Greetings All

And welcome to the latest episode of Andean Motorcycle Survivor the game show where each day someone bike breaks down and today’s lucky winner is…..

Sorry got a bit carried away there we have been having some fun with bikes dying on the road.

At the moment I’m in Nasca, Peru and later this afternoon we are going on a flight over the Nasca Lines but starting at the beginning.

We arriving in La Paz Bolivia about two weeks ago after a very long flight from Melbourne via Sydney, Auckland, Santiago, Iquique, Aririca then finally La Paz. Now either I’m getting taller or the damn planes are getting shorter but I was jammed into that seat had to no room at all to move my legs and after 14 hours of that I hobbled out of the aircraft.

My preparation for the trip included the required language basics Buenos dias/tardes/noches (Good morning/afternoon/evening) Adios (Goodbye) uno/dos/tres cervese por favor (one/two/three beers please) and some basic Spanish swearing for the other cars/buses/ on the road Mierde.

We had a day to get acclimatised to the height of La Paz and during that day we went to see the bikes and I think it would be fair to say that at first sight out the back of the Honda dealership workshop where the bikes were being prepared by the mechanics the collective stunned looks on our faces said “Oh mierde”. They were a pretty ordinary collection of bikes at least the bits that were assembled were ordinary.

Mike then assigned different bikes to the various people and when it came to my turn he pointed to the Honda Africa Twin again I went “oh mierdey” A bit of info for those who don’t know bikes the Africa twin is a 750cc road trail bike that weighs 207kg which is fairly heavy bike and we were going to be taking these over dirt roads. Now in the hands of an expert dirt rider this bike is great but I am no expert dirt rider in fact I have never ridden a
bike like that before in those conditions so this was going to be very interesting. Did I mention it weighed 207kg? that is a lot of bike to have to pick up if I dropped it, sorry when I drop it, but more of that later.

The advantage of the twin is that has a big fuel tank (more weight) but fuel would be scare at times also they have a more comfortable seat for longer trips than most of the other bikes so swings and roundabouts. Alex has been assigned the other Africa twin and is a very good rider in all conditions, christened it the Africa Queen and the name has stuck (yes I know we are in South America).

We headed off the next day and covered over 400km on the “auto pista” or main highway but this was a clever ploy to lull us into a false sense of security as the next day the auto pista turned into auto crapa as we were on dirt roads of varying conditions (i.e fair to crappy) and while we were heading over one of the mountain passes the clouds came down and visibility dropped to less than 7 metres but that didn’t slow down the locals they
loomed out of the fog at a great rate of knots so we had to be very careful and a few of us travelled in nervous convoy.

Mikes bikes are supplied by a local guy called Max as mentioned earlier they were a fairly well used collection of bikes. On the second day Brian’s bike had a serious mechanical failure and he was in the truck for the next couple of days so he was not a happy camper, then Paul’s bike over heated the next day followed by a couple of terminal engine seizures over the next few days this became known as the Max Factor and we were at Max Factor 4 (she canna take no more captain).  You now should see the how the game of Andean Motorcycle Survivor is played. Paul had so much trouble with with his bike that he renamed it the “Ducati” i.e it runs beautifully for 100km then needs to be rebuilt.

Riding through the country of Bolivia was fantastic the mountains were spectacular, the biggest question we had was why so many dogs? All along the roads were dogs sitting down watching the traffic we must have passed hundreds over those few days. 99.99% had the good sense not to chase cars/bikes but some natural selection did happen to a couple of dogs.

The auto crappa road continues and on the the third day we covered 280km of dirt road up/down mountain passes along varying dirt roads and the temp was stinking hot in the valleys. We had a couple of people come off but no injuries and by good luck I didn’t come off the African Queen. So that was a good day. Also after the dirt we had a 100km of bitumen but by that time it was dark so we were a fairly shattered bunch of riders who got to the hotel that night 12 hours after we started that morning.

The next day was more dirt (Grrr) and sand. I hate sand. I finally lost it going through a patch of deep sand, the front wheel dug into the sand, arms went one way, legs in another direction, bike in a third direction. We eventually met on the ground. This was not a good day. Luckily I was only travelling slow so neither the bike nor I suffered from any injuries. Now the fun begins how the hell to pick the damn thing up out of the sand? The good news was that no one was around to see me making a fool of myself but the bad news was that no one was around to help me pick it up. Catch 22. I really hate sand. Anyway I managed to get the thing off the ground and kept going.

Later that day we met for lunch at the edge of a salt lake and this was fun we had to ride across 100km of the lake. The lake bed is hard salt so you can go where you like and as fast as you like. Try riding at 130kmh and see how long you can ride with your eyes closed! You cant hit anything there is nothing for miles and miles but it feels terrifying The most I could do was about 10 seconds and they were long seconds.

Just to finish the day off we had one final piece of excitement. We had to navigate to the highest peak in the distance and then slightly to the right where we would find some tracks that led to a causeway leading off the salt plane as the edges of the lake were soft and boggy. No problem it was dark by the time we were approaching the edges but due to some superb navigation by someone (guess who 🙂 ) Brian and I arrived first even though we were last to start the ride across. A bit later 3 other people arrived, but we had lost 6 others. Eventually the two trucks and mike went out to find them.

They came back about 90 mins later. We found out that mike had found them but led them back too close to the boggy edge of the salt plane and at 140km lost control of the bike he thinks he hit the ground at around 100kmh. He was ok (no broken bits) but very sore for the next few days. The bike needed a few repairs as well.

The guys also managed to bog one of the 4WDs as well.

It was an action packed day that we didn’t want to repeat.

And finally the next day a very stiff and sore Mike gives us the the good news that we have a 40 km stretch with some bad gravel patches and serious sand patches. I really, really hate sand. It was hard but we got through it with the Africa chugging its way across with feet flying around etc but still under some semblance of control, just. This was followed by some more of the salt pan and gravel roads but by this time I was getting more confident and travelling up to 100kmh on them, Alex who also riding an Africa told me he was doing 130kmh along the same stretches which was the end of my ego trip. But he is a very good rider.

That was our last serious day of gravel (so far) and several of us have decided to buy Bolivia a road grader. The corrugations on the road shook us (and the bikes) to bits I swear I left one of my kidneys sitting on the road near some some village in Bolivia.

One last thing while we were travelling along these terrible roads we saw several people doing the same trip on push bikes loaded up with all their possessions. Now you may think I’m crazy riding a motorbike over here but to do the same thing on a pushie. I know they are insane.

All the best

Highlights of the next email will include

– buying dynamite and alcohol as presents for a Bolivian miner

– travelling along the Pan American highway, a great road.

– Flying in a light aircraft when the phrase “emergency procedures – landing gear failure” became VERY important

– best and worst hotels on the trip (what idiot builds a hotel on top of a bus terminal!!!!)

– Local food specialities