Americas

Bolivia

2009-05-11T18:02:00.000-07:00

March
15 - Copacabana
15 - La Paz
18 - Challapata
19 - Uyuni
25 - Vila Alota
26 - Parc entrance

Bolivian Route

After a looong break, here we are back at blogging. It's been so long since we've posted an update, I don't even remember the last thing I said...

Crossing into Bolivia was interesting, as the border looked a lot like the ones we've seen back in Central America, and it didn't take long to be given a lecture because we parked AFTER the raised barrier. The policeman even mumbled something about us being uncivilized monkeys, which I thought was pretty ironic...After Andy (being American and all) paid $135 for his visa, and as we were getting ready to leave, we get intercepted by another policeman who wants to write down our names and bike plates numbers in a notebook. Sure, no problem... Except he then asks for the equivalent of $30 each for having done that. So we tell him half-jokingly to take our names off the list :-) The conversation got a little heated and we ended up just leaving his office without paying and ignoring his loud complaining behind us.

Our day was to be a short one as it was getting late and we stopped in the first town, called Copacabana. No, that's not the famous Brazilian beach, it's just a touristic town on the shore of lake Titicaca. To our surprise, as we were entering the town, Fer (the Argentinian rider we had met already a few times) rolls by on his Transalp. After a few zealous hugs we go to his hotel which had parking and was quite cheap.

Caroline finds a huge, gentle dog

So, what do we eat tonight? Bolivian? Naaaah, Mexican, of course!

Unfortunately, the resident dog must be fed the same kind of food, as his farts were absolutely unbearable, and he was firmly stuck to his spot, on one of our table's benches. Trying to move him manually got us a nice show of teeth as a warning. So here, Fer is pleading with the owner to kick the fella out. Done deal, except, every time someone entered the restaurant, the bastard would return to his favourite table!

Next day we saw this parade of indigenous women, with their very typical hats.

Group picture! We took a lot of these....

More official annoyances, this time at the town's exit, where we're asked for an obligatory contribution. For what? Because we visited the town...Ha? After more mindless discussions, we left, just like before, under the loud protests of the cops.

The drive from the border to La Paz is very beautiful, and the lake is stunning, much nicer than on the Peru side, with beautiful mountains and clear views. The lake really looked like a painting, a bit surreal.

More group pictures

The drive includes a lake section that needs to be crossed with a very rudimentary ferry.

...and moved by an equally rudimentary motor. I'm not complaining, at least we didn't have to row. You have to have a positive attitude in places like these...

Especially when getting off a ferry made for cars only requires significant effort for bikers (there were planks only where the cars tires were, so we had to go in reverse in a perfect straight line)

Our drive was nice and the scenery was beautiful, only tarnished by our first unfriendly encounter with the locals, in the form of being refused gasoline at a gas station, Why? Cause they don't sell to foreigners...it was kind of disturbing.

We were soon at the edge of the big pot that hosted the nation's capital, La Paz. It is the highest capital in the world, at 3600m.
Very large city, and nice panoramic view.

Equally impressive is the Mount Illamani (6400m) towering over the capital

We somehow find our way to the centre, where we were soon told to that we had to leave as the president was going to arrive. We didn't wait...There is a lot of social movement in the country and we didn't feel like being in the middle of something ugly.

Some of the few interesting buildings are located in this plaza.

Presidential guard. Aren't they handsome!

Time to look for a place to sleep. Soon to be a nightmare, as many of the streets are one-way.

We find a street with many backpackers hostels, but the one-lane street is being used by 2-lane traffic, so I got on the sidewalk, and leaned the bike against a pole...barely.

Lots of deals, but nowhere to park, so we look further away and find a regular hotel that lets us park in its hallway. In the background, you can see a person through the cracked door. It was a british dude on crack...no, really, he was! Bolivia is a very cheap place if you want to be high on whatever your heart wishes, and this fella took advantage of it (and the cheap accomodation). I wish I had a video of him, he was quite the character....

Sometimes local businessmen lack imagination...

Municipal by-laws are duly followed ("garbage disposal strictly prohibited")

We went looking for the LaPaz nightlife, and after a few hours of wandering and finding the total sum of fuck all, we end up in a hole, much worse than it seems in the picture below, pretty colors and all...It reminded me of some places back in Romania, with shady people and dark corners. But beer was cheap and we took advantage of this!

South American Idol.....

Then, on the way back to the hotel, we stumble on the La Paz Hard Rock Cafe! It was a lot more expensive (to pay for its good looks), but we didn't need a lot more to get completely smashed....

Fer does the bottle dance

Radu joins in...

The free drinks shot from a distance are not receiving a great seal of approval...

After such a night, next day had to be a calm one, and we strolled the artisan alleys. Lots of cool stuff, and I don't usually like these kinds of places

We entered a music store, and I saw this amazing looking mini guitar (actually called a charango), made from the carcass of an armadillo, complete with hair. Exquisite craftsmanship, and I almost bought it, but after talking among ourselves, I realized it wasn't a good idea. First, it might not have passed customs (for whatever fucked-up reasons they have), and also, the owner - and guitar maker for that matter- said that it may not like a more humid environment than Bolivia and will eventually start to twist.

Caroline is holding it like it's still alive :-)

But I didn't give up and I wanted to see how this charango sounds like. So I told him to convince me to buy it by playing something so cool I won't be able to resist. So he did (see video below). 5 minutes later I was sitting outside his shop trying to figure out how on earth I'm going to fit my new charango on my already overloaded bike....

Other cool stuff on the "magik" alley, all sorts of vodoo paraphernalia, including these dried Llama phoetuses. Yes, you read that right....kilos of them.
Our friend Andy bought one and last I heard, managed to get it past the US customs, that's balls!

"can I have a pet? Zero maintenance required..."

These didn't look hand-made, but I liked the picture.

Leppard skins, the most expensive one was $2500

Some kind of constrictor snake skins

She was just standing on the street frozen in time...Until the bus came, She woke up and hopped on.

Telephone hub. If something breaks, I bet they just add another cable.

We missed the opportunity to experience this made-for-tourists bolivian invention.

We filled up on bargain Llama clothing, including this fancy cashmere hat that Caro so proudly adorns. I think she looks like a Hearshey candy.

Next day we nervously started a day-long trip on something called " the most dangerous road in the world" It has been like that for a long time, it's a dirt mountain two-way road that barely fits a bus. Many have perished along the years, not least due to the suicidal driving style of drivers around here. Many victims aren't even recovered from the bottom, too much trouble I suppose.
When you see your bus driver doing the cross 3 times before he starts, you know you're on the wrong bus...

Not long after we started we met a whole bunch of people, all hyped up about this famous road. An englishmen, former motorcycle dealer, and a frenchmen, actual commercial helicopter pilot (great job- works half a year in northern Canada, makes enough money to travel the other half)

Soon the wide asfalt turned to narrow dirt. Gorgeous road! However, not a single car, except for the 4x4s carrying the bicycles of all the suicidal tourists. I called them that, because they are the ones now in the top statistics, they were just racing downhill full speed and I can see how sometimes the less experienced misses the corner...10 second drop.

Anyways, what happened is, the government finally gave in, and found the money to build a second parallel road which is paved and wide. Countless portions are suspended on mini-bridges as the mountain wall is too steep to cut a road in it. Very impressive achievement.
What's not impressive is how LaPaz tourist zone continues to be filled with banners and ads for experiencing "the most blablabla..."

The next three pictures of me (same moment, taken by 3 different people) are some of my favourite ones in this trip

Can you tell how scared I am? I was shitting in my pants!

A video of the road leading to that spot (stabilized in "post-production", the original was so shaky, it was unusable)

Caro posing. Or just sitting.

Definitely posing!

Falling mist, I have never seen anything like it.

These guys just decided to cut up some trees, which fell on the road, blocking any traffic. They were (for once) very effective in cutting it up.

Great views on the way back on the "good" road.

This fella looked like hell, Caro gives him a scratch and a hotdog, piece of heaven.

I suppose anything is good if it takes you home.

Spent the evening with our new friends (this is the cool helicopter dude)

Weeee, another milestone (disregard the fact that she's taking this picture at speed....in Bolivia)

We left uninspiring La Paz behind and headed south towards the real challenge of this trip, the one that's supposed to make or break us, according to many 2-wheel travelers. Southern Bolivia, unique, remote and reaaaaal hard to get to.

We stopped in the last town (challapata) before pavement disappeared, , we knew we needed all next day to reach the salt flats of Uyuni, 200kms away.

After convincing this "hotel" owner to let us stay we discovered the most rudimentary accommodation of this trip so far. Case in point, picture below. But it was $10. For all three of us.

She pretty much describes the general attitude of Bolivians towards the white man. The country has the highest concentration of indigenous population of all Latin America and it seems the memory of what has been done to them is still well preserved.
Their stance is understandable if you're sitting on a couch watching Discovery Channel in Toronto, but living it sucks....

This dog was officially crowned "the weirdest dog of the trip". I will have nightmares with him. Is he frowning?!?

Hell started immediately, and within 10 minutes Caro had a cracked fairing (the first one so far!)
One hour later we had done 5 kms. It was so crazy we didn't even think of taking pictures. They are building a road to replace the joke they call "off-road", beside. It should be called just "Off". And the rain made things even more interesting.

Things improved slightly, or we just got more used to it, after a while.

Nope, back to crap road. Caro doesn't miss the chance to snap a pic.

And I return the favour later on.

And again :-)
This one was so slippery I had trouble walking on it.
This was also the end of the road, it lead to a river, and no sign that a bridge ever existed. I asked a local, how do you cross? the answer came, you wait that the river level drops...No freakin way!!
Another pointed to something downriver, so we went that way.

No, it's not a bridge, it's a cement plate, beats round rocks!
We crossed it without problems, but I think even this is not practicable when the river is high after lots of rain.

Our turn to cross the river. Probably the only video with both of us...

The only colors in Bolivia

Here's a video that illustrates the power difference between a 90's BMW and 2008 KLR650 (mine). This was naturally the subject of many smart ass comments on my expense....

We started to be more comfortable riding on this bad road, and made it more than half-way to a little town where we had something to eat.
A bunch of kids gathered around the bikes and were mesmerized by the GPS. I let them play with it, I don't think they have or will do it again. I remember in communist Romania, when foreigners were visiting we were amazed by the simplest of things.

The evening was approaching, and so was a rain storm. We didn't want to get caught in this cold and in the middle of nowhere

I bet a small car can't make it through there. Caro got stuck as well.

A helping hand...

Immediately after I noticed some fluid dripping from under the bike. I touched it and my heart sank, coolant!
Took the side panels off and located the leak, a rock had smashed trough the flimsy radiator protector grill.
We tried to fix it with some special metallic bondo but it didn't last and I just had to keep refilling it with water and stopping every now and then to let the temperature needle come back to normal.

Not long before dawn, we finally arrived in Uyuni, exhausted. The next day we had planned to ride the salt flats, but it wasn't possible until the bike was fixed, and a little break was in order, too.
I took a cab who from mechanic to mechanic, finally bounced to a welder who fixed it for $10. When I asked him if he pressure tested it, he said "what?" I guess I'll just have to trust him, what choice do I have?

We used the rest of the day to visit the local train cemetery, very authentic, and free!

And we had a picnic of champions on top of a train!

After such a big meal, we thoroughly enjoyed the rare heat from the sun (it was still cold in the shadows), and got a Bolivian tan.

I'm sooo funny...

Another picture that says a lot about this country. In the distance, beautiful scenery, up close, garbage everywhere...

That stuff at the bottom of the rail tracks? gazillions of plastic bottles.

That evening we went to this dubious spot, obviously made for tourists.

So, what's the big challenge? If you drink every cocktail the bar makes, it's free. If you fail to finish, you pay up. Nice scam.

FAIL! Yes, that's a mobile toilet where they puke...Mommy would be proud.

Here's another contestant, full video. The crazy thing is, the walls were filled with people that had managed to win. The best was a woman with an incredible time of 1 minute and change.

Yes, it's cheesy but I couldn't resist.

Neither could she. The penis comes complete with white smears!!

We befriended with a japanese chick in the bar. She claimed she was a real modern Geisha!

And after a while it got down to body shots

The film got cut after a while and I regained partial lucidity in the morning, when I noticed the incredible feat of throwing up UNDER the helmet, without actually touching it.
I did touch, however, every other corner of the room, and the bathroom looked like the aftermath of a massive teenager party

We assembled every ounce of energy, and while my head was still spinning, I declared myself fit to ride. We also took our japanese friend from last night's bar activities.

The entrance to the Salar was like stepping on a different planet, this truly was worth any effort to see.

We have a lot of pictures here, it was very difficult to pic the best ones. It was easy to take pictures, too, no worrying of getting off the "road".

Experiencing the weird feeling of talking with another biker without looking in front of me for 30 seconds...

Or touching the handlebars at all.

Here's a video (1:30), from Caroline's view.

Our destination for the day was a rock island in the middle of the salar, and after about 80 kms of GPS navigation (there are no reference points at all), we arrived.

And after a late lunch, we did what every other traveler does on the salar. Experimenting with perspective, when there's no points of reference.
Caro sits on her giant bike

Leans against it

Our Japanese friend promptly took her clothes off, and we snapped some cool artsy shots.

Yes, darling, we're still taking pictures, why don't you turn around...?

We took some even riskier shots, but we can't make them public, they have to be requested.

Instead here some regular pics, for gramma's and such.

Cool as hell!

One of those chance photos, this dog just showed up in the camera's field of vision.

Salt, everywhere. And it eats metal.

We wanted to stay and continue taking pictures, but night was falling and we had another 100km to go back to our hotel.

Incredible view, with the sunset, and a looming storm in the distance.

Another video, ride during sunset, from my perspective.

Those are water puddles in this salt desert. Makes for some stunning photography.
In the distance you can see a bus, it uses the salar to get across to another town.

Different camera, same spot.

How do you finish such a perfect day. By crashing...
Except this was not dumping-on-mud, haha kinda of crash.

About 10km before Uyuni I hit a lone square stone, the bike did a perfect 360 forward (front wheel hit the rock, front of the bike lifted, and when the rear hit the bike started to rotate in the air). It then landed on its wheels and fell on the side. The only crash marks are on the windscreen which scraped the road when it flew in the air. I know it's hard to believe, to this day I also have trouble believing it.
I on the other hand didn't have suspension built-in and fell on my ass. which hurt like hell.

Luck continue to present itself, and the next vehicle was a pick-up truck driven by the Bolivian representative for relations with the European Union. He spoke english and drove me to the hospital. Then came back later and picked up the bike as well. Great guy, thank you!

Plastic also cracked due to the windscreen scraping the road.

Big-ass dent in the wheel. If this was a regular aluminum wheel it would have cracked.

The pain in coxis was getting unbearable, so he gave me some sedatives, and sent me to the local xray-machine, which I think was a museum during the day. I'm not exaggerating, it looked like it was built at the beginning of the century, when they still made functional tools look nice, with ornaments. The problem was that there was only an operator of the machine, but no doctor to interpret the image. I couldn't believe it. They mumbled something about cracked pelvis bone, which to me meant end of trip....

The jacket lifted, here's the result.

I get food delivered to my hotel bed. Every muscle hurt...

I decided to take a few days of rest to see how my injury evolved, and Andy, who had two weeks to make it to Buenos Aires decided to hit the road. We said our farewells, hoping to see the guy again.
In the mean time, the town had all sorts of marches, it was close to national day, the day they lost access to the Pacific Ocean in a battle with Chile, "War of the pacific" 1879-1883. They also lost large pieces of land to Argentina and Brazil in similar circumstances. In total, about half of the original Bolivian territory belongs to the neighbouring countries

The kids were cute, it was obvious they couldn't care less about this marching thing.

My recovery was going well and after only 2 days I managed to get off the bed and check on my bike.

Took the bike to a local mechanic to fix the wheel.

Some pigs were having fun in the mud.

Then, they got really upset, trying to get back in the house! Sooo funny...
Here's the video.

Would you trust this guy to fix anything at all on your bike? Look at the mess!
However, with no apparent tools, just big pieces of metal, he miraculously straightened the wheel without cracking it.

More time-killing on various patios. Here Caro fixed this dog's hairdo...He looks like the french singer Mathieu Chedid

This hyper dog was so excited to be talked to, he went on a frenzy and started chewing at the table!

After hesitations and pondering, I decided to take my X-ray and go see a specialist in a different city. I didn't want to risk it, if I had a cracked something, it could get worse.
The train ride was "only" 6 hours for about 300kms. It was slow and arrival time was unpredictable because the state of the railway was no better than the state of the roads. It was late "only" 5 hours...only in Bolivia can this happen. We all slept in the train station on the floor as for some reason there's no benches.

To my relief the doctor said that I was fine, he gave me some more medication and sent me on my merry way.
On the way back I was rewarded with some beautiful dawn scenery.

Quite dramatic!

So the next day, even though I was supposed to rest more, we decided to continue riding south.
It was easy dirt riding, and I thought hmmm, that's not too bad. We stopped in a small village where half the people had a convenience store, but they were all closed and you had to knock at their door to get what you wanted.
Street decoration were quite rustic too, as for example this bizarre pole made with stones held together with a metal cage.

A deserted plaza. A well maintained church. And a something I have no idea what it is, on the left.

Not much happening, felt like an abandoned town, if it was for the occasional head popping from a cracked door to watch us. A little creeped out we returned to our room, were we had electricity for one our, because it's diesel generated for the whole town, and very expensive.

Llama crossing. No, really, Llamas are crossing :-)

Second day started bad and it got progressively worse.

And it looked so arid, but beautiful in many ways.

This was a difficult water crossing, it took us forever to get out of there.

Fuck it, leave it there, I'm sick of it!

A short video of the endeavour....

Another mini salar

Another fall on sand

Deeper and deeper sand. This was getting unbearable, so frustrating, and the bikes felt too big and heavy for these conditions..

Why not trying it on rocks. That's Radu, btw.

I wanted to have pictures of this ordeal, so here's some perspective shots of Caroline, with the Toyotas behind filled with tourists. They had no problems with the sand...

And a video of that.....

The metal oxides in the mountains give those rainbow colours.

Some interesting rock formations, they look man-made, but it's all nature's hand.

This is a popular one, it's on all the brochures.

More crappy roads, it took the life out of us.

Here I almost lost it. No, wait, I did lose it, I started screaming like a madman. Or like a member of the developed world who wants the same treatments in the third world. So I tried to calm down internally, and got out of there eventually. The bike was deeply embedded in the sand and the motor being carburated had no power whatsoever at this altitude.

The day's frustration reached such a point that when the park ranger asked for the $5 park entrance fee, I blew up again, all I could think of was on what exactly is that money spent on, 'cause it sure wasn't the f*cking roads.

But this little angel with the ears decorated brought a smile to my face.

Just hanging around the place they liked to call hotel.

Whose owner didn't like Llamas drinking the water from the barrel

We had no food on us so we begged to eat with the organized tours, and watched a movie in bed. The beer didn't need to be put in a fridge, it was 6 degrees Celsius in the room.

In the morning the tourists entertain the locals with their shiny gadgets.

While I continue to beg, this time for gasoline.

Let's start the day on a positive note, shall we? Not a km away, Caro dumps it. So that's that kind of day we're gonna have...

How are you supposed to ride on this shit. It was depressing seeing that it was like this as far as the eye could see.

Not far we crossed a frozen stream. So the temp dipped below zero during the night.

The customs are well hidden, but I didn't want to miss this great picture, never had the exit stamp done at over 5000m, it must be the highest customs office in the world! The bikes were barely running.

My GPS said there's some kind of attractions nearby, so we took the small detour, and we landed on field of sulfur puddles, with gasses blowing off everywhere.

You could never do that in Canada!

And a video of it .....

"I've had enough of Bolivia"

The beautiful lake we reached had some interesting colour formations at the edge, I didn't know what it was.

...Until we reached a thermal pool , the water was hot, and those colors were some kind of algae that thrived in this environment.

Caroline cooks some lunch

..beside the thermal pool. Just 15 minutes before, this was filled with tourists, but they're all on a fixed schedule, and left it all to us.

Private thermal bath, skinny-dipping at 4500m...

GPS readout of what looks like flatland. That's as high as the highest peak in the US!

This area was one of the most beautiful in the last 2 days.

Laguna Verde. It was so beautiful, and there was no other soul...

We were close to the border at this point and the view was even more breathtaking.

Less breathtaking was the customs office (the first one at 5000m dealt with the bike papers, this one with us).

We knew from other traveler's stories that Chile was a lot more civilized than Bolivia. We were so looking forward to that!

PAVEMENT!!!

So that was Bolivia, and it left us with a love-hate feeling. I don't know if we'll ever go back again, but it left a big mark on us. I don't think this country should be avoided from a trip planning. We new that the time of high altitudes was going to come to an end soon, but not the low temperatures, as fall was coming and we were heading south.

It also left our bikes in a sorry state, and I was eager to get to a mechanic that had a roof over its garage.

Next post: Chile and Argentina, Part I & II

Peru II

2009-04-06T20:26:00.000-07:00

Peru Part II

March:
4 - Huacachina (dune buggy)
5 - Nazca
6 - Abancay
7 - Cuzco
11 - Santa Teresa
13 - Cuzco
14 - Puno (Lake Titicaca)

In the last post we were on our way back to the Panamericana, from our "little" detour.

Here we continue on, and as we come down from the mountain, the temperature rises rapidly, and the vegetation disappears....
Except of course for the cactus's...or is it cactea..cactie...anyways, the point is there were several of these things piled up on each other to make up a very tall column.

I don't think this picture needs any words...Caroline says "qui si frotte si pique" :-)

On the way back to dry land we decide to wash off the kilos of mud accumulated in the last days. I hope I won't be chastised for the apparent child labour.

Our plan for the next day was to try this little oasis in the middle of nowhere, Huacachina, originally created for the Peruvian elite to spend the weekend. When that went sour and the prices tumbled, the backpacker crowd took over and now it's a prime location to try out the HUGE sand dunes, some of the biggest in the world. And you do that in a dune buggy, which is basically an old car chassis reinforced with some roll-over bars and fitted with an engine, anything from a corolla to a big ford V8. We chose the smallest as they are the most maneuverable, and they can slide sideways on a hill without tipping....theoretically.

And here's a shaky video (stabalized in post-processing) of this crazy ride. It must be tried at least once in a lifetime.

No, she didn't get to drive it, but makes for a nice bragging photo.
Many of them don't have starters because the sand gets inside and damages them. So they always park on a hill.

You have to sit on top of one of these to really appreciate the sheer size of these dunes. This area is considered "static" as the dunes change a bit but don't "walk". The black dot in the picture is a buggy, not a bug.

Walking on these takes all the energy you have. Climbing was out of the question for us.

But descending is another story, and we had some sandboards, Caroline demonstrates on one of the longest runs (but not the longest!)

And an artsy shot

The little green oasis. The water was green as well. And the hostel's pool was the greenest!

That evening the bartender (a French-Swiss chick that was living in the hostal with her 5 year-old daughter that almost drowned a few months before in the amazon...!) cooked for all of us, and we had a really good time. There were Canadians, Americans, and Argentinians and we all understood each other.

Many beers later

Caroline, as usual, entertains the local cat.

Next morning they let the resident parrots out of their respective cages and they all started to roam the backyard, it was great teasing them!

He was gorgeous! (I never thought I could ever use this sentence)

Luckily he was slow, otherwise he would have stapled my fingers. No taming of the beast today...

And a video of these funny birds

On the road agaaaain (like Donkey from Shrek would sing) Funny, it looks like the same as yesterday and the day before. I'm ready for a change.

Not far after, we reach the town of Nazca, with its world-famous Inka lines, only visible from a great distance above. So we took a plane tour to do just that.

It all started well, with great views of these amazing drawings.

The Bird

The geography look great as well, and it reminded me a little of the view around and above Reno.

Here's a good picture of the actual size of one of the drawings, relative to the size of the white bus. They are huge.

But the 45 minute flight turned quickly into a nightmare as I became very sick, with the plane falling and rising in pockets of air. I stopped looking at the lines within 20 minutes, and spend all my energy trying not the puke! Almost an hour later I declared success, but I didn't get any better for the rest of the evening.

It was almost not worth it. Next time I get on such a small plane with such strong winds, I'll make sure I'm stuffed with Gravol.

Slept the night in not-so-pretty Nazca, and left again for the mountains, direction Cusco and Macchu Picchu. The road started very bad, full of holes in the pavement (which are the worst because they have sharp edges and if you're not careful you hit the rims). Things improved vastly after Puquio.

As we crossed the top of the pass, we stopped to put some warm clothes on and I saw a cow buried to the neck. No, wait , it's just a decapitated head... So I had some fun with it!
You can see the background through its mouth!!

One of the highest passes we crossed in this trip. It was freezing cold and walking was a chore.

The road was beautiful, with perfect twisties, and we even saw (for the first time) a double rainbow.

Another dramatic action shot

We didn't make it to Cusco that night, so we slept in hectic Abancay, 2 hours before our intended destination. This place (like many others) had one particular obsession. This time, it was photo development stores. I think we counted 15, in a random walk that evening. We didn't deem necessary to take photos...

Once in Cusco, we went to a recommended hostal, "La Posada del Viajero", right smack in the centre, and they were nice enough to let us park one bike in the hallway.

We had some local meal, and for the first time I also had some coca tea. It was good, but I didn't feel absolutely anything in terms of energy boosting. Coffee is a whole lot more potent.

The centre is filled with indigenous people a dressed up for the occasion (the tourists are the occasion), complete with a Llama in tow. But you gotta be careful when taking pictures of them, cause it's very good business, and they all jump on you to ask for money. And if you made the mistake to take a picture of a group, then your breakfast budget just evaporated.
Notice the sly method I use, I'm so smart..!

Right in the main plaza, there is a bar called Norton's which for the non-bikers among you is a classic motorcycle icon of the 60's, and it's what Che Guevara rode in his Latin American expedition - See The Motorcycle Diaries movie
We stopped to have some good English beer and put our names in the biker's travel log.

Probably the best burger on the planet.

The pub had a balcony with views of the main plaza, so I took the opportunity to snap some pictures of the professional posers. They immediately saw me (they're not professional for nothing), posed and then ran under the balcony to ask for the bounty...crap!

Walking around I gave in and paid for a few shots of these cute kids. You have to give a pesos to each person in the pic. Can you believe they included the dog in the count?!?Sometimes I feel like they think we're stupid.

Walking up and down the hills is cool as it's a very pretty area, but you spit your lungs out after a while.

Panoramic views of Cusco

Main plaza in the middle.

Caring for the people....from it's distant hilltop stage.

We went to visit a nearby ruin site on the largest hill, Saqsaywaman. No, I couldn't remember that name, had to look it up again. It's a really large site, the entire hill is part of the compound and only a bit of it was restored.

Baby Llama all puuuuurty :-)

But mommy ain't too happy! That thing looked pissed off...!

There was no way we were going to pay their ridiculous entry fee, so I settled for some good old monkeying around outside the ruin compound. Notice how large and perfectly cut those stones were!

On the way down I had corn and cheese, I will miss this a lot when I go back home (where corn is too sweet for my taste)

Caroline took a few shots of the resident animals.

The Cat

The Dog

And the inevitable fight. Guess who won? That cat will survive the tough Peruvian life!

This is what you would do if you climbed quickly that hill...

Some places use barbwire, others use broken glass. Here it's the eco-choice in the form of little cactuses on top of the stone fences, to deter thieves.

The beautiful main plaza

Again....

Beautiful cobblestone streets. I love this town!

And again...

My first Alpaca steak. See the excitement in my eyes! I was not disappointed, it's tender and tastes great.

Next step on our checklist was famous Machu Picchu. We quickly found out the price of popularity, you need to call your bank for a small loan to get there. The road doesn't go all the way, and that is not going to change anytime soon. The only "standard" way to go there is to take a train, which is probably one of the most expensive routes in South America, so the profits are fat and that (like anywhere else in the world) dictates politics. No roads shall be built as long as 5000 people pay the $150 return train ticket EVERY day. You can thank the Canadian company Orient Express who is part of the consortium that operates the service.

So being the cheap bastard that I am (in addition to a bit of anarchism) I decided we should do the "alternate" route. This involves riding around the mountains to get to the back side of Machu Picchu. This turned out to be a 3 day adventure, and in the middle, the longest walk of my life!

Day 1: Ride from Cusco to Santa Maria on a beautiful, scenic, recently-paved twisting road. Then confront the most idiotic truck drivers we have seen in this trip so far, going 60kph, on gravel , cutting corners, and with the general purpose of flattening us. Then take a fantastic 1-lane dirt mountain road that replaced the main road, buried under a landslide for almost half a year, to Santa Teresa, where the road ends and improvisation begins.

Caroline gulps down a beer to recoup from the day's emotions and annihilate any anxiety about tomorrow's uncertainty.

Shortly after another couple showed up, they were Argentinians, they had just finished exactly what were about to start and they were bikers!! We chatted until midnight and unbeknown to us it was the beginning of a string of semi-random re-encounters that would see us become very close friends. Fer & Sol, cheers amigos!

Day 2: Wake up at 4:30....Why? Because we have to walk 15kms along train tracks to get to Machu Picchu. And we wanted to get there early so we could climb Wayna Picchu where you can see the entire ruin compound from above. There are restrictions on the number of people that can climb that mountain, and the list is usually filled early in the morning.

The day started by taking a cab to the Hidroelectrica on a baaad road, and the walk started. We were strangely full of energy and hope for a good day.

Bananas attached to my holster, I felt invincible.

Wait, what's that, there's a train??? It must come back, too! So I supposed you could take the train instead....

We had originally contemplated to take the bikes on the train tracks, early in the morning before the train workers woke up, but we soon discovered that it would have been a complete disaster. There are countless river crossings and the distance between the wood spacers is sometimes larger than a wheel. You would have to bring a wooden ramp, at least a meter long....

With Machu Picchu mountain in front of us, we still walked another hour to get to the other side of it, where the trail starts.

3 hours later we were at the start of the trail. Now it's another hour for the steep climb to the top. Time for the third banana!

This walk took the life out of us. Here, Caroline pretends to be OK, she collapsed shortly after... (just kidding..)

Success was short-lived when the ticket lady informed us that the Wayna Picchu list had been filled an hour before. Crap!

The site is huge, and the map confusing (and I needed a break) so I conveniently stared at the map for a little while...

They combined existing rocks with cut stones, integrating everything in a beautiful demonstration of architectural ability. Again, stones cut to perfection.

The size and location makes this an absolute wonder. I am sometimes disappointed by over-hyped touristic locations, perhaps I work my self up too much.
Not this time, Machu Picchu delivered!

The classic touristic shot (from the classic location)

That was the real green, no postprocessing oversaturation required. Noticed the collapsed Llama.

Very steep hills, but the Incas devised these balconies for their agricultural needs.

Not sure how well the pictures illustrates it, but that wall was nearly vertical. No safety cordon to go down the stairs, then or now.

Llama chillin'
I felt like doing the same so we had a picknick against the written rules. We're shit-disturbing bikers, yeah!

Another fantastic piece of integration.

Where's the plasma? No, really, never thought rocks can be shaped to be comfortable.

So seeing that we missed the opportunity to climb Wayna Picchu, we asked the employees what else can be done about it, and they said that an even better view can be had from the actual Cerro Machu Picchu, which is significantly higher (and significantly longer to walk).
So we took on the challenge!!

The view got better and better, while the batteries ran lower and lower...

Complete with cliff-hanging trail...

Made it to the top, with batteries exhausted. But look at that view!!
Not many people, and the hour we spent there a grand total of 5 people showed up.

While a picture may be worth 1000 words, being there was worth a billion.

That's Machu Picchu down in the "valley", and next to it is Wayna Picchu, to give an idea on how much higher this peak is.

One of the guys that showed up was a crazy Canadian who decided to do something the he said no one else did before.

Moon Machu Picchu!

We delayed the inevitable as much as we could, then endured the knee-destroying descent to the ruins, took a wallet-abusing bus ride back to Aguas Caliente (where the standard train trip ends) and started the return trip back to Santa Teresa along the train tracks. Met lots of backpackers along the way who were all surprised to hear they still had hours of walking ahead of them. Half-way through, night fell and we continued in complete eerie darkness until the Hidroelectrica where a cab was waiting for us. All in all, 30 kms of muscle churning walk on unstable rocks, plus a 3 hour ascent to the top of Cerro Machu Picchu, made for the longest walk of my life, unlikely to be repeated ever again. We got back to the Hotel exhausted but satisfied.

We even found enough energy to go to some thermal baths 15 minutes outside of town. Almost fell asleep in there, it was so relaxing!Breakfast and begger included...

Some old rusty bridge on the way and we were soon back on the nightmare piece of road (only 20kms) where I almost lost it (mentally) and eventually stopped the bike sideways in a slide and blocked the flow of doorknobs called drivers until I calmed down. And the worst thing is? They were just laughing.....

My spirits and humor went right back up in a gas station where this unhappy pooch was being de-stinked.

There was some torrential rain overnight, and the result was this huge landslide, the entire length of the mountain where the road was climbing. At the bottom of the hill the mud was as tall as the bike!

You may be able to se the road workers up the hill.

Half-way up the mountain.

It was a really nice drive, and neither of us regretted the extended trip, what an experience!

Remember Fer and Sol, the two Argentinians we met days before in Santa Teresa? As we pulled into Cusco for the second time, to spend the night, guess who runs in the middle of the road? I thought I was being attacked by some savage :-) Then I recognized his jovial face!
We went out drinking that night, shared more stories and idealistic dreams and waved goodbye for the second time, promising each others to meet again one day.

One bike comfortably parked inside where it's warm. Guess whose it is, mine or hers?

As we were lazily leaving Cusco the next day (in the afternoon), we met an American, Andy, on his vintage-ish BMW, in front of a convenience store. We talked a bit and decided to ride together a little. That little turned out to be 2 weeks and we all had a fantastic time, who knew Americans can be so kewl? :-)
We only split later in Bolivia, after my crash, and he had to make it to Buenos Aires. But I'm getting ahead of myself here, that's for the next post.

A little fuzzy, but I love this shot.
On the way to Puno, the city by the Lake Titicaca, the worlds highest navigable lake at 3800m

Our bikes are carburated (welcome to the 21 century, Mr kawasaki), so at high altitudes like these the air/gas mixture is wrong (less air) so the bike runs like a dog (a three-legged Bulldog is faster). Here I slip-stream in order to maintain 90kph. Pathetic...

Our first rickshaw ride, where Caroline left her miniwalet with her drivers license, never to be seen again.

This is a reconditioning effort of a classic steamship, the Yavari, which was build in England in 1862, shipped to the western shores of Peru and carried as a kit by mules over 6 years to the lake, and reassembled here. Unbelievable!

We took a boat cruise to see the main attraction of the lake, the floating reed islands of the Uros indians. Yes, they are manufactured, and I couldn't help thinking that Jules Vernes got the inspiration for his book, the Propeler Island.

It quickly became evident that tourism had completely changed these people, as their life seemed to revolve solely around gringos with cameras and dinero for their souvenirs.

What an eerie feeling to walk on this soft material that floats, and needs to be continuously refreshed from the top, as the bottom rots and falls at the bottom of the ocean.

Got a free crash course on their history and technicalities of living on such a unconventional surface. Quite professional I might say.

Oven right on the floor, still don't know why the island was not on fire.

Granny making flour. She was 180 years old...

They are very good at making beautifully decorated boats. This one was outright pimping..

I thought I was dreaming but they even had electricity, solar-powered.

On a last note, as we were getting ready to leave, one of the indians came to us and offered us to stay in their "hotel" (a reed cabin, really) suggesting we can have "fun" and and nobody will bother us. A bit confused by his offer we refused and then he moved on to Andy, to propose him nothing less than an unforgettable night with a girl of his choice...! Our jaws dropped, and this remained a subject of many jokes around the technicalities of such an encounter. Fun aside, it's incredibly sad that such a thing is happening, and unfortunately I'm sure sometimes the offer is taken.

Finally, we left Puno, and not long after that we reached the border with Bolivia. We were excited but in the same time a little jittery, as Peru had been a mixed experience, and we knew our next hosting country would raise the bar...

Peru I

2009-04-01T06:21:00.001-07:00

Peru, period of

February:
17 - Piura
18 - Chiclayo
20 - Huanchaco
21 - Chimbote
23 - Caraz
24 - Huaraz
25 - Huacho
26 - Lima

March:
2 - Huancayo
3 - Huaytara

Peru... Land of many expectations....
You may recall in the previous post some comments I made about the driving behaviour of Ecuadorians. Well, Peru raised it to a whole new level. Whoever thinks Colombia is dangerous should come and drive in Peru.
But that´s not quite the first thing that hit us when we entered this famous country, it was the smell that literally hit us, and it came from kms upon kms of garbage littered along the highways, and the closer we were to a city , the bigger the heaps of crap, with kids playing in them, and dogs feasting on it as well. Lovely.

The houses also look like modern ruins, most don't have a roof, especially in rural areas, and it's full of walls with no apparent purpose. Generally, I couldn't figure out if a certain construction was in the process of being taken down, or built up. Whatever the case, that process was certainly no longer executing....Not very impressed so far, this better get better.

Not more than 200km inland we got our first police introduction. That´s the other thing Peru is famous for, crooked cops, and these ones didn´t disappoint. Except they´re not exactly smart or prepared (you´d think they´ve had plenty of trial and error exercise), and the excuses to get some bills from us were beyond ridiculous:
"you´re going too fast" (never mind the double-deckered buses blowing by at 120kph)
"no I´m not, 70kph in a 80kph zone" (I know cause I was busy taking pictures just before that)
"aah..but the speed limit for motos is lower, motos are very dangerous, you know.." (shit, this gringo speaks spanish)
"ya, ok...and where is the sign that shows the moto speed limit?"
"on a yellow sign, from where you came from"
"OK, lets go check it out"
"aaaaa...wait here please"
They all went to consult with the mafia boss across the road, where I was summoned shortly after and given another lecture on the dangers of speeding..swoooosh! another gigantic bus blows by, spreading dust, plastic bags and other shit on us. I give him a sarcastic smile, while Caroline starts shooting pictures of the scene!
Another minute of deep thinking and he gives me the papers back, "you´re excused this time!". We leave promising each other never to pay a cent to these assholes, we couldn´t believe how crude and ridiculous the whole thing was....

Not long after, we encounter these brave souls riding fully loaded on these tiny bikes. Reminded me of the movie "The Motorcycle Diaries". Great spirit!

The coast of Peru is a desert, a loooong stretch of sand, and definitely different than anything I had seen before, with big dunes, and a bit of a fresh air from the Pacific.

Of course I had to do my version of the Dakar, you can`t get to the desert and not try to ride on it!

Except, these bikes are gutless, even at sea level, and I couldn´t go faster than second gear in the sand.

Mission Accomplished!

Obligatory dune shots.

Another moment I had been waiting for, from watching motocross and rally shows on TV, wishing I was there to feel the heat, the sand, the excitement. Well, there was a lot of first two and a bit of the third :-)

As a friend of mine Adrian called it when he saw the video, Radu the Desert Lizard :-)

The first big-ish town we arrived in was Chiclayo, it was allright. We went to see the market, it was one of the biggest ones so far, lots of little alleys, and an overwhelming amount of merchandise,

Including love potions! There was even a sorcery section...

Just a funny sign, they import everything I suppose.

Next on the list was Huanchaco, a town by the ocean, with lots touristic ammenities. We first waisted a good 2 hours trying to find reasonable accommodations (without success) in nearby Trujillo. It was advertised in our guide book as "well preserved colonial", but it wasn't much left of that era, so we opted for the alternative beach town. We found a great cheap hostal with an enthusiastic owner, sold!

Next day we went to see the Chan Chan ruins, one of the biggest sites in Peru. Kinda interesting, except there was no info anywhere, we had no clue of what we were looking at. We were later told that this is how it works in Peru, you always have to pay a guide, it's the same everywhere.
Instead we had Dean, a crazy fun Italian we met back in Baños do the guide work, and we had a lot of fun that way ("to you rait a ston, and to your left e bigger ston")

Here we have a recreation of an enemy attack...

Another unique Peruvian curiosity is the bald dog. Yes, it looks straight out of a horror movie, but it's a real sweet dog and they are also useful, if you get past the looks. You see, they are the real "hot dogs" as in their temperature is a couple degrees higher than other dogs so they have had therapeutic jobs during Inca times (imagine wrapping that thing around you like an electric pillow)

The thing is, they are just like any other dog, except nobody touches them. So they really enjoyed our attention and they were very gentle.

Back to our hostel, guess who shows up all packed up like a mule? Our bikers from a few days ago with their small bikes. We thought they were locals with a Che Guevara dream, but in fact they were 2 German guys and an Italian girl that during their backpacker trip saw these Chinese 125's selling for $1000 in a Colombian store and decided to continue it the right way :-)
Great guys, we enjoyed spending the evening with them.

We all barely squeezed into the hostel's restaurant.

A church perched on top of the town's hill

Next evening was a reggae night, and this is the result....don't remember much the end.

On the way out I decided to try riding on the beach (another thing I always wanted but CSA robbed me of any opportunities)
However, it looks better on paper, and I got stuck...See video above.

Some more highway pictures

Further south near Chimbote, as we were preparing to engage in a difficult, long, hot canyon road, Canyon del Pato (at 2pm, that is), we meet these 2 riders coming the other way. We talked for almost an hour, they were from Belgium, and they were doing a similar trip, but going north. We were lucky to have met them, the road in front of us was a good 6-8 hours, we would have been stuck there in the middle of the night.

So we turned around, and restarted the next day, bright and early (at 9am....)

That beautiful tarmac soon changed into a hellish rock course and it was HOT!

Some rough cut tunnels

A small oasis in the middle of all this dry landscape

All this is giving me ideas

I was overheating so this felt like heaven...

In the background you can see an old road that was no longer in use for obvious reasons.

Not as impressive as seen with the naked eye, but still worth adding it.

a hydroelectric dam

Later on we arrived in Caraz where we put the bikes in the hotel lobby once more...

Another picture of a cute plaza, I'm sure people reading this blog had enough of them....

The background mountains were spectacular.

We wanted to do a small detour towards a Lonely Planet recommended destination, Parque National Huascaran, in the Cordilliera Blanca (access "road" at Yungay), and after a few kms it looked like this was going to be more than just a blip on our agenda. The views got better and better, with towering mountains on each side of the road, and white peaks in the distance. One of those is the Huascaran peak at 6768m!

And postcard-perfect picture. Ok, maybe not a very expensive postcard....
This is Laguna Llanganuco.

We stopped to eat some great local food (we sampled everything and it cost us a small fortune, she charged us for the samples as much as for the full deal)
The owner of this touristic llama was taking a nap under the tree, so I attempted some communication with the beast. You can clearly see she's not impressed with my antics, and I was expecting a spit any moment...

I touched a llama's ass!

They're soooo funny, with their decorations and goofy faces!!

We asked the local french volunteer slash park ranger what else we could see and she recommended we do the mountain pass we could see in the distance. "How long?", "Oh not long, maybe half an hour". I don't know why I still bother asking this question, people are crazy, they thing we have a rocket up our asses and we just fly over whatever terrain happens to be on the way. It ended up being more than an hour, and we went as fast as we could...

Beautifully coloured laguna, flanked by a perfectly vertical stonewall.

The views from up there were absolutely incredible, and apparently we were very lucky. The Belgian couple had the entire mountain range covered by clouds, and another biker we met there said he had been waiting in the area for a week to see the magnificent Cordilliera Blanca, and this was the first day it cleared. It is rainy season here after all.

This is on the other side of the pass, where the mountain looked very different.

Fresh snow..! Had to try it.

The zig-zag line in the background is the road going up the mountain, pretty cool.

A video of the ride down the pass. Caroline at her best.

Same lake from above

And probably one of the best picture of this trip so far.

A video of the ride back by the lake.

We then rushed to Huaraz, 60kms away, as it was getting dark.
Huaraz itself isn't much to see, but it's a great starting point to explore one of the most spectacular mountain ranges in the world.

Next day the plan was to make it to Lima. On the way out, we saw this river, aptly named Dry River. It was dry, sure, but not empty. In fact it was filled with garbage, a river of it, and dead dogs, and pigs feisting on whatever they could find....Yikes.

Hours later (and not much distance later, on a really bad road), we got our first introduction to the Altiplano, which is something that looks like a plain, but it sits at a lofty 4000m. It was bloody cold, and we stopped in a little town to warm up and eat some mountain trout.

...and fresh cheese!

We even had a little circus going, they were following my every move in unison.

Later in the afternoon, Paul, and BMW rider from Texas caught up with us (he has a true iron butt, he had left that morning from the same place we did, - a day before).

Amusing for the blog, but quite scary considering what he was carrying.....

Yes, that means "danger, fuel".
He even waved at us.

Monkeying around....

Paul is a funny guy and has an interesting work concept. He has a marketing company, and works while traveling. Every few days he stops and teleconferences the whole day. Not bad, ha?

We didn't make it to Lima, it was getting dark, and the cops were harassing us (and Paul was yelling at them), so we decided to stop in Huacho. BTW, no matter how much I try, I can't remember Peruvian city names.

"Welcome to my city, stranger, now pet me!"

They pimp out their rickshaws!
I remember well this town, because another ATM ate my bank card....Aaaaarg!!!

Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of the "grand" entrance to Lima. What a dangerous dump...We got bumped, yelled at (we yelled back, and almost burned my 139dB horn), and after another pathetic police attempt at extorting money, we made it to Miraflores, which is the sanitized rich quarter of the capital.
The hostel wasn't very cheap but we had a whole dorm to ourselves and met a another BMW rider. He was recovering from an accident months before that damaged his wrist (it was glued back crooked) and was now waiting for bike parts to arrive.

Caroline befriends with the Hostel's resident cat

Close to the sea, the city is permanently engulfed in a thick cold cloud, that makes beach-going a bit of strange activity...Nevertheless, the beaches were full.

The area was pretty ritzy.

A section of the cliff had a "lover's park" adorned with this encouraging sculpture.

No less than 20 tennis courts..! The bourgeois was out.

After geting bored with Miraflores, we decided to give Lima another chance and visit its centre.

Clinica "Good Hope". Only hope was left of this building..

Police services brought to you by the bubblegum-flavoured soda Inka Kola.

This was straight out of the Lion King cartoon. We now know price was a big factor at the auction

The traffic was absolutely MAD, see below for a movie.

In the main Plaza de Armas, an old crowd control machine was rusting away...we think it was still functional, but it was more amusing than fearsome..

Unique architecture in the main plaza.

Plaza San Martin.

We took the bus back to Miraflores, and it was an interesting challenge to understand how the system works. See for yourselves, it's a small miracle we made it....

Ok, time to leave, it's all too easy to linger away.

The Panamericana south of Lima is peppered with beach resorts and life-sized adverts. Some are quite ingenious.

They just cut the dune, what the hell, it's soft anyways.

Another dog in heaven. This one was as stiff as a branch when Caroline was rubbing him. This sentence could easily be taken out of context.

Days before we had met a dutch guy that lived in Peru and he highly recommended us a circuit that wasn't on any travel book or biker forum's to do list. Needless to say, we were very excited to take it, and it sure didn't disappoint. The road is mostly unpaved, but with the little traffic it had was in very good condition and it allowed us to spend more time looking up. And boy, was up beautiful! The access point is at Canete and goes up to Huancayo.
Here, some peasants cross this flimsy bridge ready to collapse with heavy loads on their backs, then up, up the hill.

We were a bit too optimistic about the distance we could cover that day, and found ourselves with the night falling in the middle of the boonies. About halfway to the next big city, I saw a sing on the side of the road about a touristic area, and it had all the cool icons backpackers like (bed, food, excursions, etc) I figured this was a developed resort of some sorts, so we decided to take the 8kms detour to it. Well, it was a rough one, and when we got there, it was just a cute little mountain town, with barely electricity. We did find a basic hostel (really basic), had some food in the only restaurant/convenient store, where kids gathered around us like you do when you go to the circus and see a three legged dwarf. They were cute though, and very uninhibited.

The next morning, a white girl shows up while we were packing and turns out she's a volunteer for an international organization (Peace Corps, I think) and just spent 4 months of a 2-year commitment to help the indigenous population , trying to balance their traditional way of living with a better awareness of environment issues.

I was very impressed with her commitment, way to go Kate!!

A kid watches us from a safe distance

The town, on the way out.

The area is very beautiful, and you can see the traditional way of cultivating on the slopes in "stairs"

They have doors so animals don't wander too far. There's easier ways,....

The rapids were fascinating, so violent.

Another water crossing, quite deep, Caroline wins again.

Another flimsy bridge, this time I walked it.

A little video of a nice section

An awesome place here, the top of the canyon was narrower than the bottom.

Back out in the open, Caroline finds some sheep dogs, and spends the next 20 minutes gaining their trust. It's not just the people that don't trust the gringo man...
But with food and lots of talking, she succeeds.

Soon it got colder, and with a looming rainstorm it was time to layer up. That requires a full strip, and I'd like to use to occasion to ask manufacturers of "high-end" motorcycle clothing, why do waterproofs sit under the jacket/pants??

The road continued to impress, with a high mountain pass on the side of canyons.

The road had lots of bike-sized rockslides.

Finally got a good shot of one these fancy intercity buses. These things are absolute monsters, they have lots of amenities (some advertised wireless internet !!) and they go 120-140kph. Greyhound can only dream of this.....Weird to see this in such a poor country.

We have no pictures for Huancayo, as it's a bland town and incredibly noisy, drivers are genetically attached to their horns, and they use them more often than they breathe, almost drove us insane. The motel was very crappy, too.

We left early the next morning (thanks cabbies!) and we stopped to take a break and grab a bite in Huancavelica. Immediately we got surrounded by a gang of shoe-polishing kids, and no matter what we said, they kept repeating their mantra, we only got rid of them when we entered the restaurant.

And the restaurant had on the menu an item I've been debating to try for a few weeks now, but the waitress assured me it was a local specialty and they took pride in preparing it well. So I gave into having the famed CUY, which is basically fried guinea pig (although it can be prepared in many different ways).
Tastes like chikin' only with less meat and more work....but what a great picture!

Some indigenous people thought a good place to take a piss is right by our bikes. We don't get much respect around here...

The road after that got really bad, but it made up for it with more awesome views.

The one lone sign on the entire road.

Fabulous views, this is why we came here!

Another shy shepherd dog, success again!

Every now and then, the road got really bad...

Another postcard-perfect picture.

Where am I going......?

The quintessential Peru!

The town in the distance was abandoned.

Many hours later we finally hit pavement, and it had a name, Ruta de los Libertadores, they were rightfully proud of it, it was great but at this point we weren't enjoying it all that much as it was getting dark, and the temperature dropped to 4 degrees Celsius.
We even got a glimpse of snow.

Riding at night is not something you should do in a place like this, but the sunsets are fantastic. We were above the clouds at this point, which you can see in the valley.

...And the valley had lights = town = sleep!!!
Nevermind that it took another half an hour to actually get there (lots of twisties)

Found a cheap hotel, and in the morning we were rewarded with clear skies and a great view of the valley from our hotel room.

Pretty poor maintenance record on this place

We were trying to figure out if they were still trying to build it (judging from the picture above, it was a looong project).

Main plaza had this on display, a record of the wonderful driving skills shown by our peruvian friends. The truck was practically new.

Nature takes over unfinished business.

Sun-dried meat, spiced up with fly spit (!!)

That's it for now, next is Peru Part II

Ecuador

2009-03-12T20:07:00.000-07:00

Ecuador

February:
7 - Ibarra
8 - Quito
10 - Sigcho (dirt road loop)
11 - Banos
13 - Ambato
14 - "Chimborazo" (volcano)
15 - Alausi (train Nariz del Diablo)
15 - Cuenca
16 - Loja

Originally we had planned a week for this unassuming country, but we ended up staying 10 days.

Border formalities were reasonably quick and efficient. No bribing :-)

We made it to Ibarra on the first day, the town with the most hotels per area I have ever seen. That´s good, the hotel was great and cheap.

The town itself isn´t that great looking though, it must have had some tourism influx in the past, probably due to the nearby lakes.

The main church looks great at night

Next morning was a Sunday, and we witnessed the marriage of this unlikely couple...no comments.

Otavalo. Known place of great bargains for local wool and alpaca stuff. Caro got this poncho, which I bet she´ll never wear..:-)

Don´t I look cool with my alpaca scarf?

On the way south we crossed the "middle of the earth", which is a bit off the real middle of the earth. Here Caro sits on both sides of the earth.

Finally made it to Quito, and as we were approaching downtown, we saw a big sign, "Toronto". Some Chinese-Canadian businessman opened a chinese buffet in Quito. We had to have some!

Quito was hell to navigate, but we followed the general flow of traffic and ended up in old Quito, which was very nice.

Lots of well maintained colonial buildings and churches

Sitting in the Plaza San Francisco, with the largest original colonial structure in the city, from the 1600s

Hello, sir, how are you? Have you been here long?

Lots of tourists, I blend in...

Great place to explore, we accidently found this inner courtyard.

The gothic basilica del Voto Nacional is relatively new (less than 100 years old) compared with the other churches, but it soon allowed us some breathtaking views form the top towers.

More funny than scary, these...

Biiiig city

The climb up the towers gets less and less secure. Adrenaline is starting to pour in.

Are you kiddin' me?! I was shittin´ in my pants at this point.

Than we proceeded to walk over the roof of the main cathedral.

la-la-la, no, I haven´t got a clue of what I´m doing.

Picked this great-looking colonial hotel for a few days.

There´s even a touristic TeleferiQo, that takes you up the Volcano Pichincha to the top of Cruz Loma, at 4100m. The views of the city were pretty nice.

But even nicer were the views on the other side of the mountain, beyond the sign "Go at your own risk"

Our room with a view of Sucre Theatre/Plaza. It´s low season so we chose the best room (for the same price). The worst room was basically a windowless closet with a bed.

Next we left Quito with big hopes of riding up Volcano Cotopaxi further south. After a difficult 8 kms from the main road, the park rangers informed us that motorcycles are not allowed up the mountain because we are bad people that go offroad and destroy the paths. I though that was pretty ironic considering the total lack of respect Ecuadorians seem to have for their environment. I was actually pretty bummed as we had planned to sleep up there in a refuge. Caroline, however, quickly found another interest.

So instead we started another planned loop, the Quilotoa loop. This is barely on maps, and it´s a road that goes around a volcano crater that formed a lake.
The roads itself is amazing, highly scenic, absolute pleasure.

Aaaand, our first Llamas!

The first night of this loop we slept in quaint Sigcho.
Not much to remember other than this cute pup with a bit of a crazy look ..:-)

The next day the road got tough, but no less beautiful. Here the road got swallowed by a mud slide, but it was strong enough to ride it.

Finally got to the Quilotoa Crater lake. Great entrance!

So big, absolutely breathtaking!

Continuing on, we noticed these cracks, like the earth split.

Extreme agriculture, they´ll go as far up the hill as the horse can.

Next stop was Banos, conviniently named so, as this is where you can take a dip in thermal waters up in the mountains. It´s also famous for being nearby volcano Tungurahua, which erupted violently in 2006, distroying villages, roads and forcing the evacuation of Banos.

First night I invited my french woman to a french restaurant and had moroccan food. deeeeelicious, and she looks happy! A nice change from the daily rice routine.

This was bliss. Caroline concurs.

Up that cascade, some workers were trying to catch some of the stream throught a tube. One guy was kinda dangling from a rope, I couldn´t watch it.

Life!
I´ll keep to myself the comments on how badly the place was managed....

Caroline was pretty excited to try this local delicacy...no much of a delicacy, caramel and other stuff, very hard to chew and got stuck to our teeth, frankly a small nightmare. But the preparation was entertaining.

If you´re afraid of heights, don´t cross this bridge.

Or cord-jumping for that matter. We heard one ozzy wimper like a puppy before jumping and than chant some rugby-warrior stuff while dangling :-)

Banos even has a bug museum. I can´t believe these things can fly, I am pretty sure they would crack my visor if I hit one. Freakin monsters!

We met that evening a very cool guy, a retired professional diver that moved to this town and was riding around with his dog in this chinese contraption that he had modified for 3-wheel operation (He also brought the dog with him.). We spent the evening with lots of wine, fascinated with his life stories. He was definitely a special guy. This sort of encounter makes this trip so much richer, I absolutely love meeting these crazies.

A mini pickup truck! for carrying mini things, I suppose.

Touristic place, cute main plaza, but horrible food. Had the worst pizza of my life, I don´t even want to remember the ingredients (ok, I will: sliced hotdogs, processed sliced cheese, pita bread). Not even university student can come up with this shit.

Took a little drive down towards the amazon (Puyo), and on the way stopped at this big waterfall, Pailon del Diablo.

Safety? Ha! This path led halfway up the fall.

We got completely soaked

Caroline made another friend, this dangerously-looking puppy.

Left Banos late and only made it was far as Ambato. Kinda ugly town, but made up for it with beauty peagent parade.

Here we also bought this little gizmo from a street vendor, you put it in your mouth and make great sounds with it. Well...HE was making cool sounds, like horses and birds and other fancy animals...the following video shows what sounds I can make...

Seeing how we could go up Cotopaxi, we decided to try another big volcano, Chimborazo, which at 6310m is the highest peak in Ecuador, and due to the Earth´s bulge at the ecuator, it´s also the furthest point from the earth centre, more so than K2 in Himalaya!

The 50% admission went nicely in the pocket of the ranger...

Here´s the sign with the numbers.

It was VERY cold by the time we got to the first refuge, so we decided to make a soup.

Soup never tasted so good.

And this poor little soul was heartbreaking!, we fed him lots of biscuits.

Now, for the best pictures!!

You´d think I would have pictures like this from Canada, but no. I had to have them from a high mountain in Ecuador.

That was pretty crazy, I felt so cool!

An Oh Shit moment....

And it kept on snowing, awesome.

On the way down, the peak was covered by clouds, but you can tell how massive this thing is.

The Andes version of deer. Very shy as well.

Another day, another Lonely Planet destination, this one being in Alausi, the dramatically named Nariz del Diablo train. It was supposed to be a hairy train ride on a mountain side with vertical drops and scary moments.
The day started very slow, with the train being late, as everything else in this part of the world. To kill time we found some big bugs, and we started our own show (people started taking pictures of the proceedings)Just try and I´ll show ya´!

Aside from a few notable moments, the train ride was dissapointing, overhyped. We had seen way better places in the last few days alone....

Caroline´s artistic sense takes over.

The necessary picture. It´s actually kinda like a bus on rails.

Maybe the deplorable state of the tracks was part of the ¨scare¨ factor...

Driving with the open backdoor was definitely the highlight.

Running out of alotted time for Ecuador, we rushed towards Cuenca, another well preserved colonial town. Very nice, indeed.

Big and expensive-looking churches.

...with grand entrances.

Old bridge no longer in use but kept as a viewing balcony, nice.

Further down towards the Peruvian border, in Loja, we see a new, fully equipped sister of Caro´s bike, complete with solid bags and crashbars...for twice the money she paid for hers.

After 10 days of great scenery and incredibly dangerous, agressive and outright moronic drivers, we made it to the Peruvian border!

We´ve got mixed feelings for Ecuador, the people were either nice and genuinely curious about our trip, or rude and dismissive like we were stinky and dangerous (Yeah!). The Macho thing on the roads is also out of control, we had many close calls, where the priority is dictated by weight, so we were naturally at the bottom of the food chain. We often felt that our lives mattered little in their eyes...

Next post: Peru

Colombia Part Two

2009-02-26T16:11:00.000-08:00

Colombia Part II
Jan 27 - Feb 6, 2009

Cartagena to Ipiales

The map again for reference

We finally arrived in Cartagena, and even though the outskirts of the city don't look too good, the old city is absolutely gorgeous, with lots of large colonial buildings in tip-top shape. We stayed in a not so safe area, but the hostels there were cheaper. Apparently, only a few years ago, some of the streets were filled with drug dealers and prostitutes. Now the prostitutes were relegated in bars...

Some made-for-tourists boats

The park, even though small and busy, was home to these giant residents

And the main attraction, the city within the walls.

Plaza de la Aduana

Iglesia de San Pedro Claver (named after a monk that spent his life ministering for the african slaves)

One of Botero's typical sculptures. I think she likes me.

Isn't that lovely.. ;-)

The citadel walls. These were built during the time Cartagena was rich (as can still be seen by the size of those houses) and attracted a lot of attention from a lot of bad people on boats with skull flags, including Francis Drake.

Looks so peaceful now.

Caroline's gone crazy....

The Atlantic waves were spilling on the road.

Had some overpriced crepes in restaurant set in a inner courtyard, very nice.

The badly overpriced museum of torture was situated in a huge mansion

They weren't very nice back then. The death was slow and painful.

That is a BIG door. They must have had tall horses...

Caroline has some chicken soup, and discovers that they use the feet as well.....Not a happy camper.

Next day we met with Robin again, semi-randomly, and we all decided to go hit the local beach. What a nightmare, not a second of relaxation, an army of vendors passed by trying to sell us the most retarded things you can imagine...some women came to give us feet massage and no matter how much we refused they continued to rub our feet. At the end, when we refused to pay the ridiculous $5 they got all pissed and made a big deal out of it, it took a while until they left.

Here we get some sausages from a guy hand-carrying a a barbecue with hot coal.

Apparently, the thing to do at night in Cartagena (among other things of course...) is to take a chiva bus and go blasting music on the streets at night with a live band while we get thrashed on cheap rum. Yeah! We had lots of fun, shaking those maracas till I got muscle aches.

We had a stopover to hand over money to all sorts of other people offering stuff we didn't need. We did give money to a guy for taking a picture of this adorable sloth.

Our party bus!

Some comedians. Rob is the biggest of all, we pissed ourselves laughing when we saw the picture.

Then we had some drinks on the street. The trick was to buy drinks to go (cheaper) and take the seats outside of the bar, neat!

And that was the end of our stay in Cartagena, next day we started riding south again. We passed town after town of uninteresting places. These bikers provided some entertainment in the way they packed their bike, Che Guevara style.

Two days later we arrived in Medellin. We made the mistake of staying downtown, which during weekends looks like Beirut. It really was scary, the vast majority of the people were either homeless or crazy (or both). There were people washing their clothes in the main fountain of the Botero plaza, at night, peeing everywhere they felt like. This was a very unpleasant time.

We then discovered there's a nicer area of Medellin, El Poblado. We went there in the evening and we found the biggest party zone I have ever seen anywhere. There must have been 50 bars within a square of 4 blocks, and it was all packed with trendy people. The bars were all unique and very modern, we absolutely loved it.

The view from the hotel room.

We visited the Botero plaza where they have lots of his sculptures and this funky looking building.

A black Jesus on his knees? No Comment....

While taking a break in front of an excellent fruit smoothie, these Colombians started talking to us and we spent a good hour shooting the shit with them, they were very curious about everything, asking us a million questions.

Not knowing what to do with the rest of the day, we just took the modern subway (which really is a suspended train) took a ride across the city.

And a movie shot from it.

The university library

Then not very far from the end of the line, we saw a cablecar that was part of the subway system, the Metrocable. It served the poorer suburbs on the hills and it gave an opportunity to go there without having to walk the possibly dangerous hill.

Great views over the city within the hills

Up there there was a nice free area where lots of people were relaxing.

This a a public telephone, there was a place to put money, it looked funny.

Later that night we went to check our email in a cybercafe, these two guys were shamelessly downloading porn

We left Medellin towards Cali, and had some great mountain roads to enjoy, somehow nature was a lot more generous to our eyes than Medellin was....

In the background, a town built on a mountain crest, not wider than 2 streets.

Closer to Cali, the traffic was blocked because a truck had lost his container in a corner (who needs straps?) and now an old crappy tow truck was trying to put it back, and bending its chassis in the process.

All the bikers got to the front, it looked like the starting grid of the GP125. It was a lot of fun passing them all!!

In Cali we did some maintenance on the bikes at the Kawasaki dealer, Alvaro took good care of us. We washed the bikes for the first time!

Changed the oil, cleaned the filter, installed a new speedometer cable (the original broke at 16k, crap quality, Mr. Kawasaki), and Caroline got a new LOUD horn so she could harass the moronic drivers.

In Cali we also met Alex and his peruvian girlfriend who were riding low tech on a 80's Suzuki a similar route as ours, Kudos for him!

Alex's bike, leaking oil and dead chain..:-)

We stayed at his hostel, he married a Colombian after his trip to South America and stayed in Colombia.

We left Cali and took a detour towards San Agustin National Park, on a bad dirt road.

It was pretty interesting at times

San Agustin has some archaeological sites with pre-hispanic large statues, made by a "mysterious" culture, according to my Lonely Planet Guide
We just took some horse riding towards a beautiful green canyon. Caroline just wanted to walk the horse, named Mango. They were able to take us on a road so bad, no car could have gone through, amazing little horses.

Mystical place, apparently many people of different religions congregate here once a year, at the top of the canyon

No post is good without a funny dog popping its head in the camera. He left immediately after, he just wanted to be famous.

****************************

That evening we went out to eat and found a little pizzeria, Pizza Mania, onwed by a french expat, that had lived in the area for more than 20 years, living off agriculture. She made amazing pizza, and had even more amazing stories of her life among the FARC. It seems the guerilla imposed social rules that had a positive effect on the communities that lived on those hills. They really believed in the red book. Of course, not following the orders meant expulsion from the area or death. She was accepted even though she was "gringa"because she was a hard worker. Unfortunately when the financing from mother Russia dried out, and the traditional drug cartels from Cali and Bogota had been crippled by interfighting and government interventions, the FARC took over the drug business because it was easy money. This corrupted them and things went down after that, with kidnappings other bad things . She didn't have a good opinion of the current popular president, saying he was a dangerous man that gave immense powers to the right wing paramilitary troops formed by the demise of the drug cartels (they committed huge atrocities in communities they believed supported the FARC)
She also spoke of the real Colombian mafia, the Spanish descendants which do not mix with indigenous or black people and who control the media so nothing that goes against the interests of the big local corporations is being investigated in the newspapers or television.

*****************************

On the way back to the main route we took another road that was not recommended by Alvarez, Mocoa - Pasto, as it used to be prime guerrilla territory. We took it anyways, because the locals told us that there was a lot of military presence, and the FARC had been pushed farther into the Amazon region.

Caroline takes some cool shots of the road

Bloody great!

Caroline in Mocoa gets some directions from some locals all to eager to help.

Decided to have some fish, unfortunately he decided to have me instead, as you can see from my expression. He put up a fight even in the afterlife, I almost choked from all the little bones he had, you just couldn't eat this thing.

Just look at that mean face!

But still enjoying the best of Colombia

After Mocoa, the real bad roads followed, but they were accompanied by phenomenal views
And river crossings, as can be seen in this pic.

This one was deep!

Pictures don't do it justice, but they're still better than words. At least, MY words.

Yes, I'm the dot on the road.

The pic above is me taking the pic below.

Isn't that great?

Please don't slip...

The road was only a little bit bigger than the truck, not the encounter I was hoping for. And they weren't slowing down much, priority was based on weight.

Of course where do we get another flat? Right smack in the middle of the mountain pass. And to make matters interesting, the nut was overtorqued (by the guy that changed the tires). The stuff you see me doing in the pic did not work, I had to flag down a bus to borrow a big wrench.

At least the views were pretty.

I'm NOT impressed.

Making some friends in the process

Kept going after that until we got to this: A bus had broken down and had blocked traffic on both directions. All the "nice" people that passed us without asking if we needed help were going to disappear in our rearview mirror.

It is NOT easy to ride on that crap and film, so don't ask for a steadier version of this clip!

Finally made it to Pasto, and I was all to o happy to snap a pic of this great ass :-)

The chain was all dirty, so we had it washed in a car wash.
She wasn't working on the engine, she was washing it! I'm sure the owner didn't mind the scratches on the side.

Less than a week after we left Pasto, a nearby volcano errupted, covering the city in ashes. Talk about close calls...Speaking of which, we had other coincidences in this trip. Four days after we left the Poas Volcano in Costa Rica, on Jan 8, there was a 6.2 magnitude earthquake with the epicenter 10kms from Poas, and the ensuing landslide had killed a few people. Also a day before getting into Cali, Feb 1st the FARC had detonated a car killing 3 people.

And that's it with Colombia, we crossed the border with Ecuador at Ipiales, it was fairly effortless, we were through in an hour.

Next post, Ecuador.

Colombia Part One

2009-02-22T16:16:00.000-08:00

Aaaaa, Colombia....the place so many are afraid to visit, we couldn't wait to see. And it didn't disappoint!
We spent the most time here so far (apart from Mexico, but that was forced on us...), almost 3 weeks. We could easily have doubled that, though.

We took a lot of pictures so had to divide Colombia in 2 big posts. This post covers the first half, from Bogota to Cartagena on the Caribbean coast.

Interesting coincidence, but the Colombian flag has the same colors as the Romanian one :-)

On the way from Panama city to Bogota we saw some beautiful scenery as the plane was flying low. Here's an interesting town (and there's many like that) built on a mountain crest.

Perennial snow...

After all the scary warnings about Colombia, we were expecting a very poor and struggling place. Instead we were shocked to see a beautiful city with civilized and super-friendly people. I mean genuinely friendly! It felt like Europe, with people pleasure cycling everywhere, dogs on leashes (a first so far!) and lots of french cars. The old area is very beautiful and very well preserved.

Our first coffee, from the world's experts!
That's Justin, a cool, happy guy we met several times accidentally on our trip, and we spent a couple of days together in Bogota.

Steps away from our cozy hostel we found Plaza de Bolivar, with a cathedral that put to shame every other one we have seen in this trip so far. Lots of people gathered, and being a Sunday, many roads were closed for pedestrian use only (and bicycles)

Some kind and funny looking llamas, entertaining tourists like us.

A dog chases the million pigeons in front of the Capitolio Nacional

One of the many pets, this one with an attitude. By the way, very few stray dogs.

A well maintained Renault 4 from the 70's

Speaking of well maintained, I couldn't help noticing how immaculate some of the retro trucks were. This one looked like it came from a pickup truck expo.

Another beautiful church, with 60's truck in perfect condition parked in front.

Further towards downtown, CityTV of Toronto opened another office in Bogota...we even watched some of it on the TV, but it doesn't feel the same as the original.

Being Sunday, the Parque de los Periodistas was filled with people selling crap. We had a lot of fun and spend almost 2 hours digging in this giant flea market.

The very efficient bus system has dedicated roads. In the background up on the hill, Cerro de Monserrate.

The world-famous Gold Museum. Spent most of an afternoon here, it was big!

Funny-looking pota Penis

Proudly holding on

The detail was impressive considering the tools they were using.

Doesn't this look like a monster from the Gremlins movie? Or the other way around?

This looked like an alien. It was as big as a small finger.

This was even smaller, like a fingernail!

Depictions of ancient customs, this one shows the tombs on the mountain side.

Carrying the mommy of granny...

All that culture made me hungry. So we had a local specialty, hot chocolate and cheese. Who thought of that? I didn't like it, as you can see from my expression.

Lots of funny looking buses. They were Chevrolets, but I haven't seen them anywhere else.
It started to rain, what to do, what to do...?

I know, let's get a tatoo!
And we did! And it hurt!!

a pre-Hispanic representation of a monkey

Caroline finally gets what she always wanted. Paws.

An old Suzuki sportscar, very italian looking.

The Zona Rosa (party zone) is only a few dollars away from our hostel. Very upscale for the locals, decent for us.

Bars looked very nice, all of them. Hard to choose, but we settled on a glass of wine, here.

Next day I went to get Caroline's brakes fixed, on a street that had about 50 motorcycle shops....Another Kawasaki surprise, they didn't put lube on the caliper sliders, it killed the pads and welded the sliders in place. It took 2 guys, a hammer and 15 minutes to free the damn thing. And it cost the whole of 8 dollars.
This guy was very proud of his contraption.

On the way back, saw this dude ready to go on a trip. Chatted for a while in English, French and Spanish! He was traveling 2-up on a 200cc with home made soft bags made of thick nylon, pretty cool. He said it kept the weight low.

Caroline gets creative. Radu in a cup.

One subject I didn't touch yet is the Colombian laaaaadies.. The majority are hooooot. :-) Seriously.
Pretty, thin and well dressed. Too bad I couldn't take more pictures.
Here, Caroline expresses her own opinion on the subject;-)

Another novelty, walking public phones. She has several cells attached with chains to her belt.

The post office had a retro mail truck, in the form of a Citroen 2CV, so cool!

Lovers lane with a great view of Bogota.

We stayed about 4 days in Bogota, and loved it. Never felt unsafe, but we did felt cold at night.....

After that we started driving north, and on the way we saw this amusement park filled with giant objects, in the middle of nowhere.

First stop was Zipaquira, where we wanted to see a cathedral built inside a salt mine. The town itself was nice too, with a cute central plaza, and well-maintained buildings.

Visiting the cathedral was a bit expensive and took way too long (about 3 hours), but it was interesting.

Here there's an example of their mixing of catholic and indigenous themes.

I licked the altar, it was salt.

An old mine used for tourists.
The salt mine is still active, and has reserves for many hundreds of years. It was formed by the evaporation of a sea that no longer had ocean access,

We continued driving on a loop recommended but our guide book, and eventually arrived at Villa de Leyva, a classic colonial town, that still looks like it did hundreds of years ago. Beautiful white houses and cobblestone streets, like a movie set. In fact, it HAS been used for the movie Zorro.
We enjoyed some fantastic deserts here.

Look at that happy face, it passed the French seal of approval.

Great by night...

...or by day

We continued driving north and the road became more and more scenic, with huge green mountains rising in front of us.

Stopped for lunch, and discovered how good Colombian soups are. We continued to order soups throughout the trip.

Plenty of entertainment provided by the resident pair of parrots.

"Shut Uuuup!"

.."or I'll kick your ass!"

On towards San Gill we took a great 100km scenic detour to see Barichara, another immaculate colonial town, proudly displaying La Cathedral de la Inmaculada Concepcion.

Continuing north the road got better and better with epic mountain ranges and great visibility. Eventually we reached Chicamocha Canyon, where precisely that day, the president was unveiling the longest cablecar in the world, Swiss-made, of course. It went down the valley and up the next mountain.

l still liked the other side better.

It was getting dark so we slept in a nasty matrimonial hotel, and headed next day for another detour, this one a day-long 300km run from Bucaramanga to Pomplona towards the Venezuelan border, crossing the entire Cordillera Oriental over several mountain passes.

It got really cold

The views were spectacular, and kept changing, from luscious green to dry and back to green rolling mountains.
Here, Caroline is a spec on the road.

The descent to Pamplona is also very nice. I love these towns set on hils.

The french postcard, patisseries in a Renault :-)

The same spec

We got pulled over by some friendly military guys, who got very excited about our trip, and chatted with us for a while.

Almost ran off the road a few times while looking at this view.

Bucaramanga at the bottom of the valley

Slept in another cute colonial town, Giron, just outside Bucaramanga. It was Sunday again and the main plaza was filled with people.

Can't believe it looks so good after 400 years!

Latinos loooove meat. Mounds of it. So we had some, but I think we go ripped off, it was our most expensive meal in Colombia,

Next morning as we were leaving the hotel, a journalist approached us and asked for an interview! The result is here, we're famous, damn it!
http://www.vanguardia.com/archivo/19548-de-ottawa-a-giron-en-motocicleta

We then departed, eager to make time so we can get sooner to Cartagena, but, after 4 months on the road, the inevitable happended. Got a flat!

Lots of work with the bicycle pump...

The road started to descend and after San Alberto the comfortable 20 degrees turned into a sweaty sauna. We said goodbye to the twisties and hello to the marshes...We arrived in Cartagena the day after.

Next week, Colombia Part II, Cartagena to Ecuador.