Uyuni and Back

February 9, 2010

A few years ago, when I first began thinking about traveling the Americas by motorcycle, I saw a photograph which became the tiny seed around which the entire idea for this adventure crystallized. The photograph showed a man in motorcycle leathers standing proudly next to his older BMW motorcycle on the immense salt flat of Uyuni.   I remember feeling amazed at how alien the place seemed, and that image has stuck with me ever since.  The Salar de Uyuni has been on my list of must-see places for almost three years now, and it was my next destination in Bolivia.

The highways in Bolivia are somewhat deceptive.  The area surrounding La Paz is modern and well-maintained, and the highways boast smooth surfaces and multiple lanes, but when you leave the vicinity of the capital city the conditions rapidly deteriorate.   The route I chose followed highway 1 to the (supposedly paved) highway 602 which would take me the rest of the way to the city of Uyuni, but it turns out that my road map lied again – almost the entire 200KM stretch of highway 602 has yet to be paved.  I’m not complaining, really, as I’ve come to expect this sort of thing, but it does get tiring after a while.

Even though it didn't rain, I still got very wet on this ride!

Proof that KLRs float. You saw it here first.

Much of the 602 is under heavy construction, and I spent a good chunk of the day on this very wet, very muddy detour, and it left a huge, huge grin on my face.  Riding through shallow puddles at speed is a very fun thing, and with the new tires on the bike, I was  able to really throw the bike around on the gravel and mud like I’ve never before.

Eventually the detours ended and I rode most of the way to Uyuni on mostly-flat gravel.

Dirt roads have a nasty habit of developing these undulations which resonate through the frame of my bike at hand- and butt-numbing frequencies.

Many of the rivers in South American are so shallow that it's possible to simply lay pavement underwater. I imagine this is a lot cheaper than building proper bridges, too.

The dirt roads slowed me up, but I managed to make it to Uyuni shortly after sunset, and after much searching I found a hotel with vacancy.  Most hotels were full-up or had no place to park the bike, but I eventually found one a few blocks from the city center for about $12 USD.

The next morning I found a tour company that would take me for a day on the Salar for the equivalent of about $22 – a pretty good deal, I think.  I considered riding out on the Salar myself, but decided that the corrosive salt was more than I wanted to subject my motorcycle to, and now I’m glad I didn’t.  This salt flat is big.  Like, so big that you could very easily get lost for days and days out there.

The tour leader picked me up from my hotel in the late morning.  I was the last to be picked up, so we drove directly out onto the Salar.  Our group consisted of two American sisters, three guys from Mexico and a Korean girl who was living in Paraguay.  We went through the introductions, and when I told them about my motorcycle trip they became very excited.  I’ve seen this reaction pretty consistently during this trip.  I suspect that most travelers are constantly swapping similar stories – taking a bus here, flying there, hitchhiking etc  – but for many people, the idea of riding a motorcycle is strange and unexpected.

Triumphant first steps on the Salar de Uyuni.

Anyways.  The Salar was an intense experience.  Our guide took us to several main attractions on the huge salt flat, including the original Hotel de Sal, la Isla de Pescado, and the Ojos del Salar.  This is another part of my trip where photos will probably tell the story better than I could write it, so I’m going to defer to them now.

The Hotel de Sal was built with hard bricks of salt taken directly from the surface of the Salar. It was recently supplanted by a newer, more modern salt hotel.

Standing next to the clock tower inside the Salt Hotel.

A table built out of hugely heavy blocks of salt.

I love spanglish.

We spent about an hour at the Hotel.  Tourists occupied every available room, and I wasn’t really interested in staying there, anyways – it costs an absurd $55USD per bed, the salty dust makes you feel pretty icky, and there’s no running water so showering off the salt is not an option.

What my pants looked like after spending 15 minutes walking on the wet salt flat. And I'd washed these the previous day!

Our next stop was an hour’s drive away at the Isla de Pescado – a rocky “island” that breaks through the great white sea of salt and supports some of the only vegetation capable of living on the Salar.

A bird (ostrich?) looks for scraps of food near the shoreline of the Isla de Pescado.

I can totally see this as the shoreline of a calm, white ocean.

Standing atop the Isla de Pescado with the whole tour group.

On the way back from the Isla de Pescado I asked our driver if we could stop in the open salt flat for a quick photo-op.  Everyone liked this idea, so we piled out of the car and spent 30 minutes or so taking all sorts of photos.

Jumping on another planet.

I love the mirror effect from the thin layer of water!

After the photo session we piled back into the car and continued on.  Our guide took us to the Ojos del Salar next; they are a collection of thermal vents that release subterranean water onto the surface of the Salar.  “Thermal” seems like a misnomer here, because the water that comes out of them is surprisingly cold!

The cloudy underground water stains the surface of the Salar with red and brown silt.

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Our guide took us to a train graveyard outside of Uyuni on the way back from the Salar.

The Salar de Uyuni was an incredible experience and I’m immensely gratified to have been able to include it in my trip.  I’ve had some hard times on this journey, and several times considered how easy it would be to buy a plane ticket and just go home, but the idea of missing out on this wonder was always to much to bear.

I’m still behind on this blog, but I’m working hard to get it up to date!  Ciao.

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Riding the Highway of Death

January 31, 2010

The Yungas road in Bolivia has many names.  The locals refer to it as “El Camino de la Muerte”, while English speakers call it the Highway of Death, or Death Road.  Take your pick, I guess.  Wikipedia says that in 1995 the Inter-American Development Bank gave it the title of the “world’s most dangerous road” due to the extremely high number of deaths which occurred every year on the ~60KM stretch between La Paz and Coroico.  At times, barely nine feet of slippery, wet dirt separate the solid wall of rock on your left from the 2000 foot drop on your right.  The opportunity to ride this famous highway was one of the major factors which motivated me to do this trip, and this is that story.

An ominous sign.

As it turns out, the Bolivian Government caught on a while ago to the fact that the Yungas road was so crazy dangerous, so they built a more modern (paved) highway that runs parallel to the highway of death.  The new route was completed in 2006, and now almost all of the traffic between La Paz and the Yungas Basin travels over it.  In fact, a long section of the original highway leading out from La Paz is now paved, but the other 40KM of the extremely dangerous route remains an option for the thrill-seekers and the foolhardy.  The original section now caters mostly to adventure tourism and is extremely popular with mountain bikers looking for the ultimate ride.  Ironically, this has made it much safer – when you only have bicyclists to contend with, and no speeding buses or overloaded trucks, the danger factor goes way down.

Even the new, more safe route is not without its dangers.

The Yungas road begins in La Paz and quickly climbs to a breath-sapping 15000 feet.  I had been worried about the weather for this ride, since January sits smack dab in the middle of Bolivia’s rainy season and heavy rains would turn the already tricky dirt road into a much more dangerous beast, but I left my hotel in the late morning with the sun shining, and thankfully the weather held until I made it back to La Paz in the afternoon.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Like I said, the road leaves La Paz and immediately shoots up and over an Andean mountain pass.  At the cusp of this pass I was met by a thick wall of fog which replaced my lovely clear weather, and I plunged into the cold dampness, ever alert for brakelights ahead of me or the headlights of a maniac crazy enough to pass somebody.  The fog (at this altitude, is it just considered clouds?) lasted for nearly an hour.  It wasn’t until the road dropped far enough into the Yungas Basin and I suddenly found myself below the cloud cover that I began to feel warm again.  I have to say that while I’ve been very happy with my FirstGear TPG Overpants, and my TourMaster rain shell, I’ve yet to find a pair of gloves that can keep my hands warm in wet weather for more than 15 minutes.  If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.

I missed the turnoff for the Highway of Death (it’s not marked, but you’ll find it at 16°17’14″ S by 67°49’51″ W) and ended up taking the paved road all the way down to Coroico, where a woman pointed me towards the start of the road, and off I went.

At the base of the Yungas Road. Tired groups of mountain bikers would regularly pour out of the mouth of the road.

This turned out to be for the better.  The Yungas Road has some unique rules which generally favor the driver going uphill.  The downhill driver is supposed to drive on the left side of the road (closest to the cliff edge) so they can stick their head out their window and eyeball how close their tires are to going over.  The uphill driver also has the right-of-way, which means the downhill driver must back up if necessary; backing up is a very dangerous process on this road, so you want to avoid it if at all possible.

Five minutes into the ride I found a small stream flowing right across the road. Crossing it wasn't a problem, but there wasn't a huge cliff here!

I rode onwards as the highway of death steadily rose up through the jungle.  I passed lots of mountain bikers; some looked confident, while others were obviously scared out of their wits – a sign of good things to come!

Waterfalls were a regular sight this side of the Andes, but this was the first time I'd had to ride through one.

I don’t have much more to say about the ride itself, so in a moment I’ll shut up and let the pictures talk.  I will say that the scenery was some of the most lush and verdant I’d ever seen, and riding so close to such enormous cliffs definitely got my adrenaline going.  The only motor vehicles that I met going the other way were a few motorcycles and some support vehicles for the mountain bikers, and these encounters were easy enough to negotiate.  They’d undoubtedly be trickier if I were driving a car or something wide, but with a motorcycle there’s almost always room to pull over.

Ok, on to the pictures.

I got a little wet while going through this section. Stopping for pictures didn't help!

This was the only bridge in the entire length of the Yungas road.

Stay away from the edge!

One of the taller drops on the Yungas Road. It's amazing that plants can even grow on such a steep incline!

A close-up of the previous photo. The red dirt on the road here was wet and very slick - a bad combination even without the 2000 foot cliff just one mistake away.

A section of the Yungas Road as it winds down the mountainside.

This was a really great experience. Now I get to check this off my bucket list!

The ride up the Yungas Highway of Death took about three hours in total – mostly because I kept stopping every five minutes to snap a photo of some new amazing sight.  From a technical perspective, it’s not a very challenging ride.  The road surface is kept relatively smooth, and when I went there was only water over the road in a few places.  There’s no doubt that this changes during a heavy rain, but I was lucky.  I definitely recommend this road to all you other adventure riders out there!

I still had five hours of daylight left when I finished the ride, and I briefly considered doubling back and riding the Yungas in the other direction, but caution overrode my propensity to do stupid shit for once and I decided against it.  When the skies opened up an hour later and the heaviest rain I’d yet experienced in Bolivia fell, I thanked whatever part of me it was that voted to not push my luck.

The paved road wasn't completely boring, anyways.

And that’s the story of how I rode the most dangerous road in the world and survived to type it all up for your reading pleasure.  Look for the next issue to come which will cover my trip to the incredible Salar de Uyuni!

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Bolivia: getting here

January 29, 2010

Whoo boy,. I’ve really let this thing build up. Bolivia is behind me now; I have a lot to cover. Let’s start where we left off – resting in Arequipa after a long, difficult ride through the Andes.

I left Arequipa refreshed and with fresh rubber on the bike. Prior to leaving, I asked around and confirmed that the northern route through the National Reserve was paved. Two taxi drivers and the owner of my hotel couldn’t be wrong, could they?

Pictured: one of the nicest parts of this road.

I’m still not sure what happened here – I suspect there was yet another route out of Arequipa, and I (once again) chose incorrectly. In any case, I spent the first 50km of the day on bad dirt roads. It was not quite as bumpy as the previous day’s, but in some places, deep, fine dust completely filled the lane; Satan’s work crew had apparently had a hand in designing this road. In my experience, the ranking for horrible surface conditions goes:

  1. Snow/ice
  2. Mud
  3. Dust/sand

I guess #3 isn’t bad.  it could have been worse! Some careful clutch-work and a bit of muscle got me through the hairy parts, and I eventually found the paved highway. It actually did exist!

Ahh, there's the highway.

The blessed pavement led me over the pass and to Lake Titicaca. The mountain air felt crisp, but the sun kept me warm and happy. This did not last, however. As it’s prone to doing in these parts, the weather turned ugly just as I reached the famous lake. I would have liked to take some photos of the place, but the weather did not agree with this, so I raced to the border through hail and lightning without stopping. I spent the night in a somewhat-dumpy hotel in the border town of Desaguadero.

This was just the first third of the line.

The huge line at the Peruvian Immigration office the next day shocked me. I’d risen at a reasonable 8AM, found some breakfast, then meandered over to the border, where I found over 200 people waiting in a line that snaked out of the Immigration office, down the street, and into the city center. I got in line and asked the man in front of me how long it would take. “Two, three hours”, he replied. A light mist was falling, so I fetched my rain shell from the hotel room, then dug in for the duration.

I snapped a few photos while waiting in line. This little boy noticed me just as I took his photo.

These three-wheeled bicycle taxis were everywhere. Judging by the number of collisions I saw, some of them must have had no brakes!

This bike would be perfect at Burning Man.

I reached the end of the line at 1 PM. The immigration officer stamped and scrawled something illegible in my passport, then motioned me to the door. “Next!” Total time spent in line: over three hours. Total time spent processing my visa: twenty seconds. I guess that after that wait, I expected something more.

Bolivian immigration was eventful as well. I’d learned the previous evening that a Bolivian visa costs $135 USD for American citizens in some kind of reciprocity setup (apparently US visas for Bolivian citizens cost quite a bit), so I was ready for that part. What I wasn’t ready for was the forty-strong Peruvian high school soccer team that also wanted to enter Bolivia. The madhouse immigration office took almost two hours to get through. Find a form, fill it out, make a photocopy, go into the back room, get a sticker, get another photocopy, pay $135, have the man refuse to take my $20 bill because it had a tiny tear on one side, politely tell the same man to blow himself, finally get my stamp and flee the premises before somebody decides to rip it off my passport. Whew!

After processing through the Peruvian and Bolivian customs (which were thankfully pretty easy) I rode the last ~100km to the capital city of La Paz. Thanks to the border craziness, I only arrived an hour before nightfall, and all the hostals I’d marked on my GPS were full up, so I took a room at the first hotel with a garage I found. They wanted $50 per night, but I bargained them down to $29 – still pricey, but at some point you just don’t care anymore; a hot shower and a warm bed are all you can think about.

La Paz is another huge city, but it has a certain character to it. One taxi driver explained it to me. “I’ve lived here for twenty years, and La Paz is the dirtiest, most corrupt city in Bolivia.” Not everyone I talked to had the same opinion, but they all agreed that the police were so corrupt as to be nearly useless.

In any case, I enjoyed my time in La Paz. The high altitude (most of the city sits at 12,000 feet) made it hard to explore by foot, so I took a taxi to one of the higher parts of the city and walked back down to my hotel.  During my walk I heard strange shouts – “Mil dollares, por un peso!” (A thousands dollars for one peso!)  This apparently absurd exchange rate sparked my interest, and I went to see what all the commotion was about.

It turns out that Bolivia (and possibly other countries, but I wasn’t able to verify this) has a unique celebration during the month of January.  Bolivians will buy miniature models of things they want in their life – love, money, cars, houses, etc – and takes these items to some kind of priest/priestess who blesses them in a fragrant, smokey ritual.  The blessed items are said to then appear in one’s life within the next 3 years.

A woman blesses a bag miniature models for a hopeful couple.

During my wanderings I also managed to find a brake shop that could repair my rear brake pads.  If you recall, I realized back in Peru that my rear pads were completely shot, and as I’d neglected to carry replacements, I had few options.  The brake shop did a great job of sanding off the remaining friction material and adhering new material to the brake pads.  I had to sand off a bit from each pad before they would fit into the caliper, but the end result was a fully-functional rear brake.  Always a good thing!

I'm not exactly sure what they did to make the friction material adhere to the pads so well. It almost looks like they welded it!

I’m going to sign off with one last picture.  I saw these bikes all over La Paz, and once I saw two policemen riding one I realized why.

The standard police bike in La Paz: a red KLR650 (the fastest color)

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Misadventures in the Peruvian Altiplano

January 24, 2010

My last post left off in the city of Arequipa in the southern part of Peru.  My plan was to follow the highway through the Salinas/Aguada Blancas National Reserve to Lake Titicaca and then continue down the shoreline to the Bolivian border.  Online maps suggested two routes – one more to the south, and one more to the north.  Microsoft’s Bing Maps website did not even show the northern route, and since the northern route appeared to be a bigger detour, I chose to take the shorter-looking southern route.  This turned out to be my first mistake.

Entering the Salinas/Aguada Blancas National Reserve in Peru.

The highway started off as a nicely paved road.  The owner of the hotel where I stayed the night in Arequipa told me that the route through the park was a well-maintained “pista”, or paved highway.  About 20 miles outside of town, however, the pavement ended and I found myself ascending a bumpy, twisty dirt road.

The first 20 KM were extremely twisty, and they brought me from 6500 feet to over 14000.

I was a little concerned because I hadn’t yet swapped out my nearly-bald, street-oriented tires for the 50/50 dirt-oriented tires I’d brought from Seattle, but I figured the conditions couldn’t be that bad, and anyways, there were tour buses driving on the same road, so I lowered the air pressure in both tires and trekked on.  My reward was breathtaking sights and challenging, yet fun, riding.

The sight that awaited me at the top of the initial twisty section.

The road took me past Las Salinas lake, which dries up completely in the drier winter months.

The weather was beautiful, and the sights were amazing, and the air (while a bit cold) felt delicious on my face.  I saw great herds of alpacas, and tiny stone cottages, and two or three (very) small pueblos, but the road in front of me was often the only sign of human impact on the pristine countryside.  Also, alpacas are really goofy looking.  I mean, come on.

A stone cottage seen alongside the Las Salinas lake. I saw a good number of these buildings, but only very rarely did I see people in them.

Riding along side the Las Salinas lake/salt flat.

The sun shone strongly, and the clouds filled the sky but did not appear to threaten rain.  The riding was glorious, basically, and I happily rode on.  The road was mostly flat, hard-parked dirt with extremely bumpy sections where running water had damaged the surface.  Potholes were deep and numerous but relatively easy to avoid.

At around 1 PM my stomach began to growl, so I took a short lunch break alongside a creek.  I had bought some emergency food back in Colombia, and since I didn’t expect to find a restaurant for many more hours, this seemed like the right time to break out the last of it.  It wasn’t a gourmet meal, but it definitely hit the spot!

Chili con carne with an easy-open top. Yum!

Full and happy after finishing my cold chili.

After finishing lunch I hopped back on the bike and rode onwards.  Something was different, though.  A thought that had been nagging at my mind for a while finally took shape and I realized that the sky had taken on a darker and more ominous appearance.  It looked like my future was going to be wet, so I took a moment to don my rain gear before heading in to the thick of it.

The weather did not hold, and I stopped to don my rain gear when I saw these dark clouds ahead.

The rain came in light waves until I arrived in the tiny town of Pati, where the rain became furious hail, stinging my hands even through my leather gloves.  I could see lightning strikes further up the mountain, and judging from the time delay of the thunder, they were not far off at all.  I took shelter in a small store and contemplated my choices.  The path ahead looked dangerous and difficult, and I thought about heading back to Arequipa, but just then the storm broke and the sky brightened and I decided to keep going.  The owner of the store where I took shelter told me that the road ahead would divide into two paths, and the left one would take me to the paved highway.  This cemented my decision.  Easy riding was not far away!  I thanked the woman and continued on.

After the storm broke, I followed the road and found a light dusting of snow.

This was the first snow I'd seen up-close during this entire trip.

Soon after seeing the snow I came to a cross in the road, and this is where I made my second mistake (or third, or fourth, or however you like).  With GPS map data ranging from imprecise, to wildly inaccurate, to simply non-existent, I’ve had to develop techniques for routing through new and strange places.  One of these techniques is: when in doubt, take the route with the most tire tracks.  The route to the left looked small, unused, and untrustworthy, while the route to the right looked wide, well-traveled and more highway-like.  I decided that the store owner must have been talking about another cross in the road, and I took the path to the right.

(I later looked this up on Google Maps and realized that had I taken the left path, I would have found myself on a paved highway within two hours.  C’est la vie.)

The rain had turned the potholes into huge, muddy pools, and I had several close calls which were no doubt potentiated by my bald tires.  My front wheel lost traction several times, and while I never fully lost control of the bike, I did wind up axle-deep in sticky mud twice.  Let me tell you – wrenching a motorcycle out of deep mud at 15,700 feet is no easy thing, and it is my professional opinion that one should avoid such situations if at all possible.

I was relieved to find a flat, straight road going in what I thought to be the right direction.

Anyways, long story short – the flat, straight road became a twisty, bumpy road once more, and I followed it until it ended at a river too deep to cross.  My situation at this point was not looking very good.  I had no food, an hour and a half of daylight left, and the temperature was already dropping.  I was also unsure about how much gas I had left – would I be able to make it back to Arequipa?  I briefly considered shacking up for the night in one of the stone cabins I’d seen a few minutes earlier, but decided against it.  I didn’t have the right sort of gear for such cold weather, and the night would undoubtedly bring temperatures below freezing.

High in the Peruvian Altiplano with little daylight and no food - but hey, at least it's pretty!

The situation looked dire, but I’m not one to sit around and mope.  One of my old friends has a phrase that he’d use in a situation like this: “man up, dude”.  I made the choice to return to Arequipa, and I used the remaining daylight to get as far as I could before the darkness forced me to lower my speed.  The next four hours were some of the most difficult I’ve ever spent on a motorcycle.  I’ve never been so happy to see city lights.  I finally made it back to Arequipa at 10:00 PM, and I stopped at the first restaurant I saw.  I must have been quite the sight – 5 layers of clothing, including motorcycle gear, with dried mud all over my bike and my face and wild, crazy-person hair.

I’m kicking myself for getting into this situation, but in hindsight I can’t say that it was all bad.  The opportunity to see and travel through such pure, untouched land is something I’m very grateful for.  The shitty road conditions have definitely helped to improve my riding skills.  I have a greater respect for gathering more intel about an area before I ride through it, and I will definitely ask locals about the conditions if I have any doubts.  And hey, I’m safe.  Can’t ask for more, huh?

After an extremely satisfying dinner I found a room at the same hotel I’d stayed at the night before.  I called my girlfriend to let her know I was OK, and then I crashed hard.

The hotel owner was kind enough to let me make a mess of the hotel's parking area.

I spent the next day working on my bike.  My tires may have been OK for highway riding, but the previous day had taught me that I couldn’t always know when the pavement might become dirt, so I took off the Anakees and slapped on the brand-new, much knobbier TKC-80′s.  I also adjusted my chain and inspected my brakes.  The front looked OK, but the rear pads were nearly down to the metal, and unfortunately I didn’t have a replacement pair.  I resolved to see if somebody in La Paz could help me out with new pads.

It’s lucky that I took this time to go over my bike because I found several loose bolts along the rear rack and even discovered that my left-side lower subframe bolt (a very important one) had bailed out somewhere back on the trail.  Luckily, I was able to procure a matching bolt at a local hardware shop.  It’s not the hardened steel bolt that came with the Eagle Mike kit, but I think the drill-through upper subframe bolt should be enough to keep everything in place.

The Anakee's served me very well for almost 12000 miles, but I'm excited to have more dirt-oriented tires now.

That’s about it for this post.  I have a few more days to catch up on, and I’ll get to them soon.

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Riding through the barren wastelands of Peru

January 20, 2010

Part of the joy of doing very little research about the places I visit is the delicious surprise of learning about a completely new place first hand. For those of you who are more geographically-minded myself, you’re probably already aware that nearly the entire coast of Peru is a sandy, barren wasteland, broken only by the occasional spot of green where a river’s delta flows into the Pacific, or where man’s efforts to assert himself over nature have produced oddly out-of-place cities and towns. This was a complete surprise to me. If you’d asked me a week ago, I would have told you that Peru is a warm, wet, verdant country filled with jungle and monkeys and stuff. Apparently this is true for the east side of the country, but the west coast is extremely arid, and the Panamerican highway, which I’ve followed for the last 2000+ kilometers, runs straight down the entire desert coast of Peru.

The Peruvian coast is a desert! Who knew?

The sand dunes and the cliffs and the ocean are very pretty, but the effect wears off after the first couple hours, and you’re left with a long, straight, unbroken highway and nearly unchanging scenery which become pretty tiring without tunes to listen to. (And yes, my ipod is definitely out of commission – or rather, I had the brilliant idea of putting it in the side pocket of my backpack while I rode so that it would dry out, and when I stopped for lunch, it had vanished – I assume it bounced out on one of those super bumpy Ecuadorian highways) I’m beginning to give serious thought to keeping my laptop in my tank bag and using it to listen to music. The battery won’t last all day, but it’s better than nothing!

Riding through the deserts of western Peru.

What's that ahead? Oh, more desert!

These great expanses of barren land really do actually have a certain beauty to them.

There wasn’t much I wanted to see in the northern end of Peru, so I rode hard for the first few days.  One thing I apparently neglected to do when I crossed into Peru was purchase insurance for my motorcycle.  I learned this after being flagged down by a policeman the first day.  He tried to use this “infracion” to extract some money from me, but I played up the “dumb tourist” routine and made it clear that I wasn’t in any rush to leave, and he eventually let me off with a warning.  This puts my count of “successful” interactions with local police at something close to 10 or 11.  In fact, I have yet to pay off a single official!

A particularly nice sunset seen just before reaching Chimbote, Peru.

Anyways, I made a few stops in some large but unremarkable cities on the way down to Lima. One was Chimbote, and I woke up the following day to find a lovely surprise in my rear tire. A nail had pierced the tread and driven itself horizontally into the tire. Luckily for me, it hadn’t gotten through to the tube, and when I pulled it out the tire mercifully remained pressurized. My rear wheel must really like nails or something, because it’s the third one I’ve had in the last 6 months, and my front hasn’t had a single one! (knock on wood)

Luckily, it didn't puncture the tube. Unluckily, I lost my leatherman tool a few days before and I had no pliers to extract the nail with. 15 minutes and a whole lot of tugging later and I finally got it loose.

Lima is large, busy, and depending on where you are, very expensive. It’s been a while since I’d really felt afraid for myself while riding in city traffic, but Lima is something else. Drivers will make left hand turns in front of oncoming traffic like it’s expected of them (and I think it might be).  Nobody pays any attention to the lane markings, and people use their horns for just about everything.

Reasons to honk your horn in Lima, Peru

  • There is somebody in front of you
  • You want to turn left
  • A pedestrian looks like they might be considering the possibility of thinking about maybe crossing the street in front of you
  • You are a taxi driver and you want to pick up a fare
  • You are approaching an intersection and want to ensure that nobody pulls out in front of you
  • You want to merge
  • Somebody else wants to merge
  • The light has turned green and the driver in front of you does not react within ½ a second
  • You want to turn right

There are many more. I will leave the discovery of these cases as an exercise for the reader.

The Lima coastline isn't as pretty as I'd expected. Much of it seems to be very tall cliffs, making beach access difficult.

I planned to leave Lima on Sunday morning, but that didn’t happen. I made the idiot mistake of leaving my wallet on top of my pannier and driving off, and I didn’t realize what I’d done until 25 minutes down the road when I stopped for gas and couldn’t find my wallet. Very quickly, I figured out what I had done and circled back to look for it. I never found it, so I spent the next hour on the phone with my bank and my credit card companies to cancel my credit and debit cards. The replacement debit card is being rush-shipped to my parents, and they are going to mail it to La Paz, Bolivia for me so I can continue. They also wired me some cash so I can survive the next week or two. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

I also lost my driver’s license with the wallet, but I have some photocopies and an international driver’s license. I’m not worried about BS-ing my way past policemen (I’ve had more than enough practice by now), but I am concerned about the remaining border crossings. Most customs offices have needed to see my license in order to process the paperwork for importing my motorcycle. Hopefully my winning personality will get me into Bolivia, Chile and Argentina sans-license.  If it doesn’t, a $50 probably will.  So much for not paying off any officials, huh?

I left Lima the next morning and made the executive decision to visit Machu Pichu another time. I didn’t feel like I had enough resources for what would potentially be a very expensive tour, and I also felt that I’d like to come back when I actually have the time to do the whole four-day trek. Anyways, it’s good to have things on your list.

Kids enjoying the fountain in the city center of Nazca, Peru. My hotel is the tall building in the background.

So instead of riding towards Cuzco and Machu Pichu, I continued down the Panamerican towards Nazca to see the famous Nazca Lines. The slower-paced life of Nazca was a welcome relief after the immensity and bustle of Lima, and I spent a nice, relaxed evening in the town square before retiring to my hotel to catch up on email and attempt to finish this blog post. The blog post never happened, though. Some more motorcyclists had arrived at the hotel, however, and we all sat around and talked shop for a few hours instead. By the time we were finished it was already late, and I’d scheduled an airplane tour of the Nazca lines for 7:30 the following morning, so after chatting with Ola for a bit, I went to my room and crashed.

So now we’re caught up to today. The tour this morning was pretty cool. I joined two Canadian women in a tiny four-person Cesna – the smallest plane I’ve ever flown in. Taking good photos of the lines turned out to be a pretty difficult task, but a few of them turned out OK.

I sat in the front seat and tried not to kick any important-looking knobs or switches with my long legs. The throttle knob was right in front of my left knee, which was a little worring, as I'm sort of clumsy.

The Nazca "hummingbird".

The tour operator called this the "Trapezoid", but I think it looks more like a jousting lance.

A pair of hands in Nazca, Peru.

The tour lasted about 45 minutes, and by the time it finished I’d become pretty hungry. I returned to the hotel, had a quick bite to eat, then packed up my stuff and left.

I rode through 500 more kilometers of sandy, dusty desert to the city of Arequipe, which is where I’m spending the night.  The highway near Lima is large and extremely well-maintained, as I drove south, this changed pretty quickly.

I encountered this sight on the PanAm highway, not far from Lima. Look at those signs!

The only thing that kept this immense hill here from collapsing onto the PanAm was a retaining wall looked very over-matched.

One multi-kilometer stretch of the PanAm is built right on top of a beach less than 100m from the ocean shore. Most of it was already under sand.

Not all of the highway was under constant threat of being buried in sand, though.  I took a short break on a deserted rock outcropping and used the opportunity to take some photos.

The sun finally made a strong appearance after being hidden by thick, uniform cloud cover for the last four/five days.

Me, standing on a rocky section of the Peruvian coast.

I found a nice little hotel for about $14 with internet access and secure parking, and you can’t ask for much more than that! My plan for tomorrow is to ride towards Lake Titicaca and the Bolivian border and maybe spend a day on the lake if it’s nice before crossing into Bolivia and continuing to La Paz.

The colors at sunset were vivid and pretty wild, and I don't think the camera did a great job of capturing them, but you get the gist of it!

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Through Ecuador

January 14, 2010

Getting through the last 500 KM of Ecuador turned out to take two days of fairly intense riding. I left the city of Riobamba and quickly found myself at high altitude and heavy fog. Also complicating things was the fact that my motorcycle seemed to have contracted the same symptoms as it had back in Panama (stuttering under acceleration). The bike finally died completely between two small, out-of-the-way towns. A nice couple stopped to ask me if everything was OK, and I told them “si – creo que me carburedor esta sucio, y tengo que limpiarlo” (yes – I think my carburetor is dirty, and I need to clean it). They told me that the next town had a mechanic. I thanked them and they drove off.

It turned out that there was indeed some dirt in my carb. Luckily, I had purchased a can of carb cleaner back in Colombia, so I pulled out the carb and sprayed the jets thoroughly, then reinstalled it, and the bike fired up right away! I also replaced the fuel filter with a spare that I’d been carrying, just in case it was responsible for the crap in my carburetor.

The old filter (in my hand) is a dark orange color. I'm not sure if this is from dirt, or merely from long-term exposure to gasoline, but I changed it anyways just to be safe.

Time spent fixing the bike: less than one hour.  Not bad!

It was just a little after 1, so I drove to the next town and stopped for lunch.   Halfway through my meal, a Swiss man named Erik walked in to the restaurant wearing a motorcycle jacket and carrying a helmet, and sat down with me at my table.  We chatted in Spanish for a little while, and it was quickly evident that his Spanish was much better than mine!  I learned that he had lived in Colombia for many years, so I didn’t feel too bad about it.  He was heading in the opposite direction, so after I finished my lunch, we said goodbye and I continued on.

Two bikers heading in opposite directions have lunch together by chance.

Erik warned me that the road ahead became foggy and wet, so I donned my rain gear.  This proved to be a very smart decision because minutes later I found myself in thick fog and heavy rain.  The next 5 hours of riding, with the exception of the occasional blessed sunbreak, were pretty miserable.  Numerous lengthy sections of the highway which had yet to be paved were transformed into slick, muddy deathtraps by the rain.  I also miscalculated how long it would take to get to the city were I planned to spend the night, so I ended up riding for an hour and a half after sunset – something I try hard not to do.  Thankfully the rain had stopped by then, so it wasn’t dark AND wet.  I arrived in the city of Loja and quickly found a bed.

The next day the road dropped down into lower elevations (and higher temperatures) for the first time in the last 4 days.

The following day of riding was mostly drier.  Something very sad happened, though – the rain from the previous day had gotten to my iPod and the poor thing broke.  I am now music-less with a month and a half left to go.  I’m kind of bummed out about this, but I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to find a replacement in Lima or another big city.  RIP, iPod.

My (unplanned) route took me on a paved highway, which turned into an unpaved highway, which became an unimproved road and finally ended up looking something like a horse trail before returning to nice highway.

Ecuador is a gorgeous country when it's sunny out!

This was one of the nicer sections of road.

A thought that’s been gnawing at the back of my head for a while took shape a few days ago when I saw two men tossing garbage down a hillside from the back of a pickup truck.  The idea of sullying such a beautiful country like this seems so disrespectful and sad to me, and I didn’t understand why these practices were so common in Central and South America.  It occurred to me as I watched these men empty what looked to be the refuse from a small town that many small, out-of-the-way towns simply do not have access to a service as basic as public waste disposal.  Something obvious in retrospect, I guess.  I think it sort of goes along with the fact that it’s really hard to find “healthy” food here – everything is deep fried, or has added sugar, and I expect that if I asked for “organic” foods I’d get a blank stare in return.  These are all luxuries reserved for wealthy societies.  There’s some kind of clash between the old world and the new world here, and I hope that Ecuador and these other countries make it through this process relatively unscathed.

Two men dispose of their garbage by tossing it down a hillside.

I stopped for lunch in a rural town and a group of young children swarmed around my bike. I gave them some chips and a map of Colombia, which they were pretty excited about!

The rest of the ride through Ecuador was pretty uneventful.  Some more fog, some more rain, some more muddy roads… I eventually made it to the border and found a hotel to spend the evening.  I also learned that Ecuador has regularly scheduled blackouts, presumably to save energy – so the power to the entire city was cut off from 6:30 to 7:30 PM.  A man told me that the blackout period is different for different areas of the country, and that they happen every single day.  What a different life!

With little to do during the blackout, I climbed to the top of my hotel and snapped a few photos.

I also saw my first ever rice paddy (or at least that's what I assume they were).

The next day I rode over to the border and crossed into Peru.  The process was very straightforward, and for the third time in South America, it did not cost anything!  They even made the necessary copies of my documents themselves.  Contrast this with the border crossing processes in Central America – they usually require several copies of all sorts of documents (which you must make yourself) and the necessary permits for importing a motorcycle almost invariably cost something.  I’m liking South America!

Crossing into Peru went pretty smoothly. It did take some time, and I had to wait for the immigration officer to come back from the grocery store, but it was otherwise very nice!

It occurred to me when I entered Peru that my motorcycle was due for an oil change, so I stopped at the first “lubricador” that I saw and bought 3 quarts of oil.  The woman at the counter told me that they’d change my oil for free, so I pulled my bike into the back and a guy went to work on it.  Everywhere I’ve stopped in Peru so far. my motorcycle has drawn a pretty big crowd, and this was no exception – I think there were over 15 guys standing around my motorcycle at one point!

This was my third oil change of the trip.

I spent my first night in the large city of Chiclayo, near the Pacific coast.  My route for the next few days will follow the coast, so the temperature should be quite a bit higher than it was in Ecuador.  I’m also hopeful that the wet weather is behind me.  I hope to arrive in Lima by Friday, and I’ll probably stay a night or two, and then it’s onward to Cuzco and Machu Pichu!

My first sunset in Peru.

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Bookin’ it to Equador

January 10, 2010

If you read my last post then you’re probably aware that the last few weeks of my travels have been filled with a fair amount of fun and excitement.  The problem of crossing the Darien Gap was a challenge that had cast a large and unmistakable shadow over me for the first half of my trip, but now it’s behind me, and that feels great.  I really can’t complain one bit about the crossing.  My experience was not at all what I’d expected, and I’m glad for every bit of excitement, uncertainty, stress and fun that it included.  Parts of it were pretty difficult (dealing with a not-running motorcycle on a new continent comes to mind), but even that part is something that I can look back on with something close to fondness now.  I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.

That said, it took a long time!  Counting the days I spent stuck in Turbo, Colombia, the whole crossing took over two weeks.  Compare this to the two (maybe three) days that shipping by air would have taken, and you can see that there’s a tradeoff – especially if you’re pressed for time like I am.  It recently occurred to me that my target date of reaching Tierra Del Fuego by mid/late February is really less arbitrary and more practical than I’d thought – apparently the weather down there can start to turn ugly as early as March!

Factoring in this information got me thinking, and I decided that it’s time that I make some distance.  Getting back on the motorcycle after such a long break felt really great, and on the first day I rode all the way down to Medellín, which I’d heard to be very beautiful and well worth checking out.

Taken while en route to Medellín. The road here is fairly high elevation (6000-9000 feet) and filled with mountains. Makes me miss the Pacific Northwest!

You know that feeling you have when you take advantage of that first nice day in Spring and go for the first good ride in months? That's what this felt like.

I arrived in Medellín just before the evening.  Medellín is a huge city, and true to reports, also very beautiful.  (No pictures, unfortunately, but you can probably find some pretty easily)  I did something I hadn’t yet done this entire trip here – I splurged on a fancy hotel room.  Fifty bucks got me a nice room with A/C, a gloriously hot shower, room service, access to a sauna, and a stocked minibar.  Believe me – after two weeks of sleeping in the bow of a sailboat without a working shower, I would have paid double for this.  As it was, I didn’t feel so well the next day (something I ate?) so I laid low and stayed a second night.  Not so bad of a deal.

I did have to finally say goodbye to my posh room, though.  The mental pressure to make some distance was growing, so early on the second morning I packed up my things and set out once more.  It’s an interesting feeling to ride without a specific destination – in this case, my destination was “southwards, in the general direction of Ecuador”.  If you don’t have to be somewhere specific, I’ve learned that it can be very liberating to make your plans one intersection at a time.  I feel that I’ve had enough experience with Central and South American cities by now that finding my way through a new one happens almost automatically.  I just watch the little arrow on my GPS and try to keep it mostly oriented in the direction I want, and somehow everything works out!  (It does make me wonder how screwed I’d be if my GPS crapped out or were stolen, though…)

I encountered these blossoming trees somewhere south of Medellín. It seems odd to see blossoms on a tree in December, but I guess that's normal for the equatorial regions!

Good highways and lots of stamina helped me put over 650 KM on the clock by sunset.  I found myself a hotel room in a town whose name I never learned.  The town seemed to have a very active nightlife, so I ventured out for some dinner and to look for a cool spot to spend a few hours.

This is what I looked like when I got back to my hotel.

It turns out that I’d stumbled upon the Carneval de Blancos y Negros (White & Black Carnival), which is a strange holiday where people smear black paint on their faces and then throw handfuls of flour and spray shaving cream at other revelers.  I had just done laundry, so it was a little irksome to have my clean clothes dirtied up, but the mischievous mood was very infectious and after a woman encouraged me to grab a handful of flour and toss it at a passing bicyclist, I felt much better!

I left the next morning after picking up a bottle of motor oil and lubricating my chain with it.  I ran out of the chain oil that I usually use, and not a single one of the 10+ motorcycle shops in the city carried any.  Motor oil is probably better than no oil, I guess.  Hopefully I’ll find some at the next big city I stay in.

I met Ali and Arno on the way down towards Equador. They're a couple from Germany and they started their trip in Anchorage, Alaska! Their website is www.motomerika.de if you're interested (and speak German)

I rode with Ali and Arno for a little ways, but their pace was too slow for me and I was anxious to make it to Ecuador, so I soon took off on my own.  I reached the border town of Ipiales shortly after 1 PM.

The Ecuadorian border was a piece of cake.  So far I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the border crossings in South America.  Entering Colombia was a fairly straightforward process (if you knew where to go for customs, that is) and didn’t cost anything.  Ecuador was even easier – immigration went quickly, and I just had to make some copies to import the bike.  Total cost: $0.20 for the copies.

One of the first things that I noticed upon entering Ecuador was this policeman's motorcycle. That's right, it's a new-model KLR 650!

I snapped lots of shots while riding into Ecuador, and this was one of the few ones that I liked.

I still had a few hours of daylight to spend after crossing in to Ecuador, so I used it to reach Ibarra, where I stayed for the evening.  Not much to say about this town – it’s medium-sized and pretty quiet.   The next morning I climbed to the top of my hotel and saw this, though:

The view from the top of my hotel in Ibarra, Ecuador.

Something worth pointing out is that everywhere I’ve been to in Ecuador thus far has been at fairly high elevation (usually between 9000 and 11500 feet!)  This means that even though I’m basically at the equator where you’d think it would be tropical, I need to use my jacket liner and warm gloves!

Speaking of which.. I crossed the equator today!

A close-up of the sign at the equator.

As if to prove my point about the cold, I came across the first sign of snow that I’d seen since leaving Washington.  Just outside of Quito the road climbs to a lofty 11,500 feet, and off to the West you can see this glacier-covered peak.

Glaciers at the equator.

Earlier today I’d realized that one of the pinpoints of my map of “things to see” was more or less on my way.  Sangay National Park in Ecuador is supposed to be pretty neat, so I round a road that looked like it might take me there, and followed it for a little while.  It quickly turned to dirt, and I found myself riding through very rural Ecuadorian villages.  I never did make it to the park (I ran out of daylight) but the diversion was well worth it.

I don’t have much else to say about this side-trip, so I’ll just post some pictures.

Not pictured: the huge muddy pool of water that I had to cross.

Approaching the church of a small village in the highlands of Ecuador.

The road did not take me where I'd originally hoped, but I was glad nonetheless to have explored it.

Yes, that is a very steep drop off on the left side. I rode extra-extra-careful through here.

On the way back from the rural village, I spotted this guy passed out on the sidewalk. Kind of depressing.

I’m spending the night in a town called Riobamba.  I have another 500 KM to go before I reach Peru, and since I don’t have any other pins on my map for Ecuador, I’m going to try to cover as much of that distance as I can tomorrow.  If all goes well, I should be in Peru by Tuesday or Wednesday.  There are several things in Peru that I’m interested to see, so I might slow up a bit there, but I also want to save up time to explore Bolivia!  Choices, choices.  *sigh*  It’s a hard life.

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Panama to Colombia: a recap

January 7, 2010

Wow.  Nearly two weeks since my last post. A lot has happened, and the task of getting it all down in narrative form seems a little daunting, so I’m going to start with a list of events and then expand where necessary. I will try to place these events in chronological order, but it’s very possible that I might mix some things around on accident. Days spent on a sailboat in the Caribbean have this way of melding together, if you know what I mean. Sound good?  Good.  Let’s begin.

December 21st

  • I arrive in Panama City and stay at Luna’s Castle (a fabulous hostel – I highly recommend it)
  • I hear of a sailboat that would take me to Cartagena from a girl named Laura at the hostel.

Parked outside Luna's Castle in Panama City. The second KLR in the photo belonged to an Israeli guy who was also staying at Luna's.

The view of the neighboring buildings at Luna's.

December 22nd

  • I leave Panama City and drive to Portobelo on the northern coast of Panama to meet back up with Laura and catch the sailboat.
  • Sailboat does not show up. I see the black Jesus.

The city of Portobelo at sunset.

There is a church in Portobelo that is famous for it's statue of the black Jesus. Tens of thousands of people come to see him every year.

December 23rd

  • I return to Panama City to learn that the boat had been delayed in Colombia due to bad weather. New pick-up place would be an island in the San Blas island chain named Porvenir.
  • Laura introduces me to Kathryn, the other passenger on the sailboat.

December 24th (Christmas Eve)

  • Laura and Kathryn leave Panama City early in the morning and send word that they would wait for me. Where they would be waiting was unclear.
  • I drive to Carti, a so-tiny-it’s-not-even-on-the-map town. The KLR breaks down on the way. Last 60KM is mechanically difficult – the motorcycle stutters under acceleration and dies while idling. Bike is basically dead by the time I reach Carti.
  • No sign of the girls at Carti. I find a launch (a large boat with an outboard motor) that could take me and the motorcycle to Porvenir. I heave the bike into the launch with the help of three short but strong men.
  • I see three girls waving at me from the deck of a sailboat while approaching Porvenir. One is Kathryn – I’d found them!
  • I unload the bike onto the only dock in Porvenir with the help of three vacationing Swedes. Porvenir is tiny.
  • I try to swim out to meet the girls, but kick a sea urchin with my right foot in the process and decide to turn back. A native man on the island tells me to pee on my foot and then proceeds to whack the stings with piece of tupperware to break up the barbed spines stuck in my foot. I try not to cry like a little girl. A lovely swedish girl bringsme a bottle of rum, which helps some. I now have zero fully-functional feet (my left heel was injured in a motorcycle tip-over back in Costa Rica)
  • I borrow a kayak and row out to meet the girls. The sailboat turns out not to be the one we are looking for, but the captain Glen is a friend of Kathryn’s, so we eat dinner together and sleep on the boat.

Figure A: KLR on dry land

Figure B: KLR in a tiny boat

I am relieved to have made it into the boat with the bike.

My KLR on the dock in Porvenir.

Porvenir serves as the port of entry for the entire San Blas island chain, and as such, it contains the only airstrip. I rode out to the end of the runway for this photo.

December 25th (Christmas Day)

  • Captain Dennis arrives with an empty sailboat. We load up everyone’s luggage, then begin the process of winching my motorcycle off the dock and setting it down onto the sailboat.  I am stressed out by this.
  • We load the motorcycle without incident and set sail for the tiny, mostly undeveloped island of Chichime.
  • It is dark by the time we arrive in Chichime. We pick up seven more passengers who I learn are on the last leg of their trip from Colombia to Panama and had been dropped off on Chichime by Dennis earlier this day.
  • The Christmas feast includes overcooked (but still tasty) wahoo fish steaks, pesto spaghetti and lots of rum. We are happy.

We used two ropes which went up the length of the mast and were connected to two winches to raise the motorcycle onto the sailboat.

Halfway there...

We got the bike onto the boat without incident. Three New Yorker guys helped out.

One last look at Porvenir as we set sail for Chichime.

The island of Chichime... paradise!

December 26th

  • I wake up to find the captain pouring the last of my rum into his coffee. I am slightly disgruntled, but I really shouldn’t have left the bottle out last night.
  • We leave Chichime and arrive a few hours later in a group of three islands near Porvenir. We go ashore and wander through a native Kuna village.
  • The Kuna are preparing for a 3-day “naming festival” – basically a huge party which culminates with the 7 year-old girls receiving their Kuna names.
  • The crew of 11 return to the boat for dinner and rum. We find ourselves too content (and drunk) to return to the island to partake in the festivities.

Wandering through a Kuna village with Laura ahead.

Kuna children eating lunch.

December 27th

  • The seven crew members heading to Panama disembark at Porvenir to catch a launch to the mainland.
  • Captain Dennis informs us that a storm is brewing south of us, and that we would have to wait it out before continuing to Colombia.
  • It is late and we make dinner. We probably drink more rum.

Nester's Island. This is not it's real name, but there was a guy who lived there named Nester, so it stuck."

Dennis talks with Nester.

December 28th

  • Nothing that I remember in particular. We probably do a bit of swimming, eating and rum-drinking.

December 29th

  • The storm has subsided, so we leave San Blas in the morning. The waves start small, but eventually grow to 8-10 footers. I take a lot of Dramamine to counter the seasickness.
  • Dramamine must be a sedative. I fall in and out of sleep for the better part of 18 hours.

Ilana on the sailboat. This was taken before the sea became rough.

During the sail from San Blas, Panama to Sapzurro, Colombia, we caught 4 fish. From the top, counter-clockwise: red snapper, wahoo, grouper and tuna.

December 30th

  • We arrive in Sapzurro, Colombia near sunset after a hellish 36 hour sail through 8-10 foot waves. There is no immigration office within several hours, so upon landfall, we become illegals.
  • Laura, Kathryn, Ilana and I meet Chile, the proprietor of one of the only “hotels” in the town. We drink lots of rum.
  • The girls and I go for dinner at a restaurant we’re shown to by an amiable guy who calls himself Panama. While we’re eating, a man named Cesar sits down with us and he and I converse for an hour or more. Cesar is a language teacher and speaks English, Italian and Japanese.
  • After we finish dinner Cesar takes us on a tour of downtown Sapzurro.
  • I am very drunk and the girls are tired, so we retire to the sailboat for some sleep.

I helped Dennis descale the fish, but he did all of the cleaning.

An older dutch captain named Hans came over to our boat in Sapzurro with his young girlfriend Yolanda.

December 31st (New Year’s Eve)

  • I awake and decide to go for a swim. There is a pretty Colombian girl swimming near our boat, so I jump in the water and chat with her for a little while. She isn’t much interested in talking with a silly gringo so I swim to shore.
  • I run into Cesar. He is cooking breakfast with some friends, so I sit down with them and relax. It takes me the better part of two hours to remember Cesar’s name.
  • Cesar shows me the way to a farm on the coast just north of downtown Sapzurro. It is a 30 minute walk, and worth every bit of it. We brew coffee and Cesar shows me how to open a raw coconut to get at the milk. We spend a perfectly lovely afternoon on the beach.
  • I return to the boat for dinner and a change of clothing.
  • There is nobody left on the boat, so I row the dinghy back to shore by myself.
  • I find the girls and we proceed to consume large quantities of rum.
  • I suggest a way to ring in the new year and the girls are agreeable. At midnight, Laura, Kathryn, Ilana and I strip naked and go for a swim in the warm waters of the Caribbean. It is dark, but the moon is full, and several passersby see more than they probably should.

This is the only photo I have from New Year's, unfortunately. From left to right: Chile, Kathryn, Yolanda, myself.

January 1st

  • It seems that all of Sapzurro has converged on a single bar. We party and dance and continue to drink for several hours more.
  • I dance a bit with Yolanda who apparently decides that I’m now her new boyfriend. I feign ignorance and escape the dance floor.
  • Suddenly it is light out. The sun is unwelcome and I retire to the sailboat for a piece of sleep.
  • When I awaken, the crew is aboard, but the captain is nowhere to be found. I am given the task of buying empanadas and retrieving our captain.
  • I row to shore and find Dennis completely smashed. It is 11 AM.
  • I follow Dennis for most of the afternoon as he gets drunker and drunker. I eventually give up and return to the sailboat with a bag of 30 empanadas. The girls have been semi-stranded on the boat all day.
  • Ilana and I row to shore at 9:30 PM to find the captain passed out and unresponsive. We accept that we’re not leaving today.

January 2nd

  • Still no word from the captain. Ilana, Kathryn and I are happy to relax in Sapzurro, but Laura is anxious to continue with her trip. The three of us row to shore to escape Laura’s sour mood.
  • Is is extremely hot, and we buy homemade ice cream on sticks. Morale improves.
  • We return to the boat and spend a lazy afternoon together. No sign of the Captain.
  • Captain Dennis finally shows up in the early evening. After feasting on red snapper, we set sail for Turbo.

January 3rd

  • We drop anchor in Turbo, Colombia in the early morning. The captain announces that a launch is coming to ferry us and our belongings to the mainland, and that we only have a few minutes to gather and organize our things.
  • We transfer my motorcycle from the sailboat to the launch. The sea is calm, thankfully.
  • The launch takes us to the main port in Turbo and we unload. Laura is anxious to continue with her trip, so she says her goodbyes and heads off to the bus station.
  • I realize that I left my iPod and a bag of clothes on the sailboat. Dennis intends to leave straightaway, and I’m not sure how to get my stuff back.
  • I can’t find my helmet. The launch has disappeared with my helmet still inside.
  • My KLR does not start, so I push it towards downtown Turbo. It is hot and I begin to feel very depressed about the magnitude of problems I’m facing, so I decide to focus on solving one small problem at a time.
  • Problem #1: I track down my missing helmet with the help of two Colombian girls who tagged along with us from Sapzurro to Turbo.
  • Problem #2: Kathryn scouts for and finds a hotel with a courtyard where I can take apart my motorcycle. The hallway into the courtyard is tight, but I squeeze the KLR through. A bed costs 7000 pesos/night (about $3.50 USD).
  • Problem #3: It is Sunday and the immigration office is closed. Dennis decides to spend the night in Turbo and leave the following day, so we all return to the sailboat for dinner, and I retrieve my iPod and clothes. We sleep on the sailboat.

My KLR is almost back onto dry land.

Both bike and rider have officially made it to South America!

The residents of Turbo build homes right out onto the water in some places.

Ilana, Dennis and Kathryn on the launch back to the sailboat for dinner.

Myself on the launch back to the sailboat. I am relieved to have solutions to most of the problems facing me.

January 4th

  • Ilana and I flag down a passing motorboat and hitch a ride into town. We go to the immigration office and find the process surprisingly easy and pleasant.
  • I head to the $3.50 hotel and begin pulling apart my motorcycle. The helpful folks at advrider.com have provided me with some possibilities to investigate.
  • I check the spark, clean the air filter, and verify that gas is making it to the carburetor – it all looks good.
  • I remove and disassemble the carburetor (for the first time ever!). I clean it out with carb cleaner and put everything back together. The KLR still does not start, but I learned more about my motorcycle. It is dark so I stop for the day.

Working on my carburetor in the hotel room. A roll of toilet paper makes a surprisingly good stand for a partially disassembled carb!

January 5th

  • Ilana leaves for Cartegena and suddenly I am on my own for the first time in almost two weeks. It is a strange feeling.
  • I push my bike to a nearby mechanic . His name is Juan, he’s missing the last knuckle of his right index finger, and he assures me that he can fix my bike. He’s busy with another motorcycle, though, so I leave my bike and go for a walk.
  • I wander through the outskirts of Turbo. A group of men invite me to join them for a game of Turmeque. I am terrible at it, but Alirio, the owner of the bar/playing field invites me back to his house for lunch. I accept, but tell him that I need to return to the mechanic first, so we decide to do lunch in two hours.
  • I return to the mechanic and together we disassemble the carburetor once more. He removes (I think) the main jet and blows through it to clear any trapped dirt– something I neglected to do. He also cleans the float bowl.
  • We reassemble the bike, and after cranking the starter for what seems like an eternity, it fires right up! Hallelujah!
  • I ride the motorcycle for the first time in almost two weeks and it feels amazing.
  • Lunch with Alirio and his wife is a lovely experience. His wife (whose name I’ve forgotten) is an English teacher, and she loves to practice her English with native speakers.
  • I mention to Alirio that I still need to process my bike through the Aduana (customs). He offers to help, which I readily accept. He hops on his scooter and I follow him to a military base several miles away from where I though the customs office was.
  • Alirio explains to the customs official that I had arrived by sailboat from Panama, and 30 minutes later I have all the paperwork finished.. at no charge!
  • Alirio invites me for dinner, and I accept. After washing my motorcycle for the first time since leaving Seattle, I head to his house, where we drink excellent tequila and eat very well. His wife wants me to listen to some English songs and transcribe the lyrics for her. Instead, I teach her how to use the internet to find the lyrics to just about any song.
  • I teach Alirio how to download pirated movies. The first movie he downloads is Rambo IV.
  • Alirio’s wife invites me for breakfast the next day. I graciously accept and return to my hotel to pack up.

I had my motorcycle washed for the first time in a LONG time. It cost about $2.50 and I recommend it to anybody that transports a motorcycle be sea. Saltwater is really bad for motorcycles!

January 6th

  • Breakfast at Alirio’s is fried corn cake, cheese, butter and hot chocolate. It’s very tasty.
  • I say goodbye to my new friends and leave Turbo. Finally back on the road!
  • I arrive in Medellin in the early evening.

And that about brings us up to date!  I’m in Medellin and it’s lovely.  Getting into Colombia took longer than I’d hoped, though, and now I feel as though I need to make up some time, so I’m planning to get an early start tomorrow and ride southwards.  I don’t have a particular destination in mind, and I’m excited to finally reach the southern latitudes soon!

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Gettin’ to Colombia

December 22, 2009

This will be a short post.  I’m in Panama City, and I have a lead on a sailboat that leaves from Portobelo on the north coast of Panama on the 23rd and arrives in Cartagena, Colombia 4 or 5 days later.  I think the boat stops on some Caribbean islands for a few days in the middle which sounds like a pretty nice way to spend Christmas!  I heard about this boat from a girl at the hostel I’m staying here, and she just left to take a bus up to Portobelo.  According to her there is still room on the boat.  I haven’t been able to reach the captain yet, but what the hell – Portobelo is only a few hours away.  I’ll go up there and check it out, and if it doesn’t work out, I’ll look for another boat or come back down to Panama City.

I would fly the bike, but another rider on the same year KLR as mine told me that he inquired at the main shipping company (Girag) and was told that it would be $900 to send a motorcycle to Colombia.  On top of that, flights to get myself to Colombia run around $370.  The sailboat would be $375 for myself and $375 for the bike – a significant savings.

I don’t know if I will have internet access in Portobelo, or on these islands that we’ll visit, so if not, have a wonderful Christmas, and I’ll catch you on the flipside!

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Through Costa Rica and into Panama

December 21, 2009

Gus and I crossed into Costa Rica a few days ago, and it was quite an experience.  It seems like the further south I travel, the longer the border crossings become!

We were stopped by the Nicaraguan police before reaching the border. They turned out to be friendly, and we talked with them for a while.

Leaving Nicaragua was an event in itself.  If you are traveling with a motorcycle, the process starts at a small, unmarked office about 200 meters away from the main border offices, where a customs officer looks at your temporary vehicle importation permit, matches up the plate number, and hands you a tiny piece of paper.  Then you must go to the main aduana office and find a mysterious aduana police officer who will “inspect” the bike and sign the back of this piece of paper.  I couldn’t find the right officer, but after pestering a normal policeman with enough questions, he took our papers and signed them without even glancing in the direction of our motorcycles.

Parked at the aduana office in Nicaragua.

Once this paper is signed, you must take it to the main aduana office where an officer behind a desk will look at your passport/title/etc and stamp your passport and the tiny piece of paper.  You take this piece of paper across to Costa Rica, where a police officer collects them.

Somehow we missed a step when leaving Nicaragua – we forgot to go through immigration to get our exit stamps in our passports.  The immigration officer in Costa Rica did not even look at my passport before stamping it, but gave Gus extra scrutiny, and told him that he needed to get a Nicaraguan exit stamp first.

We were a bit flummoxed.  How did we miss this step?  Was it OK for me to go back to Nicaragua with a Costa Rica visa stamp in my passport?  After some discussion, we decided that we both needed the exit stamp, so we rode back over to Nicaragua.  I led the way and we weren’t stopped.  I found the immigration office and after waiting in line for 30 minutes I had my stamp.  The immigration official was confused by the Costa Rica entry stamp in my passport, but I explained the situation as best as I could, and eventually he gave me the exit stamp.  The process went a little smoother for Gus.

Going back into Nicaragua was interesting.  We no longer had those tiny pieces of paper in which we’d collected all sorts of stamps and signatures, so I had to bluff our way past the police officer who was collecting them.  With traffic piling up behind us, he lost interest in us and waved us through.

Entering Costa Rica was a little more straightforward.  We had to buy insurance for the motorcycles for $12 USD each and fill out some paperwork to obtain the importation permit.  A few photocopies later and we were on our way into Costa Rica with no other obstacles to surmount!

Or so we thought.  It’s always something, huh?  Traffic on the two-lane road was stop and go (more stop than go).  A man walking down the road towards us told me that the backup was due to a blockade about 2 KM down.  Gus and I were hot, sweaty, tired and ready to make some distance, so we rode down the side of the road when we could and down the center when we couldn’t and eventually we made it past the worst of the traffic.

I took this photo shortly after we finally passed the horrible traffic near the border.

The longer-than-expected border crossing and the traffic conspired to keep us from reaching our intended destination for that night.  We consulted a map and decided to spend the night in Playa del Coco on the Pacific coast.  Gus wanted to continue down the coast and explore a large peninsula, and I wanted to make some distance, so we agreed that the next day we would split up.  We spent the night at a cheap but nice “cabina”, and I left the next day at 7:45 AM.

I rode back to CA-1 (the panamerican highway) and continued on towards San Jose.  When I was about 10 miles outside of San Jose I noticed that the bike was handling strangely.  Uh-oh.. flat tire.  Sure enough, when I pulled over to look at it, the rear tire was nearly completely flat.  Not a big deal, I thought – I have spare tubes and all the tools to change the tire.  The spot where I’d pulled over wasn’t a good place to change the tube, so I got back on the bike and rode slowly for another 500 meters to the next good pullout.  I parked the bike and started going over the procedure in my head, but then I looked up and had a big laugh.

What are the odds? This was the first Kawasaki dealership I'd seen since leaving the States, and I had a flat tire practically on their doorstep.

The mechanic was out for the weekend, but the owner was kind enough to let me change the tube in his shop.  I pulled the wheel off and removed the tube.  The owner had experience with motocross bikes, and he helped me install the new tube.  I have changed tubes in motorcycle tires before, but it takes me a few hours, and with his help it only took 30 minutes or so.  He didn’t want to charge me for his time or for the use of his shop, so I bought a new tube from him and left him a tip.

By then I was ready for lunch, so when I saw a sign on the highway for “Denny’s Restaurant”, I had to stop.  Was this the same Denny’s?  Here, in Central America?

I don't eat at Denny's often, but I will always have a soft spot in my heart for their french toast.

While I ate, a waiter came over to ask me about my motorcycle.  He said that he owned a 400cc Yamaha (a pretty large bike for Central America) but that he dreamed of buying a large enduro-style bike.  A foreigner he knew was selling her Suzuki DR650, and he was trying to put together the money to buy it.

My friend from Denny's. He was very proud of his tourmaster jacket that he bought from a foreigner. Motorcycle gear is hard to find in Central America!

I got back on the panamerican and continued southeast towards Panama.  The highway outside of San Jose climbs up a mountain pass before winding down to sea level again.

This was the highest pass I'd crossed so far on this trip. The highest point was something close to 10,800 feet! I know, it's no Tibet, but I still found it exciting.

The sun was setting soon, so I hurried to the next big town and found a nice hotel room for $12.  I think the name of the city of San Isidro, but I don’t know too much about it because it began to rain and I didn’t explore at all.

The next day I rode the rest of the way to the Panamanian border.  I stopped on the way for a quick lunch so that I wouldn’t get hungry while crossing the border!  If there’s one piece of advice that I have about border crossings in Central America, it’s this – take care of physical comforts BEFORE starting the process.  If you’ve taken care of hunger and thirst, the rest of the crossing becomes much more pleasant!

The restaurant's owner told me that this was a typical Costa Rican dish: fried fish, rice, beans, fried bananas and salad. Delicious!

At the border I experienced my first tropical rainstorm.  The gray sky had threatened rain all morning, but thus far it had mostly kept to itself.  Eventually the spell broke and the subsequent downpour left me speechless.  The border offices had corrugated metal roofs, and the roar of the falling rain was deafening.  The official who was helping me import my bike into Panama had to shout so that I could hear her!

Two girls run across the road to escape the rain.

The Panama border crossing took several hours, but this was mostly due to massive lines.  The actual process was pretty straightforward.

So I’m in Panama now, and I’m hoping to make it to Panama City today.  My mad rush through Central America will hopefully come to an end and I should be able to relax a bit.  The reason for the hurry was to figure out how to ship my bike into Colombia before the holidays lock up everything, and I’m going to inquire at an airfreight company tomorrow morning.

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