The Grand Finale

Days 219-225

There have been times on this journey when we've questioned the wisdom of arranging to meet friends in Rio for carnival, thinking maybe we'd prefer an extra month or two resting along the way instead. As soon as carnival began, though, these doubts vanished and we're so pleased we kept pushing ourselves along! There were street parties all around the city every day, called 'blocas' with small samba schools providing music, but the main samba parade in the purpose build sambodrome was definitely the highlight. Together with a load of friends from London we had tickets for the Monday night, one of the final nights in the main competition, in which 6 schools paraded past taking around an hour each, while we danced relentlessly on our chairs along with the rest of the crowd and even tried to sing along to the repeating anthems. While it wasn't as music-focussed as we'd hoped, the costumes and floats completely blew us away: the mile-long parades were full of the most flambouyant and bizarre disguises and contraptions, with thousands and thousands of dancers leading each school. After the parade we tried to get back to Copocabana beach for sunrise but unfortunately were just too late - a sign of a good night out though.

As well as all the carnival activities we managed to drag ourselves out of bed while it was still light to fit in a little bit of sight seeing. The statue of Christ was a bit smaller than any of us had imagined but still great to see up close. A trip to the massive Maracana football stadium to watch a local derby confirmed what we'd been told about a) Brazilians being crazy about football and b) Brazilians being crazy. And a tour to some of the favelas allowed us to see into the darker and sadder side of the city. The police are getting a bit tougher on the favelas and so we didn't see many people toting guns, which anyone who's seen the film City of God (set in one of the smaller Rio favelas which now has a permanent police presence) will know used to be commoneplace. Still, we didn't fancy hanging around there on our own, even though we'd heard that they are hosts of the best parties in town. It was our friend Russ's birthday during carnival week and we planned to go on some sort of boat trip to celebrate - plans for chartering a schooner were dashed by some bad weather, so we settled for the swan paddle boats on the lake instead. With some cans of bubbly called "Glam" and nibbles. Very classy.

Days 226-227

The sad day came when we all went our separate ways from our lovely apartment: Hazel to continue on her travels around South America, having spent the last few months in Central America and Cuba; Gav back to Dubai; and Russ back to London. The drizzle had cleared the air in Rio and cleaned the streets a bit of the post-carnival pee and beer stench, but it was getting hot again and we still had two motorbikes in our care so we headed out to the mountains for the weekend. A beautiful drive just a couple of hours north took us up into a land of cheeseries, honey factories, and sculpture gardens - our last jaunt before working in earnest to get the bikes back to London.

Days 228 - 232

Back in Rio we agreed to go ahead with the one quote we'd managed to get for flying the bikes home - a similar price to the sea freight quote we'd receieved but more importantly we were told we could complete the process in a few days whereas to send the bikes by sea might require up to 15 days of hanging around just to get them through customs. Unfortunately the quote turned out to be more of a guestimate, with extra costs being added on at the last minute for forgotten necessaries, but at least it happened. We arrived back from the mountains on the Monday, checked into a hostel carefully sourced for being able to park our bikes safely outside, and immediately had to get back on the bikes to take them to the crating company - our last ride of the trip. The next day we hoped to do our last bit of sightseeing, as well as finalising things with the airfreight company, but Emily was very ill from what we assumed to be food poisoning, leaving Ric to work out how to get thousands of pounds of cash out in 24 hours - at the last minute we found out that the freight company don't take any form of credit or debit cards! On Wednesday morning we packed our bags, picked up our enormous wodge of bank notes and went to the freight company at 10am to hand over the money. We then accompanied our freight guy to the airport to get the bikes through customs: the last task we needed to complete before we could leave the country. After five hours of our guy altering forms, making photocopies, being told by different people what else he needed, and getting us to sign things, we finally got to the grand finale of taking a customs officer to check the VIN numbers on our bikes and we were free to go - the bikes would follow on a flight the next day.

We dashed to the airport aware that we'd already missed the cheap TAP flight we were hoping to get onto. There were a number of other flights leaving that evening but they were variously full or too many thousands of pounds so after a few hours of toing and froing and hanging around in case people didn't turn up, we headed back into town for the night, and a couple more caiparinhas. First thing on Thursday morning we went to the TAP office to book the evening flight but on our way back to the hostel Ric started to feel funny and rapidly developed symptoms suspiciously similar to Emily's two days previously - it seems what we thought was food poisoning was probably actually a tummy bug. So poor Ric had a miserable flight back to England, but at least he'd pretty much recovered by the time we touched down in London on Friday lunchtime. That evening we had just enough strength to pop down to Softwire's anual 'birthday party' (for those of you who don't know the company we work for, this is the party of the year to go to, second to carnival in Rio of course).

Now we just wait for the bikes! As it turns out they didn't leave the day we did as planned, or the next day as we were later told they would. We think they've left Brazil at the time of writing, but are reserving judgement until we actually see them back in Britain.


Epilogue

The last eight months have been a brilliant adventure for us and so far it's been a great home-coming. We hope you've enjoyed reading our blog - although we can't always say we've rejoiced in the task of writing it, we're sure it'll be a great thing for us to look back on. Thanks in particular to those who've kept us up to date with goings on while we've been away - in particular our Mums, Alice, Lizzie, Katie, and for all those who commented on the blog. Which wasn't many of you compared with the number of people claiming to read it - for the rest of you, now is your last chance! :-)

We'll leave you with some of our favourite trip statistics.

• Expected mileage (before we left): 25,044
• Total miles ridden: 31,370
• Days on the bikes: 180
• Days without setting foot on the bike pegs: 50 (19 of which were in Rio de Janeiro and Quito / Galapagos)
• Days Ric put a plait in Emily's hair: 142 (probably - no she couldn't just learn to do them herself)
• Average daily mileage: 135
• Most miles in one day: 480 (on boring Ruta 3 in Argentina)
• Most miles in a 24-hour period: 685 (racing to meet Ric's Mum in Chile)
• Amount of petrol consumed: about 5 tonnes
• Amount of money consumed: a lot (but it was worth it)
• Highest altitude ridden: 5,046m (South Bolivia)
• Lowest altitude ridden: -9m (Peninsular Vladez, Argentina)
• Hottest riding temperarure: 46C (Arizona, USA)
• Coldest riding temperature: -5C (South Bolivia, but only Emily's bike started)
• Ratio of days in Argentina to number of steaks Ric ate: 1:0.97
• Number of photos taken: 10,678
• Number of bikers we saw before Brazil wearing a pink crash helmet (other than Emily): one (a crazy Australian woman in Argentina)
• Number of bikers we saw in Brazil wearing a pink crash helmet: about a million
• Number of times:
• We got a puncture: 5
• We had to pump the hand pump to get a full tyre of air: 840
• We ran out of petrol: 0
• Ric's bike said it had run out of petrol: 2
  
• Emily dropped her bike: 6
• Ric dropped his bike: 8
• Ric also dropped his bike with Emily on the back: 2
• Ric would have dropped his bike if someone didn't save him: 4
• Emily got Ric to park / manouvre / generally deal with her bike in order to keep her drop rate down: many
• Ric swore from fear of falling off in a very painful / fatal manner (Emily doesn't swear): 30
• Emily cried from fear of falling off in a very painful / fatal manner (Ric doesn't cry): 3, she just grit her teeth and went rather pale the other 27 times
• We got stopped by the authorities: 25
• We got fined by the authorities: 1
• We phoned home: 1 (are we bad children?)

The Road To Rio

Day 215

From our country retreat it was just 100 km to the colonial seaside town of Paraty: a nice easy ride we thought. We started off in sunshine but could see grey clouds in the distance. When it's really hot it's easy to think that the rain is your friend and there's always an initial moment of glee when the temperature drops ten degrees. However, we're back in the tropics now and the rain on this day was good old, sopping wet, thunder and lightening, can't see a thing, tropical rain. We rode through the rain pretty quickly but were soaking wet by the time we reached the end of the tarmac. The 10km of dirt road that led us through a national park from there was in fact marked as such on our map, but we hadn't looked closely enough to notice until we were half way through it. At that point there weren't any more cars trying to navigate the ruts, boulders and steep inclines that were getting worse by the kilometre, leaving us more or less alone to (very slowly) admire the dramatic jungley hills.

Paraty was definitely worth the effort, though, and a lovely place to spend the night: a beautifully preserved town where the relaxed old colonial centre next to the sea is all pedestrianised, making it perfect for strolls and photographs.

Days 216-218

On the morning of day 216 we woke with one goal: get to Rio! After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing to the internet cafe to get in contact with the agency with which we'd booked our flat for carnival, we set off for what should be our last official riding day of the trip. We had stopped mid-way at a petrol station for a drink and a rest when a Brazilian approached us and offered us directions for how to get to our destination in Ipanema in Rio because it was a bit tricky. We had quite a good map of the centre but more info is always better than less when going into a big city so we gladly accepted. As it turned out we would have been lost without them, or at least we wouldn't have managed to find the main highway into town – we were about 20 minutes late as it was but we reckoned we would have been hours late otherwise!

Unfortunately once in Rio we had a frustrating first couple of days trying to sort out the flat we'd booked – because the owner was still living in it! And so we had to spend a couple of nights in a hotel while he moved out. We are now fully installed though, and waiting for our friends who are coming from England to join us. Rio is already growing on us and Ipanema is a fantastic district within it, right next to the beach and near to a lake with stunning scenery and lots of yummy caipirinhas on offer.

The last couple of days of riding hit Ric particularly hard. In what Emily can only assume was a stalling tactic but Ric blames on his still-raw eye following the wasp sting, he dropped his bike three times in the last two days of the trip: once just before leaving the campsite in the country while getting the bike off the centre stand, once whilst telling Emily how bad the next bit off off-road track was in the National Park (by way of demonstration?) and, finally, at the petrol station on the way to Rio while reversing into a parking space. Or maybe it was just a last minute bid to win the “most number of drops” category of the trip which after those three Ric is now leading 8-6!

“Is this the end then?”, “Can we stop checking this blog?”, we hear you cry. Well, not exactly. Despite having started shipping enquiries while in BA we still haven't managed to sort anything out and we're running out of time. We can't book our flights home until we know what day the bikes leave so we're in a bit of a limbo at the moment wondering ourselves when our adventure will really end. One thing's for sure, though, we're going to enjoy a week or more of Rio and her carnival in the meantime...

Water Water Everywhere

Days 205-208

Our first night in Brazil hadn't endeared the country to us that much – an unremarkable town with a lot of concrete and two nice buildings its only excuse for the “historical centre” signs. So we were very relived when our first experience of camping in Brazil turned out to be exceedingly refined. We chose the campsite closest to the town of Canela: a hotel / estancia which allowed camping in the grounds. Two members of staff walked around with us to find a non-swampy site (there had been a heavy downpour recently) and when we found that the best spot had a few of the resident llama's doings, instructed a groundsman to rake it for us. This still wasn't deemed acceptable by our hosts, so we were given a big groundsheet to go under our tent. After checking we had everything we needed a few times Ric was a bit surprised to find them back at the tent ten minutes after we'd pitched – with afternoon tea! As we were enjoying the buffet breakfast the next morning we agreed that “posh camping” is definitely the way forward!

From Canela we visited the waterfalls and canyons of the region. After all the amazing landscapes we've seen we're sadly a bit desensitised to natural beauty at the moment but it was enjoyable none the less. We then headed to the beach, hoping in vain for a cooling sea breeze to temper the ever-increasing heat. The road to the coast was beautiful, winding through the forested hills, but was mostly single carriageway with lots of lorries holding up the traffic. After working our way up to the front of a particularly long queue Ric commented “At least now we should have a good stretch of open road in front of us” - the comment of death because at this Emily's bike started spraying up huge quantities or liquid straight at her visor. It was a bit of a shock, and all Emily could say was“My bike's leaking!” which wasn't the best summary of the situation but she then clarified that she couldn't see where she was going and we pulled over to take a look. The liquid was the engine coolant which was spraying out of the top of the header tank. We noticed this happening a couple of times before the service in BA but not nearly in the same proportions. The mechanic there looked at it, found a bit of air in the cooling system and bled it for us, suggesting it really wasn't anything to worry about. After a bit of investigation we found that there was a lot of air in the system, but no obvious blockages or leaks, so we syphoned the coolant from the header tank, opened the valve to the radiator and filled it up, pouring the little remaining coolant back into the header tank afterwards with a top-up of drinking water. This all happened within a few hours of the beach and although Emily obsessively checked the temperature reading for the rest of the day we arrived safely.

Camping on the beach was a pretty relaxing way to spend a few days, even though it was a little too hot for our liking. We met a lovely Portuguese couple who spoke very little English, but we communicated in a mixture of Spanish, Portuguese, English and sign language. They invited us to join them for a typical barbecue of their region – huge chunks of meat covered in rock salt and cooked on spits – and we had a good few beers together. Unfortunately we still didn't manage to pick up much Portuguese so in desperation have acquired the first few Michel Thomas lessons on mp3. What was obvious, however, was that they're serious about this pronouncing “r” at the beginning of a word as “h”. On introducing himself as Ric this couple (and a number of others since) have said “ah, Hicky!” and called him that from then on. Emily thinks this is rather amusing. Ric does not.

As a break from the beach, we made a day-trip inland to the German-founded town of Blumenau. We hoped it would be cooler there, but it wasn't, and we hoped to see and eat various German things, but we didn't. The architecture and landscape had a slight German egde (they have palm trees in Germany, right?) and we had a nice cold beer, but then quickly headed back to our sunny coastline for a bit more near-deserted beach relaxation.

Days 209-212

Our next major stop of interest was to be the Iguacu Falls, a 400-mile detour to the west of our main route and of the nearest big city, Curtiba where we rode to from the beach. In light of Emily's coolant problem, her chain already looking worn, the price of petrol in Brazil and the number of tolls on the highways, we decided just to take Ric's bike to the falls. It was definitely worth the long day of riding each way to see the sheer amount of moving water in Iguacu. It's not just one big waterfall but a series of thundering falls, immense amounts of spray, and spectacular jungle vegetation all around. We had a great day seeing the falls from all angles – the Brazilian side, the Argentinian side, from walkways above and a boat below (where we got rather wet). Ric then had to take on the gargantuan task of sorting through the hundreds of photos we took!

Days 213-214

On the journey east from Curtiba we felt pleased about the decision we'd made with the bikes – the spraying coolant issue was persisting and we needed to bleed the cooling system every 100 miles or so. The chain also needed tightening again and is getting to the end of it's life, but we're loath to change it before getting the proper sprockets on the bike. It's only a couple more hundred miles to get all the way to Rio so hopefully we'll make it! (The story of the lost sprockets is a sad one: when we got to BA the bloomin' post office had returned the package to the senders, Dan and Jacquie, who were no longer where they'd posted them from of course, because it hadn't been collected within 10 days. We thought we'd have 30 days as you do for international Poste Restante, and the post office hadn't told Dan and Jacquie anything different. It's annoying for everyone but we've put it down to just “one of those things”.)

We successfully navigated ourselves right through the big city of Sao Paolo and into the hills where we finally found some slightly cooler weather in a country campsite / retreat with a sleepy farm-like atmosphere. People-wise it was very quiet: we were the only guests! The only thing to break the peaceful days was Ric screaming like a girl when he was stung on the eyebrow by an evil wasp. But wildlife-wise the evenings were very noisy with a veritable cacophony radiating from the woods and ponds (hear video below).

The riding in Brazil has so far been great, and it'll be a shame for it to all end in Rio. In this final country we've travelled along twisty coastal roads, through jungle-covered hills (though not the mighty Amazon jungle, of course), green rolling farmland not unlike Europe, and varying conurbations ranging from little truck stops to enormous sprawling metropolises. But there have been challenges to the ride: as well as the heavy traffic and sometimes crazy drivers, the biggest issue for us has been the stifling heat. The riding temperature has often been up around 40°C and humid, and very rarely has it dropped below 30°C. It's not the hottest we've had (Arizona) or the most humid (Mexico) but it is pretty relentless and we've found ourselves seeking out air conditioned sanctuaries wherever possible.

New Clothes, New Mount, New Language

Days 196-199

It came to our attention recently that when we get to Rio for carnival we will want to have some clothes that aren't completely travel-weary. This is how the shopping spree in Buenos Aires started. Having found way more nice, cheap, original clothes than we could ever justify buying, and Emily having bought most of them anyway, we needed a new bag to put them in. Unfortunately that left room for a splurge at the antiques and artisan markets. We then picked up the motorbikes from their service along with a huge bill and so once we'd booked the rather pricey ferry to Colonia in Uruguay we were really done – Buenos Aires has to have been the most expensive city stop for us so far.

Buenos Aires isn't just one big shopping centre though, it's also the birthplace of Tango (the dance, not the drink) and as well as there being lots of Tango shows, mainly for tourists, there are lots of “melongas” (music and dance nights) for the locals. After being inspired by a show one night, the next day we had some bad luck trying to get to a class and melonga in a dancehall, but happened across a small open air melonga in a plaza and really wished we knew how to join in!

Days 200-202

Our entry into Uruguay was rather relaxed - they waved us straight through off the one-hour ferry from BA to beautiful colonial Colonia, so we had to go back to hunt down the customs office... which turned out to be the back of the custom guy's car. It was air-conditioned though so we weren't complaining!

From the coast we rode inland into the heart of Uruguay – cowboy country. Driving in southern South America we'd passed loads of estancias: ranches that cover much of the land, many of which have adopted a bit of ecotourism alongside the farming. Since we were soon to be leaving them behind as we got into the more populous areas of Brazil we figured we really should pay one a visit. All we wanted was a horse ride but we decided to go all the way and so stayed at San Pedro de Timote, a beautiful old place with numerous buildings (including its own stand-alone chapel), lovely rolling grounds, and lots of communal areas for relaxing and playing games, including no less than three swimming pools. Obviously we made full use of the facilities and after a day of horse riding, visitng a nearby cheese factory, tennis, table tennis, table football and swimming we were pretty sore (we haven't done much except sit on the bikes recently!) but managed to console ourselves with the fantastic buffet and a nice bottle of red.

Days 203-204

From the estancia we rode to the Brazilian border feeling quite excited about reaching the last country on our trip. We did all the border work in Uruguay no problem and rode into Brazil expecting to see some signs of border control but there were none. We managed to find the police station where immigration is done but even they didn't seem to know where customs was. After a lot of complicated asking around we eventually tracked it down and our suspicions that not many motorbikes come through this way were confirmed when both the receptionist and the security guard asked to have their photos taken with us! We were then taken to a nice comfy office to do the paperwork with a man who spoke neither Spanish nor English, just Portuguese. We do not speak Portuguese, but we were all pretty good at Pictionary and this helped the process immensely. While the officer was finishing off the paperwork we decided to make a start on working out this new language. And quickly gave up. It looks like Spanish so we can understand a lot of the written word but it sounds like dutch (the double variety) and even having read the little language guide in our guidebook we have no idea how to pronounce it. Apparently “restaurante” is pronounced hess-to-roch. Enough said.

A lack of ability to communicate continued to be the main theme of our first few days in Brazil. Everything from filling up with petrol to getting directions to ordering food is proving to be quite a challenge, but fortunately the Brazilians are a nice enough bunch. And being on two big motorbikes and answering “Alaska” to the second question everybody asks (“England” is the answer to the first) is continuing our celebrity status, so people do like to get involved. Generally that's a good thing, and we don't mind the odd photo being taken of us by petrol attendants etc, but it was a bit much when someone took a video of us with his mobile phone whilst overtaking us on the motorway!

A New Direction

Days 185 – 187

Our last act before leaving Ushuaia was to throw a stone that we collected from the Arctic Ocean back in to the sea. Actually we think Ric may have missed the sea, but reckon it'll get washed in at high tide! Then began the long journey north on Ruta 3 – quite possibly the most boring road. In the world.

As well as being very boring, we knew Ruta 3 would also be fast, and that we'd be covering a lot of miles in a short time – a task that Emily's rear tyre was certainly not up to. We'd looked for a new one before we got to Ushuaia in the Chilean city of Punta Arenas and, after trekking round about ten shops, each one recommending the next, had come across a mechanic that we'd heard of on our travels who knew how to get hold of tyres for big bikes (though he doesn't keep any in stock). He told us that we could get one in Rio Gallegos on our way back up through Argentina, and so, after riding through Chile for the fifth and final time to get out of Tierra del Fuego we arrived in the city with high hopes. We found the motorbike shop and indeed they even had a selection of tyres for us to choose from. As it was so well stocked we also asked about a new rear sprocket. We had sprockets waiting for us in Buenes Aires which Jacquie kindly brought back from England for us, but the old one was really on its last legs. We guessed they wouldn't have the right one for Emily's bike as not even BMW has that one, but thought it was worth a try. They didn't, and we were ready to drop the matter, but then they took a look at the bike and realised the gravity of the situation. They were very concerned that the sprocket wouldn't make it to BA and didn't want to let us continue as we were, so they started searching their sprocket pile all over again, this time to find something that could be machined to fit. It was a tricky decision – the sprocket had done 24,000 miles and had only 2,000 miles to go, but we decided that the risk of having an accident and being stranded in the middle of nowhere was too high, so when they found something that would work we went for it. The new sprocket has a couple more teeth which means Emily's bike has 5% better acceleration – woohoo! – but uses a bit more fuel (though still not as much as Ric's bike...).

Days 188 – 192

To get an idea of Ruta 3, picture a long straight road over flat terrain. Imagine just shrubs and grasses on either side, as far as you can see, without a tree, river, lake, hill or any other landmark in sight. Now add a 40-60mph constant crosswind. Apart from a few more guanacos and nandus there is really nothing to break the tedium on the road as you're motoring along at a raked angle to fend off the wind. So to give ourselves a few breaks we made some diversions off the highway, figuring the extra few hundred miles was worth it.

We took a boat trip from Puerto Deseado to nearby “Penguin Island” – the only place outside the Falkland Islands (or Islas Malvinas to all Argentinians; a topic of conversation we tried to avoid) where you can see the very funky Rockhopper penguins, along with the usual Magellanic penguins, sea lions, elephant seals (enormous blubbery things weighing up to 5 tons!) and lots of sea birds that can be seen all along the Patagonian coastline. Ric also spotted some Commerson's dolphins (black and white ones) from the boat (Emily just saw a splash) and we were both lucky enough to spot a whale despite it being totally out of season for them.

The next side trip was to see a petrified forest. We'd passed signs to a few of these along the way but this was the first we actually managed to visit. It was a bit unusual in that it wasn't a standing forest but a whole load of washed up tree trunks: the rivers that washed them up were long gone, and the wood had since been petrified. Of course we didn't even consider putting any petrified wood chips in our pockets, so we weren't at all concerned when the park ranger made us empty them out at the end. (!)

The final detour was to Peninsular Valdez to see a bit more wildlife. Again we were lucky enough to see a rare sight for the time of year – Orcas! They swam by just past the shore full of sea lions that we were watching from. Much to Ric's disappointment, though, we didn't see any beach themselves to try to catch the sea lion pups.

Days 193-195

The push north continued to Buenos Aires with a couple of beach stops, one to view masses of parrots, the other to view masses (and we mean masses) of people in Argentina's favourite beach destination Mar del Plata. Think Brighton on the hottest day of the year in England, then triple it and you're still not even starting to get close.

Our journey up from Ushuaia has taken us from cold and rainy to hot and sunny – a change we like. We've also suddenly got lots of time for the rest of our trip up to Rio, since we haven't needed too much of our 'emergency time' thus far, so we're looking forward to a relaxed next few weeks!

The End Of The World, As We Know It

Days 179-181

After a few days on Ruta 40 the gravel finally gave way to tarmac, and we celebrated with a walk around the spectacular Fitz Roy range. Mount Fitz Roy itself is covered in clouds so much of the time that it was thought to be a volcano giving off smoke (the nearest town is named “Smoking Mountain” in the local language) so we were really lucky to have a bright sunny day affording us fantastic views of the mountains and glaciers.

From Fitz Roy we headed to nearby El Calafate, the base for the mighty Perito Moreno Glacier. This glacier is enormous (the fourth largest body of fresh water in the world, apparently) and great fun to watch - the face of the glacier is changing all the time as bits crack off and land with a reverberating crash into the lake beneath. As far as glaciers go it's really fast-moving at 2m per day, and you can get really close from the viewing platforms on land and by boat on the lake.

Since we hit Ruta 40 we've been meeting a lot more bikers and El Calafate was no exception – four other long-distance biking parties were at our campsite (including two Triumphs both with sidecars, travelling separately) and we had a good time sharing stories and tips for the road. The increased volume of motorcycle adventurers does make our trip feel a bit normal at times, though!

Days 182-183

Break over, we hit the road again and crossed back into Chile, with soaring condors offering a new distraction from the familiar side winds. Controversially we decided against going to the acclaimed Torres Del Paine national park due to time shortage, the price tag, and Ric's newly dodgy knee (acquired on the Fitz Roy trek – he's getting old, you know). One for next time, perhaps; it looked beautiful from a distance.

Instead we travelled straight to the ferry terminus of Punto Arenas in order to cross the Straights of Magallen and get onto Tierra del Fuego the following day. On the ferry we met yet more bikers, a group of Italians who we'd heard about from our German friends, but we left them for dust when we left the ferry – literally: a very dusty road led us back to Argentina and to the tarmac of Ruta 3 which we road all the way to Ushuaia. Yes, that's Ushuaia – the southernmost city in the world!

Day 184

The actual end of the road is a bit beyond Ushuaia in Tierra Del Fuego national park, so on day 184, six months to the day since we landed in Alaska, we hopped on the bikes and did the short journey to the end of the world, “Fin Del Mundo” as it's called here.

We waited for a group of tourists to leave before getting our bikes in front of the official sign, at which point of course another big group of tourists arrived. They were very obliging and took our photo for us, and then, obviously realising how cool we looked, a few people asked if they could pose with our bikes. Naturally we agreed and a few people had a go, but while we were being distracted by other people asking us about the trip a rather vertically challenged lady with, presumably, very little knowledge of gravity clambered onto Ric's bike and sat straight up on it. With no hope of touching the ground on either side to hold the bike steady it was only a moment before the bike fell off the side stand and onto the ground. The fun was over for the tourists – we had the bikes out of there quick smart! (The lady and the bike were fine, just a bit of dirt on the former, and a slightly more misshapen pannier on the latter.)

So now we've made it all the way from Alaska to Ushuaia it should be an easy hop, skip and a jump to get back up to Rio de Janeiro for carnival in around five weeks time. Emily's reinforced pannier rack is still going strong with only a tiny bit more dirt road to go, but we do need a new tyre reasonably urgently now, the Garmin GPS has suddenly become very temperamental, and we can't pick up Emily's new sprockets until Buenos Aires. Watch this space!

New Year, New Challenges

Days 171-172

We were sad to say goodbye to Jill as she drove off in her transfer to the airport but knew we had to gear up for the next part of our trip – getting to the bottom of South America! We rode back into Argentina (crossing between Chile and Argentina will be an ongoing theme all the way down) and down “seven lakes road” - a beautiful stretch featuring at least seven lakes which were only marred by a little bit of rain. We continued south to the winter ski resort of Bariloche where we tried to stop for the day but found the first few hostels full and were a little put off by rain, so just bought the obligatory chocolate from the one of a multitude of chocolatiers and carried on to the smaller and more chilled out town of El Bolson. One good reason for stopping there was the market the following day where only handmade goods are allowed. The list of things that Emily would have bought had Ric allowed them on the bike (this list started with a coffee table in Valparaiso) grew dramatically but we escaped with only a new ring and a few yummy empanadas to weigh us down.


Days 173-175

From the Argentinian Lake District we breached the official border to Patagonia and crossed back into Chile, so that we could ride the Carretera Austral – the road that Pinochet carved out to connect Southern Chile, famed for it's beauty (and it's rough surface as it remains mostly unpaved). And it was indeed beautiful: lush green woodland and pastureland backed by dramatic snowy mountains and dotted throughout with tranquil lakes and rushing rivers. It was most beautiful, though, when the clouds weren't obscuring the view, which unfortunately was less often than we'd hoped. Emily recalled that she learned in geography lessons at school that Chile has a similar climate to England. Arriving to Chile in the middle of the desert we were slightly dubious of this assertion, but after experiencing mid-summer in the lake district and further south we understand better – we had rain most days and temperatures ranging from 10 to 15 C, so it really does feel like home!

While riding on the Carretera Austral on the second day we saw some motorbikes pulled over at the roadside taking some photos and decided to stop for a quick chat. As we pulled up we realised it was none other than the German couple Christoph and Silke who we met in Peru! We had kept in touch with them but had thought they would be ahead of us on this stretch. We rode with them this day and the next, New Year's Eve, when we found a beautiful and inexpensive cabana on the lakeshore of Lago General Carrera to spend the evening. A trip to the “supermarket” in the very small town revealed we should have planned a bit ahead, but we cobbled together a very nice meal, improved by good pisco sours, nice wine, and cheapy bubbly to bring in the New Year!

Days 176-178

On New Year's Day morning we all went on a boat trip out on the lake to look at some marble caves, and then after a lengthy breakfast (we cooked pancakes as there was no bread in town!) we set off, parting ways 100km down the road. We skirted round the lake in lovely weather and crossed back into Argentina.

Once over the border we rejoined Ruta 40, another famed road, about half paved, with vast distances of empty Patagonian wilderness, lots of gravel, and hellish winds, and of which our guidebook says “Just be thankful you didn't set out on a bike or motorcycle.” Hmm. The riding conditions really aren't great: you're riding in a thin tyre track which has gravel piled up on each side – the wind blows and blows, trying to push you into the gravel bank on one side and then the one on the other. The wind also reduces the range of both bikes and the gas stations are pretty spread out. Added to this there's always the risk that you'll arrive at a fuel stop to find no fuel... as we did in middle-of-nowhere gas stop Bajo Caracoles. “The tanker didn't come” explained the attendant, “We think it might come tomorrow night”. Thankfully, however, some Germans with a big spare fuel tank who were camping next to us helped us out, otherwise we might still be there waiting.

We spread the love the following day when we found some guys with KTMs on the side of the road. One of them had a broken chain and they didn't have all the tools they needed to fix it, so Ric's “ridiculously oversized” (according to Emily) tool bag saved the day.

The road wasn't all just wind and gravel, though. As well as stopping at some interesting 9,000 year old cave art, we also saw some funky wildlife: guanacos (llama-like deer), nandus (emu-like birds) and even a small armadillo all crossed the road in front of us.

Christmas Cheers

Before we begin this post we'd like to give a special Christmas greeting to all our readers! Sorry it's a bit belated, but we've been a bit isolated for the last few days, as you'll see...

Days 163-164

Welding complete only a few hours later than expected, and the new tyres pumped up as BMW hadn't seemed to have bothered, we set out for Valparaiso, Santiago's hip little sister 120km away on the coast. The highlight of our explorations around the very hilly town was looking around Neruda (famous Chilean poet)'s house – full of eccentric artefacts and designed to give fantastic views over the city and sea.

On arriving in Valparaiso we saw an oil warning light on Emily's bike which, on consulting the manual, meant “low oil pressure, stop riding immediately”. As we couldn't see anything wrong with the oil level and the light went off on it's own, there wasn't much to be done but to continue the next day to Mendoza, Argentina – famed for its wine and also somewhere with a BMW dealership that might have new sprockets for Emily's bike. However we had only rounded one corner when Emily declared there was something else wrong. Thinking back to the day before we realised BMW probably had pumped up the tyres after all – Emily had a puncture in her brand new front tyre and it was flat again! We pumped it up and continued on for a good few hours before the oil warning light came on again. We thought we might be losing oil pressure through a leak somewhere and this was confirmed by some oil residue around the filler and on Emily's boot, so the first time the light came on Ric cleaned all the grime out from the filler cap, and the second time he tightened all the bolts on the crank case. Each time the light stopped for a while, but it kept coming back on when the engine got hot. It's pretty annoying to take your fully working bike in for a service and leave with a puncture and a serious looking warning light and it was very tempting to turn back to Santiago and give them an earful. But we really needed to get to Mendoza to try to get the sprockets and we didn't have time to do both before heading south for Christmas. So onwards we went and managed to arrive in Mendoza pretty late, but with only a few miles riding with a flashing warning light.

Days 165-167

We turned up at the BMW dealership first thing in the morning and begged the very busy service department to help us out. They were happy to, but the bike was in a queue behind the ones already in the workshop.

The bike delays in Mendoza had their silver lining, though: they afforded us some time to explore the wineries (the Mendoza area produces 80% of Argentina's wine), olive oil factories, and chocolate and liqueur making establishments in the area. Ric was driving so had to be a bit careful with the tastings, but Emily took full advantage of the fact that she was riding pillion and we had great fun choosing a few bottles and treats to enjoy over Christmas.

Back at BMW we found that the oil light was actually due to a broken cooling fan (hot runny oil holding less pressure), and this was fixed by 2pm on day 165. They hadn't had time to look at the tyre but we needed to head on and could sort that out later. They also didn't have the sprockets we needed, but advised us we could probably just make it to Buenas Aires if we kept the chain well lubed, so on we went.

Now we were against the clock. Ric's mum, Jill, was coming out to meet us for Christmas and we were due to meet her just 21 hours after we got the bike back, in Temuco airport in Chile some 750 miles away! We rode until it was just getting dark, at which point we found a small village with very little apart from a pretty nice hostel, and a tyre repair shop that was still open! Two patched punctures on the rim of the brand new front tyre (probably caused during fitting) later, it was nearly midnight and we set the alarm for 5.30am so we could start riding more dirt and tarmac at first light to get to Temuco – we were going to be late.

We did our best the following day, fuelling ourselves up regularly so as not to fall asleep on the bikes! We had warned Jill that we might be late and sure enough arrived at the airport around 3 hours after she had. We had a late lunch and then set off for the lodge we'd booked, in a National Park, a couple of hours away – Jill in a taxi (after discovering how expensive the hire cars were!) and us on our bikes. We'd already been on the road for eight hours and were pretty tired, so we weren't very impressed when it started to rain, the temperature dropped, and we realised we didn't really know where we were going. We eventually found the dirt road leading to the lodge but stopped 100m short: there was a very fast and full river that we needed to cross. The taxi wasn't going any further, and nor was Emily. Ric rode into the middle of the river and stalled the bike, meaning he had to put his feet in - we were already soaking from the rain so it didn't make a big difference. The owner of the lodge brought his truck out to save our luggage and Jill, and Ric returned to get Emily's bike across – again getting stuck so firmly in the rocks that this time Emily had to get into the river and push him out! We were very relieved to get to the lodge where our rooms were ready and a fire was burning.

Days 168-169

Thankfully the weather cheered up significantly after we arrived at the lodge, so we could enjoy some of the beautiful Chilean Lake District surrounding us. We had two days of sunny walks in the stunning park, seeing lakes, waterfalls, snow capped mountains and smoking volcanoes. The lodge prepared a special Christmas Eve feast, so we even had our own little party there. Of course we've missed our friends and family back home but it was great to see Ric's Mum and to experience a sunny Christmas on the other side of the world.

Day 170

We awoke to the sound of hammering rain, and soon gave up any aspirations for the 9:30 bus to Pucon. As we chilled out by the lodge's lovely warm fire the rain abated though, so when Patricio (the owner, architect and host of the lodge and also, fascinatingly, a documentary film maker) offered Jill a lift right into town we decided to make a run for it. The river was reasonably low and much easier for Ric to get the bikes across (just one foot dipped into the cold water), and the rain even held off until we were back on the tarmac so we got to enjoy the views from the road a bit more.

Pucon is very different to the park and the lodge, busy with tourists and full of all the amenities you could want – including internet access for the first time in nearly a week. So as well as shopping (last chance to load Jill up for her return journey) we have finally been able to catch up on all the Christmas messages.

Just Deserts

Days 157-160

We hadn't quite seen enough desert yet, so on our second evening in San Pedro de Atacama we both hopped on Emily's bike and rode into the nearby Valley of the Moon, where sand and salt abound and erosion has made strange shapes in the landscape. Shortly before sunset we pulled up at a sand dune which people commonly climb and found a familiar motorbike there... Victor, the Argentinian Canadian who we met in Mexico, was apparently also at the dune! We had a catch-up with him and a Spanish guy on a small dirt bike who he was riding with, but we were unfortunately all heading in different directions the following day – we're sure we'll meet again though.

The few days of riding in northern Chile were nice but fairly dull: good roads, good fuel, lots of sand, lots of sunshine, and a bit of wind. There were a few things of interest to break the monotony of the Atacama Desert though. The first was an old railway station in Baquedano complete with decaying carriages and rusting steam engines along with the roundhouse for turning them round. The second stop was at the pretty cool “Hand of the Desert” sculpture. Further down the coast we camped at the lovely beach town of Caleta Pan de Azaca, where we hoped to ride out with the fishermen to see rare Humbolt penguins on the nearby islands but were sadly foiled by rough seas. From there we had just one more overnight stop on the way to Santiago, in the very liveable-in colonial town of La Serena. The last leg took us through increasingly fertile land and increasingly hot climes – we emerged from one tunnel close to Santiago a whole 10°C hotter than on the other side, and the weather stayed hot and sunny throughout our time in the capital.

Days 161-163

We've been in Santiago for over two days now and have managed to get the laptop sorted (broken RAM, again, same problem as in Panama and very easy to fix), and the bikes mostly sorted out. Unfortunately we couldn't get the sprockets to go with Emily's new chain, so we'll have to figure that one out later, and the servicing took so long that we had to leave her bike with it's broken pannier rack overnight in the welder's hopefully-capable hands. In the meantime we've done a pretty comprehensive walking tour of Santiago. It feels like somewhere in Europe - Spain or Italy maybe - except nicer. The difference with the major cities of the other South American countries we've been to is marked. The streets are wide and clean; there are trees, plazas and parks everywhere, all with manicured gardens; even the cars are all clean! Moreover, drivers obey the traffic lights, give pedestrians right of way, use their indicators and not their horns; all the cars have working brake lights, and not one vehicle has belched out black smoke at us as yet. Santiago's a big city but we have friends: Dan arrived on his Harley the day before yesterday (Jacquie having gone home for Christmas) and Thom and Flo arrived last night to give us a fun evening with “the gang” before we head off today.

Shake, Rattle And Roll

Days 151-152

Finally back on both bikes, we enjoyed riding the hardtop South to Potosi, along the altiplano through desolate valleys and canyons. Potosi is a nice enough colonial town, famous for its cooperative mine where we had a brief tour of the harsh mining conditions the following morning. From Potosi the roads quickly deteriorated as we headed towards Uyuni - we started with 20 miles of new tarmac but then had another 100 miles of roadworks, gravel, sand and dirt to contend with. Little did we know then, but this road was great compared with what was to come. Our day was brightened up with a couple of chance encounters with some german bikers coming the other way, though - two guys on some old BMWs done up in a mock-wartime style and later on a couple on a fantastic Ural with sidecar.

Day 153

The Salar de Uyuni really deserves its own day in this account as it is so spectacular a thing! We met up with our French friends in Uyuni and the four of us rode up to the salt plane together and had a fantastic day taking the obligatory photo shoot on the salt and riding in any direction we felt like, at any speed (a fully-laden BMW will do over 110 mph on salt, in case you´re interested), practicing some red arrows style formation riding, without danger of hitting anyone or anything - really, it´s just salt for miles! We all spent the next morning picking the white stuff off our bikes and hoping the corrosion would be delayed by the amount of dirt already on there, at least until we get to Santiago and have the bikes cleaned properly!

Days 154-156

From Uyuni we all wanted to travel South, via some lakes, geysers and desert scenery into Chile and we`d both gathered vaguely collabatory information on which roads were better than others to get there. The Frenchies wanted to go with the "easy" route and although Ric was quite keen on the difficult but more scenic route we decided company was best. We had been told that the road to Laguna Colorada would take around 5 hours, and the Frenchies were told it was a day´s ride so we all felt reasonably confident heading out from Uyuni that we should make it ok. However it soon became apparent that this was highly optimistic for big, laden motorbikes such as ours, especially as we, in keeping with recent times, encountered problems with the bikes...

In the end it took us two days to reach Laguna Colorada and it was a difficult two days to say the least. Emily´s pannier rack broke: the first time we just tied the broken joint up with string; the second time we needed to take the panniers off the rack, tying one to the top of Emily´s bike and the other to the top of Ric´s bike; and the third time we had to take the pannier off Emily´s bike altogether and strap both to the top of Ric´s bike, leaving Emily with just the tail bag. When we stopped for lunch on the first day we also noticed that Ric´s tyre was low on air. We couldn´t find any puncture and it was losing air slowly so we just resolved to pump it up... except that our pump was having difficulties. At just this moment we were very lucky to find a passing 4WD running a tour of the area (the traffic here is almost exclusively 4WDs running tours and an occasional lorry). We were able to borrow their compressor to pump up the tyre and they agreed to cook us some rice and egg as they were preparing lunch for their tour group and there was absolutely nowhere open to buy food in the town! The following morning we were lucky to be able to borrow the hostel´s track pump to get the bike ready for another day´s riding. It wasn´t just our bikes causing problems though. The road (the "easy" road) was either washboard (corrugated dirt which is very uncomfortable and slow to ride on) or sand. In many places the sand was so deep that we were wading the bikes through, buried half a wheel deep. Thom and Flo had it the hardest as their bike is the heaviest to begin with, plus there are two of them on it, and they dropped their bike 5 or more times. Ric had the worst tyres for the sand, having road tyres front and back, and was also carrying a lot of extra luggage - he dropped his bike twice. Emily took full advantage of her lighter bike, superiour tyres, and position at the back of the group giving her the most warning of the terrain and managed to keep her bike pretty much upright the whole time. It wasn´t easy for anyone though, and we can´t begin to imagine what the "difficult" road would have been like!

When we finally reached Lago Colorado it was a beautiful sight, but we were reluctant to go around to the refuge on the other side, knowing we would have to backtrack on the same sand road the following day, so decided to try to camp up near some geysers that we wanted to see on our way out toward Chile. First though, we had to go to Bolivian customs to check the bikes out of the country, which is strangely located 60 miles from the border, and pretty close to the geysers. The customs office is heated by thermal water running in pipes around the building, which comprised the office and living quarters of the single customs officer, and at over 5000m with howling winds we were pleased for the respite. So pleased in fact that asked if we could stay, realising that camping might be chilly (we´d been warned on the way that temperatures were down at -5C in the night). After some deliberation and clearing out of a small room, we were told that we could stay the night, use the kitchen to make our food, and generally make ourselves at home!

The next morning we woke up early to visit the geysers in the dawn light (apparently the best time). We knew this would be difficult for us as we´d need to use the pump which was really on it´s last legs, and indeed it proved impossible when the time came. So we sent the Frenchies on their way and came up with a new plan to ride very carefully without the panniers to try to find someone with a pump... which immediately failed because Ric´s bike wouldn´t even fire up. We tried a push start but there was only a certain distance that Emily could push the bike at 5.30am, in -5C temperature, over 5000m of altitude, and in many layers of clothing, and this wasn´t enough. So we went to the geysers on Emily´s bike leaving everything else at the customs office. We found the Frenchies before we found the geysers - they were still looking for them too. When we eventually found the bubbling mud pots and steaming geysers (no 100-foot water shoots as promised) they were a bit of a disappointment after all the hassle! While the Frenchies pushed on to Chile, we returned to customs, and put Ric´s bike in the sun while we had a hot drink... after 20 minutes of warming up the bike started! Ric found a lorry with a compressor at the chemical plant next to the customs office (the only two buildings for miles around) and we were finally on our way. A few hours of sand and gravel (and admittedly some very stunning scenery when you stop and can look beyond the 10m of road in front of you) later we were elated to reach the Chilean border.

The change in road conditions was immediate: the dirt suddenly became perfectly smooth and sand-free and gave way in just a few miles to a beautiful stretch of smooth dark tarmac, all of which was perfectly signposted and delivered us in no time to the very civilised (and comparatively very expensive) town of San Pedro de Atacama. We washed everything we owned, including all our soft bags whose zips had all ceased up in the dust, and finally settled down with the laptop to discover... it was broken! Possibly by all the bumping around, but we´re down to using internet cafes for the moment until we can find someone to take a look for us.

Highs And Lows

Days 141-142

With Emily's bike fixed Lake Titicaca beckoned. We visited the “floating islands” from Puno – just 5km from shore people still live on islands made from reeds (and move around on boats made of reeds, and live in houses made of reeds, and make souvenirs for tourists out of reeds). They are anchored down most of the time to stop them drifting off into the middle of the lake, but if a neighbourly dispute occurs between islands they can up anchor and move on!

Moving round the (not-actually-the-world's-highest-navigable) lake we crossed the border into Bolivia and on to the small town of Copacabana from where we visited one of the more conventional stationary islands, the “Island Of The Sun”. We didn't really have long enough to get into island life due to the bike delays back in Puno and had to settle for a rapid and shepherded tour, but it was still a beautiful place where you could imagine the sun being born (as per pre-Incan legend). Bolivia is the cheapest country we've visited so far, and to celebrate this fact we visited the most expensive restaurant in town for it's famed chocolate fondue - yum!

Days 143-144

Our final venture onto the lake was our most precarious ferry crossing so far, on a rickety wooden raft with designated bailers, but both bikes made it to shore intact, and on to La Paz just in time to sign up for a trip to see the local wrestling that evening. It's WWF style but lower budget, and includes women wrestlers in traditional dress (and also midgets apparently, though we weren't lucky enough to see them!). A very entertaining evening, for all the gringos in the front row as well as all the local families, many of whom were clearly avid followers.

There were some excursions we wanted to do out of La Paz: climbing Huayna Potosi, and visiting the Amazonia wilderness from nearby Rurrenbaque, so we made some bookings. Since everybody keeps telling us stories about how bad the roads in Bolivia are, we also decided to ride 40 minutes out of town to visit “Motorcycle Tours Bolivia”, a company advertised in our hostel. This turned out to be an excellent decision. Firstly the ride took us through the other-worldly “Valley of the Moon”, but more significantly the main guy there was incredibly helpful and friendly. He told us about all the different routes for the rest of our journey in Bolivia, things to see, road conditions, how far we could get in a day, where the petrol stations were, etc. We relayed our sorry story about the tyre and he was also able to help with this – he took us to the poshest motorbike shop in La Paz (a Honda dealer) and they somehow found, tucked away out back and much to even their surprise, a single tyre which just happened to fit the back end of a BMW! Bolivia is probably now completely out of large motorcycle rear tyres.

Days 145-147

In the Galapagos we met an English guy, Chris, who told us of his hike up Huayana Potosi, a towering peak in the Andes standing at 6088m, and showed us his photos and videos. Immediately we were enamoured with the idea, and since then Emily has had us marching up every nearby hill to try to gain some level of fitness suitable for climbing the mountain. We were driven from La Paz up to base camp at 4700m and had a practice crampon / ice axe session on a nearby glacier which went smoothly enough. The next day we hiked for a couple of hours up to high camp at 5130m and had the rest of the day to acclimatise, with the plan to sleep early, then set off to climb the mountain proper at around 1am and arrive at the summit for dawn. Emily has a history of altitude sickness, but we had been pretty high for a pretty long time at this stage and we were hopeful that she would manage. We weren't holding our breaths though – about one third of people fail to climb this mountain, usually due to altitude sickness on the final hike up from high camp.

As the day at high camp wore on, Emily started to feel bad. And then worse. She was unable to eat dinner and had to use the bathroom a little too often for comfort. At about 11pm she woke up, and just managed to make it outside before being sick. At midnight when we all got up to get ready for the trek Emily only managed to go to the toilet three times then go back to bed. So as Ric, the Canadian guy who had joined us at high camp, and their two guides hiked up the mountain, Emily alternated between sleeping and dashing to the outside toilet located 20m down a slope from the refuge (running there, and crawling back).

Ric meanwhile was walking, jumping crevasses and climbing ice under a moonlit sky in record time. It normally takes about 4 to 6 hours to summit from high camp, and despite the fact that they had to take some long breaks near the top so that they had a bit more light for “el cumbre” (the summit), Ric was up and back down in just five and a half hours! Part of the reason for the speedy return was that he wanted to see how poor Emily was doing, but unfortunately by the time he made it back to high camp he was so knackered all he could do was sleep rather than nurse his fiancée!

Climbing back down to base camp a couple of hours later was probably a bigger struggle for Emily than it had been for Ric to reach the summit, but we made it eventually and it was a huge relief to get back to our hostel in La Paz, with a private bathroom just steps away from the bed, and to meet our French friends there, one of whom (Thom) is a doctor!

Days 148-150

Emily spent the next few days mostly in a state of pain, exhaustion and despair while Ric kept himself busy running around looking after Emily and, regrettably, cancelling our trip to the Amazon: we didn't have time for Emily to get better AND to go the jungle, and trying to do both at once seemed foolish. Dr Thom kindly examined Emily and kept an eye on her, advising that it was most likely a viral thing (albeit a nasty one) that we just needed to sit out. But when Emily felt no better two days later we decided to go for the drugs – one day of antibiotics, or maybe just one extra day of resting, and Emily felt a whole world better!

Her recovery was just in time for us to ride The Death Road (Emily riding pillion in case it was a bit too much excitement so soon). The road isn't as dangerous now that they've built a wider, asphalt, less precipitous option that the majority of traffic has diverted to, but it's still an incredible thing. It hugs to the edge of the mountain with sheer drops, amazing views, a narrow, loose dirt surface, and many blind corners. And people do still die: in the motorbike shop back in La Paz we met English ex-pat Robin who used to run mountain bike tours down it (one of the most popular tourist pursuits out of the Bolivian capital) and he told us that just last week one of the mountain bike tour operators with the best safety record lost another two tourists over the edge. Going up (by motorbike) is purportedly much safer than going down (by mountain bike), though, and you'll hopefully be glad to hear that we made it back to La Paz in one piece.

We picked a good day to ride the Death Road as it happened to also be Election Day in Bolivia. This meant that very few vehicles were allowed on the roads anywhere (we blagged it with the “but we're just tourists and don't really understand” line), giving us beautiful traffic-free conditions the whole way. The only tricky bits were all the impromptu street parties we had to drive though, with food stalls, families out for walks, kids playing on the street, etc, but it was great to soak up the holiday atmosphere on the way through. Fingers crossed that the “right” person gets elected president and a load of road blocks and protests don't flood the country in the next few days...

It's All Part Of The Adventure

Days 134-137

After our night ride out of the protest area, we arrived in Cuzco at 7am and started our usual search for a hostel with all the necessary prerequisites, in particular parking for the bikes. Emily watched the bikes while Ric wandered around trying to find somewhere, but it took a bit longer than normal and Ric's battery went flat in the process (yes, he left the ignition on). So our first tour of Cuzco involved Emily pushing Ric's bike so he could try to jump start it, down whichever street was most downhill irrespective of one-way conventions. After many failed attempts, Ric rolled round the corner to try to park up, found the best hill yet and with one almighty jump managed to get the bike started. Little did we know at the time that this was just the start of many problems!

The next few days went smoothly, however. We visited the awesome Macchu Picchu, leaving our bikes in a nearby town and taking a train and a steep hike to reach the site (no roads all the way there, unfortunately). The primary icon of Peru was definitely worth the hype (though Emily had been there before), and getting there early to avoid the peak crowds was worth it too. On the way back to Cuzco through “The Sacred Valley” we looked round a number of other Incan sites which were all very cool, but somewhat overshadowed by the superlatives of Macchu Picchu. Cuzco itself is a nice city with lots to see and do (including the famous Norton Rats bikers' bar that was sadly devoid of bikers when we stopped by) but, as we'd been warned by the American family we met in Abancay, very “hassley”.

Days 138-139

From Cuzco we wanted to visit the Colca Canyon. The only all-tarmac route would mean a long way round and doubling back again later so we chose to take the more direct route to Chivay, at the edge of the canyon. We had read that there was a “mostly paved” route somewhere in the region and took a guess from the map at which this was, having tried (not as much as we should) and failed to get local advice on the matter. The route was fairly high altitude – mostly between 4,000 and 4,700m – and although the scenery was beautiful, the thundery hail storms (two of them) were not as pretty and very cold. By mid-afternoon we were getting close, about 60 miles away, but the road really started to deteriorate. We asked some locals how long they thought it would take: “about five hours”. Five hours! With only two and a half hours of sunlight remaining this wasn't the best answer. We rode for about half an hour and bumped into some other locals on dirt bikes. So of course we went for a second opinion: “about five hours”. Eek! Our half an hour's riding had done nothing to reduce the estimate! We decided to carry on as fast as possible and stop at any town that might have a bed, or else find somewhere safe to pitch the tent. Now the road was just a track full of big stones. Emily in particular felt her bike twisting beneath her, and mentioned to Ric on the radio that her bike was bottoming out more than normal. Stopping safely on the big stones was just as tricky as riding across them, but when we came to a clearing Emily rode in front so Ric could check the tyre: flat as a pancake. We set about fixing the tyre, with our little kit and our bike pump but couldn't get a solid fix. The sun was setting and the air getting colder, but as we were stopped we noticed buses and lorries travelling at a reasonably speed on a road crossing our track about 300m away, and more than that we could see a small town! So being extremely careful on the semi-inflated tyre we made our way there, and managed to find very basic lodgings (we're talking outside toilet, no shower). When dinner, bed and breakfast all come in at just four pounds each you can't really complain, though.

The next morning we put more and more plugs into the tyre, pumping it up with the hand pump each time, then finding it still leaked. Eventually we thought we had it so we rode out towards Chivay. Just as we started out onto the reasonably good unpaved road, Ric did an emergency stop. Emily put on her brakes but not much happened – not the best time to discover your assisted breaking is no longer working. She managed to slow down a lot and swerve to the side, and almost got away with it, except for a small clash of the paniers which sent her and her bike sprawling across the road. Ric's reason for stopping was that the GPS had jumped off the bike and he pointed out that, as we had found it between his two tyres, if he had gone any further he would have squished it. Emily felt a bit miffed that the GPS seemed to be more important than her, but she was fine; the breaks are a pain but still work if you just press them harder so we continued on.

The day improved after we reached Chivay and rode into the beautiful Colca Canyon where we were lucky enough to see some of the resident condors flying up on thermals. However, we realised we were still leaking air, so when we got back to Chivay put another plug in the tyre and used the petrol station air to pump it up. Surely we must have it this time, and after a night at rest the pressure was still good.

Days 140-141

From Chivay we wanted to get to Puno on Lake Titicaca and it wasn't too far to go so we were happy to stop at various view points on the way. It was at one such point that we discovered Emily's broken pannier rack. This probably happened when she dropped the bike the day before, or possibly it was weakened and then rattled itself off on all the subsequent bad roads. There wasn't much we could do but tie it up with string so it didn't cause any further damage to the pannier, which it was busy wearing a hole in. As we were about to leave, a German couple pulled up on two BMWs (a 1200 Adventure and 800 GS – both slightly bigger versions of our two bikes, and much more heavily laden). We had a good old chat about biking and the roads to come (apparently some of the Bolivian roads we're planning on taking are really bad); they had also met our French friends a few days before so we already had friends in common! We are going separate ways at the moment but hope to meet up in Chile or Argentina.

So we continued on to Puno, and it wasn't until we were quite close, having stopped at some more ruins on the way, that we discovered Emily had a flat again. We limped into Puno and into a hostel. Just before setting out to find a tyre repair shop and a welder for the pannier rack Emily opened the tail bag, and the zip broke! Sometimes everything just goes wrong. We had the tyre fixed and agreed to do the welding first thing in the morning. First thing in the morning Ric found that the tyre was flat again! So he made another trip to get the tyre fixed again – a stone had worked it's way in probably because of running it so flat – and a bit of time at the welder next door, while Emily fixed the bag for the millionth time this trip, and fingers crossed that now we're sorted. At least all this tyre fixing and welding was very cheap – just over one pound a pop!