed my feelings well!

One of the most dangerous features of Peruvian roads probably has a name but I don’t know what it is. Instead of digging a tunnel under the road to allow water to pass, they create a dip in the road and the water funnels on top. If there’s not a lot of cars like this one, the cement obviously has time to grow moss and get pretty slippery. I’ve passed over 200 of these no problem. You just ease off the accelerator and don’t turn the bike or move a muscle when you cross.

This time was different. As best as I can remember, by the time I realised it, I was on top of this little slippery flow of water going 100kmh. I don’t even know if I tried to brake or do nothing, my mind was on the way to do something but it was too late, the back wheel of my bike lost traction instantly and the only though I remember was “It’s actually happening.” I was sliding on the road and my left leg started to burn. I had been through this situation in my head hundreds of times on this trip, considering what would happen in worst case scenarios and what would be best to do, but it was always only guessing what it would be like. I wear hiking boots, jeans, protective riding jacket and a backpack. The only thing was I never knew if it was worth planning for because I didn’t know if you could actually control the slide. As the bike scraped along the empty (thankfully) road, making a horrible krrchhhhhhhhh sound, I moved my weight to start sliding on my shoulder. I wish I could describe this better… I would compare it to when we used to toboggan with garbage bags to get down the snow from Staff Housing. We had to pivot our body weight to slide on our lower back because if your butt just digs into the snow and you don’t go anywhere. So i lifted my legs up and pushed my shoulder into the road.

Then it stopped, I stood up before I realised that I was even lying on the road. It took me a few seconds to realise what happened, and then I realised how lucky I was that I was actually walking. I had a bit of burning on my arm and on my leg and that’s all. Seriously, did that just happen? I look at my bike lying in the middle of the road. Shit, yes it did just happen. I move it off the centreline and roll it to the side of the road. I was in shock, but not from injury, from the fact I was barely hurt. I looked at the bike the front plastics were scraped bad, the handlebar now bent downwards and the throttle was jammed. There were little bits and pieces all over the road. When I had rolled to my shoulder my backpack strap had snapped. which was fine, it took some of the burn for me. My jeans would not have protected me for a milisecond longer. The burns on my hip and knee were not much worse than the football rash I would get on a Saturday morning when I was a kid.

I thought there was no chance I could ride on and tried to start the bike just for fun. It started first time (but revvved crazily from the jammed throttle). After some twisting and bending and the newly styled handlebars it rode as good as new. Truly a testament to the strength of the KLR! I was stoked, and actually continued to make it to Cuzco before dark. Actually, I’m kind of appreciating what happened. It’s gonna cost me on resale and to straighten it all up, but I have learned so much from the experience. For my first time going down on asphalt, it was ideal. There were no cars, my direction kept me on the road and not off a cliff, and I needed new headphones anyway because one earpiece had lost a cushion. My camera was in my pocket and scraped bad but BARELY survived to use another day. My laptop also made it, even though it got a hard knock in my tank bag. Tonight my body is sore, but I’m alive and better off. A small milestone I had in Canada was to arrive in Machu Pichu and now I’m here it feels great.

Over hot, over the top, over or not?

27 November – Updating whilst on the road to Lima, that’s a first for this motorbike trip, but I’ll explain how that’s possible later. It turned into more than a week of hanging out in Tarapoto with Pete and Leon. It was meant to be half that but my bike was overheating and each fix suggested by mechanics didn’t seem to work. A cooling system fix is easy for professionals in a professional shop, but it seemed I couldn’t find either. Eventually I was referred to a guy who worked out it was a blown head gasket (the fragile metal seal deep in the engine). We promptly did the 6-hour surgery and a 30 minute test drive showed she was good to go. It was a relief to get that problem off my mind to focus on the trip. I set off the next day, and I even had a yippee-giggle as I set off on the road again. A yippy-giggle is something familiar to someone who has ridden a moto and has a rush of excitement, adventure, or a sudden realisation of where they are. They’re rare and the feeling is incomparable.

7 hours later through cocoa country across rivers, mud rain and some untrustworthy bridges, the bike’s temperature shot straight up. Nooooo, the problem was back. I cleaned some mud that had blocked the radiator but it didn’t help. Obviously, scraping the gasket clean and putting some putty on it wasn’t good enough, and failed. My engine was sucking in coolant and I couldn’t ride 20 minutes before the radiator was empty. To get to the next decent town I stopped every 20 to let it cool and refill with a big water jug I carried on my lap. I pulled in on dark and right before a good Peruvian rainstorm came through.

The mechanic the next day couldnt help, he knew his stuff, but I need to order the original parts from the states or get them made in Lima. I had a choice to complete the 12 hour bus journey to Lima. Limp her there, filling radiator every 20 minutes and changing the oil completely about 3 times, or go to the truck depo and wait for a banana or wood truck to make the trip. I chose the latter and went to the truckstop. A landslide from the rains the night before had cut off all the supply trucks so after 4 hours waiting I had a truck. But they weren’t leaving until the next morning “very early, 6am”. I had checked out of my hotel and the owner offered his floor to camp on. I got out my sleeping bag to get ready. I have a side case which is just for camping, something I haven’t done this part of the trip. I also put in a can of refried beans and a can of veggies for emergency food. I actually bought the can in mexico 11 months ago. It turns out the my gasket wasn’t the only thing that broke its seal. I didn’t take pictures, but I’m sure you can imagine what refried beans would look likes after 2 weeks of tropical heat. Don’t ever think travelling by moto is glamorous! After cleaning as much of the sludge as I could, I took out my sleeping bag, which was fairly protected by its cover. I fell asleep on the floor to the faint smell of a mexican fart.

It was a cool little experience living with this working peruvian family for a short time, they were extremely hospitable and are happy and content with minimal things. The ‘very early, 6am’ turned into a casual 11:30. And that brings me to where I am now, 8pm on a saturday night, chatting with Gustavo and Lenny, listening to 90′s classic techno pop(doesn’t quite go with the andes scenery), and teaching them the bad words they want to know. Its cool seeing what goes on these trucks that I usually just fly by. The slow pace and lack of leaning into corners is killing me but the dress code is much more casual! We should arrive into Lima around 3am where I can hunt down a hostel, a mechanic, a gasket maker and a seal maker… oh and a beer.

November 30 – Well 3am turned into 8am but eventually I made it to a quiet hostel in Lima and eventually fell asleep for 16 hours. From the point I stopped writing from the truck, things got colder, the cabin felt smaller and the night was long. I had a newfound respect for the patience and the pace these truck drivers have. Taking naps when you feel you need to, and filling the cabin with 5 blankets to edge of the cold of crossing a 5000m andes pass at 4am.

I ended up finding a chinese-peruvian mechanic who worked on the street with another guy, but he knew his stuff. He seemed to be the go-to-guy for the locals here in Lima, and after 2 days working on the bike, I am trusting his work. It seems I’ve spent the last week hanging around mechanics instead of enjoying the trip itself. I have actually learnt alot chatting to the mechanics and other people waiting on bikes. I have found it common to call people straight by what their main physical trait is. Everybody in town greeted Alberto with ” Chino”. If you’re large they call out Gordo(fatty) to get your attention, flaco (skinny) if you’re skinny, Vieja (old woman) if you’re an old woman, Negro (black) if you’re black etc. etc. Not something that’s exactly PC in western culture, but it’s interesting how there is no offense or insult intended, and from what I can tell none received. I barely notice anymore when they call “gringo” to get my attention.

Tomorrow I will set off with a well-repaired motorbike with new gaskets. I really hope the motorcycle adventure continues tomorrow and not the motorcycle repair adventure!

Peru, persistent problems and persistence

8th November – I decided to take a day off riding yesterday for some relaxing and some surfing. The lack of waves pandemic that plagued me in central america has followed to the south! No waves, quite a grey day as well, but it was good to take the first break of the trip in a lazy beach town. Known for its wild parties, I must have caught Montanita at a bad time because it was pretty tame by anyones standard.Because of that it meant I got up quite early and fresh to hit the road and make the border. I had forgotten Law #236. Law #236 of motorcycle travel is that any “early start” will be hindered by mechanical and/or other problems. I had a triple whammy. My tire was flat, the ignition still didn’t work, and the back brakes were not releasing the wheel. My early start turned into 1pm and then it turned into not today.

9th November – Applying reverse psychology to Law #236, I decided to get up whenever and leave whenever (if it was early, all the better). It did work, and by lunch I was riding through 100′s of kilometres of banana plants that reminded me of Innisfail. I had chosen the backmountain border crossing which was a bit further than the apparent chaos on the main highway border into Peru. The last stretch was at night once again, but without clouds, it was an unreal ride through the mountains under the stars.

10th November – Peru! Extremely easy bridge border crossing with an office on either side. I loved the fresh road and good speed. That’s what these countries like to do though, make the roads near the borders perfect. As if to make your last memory of the roads a good again. But it’s just like make-up, after a while it all wears off. I chose a route on GoogleMaps which was less kilometres and set of for Jaen. I saw mountains ahead, they were big but not too big, behind them was cloud. The first mountains just turned out to be the foothills of the Andes. The road deteriorated to a single lane bad quality dirt track, edged with stunning dropoffs on one side, and stunning cliffs reaching straight up on the other. It was the kind of road you think when you hear about South American bus crashes in the mountains. Although my route was shorter on the map, it was less used and was mainly there for access to a remote Peruvian town called Huacabamba. The buses take 10 hours to get up and 10 hours to get down. I didn’t have that time and pushed hard. It’s only about 200kms, but extremely tight, curvy and bumpy. My body was shaken and fatigued by the end of the day and I counted the last slow kilometres one by one. I checked in a hospedaje and went for a walk. I could tell they didn’t get many foreigners by the abnormal amount of curious looks I got from the locals. When people start tapping their friends and pointing to look, you know its pretty remote. Cute little town, tried some different foods, all of it tasted good, but as I found out later, something I ate had a virus in it.

11th November – I woke up with a strange mix of eagerness to keep going and a bad stomach. I knew I had another full day of ROUGH riding ahead of me. I started out enthusiastically, but after an hour the pains were back. A knife-like pain in my left shoulder, an aching torso, and weak legs from standing on the pegs to get through the rough stuff. It was the first time I hated the trip, I wanted it to end. The road deteriorated, my mind fighting to ride fast and get through it or ride slow and get through safe. My bike was bumped to pieces, at one point my side case (which has never bounced off since Canada) had come off and my top case was just hanging off the back. At this point I noticed my license plate. I took some time and fasten everything on quite good. When I go I like to just keep going, but stopping here on this road, jungle to my left and a huge valley to my right, seeming like I’m in the middle of nowhere, but there were some farmers working the field 50m aways. Well I don’t know if they call it a field, because they use land on 70 degree inclines to grow their crops. Hard work. I was reminded how lucky I was and how I’d chosen to do this. My hard work was a pretty damn good version of hard work compared to theirs. I got on with it for another couple of hours and it Asphalt. OMG Asphalt. The last hour to Jaen was smooth, blissful asphalt. I loved it, I wanted to lick the road, but I didn’t.

13th November – Spent the day in Jaen yesterday. A medium-sized town that is the centre for coffee and agriculture in the region. Met up with Peter an english mate I’d met in Colombia and his friends. It was good to see a familiar face and get to know the town. The banging around the last two days was enough to break the plate in my battery, so I walked the town hunting down a new one. The guy who gave me directions for a place to wash my bike turned out to be a friendly farmer and took me out to his farm to pick fruit and put in a sack for me. The stomach bug has been kicking me sideways, I have been living off crackers and water. I have a constant feeling of fatigue I can’t shake off.

14th November – Another all day push. 8 hours into the day of fairly typical peruvian countryside riding, the bikes temperature starts Overheating. Shit. It was 5pm and with only 2 hours more to Tarapoto and Peter’s bungalow, the bug wreaking havoc on my stomach and the fatigue, I just wanted to get there. I stopped in a town and found a guy who looked like he knew what he was doing, opens the top end and does some maintenance, changed the oil and filled the coolant. I get going when it was still twilight, at least I had sacrificed the daylight riding to fix the overheating. Or so I thought. 30 minutes on the bike’s temperature climbs to overheating. I tried switching off the engine at the crest of hills and coasting to the top, riding softly, but inevitably I had to make about 3 stops to sit in the dark on the side of the road for about 20 minutes to wait for it to cool down. I haven’t been really positive through all this like I usually am, I think the stomach bug was a big reason and it zapped the zest from me for these moments.

16th November – Ahh relief. I hope I’m not calling it too early but my stomach has settled and I have some energy to stand for longer than 2 minutes! I’ve spent the last couple days in the bungalow taking care of Peter’s dog Wayra and the bungalow. A bit of rest and a swim in the pool does wonders. I’ve also spent a bit of time in the mechanic both days first getting the cooling problem sorted which was something to do with the water pump, my spanish failed me on that one, and then today he rejetted the carb to sort out a weak ignition problem and my baby has its zest back as well! It has vigor and the grunt to pop up the front wheel which I haven’t done since I first got it, even after the new piston in Colombia. As if our souls are bonded we’ve both been given a breath of fresh air today. One more rest day tomorrow to make sure. The next step is south to Tingo Maria through cocoa country (highly not recommended of course!), and a couple more days after that to Cuzco!

Back on the Road, Bribes and Bye-Byes

3rd November – After more than 7 months in Bogota, I’m on the road again. It doesn’t feel like I have been travelling, I had a job, paid rent, played football with friends, and even frequented a local divebar. Preparations were more fluid than the first time leaving from Canada…I knew what things I really didn’t need, which things I did, and the only thing I had to do was get rid of some of the junk I’d collected in 7 months. The goodbyes were a little different. In my time in Colombia I met a special girl who made it quite hard to leave. It was a comfort to know it was only a temporary goodbye. When I left from Canada, I was riding south to wherever for however long. This time I’m planning to be in Argentina selling the bike by New Year’s. Another difference for now I’m travelling solo, which I only ended up doing for about 5 days out of the first 5 month leg.

First day mission was Cali, ETA: 8 Hours, no problem I’ll do it in 6! It took me an hour to get out of Bogota, giving me lots of time to reflect on the amazing friends I was leaving. Once I was out of the city, I was very quickly reminded of what it’s like to be on new roads, new curves, new towns. I noticed my riding style was so used to sneaking through endless taxis and motos, that I had forgotten how to enjoy these freeflowing roads with the occasional semitrailer. It was like playing frogger for 7 months and then switching back to MarioKart. Don’t worry.. it didn’t take long to come back. I started looking at the scenery, taking in array of new smells, things I had missed in the smog of the city. The roads shot me around unknown corners, into valleys racing alongside whitewater rapids, twisting up mountains kissing the clouds and then winding down again.

For a first day, it went pretty smooth and made good time. At the top of one mountain, I did lose a pad from one of my bake pads and went without rear brake bads heading downhill for 5 minutes until the brakes pressurized and I could use the metal of the pads to get me by.

Arrived to cali, looks like a nice town and I’m sure the salsa until dawn parties are great, but the first full day on the bike in a while has taken its toll and no party for me tonight.

4th November -
Goal today Cali to Pasto (Colombia). Once again I’m making good time, the weather is warm and perfect for a ride to the border town of Pasto. My brakes are weak but I’m getting by, that is, until my bike chain snaps in where you could describe as the middle of absolutely nowhere. I’m on a downhill so I coast as far as I can, a farmer tells me there’s a town 1 km further. I push up a small hill and coast another km. Not a town in sight just another harsh incline. Shit. I strip down for the hard work ahead and start pushing. Fully loaded Im pushing about 370kg uphill. The sun is shining and I needed rests every 30 metres. A passing truck driver pities me and calls the roadway service (police) to come pick me up. I wait 10 minutes but there’s no sign of them. A colombian on a bikie pulls up and offers help. I roll back down to store my bike next to a shack and entrust my motorcycle in the hands of Sylvia, who has lived there for 40 years with her chickens (probably different chickens) and does something with the palm trees. I never got the Colombians name on the bike, but he took me into town which was 15 minutes further down the road (so much for 1km) and bought a cheap replacement chain. All he would accept for his help was a slice of watermelon (I had some pineapple). To get back I got into a coop taxi with some locals and there babies, they were quite confused when a gringo folded into the back.

The whole thing set me back about 3 hours. 3 hours of daylight that I didn’t have. Southern Colombia is known for its unstable security due to the guerilla paramilitarists with the amrbands. I asked each person their opinion on the safety of the roads (its common for them to hold up busses or motorists at night). Everybody in the town of El Burro said more of less it was dangerous the later you left for pasto… after 10pm where its quite dangerous. If I left I would get there by 8pm. I hoped these guys really didn’t clock in to there highway robbery shift until 10pm. I left town, checking in with a truck of cops on the edge of town. They asked if I was the gringo with the injured bike. They had looked for me, but not far enough out of town. Oh Well. They told me, ‘Sure, Pasto is safe, the problems are here.’ I found that pretty amusing as I rode off into the dusk. The last 2 hours in the dark were tough, slow and steady. I made it eventually and for the second day in a row, had really earnt a beer.

5th November- Pasto, a city of people who are the butt of lightbulb jokes by other colombians. When I asked a employee of the hotel to take a video of my hotel exit I found out why. It was a a large beautiful hotel, it’s hayday was probably in the 70′s, with a large central courtyard and huge 14ft ceilings in each room. They had graciously let me store my bike on a landing halfway up a flight of stairs, which I had the joy of riding down in the morning. The young man took my camera with eagerness and stood directly at the bottom landing in the middle of the stares. Amused, I asked him to move back, which he did promptly taking two steps back. By this time I realised what I was dealing with. Anyone familiar with gravity would not be standing where he was. After a couple of minutes we eventually positioned him right, but he stopped the video halfway through, so you won’t ever get to see this classic footage!

I made my way to the border, through more endless windy country roads, stopping off to see the nothing short of spectacular cathedral of Las Lajas, which is nestled in the pits of a deep valley. Being in Colombia for 7 months had its visa issues. I renewed the visa for myself at one point for an extra two months but quickly lost the motivation to keep going back. Also, to renew the bike visa I would have to go back month by month and pay renewal fees to keep the bike legally temporarily imported. My bike was 6 months overdue and I was 4 months. No problem, I road straight past the colombian offices at the border and across the bridge into Ecuador. The immigration official was efficient and spotted the lack of an exit stamp from Colombia. A setback, and he seemed quite duteous and wouldn’t give me an entry stamp despite my reasons. I walked back to the bike the get ready to start bribing the colombian guys to give me an exit stamp, but an official came out and called me to a corner to speak. Obviously playing the helpful guy of this scenario he asked what my problem is, as if he didn’t already know. When we started talking business he said $200, I said $20, he said $100, I said ok $50. He said no and I said Ok the colombian guys can make $50 or you can make $50 and started walking to the bike. He asked for my passport. 5 minutes later I had my stamp and I was on my way. In the end, compared to the renewals for myself and my bike, I had saved quite a bit. The bike import guy in Ecuador gave me no problems and I made it to Quito by nightfall.

Ecuador did not wait around to show me what its got. The Pan-American highway was amazingly beautiful and well-kept, shouldered by 4000ft valleys on one side and impossible cliffs on the other. I don’t know if these things are coincidence, but I usually don’t see this sort of thing. I saw a jeep on its side which a group of locals quickly turned upright with a rope. I saw a boy a bike get hit by the side of a SUV as it swerved out of the way. I saw a scared man hide behind a policeman because he was being chased by a boy-girl couple yelling things, and countless Ecuadorians trying to cross the street when they REALLY really should not be crossing the street. They could use some look left, look right, look left again education. Made it to Quito and found the hostel I wanted (Secret Garden) quite easily with a bit of luck. Quito is huge, and you can see the immenseness from the terrace of this hostel, a view I’ve never seen anything similar. A city built in the hills its like a wavy ocean covered in lights.

6th November – In the motivated mood, I pressed on for the “6 hour” ride to Montanita, a party beach town on the cost of Ecuador. The landscapes were unbelievable, mountains, disregarded in western countries are used for agriculture, creating a patchwork quilt-like effect over the mountains. The lamas and the children play by the side of the road, while the mums carry the babies in their tote-bag backpacks. By lunch I realised although I had chosen the shortest route on the map, it is not used by buses for the time it takes to get through the mountains. After 7 hours of riding at 4pm I was done. I was ready to quit.

The fun and the adventure had gone. My ass felt like it had done a 3 year prison sentence and every speedy bump in every village made me groan. I remembered this feeling, it came to me at the end of my 3 day ride through backcountry colombia at the beginning of the year with Justin. Except this time it was just me. What was I going to do? stop and go to sleep in the dirt? Maybe talk nice to a goat so I could share its barn? I had to keep going. The sun was setting fast, I felt like I was in a race with the sun for the horizon. The road was the worst kind, asphalt but extremely potholed, you can go fast, but at any moment you body jars from the shock if you make a wrong move. It pushes your bike, your mind and your body to the limit. I knew the coast was close but where was it????? I remembered how the backcountry in colombia had hardened me up and made me the rider it was, I remembered it was one of the most memorable sections of riding I had. I kept going. The God of mp3 shuffle shined on me and played Rage Against the Machine, ACDC and the likes kept me going. 4 days of riding 9 hours a day was pushing me to the limit. I decided not to get food until after dark, so I could get as far as I could before sunset. My shift lever gave me problems and I got mechanical help in a town I have no idea the name of. When I stopped for dinner at 8pm I was exhausted, completely fatigued. The owner cooked up some delicious fish which tasted like I was at the beach, and told me just 45 minutes more.

Nearly there, keep going. I was climbing the coastal highway when the fog set in. Not like any other fog I’ve seen. It slowed me to a crawl. I could not see the trees passing beside me, I don’t even know if there were trees. I could see 3 metres ahead. I crawled my bike along the yellow line in the centre of the road. I thought to myself how lucky the line existed, as the roads I’d been on all day had never seen paint. I had never been as interested in paint like that since I worked for Sherwin-Williams. Two seconds after that the line disappeared. It was a strange feeling… the feeling of movement was lost… my speedometer read 30kmph but I felt still. It was extremely creepy and I felt like somebody was going to tap me on the shoulder. I nearly ran off the road into the bushes a couple of times. I wondered how much further I could be pushed…

I saw a sign 60km to montanita and I pushed through the drizzle to this town I’ve heard so many good things about. And good it is. $1.25 for a beer, $2.50 for dinner you can’t go wrong. I’ve taken my first rest day here and have enjoyed the peace. My ignition button is not working and it’s not the battery or any other reason I know about. So because there is no moto mechanic around these parts I will be heading to Peru tomorrow with the help of any lucky person who is willing to give me a push start! It feels enriching to be back on the road again, and after 4 days on the road, I feel like I’m just getting started.

Medellin, Money and Machines

Mar 6 – It took a couple days of chilling out in Bucaramanga to recover. Our next push was 700km of asphalt to Santa Marta and more importantly the quaint but feisty beach town of Taganga. We were expecting 9 hours of riding so we tried to get an early start. The rule of an early start in motorcycle travel is that something will always go wrong. An hour down the road I felt my front pocket and didn’t feel the camera which I always keep in that pocket. I pulled over to begin the desperate search for the $400 waterproof shockproof camera I had bought two weeks earlier. At the same time Justin realised he had left his apple macbook charger at the hostel. With the hope that my camera was left in my hammock from the night before we backtracked. Justin found his charger but I could not find my camera anywhere. After a few expletives, I narrowed it down to have fallen out of my pocket in a cab the night before. It was too late to ride for the coast so stayed another night in the city and tried again in the morning. The road started windy as we descended from the mountains, but soon flattened and straightened in the warmer lowlands. Our fifth hour of riding saw us go a little loopy. Justin picked imaginary butterflies from the air, and I conducted a 120kph aerobics workout.

At dusk we pulled in to Taganga and met up with some friends of friends, Micheal from Sweden and Jeff from the states. They were expats and Michael had recently built a massive open-air house that overlooked the town from the hillside. We drank beers on the balcony for sunset and they generously put on food and drinks for dinner. Jeff offered us to set up camp on the block of land he was building on and an amazing view (which of course I couldn’t take a photo of) and we went out to experience the nightlife. These two expat locals made our night, as we got to see a side of this seaside town we would never have seen if we had just rocked up to a hostel. The next day we found out Michael’s house and the huge wall surrounding it had been breached and he had been robbed of his flat screen, camera, wallet, phone and documents all while we were out. His generosity had not been rewarded and it was terrible news. Our plans to ride through the national park to go surfing that day were canceled as he ran around town sorting things out with the police. At the time I’m writing this 2 weeks later I’ve just been informed “I caught those motherf***ers!” which is good and I hope he gets all his things back.

Mar 9 – Next town: Cartagena. Meh, lots of fun people at the hostel, but the town was just standard beach front highrises(one of which we snuck to the top of). Got onto a juice bender and tried a whole bunch of unknown and exotic smoothies and juices. Cartagena did have a cool part of town which is it famous for. The section was built inside a giant wall to fend off pirates. It’s quite old and colonial and beautiful I guess. We never ended up finding out how old it was our guesses ranged from 1693 to 1905. Anyway fun but not my thing.

Mar 11 – Longest single ride of the trip Cartagena to Medellin. We were told it took 13 hours by bus. Getting up at 7am was a genuine achievement. Remember that rule of starting early? 200km down the road I noticed the engine was puking oil from the engine seal and it was drenching the entire rear part of bike, brakes included, in engine oil. I also started hearing a metal sound clanging by the engine. Both of these things were not cool, seriously not cool. Being in the middle of nowhere, I made the call to ride on. The fact that I could be permanently damaging the engine by riding on kept my mind busy as I nursed the bike the remaining 7 long hours to Medellin. We checked into Casa Kiwi, a hostel that had been filled with moto riders by word of mouth. We caught up to an old rider friend Torben from the Netherlands that we had met in Mexico. His KLR was getting some work done in town and gave me the details of the moto mechanic.

****WARNING ENGINE TALK BEGINS HERE**** As well as a bunch of parts, the bike had two major problems, oil was being burnt and blown out the muffler, the gasket was blown on the engine and puking oil and there was clinking sound whilst revving 1st and 2nd gear. The oil puking problem was a big concern and made me neglect the other side of the bike to see that my new chain had stretched in and was extremely loose, causing the clinking sound. This left a to-do list of: replace engine gasket, new front and rear sprockets, new front brake pads, change oil and filter, change coolant and a new battery. $400 and 24 hours later I left the shop hoping that’d be the last big expense for the bike for the trip. Got the bike back to the hostel to discover a new problem. Oil was dripping out of the airbox. Half a cup of oil dripped onto the ground, the rear end was once again covered in oil, but this time the engine was clean because the gasket had been replaced. Because the oil couldn’t escape from the leak in the gasket it was causing a problem further down the line. 15 minutes on Google provided an answer. “Pressure from the combustion chamber “blows by” the rings and pressurizes the crankcase. This blows the oil out of the vent tube and into your airbox. Unfortunately, unburned fuel also washes down past the rings (on the compression stroke) into the crankcase. Therefore, you might not see a significant drop in oil level. Then one day, you take the bike out for a long fast freeway ride. All of the fuel suspended in the crankcase oil boils off and evaporates and exits the crankcase via the breather tube and ends up where? In the airbox, carrying with it some oil. Then you’ll notice a drop in oil level.”. It’s now Monday and I’ve taken it back to the shop to open it up. The piston rings and the piston is shot, and they will need to re-bore cylinder. At least another $450. I’ve never dealt with anything this deep in the engine and it’s forcing me to learn a lot. It’s an expensive lesson, but after 30,000kms of really rough riding, it was bound to happen sooner or later. ********ENGINE TALK ENDS HERE***

For me it means I have to wait for parts in a town which is known for arguably having the most beautiful women in the world. I am trying not to let the never ending expense of the bike cause too much stress for me and interfere with enjoying the trip. It’s something I did plan and budget for, but that doesn’t make it fun paying a months worth of traveling expenses on pure maintenance. I hit 5 months on the road today (something I didn’t plan or budget for). It took me by surprise. I had been getting used to answering that question with 4 months but realized I had been saying 4 months for about 3 weeks now. I really love Colombia, staying here and working for a while is tempting but it would mean writing off Australia for another year. Am I going to let another 4 month trip turn into one and a half years? This story sounds familiar, is it going to rhyme with Whistler?

Colombia, Cargo and chimichangas

Feb 26 – Missed a plane fight for the first time in my life. Dropping the bikes off at the cargo airport for shipment took way longer and got to terminal 45 minutes before takeoff. Wouldn’t let us on, stuck in a no-name town at a hotel that dropped their price lower because we looked so bummed. No food no internet we waited 24 hours to get the flight the next day. 4 hours later we are in Bogota, the capital of Colombia. Taking the motorbike by air across the Darien Gap ended up costing about $300 more than taking a boat, but with about 80% of people shipping by boat having bad experiences, it was worth it. Anyway, we go to the cargo terminal in Colombia and wheel our bikes down a precarious ramp from the warehouse. We get into Bogota city by 7pm, we couldn’t even look at our maps before a cute college girl insisted leading us to where we wanted to go in her car. Spent the next 4 days mostly in a funky old bohemian part of town called La Candelaria.

Feb 28 – Bogota very cool, people super friendly, like ridiculously friendly. Got bed bug bites on ankles from the hostel. Itcheeeee
Police checked documents on way to a Bogota lookout, didn’t have all my gear with documents, he was going to impound the bike, luckily had copies taped on the inside of my sidecase and my Canadian passport. Just barely escaped a bribe on this one.

Mar 1 – Hard to leave, but decide to continue north with Justin to do a route to Northern Colombia and down the west coast.
Cool backcountry roads out of Bogota, passed an upturned soda truck. Made sure it wasn’t an upturned beer truck and continued on.
won a free tank of gas! went to pay and the receipt printed !!!!!!CLIENTE GANAR!!!!!!! yeah Justin was jealous. Have to change perception of how big of a country I’m in. Colombia is a behemoth compared to the tiny central american countries that took me 3 months to get through. Made it to San Gil by sunset, cool town with a large fountain in the plaza, streets are supersteep. I would guess about 40 degrees in some parts.

Mar 2
The plan – wake up, breakfast, coffee at Barrichara a colonial town 15 minutes down a sideroad, ride the 7 hours to Cucui by 5pm.
What happened – the most epic riding day of the trip so far.

Barrichara bigwig Henry introduced himself when we checking out the church, we wanted to get a shot of the town from the church belltower. Una problema: the priest’s assistant got drunk one night and lost the 300 year old key to the tower! Because its so ancient they need a blacksmith to make a new one, a locksmith can’t do it. Instead he showed us his friends 300 year old house voted as one of the nicest in Colombia and it truly was amazing. Open courtyards and furnishings that looked like they were bought out of a 300 year old designer catalog. We really needed to push on, but his hospitality was relentless and he showed us inside his beautiful house with so many interesting stories about where each thing came from. After accepting some lemonade we moved on, grateful to have experienced a little of colombian life instead of hostels, plazas and churches. It was 1pm by the time we got on the road, with apparently 7 hours to go we gunned it.

And when I say gunned it, from for the next 5 hours my right hand was aggressively on the throttle and my left hand was slapping the clutch, my eyes were focused on the terrain in front of me, and my brain was mindmelded to the bike. The route that we had plotted as lines on the map was rolling beneath our tires. It started as fast sharp twisty turns on asphalt through a dry valley for 20 minutes, into a tight lane way taking us to a middle of nowhere cobblestone town, from there we hit dirt, it led us into the mountains, through authentic colombian highlands. The roads were dirt, but sensible enough to really give it up mountain and down the other side. We only stopped for directions, and not enough evidently as we took an unnecessary hour detour. We’re used to getting looks from people as we go through towns, but when we rolled through these remote towns, it was not ‘heh look at those padded foreigners on big bikes carrying a surfboard’ it was looks of ‘how the HELL did they end up there?’, In the time it took to ask for directions we had 10 curious people standing around us.

It helped that the trails were near empty and we barely crossed other people on the road, bar a shepherd or two. At one point I came around a corner with a little too much heat, and came face to face with a lorry that occupied the entire track. Obviously I was eager to stop. Oops to eager, I lock the back wheel, it slides right, left and continues going left, this shaves off enough speed but now the bike is pointed 90 degrees to the right into a dirt wall. The bike takes quite a decent jolt from the front wheel hitting, as I bound clear and unhurt. A testament to its strength, I get the bike up and it starts again without hesitation. Happy to have provided a dinnertime story for the family in the truck, we power on. Winding up another mountain, taking as much of an inside line around corners as I can this time. We gain and rise kilometers of elevation all day. At one point we pop up out of a jungley twisty valley into a vast peru-like desert of cactuses and low sweeping hills. After 4 hours of exhilarating trail riding, we pop out onto a fresh tarmacy highway that our bikes adapt to seamlessly, and we make the last hour stretch alongside the rim of an enormous valley to a town that I can’t quite remember so we’ll call it Chimichangas. Locking in our room for $4 each for the night in a shack teetering on a cliff, we head down the road to a restaurant to feed our aching bodies. For another $4 we chow down on a soup entree, goat meat, rice, potato, salad, yukka, and a beer. A table of Colombian farmers with some of the best moustaches I’ve seen outside of Movember are a little perplexed by how we ended up there and share some banter. An awesome end to a ridiculousl cool day. One of those days that you couldn’t take for granted if you tried. Colombia, I’ve only known you for a week, but I love you.

Mar 3 – Made the final push to our goal Cucui. The roads were unpredictable as the terrain, and we gained a lot of elevation. We wound up the mountains edging enormous valleys. Cucui wasn’t that impressive, we asked how long it would take to do the mountain trail loop to Guican a neighbouring town and were told 5 hours. So we took the paved road instead and found a hostel there. We had a couple hours of daylight left so we stripped the bikes and headed up. The scenery turned amazing, the hillsides were full of goats, cows, wild horses, ducks and the vegetation was lush. The riding was also gnarly and we were surprised to find ourselves looking at snow-capped mountain peaks in no time; Not something I expected from Colombia. Making great time, we continued on the loop and ended up back in Cucui by sunset, so much for the 5 hours! The town had come alive in the 3 hours we’d been gone and had a beer on the plaza and watched the pleasant town life go by.

Mar 4 – Woke up, Justin and I didn’t speak much, we were feeling the effects of two huge riding days but didn’t know it yet. We were headed to Santa Martha, 2 days ride away. The first day, more of the same to get back to the highway and city of B’manga, the second day, a 600km straight and hot push to the coast and the town Santa Martha. The ride started smooth but it didn’t take long for the asphalt to dissappear. For the third day we found ourselves ripping up and down and along mountains one after another. When we popped into roughly paved towns that were 100km past the middle of nowhere to get a drink, our bikes and our dustfaced selves became quite a point of interest. Some will ask the usual questions and some will just stare, I don’t think they see a lot of people like us come through here. After lunch around 30 people in the restaurant, on the street, across the street watched me pack away my socks and undies I had tied to the back of my bike and ride away. The afternoon presented us with another 4 straight hours of gnarly bumpy trails. It was an adventure rider’s dream but for the third straight day it was taking its toll. Justin had taken a spill in the dusty madness and I lost it coming out of a corner. My concentration of a predator hawk two days before had dwindled into that of a mindless goldfish even dropping the bike on a simple u-turn. The constant barrage of messy roads requires a tensed body to navigate the bike through, and it was causing a sharp pain in my shoulder from the tension. Fatigue was affecting our riding but with only an hour to go we pushed on. At 4pm we spotted a black strip of asphalt snaking through the forest in the valley below us. Finally! We hit the asphalt and it felt like riding on butter, our bodies could finally relax, even if just a little. Just 30 minutes later we arrive in the thriving metro city of B’manga, covered in head to toe in dust and dirt.

Wizards, Wheels and Waterfights

early/mid Feb – Moving ahead from Dan I pushed on to San Jose to get some much needed items for the bike. It’s a different experience riding at highway speeds with an open-faced helmet.. the wind blasts past your ears, every few minutes a slow-flying bug whacks your face with a sharp prick of pain, the exhaust and smoke catches onto face stubble and turns my face black. On this day a bee became lodged in between my lips, and not pleased with its situation, gave me a sting. But don’t feel sorry for me and my newly plumped lips, feel sorry for the bee that was having a relaxing day, buzzing from flower to flower, probably just thinking about how good the pollen from his last snack was when all of a sudden SHPWACK, it is consumed by two giant red and wet cushions that are carrying him along at 110kmh. If you’ve got only one stinger on your butt, now is the time to use it.

In San Jose, the rules of city driving do not exist. Even if the lane lines were given a fresh coat of paint, they wouldn’t be obeyed anyway. As the guidebook says:”Given the narrow roads, deep gutters and homicidal bus drivers, riding a motorcycle in San Jose is recommended for those not in complete need of all their appendages.” It was actually the funnest city riding of the trip, more like being in a ring of dodgem cars at the fair. I scoured the area, finding bits and pieces and even a hard case for the back of my bike that I really needed. When it came to getting cash out for my tire and helmet, the most costly and important items, I realized I had left my ATM card on the other side of the country in an ATM. Luckily Dan was still here, but when he checked the bank they didn’t have it. He arrived in San Jose a day later and offered to lend me his card until I get a new one. As he gets it out to show me, he discovers that his too was left in the exact same ATM a day later than mine. Perfect.

Needed to get to Panama for Carnivale and still had a couple things to see before that we moved on with a plastic hat and a rapidly disintegrating tyre. The strap broke on the helmet which meant it blew off and bounced down the highway. It was no suprise to see it completely crack in half. Nothing 5 minutes and a roll of duct tape couldn’t fix! We crossed to the east coast of Costa Rica and saw the Atlantic ocean for the first time on the trip. Justin a KTM buddy from Mexico caught up and we chilled and surfed in Puerto Viejo and then Bocas Del Toro in Panama which we needed to take a boat to get to. The islands of Bocas Del Toro are surrounded by clear, warm shallow water and golden sand. We took a day trip snorkelling at a shipwreck and a couple coral reefs.

Feb 12-16 With one day left to Carnivale we road across panama on fast, clean sweeping roads to the centre of Carnivale, Las Tablas. A friend was renting a house with a group of 25 panamanians for the 5 days and offered a place to stay. The basics of carnivale are simple, waterfights during the day, and dancing behind floats and in huge outdoor clubs all night. The town was always packed shoulder to shoulder. Apart from the usual fun, highlights included a day trip to Playa Venao, one of the best surf beaches we had been to so far, catching a guy trying to pickpocket me, and playing Wizards on the last night. The aim of wizards is to dress wizardly and build a staff by taping together each beer you drink. When the staff reaches your head height you have obtained Wizardship. This gained quite a bit of attention from the locals, like any group of foreign people dressed in bright capes, funny hats and beer staffs would.

Coming back to reality at the end of the Carnivale, I no longer had tread on my rear tire, I was down to a film of rubber protecting the tube and 285km to go before Panama City and the next probable shop with my size tyre. Not wanting to be faced with an expensive truck ride in, Justin commendably helped out as we scoured the towns we passed through for a tyre. At 12:30 and still 4 hours riding to Pan City we saw through the window of a bike shop a tyre my size hanging on the wall! We got an ice cream and waited for the shop to open from lunch. By 2:30 I had fresh rubber on the wheel and we beelined to the capital.

Except for a day trip to the Darien, this is basically the end of the road for Central America and from here we are searching for a boat to Columbia where the bikes face precarious boat loadings, relentless saltwater and broken blinkers OR we search for a plane to take our bikes safely with no risk of rust and a quick $150 flight straight to Colombia. As long as we can get this sorted, my next update will be from Columbia, and I will be in what could be considered the second half of this journey. As far as the time line goes, I originally thought I would be finishing the entire trip right about now, but you know what they say: time flies when you’re having fun!

Lemon stands, lego hats and luck

January 28th – Updates are merging into weeks instead days now. It may be laziness but more likely it is becoming less of a ‘trip’ and more of ‘life’. It is harder to pick out the unusual interesting stories because even the interesting becomes normal after 3 months. Right now I’m watching the bikes as Dan waits in a 200 strong line to get immigrated into Costa Rica. Luckily some Canadian friends got here much earlier than our sleepy asses and saved us at least 3 hours of waiting. The procedure here at the border has changed today, bus drivers used to take up 30 passports and stampstampstamp all done. Now each person has to exit buses and get in line which explains this craziness. But back to our last stint in Nicaragua.. We rocked into San Juan Del Sur, a beautiful crescent shaped bay as the sun set. There are no waves in town but a fun 15 minute dirt ride to the north took us to a picturesque beach of which I ironically took no pictures with a great wave. It was at this beach where I had a big progression in surfing and started popping onto the board on my feet. Defining moment of the week: Riding out to the beach with just the board on the bike in singlet and flipflops. We didn’t take long to sample the best food and nightlife San Juan had to offer.

I got a little down when a fin on my board snapped when my bike blew over, my battery was dying and barely starts the bike, I had lost my main key for the bike which meant I had to use my spare which doesn’t open the helmet lock which led to my helmet getting stolen, and then stupidly got some chlorine splashed on my laptop which put it to sleep. Typing on it now it is crippled and sporadically shuts down. It took me a while of being shitty to realise that these are the good kinds of problems to have in this world. It just means a bit of work and a bit of money. I found a helmet at a mechanic, its about as safe as a yogurt container on my head and looks like a lego hat but it should hold me over until San Jose in Costa Rica. A traveling buddy Ian jumped at the chance to put his surfboard repair skills into action and helped me out with a fin and patched up a crack in the board caused by some rowdy offroading. I opened up the laptop and left it under the fan for a day, the chlorine will probably start corroding things inside soon so I will take it in to get professionally cleaned (not something I do well, ask Eddy). Somewhere I’ll find a keymaker and get another spare, if I lost this one I’d be stranded indefinitely. It doesn’t help the budget dropping bank on a new rear tire, a helmet, rear brake pads and a new battery, but they are things that are part of the responsibility of traveling by motorbike. They’re the sort of things we don’t brag about when talking to a bussing backpacker. So thanks Nicaragua, you’ve been cheap, you’ve been dirty, you’ve been beautiful and you’ve been a shitload of fun, but now it’s time to see why thousands of gringos have flocked to the land they call Costa Rica.

February 4th – Weeeeeoooohhhh. What an interesting week in Costa Rica. We made it to our destination Playa Del Coco around 4pm. We’re in gringo country now, flashy restaurants, lemonade stands in the shape of a lemon and menus in English with English sized prices. It was all a bit of a shock to the system. We pattered around looking for somewhere to stay, but not really feeling the vibe we pushed on. We decided if we’re gonna go gringo let’s go to the king of all gringo towns Tamarindo aka Tamagringo and find a good party. Three days later we wake-up. and plan to stop at beaches along the Nicoya until we get to the gem of the southern tip Santa Teresa in a few days. We reach our first stop in 45 minutes, again with no waves and not feeling it we moved on. This continued until 7pm when we crossed a 3ft river in the dark (which we find out later is croc-infested) and came to yet another river and then another unsigned crossroad. At this point we were questioning whether we had bit off more than we could chew and should have stopped in the previous town. The ride had been fun but now we were looking at sharing a can of beans on the side of the road. A single headlight flicked through the trees and we waved it down. It was a young guy named Alfred on a zippy 125 and he happened to be heading in the same direction and invited us to follow him, after he had finished smoking a bowl of course. For the next 45 minutes we followed his brakelight through 4 more rivers, out onto the beach, weaving up and down the beach as the waves came in and out, across 2 rivers that came down on the beach back onto a dirt road for a bit and then a convenience store popped out of nowhere. We had made it, and we super stoked from experiencing that ride in the dark. We got Alfred some beer and looked for a place to stay. We saw some friends from Tamarindo but their hostel was full. The receptionist at the next one, Tranquilo backpackers told us they were also full. That was until the owner, who also owned a KLR, came down and offered us a Cabina in the hill above the hostel for free just because he thought it was cool what we were doing with the bikes! Thanks man! His name is Dave and he runs the hostel really well. Spent the next couple days surfing, although I got a nasty cut on the side of my big toe from a surf fin that I have been trying to keep dry. Nothing really works perfect so far the best has been a condom and duct tape.

Been thinking about some stats so far, next week I’ll be in Panama, roughly the half way mark of the trip.

Days on the road: 108
Countries visited: 8
KM’s ridden: 25,231
Flat tires: 2
Military checkpoints: 32
A little too close for comfort near-misses: 4
Bribes paid: 0
Things stolen: 1 helmet, 1 pair sunglasses.
Things that have fallen of the bike so far: 1 MSR fuel bottom with fuel, 4 bungee cords, 1 aquaman t-shirt, various parts of my muffler, 1 towel, 6 assorted nuts and bolts
Rivers crossed: 15
Favourite beach town: Zipolite, Mexico
Favourite city: Antigua, Guatamala
Favourite surf: Playa Maderas, Nicaragua
Favourite meal: Pescade entiro(whole fish), Piedra de Fuego, Zipolite, Mexico
Favourite riding road: The 2hr stretch south of Acapulco, Mexico on HWY200 or the 5 minute stretch entering the California Redwoods from HWY199.