The Indulgent Adventures of Bubbs and Bubs

Worrying about crating the bikes

2011-05-18T11:17:00.000-07:00

We knew the end of the trip was near. After two final days of riding we pulled into Valparaiso and up to the Villa Kunterbunt.

[Me thinking hard about getting back on the road with these guys] I suppose this is a good opportunity to write a little bit about what it felt like to be at the end of the trip. For me, it mostly felt empty, like a tank of gas after a long ride. I wasn't ready to be done with the trip by any means. I could have easily filled up the tank and kept going for several more months or years. In fact, at Villa Kunterbunt there were two motorcyclists who were getting ready to pull out and ride north through South America. As they were going through the ritual of packing up their bikes and putting on their riding gear, I felt a very very strong pull to do the same and head off on the road. One of these guys, Fred, has been on the road for 6 years and plans to be on the road for years to come.

But our tank was empty. We had had a brilliant 8 months of adventuring through many many places and meeting countless wonderful people along the way. All along, we knew that at some point the trip had to end at some point and the fact that we are ending it healthy and with the bikes intact is a huge bonus.

So I didn't feel exactly sad. I didn't feel unsatisfied either. I felt more resigned to the fact that we needed to go back to the States. We both have work waiting for us and it will feel nice to get on top of it. I'm not saying I want to go back to work, but the work we have is interesting and if we are going to do it, then I want to get going on it and do the best job possible. Home was calling us and our direction was towards the US (not towards Brazil).

Villa Kunterbunt is a motorcyclist only hostel that helps many people with the import/ export of their bikes. It is run by a german by heritage woman, Martina- although she is pretty darn Chilean now, and her Chilean husband, Enzo. They own a 100 year old Adam's Family style house overlooking the port of Valparaiso and have a few extra rooms available for visiting motorcyclists. We had the tower room with a 360 degree view of Valpo (as the town is called).

[In the tower room] We looked into a few options for what to do with the bikes. Our #1 plan was to sell them in Chile or in Argentina. They are worth far more in South America than they are in the US and we knew that shipping was going to cost us (as well as use a lot of resources to get them home). We made some queries here and there and found quite a bit of interest in buying the bikes, but when push came to shove, it was actually incredibly hard (if not illegal) to sell the ladies. If a person wanted to buy the bikes, that person would have to figure out how to import and then license the bikes and including most likely having to pay someone off to make the papers. It would cost them a lot of time and money. Of course, we don't really care, as long as we get money in the bank, someone could have the bikes but in the end it all proved too complicated.

[proofing the palette in Enzo's workshop] So shipping the bikes home was the option. I suppose in theory we could have done it on our own, but sometimes it is just worth it to have help. Enzo and Martina know how to play the game. That and Enzo has a workshop where he could custom build a crate for our bikes.

The first quote came to $3200 for both bikes, but after convincing Martina that we could get both bikes into one big crate, I think the final bill came to $2500. Enzo was able to get both the bikes into a 2.8 cubic meter box which is pretty incredible and a testimony to his experience crating bikes.

So the process goes like this:

1. Measure the bikes from front to back and side to side (when they are in a head to toe configuration) with the front wheel removed.

2. Built a bottom palette to match these dimension and put the bikes on this to prove they indeed can fit.

3. With the bikes tied down and the panniers in position, measure how tall the crate will need to be.

4. Remove the bikes from the palette and go to Santiago for the weekend to visit friends while Enzo builds the rest of the crate.

4.5 Arrive back in Valpo and realize that we left a passport in Santiago so at 11 at night drive the 75 miles back to Santiago in the fog to get it and then go back to Valpo.

5. Drive 60 miles to the port town of San Antonio with a truck in tow that is carrying the dissembled crate.

6. Go to a large lot where the consolidator will load the crate into a metal container to be shipped to the states.

7. Put the bikes back on the bottom palette, remove the front wheels, tie down the bikes, remove the handlebars and put everything on the palette in such a way as to not have it jiggle around on the voyage.

8. Build the crate up and around the bikes.

9. Spray paint my name and where the bikes are headed on the side of the box.

10. Visit 8 different offices in San Antonio to get all the paperwork in line.

11. Go back to the crate, kiss it farewell, and hope for the best.

We left the crate sitting in a lot without any paperwork attached to it except for my name spray painted on the side. Enzo ensured us that somehow it would be picked up by a forklift, loaded into a container, put on a boat headed to New York, reconsolidated into another container and put on a truck to Seattle and then arrive someplace near Seattle at sometime in the next 6 weeks.

With this reassurance, we handed over $2500 in cash without a receipt and all we can do is hope for the best. We should expect a phone call (or email?) at some point in the next month telling us when and where the bikes will be. At that point we will reassemble the bikes and drive them away.

Now I know what you are thinking: "are you crazy?" But what other choice did we have? One thing we have learned on this trip is that at times you just have to trust people. There are times when you shouldn't trust people, but there are times when you should. Villa Kunterbunt has a good reputation and wouldn't be interested in screwing us. There could be some mistakes with the shipper/ consolidator, but we will deal with that if a problem arrises.

[in the Bolivian Altiplano- wouldn't want to run out of gas out here] Another thing we learned on this trip is to figure out which problems are worth fretting about and which ones aren't. There are many many things that can go wrong on a motorcycle trip from Seattle to Chile. Many of these things you can anticipate and plan for- e.g. normal motorcycle maintenance issues for which you can bring spare parts, lack of gasoline in certain areas for which you can carry extra gas, spats between married riding partners for which you can have a process for dealing with.

But there are many things which you in theory you could worry about and plan for ahead of time but which might be best dealt with when the time comes- places to stay for the night, broken motorcycle pieces which you absolutely can not fix at a particular time and place, roads which may or may not go due to river crossings, shipping motorcycles home once we have left them in good hands.

In short you have to decide what things to worry about and come up with a contingency plan for and what things to worry about when they come up. You can't worry about and plan for everything all the time. You'd simply get nowhere in life.

So that's it, the bikes are [hopefully] on their way to Seattle via New York (again- this crazy route is out of our control) we are headed back to Seattle for our 6 months to get going on our work (me with GORE-TEX and Megan with Montessori 123) and we have to start thinking about what to do next.

A kid is the most likely option but we really want to bicycle around New Zealand too. Perhaps we can do both.

Blueberries from afar

2011-05-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

I've always felt very strange buying produce from half way around the world. New Zealand apples, peruvian asparagus, chilean blueberries.

On this trip we have seen the massive asparagus fields in the deserts of Peru. We have seen the controversial Quinoa in Bolivia (where because of foreign demand, Bolivians can no longer afford to eat this incredible grain). And now we have stayed on an organic blueberry farm in Southern Chile.

Jorge, Cristina and their son Felipe own a 800 acre farm in the fertile lands just east of Villaricca. It is a rainy area with a similar climate to Seattle and perfect for growing things like strawberries and blueberries.

Jorge and Martina used to raise cattle and sheep on their land as well as manage pine and eucalyptus trees and then 10 years ago they decided it would be cool to finish raising their three kids in Gig Harbor (40 miles south of Seattle). Jorge got a student visa for the family and they relocated. Of course, Jorge preferred going to the race track rather than school so Cristina had to get a job as a high school math teacher in order for them to keep their visa.

About 2 years ago, Felipe, their now 26 year old son decided he wanted to return to Chile and start working their land. He planted blueberries and raspberries because they can bear fruit relatively quickly and there is a good foreign market for the organic version. He also planted hazelnuts but those take a while.

[custom charcoal maker] The parents moved back to Chile this year by driving their car down and they all live together on this beautiful piece of property. They are hard workers and Felipe is learning a lot about running a farm. It is cool to see his inventions for organic farming and to learn of his plans for the land.

Blueberries by Felipe

So next time you see organic blueberries from Chile, know that we may know the family that farms them and they are doing cool stuff with their land. You can feel good about that. Whether you want to buy something that had to be shipped half way around the world is up to you. Depends how badly you are craving blueberries in February.

The farm house

Jorge helping me to put Megan's bike back together

Slapped in the face by a monkey tree (or was it a rock) aka the case of the missing bolt

2011-05-14T15:39:00.000-07:00

[fall in the rivers district of Chile] A quick administrative update: We are actually back in the states now but the last two weeks have been a bit adventurous and I haven't had time to blog. My goal is to get caught up in the next week so here it goes...

You know those days that start out so gloomy and then surprise after surprise comes along and by the end of the day you are on top of the world and feeling as happy as a monkey in a hot spring? Well... we had the opposite of one of those for our first day back in Chile. I suppose it ended up on a high note, but for a while I was feeling quite ready for the motorcycle trip to be over.

View From San Martin to Villaricca in a larger map

We left Argentina on the day before the day I'm about to talk about. Our planned route was to leave San Martin de los Andes and take the route via a long ferry ride that cuts through the mountains. The ferry didn't sail until 4 pm so we lingered around San Martin for the morning and finally got going around 2. We meant to leave at 1 but you know how it goes. This left us with 2 hours to cover 50 km of road and 1 border crossing into Chile.

Lets just say that at 4:01 they had to remove the chain to let us on the ferry. At least we made it although if we hadn't I can think of far worse places to be stuck for 24 hours waiting for the next ferry.

The ferry travelled about 25 km along a gorgeous lake with pristine forests on either side. It was a very nice ride and we even made an intermediate stop to pick some oxen and their load. These big fellows were very docile and obviously the best choice for some of the roads in these parts.

[Practicing my spanish with some Chileans] Once on the ferry we ended up chatting with a wonderful family who happened to live in the Seattle area for 10 years and had just moved back to their farm in Chile. They recognized our Washington plates and immediately invited us to their farm outside of Villaricca to come and stay. Our plan had been to bullet it back to Santiago as fast as possible but we couldn't pass up an opportunity to stay at an organic blueberry farm so we told them we would come to their farm the following night. Our map had a road that we wanted to try to drive and figured it would take us a full day to get to their place via this road (the road goes by 5 different hot springs).

[We could have stayed here but it was $300 per night] The ferry landed, we started to drive and before we could find a place to camp for the night it got dark. We don't like to drive in the dark, particularly on dirt roads but we didn't really have a choice at this point. We kept driving until we reached the Coñaripe Hot Springs resort. We turned down to the hot springs and found a very nice and very empty resort. We inquired inside if we could camp and we couldn't, so we treated ourselves to a very nice night at the springs. After cooking another round of Pasta Panamericana, we took a soak in the springs and fell fast asleep.

The next morning we took another soak and were on the road for the usual crack of noon start. Our map showed what looked like a decent dirt road that went up past an active volcano and then dropped down into the town of Pucon where we could then take good roads through Villaricca and over to the farm. We figured we'd be at the farm by 3 or 4. We were feeling great from the hot springs and ready to drive our last dirt road of the trip.

We passed the Geotermicas hot springs and stopped by to check them out. The price tag of $35 US per person kept us from soaking but this crazy place was super cool just to look at. They must be the project of a quirky person as there are 17 slate pools connected by a red walkway through a canyon with gushing water. They were fun to check out and if we had more money it would have been a great place to pass the afternoon. But we had places to go.

So with our heads high we continued up the pass towards the volcano. We passed a sign saying something about the road being bad and only for hikers and another sign saying something or other about 9 km ahead but we didn't really pay attention as we felt we could tackle any road that lay ahead.
The road got worse changing from a graded dirt road to a muddy track through virgin forest.

We stopped at a particularly nasty river crossing to discuss what we should do. I mentioned that there were some signs a while back saying something or other about a bad road and something happening in 9 km but I just couldn't remember what it actually said. Neither of us felt like turning around and although the road was very muddy in places, it wasn't that bad as long as we drove slowly. My main concern was for the bikes. Unloaded, this road would have presented only a small challenge but with all of our gear on the back, we were definitely pushing the suspension system with roots and rocks on the track.

We pushed on and eventually came across this skinny little dog way out in the middle of nowhere. With winter coming it didn't seem like there was anyway this guy was going to survive for very long. We tried hard to not care and just chalk this dog up to the cycle of life but we couldn't resist giving him all of our food (raw eggs, yummy bread, salami, cheese, peanuts). Of course this set him off to following us and that was ok. We figured we'd eventually end up near some sort of civilization and we could ditch him there.

[my signature head scratch- now what did that sign say back there?] About a kilometer further up we came to a steep rocky section of horrible road. It looked like we could maybe make it up the section, but reversing it could be tricky since it was quite muddy and we would be unable to use out brakes.

Amongst the 100 foot monkey-pinch-me trees we decided to go for it and just see what lay ahead. It was getting late but we really didn't want to back track. In hindsight we should have taken off the luggage and shuttled the bikes up the drop but isn't hindsight so smug and cocky? I got my bike up the section without too much trouble and then came back down to drive megan's bike up.

This didn't go so well. I fell over once in a not too bad of a place but then right in the middle of the most technical part I fell over again. As Megan was helping me back up she noticed a sheared bolt sitting under the bike. And it wasn't a small bolt. We looked everywhere on her bike for where this might have come from but couldn't find anything missing. That said, there are a lot of places that you can't see without taking apart the bike.

That was that. I wasn't about to keep pressing on into unknown territory with something or other coming in 4 km (remember- I didn't really read the sign warning of something in 9km) and a sheared bolt somewhere on the bike. We backed her bike down the drop, I went up and retrieved mine and we sat for a second feeling pretty lame.

[holding the broken bolt] There we were way out in the middle of nowhere with no food (we had fed it all to the dog), an assumedly broken bike, a dog that was about to die and it was getting late.
I kept trying to remind myself that this was the reason we took the trip in the first place: To test ourselves in tough situations and see how we do. That we certainly weren't going to die up here and that no matter what happens we could find a way out of it.
We took a final look at the bike and couldn't find any missing bolts. I bounced the suspension up and down and couldn't hear any rattles. So we made the decision that we really couldn't do much to fix the bike up there. That hopefully the BMW engineers had designed some redundancy into the bike so that it would still be functional even without the bolt.

[the drop that turned us around] We slowly picked our way down the road stopping every once in a while to let the dog catch up with us. Once we reached a few farms down below we started to speed up knowing that it would be hard to leave the dog behind but that hopefully he would find some sort of food source at the farms. At sunset we arrived back at Coñaripe and tried to call our friends who probably figured we had ditched them. A few failed attempts at calling them (why is it so hard to make calls to cell phones in foreign countries- we always seem to epic when trying to place a phone call at a "public" phone) and we kept pushing on.

[meeting Jorge and Cristina on the ferry, I don't who the guy on the left side of the photo is] Finally after arriving in Villaricca we managed to connect with our the blueberry farmers and with incredible generosity they said they would meet us on the main road near the turn off to their farm. A half hour later we met up with Jorge and followed him to their warm farmhouse and a bottle of wine.
So that was our day that went from warm and easy to strained and tense and back to happiness. Looking back on it, it was all happiness. I mean we were driving motorcycles through the back roads of the rivers district in Chile past hot springs and having some good old fashioned adventure. What more could you ask for? We can only hope that it turned out so well for the dog. He was a cute little fellow and I do hope he makes it through the winter.

Oh yeah... the bolt.
The next morning I woke up and started taking apart the bike to locate the missing bolt. My feeling was that it was the bolt that holds the top of the rear suspension to the bike since the bolt was the same size as the bolts that hold the bottom together. The F650 has a cool way of accessing this hard to get to place. You just have to remove two bolts from the subframe, separate the rear of the exhaust system and then you can hinge up the entire subframe (which hold the gas tank and all). And there it was, the other half of the bolt was still left holding the rear suspension to the bike. Just a teeny bit of jiggling and the bolt fell right out making a perfect match to the other half.
As luck would have it, there is a store in Villaricca called the House of Bolts where we found an exact match to the now broken offender. I bought two.

Fortunately, the engineers had built some sort of redundancy into this part. If the bolt had fallen completely out (which we are lucky that it didn't) the the rear suspension would have pushed up into a metal cup and been held there temporarily. Catching air would have dislodged it, but we rarely catch air on the bikes.

I'm not sure when the bolt actually broke. It could have been in the monkey tree forest or it could have been a long time ago and the weight of the bike just held it in. It is hard to say but I have learned of another inspection item on the F650. It is probably a good idea to lift up your subframe now and again and take a look at the bolt up there.

Food!

2011-05-01T06:16:00.000-07:00

I think it goes without saying that on this trip we have eaten food. We'd be dead if we hadn't.
For the most part we have eaten out because it is fun to explore the local cuisines and besides, it was so darn cheap to eat out. We went on a bit of a pizza binge in Bolivia since Bolivian food got a little tiring after a while.
[choosing a Maté tea to drink] When we crossed into Chile, we started cooking for ourselves a lot more. Eating out in Chile is expensive (unless you only want to eat a completo - which is a hotdog with guacamole) and really not that good for you so we started making our own food almost every lunch/ dinner.
Lunch is almost always salami and cheese sandwiches with mayo and savora (a mustard like sauce). The cheese, salami and bread is very nice down here and none of these ingredients really have to be refrigerated. And for some strange reason, I never tire of Salami.

Dinner is generally Pasta Panamericana or Sopa Austral. Basically the same thing either over pasta or in soup form. Carrots, onions, salami, kale or spinach, olives, spices. Saute these together add in tomato sauce a little dried milk and either put it over pasta or mix it into a soup with some chicken or tomato soup mix, delicious.

It is pretty yummy and it's always warm and nourishing. If the place we stay has a kitchen then we will make our Pasta Panamericana there or come up with some other creation that Megan finds online. If the place doesn't have a kitchen then we will fire up our trusty Optimus stove outside and create our meal.

Argentina is famous for its meats. Barbecued meat is called Parilla and basically you build a fire, take the hot coals and grill your meet over it. I learned how to properly do this when we were in Mendoza staying with my buddy Kevin. Under his watchful eye, I learned how to make the proper amount of coals and how to distribute them properly to cook the meat to perfection.

We found an amazing butcher next door to the mechanic in Bariloche. I walked in asking for a chunk of meat to BBQ and he comes out of the back with an entire side of beef. He asked me which part I wanted and I had no idea. I said "a delicious part" and he took the bandsaw to the beef and cut off a 2 pound strip of meaty ribs. I got giddy with excitement over the idea of cooking these bad boys up. I also took home a blood sausage and a few pork sausages just to be sure.
We cooked for some new friends at the hostel we were staying at because, lets face it, we just can't eat 3 1/2 pounds of meat ourselves. Our friends made up the vegetables and potatoes and together we had a feast.

[Holy Moly, look at that piece of meat] Going with the maxim "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" we went back to the butcher the next day and bought another cut of beef. Again, not knowing what to get, we just asked for something very delicious but without bones. He brought out an enormous piece of red muscle marbled perfectly with fat and cut us off 2 1/2 pounds of it. Again, we threw in some sausage for good luck and grilled it up. I don't really know the cut that we ate, but it was amazing. The fat on the outside browned a nice crisp and there was a gradation of brown to red on the inside that can only be described as yummmmmm. It was another indulgent feast.

For our last night in Argentina, we decided to go out to eat. I had taken a bit too much money out of the ATM and not wanting to exchange it to Chilean pesos, we decided to splurge a bit. Argentinians don't eat until 10 or 11 but at 9 we were starving so we walked around San Martin del Los Andes for and hour trying to kill time and find a place to settle in for the night. We landed at La Casona and it was the right choice.

I got grilled lamb with bbq'd potato on the side and Megan got grilled chicken with a mushroom sauce and fun fried mashed potato balls. Chasing it down with beer and wine was only a formality as we both savored every bite until it was all gone. There we were at 11:30 at night, our tummies full and dreading the freezing cold walk back to the hostel.

What better way to enjoy the walk then to stop for ice cream. The ice cream in these parts is off the hook. It is rich and sort of like eating the essence of whatever flavor you choose. We split a cone of dulce de leche (like a rich caramel) and dark chocolate. Wow! Even though we were freezing cold, we were fighting to get our hands on the cone as we shivered and licked our way home.
Today we head back to Chile and we will probably be back on the Pasta Panamericana diet, but for a few days we ate like we meant it and it was fantastic.

Gear Review of Vasque Mindbender GTX

2011-04-29T06:48:00.000-07:00

Vasque Mindbender GORE-TEX® Footwear

I only get to bring three pairs of shoes that need to work for me for 5 months. Motorcycle boots are a no-brainer. Obviously a pair of flip flops makes it into the mix because they are lightweight and very practical (showers, swimming, easy to put on in the middle of the night to go pee, …).

That leaves one more pair to do everything else. These better be some mutli-purpose shoes and they better be comfortable.

After some deliberation, I decided to go with the Vasque Mindbender GTX shoes for no other reason than they fit my feet so well. That's always a good start when choosing a shoe- fit. The roomy toebox allows my duck shaped feet some wiggle room and the stretch GORE-TEX® Panel across the tongue holds my instep securely in the shoe.

With fit taken care of, I need a shoe that is waterproof because walking and running through wet grass and shallow streams works a lot better with a shoe that doesn't let water in. Of course there is a giant hole in the top of the shoe (where my leg comes out) but keeping water out of the rest of the shoe is a good thing.

Waterproofness and durability are also top on the list since I don't like wet feet and I can't exactly get a new pair of shoes half way through the trip. With a GORE-TEX® Liner, my feet stay dry (unless I fall in a creek and the water comes over the top) and since Gore is always involved in the design and testing of the shoe, it is going to be durably waterproof.

It is hard to get exercise on a long motorcycle trip and running is one of the few ways I've managed to get my heart rate up. The Mindbenders are designed to be trail running shoes (and they are great at doing that) but I've pushed them quite a bit and run on the pavement as well. I've probably logged 150km of street running this trip and so my knees seem to be doing ok.

If there is a downside to these shoes (and every review needs to talk about some place for improvement), the rubber outsole on my right heel came detached from the midsole somewhat early on. It is now a little flapper on the back of the shoe. I could easily reglue this, but just haven't gotten around to it. Also, and this will happen with any waterproof footwear, after I fell into creek and my shoe filled up with water, it took a long time to dry, and in the process got a little stinky.

But with 120 days on these shoes, I'd say they are doing pretty darn well. I'm planning on putting them on my feet today to go trekking in the mountains above Bariloche.

Leaving Patagonia

2011-04-28T07:53:00.000-07:00

We left Tortel in the usual rain and decided to head for a farm that may soon be underwater from the dam project (see previous post). Backtracking on the Austral for 60 km, we came to the turnoff for the Nadis River and headed for the confluence with the Baker. At the end of this track are a few very off the grid farms run by Patagons who worked this land for a couple of generations.

A German/ Chilean couple built a little cabin on their land and allow tourists to stay there for very cheap and enjoy the remoteness of the area. Large glaciated peaks tower over the biggest river in Chile with waterfalls dripping down the glacial cut forested walls of the valley. Just over the crest is the Northern Icefield with its tentacles of glaciers tumbling down valleys to feed the baker. It is a perfect spot to have a farm and to be removed from everything in the world. No electricity, no towns, no roads, no nothing.

We went for a walk around the land through the wet grass and watched birds and glaciers from the confluence of the rivers. This little guy didn't seem to mind us at all as he was staring into the river looking for what must be some yummy fish. After taking some 3000 photos, we decided to leave him alone. Thanks little buddy.

We went shopping for our dinner in the garden by digging up potatoes, and carrots and picking beans and peas out of the autumn garden. We picked up fresh german style bread from the owner. On our way back to the cabin, we saw the dad of the ranch carrying kittens over to the kids because he had just found them in the hay loft.

We fired up the wood stove, cooked a nice meal and enjoyed a relaxing night in a very remote area.

The next morning we woke up with pouring cold rain. With the snow level just 1000 feet above us, we contemplated staying another night, but new that we were running out of time. The Southern part of the Austral had grabbed us and slowed us way down, but after the looking at the calendar and counting backwards from when we have to leave Santiago, we very slowly and reluctantly packed up the bikes and headed off into the rain.

We have very good rain gear. And I will write a review about that later, but even though we stayed bone dry, our feet became little popsicles after 2 hours of miserable rain. We brewed up some tea in Cochrane to warm up but neither of us wanted to push on any further that day. So with only 60km of riding for the day we found a place to stay and warm up next to a stove.

It is a good thing we stopped because the next morning was bluebird beautiful and all the new precipitation had coated the mountains in perfect white. We headed north along the baker river to Lago General Carrera and then along the southern coast of this 100 mile long crystal blue lake. We stopped for a picnic on the beach and ate the rest of our german bread. It was a perfect way to leave Chilean Patagonia.

We crossed into Argentina without incident and for the next 3 days headed north battling Patagonian winds through the desert side of the mountains.

And now we are in Bariloche where we plan to spend three days in this idealistic resort town.

Along the Rio Baker.
This will all be underwater if the dam project goes through.

Drying out our stuff around the heater.

The perfect picnic spot

Bluebird, at last.

Patagonia Sin Represas o con Represasas?

2011-04-28T07:31:00.000-07:00

That is the question. If you are like me and didn't know what a represa is but had seen billboards everywhere supporting one stance or the other then let me help you out.

A represa is a dam. And the question is whether to build 2-5 very large dam projects in the region of Patagonia where we just were. Oh course my first reaction is "no freakin' way!" but hold on there cowboy and lets look at the different sides and lets even see if I am allowed to have an opinion as such. For a very one-sided look, but well produced, take a look at this website to see about the projects.

If you have been reading my blog, you maybe can get a sense for how fantastic this part of the world is. We drove and drove and got a peep of a remote and wild landscape that just goes on and on and on and on. Ironic that we saw it from a road which when it was put in dramatically altered the landscape but granted access to it. However, if you look at a map you can see that there is a whole lot more that is not accessible by road which feels really good.

Why does it feel good? I think it incredibly important for our psyche as humans to know there are places in the planet that are incredibly hard to get to and that are relatively unaltered by humans. Places where things can happen "naturally" and where an animal or plant may never know that humans exist. We need these places and there are very few of them in the world. The thing about these types of places is that once we affect them, it is very hard to go back. Or… if we do have an impact then we should try to minimize our impact in small ways.

Patagonian Chile has some mighty big rivers fed by some mighty big icefields and glaciers.
The Rio Baker is a turquoise blue or dull green (depending on how far down river you are looking at it) with a flow of 1000 cubic meters per second. That is a cube of water 30 feet by 30 feet by 30 feet passing by every second. It cuts through a few rock canyons on it 700 foot drop from the second largest lake in South America to the Pacific Ocean at Tortel. Depending on how you look at it, it just begs to have some dams put on it or it is spectacular river unlike anything I have ever seen and needs to be preserved as such. Megan and I both marveled at this river as we drove along it commenting that we just don't have rivers like this in the states- they are all dammed.

[perfect for damming] The plan is to build 2 mega dams along this bad boy and send the energy via high tension power lines thousands of miles up north to Santiago and even further north to the copper mines. There is also a plan to build another 3 dams further south of O'Higgins on the river that drains Lake O'Higgins.

Why does Chile need this much energy? Depends who you talk to, but copper mining is the source of income for Chile and copper mining needs energy. Also, Santiago is a growing metropolis and needs more electricity. The way it is put, they can get it from Hydro, or they can get it from burning gas.

Who wants to see a dam go in? The impact would be huge. Thousands of large construction trucks driving up and down the Austral. New roads put in to create the power lines? Enormous lakes where once there was only a beautiful river.

My thought is this, and it is easy for me to have this thought since I don't actually have to make a decision and since I certainly do not know all of the facts, but thats what we do, make judgements on things without knowing all of the facts and without actually having to be culpable for our decisions, right?

Does Chile actually "need" the energy? Are there energy savings that can be made to put off needing more electricity? I bet there is. If in fact, they do need more energy, can they get it from smaller scale projects like microdams, solar (there is plenty of that in the north), and wind? I know these things cost more money are more of a pain in the butt than 2-3 mega dams, but is it worth the sacrifice to save these parts of Patagonia?

I suspect a few people and corporations have a lot to gain by building these new dams. These people have a lot of power and sway and know that if they keep pushing, the general apathy of society will allow it to happen.

But I'm just a guy who drove through on a motorcycle, burning gas the whole way, using electricity when it was available and who doesn't actually have to live with the affects of the project (or lack thereof). I think it is important for me to get information and form an opinion, but I have to keep an open mind and allow for the fact that I don't know everything and that my opinion could need to change. Or that if I hold my opinion, than my lifestyle could need to change to support my thoughts.

How did we get thrust into the Represas debate so quickly? Well, we drove through Patagonia for a while and were deeply affected by what we saw. But after finally getting gas in O'Higgins we decided to stay a night in Tortel, a town that until about 8 years ago was only accessible by boat. This town is built on the edge of a fjord with no flat land available anywhere. People just built their houses into the hillsides and then connected them by wooden walkways. So Tortel has no streets, only raised wooden walkways that zigzag down 7 km of rugged coastline. It is a interesting place to visit.

It is also a difficult place to find safe parking for the motorcycles since there is generally a large (unsecure) gravel lot where cars park and then you walk into town.

We managed to find a dumpy place to stay that allowed our bikes to be somewhat close to us and since our bikes comfort is more important than ours, we hunkered down here for the night. As we were getting ready to cook our Pasta Panamericana for the night a french guy comes walking into town and also stays in our small little place. Since there is literally no open restaurant in town (it is low season), we offered to cook him food and we chatted. Turns out he is a journalist with a french new agency doing a 1 hour documentary on the dams. His angle is to interview the scientists who are measuring the impact of the project and doing the research on what the ecosystems of Patagonia. He's a very thoughtful, energetic person who has learned a lot about the projects, their impacts, and the implications. For those of you in Seattle, he reminded me a lot of Frank Huster (not only because he is french) but by his throw himself at the world with enthusiasm approach.As any good journalist (not editorialist) he refuses to have an opinion until after he has finished he work. He can see all sides of the story and I think because of this has been granted access to all sorts of interesting people.

We thoroughly enjoyed passing a rainy evening huddled around a small wood stove learning about what Antoin had learned about.

I look forward to his documentary even though it will be in French. Perhaps I can get someone to translate for me.

Dependence on Fossil Fuels

2011-04-20T11:59:00.000-07:00

[Our Hostel in O'higgins] We have felt more than a little guilt over the fact that we are burning gas pretty much for the sake of burning gas this entire trip. My back of the envelope calculation says that between our two bikes we have burned 525 gallons of gas to get from Seattle to here. (around 17000 miles at 65 miles per gallon times 2 bikes). I justify this in my head in that to fly down here would take more gasoline than this and people fly down here all the time. But then when we flew back to Chicago for just a week a felt very guilty for that gas consumption.

Two main thoughts come to mind about gas.

1) It seems like nothing less than a miracle that we can drive all the way from Seattle to the Southern tip of the Austral and be able to find this extremely hard to find and manufacture substance called gasoline. That even the most remote places of the earth, we can find places every 200 miles or so that allow our machines to keep running for another 200 miles. That the price for this stuff is so inexpensive (ranging from $1/ gallon in Bolivia to $9/ gallon in Chile- ironically there are far more cars in Chile than Bolivia) that we can actually drive all over the place just for fun. I know full well that those times are quickly coming to an end and that in 20 years time a trip like this will be so expensive that almost no one could afford to do it. Look how lucky we are!

2) The was cooler way to do a trip like this would be to do it on bicycles. This would remove most of the guilt of fossil fuel dependance (except for the pesky plane ride home) and would be like our experience times 1000.

This dependence on fossil fuels for our trip was made down right apparent in Villa O'Higgins. O'Higgins is 170 miles south of the last gas station. Although we carry an extra gallon of fuel (60 miles range for 1 bike), the 340 mile round trip is must too far for our bikes. However, we heard that it was possible to buy gas in O'Higgins, so that even if the gas cost $15/gallon we could make it work.

Our plan was to go to O'Higgins, spend the night and then work our way back north the next day and onward to Argentina and the Bariloche area. With about 2 weeks left in our trip we have time to go slow, but we have to keep moving a little bit. We celebrated with our Tequila and coffee, then turned around and went to little place that sells gas. The guy turned on the pump, put the nozzle into my tank, squeezed the trigger and nothing came out. He went inside and got a can of WD40, sprayed it in random places on the pump, tried again and still nothing came out.

He looked at us, shrugged his shoulders and said "Sorry, no gas today." We asked him when there might be gas and he said he didn't know. It depends on when he could fix the pump. We asked about other options and he said we could go to Cochrane which is the town 170 miles north of here. When we pressed him further on the time to fix the pump he said that maybe he could get it working later in the day but that he would probably have to call someone to come down and that could be several days.

[O'higgins] So here we are in O'higgins. Stranded without gas until we don't know when. But this is Patagonia and we are very far from anywhere. The fact that we can get gas at all is amazing so waiting a few days for it is no problem.

In fact we welcome the break. The temptation is to ride everyday and see a lot of things. But as we have been asked a few times-in my paraphrased spanish- No pueden conocer nada si siempre estan manejando. (You can't get to know anything if you are always driving)- ***Side note: I really like the word Conocer in spanish. Spanish has two words for "to know"- Conocer and Saber. Saber is to know something- like in theory or knowledgable. Conocer is to actually know something- like to get to know or know it first hand. There is a big difference and one that english doesn't always make.***

Yesterday we went for a hike up a valley towards a very large glacier. We hiked on a muddy path for 6-7 miles up valley, and then turned around and came back. We saw lots of second growth forest (I still don't understand how they extract the trees without roads) but also saw some amazing Patagonian Old Growth Cypress forest.

At the end of the line for us was a cute little hut where people could stay if the wanted. I ate a yummy can of Salmon and burped fish all the way back.

The trail was extra muddy because a few cows had decided to always go for a hike and they destroyed the trail but we made it to be a bog game of hot lava monster and it was kind of fun.

Today we are going to bake bread and write on the blog, and perhaps tomorrow we will leave, if our dependance on fossil fuels will let us.

Moto note:

We found a mechanic in Coyhaique to "fix" megan's leaky fork seal. They didn't have the part, but they did take apart her fork, clean up the seal, put a firmer spring around it, and replace all the fork oil. It seams to be holding. However, later that day, my fork seal started to leak. And then it really started to leak. The problem is that once there is oil on the fork, dirt sticks to the oil which then gets pushed into the seal and makes it worse.

I fashioned this homemade boot around the telescopic part to keep dirt off by using an old rag, a ziptie and our sewing kit. It seems to be keeping dirt off of the fork which is good, but I am still loosing quite a bit of oil. I hope I can make it to Bariloche on this thing where I hear there is a good mechanic.

A town of one

2011-04-20T11:40:00.000-07:00

There are big towns and there are small towns. Each town has its own feel and this comes from a combination of the place where the town is, the community/ history of the town, and the visitors own personal attitude/ experience in that town.

The pure physical location of a town can very much dictate its characteristics. A town on the ocean with plenty of food will be very different from the same town out in the middle of the desert or high up in the mountains. A town that is surrounded by fertile land will have a different sense of time than a town that exists solely for tourism. What that feel of the town is will be based on the history/ community.

The personality of the town comes from the collective experience of the people in there. How long has it been there? What type of organization is there in the town? How do people interact and do they welcome visitors or do they see visitors as space aliens who can only negatively affect them?

Then there are the visitors. Your attitude upon arrival can have everything to do with how you come to be in that place. What do you expect to find? Are you just taking from the place, or do you have something to share? Do you plan on leaving the place with the attitude that you would like to go back and be welcomed or has it been a long day, you can't communicate with people, and you just get off on the wrong foot?

Of course, I use the word "town" as if it were an entity it itself. It isn't. Each person is their own person, but as a traveler you tend to make generalizations about places base on what you experience. This isn't fair, but it happens. Just read any guidebook and you will see these types of generalizations made about anyplace. Its what we do as humans (west coasters vs east coasters, democrats vs. republicans, men vs. women).

On the southern part of Carretera Austral, there is a section towards the end where they haven't built a road. The government runs a free ferry that travels the 20km or so through a fjord. There is a time schedule for this ferry, but we were so far removed from the concept of time (and getting that information seemed difficult) that we just knew we would show up and take the ferry when we could. Because of the stranded dog episode, our day was getting a bit late but we hoped for a 4 o'clock ferry which would deliver us to the other side by 4:45 which would allow us 2 hours to drive the final 100km of the Austral into Villa O'Higgins before dark. Upon arrival, we found out that the ferry didn't go until 5.

Leaving at 5 would mean either a) driving in the dark in the pouring rain (did I mention it was 40 degrees and raining) or b) finding a place to camp somewhere along the way. We made a at the beginning of this trip to not plan on driving in the dark (we have only had to do it 3 times) and camping in the freezing rain sounded kind of not fun.

The town where the ferry leaves from is called Puerto Yangay. It is an ex-military outpost in the bottom of a glacial valley with snow capped peaks guarding over it. There are 5 government houses and a cement ramp that goes into the water where the ferry picks you up. There is a small kiosko (café/ warming hut/ store) that relies on business from people waiting for the ferry. In the Summer months, she can get 500 travelers/ day but in the Fall she gets 2 (that's us).

We went inside to get some Nescafé, homemade empenadas, and to warm up by the fire. We talked about what to do. Should we just go for it and see what happens on the other side of the ferry? Or should we attempt to hunker down here for the night and play it safe. With her typical smile, Megan asked the women who runs the kiosko about places to stay and the woman said there were none. She also said a bunch of other stuff, but we didn't really understand through her thick chilean accent. The closest town, Tortel, was about 30 km back on the road and we didn't want to go back there. This town also has a reputation (and I get back to the "feel of a town" here) for being not so nice to travelers. We had heard it from a motorcycle guy we ran into and we had heard it from some police we met ("they mix their gas with water- it is a nice place to visit but don't stay there")

We decided not to go for it and we decided we'd talk to the woman again about our options in Puerto Yangay. Maybe we could find a shelter to set up our tent under. That'd be better than camping out in the rain.

It turns out that the woman had told us before that we could stay in her house (one of the run down government houses). Her daughter and husband were not in town (they were 120km north in the bigger town so that her daughter could go to school). We asked how much and she looked at us like we were crazy. Why would she charge us?

So we waited around until 7 (when the last ferry crosses) passing the time and slowing down a bit. I went for a walk around town (this took 5 minutes) and tried to hike up to the weather tower but got bogged down in moss and swamp. We shared some Maté (the local tea) with Ines (the woman) and played with the ferry dog.

At 7 we went up to her humble house. She has no electricity but she does have a great wood stove and we watched as she baked bread for the next day. We chatted about this and that and about how she is the only inhabitant of Puerto Yangay. Sometimes some police stay at the military camp and the boat people live on the ferry but they rotate out every 20 days so she really is Puerto Yangay.

When the fresh bread came out of the wood fired oven, we put strawberry preserves on it (which she grows in the summer) and that was dinner. Yummy!

The point being that the town of Puerto Yangay is unique. It is in a very remote location, relies on tourism for it livelihood, and the entire feel of the town is currently dictated by one person. We approached it with open minds and time to spare and the town gave back to us. That's one aspect of traveling that is so great, the times when things don't go as planned but work out for the better.

The end of Austral and setting goals

2011-04-20T11:31:00.000-07:00

Want to know what is at the end of the famous Carretera Austral (translated: Southern Road)? Let me tell you: A small hydroelectric plant.

So we made it to our second goal. The furthest south point on the Austral.

Before we did the calculations and figured out where we were, our previous goal had been to make it to the same latitude as our home in Seattle (47.66). Oddly, when we arrived at said latitude there was a little house which we decided we would buy and call our second home.

Isn't it cute? If anybody wants to visit, just let us know and we'll get you the keys. It is kind of a pain to get to but it in a really nice place.

We have been loosely paying attention to our latitude since Santiago. Santiago is at the same latitude as the California/ Mexico border and feels like it.

Without studying a map, we wondered what the latitude of Seattle would feel like down here. It seems that the climate zones tend to compress a bit in southern Chile. By the time the time we were at the same latitude as San Francisco, it felt like we were in Oregon. By the time we were in Oregon (the start of the Austral), it felt like British Columbia and as we continued south it started to feel more like central BC. The tree line started coming down from what looked like 5000 feet at the start of the Austral to 1500 feet at the end (It is at 6000 feet in Seattle).

So to make sense of it all, I'd say that by the time we hit the latitude of Seattle we were more in the climate zone of the latitudes of the middle of BC (some 1000 miles north of Seattle). I suppose this is because in the southern Hemisphere, there is a lot more ocean than in the northern hemisphere. This makes for colder temps and wetter storms which in turn affects the vegetation and topography (since everything is glacially carved down here).

But back to goals. We abandoned the idea of going all the way to Ushuaia because we didn't want to feel like we had to always be moving south in order to make it in time. We didn't want to get so fixated on a goal that we ended up not being present. Going to Ushuaia was also made more impractical by our trip from Santiago to Chicago in March. It just through the whole timeline off. Maybe I will regret the decision to not go there, but it will be there in the future and we have seen a lot of cool stuff that we otherwise wouldn't have seen had we gunned it down there.

So we needed another goal. As I wrote about earlier, we decided the Austral would be a good goal. We didn't know how far south we would make it on the road. It depended on the roads and the weather. Well the weather and the roads have been very do-able and here we are at the southern end of the Austral.

The Austral was built in the 80's by everyone's favorite dictator Pinochet. Bad guy, but he did invest in a good road. It links up previously inaccessible parts of Southern Chile. It is an impressive road and goes through some amazing terrain. It never stops giving beautiful vistas and the further south you go, the more you feel like you are in a place that you should feel very lucky to be in.

The end of the road is 865 km from the start in Chaiten and currently comes to a big fat dead end because of the Southern Patagonia Icefield and the inability for the Argentinian and Chilean governments to decide to cooperate and build a road that meanders between the two countries (which it would have to do down here).

In the meantime, we find ourselves at the Southern Point of the road in Villa O'Higgins without enough gas to turn around and head back north to where we can cross into Argentina.

Upon arriving in O'Higgins, we saw that the road went through town and continued south. So of course we took the road. It got smaller and started meandering beside O'higgins Lake (the 5th largest in South America). After 15 km or so, it finally crested a hill and came to an end in front of a raging creek. And on this creek was a small, unobtrusive, hydroelectric plant that is the power source for O'higgins (population 450).

And so we broke out our small bottle of Tequila that we have been carrying from Seattle, brewed up a mug of coffee, and enjoyed our farthest south point, more or less the equivalent to the US-Canada border.

Cooking dinner at this small cabaña in Puerto Tranquillo

Megan enjoying the view

This beautiful granite wall reminded me of a smaller Squamish. It looked to be about 8 pitches and stellar granite. If this were near Seattle, it would have 200 routes on it.

More fantastic climbing outside of Coyhaique.
This splitter basalt went on and on with gorgeous columns.

We finally figured out what an Andean Condor looks like and took this picture. Super cool.

It is hard to tell in this photo but this waterfall drops at least 1000 feet from the hanging glacier.

This is the second largest lake in South America and a startling turquoise color.

On to adventure

2011-04-13T18:54:00.000-07:00

As I said in the previous post, we have to create the trip we want to have. We no longer have to make it to a place by a certain time. True, we need to be in Valparaiso on May 10 to ship our bikes home, but that is north of here and we can always just turn around and head there anytime.

However, we do want to ride the Carretera Austral (Highway Austral) through Patagonia. The Autral is a famous road as it winds through the fjords and mountains of the Patagonia region of southern South America. It is mostly dirt and one can go for 100 miles without seeing any sign of civilization. It sounds fantastic… in the summer.

With winter fast approaching, riding the Austral may or may not be a fun/ miserable experience. How much rain will we get? Will we have to ride through snow? Will we see incredible mountains and penguins? Can our bikes take it? These are all things to figure out on the way.

There are two main ways to get to the Austral since it is not connected by roads to the rest of Chile. Most people cross over to Argentina, head south through Bariloche and then jump back over to Chile and the Austral. The option we chose was to take a boat from the main part of Chile 100 miles south to the town of Chaiten. From here you can ride south with little ferry crossings here and there where they just can't build a road.

We had planned to visit an island called Chiloe, but when we arrived at the ferry office we found out that the boat was either leaving that night (monday night) or Saturday. We could also catch a boat on Friday night from the southern part of Chiloe, but we decided that it was best to just get South sooner than later. So we paid the 200 dollars for ourselves and our bikes (we got a cabin which cost an extra 80 dollars but after our experience in Greece in 2006 we have thus vowed to never take an overnight boat without a cabin).

The ferry left at midnight so we killed the day in Puerto Montt by eating some seafood, and buying groceries for the next few days. Somehow that ate up the entire day and by 7 we were ready to board our ferry. But we couldn't board until 10:30 and it was now pouring rain. There is something incredibly disorienting about waiting for a boat in the dark in the pouring rain and not being exactly sure where to catch said boat. Usually by 7 we have a place to stay and are all ready for whatever the night may bring, but not now. We managed to make some sandwiches in a little waiting room and then milked a beer at a local bar.

The boat ride was great. We received very mixed instructions about where to park the bikes on board but after a little confusion we finally just left the bikes unlocked on the side of the boat and ferry dudes said they would take care of them. A year ago, I would have never done this, but after many months of traveling around on the ladies, we have become a lot more lax about the bikes. I snapped this photo just in case we never saw the bikes again. In the background you can see the backhoe which I figured would help to date the photos if we got into it with the ferry company.

The morning came, and after waiting for a big truck and backhoe (there were three backhoes and the boat) to get off, we took off and onto the Carretera Austral.
The weather was pretty darn good and the views were top notch. At times, I could have easily convinced myself I was in British Colombia, but then we'd see a flock of parrots and be reminded we were in Patagonia.

We found a place to camp next to some hot springs and weathered the very rainy night by soaking in the springs and using the more than adequate facility at Las Termas de El Sauce.
So here we are in La Junta waiting out a little more rain and hoping for improved weather. The forecast calls for decent weather for the next three days (depending on which forecast I read) so we should be able to get some great views as we continue south.

[letting air out our tires since we will be on dirt for the next 500 miles] Motorcycle maintenance note: Megan seems to have blown a seal in the suspension of one of her front forks. It is leaking fork oil, and quite a bit. This means that her front suspension will get a little springier over the next few days. It should be ok, but we should also fix it before she bounces all over the road. The problem is that we don't have the rubber seal that we need and it isn't exactly a standard part. We hope to find it in Coyhaigue (the biggest town in these parts) but if we can't then we will have to decide to continue south on the Austral with half of a front suspension, or bail over to Argentina where the roads are paved and then head back up to Bariloche where we might have a better chance of finding the part. We'll just have to see.

Starting the Austral in Chaiten- A village destroyed by a volcano in 2008

Look closely at this photo to see why it is not in Squamish, BC

Megan's front fender broke yet again. I put together a quick fix that I hope will last the rest of the trip.

Gigi turns 20000

World's second cutest dog. He just jumped right up into my lap.

I had to visit a thrift store down here to get an extra fleece. I chose a fun one.
Here I am at the "cabin" at the hotsprings.

Our dinner- before cooking. We call this Pasta Pan Americana.
It is pasta with and vegies we can find, olives are a must and you can either add red sauce or cream.
We alternate day to day.

Cooking on the panniers with a Chilean beer nearby.

For our friend Aurelia. Apparently she has a bridge down here.

This was a wall of waterfalls.

Snow just above us. Brrrrrrr.

A moto family without direction

2011-04-13T18:03:00.000-07:00

The trip has taken on a new form post Chicago. We no longer have a goal, per se, but rather are just wandering about until our return date of May 12 from Santiago. It is a subtle difference but one that changes the whole feel. Add that to the fact that the Southern half of Chile feels very much like the west coast of North America and you end up with more of a touring adventure rather than an exploration adventure.

As an analogy, imagine you are the coach of a really kick ass soccer team. With 15 minutes left in the game, you have a 10 point advantage so there is really no way to lose. You have already made your goal of winning the game and you did it in a style that felt great. Now you just have to run out the clock. You still get to coach your team, which you absolutely love, but you just don't have to do it with the same gusto as you did before. You can choose to keep going for it, but you don't have to. There is a difference.

[getting ready to leave Santiago] To keep ourselves motivated, we chose to head over to the coast and do a little camping along the way. Having not seen true forests in a long time, I couldn't really believe that Chilean coast is one large tree farm. It now looks a lot like the Oregon coast. When we hiked through a native forest at one point, we learned that before it was all cut and replanted, it was a little more exotic with bamboo and large deciduous trees, but now it is all pine and eucalyptus for as far as you can see.

We stuck as close as we could to the coast for 3 days before the weather started to turn cloudy and cold. At that point, we decided to jump over to the central valley where we hoped the weather would be a little sunnier.

Along the way, we ran into a Chilean motorcyclist named Germán (pronounced Herman). He lives in the resort town of Villarrica which is next to one of the first of the lakes in the lakes region of Chile. Lago Villarrica is a large lake with an active snow capped volcano looming overhead.

Germán was a saint when we arrived in town and helped us to get situated. He offered up his ranch for us to stay at, but we needed internet so we decided to stay in a hostel in town instead. He dropped two sea Kayaks off at our hostel for us to paddle around in. We could just use them as we will and he would swing by after we left Villarrica to pick them up.

[view from our room] We ended up staying inside most of the day working on Montessori 123 and talking with our friend in Seattle, Dan, who just the day before had broken his femur in an avalanche. Then with about an hour of sun left, we took the kayaks out on the lake for a sunset cruise. Since the wind had been blowing all day, there were actually waves on the lake so we could surf them a bit. It was a pretty nice luxury.

The next morning, we woke up and packed up our bikes. As we were getting ready to leave, the owner of the Hostel through a bit of a fit about the Kayaks. He wanted them off of his lawn asap. If we left them there for Germán to pick up, he would throw them out on the street. Now, if he had a small lawn and the kayaks were in the way of his other guests or impeded his operations in anyway then I could understand to some extent his fit. But we were the only guests (in fact I think we were the only tourists in town) and his 2 acres of lawn were in no way affected by the kayaks. So we took the kayaks off of his property, set them down on the planting strip in front and called Germån to come pick them up right away. We needed to fiddle with the bikes anyway so we sat there for an hour tinkering away while we waited. German showed up, all smiles, and we loaded the boats onto his rig. What a nice guy! We offered to pay him money for gasoline for driving back and forth from his ranch, but he merely replied that motorcyclists are a family and we help each other out whenever possible.

What a great family we belong to!

The coast of Chile

These birds were everywhere in the trees

Tightening the steering head bearing in a shop in Constitution (the hardest hit town of the 2010 Earthquake

Check out the fallen down building from the earthquake. It just plain fell down.

These birds were going nuts over something. Must be fish.

We went for a walk with this dog. He wouldn't cross the bridge, so I carried him.

Stir fried veggies with Thai peanut sauce over rice.

We let this kid Dan ride Megan's bike. Here's me chasing after him to ask him where he was going. He came back.

One of a billion cute dogs. We fed this little guy enough peanuts to make me puke. But he didn't seem to mind.

On the virtues of knowing what you are doing

2011-04-08T05:29:00.000-07:00

We arrived without problems back in the land of sunshine, spanish, and high prices aka Santiago, Chile.

On this trip, we rarely revisit a place, and thus rarely know our way around. Finding our way to a hostel is always tricky.

Is it on a one way street? It is often very hard to tell if a street is one way- on the other hand, we often just drive the wrong way on streets using our "gringo card" as an excuse.

Will it have parking for our bikes?

What is the system for buying a bottle of beer? Some places simply won't sell me a beer unless I bring in an empty bottle. In some places, I can explain that I am happy to pay the deposit on the bottle but I still have to look the owner in the eye and promise to return the bottle when I am done. In some places, they insist I drink it on the spot which usually isn't what I want to do. In some places I have to pay a deposit, but then they refuse to give me back my deposit money the next day because I don't have a little slip which they may or may not have given me. In some really really backwards places, you don't actually pay a deposit for the bottle and then when you are done you actually throw the bottle in the trash and that is that… crazy! Like I said, it is always different.

We had Santiago all figured out. We knew how to get from the airport to the hostel Romandiaz (after paying the hefty $140 USD per person Chilean government reciprocal airport arrival tax). We were greeted by name by the super nice woman who runs the place. We knew how to squeeze hot water out of the shower. We knew our way around the kitchen. We knew where and how to buy a bottle of beer. In this case, you go to a boteleria. You look at the beer cooler and decide what you want. You give one person your empty bottle (if you have one) and they give you a receipt. Then you tell another person what you would like, hand this person your receipt for the empty and you pay this person. Then you turn left and hand a third person your receipt for the beer. This person then yells across the shop to another person who gets the beer out of a cooler and brings it to the third person. You then have to insist that you don't want a plastic bag for your beer and eventually she hands you the beer and you walk out. Nice and easy.

We knew how to hop on the subway and go to our mechanic's house to deliver motorcycle parts which we had picked up in the states (new chain, front sprocket, and rear sprocket for Megan bikes, new steering head bearings for both our bikes, and a new GPS mount for my bike- which Garmin warrantied for me even though it was technically out of warranty). We returned the next day, paid a handsome ransom for our lovely ladies and they should be good to go for the rest of the trip.

We knew how to buy groceries in the largest grocery store I have ever been in. It makes US stores look small. Seriously. And there is a person on literally every isle who is more than happy to help you make a selection. Top this off with shopping cart drivers who have the same sense of space as a Bolivian truck driver and you've got a party. And they've got these cool machines that measure all of you health statistics (height, weight, body fat percentage, blood pressure and heart rate) and then give you a little receipt so you can see how you stack up to the rest.

The one thing we didn't know was that our friend Ruth lives in Santiago and we didn't realize it until our last planned day in the city. We got in touch with her, went out for Peruvian food (you know it is a long trip when you get nostalgic for food from a previous country) and she convinced us in a proper british fashion (by begging with a lovely accent) to stay for the weekend at her place in town.

So we met an expat community of Santiago We went to the horse races and lost money on one race. (we would have lost more but no one could figure out how to turn the lights on at the track and they had to shut it all down after dark). We rented beach cruisers and rode bikes up into the mountains east of town. We drank beer. Ate giant plates of french fries. Worked on Montessori 123. Enjoyed the company of Ruth, a splendid woman who years ago decided she had enough of England and started living abroad teaching English.

So that was our two weeks off from riding. Santiago for 2 days, Chicago for 8, then Santiago for another 4 days. A nice break from riding but it is time to get back on the road before winter arrives in the south.

Peruvian Food

New ways to look at our blog

2011-03-31T07:45:00.000-07:00

Blogger (aka google) made some fun new template for looking at our blog. You have to be running a relatively new browser (like Firefox 3.5+, Internet Explorer 8+, Safari, or Chrome- but I guess if you even know what I was just talking about, then you are probably already running these browsers).

Anyway, visit http:indulgentadventures.blogspot.com/view to take a look.

You can change the views on the upper right. My favorite is timeslide and sidebar.

And here is a photo of us contemplating crossing a river in southern Bolivia to keep you entertained:

How to run a successful online business

2011-03-29T19:44:00.000-07:00

Actually, I have no idea how to do that. But I now know how to coordinate a conference booth, get together 10's of thousands of dollars worth of education materials and create a marketing program while riding motorcycles through south america. The good news is that future conferences will seem as easy as catching a cold from a baby. As I sit here in the Chicago airport waiting to return to our previous life of motorcycle riding (after only a week and a half I have already forgotten what it feels like) I want to take the time to reflect on what we just went through… and what better way than to do it in verse:

(if this seems like a silly gimmick to you than I have to apologize;

but sometimes writing a blog can feel like my demise;

So I have to keep my mind entertained and happy;

otherwise my writing won't feel so snappy)

8 days in chicago, oh what a dream;

it should be so fun, or so it would seem;

the art institute and a chicago dog;

a deep dish pizza and some lake michigan fog;

but when you fly back to the states for a short time;

to work a conference for our business online;

the inside of hotels is about all you see;

that and a thousand faces of teachers montessori;

which is to say it is truly a pleasure;

montessorian hearts are something to treasure;

when we arrived in Chicago we jumped on the train;

found our hotel room with very little pain;

we tracked down all the boxes that have come from near and far;

assembled it all in our room without the use of a car;

we called our connection like our friends at Hello Wood;

to ensure our small booth would look tidy and good;

we came up with a plan on how to create a small shop;

and at 6:00 am got our boxes and ourselves to the Marriott;

Through Megan's good taste and with my sales history;

we set up a fantastic display for all to see;

we were ready to take credit cards, cash or check;

we had our receipts and hoped the whole thing wouldn't turn into a wreck;

The doors opened and it was on;

we worked out tushies off to dusk from dawn;

And so it went for 4 days in a row;

Selling our goods at the montessori trade show;

We met administrators, teachers, and even nuns;

They all loved our stuff but teachers are perpetually short on funds;

We held our ground and kept our prices fair;

we needed to break even, so the discounts were rare;

They all loved our cards, said they were the most beautiful;

The gave us suggestions, we wrote down it all;

We sold culture bags made in ecuador;

The teachers, they loved them, the bags they adored;

All those proceeds go to school;

We are raising money for a scholarship, now that's pretty cool;

Some were nervous to spend 40 bucks;

So we didn't sell them all, being left with 15 more sucks;

Wanna buy a bag? They have fun things, you can see;

All you have to do is visit montessori123;

At the end, we had sold quite a bit;

A little shy of profitable, but so it went;

We were so very tired but needed to break down the booth;

With our minds numb, we felt our lack of youth;

We looked around and realized we were the last around;

In a stupor and a daze we tried to take it all down;

It took us two hours to load it into boxes;

Our minds were numb, like two tired foxes;

Then for two more days, we processed our orders;

We calculated our wins and our losses in our hotel quarters;

We thought about next time and what we would do;

We sent our boxes home. Fedex, we love you.

So that was it and now here we are

Flying back to Santiago which seems really really far.

We'll jump on the bikes and have time to ponder

about what we just went through over yonder

in chicago for just over a week

and that was my poem, now its your turn to speak.

Drop us a comment and let us know where you stand

Did you like the verse, or does it sound sort of canned?

Why are we in the US?

2011-03-23T08:36:00.000-07:00

It all started last September. Megan went to a meeting of Montessori teachers and learned through the grapevine that an online Montessori Materials business was up for sale.
For the past 3 years we have worked pretty much exclusively with W.L. Gore teaching people who sell GORE-TEX® products how to sell said products. It is fantastic work and takes us all over the country meeting fantastic people and we can just barely squeak by a living by working this job for 6 months and then traveling for the other 6.
However, we will need a little more stability and perhaps a little more income in the future and besides, the outdoor industry is my passion, not Megan's.
So when the opportunity to plug back into the Montessori community but not having to be in the classroom full time presented itself, Megan became very excited.
We hemmed and hawed over the wisdom of owning an online business since neither of us know too much about it and for sure it would be much more work than we could anticipate.
But in late November we bucked up and bought the business. This post talks a bit more about it.
Starting tomorrow, the annual AMS Montessori conference starts in Chicago. 2600 Montessori teachers from around the US will converge at the Marriott for 4 days of Montessori Mayhem. Part of this conference includes an area for vendors to hawk their goods. We can't pass up this opportunity so for the past 4 months we have been prepping for this conference while in Seattle and on the road. During the evenings of the moto trip, we would both hunker down in front of our computers and work on things like a catalog, pricelist, figuring a way around the $100/ day internet convenience fee that Marriott charges... things like that.
So here we are in Chicago for the next week. We had 18 boxes of goodies sent to Chicago and they are now spread out all around our hotel room. Tomorrow at 6 am we will jump into a taxi with everything and roll down to the Marriott. We will have 5 hours to set up our booth (hopefully the display materials show up at the Marriott- that vendor actually has a booth at the show and he said he will bring them to us) before settling down for 4 days of selling.
We have no idea how this will go. We could be out a lot of money, we could break even, or we could actually profit somehow. I'm at least hoping for the middle choice.
Either way, we will learn a lot. We will learn how to be more efficient at future conferences. We will learn how to sell to Montessorians. We will get to meet our customers face to face. We will see where we can grow, and places where we can cut back.
Then, in a week, we will be back in Santiago.

Here we go!

Reconnecting with my high school nerd self

2011-03-23T08:16:00.000-07:00

You can tell from the intermittence of posts that we are in the midst of the trip. At the beginning of the trip, I am excited because all is new and I want to post a lot. I anticipate that at the end of the trip I will depressed and will want to write lots of posts so that I can remember the trip, but right now? Well, I should probably be writing more.
So here is the summary:
We stayed a week in Mendoza, Argentina with a childhood friend of mine. Kevin and I were quite tight from 7th grade up to 12th grade. In 1984, when I returned from a year abroad in 6th grade in Holland, I had missed the key social group formation that happens in the first year of middle school. That, and living in Holland had changed my perspective on things a little bit. For whatever reason, Kevin was kind enough to show me the ropes of middle school and we became very close friends. We both excelled in computers and we were drawn to the Commodore Pet 32 computers that they had at school.
As you can probably guess, this accelerated us into the cool group at school and we couldn't keep the ladies off of us. That, and being good at wood shop really had us running the school. We pretty much stayed nerds for the rest of our school careers. I remained sub 100 pounds until my junior year in high school which didn't help any either.
Even though High School kind of sucked for me, I do believe that being somewhat of an outsider has made me who I today and Kevin was a big part of forming that person.
I hadn't seen him in about ten years and was looking forward to hanging out with his family (Belen and his 2 year old daughter Chloe) in the wine capital of Argentina.

Upon arriving at Kevin's he showed us to our room and then we quickly adjusted to the Argentinian way of life. This involves drinking beer and wine, eating dinner at midnight and sleeping in quite late the next day. Not so bad, really.
We BBQ'd, we toured the area a bit, and we got reacquainted. When they had to work, Megan and I visited wineries and went up into the mountains to explore. The mountains in the area are enormous and come straight out of the valley. They form a 15000 foot wall and the canyons that go into them are amazing. It is a nice area and one I could see going back to for sure.
It was a pleasure to hang out with the family and somewhat scary and exciting to hang out with a two year old for so long. She is incredibly cute and fun to watch, but she is also a lot of work and needs constant attention. Kevin and Belen do a fantastic job juggling their personal lives with Chloe and it makes me nervous to consider having one of these of our own. But it'll be ok, right?
Having a deadline to be in Santiago by friday afternoon, we packed up our bikes on Thursday "morning" (which was really 1 o'clock) and headed for Chile.

The road climbed up through an incredible deep and dry canyon which can only be the Andes. We experienced some serious wind and passed 100's of Harley Davidson Motorcycles coming the other direction from Chile. From what I can gather, there was a rally in Mendoza and people in Chile own a lot of Harley's. It might have been fun to go, but we needed to be in Santiago.

[You can see the wind in this video blowing me over] We drove past Aconcagua national park (the highest peak in the Americas) but the snow clouds obscured our view of the giant. We did see some glaciers and some beautiful countryside. All the limitless valleys and peaks kept me looking around and wondering what it might be like to explore all of these places.

[at the border] The border crossing was pretty easy since both the Argentine and the Chilean border officials were in the same building. We dropped down to Los Andes and found an (expensive) room for the night. There was a rodeo in town so everything was booked and besides, Chile is just expensive.
We made the final 100km to Santiago and located the mechanic that I had read about on HorizonsUnlimited.com.
[the human rights museum in Santiago] We dropped of the bikes at this Chilean born, german motorcycle enthusiast and hoped for the best (for both our bikes and our pocket books). My steering head bearing went out again and megan's are starting to go. Because we need parking for the bikes for the next week, we also had him change the oil.
We enjoyed 2 days in Santiago, a very clean and modern city with US like prices on everything. I went for runs in the morning and then we walked around seeing the sites.\
Then, on Sunday afternoon, we took a taxi to the airport and boarded a plane for Chicago.

Some pictures of Argentina and Chile

2011-03-15T10:14:00.000-07:00

I don't know where to fit these in. I could write a big story, but I'll let the photos tell the story.

High up on the Altiplano. If you look carefully you can see Flamingos in the lake.

The border between Bolivia and Chile. Apparently, the place to check the bikes out of the country was 20km back on a sandy road. However... the guy accepted a couple of dollars to run the paperwork back for us later in the day. Money well spent.

Ice cream is so good down here.

Salt Mines in Valle de Luna. In places the walls were clear.

Out for a tour in Valle de Luna, Chile.

Watching the sunset with all the tourists. There must have been 500 people up here enjoying the sunset. Pretty fun.

18000 foot Volcanos everywhere

Looking for a campsite somewhere south of Susques. This spot didn't work out too well.

I love our stove, but without the high altitude jet, it was very difficult to get started at 14000 feet

I couldn't quite climb it, but at least I had my helmet on in case I fell. There were amazing, solid boulders all through this valley.

Argentine wine from Salta. Happiness for Megan.

The group of BMW riders from Cordova that we ran into. We stayed at this place with all of them. A great group of people with strong Argentine accents.

Even the cats get good food here

The wine aisle. Heaven for Megan, again.

Lush Valleys outside of Salta. The rivers were flooded which for interesting riding, but it was beautiful.

Parrots everywhere

Here we are in a front loader crossing one of the many rivers of Argentina's route 40

It is Megan's dream to throw a cute dog on the back of her motorcycle and ride the rest of the trip with it. This little guy almost made the cut.

Megan's front fender broke when she had the accident in Colombia. We had it repaired in Columbia, but when I dropped the bike the previous day it started to break again. I figured out a way to keep it together for a while using a compression strap.

Our camping picnic dinner with one of the many delicious wines from down here

Washing ourselves and our moto clothing in this perfect little stream. It was very hot here so it felt nice to have wet clothes.

This woman died of thirst on the side of the road but her son survived by drinking her breast milk. Now she is a saint in Argentina and everyone goes to visit here. The Difunta Correa is good luck and if you leave her something you will get what you want.

A proper BBQ with my high school friend Kevin Coryell.

More happiness

Marshall's happiness

That's right, I played the pan flutes.

Wine Cellars. Wow.

Wine grapes. Yummy.

Argentina Hates Bridges and I need to eat more often

2011-03-15T07:59:00.001-07:00

Not sure what it is all about. Peru is a pretty poor country and their roads have bridges. Bolivia seemed to build rather nice spans over running water. But Argentina... I guess all their bridge engineers decided to leave for Europe.

View Route in northern Argentina in a larger map

Since entering Argentina we have had to drive through so many rivers that I have completely lost count. We came in over the Paso Jamo from Chile and decided we were going to make a right turn at Susques and head down the famed Route 40. This road travels the entire North/ South distance of Argentina, about half on dirt.
February and March are the wet season and 2011 is a particularly wet one. People we have talked to say this reminds them of the ol' 1986 wet season which apparently was quite wet.

It seems like with every river we encounter just gets a little deeper and swifter. The video shows us driving down a road that just turned into a river. It wasn't so deep and was actually better driving than the road had been, but I am always nervous for the hidden hole or boulder.

Our bikes do pretty well in the water. The air intake for the engine is about 3 feet off the ground so one would have to be in really deep water (or lay the bike down in shallow water) to get water in the engine and so we have always plugged along when crossing rivers that even trucks couldn't cross.

Until we came to the one near Hualfin. This one was deep... and fast. No one except the real yahoos in their 4x4's were getting across. There was a highway crew there with giant front loaders and graders but they were just sort of driving in circles not quite sure what to do about the situation.

I contemplated just punching it across, but thought twice when the "Jefe" told us that we couldn't cross because he said so.
A local told us there might be a better crossing a little further upriver. Just then, a motorcyclists from France (Charles- his blog is here- in French) showed up and we all took off to look for a way to access the river upstream.

A few failed attempts on rocky roads that led to nowhere left us scratching our heads on how to proceed. Charles swore he saw a road that would take him to the river via a sandy wash. I was just getting hungry and grumpy and started to become convinced that too much messing around like this was going to ruin our bikes. I just wanted to go back to Haulfin, drink some beer and deal with this in the morning (it was getting late). Megan got the binoculars out and looked around. We decided to split up. Charles would go down the sandy wash, we would follow a hunch on one more road, and hopefully it would all somehow work out in the end. At this point, I was code red on my blood sugar level but refused to eat anything.

As we were attempting to turn the bikes around on a very rocky road, I dropped Megan's bike on a hill and went tumbling down it. I threw a bit of a fit, discovered I indeed hadn't broken my arm but had broken the clutch lever on her bike. Megan force fed me some dry bread. This picture was taken right in midst of it all. See how happy I am... and how happy Megan is with me?
After some food and some bickering in the heat, we heard Charles' cries from down in the sandy wash. He was very very stuck in the mud and needed us to help him get his bike back to us. Welcoming a distraction from the clusterf*** we were in, we walked down to him and with a little effort we got his bike rolling again.
Not able to drive Megan's bike (because of a lack of clutch lever) we weighed the options. I could attempt to JB Weld the lever back together. We could attach our vise grips to the cable and just pull when we needed a clutch... Or we could use a spare clutch lever if we had one. We didn't. But Charles had a Honda one. And guess what? It fit perfectly.

Back on the road and with some smiles we decided to go back to the main crossing and see if we could somehow get our bikes across. It would be dark in an hour, the next town was about 50km away (of what we thought would be washboard sandy/ dirt road) but we should try to cross anyway.
When we got back to the crossing, there was more heavy machinery but the situation seemed about the same. If only we could load our bikes into the front of a big front loader.

Megan set off to see what she could do. First she smooth talked the Jefe. He said that we would need to find a private vehicle to put our bikes in because his company (which I think was hired to make the road passable) couldn't except the liability. Then she started talking to the drivers. After what must have been some serious diplomatic discussions (Charles and I just stood back and watched) they agreed to take us across in a front loader.

In we went, one at a time and across the river, amassing on the other bank sometime around dark. I've always wanted to ride in the scoop of a big front loader and now I have. It is pretty much as cool as you might imagine it to be. I felt like a real prince up there.
We tipped the driver, loaded up our bikes, grabbed a backpacker from Montreal named Natalie and headed off for Belen. As luck would have it, the road turned to perfect pavement and we made quick time to the next town where I could finally get that beer I had been wanting.

Riding not blogging

2011-03-12T05:37:00.000-08:00

A perfect storm of

lots of dirt road riding
bad internet connections
realizing that the Montessori conference in Chicago is right around the corner and we have important deadlines (catalog, materials, cards, ...) to meet
not wanting to be on my computer any more than possible

has resulted in a lack of blogging of any kind.
We have made it Mendoza and will spend the next week here with a childhood friend (Kevin Coryell), his wife Belen and their 2 1/2 year old Chloe. I plan to get caught up on the blog, create a video of us riding through southern Bolivia, and get my clothes washed (it has been 3 weeks) while here.
In the meantime, Lenny - who we rode with for a week- has actually put some stories up on his blog. Take a look and it will give you a good idea of what riding through Southern Bolivia is like. Then when I finish the video, you can see it in motion picture magic.

So... more to come. I promise.

Lenny Blog: From Deadhorse Down.

Looking for adventure in all the dark places

2011-02-26T06:17:00.000-08:00

We have a very slow connection so no photos on this one, but I will put them up when I can.

I'm not so sure that coming to Bolivia during the height of the rainy season was such a good idea. Not that we had much of a choice but it adds an element of excitement everyday. The roads in bolivia are famous for having stunning views but they are also famous for being very bad. Add a nice layer of rain on top of the dirt and you get a lot of questions as to whether we can drive on the roads at all. There are of course paved options but these go way far east over to the jungle and we sort of want to stick to the desert for a while. And then as the icing on top, our map seems to be totally wrong when it comes to roads so we are just sort of stabbing in the dark when it comes to our route.
To start things out we left la Paz after getting new expensive Pirelli tires, drove up the autopista out of the valley, and Megan promptly got a flat tire. My first thought was that the tires had been mounted wrong and they pinched her tube but upon closer inspection she had managed to pick up a wicked piece of metal that sliced through the tire and tore apart the innertube. We changed the tire with the help of police force that was manning the checkpoint. After some debate we decided it might be best to go back into town and buy another innertube since we had used up our spare and we probably couldn't find another one for a long time. To sum it up we didn't leave la Paz until 4 and the next town was 170 miles away. Large thunderstorms hung over our route but somehow we managed to mostly dodge them all. Minutes after arriving in Oruro the rain came in full force but we were tucked safely in and headed off to find a Hari Chrishna vegetarian restaurant. Yummy
We met another rider named Lenny from new York and rode the amazing 180 miles to Potosi through terrain that reminded me of a mixtures of Montana, Nevada, and southern Utah. Except at 14000 feet. One of the best days of riding in a while as we managed to dodge most of the very large thunderstorm cells. We stopped to watch the lighting shows and then ran away as fast as we could arriving in potosi just after a big dump.
I recommend looking up Potosi on the web so I don't have to write about it but it is a very cool colonial city with a rich history of silver mining. Enough silver was extracted from the mountain above town to make a bridge from here to Madrid (whatever that means) but at the cost of 8 million lives of miners.
The mines are still being worked today by small cooperatives of miners but at any given time there are 10,000 people inside the mountain extracting silver, tin, lead, and zinc by hand. The conditions these guys work in are dank, dusty, and dangerous. Asbestos dust flows freely through the shafts and most of these guys are pounding holes for dynamite by hand. They make about 100 dollars per month doing this (if they find a vein) and die young from bad stuff in their lungs.
I, of course, had to check this out and signed up for a mine tour along with Lenny. Megan opted out.
Ever since I was young I have loved exploring mines and I couldn't miss this opportunity. We even got to explode dynamite.
With mixed feelings we exited the mines feeling elated because it was super cool, but just as nuclear bombs are super cool, I would rather they not exist. However I still want to learn about it and what better way than to experience it myself. The dynamite was a full on guilty pleasure but when else am I going to get that opportunity?
I will think twice before using silver but since almost everything in this world uses some silver what are we to do except raise awareness of where it comes from and think about the usage. This mine was bad but I am sure there are even worse.
It is pouring rain in potosi as we prepare to drive the 140 miles down to uyuni and the great salt flats. My map shows the road as dirt but I have that there is a lot of payment on it. We'll see. I hate packing up the bikes in the rain but at some point we have to keep moving south and I doubt tomorrow will be better than today. So here we go.
Sorry for no photos on this. We will get Megan's awesome photos up soon.

Bolivia and a bribe

2011-02-22T18:16:00.000-08:00

[Lake Titicaca] Seems so cliche to have to pay a bribe at the Bolivian border. Megan had a plan to get out of it, but since they asked for 75 cents, I just went ahead and paid it. Especially since we had just paid 270 dollars for visas to get into the country.

[puno] The day started with us in line at the Bolivian consulate in Puno, Peru- about 1.5 hours from the border. We read that if you got your visa at the consulate it was only $100 per person but when the Consulate finally decided it was time to open the office, he told us that we "can" get the visas at the border and that we should get them there. Then he walked past everyone in line (all Peruvians and Bolivians), out the door and straight to the coffee shop to get breakfast.
So we packed up the bikes, drove them through the front door of the Hotel Monterey and out onto the pedestrian only street. We drove a couple of hours along the shores of Lake Titicaca, past ancient Quinoa and Potato fields. For some reason, they were growing Lupin as well which I didn't really know was edible.
After a few turns we arrive at the Peru/ Bolivian border. Getting out of Peru took 5 minutes with lots of smiles and us telling the border people that Peru was our favorite country so far (seems like the right thing to say at borders). We drove over the hill to sleepy Bolivia. After waking up the immigration people, they handed us the paperwork for our visas (Americans need $135 visas to visit Bolivia since we charge Bolivians $135 to get into the US). The agent closely scrutinized all of our $20 bills and rejected a couple of them. One had a series number that he didn't like (starting with B), another had a fray at the edge. Not having a surplus of $20 bills, this started to become a problem. I had to go outside and change the Bolivianos that I had just bought using Peruvian Soles into dollars which as you can imagine was quite profitable for the money changers. Like I say, I always like to do my part to help out the local economy.
[bolivian visa] After some more hemming and hawing we finally got the visas in our passports and the 90 day stamp into the country. The immigration guy joked that he normally charges $5 for the stamp but since we were out of money he would just let us through. It was actually funny at the time.
The paperwork for the bikes was easy and quick and we just had one last needed stamp from the police before we were on our way into a country we both have been very excited to visit since the beginning of the trip.
Leave it to the police to be the rude ones. They stamped our paperwork, told us to make sure we got it stamped at every police check point (yeah, right), talked quietly amongst themselves and then told us it would cost 5 Bolivianos (75 cents) per bike for their time. Megan said we didn't have any money and was ready to go to war with these guys, but then I did the math in my head and realized how little they were asking and promptly gave in. I should have let Megan fight for justice but I caved in quickly.
We spent a night in Copacabana (a La Paz tourist destination on the shores of Titicaca) and then drove over a 14000 foot pass into severe thunderstorms and dropped down 6000 feet of muddy road to the town of Sorata.
[notice the llama in the background] Sorata is an old colonial town perched on the edge of one of those classic Andean river valleys. In theory, there are 6000+ meter (20000 foot) peaks just outside of town but we never saw them. We saw lots of mud and rain. We stayed at the wonderful Altai Oasis just outside of town run by the worlds most hospitable Bolivian family. We waited for a day for the rain to clear, but it never did.
We did, however meet a wonderful street dog we named coalcita and some quirky female doctors (megan's giardia started to come back) who advised Megan to eat vegetarian food- like white chicken. I went for a nice hike in the rain along a raging river and decided Sorata might be a nice place to come back to in the dry season.
We are now in La Paz in a very nice hotel with a wonderful view of the city.
[La Paz] This post is long enough, so I won't say too much about La Paz except picture an outdoor market where a million people participate all the time. This is La Paz. It is pretty cool.
And very last, we found a motorcycle shop here that has tires for our bikes (nosigliasport.com) and what I hope will be a really good chain. I am getting very tired of maintaining my chain and I want one that won't stretch out so much (and fall off). Hopefully this new chain does the trick.

The next leg of the trip will be an adventurous bit. Bolivia doesn't have a lot of paved roads (or bridges) and is famous for road blocks from protestors. We have a route in mind, but we have no idea if it is passable this time of year. I'll let you know.

How we became bird watchers

2011-02-14T07:45:00.000-08:00

Machu Picchu is on almost every travelers list of places to go. Rediscoverd in 1911 by an American looking for Inkan Ruins, Machu Picchu was never found by the ransacking Spanish so it is still in amazing shape.
Just a teeny bit of history here. The Inkans existed in these parts of the world for about 300 years from 1200 AD to 1500 or so before they were crushed by Small Pox and egotistical Spanish conquistadors. If you notice, it wasn't that long ago. The Inkans created a sort of Socialistic system (although they had slaves too) where communities grew food together and shared it. They were masters of agriculture as well as masters of stonework.

The ruins are everywhere in these parts. Since they chose to build with granite blocks perfectly (and I mean perfectly) fitted together, many of their buildings and terraces still exist throughout the area.
Machu Picchu is just one ruin, albeit a particularly aesthetic and intact one. To get a sense of Incan ruins and life, one does not need to visit Machu Picchu but visiting seemed like an important thing to do to share in some sort of Global Psyche. When Machu Picchu is referenced, I now know what it means and that feels important.
Because Machu Picchu is such a desirable place to visit, it is a bit of a goat rodeo getting to it. The Peruvian government has done a good job of minimizing impact but there are a lot of hoops to jump through to get there.
Here is what we had to do:
Drive 50 miles from Cuzco to Ollantaytambo and park the bikes at Los Portadas Hostal.
Buy a train ticket from Ollantaytambo to Aquas Calientes for 60 dollars per person (ouch). There is no road to Aquas Calientes (which is the closest town to Machu Picchu).
Buy tickets in Aquas Calientes for Machu Picchu (45 dollars per person)
[Megan can't focus on the camera because she is looking at something fuzzy in front of us] Wake up at 4:30 am and catch a 5:15 bus from Aquas Calientes up the mountain to Machu Picchu (8 dollars per person) arriving at 5:45 am.

[and that fuzzy thing is a lama] Wait in line with 1000 other people doing the same thing as us.
Hope to get a stamp that allows us to climb up Wayna Picchu (the mountain overlooking MP). We got the last stamp.
Walk around MP for the entire day marveling at how much work it must have taken to make this place.
Too cheap to pay for the ride down, we walked back to Aquas Calientes straining our knees on the endless granite steps.

Machu Picchu was amazing. I recommend everyone go and see it. It was worth all of the effort to get there and I will never forger the site of misty granite mountains with terraces, grain storage, and houses perched along the cliffs with stonework that is truly unbelievable. Despite the thousands of people who visit everyday, the place had a magical charm that sticks with you.
One thing I was particularly impressed by was the "drawbridge" on the side of the cliffs. This must of have been for defensive purposes. In this picture in the background lower right you can see how they built the path along the cliff and then left a gap in it. Pretty cool.
But how did we become birdwatchers?
A Seattle climber named Jim Sykes up and moved to Peru about 6 or 7 years ago. He stationed himself in Huaraz, opened a Cinema, met a fantastic woman named Gladys and is now a Peruvian resident.
A few months ago, they decided to bail on Huaraz and start a birdwatching business near Machu Picchu called Lost City Bird Guides. There are year round tourists in MP, and beside the ruins, there really isn't much else "to do" in the immediate area.

They took us out for a day of birding in the high jungle/ cloud forest of the area. They handed us each a pair of binoculars and out we went looking for feathered creatures. And there were a lot. Birding is an interesting past time. You look up in the trees for moving things, then try to find said moving things in your binoculars. After you see it, you identify it before it flies off. Jim and Gladys are really good at it. Their enthusiasm for finding all sorts of species spilled over to us and we found ourselves looking every which was for yellow, brown, blue, red, spotted, striped creatures. They could identify the birds in seconds and tell us all about the critters, if they were rare, what they eat, where they live and so on.
In these parts, the bird everyone wants to see if the Cock of the Rock (this is the actual English name). You can't always see them, but on this day we saw both Males and Females. In fact Megan spotted one independently and was pretty proud.
The whole package of going birding and visiting Machu Picchu made for a great vacation from riding. If you are reading this and at all plan to go to Machu Picchu, plan to spend an extra day in Aguas Calientes (actually a nice little town with no cars) and go birding. It is so much richer than just popping in for a quick visit to the ruins.

Misery loves company

2011-02-14T06:37:00.000-08:00

Saying that the ride from Nazca to Cuzco was miserable isn't really fair. I'd say that about 80% of it was sheer pleasure, but those other 20%, well that was challenging
Now before I go into this I do want to make a philosophical point. I'm sure that in 6 months when I am back in Seattle, daydreaming of riding motorcycles I will look back on the challenging bits and think about how much I would like to be there. However, while you are in the midst of it all you really want is to get through it safely and honk out to the other side where curved roads and spectacular scenery abound. The key is to remind myself during the challenging stuff that this is actually a good thing, that we will get through it and that I should enjoy pushing myself.
I also have to remember that I could be a lot worse off, like these mummys at a very old graveyard near Nazca. We were told not to miss this graveyard, so we rode about 30km out of Nazca (about 10km on a sandy road) and checked it out. About 2000 years ago the locals buried their dead out in the desert using pretty swell mummifying techniques. The lack of water helped to preserve the mummies. Then, about 75 years ago people figured out that there were huge burial grounds out here and tore apart all of the tombs looking for gold (they didn't find any) spreading bones and cloth all over the desert. Then... about 10 years ago, someone decided it would be proper to protect these mummies made and protected the site. Then about a week ago we walked around it looking at very old people. One thing that really stood out for me was how long their hair was and how dreadlocked it is.
Speaking of challenging times, we bumped into Robert sitting in the square in Nazca. Robert is about 2 years into a trip bicycling around the world. He started in his home country of England by quitting his teaching job, selling off his flat and just leaving. He is in his mid 50's and of course is about as fit as a person can be. Look at his website if you have any inkling of doing something like this. It really isn't that hard to make it happen. What I liked about Robert is that you often think of people who do this type of thing as intense and very driven. He isn't really like that. He just sort of started riding and is still going. He takes it day to day which is really the only way to do it if you are riding your bicycle around the world.
On to our story... We left Nazca for the the 400 mile trip to Cuzco. We had heard rumors that this stretch of road is one of the most lovely riding experiences in all of South America. The first 30 miles went well enough as we made our way steeply up perfect twisting road, past a 5000 foot sand dune and into the clouds that lay ahead. And then the fog hit. The thing about riding in the fog is that we don't have windshield wipers or a defrost on our helmets. Riding in the rain isn't so bad because the drops are large enough that they pool together and stream off the helmet, but this doesn't happen in the fog. So between 10 foot visibility and a faceshield full of condensation it was pretty hard to see. We managed to get behind a police car for 20 miles or so which was nice because all we had to do was follow the flashing read lights.
Here's an aside. Why don't drivers down here ever drive with their lights on during the day, or during the fog? In fact, many many drivers will flash their lights at us to tell us our lights are on (at least I think that is what they are saying). This is annoying when visibility is good, but down right dangerous when it is bad.
So for a while we drove at 15 mph cutting through the fog. With 350 miles to go, this was going to be a long ride. At about 13,000 feet we finally broke out of the fog and rode along side a Vicuña reserve where we spotted many of the cutest animals I can imagine.
The we dropped a bit and the fog came back. This time for about 70 miles. It sucked. And it was cold. At about 3 in the afternoon I started to wonder if we were going to need to camp somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. I found a trucker on the side of the road who was coming from the other direction and asked him how much longer the fog was going to last for. To my relief he said 20 minutes. But he also said that there was going to be lots of rain.
Rain we can deal with. We have really nice Arcteryx GORE-TEX® Outerwear (I have to write the Gore logo that way). We both have the Sidewinder AR jackets and Beta AR pants which so far have kept us 100% dry in extremely heavy rain.
As we were mounting back up to drive the 20 more minutes of fog, a large BMW motorcycle zoomed past us on the road. Even in the fog, you can tell a BMW motorcycle by the sound. Misery loves company and we thought it might be fun to ride with this lone soldier out here. But he was ahead of us now and it was not like we could drive fast to catch him.
About 20 minutes later, when the fog did indeed turn to pouring rain we saw a rider on the side of road changing into warmer clothes. Rudolf is a german who parks his motorcycle over here every year and spends some months riding it around. A mid 50's soft spoken professor type (he's a psychologist at an alternative jail in Switzerland), we immediately enjoyed riding with him. We finished up the day in pouring rain across 14,000 foot plains and then a deep gorge down to the half point between Nazca and Cuzco.
The next day was more great riding (with no fog but lots of rain) along swollen rivers, broken down road cuts, and twisty passes into Cuzco.
After quite a bit of looking we found a garage for our bikes and a very nice Hotel near the center of town.

Then at about 1 am Megan's little friends who live in her stomach (we didn't know they were there) reared their ugly Giardia heads and sent us off to a 24 hour clinic where we had to knock on doors and wake people up. Two hours later with an assessment of Giardia as well as some type of infection we were back in our hotel room with drugs and a Megan in a lot of pain.

Finding Penguins

2011-02-06T08:05:00.000-08:00

My sister loves Penguins. Therefore by proxy, I love them too. Megan loves all critters so she loves Penguins.

[Pink Flamingos in Paracas National Park] Oddly, there are Humbolt Penguins in Peru. We learned this when we went Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo with my sister in late December and looked at the Peruvian Penguins.

After studying the map and doing a little research we discovered that the Paracas National Park in Peru is home to Peruvian Penguins. We made a long day of riding from about 100 miles North of Lima, through Lima and its crazy traffic, and then another 150 miles south to Paracas and stayed the night. I ate some more Ceviche (this time it didn't make me sick), Megan drank some Peruvian wine (not bad) and then the next morning we saddled up her motorcycle and went into the park to look for Penguins.

Paracas is a long stretch of protected coast line with giant cliffs that tumble into the ocean. If I had to guess, I would say that it gets less than 1" of rain a year and is therefore a big dry salty desert.

Without a lot of information other than "don't take the boats out to see the Penguins, they disturb them" and "you can see some Penguins from a cliff somewhere in the park" we paid our 2 dollar entry fee to the park and went to a place on the map called La Mina (why not?). 10 km of good dirt road and we didn't find any Penguins. A lot of sunbathers and swimmers.

Ok... how about going up over this hill on a random single track to see if there are any Penguins. This went on for a while. We hadn't packed a lunch so after a few hours of driving across the desert looking for views of the ocean we were about to give up.

We saw lots of seals on the cliffs below, we saw lots birds (boobys?) but no Penguins.

[looking for Penguins in all the wrong places]

[Are there penguins here?]

On a last whim, we decided to follow one more track to look check it out. I was hungry, Megan was hot and hungry but we needed to find these swimming birds.

And there they were. Penguins. And they were pretty cute.

[If you look closely you can see some lines in the background] After a nice meal back in Paracas, we were back on the road to Nasca to see the famous Nasca lines. this tower lets you see a couple of them. If you really want to see them, one needs to go in an airplane but since this costs $100 per person I think we will have to make do with the viewing tower.

One a last note about meeting people on the road, as I was sitting on the side of the road trying to figure out why my chain fell off, this guy and his wife pull up in a really nice truck and start asking us about our trip. Well it turns out he is Emilio Scotto who is somewhat legendary in the Motorcycle world for riding a Honda Goldwing Motorcycle around and around the world for 10 years. Now he is out promoting a rally in Argentina by driving this truck around. That's something I could do...