Alaska to Argentina – Peru and Chile Again

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Greetings All

Now that everyone’s refreshed we’re on the home stretch.

Leaving Bolivia was surprisingly easy but getting into Peru was surprisingly hard, basically the computer said no. Actually, the computer didn’t say anything, it was knackered. The woman at Peruvian customs spent an hour trying to process Kitty and nothing was working. Eventually she decided to do it old school and started filled out forms and entering Kitty’s details in an ancient ledger book. I was almost ready to escape when another customs guy appears and they had a long discussion. For reasons that I couldn’t work out they gave me an envelope that I had to deliver to the Customs building near Puno. This was another customs twist that I hadn’t come across before and I was wondering if it was a scam of some sort.

Xfitrate - I'm following in the path of Ed and the lovely Elise

Xfitrate – I’m following in the path of Ed and the lovely Elise

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Alaska to Argentina – Back to Brazil then Bolivia

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Greetings Everyone

Well, I’m back in Brazil. I spent two months back in Oz and the parents are a lot better but I’ve decided to cut the trip short and not ride any further north into Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia or Ecuador.

Instead I’m heading west into Bolivia, and Peru via Machu Picchu and Nazca. Then south into Chile and finally Valparaiso where Kitty will be crated up and sent back to Oz.

It was good to see Marcelo and Beth again. I arrived at Sao Paolo airport late at night and being the fantastic people that they are they drove in town and picked me up. We spent the next couple of days doing a couple of local bike rides and some maintenance while I got myself de-jetlagged.

Breakfast with Beth, Marcelo and Furacao

Breakfast with Beth, Marcelo and Furacao

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Alaska to Argentina – Into Brazil

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Greetings Everyone

Yes it has been a very long time since I posted anything on the trip. No, I didn’t get run over by a bus, or kidnapped by a terrorist gang, or thrown into a gaol cell. But I did end up having to go back to Oz for a while and after coming back I just lost interest in writing and it’s taken me this long to get back into it.

This is going to be a shorter post than normal. I’ll explain why by the time you get to the end of the post but for now, on with the travels.

Leaving Argentina

Buenos Aires and Argentina is on the southern side of the Rio de la Plata; and Montevideo, Uruguay is on the northern side so another ferry trip was destined to be in my near future. Luckily for me before they left on their trip, Ed and the lovely Elise were able to give me the details on where to book and how to get there.

To get to the ferry port I needed to ride through the centre of Buenos Aires which is a great way to wake you up in the morning, especially riding fat Kitty.

After completing the Buenos Aires Formula One (or as it’s locally known, the morning peak hour) and getting to the port, the usual immigration and customs formalities happened and then it was a case of playing the waiting game. Eventually we boarded the ferry and after making sure Kitty was properly tied down it was off to Colonia in Uruguay.

Kitty strapped down for the ferry trip to Uruguay

Kitty strapped down for the ferry trip to Uruguay

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Alaska to Argentina – North To Buenos Aires

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Greetings All

I hope everyone had a festive New Year celebration, as I said in my previous post we had something of a quiet New Years eve and speaking to other travellers they also experienced something similar in the city where they were.

Anyway the good news is I have a shiny new credit card, I don’t know what part of South America they were originally trying to deliver it but after more long phone calls to Mastercard and Fedex (Skype is wonderful) I changed the delivery address to my new hotel and then two later it turned up at the old hotel.

Communication is a wonderful thing.

Armed with my new card I can start the journey north. The original cunning plan was to go to the Torres del Paine National park via Puerto Natales to see the spectacular eroded mountains in the park and that was about all I could do as most of the other places in the park are only accessible on multi day hiking trips and I did not feel like taking Kitty in my backpack. The photo below shows the mascot for Puerto Natales, I have no idea what it is, how big it is or even if it exists today. All I know is that it was everywhere around the town and if it was life size I didn’t want to meet it on dark night (or even a well lit day).

The mascot for Puerto Natales

The mascot for Puerto Natales

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Alaska to Argentina – Adiós Chile

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Greetings Everyone

Finally a motorcycling travel journal with stories about motorcycle travel, for a while I was wondering if it was ever going to happen.

Today has been a day of changes, first we left Chile and crossed into Argentina and secondly I’ve parted company with Hans and Stefan as they’ve gone north and I’m heading south.

Chile - Argentina border post

Chile – Argentina border post

I was to see this sign a couple of times

I was to see this sign a couple of times

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Alaska to Argentina – Adiós Valparaiso

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Greetings Everyone

The shipping saga continues……

The NYK Lnyx docked at Valparaiso last Thursday and started unloading containers. Monday arrived and I still don’t have a motorbike. A combination of the weekend and a strike by customs officers means that I should be able to pick it up on Tuesday morning or as the saying goes “mañana”.

The elusive NYK Lynx being unloaded

The elusive NYK Lynx being unloaded

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Alaska to Argentina – The Very Delayed Return

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Greetings All

For those of you who are unaware the long delayed completion of our Americas journey has started. I’m sitting in a hostel called Villa Kuntebunt in the port city of Valparaiso, Chile which is about a 120km from the capital, Santiago.

I’ve been in Chile for 11 days now and while I arrived here with no issues I can’t say that it’s been the smoothest start to the trip, several weeks earlier Kitty was put into a crate for shipping to get her to Valparaiso where I was to collect her about a week after I arrived. There was some early problems with the paperwork but that was sorted and as far as anyone knew she was enjoying her sea voyage somewhere in the Pacific on her way to Valparaiso.

They lied

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Vietnam and Cambodia

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Goooooooooood Morning Vietnam

All right it’s not original, and for those unlucky enough to see me at that time of the day they know I’m not a morning person, but it does set the scene. As some of you know I’m doing a motorbike trip in Vietnam and going onto Cambodia for a couple of days. I’ve survived the motorbike and now I’m in Siem Reap, the most important part of the trip. I won’t bore everyone with a blow by blow description but pick a few themes and expand on them.

The Cast and Crew Chose to travel by….

Motorcycle, of course.

Alex, Delwyn, Moi, Rob, Nick Chris, Stuart, Ron – Not exactly an under 30's group

Alex, Delwyn, Moi, Rob, Nick Chris, Stuart, Ron – Not exactly an under 30’s group

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Alaska to Argentina – Central America

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Greetings All

Yes it’s time for another mega email and this will be the penultimate email for the trip. At some stage after we get back I’ll send a final note when we have all the photos and other bits on the website. On with the news.

Today after many months we finally left North America. For some reason my brain cell had always associated Mexico as being part of Central America but officially Belize and Guatemala is where Central America starts.

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Alaska to Argentina – Seattle to San Diego

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Greetings All

After getting back to Seattle we (I) had quite a bit of maintenance work to do on Kitty although my heart still gets a glow from the memory of the Beloved sitting down for many hours with a brush and bucket of water scrubbing the grime from Kitty’s wheels.

To all you motorcyclists out there, how many of you have a Beloved who would do that!

The Beloved cleaning a wheel

The Beloved cleaning a wheel

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Alaska to Argentina – Kitty has Montezuma’s Revenge

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Greetings All

Time for the next mini (major?) drama in our story.

In our last cliff hanger we were waiting in the delightful Mexican town of Chihuahua famous for its very small dogs and men wearing cowboy hats and very pointy toed boots (including a very tasteful snakeskin finish, hot pink colour with black tiger stripes, I am not making this up I have photos to prove it)

After just over two weeks in our luxurious hotel (I originally slandered it by describing it as a one and half star hotel, it was actually only a one star hotel) I picked up my shiny new and round wheel, bolted it on and we took off for the city of Zacatecas, 800km south of Chihuahua.

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Alaska to Argentina – Tales from the Pillion Seat

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Greetings All

It´s been a long time between emails due to several reasons.  A lot of it due to slackness and laziness on my part. No surprise´s there.

We have hit a pothole in the road to progress at the moment.

As a matter of fact it was probably hitting many potholes that has causes Kitty to become a Unicycle. The rear wheel has started to collapse (all the spokes have started to come loose) so we are in a small hotel in Mexico unable to go anywhere as I have had to ship the wheel back to the USA to a very rare company who can repair this type of wheel.

Unlike normal spoked wheels BMW don’t repair their cross laced spoked wheels and virtually no one else will , the usual solution is to break out a credit card and take a deep breathe. Luckily one of the few companies that do repair them was back in the US so the wheels had its own holiday in Colorado at Woody’s Wheel Works.

This delay with our slow rate of progress means that we have come to the realisation that we will not be able to make Tiero Del Feugo be fore bad weather sets in early in the year. We are working out plan B, Plan C and probably up to Plan Z25/3 as to where we will ship Kitty and ourselves from to get back to Oz.

We WILL be coming back.

On a lighter note I have written a few shorter emails that I will be sending over the week or so about particular incidents or places.

Finally if anyone cares to send back a reply that is a bit longer than

“Got yer email”

We would not be offended if it had some news and chat from Oz or wherever. (Hint, hint)

Onto the stories…………………..…..

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Alaska to Argentina – Seattle to Deadhorse, Prudoe Bay

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Greetings All

I’m sitting in the cafeteria on the ferry MV Matanuska having just had a bite to eat while we cruise down from Skagway to Prince Rupert, the scenery is stunning with the snow from last winter sprinkled around the mountain summits that line the inland waterways, it’s a tough job but I’m willing to face the peril.

Waiting to board the ferry

Waiting to board the ferry

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Alaska to Argentina – Travels on a Fat Kitty

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As most of you know Carolyn (hereafter known as the Beloved), Kitty (our hopefully trusty steed) and myself have started on our Alaska to Argentina trip. We have only been on the road for a few days after starting from Seattle (thank you Simon & Sumita) and then Vancouver (thank you Tom & Joanie) we are now in Prince George and have travelled only about 1000 km so far, but they have been through some magnificent motorcycling country.

Sunshine, snow capped mountains, windy roads, trees, my Best Girl by my side. I want to sing, sing "I'm a lumberjack and I'm ok..........."

Sunshine, snow capped mountains, windy roads, trees, my Best Girl by my side. I want to sing, sing “I’m a lumberjack and I’m ok………..”

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Bolivia and Peru 2

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Greetings All

The end is nigh and we are at Puno on Lake Titicaca having a final rest day before heading back into to Bolivia. And today was a rest day for a change.

The first rest day we had was in Potosi in Bolivia where we went down a silver mine for a visit. This was a working mine and here is a tip for you no matter how bad you think your job might be you don´t want to be a miner in a Bolivian Silver mine. Before hand we got dressed up in protective waterproof clothing (i.e the sweat can´t escape) and helmets with lights.

Then we went to some shops to by “presents” for the miners, yes this was another way to extract money from the gringos but they were unusual presents. You had the choice of bottles of soft drink, bags of coca leaves (the miners chew on them), bottles of 96% alcohol (for the Friday night booze up, bloody hell does that stuff have a kick and a flavour that’s a cross between 80 grit sand paper and sulphuric acid) and finally dynamite kits that consist of a stick of dynamite, a detonator with fuse cord and a pouch of ammonium nitrate. None of these are expensive and can be bought by anyone over the counter. You can guess what most people bought. We trooped off to the mine and went down the main entrance diving to the side when carts of ore were flying towards us from the opposite direction with miners hanging on the back like a scene out of an Indiana Jones film.

dd

dd

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Bolivia and Peru 1

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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.

Someone stole my wheels

Someone stole my wheels

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