Category Archives: Chile

Wind windows

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We said goodbye to our travel buddy Ben Snacks (Pop Pop Pop) last night, and also to Alex from Germany who we’ve bumped into a few times along the road, and with loose plans to reconvene for Christmas, we rode to Porto Natales this morning on our lonesomes again.

It was a tough ride for the first 100km (wind of course), then the road turned west and into the wind and it got a bit less hectic.

I’d woken at 6am, and immediately went for my phone and the now reverred windy app… balls. The wind was up a bit over the forecast, and coming up more as the day wore on.

‘We better get going Sal’

The forecast was for 45kmh winds, gusting to 65, blowing directly across our trajectory. In all honesty I had no idea whether that was a lot, or totally manageable, but it was the lowest it’d been in a while, or would-be for a while.

Turns out that 45 gusting to 65 is quite a lot, somewhere near the limit I’d guess.

With wind from the left pushing us right, and ordinarily riding on the right (this being South America and all) there isn’t far to get pushed before you run out of road and end up in the scrub.

Which would be bad.

Lucky for us it’s Sunday! So the roads were completely deserted, and we did what any normal Australian would do and rode on the left side of the highway instead. Actually on the left side, of the left side!

This gave us two whole lanes to get blown across before leaving the road. Of course there was the odd oncoming car, truck and bus to contend with, but that extra margin for 98% of the ride was a blessing.

It did have me wondering how the conversation might play out with the Carabinieros though…

‘but officer, I’m from Australia, i didn’t know!’

Tomorow we have another window early afternoon until about 10pm to reach El Chalten, that’s 515km with a border crossing thrown in.

The last 320 of which is without any services, and will be all cross wind (less than today though!) so will be battling that and carrying extra fuel too.

It’s going to be a long day.

You know it was a hard day when Sally is asleep at 4pm!

ushuaia

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When people told us it was windy in Patagonia, I imagined constant strong wind, riding down the road with the bike leaned over at 45deg, getting blown around a bit… Like really windy days back home. Um, No.

I didn’t imagine having to stay in one place for days to wait for a window of time when the wind DROPPED to that level so it would be less unsafe to ride between two towns 200km apart.

But there it is, and so, here we are in Punta Arenas watching wind forecasts and waiting for something below 60kmh of side wind before we leave.

The wind here is evil. At night in the room it feels like the whole building is going to get blown away. Yesterday I had to stop walking and crouch down low not to get blown over in the middle of town. The power lines screech and get blown so hard they smack against each other with such force it feels unsafe walking underneath them.

Anyhow…

The past week was spent getting to Ushuaia (mostly tail wind), being in Ushuaia (mostly disappointing) and then getting out of Ushuaia (mostly side and head wind).

Ushuaia itself is just another mid sized town, with not that much to see or do if you’re not doing excursions to see penguins or taking a boat to visit Antarctica.

The ride there from Porto Natales was nothing like as scenic as we’ve come to expect, just rolling hills and quite barren, aside from the weather we could have been in Australia!

As we were waiting for some spare parts to arrive in the next town we stayed there a few nights, and that was definitely enough.

Luckily the wind dropped to a manageable level for our departure, but even so…

‘babe there’s something wrong with my bike. It’s just going slower and slower’ crackles Sally over the intercom

‘ok… is it misfiring? Any lights on the dash?’

‘no it’s just going slowly, like only 70kmh’

‘mine is too, it’s this headwind, just try to tuck in a bit behind the screen and it’ll go a little faster’

Now we’re doing 80, full throttle. It’s 11am and we have another 300km to go, It’s going to be a long day.

To make matters worse, Sally got food poisoning last night so didn’t sleep, and was vomiting into a bucket half hour before leaving.

Poor Sally.

Also it’s cold. Really cold. 11deg on the dash, but with the wind tearing through me it feels much worse, well at least it’s not raining I muse…

Yep. There it is. Rain.

Kudos to the goretex gear we have though, or more like kudos to Sally for recommending that I bring my rain suit despite the bulk. At least we’ve stayed bone dry.

Unexpectedly those spare parts arrived a week early so we could have left here (Punta Arenas) had the wind allowed, but it’s been pretty brutal these few days. Today it’s averaging 68km/h with gusts at 92km/hr. And today is A LOT BETTER than yesterday.

We have a two hour window at 45km/h tomorrow morning to go north, fingers crossed the forecast is right!

Wind. Holy shitballs.

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‘well i’ve never turned left while leaning right before ‘ says Ben in his Johan Zarco frenchy accent.

It’s true, and I haven’t either.

We’re riding between the frontiers en route back to Chile, the road is loose gravel and all of us are leaning hard to the right while going more or less straight.

This has me wondering at what point the front will tuck. Geez. Sally is understandably freaking out a bit, but at least the wind is consistent (not gusting much), and the road is not terrible so it all goes without issue.

We stop after the Chilean frontier in one of many places plastered with overlanders stickers to take refuge from the wind, and empty a fuel bladder into the tanks.

The forecast is for lower wind speed as the day rolls on, so we decide to do the famous loop through the Torres del Paine NP, 175km of mostly gravel road with some of the most breathtaking scenery I’ve witnessed.

Once up in the mountains though it changed into wind like I’ve never experienced before, gusts out of nowhere, whirly winds taking dust up into the sky with such force you felt they’d take you up too.

At one point I’m following Sally and one of them passes close to her, holy shitballs, I wonder how that would feel if it went through you…

Shortly after that we found out.

I hear a “woooohhhh ahhhhhhhh” through the intercom as I crest a hill and see Sally riding slowly ahead of me.

“oh my god oh my god I need to stop I need to stop” she sounds manic, I’m confused as I didn’t see anything happening and she was still upright on the bike!?

I find somewhere to park and run over to her, grab the bike as she dismounts.

“what’s going on, what happened?”

“I don’t know I don’t know I hit the barrier oh my god”

It’s not making sense yet, but eventually I get it. The wind was coming from the right pretty hard so you lean right to counter it, but in an instant it switched and blew TO the right, and so already leaning that way it shot Sal into the Armco barrier. The crash bars and her MX boots took the hit and she wobbled to a stop, in more than a bit of shock.

I saw the scrape on Sally’s right boot and put it all together. Lucky there was a barrier, there was a steep drop maybe 30m into a freezing lake otherwise.

‘yeah you would have got wet’ says Ben dryly.

Sally is a bit too freaked out to see any positives just yet.

Are you hurt? No I’m fine. Nothing at all? No she says, just as surprised as me.

Bet you’re glad you bought those boots!

Old leavey-behindey strikes again!

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It’s been a couple of hours riding a dusty rocky pass after processing into Argentina, when I go for my water and realise I’m not wearing my backpack.

Balls.

I quickly do the maths, 60ish km back to the Arg border, another ten to the Chilean side if it’s not there, plus the 20 extra we already did to get our permits reissued today, makes 160km extra for the day.

We’re already carrying extra fuel for this leg as it’s too far for one tank, when we filled the bladders I put 3lt extra in each one just in case…

So 6 lt extra x 25km per litre equals 150km. It’s almost enough. So I make a snap decision, skid to a stop, spin around and head back.

‘babe I’m going back, find some shade, I’ll be a couple of hours’

‘um… ok, do we have enough fuel!??’

‘not sure, work that out later, I have enough to get there and back’

I hit save waypoint on the GPS so I know where I turned around, and without thinking much more I’m gone.

Losing my waterpack is not an option, and it has a goretex jacket in it too, so I’m not abandoning it.

Some further thinking would have been wise though.

Around 25km later I realise all the border documents needed to exit argentina are in Sally’s bike. FUUUUUCK.

I stop for a moment to see if I have my passport at least. Yep. Not enough fuel or time to go back for the docs, hope they let me through without them. Keep going.

The road is winding mountain pass, with lots of stones in the surface, but loose gravel mostly, with some blind crests. I can remember the pinch points from the ride there so can take a few risks and carry more speed through the turns, which is good as the bike has no power so carrying corner speed is the only way to get somewhere fast.

Oh how I wish I had Betsy right now.

The 50/50 tyres we have are not super grippy, and there’s not enough power to turn the bike with the rear tyre so it’s not pretty, but I make good time to the Argentine border, where there’s no backpack.

‘no you can’t go through no man’s land without processing the bike, absolutely not’. FFS. It’s 11km, too far to walk.

He calls the Chilean side where they find a backpack that matches my description…

‘but what brand is it?’

I can’t remember, FFS how many people leave backpacks up here, we’re in the middle of frikkin nowhere!

Lucky for me, the Chilean guy tells the Argentine guy to get me to leave my passport there and let me through.

Win.

Arriving at the Chilean side, the customs guy holds up my pack and tells me to check that the contents are all there.

‘no need, I trust you’

He smiles and asks if I have enough petrol to go back?

‘maybe, but it’s ok, we can pool fuel and send one forward with a bladder’

‘we can get you some fuel’

I say thanks but I don’t have any Chilean pesos on me, just Argentine pesos…

‘its a gift, from one motorcyclist to the next’

He points to a KTM 1190 Adventure parked next to the office, ‘its mine he says’

I’m beaming, and in my broken Spanish I tell him I ride a KTM at home, and my brother has the exact same bike.

‘It’s a monster’ I say… ‘that motor is the devil, amazing’

Now he’s beaming, and tells me all about his 4000km round trip from home to work through the mountains. That’s not a typo.

Incredible.

He fills my tank, shakes my hand and wishes me well.

That’s the 4 or 5 litres we needed to get to the next fuel station. What luck!

I ride back to the Arg side, where they make me wait 10mins for my passport, before telling me I’m very lucky and to get outta here now.

As I take off again I forget to turn off the ABS and shoot the next corner off into the scrub. ABS is dangerous on gravel. At least it wasn’t off a cliff I muse.

Dean, be smart. Ride sensibly.

The return trip cost us two hours and four dents in my front rim. Obviously that advice I gave myself was somewhat ignored.

Good thing I love being on a mission huh!

I get back to my waypoint and no Sally… oh dear. I ride on a bit, before doubling back to see if I missed her off the road. Still nothing, so I keep going forward another kilometer to find her and Ben under the only tree for miles. They look relieved to see me, and I’m relieved to be back with company.

Ben was waiting for us not far from where I turned around, so he came back looking after 20mins, with the plan to come looking if I didn’t get back in a few hours. He’s a good man.

I’ve ridden remote places many times solo, and it’s a different beast. A fall, breakdown or even just a puncture are compounded when you’re by yourself. Plus it was already late in the day and gets freezing up there at night.

All these things were going through my mind, usually followed by ‘i wish Betsy was here’

It was 550km for the day, a lot of dirt and 4 frontiers crossed, the beer at dinner time was sooo sweet.

Better late than…

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(I wrote this a week ago…)

Sally just told me her last post was up to Rio Tranquillo where we did a boat ride to see some marble caves… yawn.

This was just 4 days ago, but it seems like weeks.

Since then, short ride to Cochrane, next day a 22km hike in the Valle Chacabuco, back to Cochrane again (yes two nights in the same place!), then another short ride to Caleta Tortel (I’m calling that a down day), where Sally got a warning for speeding, tich tich, and today we rode the last 150km of the Carreterra Austral, which was just as, or more stunning than the rest.

Also, there were several ‘incidents’ today. Firstly Ben (a French guy we’ve been defacto traveling with for a few days) crashed his bike, no harm done.Then, Sally tipped her bike over while stationary, got stuck under it and banged her head on the stony ground in the process, ouch. (no serious harm done). And lastly I was run off the road by a police car driving too fast (them not me!) on a narrow mountain road. (also, no harm done). But what the fuck Carabinerios, tell us to slow down and then pull a stunt Ike that. Geez.

Anyway, having made it to the end of the Carreterra Austral we’re now headed back the way we came to cross a remote mountain pass called Passo Roballo. So remote there isn’t even a Chilean immigration post. So we had to apply for a permit to leave that way online. And in to contrast to the usual Latin American efficiency, it was issued the very next day.

Not much else to report. We’re traveling well, bikes are holding up great, the scenery is stunning. Roll on.

A false start…

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Tacna Time

Definition. the act of spending time in a v small town (where there’s little to do), while waiting for conditions conducive to moving on.

Origin. Spending four days bored senseless in Tacna (Peru) while waiting to be contacted by Peruvian smugglers in 2013. Followed by another three days in Desguadero (Bolivia). Time mostly spent playing cards, drinking Picso, being stressed out of our (my) mind, and visiting every single shop, restaurant and street in said towns.

We arrived in Hornypillion yesterday morning thinking we’d buy tickets for today’s ferry when we got here… But today’s ferry was booked out. Ffs.

There was a 6pm ferry but it arrives at 10pm and there’s a two hr gravel rd ride on the other side, which we weren’t keen on in the dark at 4deg c.

Cue Tacna time.

So far we’ve done our washing, bought some spares for the trip ahead, done a nut and bolt on the bikes (made sure nothing is about to fall off), cooked some food, been scalded and frozen in 30sec intervals by the shower, lost a padlock and alarm fob (don’t ask), walked laps of the town, sat and watched the rain outside, played cards and of course, drank (drunk ?) Picso.

This is our tiny cabana in the middle of town, there’s a main room maybe 4x4m, a small bedroom and a tiny torture room (shower).

It’s not really Tacna time (too short a stint), but it was an unexpected delay.

Tomorrow we have the ferry at 10am that takes us through a Fjord, then a 10km ride and another short ferry to Caleta Gonzalo before we’re back on our own time.

Looking forward to making some miles soon.

xo

Starting the Carrettera Austral

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As we’re running a little early it’s still really cold further south, so there’s absolutely no hurry to get anywhere soon.

This does not suit our personalities at all but we’re trying.

So we kicked around Pucon a couple of days, paid too much for an oil change and debated where to go next.

We have a little road map that has a mark on a town called Valdivia and the word ‘bohemian’ written next to it.

So Valdivia it is.

The ride there took us through an area called the Siete Lagos route, (Seven Lakes). Lots of lush scenery, really nice riding.

Other than a university district, the town itself was not all that bohemian, but there was a colony of seals living on the river bank in the middle of town.

An enormous one took a lunge at Sally when she got too close trying to take a pic, causing her to trip over and land on her ass, I think that was my highlight of Valdivia. Oh and the brewery.

From Valdivia our route took us back to the lakes where we did a lap of Lago Ranco and then Lago Llanquihue complete with 3 (or 4?) volcanoes surrounding it. Amazing.

We got our first bit of rain late in the day, and decided to call it at Frutillar baho, another cute town on a lake where we found a cool little bnb without too much hassle.

From here we debated whether to spend another couple of days on a detour to see a peninsula sw of Puerto Montt (the start of the Carreterra Austral) or just get moving onto the Carreterra A.

Surprisingly we chose the detour. Loaded up, fueled up, and travelled 60km before getting the shits with riding around in circles, changed our minds and detoured to Puerto Varas.

As a side note, there are a lot of well cared for dogs in Chile. Never seen so many people walking dogs, and one such dog has just tried to join Sal and I in the Cabana we’re in for the night…

He was quite insistent, and almost pushed Sal over trying to get in :-). Two falls in one week… Now that would have been worth blogging about.

Back at Puerto Varas… we went through a check list of stuff we wanted to get done before embarking on the C. Australis.

Get more Chilean pesos and spread out the various bits of cash we have between our riding suits, no small task. But done.

Recharge the phone (fail).

Replace a headlight (fail x 2)

Find a bag to store the smelly fuel bladders in (fail)

Get a bit of hose to syphon fuel if needed (done) and…

Find some antacid medication for me (done) thanks pm.

Pay an etag bill (fail)

Get insurance for Argentina (fail)

Do some housekeeping for life back home (win).

I realize all of this is somewhat boring, and the extremely strange hotel we stayed in, with it’s cast of equally strange residents, burning smells wafting thru at all hours and pillows full of critters would make better reading, but life on the road is not all roses (or weird hotels).

(inside Sally’s pillow, there’s critters in there!).

Stay with me though, I’m almost done. Now it’s today.

Back to not being in a hurry and waiting for the weather to warm up a bit… So next destination we chose was just 60km away at the foot of a Nat Park called Alerce, which contains among other things an Alerce tree that’s 3000 years old. That’s not a typo. 3000.

Todays forecast was for rain, so we reasoned it would be better to walk in the rain than ride in it, so we did the short stint to this cabana where the same black dog still wants to get in…

… unloaded all our stuff and went hiking in the rain.

Good thing our rain suits are in good nick because it rained solid for the three hours we were walking…

(Sals hood isn’t waterproof so she put a plastic bag on her head to stay dry. Bag head.)

There was a nice waterfall at the end, and the 3000 year old tree too… Did I mention it’s 3000 years old. Holy shit! That tree was here 1000 years before Jesus!

Tonight we’re staying in a cool little cabana (small holiday house), that looks over the Reloncavi Estuary. A lot of the accommodation along here is in tiny self contained houses so we’re making the most of the kitchenette.

We have a bottle of wine, 2 beers, some locally smoked salmon, a pack of pasta, an onion, a few small tomatoes, some salami and cheese, peanuts, and a bunch of saggy asparagus to turn into dinner.

Should be a wild night!

(our view)

xoxo

Into the Andes

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After a couple of nights at Viracay national Park, we decided to head up to the frontier with Argentina at the Pechuente pass, with a yet to be decided plan thereafter.

The options were to cross into Argentina, ride a bit of the route 40 and return to Chile, or just turn around at the border and come back down the same way.

There were a few things at play… We had no mandatory Argentinian third-party insurance, but could possibly buy it at the border (cost penalty unknown). We also had no Argentinian pesos, which would usually not be any sort of problem. However, there’s a currency crisis in Argentina which means it’s actually quite hard to get cash. You can withdraw cash from an ATM but the maximum withdrawal is $50 and the ATM fee for doing this is $10. Not really the way we roll.

Alternatively, we have some US dollars on us which we could have possibly changed on the black market, and the last option was to do what all the other travelers here do and transfer money to ourselves via Western Union and go pick it up in a Western Union office, which surprisingly ends up being one of the most cost-effective ways of doing it.

You just need to find a Western Union office. In the Andes. That has cash. Seems easy enough.

The last problem was that our new bikes only have 11 lt fuel tanks and we weren’t really sure where the next petrol station was going to be….

On the way up to the pass I was feeling quite nervous. It’s been 7 or 8 years since we last did this stuff, would we still remember the ins and outs?

The road wound its way up higher and higher from forest Forest into open mountains, snow covered peaks around us, mountain lakes and snow melt rivers coursing down along the roadside.

We only got as high as 2,500 m, which is moderate for the Andes, further north we saw 4,900 m on Betsy! But the scenery was magnificent nonetheless. Just the scale of the view is like nothing else, it’s vast.

And a bit scary when you’re alone and unsure about fuel range. Predictably we arrived at the border and decided to cross over and work the rest out as we went. The insurance was a non-event, no one asked for it, and there was a guy selling fuel at the back of a restaurant behind the Argentinian customs post. This time I filled a fuel bladder as well just in case.

Then I got talking to some Argentinian bikers at the same restaurant to get the lowdown on the currency rates, and managed to change 100 USD with one of them!

Win 3

Killing it babe, we have fuel, food, dodged the insurance, and now have cash. It’s no longer no cash here.

Next was to get to a town with a Western Union office and get loaded up on pesos. This part of the Andes is extremely remote, road conditions very wildly and you can’t really trust anything anyone tells you about the road, including the info on the maps we have.

We suspected the road to the next town included some non-paved sections, which from what people had told us we guessed might be about 70 or 170 km worth, but the description of that section varied from, it’s excellent dirt, it’s volcanic rock, to its deep sand the whole way.

Okay, let’s head out for a look, if it turns to snot, we can just go back to Chile. Sally seemed good with this plan.

In the end it was just a normal gravel road, with some sections of vaguely loose small stones, which on Betsy would have been comfortable at 120 km an hour with my eyes closed, but on these Chinese bikes was not so comfy even at 80. Anyway, we got there.

The bikes are actually not horrible, particularly for what they cost, we’re just used to something better. It’s going to take some adjustment.

We made our destination late in the day and quickly (Not really) found a nice Posada to sleep in, with a little restaurant just next door. Perfect.

Next days mission was to get pesos. This was an important task for us because we think that the further south we go the towns will get smaller and the task of getting cash might get harder and harder. Compounded by most places not taking credit card payment.

We had two waypoints for Western Union agents in subsequent towns 100 km apart or so. The first was a no-go, a place selling knick-knacks with no cash here. But the next looked more promising, there was a line of locals with bundles of cash in hand paying their bills.

Is there any cash here? (This is not even a joke)

Yes we have a lot, really a lot.

We connect to their Wi-Fi, download the Western Union app, register, go through the two-factor authentification which is a total pain in the ass, transfer myself 1000 AUD, show the girl behind the counter the code and get the cash. F*** yeah. Mission accomplished.

It’s not Cuba but still… I now have significantly more stuff in my jacket pockets. AUD 1000 is 10 bills. The Argentinian equivalent is a wad 2 in thick! Geez.

With that, we rode another 100 km to the final destination for the day, filled with fuel and decided to go another 100 km to a town higher up by a lake, it was only 4:00 p.m. so this seemed reasonable..

30 km into this section we turn into a small dirt road and a storm comes to meet us. Balls.

This was a terrible idea

Cue sheltering in a border post for a few minutes to get our wets on and off we went.

Apart from the rain and cold at 4°, it was a spectacular ride that took us through high mountain Forest with weird shaped pine trees, rivers and long valleys in succession.

Most significantly though it was incident free!

Sal had found an apartment that was hugely discounted for off season, so we avoided the riding around and looking endlessly for a place to stay, went straight to a supermarket to buy dinner and wine, and settled into a warm clean room, put on some music, cooked some dinner and defragged.

That takes me to yesterday…. Time dilation… So hard to believe yesterday was only yesterday and last week was only last week, so much has happened.

Got to run now, bikes are getting their first oil change to maintain the warranty which will be finished in a bit so I have to go

Xoxo

And off we go!

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It was always going to happen.

After years and thousands of kilometres as a pillion, much to the disappointment of pretty much everyone around me, the time has come for me to go it alone on my own two wheels… under the very stressed and watchful eye of Dean, protected by Roger the dog from my Mum and guided by Mighty Boosh from my sister Natalie.

We made the break a couple of days ago from from Santiago, after spending 5 days hanging out at a hostel that attracts bikers from all over the world who are Ushuaia bound. Suddenly what we were about to do, was not that out of the ordinary anymore. It’s nice to be around other travellers again.

I was a little apprehensive to take my new bike for a first ride and had some difficulties with the positioning of the gear lever with my big stiff tech 3 boots, but dean managed to alter the gear lever so I’m not finding myself in neural in the middle of a busy intersection.

Riding on the ‘wrong’ side of the road takes a little time to get your head around however what makes things harder is one way streets that change direction at certain times of the day. 

Upon leaving Santiago Dean checked he had the correct route and we knew the direction we were heading, taking into account the one way streets. ‘so, two blocks and we turn left?’ I confirmed with Dean in the intercom. ‘yes babe, we turn left and then right’. So off we go…me wobbling out of the driveway, too focused to wave goodbye to the guys seeing us off, and fighting with the gears to get from first to second. We get to the one way road to turn left and we see a car going the wrong way. ‘what an idiot’ Dean’s says as he makes a left turn, ‘as if he’s going to wrong way down a one way road!’ I then make the left turn and notice another car coming towards us…and then realise 3 lanes of traffic are coming towards us. It was the time of the day where all the traffic went in the opposite direction to all the signs. Perfect. Not a great start.

After spending a night in Curico, we got off the highway and found ourselves in wine country, or at least there were some vines. With the Andes as a back drop it was really pretty. We made our way to Altos de Lircay National park with the vague thought that we may find a cheap place to stay and go on one of the hikes.

It was starting to look like we may be out of luck finding a cheap place so we stopped for a coffee and empanada to work out our next move. Luckily for us the lady running the cafe had a cabin available for around $35 USD. It had a fire, a kitchen and our own bathroom. Perfect!

We spent the next two days hiking in the national park which took us to some amazing view points of the Andes. Yesterday we walked 12 kms and today we walked around 30 and up to over 2000 metres.  We kept our record of never being overtaken and did it in record time. Poor Dean. We are shagged.

It’s cold and we are sitting by the fire. It’s still light outside which feels a bit odd but I guess we will get used to this as we head further south.  We are on to our 20th round of cards and listening to Dire Straits for the second time (no wifi and only limited albums downloaded). We will sleep very well tonight.

Leaving is…

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always conflicting, looking forward to new experiences but back at home, family and friends we’ll miss. It’s a weird sort of inbetween trip we’re on this time though, not long enough to feel really away, but it’s not a two week holiday either.

Here’s what leaving for a few months on a bike trip looks like…

(Not sure how much of this I’m going to write, typing on a phone screen is one of my least favourite things so this could be brief.)

Sitting on the plane as I wrote this and feeling nostalgic, the morning went without a hiccup, and we had the most gorgeous sunrise coming over the hills to see us off.

The last time we flew to South America we were on a mission to smuggle Betsy out of Peru and then somehow ride home. It’s a shame we weren’t blogging back then because some of the most crazy shit we’ve been involved in went down in those following weeks.

I still remember the conversation I had with Keith (who I barely knew at the time) about our ‘plan’.

“so you’re going to just get to a border and try to cross illegally? Is that really your plan?”

“umm… yes pretty much”

“hmmm”

I was still limping from the broken leg then. Geez.

Anyhow, that was all 14 years ago and so much has changed in the world, but some things are the same too, the Andes are still there, so is Pisco, can’t wait to see them again!

Mmmm Sausage burrito for breakfast…

“oh yuk, I’m gonna see if they have something vegetarian”

Thanks to everyone who came to see us off this past few days, we’ll miss you all.

Busy few days ahead, get over the jet lag, consume Pisco sours, pick up/work on bikes and get everything ready for the trip south, wish us luck!

xxoo