Alone again

I'm in Copiapo, Chile. It's been a few days since I left Puno - twice :)

The infamous Insight fleximap of Peru showed a road leading from Puno to Tacna, near the Chilean border. What it failed to mention was the type of road. Ten minutes after turning off the main road to Bolivia I was bouncing over rocks and potholes and sliding around on gravel. I asked directions several times and was told this was the road to Tacna, so I persevered for some 50Km before deciding that all 450Km of road was going to be like that. I was worried about the already-repaired-once-and-quite-worn-now tyres and the battering the bike was taking, and as there were no alternate roads, I turned around. I was almost back to the main road when the bike slid off into the deep gravel at the side of the road. Trying to climb back onto the road, the bike stuck fast. I was stuck with the front wheel on the road, the back buried in deep gravel and the bashplate under the exhaust grounded. The rear wheel was so deep the bike could stand up on it's own without me on it. At almost 4000m altitude it took me maybe a minute or so of struggling to free it before I was heaving for breath, much to the bemusement of a farm hand nearby.

He eventually wandered over, looking somewhat reluctant, and offered to stand behind the bike and push whilst I gave it some throttle. No dice. Our combined efforts just resulted in some wheelspin and gravel spraying everywhere. Another guy turned up and between the three of us we freed the bike, and I was able to ride up onto the "road". I checked the bike over and the chain was very dirty, but other than that all seemed ok. I'd hardly been able to understand a word the two guys that helped me had said, but holding your hand out rubbing your fingers and thumb together is universal, seemed their assistance came at a price. Thinking back to all the people that have helped me out of kindness made it easier to give them a few Soles with good grace.

I was now pretty exhausted, thirsty, and it was 1pm. I'd been on the road since 9.30am and was a total of about 50Km from Puno, where I'd started, so I decided to go back and regroup. Rubbish Peru map 2, Frase 0. The hotel staff were mildly surprised to see the whacky Englishman reappear, when I'd said hasta luego to them that morning, I'd meant it as "goodbye" ;)

The Insight Peru map went in the bin as I found that my Bolivia map had the relevant sections of road on. It showed the road I had taken in the map key as "cart track". I found that I had two options, either to head to the Bolivian border and then cut south, or go through Bolivia into Chile. I decided to try cutting south before the border.

The following day I left Puno, again, and took the same road out to the Bolivian frontier. Leaving town I got caught up in some sort of demonstration, complete with loud hailers and banner waving. An inauspicious start to a long day. This time, however, my road map proved accurate and the road south from the border with Bolivia was a good one. In fact, it was an awesome one. From the area of lake Titicaca at about 3800m, it climbed into the Altiplano. I was a little concerned about fuel, as since leaving Puno there were very few fuel stations. As the road cut south I knew I was approaching the Altiplano, which is desert to all intents and purposes, and I knew there would be no fuel. So I had to fuel up in the last town. This turned out to be harder than it sounds.

There was one fuel station in town. It had only 84 octane unleaded, the combustible equivalent of evaporated milk as far as my bike was concerned, but it was petrol and I needed it. Unfortunately, the pump managed three dribbles into my fuel tank, and then it was dry. The lady happily charged me three Soles, but I now had to risk crossing the Altiplano with enough fuel - just enough, if careful - to make the 300Km to the next town. The Altiplano itself was amazing, the road climbed and twisted through real desert, yellow and red sands and salts, dry lake beds, some Alpaca farms, some small lakes with Flamingoes, lots of wind driven dust devils. All at altitudes up to 4800m. However I was trying to conserve as much fuel as possible, and had one eye on the fuel gauge the entire journey. At one point I came across a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, it had a petrol station but it had long since closed. My fuel gauge was on the last segment, I had a gallon of fuel to get me 80Km. It was going to be close.

About 20Km from the town I was trying to reach, the road started to descend from the Altiplano and I started to relax that I wouldn't be on my own in the middle of the desert, out of gas. Until the realisation struck that the town on my map may not have a fuel station, or like so many others that morning, it might be shut too. I pulled into Torata with the fuel gauge flashing at me, the bike running on fumes. There was a petrol station, but as feared it was closed. I got off the bike, banged on a couple of doors, no one home. There was a fuel truck parked out front and I found a driver in the cab. He told me there was another fuel station out of town on the main road, maybe 4Km away. I figured I could get there, but the next town was 45Km away so this was my last chance. Fortunately, the out of town garage was open and I could breathe again :)

From there the road dropped into coastal desert all the way to Tacna. The sun was setting but I knew both the Peru and Chile borders were 24 hour crossings, so I pressed on to Chile. Leaving Peru was not too difficult, I had to fill in another form for the bike which had to be copied, then obtain a passport stamp and after checking that I was actually leaving with the bike, I was free to go. Chilean immigration was the model of efficiency, a helpful customs official guided me through the stamps I needed on the bike permiso, three of them, then my luggage was all x-rayed. If I thought they were tight on me, there was an SUV full of surfers crossing in front of me, when I arrived they were being searched and when I left, the car was being pulled apart and searched with torches. Nothing like stereotypes ;) But after the painless crossing I only had about 20km of riding in the dark to reach Arica.

When I got there, rather than try to find my way around in the dark I pulled into a petrol station and asked for the hotel I had Googled earlier. A kind lady in the queue introduced herself as Cynthia, and volunteered to lead me to the hotel in her school bus. I jumped on the bike and followed her, noticing as I did that I had lost a handlebar end off the bike somehow. The handguard was flapping about. No idea when that happened, or how. Hotel located, I thanked Cynthia for her help and she wished me a pleasant journey. I liked Chile already :)

The next morning I was awoken by booming surf and realised the hotel was on the beach. I wondered idly if the surfers had cleared customs, and put their car back together ;) Leaving Arica I knew I had a long day again to get to Antofagasta. I had seen a sign the previous night indicating that Santiago, where I planned to get new tyres, was 2085Km away. Ouch. I hoped the tyres would last that long :)

By now I was used to riding across desert, and it was just as well because all of northern Chile is desert. The Atacama, driest place on Earth. I rode more than 700Km into Antofagasta, hardly seeing another soul, and certainly not any trees or birds. Just sand. The boredom of riding enormous distances with nothing to see was offset by the Km signpost game, which I invented. Basically the distance to Santiago was shown on Km posts every kilometer, and from 2008 downwards I tried to think of something that happened on that year in history. I sang a bit. I waved at the occasional passing truck. I yawned an awful lot. The wind was vicious and constantly from the west, forcing me to ride with the bike at an angle and my neck was taking a real battering trying to hold my head still. The day's excitement came from trying to outrun a very large dust devil that was converging with the road ahead. It was really a small tornado, a twisting column of sand rising into the blue sky. I passed it within about 20m, and as I went by was buffeted by very warm winds compared to the cool wind in the surrounding desert.

Just before Antofagasta I crossed the Tropic of Capricorn, and managed to completely miss the monument there. It seemed like I'd only just crossed the equator, but it seemed centuries since I crossed the Tropic of Cancer, let alone the Arctic Circle. I got off the bike with a stiff neck and sore butt. Sitting in a comfy chair to eat was painful, I couldn't picture doing it all again the next day.

Leaving Antofagasta on Thursday morning was tough, and I laid in too long. I knew I had to shorten the day slightly so decided to try for Copiapo, just under 600Km away. I'd parked the bike next to another VStrom the previous evening, it had Brazilian plates. When I got to my bike I found the owners had left a little sticker on my fuel tank, wishing me a happy journey :) When I left I was straight back into the desert, the towns of Arica and Antofagasta on the coast are surrounded by nothingness. A little south of Antofagasta is a sculpture called "Mano Del Desierto", desert hand, picture at top. I thought the sculptor would have done a better job if the hand had been doing a Vulcan salute. At least drivers passing south on the long, dull drive would get a laugh ;) I was saddened to see that the hand is covered in graffiti, some of which had obviously been put there by fellow travellers. What makes people think their journey is so important they have to scrawl about it in indelible pen on someone's art work??

The day was spent much as the previous one, passing through an almost Martian landscape of reddish rocks and sand, in the howling wind.

Crossing the Tropic of Capricorn has sort of hammered home how far south I am, after all it crosses Australia, the other side of the world as far as the UK is concerned. And there is still a long, long way to go.

Frase.

Lake Titicaca and cheese, por favor

I'm in Puno, on the shores of Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world (at around 3800m) and tourism capital of the Universe.

Saturday morning Mo turned up at the hotel I was staying at slightly later than planned as he had a friend, Josh, who decided to come with us to Puno. There was a minor problem in that Josh was touring around Peru and didn't have a bike, so they had spent their morning hiring a little 400cc Honda. So around 11am two heavily loaded touring bikes and one tiny Honda with a rucksack left Cusco. At least they tried to - about forty metres down the road Josh pulled up and realised he had left his iPod at the bike hire place. While we were waiting for him, Mo and I were hassled by shoe shine people appalled at the state of our boots, and when we told them no thanks, they offered to clean the bikes instead.

Finally getting out of Cusco, the main road to Puno headed down a fairly straight and very picturesque valley. The lower peaks on either side were carpeted in a yellowy green tufted grass, and the effect was like brushed velvet. It reminded me a little of Colombia. The higher peaks were snow capped, and given that we were already at more than 3000m in the valley must have been very high indeed.

We stopped for lunch in a small town called Sicuani, a little under halfway to Puno. There was a little restaurant and they served set menus, so we had soup, followed by a small chicken leg in green sauce, with rice and a potato. Along with a litre of Coke between us the total bill came to about 13 Soles, less than 4 Dollars. There was a table full of cops next to us, and Josh cheerfully pointed out as we were eating that one of them had a sub machine gun laying across his lap, and the barrel was pointing right at me. That was the most uncomfortable meal I can remember in a while ;) Still, when the cops were done eating they went outside and stood by the bikes, I get the impression that they really don't want anything bad happening to tourists in this place.

Setting out again it was gone 2.30pm and I started to worry we would arrive in Puno after dark, but we picked the pace up for a bit until it started to rain. I was ok in my waterproof gear, but Mo and Josh needed to stop to put waterproofs and thicker gear on. Plus Josh had no gloves so I lent him my thicker spare set. Riding on the rain didn't last but it got very cold indeed. After a stop for petrol a strong side wind and some more rain set in, and the last 60Km or so into Puno was spent with my teeth chattering, and I seem to recall there were a few promises that I would have a good, hot shower as soon as I found an hotel ;)

We wound around Puno town centre for a short while before I decided to stay in a place on the main square. Mo and Josh said they would find a place elsewhere, so I said I'd see them later and ran for the shower ;)

I'd decided to go to Puno as it was the embarkation point for boat trips out onto Lake Titicaca, so the hotel were able to book me on a tour out to the floating reed islands of Uros and the island of Taquile the next morning, again at a silly time when all sane people should be sleeping. I was glad of the electric heater and thick duvets in my room, I'm really not used to the cold anymore.

I got up at 5.30am again and met a minibus which took a small bunch of us down to the harbour. We got on a boat and a guide rattled off what was going to happen in quickfire Spanish and English. Interestingly there was no safety brief, no "the fire extinguishers are here, lifejackets are there" and no liability waiver to sign as seems to be the norm now. About twenty minutes out from Puno were the islands of Uros. These islands were constructed entirely of reeds and float on the lake. They are home to the Aymara indians, who apparently suffer terrible rheumatism and don't age much over 60, a combination of the humidity and walking around on a surface that feels a little like a mattress.

There are many dozens of islands, and each visiting boat is assigned to an island so all the islanders get their fair share of tourist cash. The island we visited was called Chumi, and was home to ten families. The island president gave a welcome talk in Spanish, which is a second language to these people, and it was translated into English by our guide. Then the islanders sang a song and got out the gift selection. We were given fifteen minutes to look around the island, which was enough time to lap it four or five times ;) Most people bought something, and then were offered rides in the community reed boat, for a fee. I noticed some solar panels on the island, which looked about as out of place as a tattoo parlour in a convent. These were apparently donated by the Peruvian government as lighting cooking fires on what is effectively a big floating bonfire often resulted in disaster. Now the Aymara have electricity, and have TV, radio etc too.



We bade farewell to the islanders after another cheesy song and made a brief stop at the main island to pick up a Dutch couple that had stayed the night there. I thought back to having the heater in my room on the previous evening and shuddered at the idea of a reed hut. It was two and a half hours by boat to the island of Taquile and we arrived in time for lunch, which was a set up affair with a local family. Again there was singing and dancing this time too. The indians on Taquile are known for their weaving and there were souvenirs all over the place. The island was pretty but after a few minutes I'd seen enough and of course had to wait around for the tour group, and the boat to come and pick us up. Then it was three hours back to Puno. All in all I think the most touristy thing I have ever done in my life. It was interesting, but I am looking forward to getting somewhere and being able to stop without someone immediately trying to sell me something.

Due to time pressures I have made the decision not to go into Bolivia. I will be heading for Chile tomorrow instead. I will miss Peru, but will welcome some peace and quiet ;)

Frase.

Machu Picchu, Cusco, and one or two tourists

The alarm going off at 5.30am was a bit of a rude shock. Machu Picchu needed to be something special to get me up at that time, I was just grateful I didn't have shoelaces to tie.

After a cereal bar I grabbed a few items like raincoat and camera and met a cab in reception that the tour guide had sent over. I got dropped at Cusco rail station and a ticket for the train was thrust at me by the tour guide, after I was introduced to him by the taxi driver. I ended up sitting on my own in the train, wondering if I was in the right place. After the train left the station the conductor came along and in Spanish and English told everyone that the journey would be four hours to Aguas Calientes, the rail station for Machu Picchu.

Any hope my poor sore butt had of a nice day off evaporated with the morning mists. Eight hours on a train plus an hour on buses... at least the seats were a little more bearable than a bike saddle. I'd been enjoying the views over Cusco and the surrounding countryside when I was jolted awake and a menu put in my hands. I hadn't even realised I had drifted off, must have been more tired than I thought. After a sandwich and coffee I figured I would be ok, but drifted back off to sleep again.

I awoke to glimpses of snow capped mountains, covered by clouds, towering above the river valley which the train followed. I noticed that many of the tourists in the carriage were videoing the entire train journey, I bet home videos at their place are a real hoot. Occasionally the train would stop and indian ladies would appear at the windows, selling anything from hot corn on the cob to Inca patterned bags.

The train pulled into Aguas Calientes station and my tour group met up. It was organised chaos as the guide would call names again and again, until people showed up. It didn't help that they had my middle name down in place of my first name, and the guide would keep calling "Edooard". Eventually after the guide had run off, come back, called everyones' name again, and separated English and Spanish speakers, we got into Machu Picchu through the throng of tourists. I was completely uncomfortable the moment I stepped off the train, and the crowded feeling got worse until I was starting to doubt I would enjoy Machu Picchu at all. I guess I was so used to doing my own thing on the bike and having no company that being herded around like cattle in the press of people was a bit odd.

Fortunately I forgot all about it when I saw the ruins. The steeply terraced mountainside held more than 200 Inca buildings and it struck me just how at home they looked in the landscape. The surroundings were changed by the ruins being there, but in a nice way. It kind of puts modern building planning to shame.

After a guided tour of the ruins, we were allowed the rest of the afternoon to explore before heading back to the train. It was very difficult to find a quiet spot to soak up the ambiance of the place, but I managed to sit for a while and just drink in the view of the surrounding landscape, and watch small Swallows chasing insects. Strange to think that six centuries ago maybe Inca nobility might have done the same thing. It was interesting just how little people seem to know about the Incas, because they didn't write anything down and the Spaniards tried to eradicate their beliefs. Some Americans were arguing whether Machu Picchu was higher than Cusco (at 3400m) and I setted it by showing them the altitude on my watch (2400m), to oohs and aahs. There we were, in that amazing place, and they were impressed by a watch with an altimeter ;)

I had some lunch and got back on the train for Cusco and stuck my iPod on. I watched the guy opposite sink about five beers over the course of an hour or so, and when I took my earphones out at one point he started chatting. Turned out he was a network engineer called Alan, from Middlesborough, on a 13 month world tour. We spent the rest of the journey comparing notes - he was headed north and I south, so we were able to give each other an idea of what to expect.

Out of the window the stars lit the journey back to Cusco. I thought back to the tourist chaos at Machu Picchu, and wondered how long it could go on for. November is the quiet season, and still there were so many bus loads of tourists that there was hardly room on the road for the buses to pass. Costs were astronomical compared to the rest of Peru, and the town of Aguas Calientes seemed to owe it's existence to the ruins. I'd never seen so many tourists or so much tourist exploitation in one place before.

The following day I decided to stay in Cusco to see the Inca museum and hang out with Steve for a bit. The museum was kind of interesting, but as ninety percent of the explanations were in Spanish, it was all a bit lost on me. Steve took me to the local market for Coca tea and tamales, and I sat surrounded by exotic smells watching someone try to stuff a live chicken into a bag while we drank.

In the evening we went back to Norton Rats, the biker bar, and met up with a couple of other travellers (one of whom was travelling from Colombia to Argentina by pushbike!). An Indian guy named Mo was planning to head south to Puno tomorrow at more or less the same time as me, so we agreed to meet up and ride together in the morning. The rest of the evening was spent swapping stories from the road, before leaving and running the gauntlet of locals trying to sell hats, paintings and just about anything else you can imagine. They are so persistent and won't take a simple "no thanks" for an answer, often following people up the road.

I'll be glad to be back on the road and away from the hard sell that is Cusco. It's architecturally pretty, but a bit too Disney for me.

Frase.

Two bikes arrive in Cusco

I left Abancay knowing I had only 200Km over the mountains to get to Cusco. I figured at worst I would be there in four hours, looking for an hotel that wasn't full of tourists. The road climbed steadily over a mountain range and then down into a valley, following the line of a river and making for easier riding. It was raining on and off for the first time since Colombia, but after Central America I wasn't bothered by a little rain ;) A little before the mountain summit though the rain became hail for a few minutes and started to sting a bit. I was cold, too.

I'd reached about the halfway point when the rain stopped and it got pretty hot. I went roaring past another heavily laden bike pulled over at the roadside, it's owner was having a drink and gestured I should turn around. As I rode back up I caught the plate and it was from Panama, no one I knew then. But I was wrong.

A few bikers on solo South America trips (me included) have been in loose e-mail contact regarding progress and I had recently got an e-mail from a guy called Steve who was in the area of Nasca. We shook hands and gave our names and there followed a sort of light of comprehension ;) Steve was from the 'States originally but now resident in Panama. He'd been bumping into other bikers all over South America and riding with them for a bit. I was forced to admit I hadn't seen a soul since Jim and I went our separate ways in Fairbanks. The only touring bikes I'd seen had been heading the opposite direction!

I also found out that I wasn't the only one to have suffered sleepiness crossing the high altitude Pampa Galeras. Despite taking altitude sickness pills, Steve and the couple he had been riding with had felt so tired they had rather more sensibly pulled over and gone to sleep at the side of the road for a while.

After chatting a little we agreed to press on to Cusco together and Steve led off. It was interesting to follow another bike again, Steve's style was far more dirtbike than mine, pushing the bike into turns rather than hanging off like a sportsbike. We kept up a good pace until grey clouds loomed again and Steve pulled over to put some thicker gloves and layers on. He explained that for the minute or so it takes it is worth it to be comfortable, a trade off I never make. I always persevere and put up with cold hands. No idea why.

As we rode into Cusco, Steve stopped and asked for directions to the hotel he had booked. We found it easily, testament to how much better life would be if I spoke Spanish ;) I was able to get a room too and at a cost similar to the NASA Apollo budget, book myself on a tour of Machu Picchu the following day. Later that evening we went to a bar called Norton Rats, owned by an overland biker who came to Peru from the US and stayed. I had the best burger I've eaten in ages and sat chatting to Steve and the owner, Jeff, over a pint of Abbot Ale. Jeff had a guest book for passing motorcyclists so I made a little entry, then noticed that less than a month ago two guys had been there from Tunbridge Wells. It's a small world ;)

Machu Picchu tomorrow, at crazy o'clock in the morning. So I'm off to bed.

Frase.

Across the Cordillera Occidental

My map is wrong. Patently the people at Insight Fleximap measured the distance from Nasca to Cusco using knotted string, or they just guessed it.

I couldn't be bothered to rent a plane and fly over the Nasca Lines, it seemed like a waste of cash to see what was effectively a bunch of early crop circles and probably put there by the same kind of bored youngsters, albeit a thousand years ago. If I was stuck in the desert with no TV, that's what I'd do too. So I left Nasca around 10am thinking I had 460Km of quiet mountain road to get to Cusco. The first sign I picked up outside Nasca said "Cusco 660Km". That would be a long day on a straight dual carriageway, on secondary roads through the mountains I would end up in Cusco around 11pm.

After several thoughts along the lines of do I really want to go to Cusco or Machu Picchu, I got on with it and made good time for 20Km or so, until the road surface disintegrated and the road wound round tight bends to climb into the mountains. I was treated to the incredible sight of the Cerro Blanco, one yellow mountain amid all the rock, at over 2000 metres high the biggest sand dune on Earth. The road got steadily worse until about the 140Km post it was closed altogether. It was 1pm and it had taken me three hours to get that far.

There was a small queue of cars and me, the locals were all hassling the roadworks team to be let through. A few people took an interest in the bike, and as usual asked me the capacity. Peruvians are fascinated by big bikes. One of them explained to me that the road was closed now until 4pm. I was short on fuel, and didn't have enough to make it back to Nasca. The nearest fuel was in Puquio, past the closed road, along with the nearest water which I also urgently needed. Three hours without a drink in that heat wasn't going to happen so I more or less pleaded with the road crew in mixed Spanish and hand signs to let me through as the bike was so narrow. To my amazement it worked, and I was allowed through past all the heavy machinery making a mess of the road. I felt terrible for the locals, stuck there all afternoon. It wasn't like they could nip to the shops and buy a newspaper!

I got to Puquio and had never really seen a town like it, the road may as well not have been there as it was really just a wide track in the mountain side covered with sand, dust and gravel. Riding on it was a nightmare. The town itself looked like it had seen better days and was essentially just a few old buildings in a dust bowl. I got fuel but the open 24 hours shop attached to it was shut ;) So I went a block further and found a corner shop which served me two bottles of water with a thick coating of dust. The shopkeeper wiped them down for me, and the seals were intact, so I left town fully prepared to get all the way to Cusco.

The road that left Puquio could have passed for a decent UK road, I was amazed at the difference. It finished climbing pretty quickly and soon I was on high altitude plains, yellowish grass and a few peaks here and there, but mostly completely flat. My altimeter was showing just over 4000m. This was the Pampa Galeras, and it was full of Guanacos (or Llamas, or maybe Alpacas. I can't tell which is which ;) ). The road opened up and I put the hammer down, although I was careful to keep an eye on the wildlife. Eventually the plains climbed to a maximum of around 4500m, just under 15,000 feet, effectively the beginning of the Cordillera Occidental. The sky was deep blue, all hints of white gone, and it contrasted with the tufty yellow grasses. There were occasional lakes which looked almost black. Dotted around were pink spots on the lakes, Flamingoes going about their business. The sun beat down but didn't seem to carry any warmth. I felt closer to it, like I could reach out and touch space.

There were farms too, with Llamas penned in by stone walls. The indian farmers were dressed in layers of blankets and wore wide brimmed hats, which seemed to keep them warmer than my bike gear was keeping me ;) It occurred to me that between the indians living in that thin air and the small shacks I saw in the desert, it was very naive of me to think that people in Alaska had lives as far removed from mine as they could be.

I'd been more or less flat out across the plains and thought I should stop to take a picture, but when I got off the bike I felt very wobbly and got on again without unpacking my camera. After a short distance I felt like I was falling asleep, that horrible too tired to drive feeling where you are fighting to keep your eyes open. It was the middle of the afternoon though. I found that shaking my head cleared it a little, and when the road finally plummeted down into a low valley, the feeling went away completely. I followed the river valley, still riding pretty quickly, until sundown when I had to slow considerably. I was still 50Km from the nearest town, Abancay, and 250 from Cusco.

I was reminded of the time I thought it would be a good idea to drive 600 miles to Edinburgh after work one Friday evening. This was nearly as stupid, and I could see myself riding all night at the speed I was going. As I approached Abancay the stars were appearing and I noticed again how little I knew of the Southern Hemisphere constellations. I needed a map ;) As I was passing through the centre of town I saw an hotel and they had secure parking, internet access, and decent rooms by chance.

Cusco could wait another day.

Frase.

Running the gauntlet

I've seen more police officers in Peru than in the whole of the rest of my life I think. They are everywhere, I bet Peruvian unemployment is unheard of :)

I'd read in many sources that Peruvian cops were a Very Bad Thing. Particularly on one bike travel Internet forum the members were always referring to the cops on the Panamerican Highway north of Lima. An acquaintance doing a similar trip had run into bribery problems in that area too, so you can imagine my reluctance to leave Trujillo and head for Lima. I'd even considered getting onto some back roads and working around the problem.

After getting the bike sorted on the Saturday, Sunday seemed like a good day to try the trip south to Lima. Perhaps the police would lay in, or go to church ;) Leaving Trujillo just after 8am in the morning mist I was immediately back in the desert. I had always pictured Peru as jungle (probably too much Paddington Bear as a kid), it came as something of a surprise to find that most of it is sand. This time with two charged camera batteries I managed to get some better pictures of the desert moving in mysterious ways ;)

My first pulling over by the cops came just down the road, but I didn't even need to take my crash helmet off. The guy asked the usual, where I was from, where I'd left this morning and where I was going, and then let me go. I'd mostly been sticking to the posted limit since the trip began (mostly ;)) and I had decided to stay well within the speed limits until Lima, just so that I knew I wasn't in the wrong. There was a cop car at the side of the road right outside every single small town, watching for speeders. The second pull came about an hour after the first, again just asking questions before letting me go.

South of Huarmey there was a long stretch of desert alongside the Pacific Ocean, and suddenly I was riding along in thick coastal fog. The beaches looked pretty amazing, and very remote. They only seemed a stone's throw from the road, but that stone would have to cross deep sand and dunes. No way I was riding there! Winding into the mountains the fog would come and go, I read somewhere that it is caused by a cold current in the Pacific that runs up the coast of South America. Strange that I was surrounded by arid desert, and constantly wiping moisture off my visor.

Near Barranca the main Panamerican highway was closed and a diversion in operation. I followed the "desvio" signs down a side turn but then confusingly there was a turn back onto the main road. I stopped to look and a local ushered me back onto the Panam. Um, ok then... I was starting to get a bit paranoid that aside from a couple of local lads on bikes I was the only vehicle on the road for dozens of kilometers, when I came across the local boys in blue. They flagged me down and I pulled my helmet off to chat. It turned out that I was on a closed road, so I asked where the Panam was and was given directions. Sadly that wasn't the end of it.
"Es infraccion" the cop kept saying, meaning I was no doubt about to feel the full weight of the law. Having learned my lesson in Panama I wasn't about to give him my driving licence so he got one of the fake ones. He went into a big routine about how he would have to retain the licence until I paid a fine (I think 300 bucks), but no matter how many times he waved the licence in front of me, it was still just a nicely laminated piece of pink A4 paper and about as official as one of those "name a crater on the moon" special offers. All the while I was smiling, nodding and saying "si" a lot. The dumb gringo, a role I fit so well :) I was also chatting to his colleague about football, and I think that kind of put him off his stride a bit. His colleague seemed genuinely pleased to see me, and interested in England and the bike too. Eventually I asked where I would be able to pick the licence up again, and at that point the cop just gave it back to me with exaggerated good grace, and let me go.

I wasn't far north of Lima, when I got stopped for the fourth and final time. I'd just been through a toll booth, so I knew I wasn't in trouble for speeding. The cop asked for my licence and got the fake again, then he surprised me by asking for insurance. That was a first, and since it was optional at the border I'd been a bit bad and not bothered (nor in Ecuador). Errr. I knew that admitting my insurance was riding carefully was going to get me "es infraccion" all over again, so I produced my holiday insurance certificate, official looking and since it was all in English completely incomprehensible. He let me go, and I rode off feeling an odd mixture of smug and guilty.

Lima was massive, like riding into London although with more people on the streets. I'd Googled an hotel and it was surprisingly quite straightforward to find, after asking a few passers-by and some cops. There were several cops on every street corner, making checking and rechecking directions easy, all these guys were all very friendly and helpful. I had a pretty late dinner of Lomo Saltado, beef chunks in sauce with both rice and chips (fries). Delicious.

The next morning I decided I was going to head for Nasca, where the indians of the same name had carved lines into the desert, shapes that are so big they can only really be appreciated from a plane. Compared to the previous day there were considerably fewer cops on the road and they were far more relaxed. Not far south of Lima I rode into the teeth of a sandstorm for the first time, people walking had rags or shirts over their faces and there was very little traffic on the road. Aside from the wind making riding hard work, and sand stinging my neck and getting on my visor it was not a problem. Must remember to clean the air filter soon though!

It took less time than I thought to get to Nasca due to the good roads and lack of police intervention. I stopped at an hotel that was a converted Monastery and former hacienda, and got talking to a Peruvian named Fernando, who spoke good English. He told me about a plan he'd had once to get a car in the States and drive it back to Lima, only he'd been put off by people telling him how bad Central America was for robbery and police corruption. I told him never to listen to negative people. It made me wonder how many other people have shelved ideas or dreams because of "advice". As I am learning, things are never as bad as you think they will be. Just do it ;)


Frase.

Trujillo and TLC

I decided to stay in Trujillo and give the bike some much needed attention. I'd bought replacement brake pads in Costa Rica and they were still in one of the panniers, and recently Red 5 had been sounding a little rattly starting from cold. As it was more than 7000 miles since the last oil change I though fresh oil would be no bad thing :)

Being the third largest Peruvian city I was hopeful that I'd be able to pick up the right oil in Trujillo. I already had a new oil filter, bought with Ricardo's assistance in San Jose, but had no tool for screwing the filter into the engine. Hmmm. I asked at hotel reception if there was a bike shop in town and no luck, but there was apparently an oil centre, a garage specialising in oil changes. So I got a taxi into town and luckily the garage had the right oil. No luck with a filter wrench, but the garage were prepared to let me use the facilities to do the oil change free of charge. Sounds simple, but I didn't understand a word that was being said :) Fortunately the cabbie phoned an English speaking colleague and he explained everything over the phone. I agreed to bring the bike back and went to fetch it.

By lunchtime I had the bike on the centrestand in the garage and realised I was standing on a precipice, looking down into the mysterious void that is mechanical skill. I've never done an oil change before, normally it is all I can do to pump tyres up ;) But I had the bike manual and it looked easy enough. The guy that had sold me the oil introduced himself as Pedro and also introduced me to Juan, the only mechanic in the place that wasn't half my age. Juan, it seemed, was going to be my assistant. We removed the bashplate from under the engine sump and I got a good look at the clobbering the exhaust had taken from all the "topes" in Mexico and Guatemala. The bottom wasn't nice and round and exhaust shaped any more, it was bashed flat. Oops. The plate mountings were a bit bent but no real issue.

The oil change was actually really straightforward. Having drained all the old oil into a plastic container, Juan dipped his thumb in and showed me it with a sour expression. Ok, so it wasn't meant to look that colour then :) I put the new filter on and Juan stuck some instant gasket on the sump plug, which I wouldn't have done (not in the manual!). After sticking the new oil in and firing the bike up there were no leaks. Job done. It really surprised me how well I got on with Juan, after all neither of us spoke the other's language. I'd got enough of a grasp to understand basic questions though, and was able to tell him my name, age, a bit about me and the trip. Peruvians have all been incredibly nice so far. They are friendly, welcoming people.

Pedro, meanwhile, asked if he could put the name of the garage on one of my panniers. He seemed quite made up that the sticker would be off to Patagonia :) I thanked the guys and gave Juan some money for his time, though none seemed expected. Then I headed back to the hotel through the chaotic traffic. Don't ask me why I didn't change the brake pads when I did the oil... stupidity I guess. I decided to do that back in the hotel car park. No mechanic to help, no pad to kneel on, no additional tools only my own kit. D'oh.

I got one caliper off, but the bolts had been threadlocked into place by a gorilla with a bad grudge and some strong glue. The left front caliper bolts wouldn't budge. I put some WD40 on to loosen them, and then put so much force behind my spanner that it began to bend. Eventually I got one bolt out, but managed to round off the head of the other, making the left pad impossible to change. Argh.

I decided to call it a night and revisit the garage next day instead of heading to Lima. After carefully riding to the garage next morning on one set of new pads and a set of old, Pedro was able to use a big wrench to get the bolt off in about ten seconds. Of course, I thought wryly, I must have loosened it for him ;) He then took me on a tour of all the local garages to see if we could find a replacement bolt. All the garages were in competition, but the owners were all friends. We'd ask about the bolt, they'd shake their head, and then suggest we try so and so down the road. At the fourth attempt we found the right size bolt, so I was then able to change my left set of pads on the street outside Pedro's garage, with a small audience.

With the brakes and oil sorted, I then had an afternoon to kill. I knew the ruins of Chan Chan were close to Trujillo, but a chance conversation with hotel staff revealed I could get there in a cab easily. So it was I paid them a visit. After paying entry I found I could get an English speaking guide, so rather than wander on my own like Palenque I hired a guide. This turned out to be a great idea because none of the areas of the ruins are marked and I would have just wandered around with no clue what I was looking at :)

The ruins are actually about 20 kilometers square, so it was just the palace area I was looking around. Built by the Chimu they date from maybe 900BC up until around 2000 years ago. Although essentially only sand and a sort of plaster, the outer wall was about five metres thick, which may explain how it is still there in an area prone to earthquakes. I listened to my guide explain how the Chimu were conquered by the Incas, who were in turn conquered by the Spanish, and wondered what lead people to squabble over a few square kilometers of desert sand near the Ocean.

Leaving Chan Chan my waiting cab took me to the beach at Huanchaco. I was hoping to see some of the reed boats that traditionally are used for fishing off the Peruvian coast, but the area was so incredibly touristy that I did a runner after a mere five minutes.

I like Trujillo, and will find it hard to leave in the morning. But, the show must go on :)

Frase.

Extreme ways

I'm in Trujillo, Peru. Today I crossed one of the harshest environments so far - the Sechura desert.

I started out a little late and it was almost 10.30am when I left Piura. I was hopeful the road would stay like the previous day and my map showed it running straight across the desert, so I wasn't too worried. The traffic in Piura was mental and everyone was honking at each other or in the case of cabs, at potential fares. The noise was amazing. No one seemed to have right of way anywhere and people would just pull out in front of me, or squeeze me out of the way by running their car right up alongside me in my lane. Chaos.

Leaving town the desert started more or less immediately and quickly the land became stunted trees, sand and scrub. I was stunned to see that a good way out into the desert there were homes, if you can call a wooden slat wall shack with a pen out the back for donkeys a home. It was pretty obvious from the construction that these people don't get much rain ;) I wondered what on Earth the people did for a living, scratching an existence on the edge of a desert like that. I wondered how they got water. A short distance further on that question was answered, a truck was dispensing water into many containers that people had brought to be filled by the roadside. Donkeys seemed to be everywhere, pulling carts, loaded with packs, being ridden. It struck me that I was passing through the poorest area I have ever seen. Outside one house there were two kids playing in the full scorching sun, and I thought of my nieces and couldn't imagine them being brought up in that environment.

Soon the buildings and small villages were gone and it was just sand. Occasionally the road passed an area of long, crescent shaped dunes and I stopped to take some pictures, parked up the bike and stood in the desert with my camera. After a few minutes a van pulled in just up the road and started to back down towards the bike, setting off my paranoia meter and making me run to the bike and stick my crash helmet on. Four guys got out and while one had a bathroom break at the side of the road, the others picked up a sheet of scrap metal, threw it in the van and got back in. Bathroom break over the older guy shouted "Hey gringo" followed by something incomprehensible, then laughed and got in the van. They drove off. I relaxed.

My camera then packed up, complaining about low battery and in the time honoured fashion of lazy people everywhere, I hadn't charged the spare. Typically, the dunes then just got better and better. Some were starting to migrate across the road in the strong westerly wind.

A little south of Chiclayo, after I'd been going for some four hours, the Panamerican Highway came to a grinding halt at a bridge over a river. The bridge was shut and a long diversion in operation, but as I approached a local guy and his friend starting ushering me toward the bridge. They talked to the cop in charge and he nodded agreement for me to take the bike over the bridge. So the locals showed me a way around the screens closing the bridge to traffic, and I rode through the pedestrians and handcarts, up onto the bridge. It was partly concrete, but mostly planks and was half dilapidated. I waited for a local on a bike and a handcart with two trussed up pigs in to cross the good section and then rode across, looking down into the river instead of where I was going ;) At the end I had to ride down a steep set of stairs, but some kind soul had put bricks between the steps to make it easier. Then I got back onto the road and found a few Soles for the guys for their help.

Adventure over, the road bent west and south toward Trujillo through the extremes of the desert. I passed dunes the size of two storey houses, undulating sand and scrub, rocky mountains, and occasional green patches that almost always had some small town hidden amongst the stunted trees. I rode along highways covered with windblown sand, and was shocked at the amount of festering garbage dumped outside towns and blowing across the desert in places.

Every town had a police vehicle on the outskirts, but so far all they have done is waved.

The sun started to sink towards the western horizon and I rode for hours just watching my shadow lengthen across the straight road. The sun was setting as I reached Trujillo, and it was dark by the time I found the hotel. I got off the bike feeling a little light headed, maybe the intense heat or a little dehydration, I wasn't sure.

South tomorrow, towards Lima I think. More soon.

Frase.

Into Peru

I left Quito heading south on the Panamerican Highway, which essentially runs all the way from Colombia to Patagonia. At least that was the plan, I got lost and followed my compass south on some rough roads until I finally intersected the Panam. The road was well surfaced and fairly straight with long, sweeping bends, so easy riding for a while. Following the line of the Andes the altitude never got much below 3000 metres and at one point topped 3520, the highest point of the trip yet. South of Riobamba I saw my first snow since Glacier National Park in Montana, one huge snow capped Andean peak, all on it's own. The landscape around was very rural, farms with cows and even fir trees. The temperature was low enough to have me shivering with cold, not even a degree south of the equator!

At one quiet point on the road, I stopped to answer the call of nature and noticed a solitary indian woman sitting on the hillside, watching a herd. She was dressed very simply and had one of those trilby style hats and a thick red shawl wrapped around her against the cold. I wondered how many years she had been sitting watching cattle. At that altitude, most of the population were indian, living in huts by the roadside, and almost all were cheery, smiling characters that would often wave at me. I found myself thinking that maybe there was something to the simple life, you don't see so many smiling faces on commuter trains bound for London ;)

Further south it was hard to believe I was on the same road, the nice stretch of (toll) road turned into a twisty, narrow and severely potholed mess as it climbed towards Cuenca. The last part of the 450 plus kilometers from Quito to Cuenca crawled past as I faced some of the toughest conditions on the whole trip. The road would have been a nightmare if I could see it. But sadly that was made impossible by the thick fog which brought visibility down to a couple of metres. For about 80Km :) When I finally climbed out of the fog, glancing behind I could see it was actually a cloud enveloping a peak.

I was very glad to get off the bike in Cuenca. Looking back it was hard to fathom how I ever managed to ride 800 plus kilometers in a day, I was so tired after a mere 400 odd. Worse was to come.

The following day I had decided to ride from Cuenca to Loja, assuming the same road conditions I figured it would be a short day as it was only 200Km. But it would set me up nicely to cross the Peruvian border the next day. The road was actually worse. My Ecuador guide book had mentioned that the route was fully paved, but occasionally "damaged by landslides". The vindictive part of me wanted to make the author ride it, after the surfaced road turned into gravel with potholes. Then it turned into roadworks, as the whole thing is being resurfaced! In a couple of years a future Frase travelling that way will have a great ride on a nice road, enjoying the mountain views. But I got a battering and so did the bike's suspension ;)

About 30Km short of Loja the road was shut completely. I sat waiting and got to know the roadworks supervisor, Leonardo. He asked a lot of questions, and for once I understood most of them (answering was another matter ;) ). After half an hour the road was opened, I shook Leonardo's hand and took off. I got to Loja around 5pm completely exhausted. It had been a full day's ride and then some - seven hours to cover 200km and the only stop aside from the road closure was for fuel.

I had trouble finding an hotel and stopped to ask some traffic cops, one of whom with a big beaming grin asked if he could sit on the bike. I obliged and warned him it was heavy after his 125 that was parked nearby. He got on and over it went, he was a little too short to put his feet down ;) Fortunately I had my hand on the luggage and between us we managed to stop the fall. Then before I knew what was happening he fired the bike up and cleared off up the road, leaving me looking bemused with his colleagues. They thought it was great though ;) He only took it around a nearby roundabout and then came back, much to my relief. We all shook hands and I rode off, no better off as far as hotels were concerned :)

I got up early on Wednesday as I knew the ride to the border was going to be tough. After the crossing the roads in Peru looked much nicer on my map. The morning ended up being tough for all the wrong reasons.

I got as far as Catamayo, just south of Loja, and then followed a sign for Macara (the border town) without checking the road number I was on. After forty minutes or so the road turned nasty and I started to realise that none of the villages were where they should be ;) I consulted my map and realised I'd taken a back road through the mountains rather than the main road. But at least I was going to the border still :)

Approaching the summit of one peak, there was a small house on it's own with two dogs eagerly watching me ride up. I knew they were going to chase me - most of the dogs in the mountains had - but what I wasn't expecting was for one of them to run straight at the front wheel. I grabbed a handful of front brake and then tried to jink out of the way, but I still caught the poor thing with my left boot. It yelped and hopped away, but seemed to be ok after that. At least, it was running around ok. Not knowing what else to do I rode on, upset at quite what a 30mph kick might do to a dog.

A few minutes later the whole episode was forced from my mind as I was effectively run off the road by a small lorry. The road narrowed, and figuring I was a bike and he was a lorry, the driver just kept coming on my side of the road until I ended up in deep gravel at the roadside, and dropped the bike at about 1mph. The only damage was to my ego, and in fairness the guy in the lorry got out to try to assist. But I was angry enough to lift the bike no problem ;)

After being stopped at a military checkpoint by a guy with an Uzi, and strangely him writing down all the details off my driving licence into a little notebook, I finally made the border at 1.30pm. I was worried that a slow crossing would mean getting to a hotel really late, as there was nothing for a long way after crossing into Peru. But I needn't have worried as the border was simplicity itself. It was a bridge with Ecuador at one end and Peru at the other. Kids swam between the two banks freely ;) I was the only one there and got stamped out of Ecuador and into Peru, bike forms included, in forty minutes. I rode away shaking my head at all the nonsense I'd had to go through in Central America, tramitadors, obscure fees, and long waits.

As soon as I got into Peru I noticed that I was the centre of attention, in a way that had me self conscious even though I'd been stared at all the way from Sonora in Mexico. People would whistle at me from the side of the road, bikes and cars flash their lights, and some would wave. Some kids tried to shout that my lights were on (they always are) and I wondered if that was the reason behind it all.

The roads, however, were nicely paved and straight now that I'd left the mountains. The climate quickly got very hot and the surrounding land started to become desert. By the time I reached Piura, my destination, sand was blowing through the outlying buildings, which were little more than shacks really. I'd Googled a couple of hotels and finding one was pretty straightforward, after asking another traffic cop worryingly ;)

Looking forward to crossing the Sechura desert tomorrow, south towards Lima.

Frase.

Zero degrees of latitude

I left Ibarra knowing I only had a short day to get to Quito, maybe 120Km. If it wasn't for crossing the equator in enough daylight for pictures I'd have probably pressed on all the way to Quito on Friday. Damn my vanity ;)

The road from Ibarra to Quito was well paved and the twists and turns had me hanging off and enjoying the ride for the first time since probably riding in Costa Rica with Ricardo. I'd kind of got used to riding from A to B, rather than riding for the fun of it. Even the picturesque roads in Colombia had been hard work, but the long sweeping curves and slightly more sane driving in Ecuador meant the grin factor was back.

Following the line of the Andes the road was still at altitude so it was cool despite the sun. Around lunchtime the sun vanished behind dark clouds and I was faced with the prospect of crossing the equator in pouring rain! However it held off and when I arrived at the equator monument, about 50Km north of Quito, there were a couple of spots but I was able to get some pictures. The equator monument itself was a giant sundial, with zero degrees, zero minutes, zero seconds of latitude as the centre line. It was pretty easy to miss and I rode past before I spotted a sign referring to the middle of the world (in English), then turned back :) I parked the bike up and realised that I'd crossed into the southern hemisphere, after riding all the way from 250miles inside the Arctic Circle. Suddenly I seemed a long way from home... the bike's odometer was almost at 16,000 miles, which meant that I'd done almost 15,000 since arriving in Vancouver. I was a long way from home ;)

Riding the 50Km to Quito took less time than finding an hotel, I knew where I was going and had a city map of Quito, but still managed to get a little lost. The city is only about 3Km wide but it is 50Km long. Having arrived I then made the mistake of running a couple of miles in the gym, and felt wonky enough that I had to sit in the hotel reception area just in case I passed out. Quito is the second highest capital city in Latin America, and I think trying to run at 2800 odd metres was a little optimistic at best ;)

I got up on Sunday and decided to see something of Quito old city, which is a World Heritage Site. I guess the world heritage folks like dusty old colonial buildings, because there wasn't a lot else to see ;) There are maybe 80 odd churches and the Cathedral. In the end I found a small Ecuadorean folk band in San Francisco Plaza and that was more entertaining. Somewhere between folk guitar music and pan pipes, odd but catchy. The old city was full of native indians sitting on street corners in hats that looked like trilbys, and it made me realise how well-to-do the area I was staying in was. People watching over a cappuccino and waffle next door to the hotel it was interesting to see well-heeled people going about their weekend. Sort of a haunt for young professionals I guess.

Tomorrow I will be heading south down the Andes towards Cuenca and then Peru. More soon.

Frase.

Pasto to Ecuador

I'm in Ibarra, Ecuador. It is a little chilly here given that I am only a handful of kilometers north of the equator, but then according to my altimeter I am 2200 metres above sea level.

I had a pleasant but noisy night in Pasto, after getting assistance from a couple of passers-by to find an hotel. One guy, on seeing me looking a bit lost at a set of lights, walked over to ask if I needed help. What a friendly town. Being high up it was nice and cool and after a stroll around the plaza in the evening it was earplugs in again for some sleep. For some reason the crazy drivers insist on sounding their horns all night... quite what they find to honk at past 3am is beyond me :)

The people of Pasto seemed not only very friendly, but also very short. It is unusual for me to be head and shoulders taller than everyone, I think much of the population is indigenous indian and I guess indians are not tall... I wish I'd bought a Colombian guide book.

The hotel had trouble with their wireless routers so when their tech arrived in the morning I introduced myself and tried to explain there was a DHCP issue and his routers were not issuing addresses. I might as well have been speaking in an elvish dialect. I'm not sure he'd have taken my word for it if I was speaking Spanish ;) But of course as everyone knows with IT, a reboot sorted it and the Internet became available just as I had to get back on the road. But it was nice to play network engineer again for a while.

The best part of Colombia was yet to come, Pasto is located in the Atriz valley about 2,500m up, and the road south to Ipiales and the border with Ecuador was simply breathtaking. The road winds along the side of sheer mountain walls, crosses chasms with waterfalls and rushing rivers, and was one of the most beautiful rides I've ever done. Not an easy statement to make given some of the places I've ridden so far. I found myself wishing I had a helmet mounted video camera for the first time since the Icefields Parkway in Canada. The picture above was taken in the one spot I could stop, and doesn't do the valley justice at all.

After a short detour in Ipiales (ok ok, I was lost), I finally arrived at the border with Ecuador just after 1pm. Being used to the ridiculous nonsense that is a Central American border crossing, Colombia to Ecuador was straightforward, but time consuming as there were long queues for immigration. Customs was excellent though, I got a seat and even free photocopies of the forms leaving Colombia. Waiting for my stamp to get into Ecuador I was surprised when a couple of people approached me and asked how long I had been on the road - they were from London. I told them and explained I had ridden from Alaska, which normally gets at least wide eyes. The guy just said "oh yeah, that is where we came from too". The couple had been on the road for 18 months in their Land Rover. I'd parked the bike behind them and not even noticed the UK plate!

At that point a queue jumper had used the distraction to try to push in, and the London couple said their goodbyes while I (politely) asked the guy to wait his turn. So I didn't catch their names. It took about an hour and a half to complete the formalities and change my Colombian Pesos - back into US Dollars! Sucres are not used in Ecuador, they use the dollar just like Panama.

So it was I rode away from Colombia and into Ecuador, with very mixed feelings. I was sad to be leaving such a beautiful place, with such friendly people. Even the cops were genuinely helpful. But the overriding thought was just that I was glad to survive the roads in one piece. I'd seen families on small capacity motorcycles, four up. I'd seen guys on motorbikes sending text messages, wobbling across the road. I'd seen more enormous craters in the road than I care to remember, and been scared to death looking up to see something hurtling at me in my lane many times. I'm sure my hair is greyer ;)

Getting to Ibarra was easy, the roads are toll roads like Colombia but in much better condition, making it less time consuming to cover distance. Unlike Colombia, bikes are subject to the tolls but when it is 20 cents a time I don't mind so much :) The land was rural farmland, black and white cows and the cool conditions and heavy clouds reminding me of home a lot. That gave way to arid valleys. On one long climb I passed a blue Land Rover with UK plates and tooted the London couple as I went by. I guess they will get to Tierra Del Fuego sometime in the next couple of years :)

Quito tomorrow hopefully, after crossing the equator.

Frase.

The passage of time

Firstly I should apologise for the lack of updates recently. Sorry. I spent six days in Medellin with a jaw that looked like I was sucking a watermelon, some sort of gum infection I think.

Aside from looking pretty at night from the mountains, Medellin was one of the most picturesque cities I've ever visited. It lies in a natural bowl and is completely surrounded by tall mountains, the view from the fifteenth floor of my hotel was outstanding. Unfortunately I didn't get to see a great deal of the city, I just spent the time on a diet of liquids and ibuprofen which seemed to help the swelling. A couple of times I managed to get out and was taken aback by the variety of bird life in such a big city, bright yellows, reds and blues were on display everywhere. People put birdfeeders out for Hummingbirds!

I have been amazed by how slowly the time seems to pass nowadays. The furious march of days in London has been checked and suddenly I am aware of my environment, have time to think, and can do as I please most of the time. Odd then, that I should suddenly realise as the date ticked over into November that I only have seven weeks to get home if I am to keep my promise to my eldest niece that I will be home for Christmas. Seven weeks may seem a lot but in that time I have to get to Cape Horn, and then almost half way back up the continent to Buenos Aires, in order to get home. I had a slight panic, and decided I need to head south rapidly.

The swelling had subsided enough for me to put my crash helmet on without pain so on Wednesday I decided to try to make Cali from Medellin, which was a long day given the road conditions. My experiences with the journey from Bogota to Medellin made me get up much earlier, and by complete chance I bumped into a couple in the elevator as I was leaving breakfast. He looked every bit the gringo, but a lot more relaxed than I was. She was latin American. He looked at me:
"Are you American?"
"Noooooo"
"Ah, Australian?" (grrrrr)
"No I'm English mate"
Turned out he was from Haywards Heath. There I was in an elevator half the world away, with a guy from down the road. We chatted whilst I had my foot jammed in the door and he explained how he was living in Panama now, but Colombia was much nicer. I was inclined to agree, I'd been in Colombia a week and no one had tried to fleece me, let alone the cops :) It was nice to have a bit of conversation before getting on the road again.

Heading out I was pretty familiar with the layout of Medellin so I managed to find the road south to Cali without too much trouble. My map indicated that the road followed a river so I was hopeful for an easier time, but of course being surrounded by mountains, the road immediately climbed and twisted, it was potholed and the traffic was hideous. More or less just how I remembered it from the previous ride! However this time the road flattened out after 50Km or so, and the ride became struggle over some mountains, and then be rewarded by a stretch of straightish flat road. That went on until Cartago when the road became quite well surfaced, straight and easy to ride. Suddenly Cali didn't seem quite as far.

However my rush to get as far south as I could meant that my planned visit to Saliento was toast. Arriving in Cali I found an hotel just before dark, and then found that my cash cards wouldn't work in any local ATMs. That's the second time that has occurred (the first was in Prince George in Canada). I had about enough cash on me for a Colombian equivalent McChicken sandwich. So that was dinner :)

After having to leave my earplugs in to get any sleep, as the hotel was on a main road opposite a disco, Thursday saw me heading south again with Pasto as my intended goal. That would leave me just short of the border with Ecuador. I pulled into a garage to fuel the bike and started to get a lot of questions from the curious pump attendant. I took my helmet off to chat and that seemed to bring everyone else over too, I had four young pump attendants firing all sorts of questions that I only really understood when they pantomimed them :) I got the impression I was being chatted up by one of them (a girl, I hasten to add) but it is difficult enough to know these things for sure when you do speak the language ;)

The road to Pasto was similar at first to the previous day's riding, following the river valley south with mountain ranges either side providing the view. Easy riding, until finally the road began to climb into the mountains again. My pump attendant friends had warned me that Pasto was high up, and cold. I wasn't so worried about that as the state of the roads... I think the climb to Pasto was the worst road I have ridden on. It wasn't gravelly or muddy like the Dalton Highway, but it was cratered to oblivion. Added to that were suicidal drivers on my side of the road (which I was starting to get accustomed to) and long shadows cast by trees that all but hid the craters. The scenery, however, made up for any hardship in spades. The surrounding mountains plunged away as the road climbed, not grand snow capped rocky peaks like Canada but green, shimmering green mountains that looked different every time a cloud crossed the sun. About 30Km short of Pasto I was stopped for the first time by the police, and still buzzing from the scenery I took my helmet off with a big grin and sat chatting to the cops. The five of them were fiddling with switches, trying on my gloves, and asking all sorts of questions (and laughing that I was in Colombia and didn't speak much Spanish). After they'd checked my documents they all shook my hand and welcomed me to Colombia, I think that was the first time I've ever enjoyed being stopped by the police :) I'd been worried for several days as it is law in Colombia for bikers to wear vests and helmets displaying the bike's licence plate. Obviously doesn't apply to tourists!

As I got to Pasto and found an hotel for the evening, I mused on the sad lack of photographs of the beautiful road. There is simply nowhere to stop for a picture. In Canada or the States, there would be turnouts or pull-ins, signs to tell you what was what, and little "this is a viewpoint" symbols. In Colombia it is just the view, as you jink around the millionth pothole ;)

More imminently :)

Frase.