AUGUST 25TH, 2011 - DRAGONES, THE WEIRDEST PLACE ON EARTH

We woke up to a strong orange light shining through the tent’s rain-fly and we were baking already. The anticipated cold weather was definitely not the case, and our mound of winter gear was just dead weight. We packed up and left the ranch heading west again. I kept a steady speed of 55mph to calculate our gas mileage, and I was pleased with how little the consumption was; we were getting 43mpg out of an 1100 pound motorcycle with aerodynamic of a brick. One full tank of gas carried us an average of 250 miles, and that was a critical advantage in these parts of the country.

Gas stations are scarce, even more than the vast Patagonia, and the water a nonexistence commodity, so we rationed that too. Temperatures soared to high nineties and in a landscape with no shade; we had no choice but to keep moving and marvel at the vastness of this unpopulated place.

After the second fill-up, we had no luck finding another station and the fuel gauge needle started to go down. I slowed down even more to conserve fuel, but there was no gas station to be found anywhere. Sun was going down quickly and running out of gas with no shelter was definitely not in my (vague) plan. We passed two guys on a small motorcycle stranded on the side of the road, and I just had to turn around. We hadn’t seen a car in hours and we surely were their only hope. They had a flat tire with three holes in it and they needed tube patches to get them going. Lucky for them, I carry a whole motorcycle shop with me so I hooked them up with patches and glue, and they returned the favor with two liters of gas. But two liters wasn’t enough to get us to the next station which was 130km away. They told us of a town about 40km away which we might find gas in, and we started back on the road.

The sun was already down when we got to the town. It was called Dragones, (dragons in English) and the name was very fitting. There was no gas station – actually it wasn’t even a town. It seemed like a scene from the Mad Max movies, and the people looked like the village people. We asked around for gas and they sent us to someone’s house who sold gas out of Pepsi bottles, but as our luck would have it the guy wasn’t there. We had no choice but to stay in that town and wait till the next day. The problem was that this town had no hotel, and from the look of the place, I was apprehensive of camping anywhere in the open.

Then it hit me. There was an Evangelist Church across the street and that became our salvation. We talked to the pastor and he agreed to let us sleep there after the mass. He seemed like a nice guy and the church’s yard had a gate which would keep the bike safe. We unloaded our gear and headed out to eat something as we hadn’t eaten anything that day. We walked around and found a joint that sold empanadas. The woman who took our order was retarded – literally. We ordered the same thing four times and she kept coming back and asking us what we wanted to order. Then she disappeared for 40 minutes as we sat there looking at each other in disbelief. From where we sat, we could see the whole town. It had eight streets (all dirt covered) with buildings right out of the Soviet Block, a few hundred inhabitants, a jail-style mini supermarket complete with bars, and three cars. Everyone walked in circles around the block, from children to elders. Every 10 minutes or so, we saw the same people walking passed us, and the same cars going in the very same loop. On the corner, there was a girl talking to herself out-load and worst still, there was a dripping carcass of a freshly slaughtered and skinned baby-pig hanging from the post next to us to add to the horror. When I tried to take a picture of it, we were yelled at, and they took it away! We started drinking s to bring down the thirst and taking the edge off the post-apocalyptic join we were in. The empanadas finally arrived and to my surprise they were delicious.

When the feast was over, we went for a walk around the town and we had no problem blending in. On the first day, Lourdes’s boot lost one heel and she limped with one heel alongside me in the dirt streets of Dragones. We stopped at the supermarket to pick up some things, but the woman at the counter scared the hell out of me. She looked like the Wolfman as I can swear to any god, she had more hair on her arms than I do, and I’m a hairy guy. The town was just too much to take in so we went back to the church to get some sleep, but the night wasn’t over yet. As we walked in, the church was in full assembly and before we could sneak passed the gate, the pastor called our names and we had to sit down. The problem was that we were both a little drunk, Lourdes was already hopping on one heel and none of us was religious, let alone evangelist. We became the center of the attention and all the prayers ended with the North American visitors names.

I was hauling a guitar on the bike and taking a musical instrument in a naturally music loving church is not a good idea, especially if you have a few s in you. As we later found out, all the people in the church were either the pastor’s children (he had 12) or their cousins – it was more of a cult if you will. The pastor informed the audience that I was going to sing and that wasn’t a suggestion either. I never having played a Christian song in my life was dumbfounded. My only advantage was that they didn’t speak a word of English so I resorted to slow rock songs like “Dust In The Wind” and “Wish You Were Here” while they ate it up as English church tunes with their Amens. I’m sure if I sang the Wizard of OZ, they still would have said Amen.

All in all, they were wired, but very nice and generous people. We didn’t have to get our sleeping bags out as they gave us a room with a bed in it for the night and we retired. We slept in a room with no windows and I was sure by the end of the night that this town was a government concentration camp for FDA drug testing. The next morning I tried fixing Lourdes’s boots, but I had no luck finding any nails. She limped to the gas-house and after getting some very questionable gas for double the normal price we rode west towards Jujuy to see what else is awaiting us in the Chaco. The official sign of Dragones read “La Perla de La Ruta” (The pearl of the road.) Whether it a was a joke or not remains a mystery. Stay tuned.

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AUGUST 27TH, 2011 - SALTA, THE BEAUTIFUL

We left Dragones and all its glories behind and headed west again towards Salta, the Capital of Salta province. The first thing I did was to find an empty jug and fill it up with extra gas just in case. The next was finding a shoe store to fix Lourdes’s boots, but we never managed to find any; they were either closed or the locals sent us on a wild goose chase. In northern Salta, we had to turn south at a junction that split the road in three. One went to Bolivia, one to Chile and the one we took went south for the wine country, a 2000km long section of vines and spectacular scenery.

The dusty landscape of Chaco started to change and massive Andean peaks started too loom over us. The Sahara like heat finally gave away to much cooler breeze and we emerged from the Chaco in one piece. At one of our stops on the road, we walked into a field and unbeknownst to us, it was filled with tiny Velcro looking seeds like burrs which stuck to everything. I was wearing my riding pants and I only got a few, but Lourdes’ pants got covered with these sharp little burrs. We spent hours picking them up with tweezers and that definitely wasn’t fun. we stopped for lunch at an ungodly unsanitary place surrounded with stray dogs. They circled around the table and followed my fork every time I put it in my mouth. Of course they wouldn’t go anywhere close to other patrons as they would beat them off, so they stuck with the dog loving gringo in hope of a bone.

We stopped so many times that before we knew it, it was getting dark and we only racked 100km that day. As we were in no hurry to get anywhere, we camped at a police station on the highway and called it a night. Salta was only a short ride away and we arrived there the next day well before sundown. Salta is charming city, far away from the aristocrat Buenos Aires province and heavily influenced by its close neighbors Bolivia and Chile. In fact, Salta is everything that Buenos Aires isn’t and in a good way. Salta still has its South American charm of the 70’s before the McDonald dominated the world. Small pastry and deli shops were found on every corner and the people were in no hurry to get anywhere. We liked Salta.

Six days before we entered Salta, two young French girls were raped, beaten and murdered execution-style outside of the city while hiking, and this news was a horror to the locals. “Salta is not Buenos Aires, these things don’t happen here”, and they are right. The circumstances of these crimes steered so much attention to this quite city, as I’m sure no European female will ever set a foot near this province again for some times to come. Although my heart goes out to their family, it’s unfair to judge the population based on a single terrible crime. We were warned about the danger of traveling, but I don’t pay too much heed to these kinds of warnings; that’s how I keep my sanity.

We bought some salami, olives, cheese and bread for dinner and headed to another favorite crashing place of mine: fire stations. The first station had no room but the second station gave us a room to stay in. In much of the world, fire stations, churches, schools, and even the city administration provide assistance to tourists, and not too many people know about that. I have slept in so many different places that I can’t even remember, but the major advantage is that you always meet new people. The firemen were super cool, helpful, and we had a lot of fun at the station. They helped me out with rigging up a second camera on the bike and best of all they had internet, shower and a kitchen too.

Before entering Salta, we found a map of the area and finally I could navigate with more precision. Our next destination we decided was to be Cafayate (not to be mistaken with Calafate. Calafate is in Southern Patagonia, and the story from there is here, If you haven’t read that one you definitely should), 250km to the south. We had no idea what we would find there but the few pictures we saw from the map was enough to make me itch. The caption read “Salta, Tan Linda Que Enamora.” This 250km section would turn out to be one of the most amazing landscapes I’ve laid my eyes upon. Stay tuned.

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SEPTEMBER 1ST, 2011 - CAFAYATE, ARGENTINA

We finally woke up early, took hot shower at the fire station, and headed out due south for Cafayate. We went five blocks and I was hungry already so we stopped for one last salami and bread in Salta. We only had 250km to go and it was early in the day so I wasn’t too concerned about the time. At one of our stops, there was an all familiar shrine built for someone who had died in a car accident. In most of South America, when people die on the road, their families build a little shrine for them on that spot. Depending on wealth of the family, shrines differ from a simple cement box to elaborate granite covered cabins. All year long, people leave water, candle and flowers in them, and in some I have even seen food. (Just in case they come back from the death and are hungry I suppose.)

This particular shrine had something I had never seen before. Apparently the deceased was a smoker, so people had been lighting up cigarettes for him instead of candles, and leaving a few unlit ones just in case he came back to life. That was a touching gesture and I liked it so much that I left him a few cigarettes too. So this is my will: when I die, leave me cigarettes too and don’t forget the lighter either. If you’re feeling generous that day, a few liters of fuel would be nice too since I always run out gas.

The road started nice and turned gorgeous. We entered a landscape so extraordinary that the 100 degrees heat had no effect anymore. This was a land of massive sand stones, tall cliffs, blue sky, and a sun the size of a football field. I have spent a lot of time in Moab and Zion in Utah, but the enormity of this place makes Moab look like a dirt parking lot. The road with its class A asphalt twisted through cliffs after cliffs, and we rode from tropic to desert up and down with each ascend. What we could see from the road was a drop in the ocean of what was beyond, as the real beauty was always a mile off the road but it was mesmerizing nevertheless.

I don’t think I ever used the 4th or 5th gear as we stopped constantly just for another picture. The 250km trip which should have taken three hours at most took us nine hours to complete, and we arrived at the wine producing town of Cafayate at sundown. Cafayate is a beautiful little town surrounded by vineyards and most if not all of its income comes from the barrels. Cafayate is a touristy town and being poor means that you don’t get to enjoy it the way the others do, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t stop there.

We needed a place to crash for the night. We started by looking for the Police Station, but they were no good, and the tourism office was less than helpful. The hotel prices were arm and a leg so we went straight for the fire station again to see if we could find a place to sleep there, but the station was so small that it barely had room for their own fire-engine. As always, somehow things worked out. A guy at the station called around, and found us a place to camp at his friend’s yard. When we got to the place, I saw no yard. The house was a colonial style mansion with an open area in the middle and the only way to get inside was to ride the 1000lb street motorcycle up 6 stairs with no ramp. I looked at the stairs and shivered but there was no other way as I wasn’t going to leave the bike on the street. My first try almost ended disastrous as the bike simply wouldn’t go up – it stalled in mid-air and started to roll back down. On second try, I gave it hell and she climbed all the way up the stairs and we settled down for the night; munching on salami, cheese, olives and bread yet another night.

I grew up not eating pork due to ridiculous religious taboos, but as soon as I reached the age of reason, I took revenge by indulging in this wonderfully delicious animal whenever possible. Now don’t get Vegan on me, pigs are not cute, they are not funny, and they are not smart either. They are just what the good lord had intended them to be – stupid and delicious. In Argentina, pigs fulfill their destiny by voluntarily going into casings with white pepper corns, garlic and salt, and they get reincarnated into some of the best Salami in the world. The word Salamé comes from Italian and Salami is its plural form used in English to describe this product. Salami is produces in much of Europe and Americas, and it’s an assumption that the Italians are the masters of this craft, but I beg to differ. In my opinion, Argentine salami is the best salami in the world, with Hungarians taking the second place, and then Italy. On average, it takes 30 to 40 weeks for salami to be ready for consumption, and to clarify something, I’m not talking about the garbage you find in supermarkets in United States sold as hard salami or Genoa salami. Genoese salami is a fantastic salami which comes from Genoa, but it has nothing to do with the crap they sell in US by the same name. It’s interesting to know that salami was originally made by peasants as an alternative to fresh meat as they could keep it for years. Now days, it’s not uncommon that a good salami (once a peasant food) to be priced as much as three times of best cut of fresh meat.

Argentina is heavily influenced by Italian and Spanish cultures, and they created bests of both worlds out of this merger when it comes to food. On my trip to Uruguay, I discovered a very small village on the border of Argentina that was like heaven on earth. On both sides of the street, there were shacks with signs that read cheese and salami. Once you enter one of these huts, you can get high on the smell alone, and it doesn’t help much that pretty farm girls shove samples into your mouth. I left that town almost broke as quickly as possible, as it was a sure way to get me to settle down.

I wanted to write a travel blog but somehow I ended up writing a whole page on salami and I haven’t even scratched the surface yet. Now that I wrote about salami, I kind of want to write about hams too (again not the kind of ham you see on your thanksgiving table, that’s not ham, that’s an abomination to Spanish Jamón.) I’ll cut this post short here so stay tuned for the rest of the story, but I can’t promise that it won’t have any salami in it.

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Wonderful ride with a very noble cause Awesome clicks
God Bless you loads of miles of pleasure
Ride Long and Safe

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Hammer the racetrack. Pace yourself on the street
My IBA Number: 47054

Thanks mate. Sorry i didn't see your comment, for some reason i'm not getting notifications anymore. Enjoy the reports and thanks for tuning in.

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SEPTEMBER 23RD, 2011 - THE BEES, TREES, AND A DEAD COW

When I find a road that is not on the map, my first reaction is to always roll on the throttle and ride straight for it. This time I found a road that was not charted, was reasonably short, and from the GPS Topo maps, it seemed to be passing through some beautiful landscape. Little did I know that this 50km section would prove to be one of the most isolated, hottest, and sandiest roads in entire Argentina.

When we left Cafayate, the only way back was to ride north for Salta again, and go east from there. But not wanting to double-back, I steered the bike into a single lane road which was a shortcut that would save us 150km of redundancy. We rode until sunset but finding a spot to camp became a problem. Before dark, we found a campground, but when I was told $15 for the night to pitch a tent, I bolted out of there. We finally found a nice spot by the lake at sundown and pitched the tent. It was a quiet place, the weather was cool, and not a single soul around for miles. I headed into the bush with my axe and headlamp, chopped some wood, and we settled in by the campfire. I skewered some meat, made a pot of rice, and since Lourdes had never made a fire before (City Girl), I put her in charge of the pit. Mate and a couple of guitar tunes later – we passed out for the night.

I woke up to a strong buzzing noise all around the tent, and I immediately knew what it was. The night before, in the dark, we pitched our tent under a low hanging tree which happened to host a giant Africanized bee nest. Call me a wimp, but I spent most of my life dodging Asian Giant Hornets. Almost unknown in US, these gigantic killing machines were the most fearsome intruders of my childhood. At two inches long with a wing span of three inches, these hornets are the deadliest and most feared of any flying insect. If the sheer size of these bugs doesn’t give you nightmares, they have five eyes – two on the sides, and three on top of their head- a stinger the size of your pinky, and they can fly over 50 miles a day. They attack in groups and they spray acid in your eyes before proceeding to tear your limbs apart. I was attacked twice in my life by these out-of-this-world bugs and I have a scar to show for each one. So it’s safe to say that I systematically avoid anything that flies that’s not a bird.


I crawled out of the tent slowly and looked around for the source of the buzzing. I found a bee-ball a little smaller than a football, (American) and they seemed to be on the edge for some reason. As I was taking pictures and showing the nest to Lourdes, they went apeshit, and 100’s of bees started to swarm around us. I didn’t care what they were selling – I didn’t want it – so I started to run for my life and Lourdes followed hopping on one heel (One of her boots lost a heel early on the trip). We stayed by the lake until the bees were gone, then packed up and got the hell out of there.

The hot weather turned for worse and our water ran out. The pavement ended abruptly and the road started downhill which twisted and turned at a steep grade, and what covered the road was only loose gravel and sand. We were riding on a side of cliff, and the bike kept shifting towards the drop-off. As calmly as I could, I told Lourdes that if I tell you to jump, don’t think twice, just jump off the bike if the bike starts to go down. The sand was unnerving. It would get very deep around the corners and my bald rear tire didn’t have a prayer. As we descended into the valley down below, there was no going back. The road we came from was too steep and sandy for the heavy bike to climb back up, and not having good tires made it impossible. We had to ride this road out, no matter what.

If the road condition was dreadful, the valley was unquestionably beautiful. A turquoise swift river ran through the landscape, and tall cliffs surrounded the road – wild flowers, cactuses, occasional birds, and no sign of a human life anywhere. At the lower parts of the valley, the river had washed off to the road, and river crossings became the new challenge. As I was filming, I had to set the tripod and the camera, cross the river on the bike, and have Lourdes ferry the rest to the other side. Before and after every river crossing came a long section of deep sand as fine as table salt, and the road would climb up again yet for another hill.

We started at 9 am and it took us five and half hours to cover 50km. When we finally got out of this paradise, I wanted to kiss the asphalt. We were on the verge of exhaustion, hungry, and severely dehydrated. We found a roadside Parrilla (similar to steak house) and parked the bike. I told the waitress to bring on the drinks with as much meat as she got. She showed up with a giant platter, and we ate and drank for as long as I remember. The bill was the most expensive I paid on this trip: $25. That was for two 40 oz. , soft drinks, two racks of ribs, five sausages, two steaks, unlimited salads, and bread. We stayed at the grill for hours before heading back into the boiling inferno. I looked at the GPS and the closest town was called Joaquín Víctor González, (named after a politician of the same name) and the next was called Pampa del Infierno (Land of Hell), so I figured we had enough hell for today so we headed for González.

On the road I started seeing big nice yellow lemons here and there, and wondered where they came from. Then I started to see them more frequently, until I saw something that stopped me on my track. A semi trailer had flipped over on the road, and yellow lemons covered the highway. We apparently got to the truck just minutes after the accident, as there was no one around. The driver was OK but very frightened, and rightfully so. The air smelled like lemonade factory and besides the misfortune, it was a beautiful scene. Then people started to show up and proceeded to steal lemons. The driver seemed not to care or if he did care, there was nothing he could do. Ten ton of lemons that takes a crew of workers a few hours to load, disappeared in front of our eyes in matter of minutes. Things disappear in South America without a trace, and the driver knew it too well to try to stop it. Stay tuned.

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December 19th, 2011 - I’m well and alive

I’m well and alive and was for a long time computer–less. About a month and half ago, I was going to the parking garage to leave the motorcycle, and I asked my friend Lourdes to open the sliding door of the garage. The door was stuck because of some gravel on the rail but she got it open just enough for the bike to pass through. As she turned around towards me, before I could say a word, the 25ft long steel door collapsed on her head and buried her missing and the bike by less than an inch. The gigantic piece of metal was so heavy that I could only lift it a few inches off of her body, but she couldn’t get herself out. Finally people arrived and with some help we lifted the metal gate and rescued her. She still had her motorcycle helmet on, and it undoubtedly saved her life. She came out with lots of cuts and bruises, and as she was wearing a backpack with my laptop in it, the laptop was crushed as well. Everything is almost fixed now and I have a lot of catching up to do. For now, happy late Thanksgiving and early Christmas to everyone.

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Am was glad to see your post, beginning to wonder how you were getting on. Looking forward to the catch up. Merry Christmas.
Julian

A trip gone wrong from hell. Couple shots of the road until I find internet to post the hell stories from Bolivia. In the mean time, if you know any Bolivians, run'em over a few times with a loaded truck.

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The Damned Bolivia – Part One

A whole century later, I must have had the same look as the Sundance Kid as he stepped off the train in Bolivia. I stood in front of a mound of rubble, no sign, no road, no nothing, but a narrow mule track straight out of the 1900 which marked the border of Bolivia.

To tell the story of the damned Bolivia, I must first tell the hellish story of getting to Bolivia. Imagine yourself sitting under the August sun in Texas, dressed in thick black Kevlar pants and jackets, full-face helmet, pair of gloves and black combat boots, then fancy sitting on top of a black motorcycle with 300lbs of film and travel gear with an engine hot enough to fry bacons on. Now add another person with the exact same outfit to your pillion and for the finishing touch, imagine sipping boiling hot water and you might get a grasp of what I felt as I left the capital of Paraguay for the Chaco region to the north. I visited the Chaco in Argentina in winter and came out just short of a heatstroke, yet I was riding in the middle of summer to one of the most isolated and hottest places in South America.

The ordeal of getting a visa for Bolivia is a story of it itself, but to not make the long story longer, the Bolivian Embassy doesn’t really give you a visa. What they give you is a piece of paper that you take with you and then you have to find the immigration office somewhere past the border deep in Bolivia to get your actual visa. And as everything takes a million years to get done in South America, my visa process took so long that when I finally got the paper, I had only two days to get to the border, almost 900km away.

Visa in hand, I went to the parking garage to bring out the motorcycle for oil and tire change, and as Mr. Murphy had it, the battery was completely dead, reading zero volt on the voltmeter. I took out the battery and took it to a shop to recharge, and I had to wait until the next day to get it back. When I finally got the battery back, I tore the bike apart until I found the short but it was already too late to get on the road. The next day I changed the tires for a pair of new dual sports, changed the brake pads, and loaded the bike for the marathon to the border with only 12 hours left on my visa.

Paraguay has very nice highways, and discounting the occasional wandering cows, you can rack up pretty good time, but this road wouldn’t end. From 10am to 7pm, we rode straight shot only stopping for gas and a short lunch break and we made it to Mariscal Estigarribia, the last frontier town in the Chaco in Paraguay. We got the passport stamped and I was officially out of the country, although we had 250km from Mariscal Estigarribia to the border and 150km more to Boyuibe, the first town in Bolivia. It was already 7pm and the sun would set in an hour or two so we kept pushing on to get at least closer to the border.

As we went deeper into the Chaco, the road started to get worse and potholes the size of a fin-tailed Cadillac started to cover the road. I double checked a few times on my GPS and it seemed that we were going the right way, but the total lack of traffic was telling me that either people don’t go to Bolivia for some reason or this was going to be a road from hell. As my luck had it, it turned out to be both. Potholes steadily grew in size and worse yet, the ground turned into some sort of sand that was finer that Baby Johnson ass-powder. Going on a straight line was impossible and the more I dodged sandpits, bigger and wider versions kept showing up. It was like a DMV test, except that if I ran over a cone, I would send us crashing in a ditch.

I was thinking that there is no way in hell that we could make the border, but there was nowhere to stop either. Both sides of the road were like the Atlantic beach with that powdery stuff going down to China and I just kept going with hope of finding a solid ground that we could crash at night. As I was thinking about all this, we hit a deep sandpit and went flying on the ground. We were Ok but the bike was stuck. We were both exhausted from the long ride and as much as we tried, we couldn’t even upright the bike in the sand as we kept slipping on the soft ground. There was nothing we could do so we waited, hoping that there would be another idiot going the same road who would give us a helping hand. A cigarette or two later, we spotted a fruit truck in the distance and our deliverance came in a form of an 8 man team. All these guys pushed and shoved and I kept on the throttle until the bike made it out of the long pit.

We thanked our saviors and knowing that there won’t be a sole on the road if we got stuck again, I chased after them and got in front just in case. I don’t remember how long we rode in the dark but I know that it felt like eternity as we kept going in and out of sand pits, and the bike trashed about every direction. Finally we saw a light. A lone dim light of a common house on a cattle ranch and I raced for it. We asked for permission to stay there and we were home free – for the night at least. The fruit truck arrived a few minutes later and we bought a dozen bananas and a giant watermelon for the dinner.

The watermelon turned out to be as white as Dick Cheney, but I didn’t care, I was so dehydrated that all I wanted was something with water in it. We pitched the tent next to an old abandoned Jeep, and a three legged calf, and retired for the night. My face was so burnt from the sun and it was so hot outside that I stayed awake for the longest time before falling asleep in my own sweat with the three legged cow howling nonstop next to my head until dawn. As it would turn out, the road to hell was just about to begin; the past section would be a walk in a park in comparison. Stay tuned.

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The Damned Bolivia – Part Two

It wasn’t until I saw the road in daylight that I knew what kind of misery I was in for. This road was supposed to be paved, but it was under construction at the moment and the ranchers said that it would be like this for another 100km. As it is customary in South America, when you hear a number related to distance, you should always multiply it by three for good measure so I figured the whole way to Bolivia would be like that.

And the sand started yet again. Now that we could see better, we kept on zigzagging and making a miserable progress but it all came to a halt when I caught a sight of a water truck spraying the road. The guys on the truck stopped to see what in the hell we were doing there and sent us off with evil smiles and good lucks on our muddy journey. I literally rode 100 yards before I stopped the bike and gave up. The fine sand mixed with water created a thick gravy and the giant bike wasn’t going anywhere in this muck. The tire grooves were filled with mud with no traction whatsoever and I had no choice; I pushed the bike to the sandy shoulder.

For the next hour, I rode with both of my feet on the ground, frequently asking Lourdes to get off and walk in hairy spots. Sweat kept dripping off my nose and sand filled my mouth and the road went on. The mud started to dry out gradually in the sun and all there was left was fine sand again. Now I had more appreciation for the sand and I just picked up speed and ripped through it. The faster I went, the easier it got until it felt like I was riding on the clouds. The bike would sink momentarily but would spring back up and keep going. Lourdes asked me if it was dangerous going this fast, and my answer was “Yes, but If I slow down you’re going to end up walking” and I don’t remember hearing a word from her again.

Patches of asphalt started to show and we picked up speed and life got easier. We filled up the gas tank from Pepsi bottles at a small shack and pushed for the border. At last we made it. At this border, there were two wooden outhouse looking offices with two guys running the whole show. Checking out the bike at the Paraguayan side went smoothly and we walked in the Bolivian office to do the paperwork for temporary importation. The guy kept looking at the documents and kept making excuses and asking stupid questions. I got the feeling that he was setting us up for bribe and I wasn’t budging. Then he finally said it: “You have to pay $100 USD here for the fees”.

My answer was NO, there aren’t any fees for importation of temporary tourist vehicle. In the middle of the shakedown, some other guy walked in and all of a sudden he forgot all about the “fees” and we bolted out. We rode a few feet and we had to stop. There was no road. Not even a sign. There was a mule track barely wide enough for a car next to a giant tree that blocked the way with a mound of dirt on it. I was confused. I looked around but there was no other way. This was Bolivia.

There seemed to be a semi-paved road above were we were standing, but it was blocked with trees and dirt piles. Down below in the ditch, this secondary hell of a road was to be used until the main road was completed. It was covered in soft sand, deep potholes, lose rocks and broken bottles. So our Bolivian odyssey began. In only 10km the bike bottomed out a thousand times, every bolt was shaking lose and at last we hit a deep pothole so hard that the giant camera box on the back broke and stuff started to fly out on the road. This road was impossible. Now I started to really see why there hadn’t been a single soul on the road for the past 300km. Bolivia was a shithole and Paraguayans knew better not to venture it.

We gathered up the banged up stuff from the road and devised a new plan. If I could climb up the ditch and get to the main road, we would be home free. The trouble was that the ditch had deep trenches dogged in it by the construction workers to prevent this exact scenario. I kept on looking and finally found a spot that seemed promising so I gave it hell. The bike shook up and down and miserably climbed up to the heaven above. No more potholes, no more sand.

We celebrated the victory by drinking piss-warm water and got on with it. But 2km ahead, the road ended again with trees and dirt blocking it. We climbed back down the ditch and as soon as we found another suitable spot, climbed back up on the road. Sometimes the blockades were passable and I would run them over, but most of the time we had to get back down and up again. Sometimes we had to backtrack a few kilometers to where we went up because there was no way to get down. Long story short, we were covering 30km an hour hill climbing with an 1100 ponds street motorcycle.

We were stopped by the military at a check post and searched. These guys looked like jungle rebels, no shirts, sombreros, camouflage pants and guns. At least we found out for certain that we were in Bolivia and going the right way. We kept on ditch-hopping and made our way towards the town of Boyuibe where there would be food, gas, a bank and we could get my visa. But things in Bolivia are never that simple. On one of the ditch-climbs, the bike came out short and the rear tire slipped on the brush covered sand and send the bike flying. This time the bike was lying on its side, leaking the precious fuel and transmission oil all over the ground. Now we were going north aimlessly with even shorter supply of gas and low transmission oil.

Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw a sign for the Immigration Office in the middle of nowhere. I was thinking that this can’t be it; Boyuibe is a town with banks, gas stations, and actual human beings in it. At least that’s what I was told at the Bolivian embassy in Paraguay. Nevertheless I turned around to check it out. This place didn’t resemble a government office. It was a stable with animals running around and no one in sight. We knocked on the door of a house nearby and a guy with no shirt walked out and said that this was it. I turned to Lourdes and the first thing I said was there is no bank here!

When we left Asunción in Paraguay, I took out 800,000 Guaranies (roughly 200USD) and that was the last time I saw a sight of an ATM machine. With almost no gas station taking credit cards, we resorted to paying cash for gas and food and kept looking for a bank that never came. Now we were at the immigration office, where I had to pay $130 for my visa and all I had left was barely enough for a few liter of gas!



A bald headed short guy came out of the house and took charge of the process. I tried to tell him that we had to get to a bank to get the money for visa but he kept shushing me, telling me to be quite and asked for a photocopy of my passport. I said I didn’t have one and explained that the embassy already has all the information, including million copies of everything and this paper is all he needs but he flipped out. He huffed and puffed, cursed at us and shoved a form in front of me to fill out. I filled out the form and tried to tell him again that I had no money but he cut me off again and told me to be quite. This was ****ing unbelievable but I just went with it. He kept saying that he was doing us a favor, and wouldn’t let me talk.

Then he looked at my passport. In my passport, it states my birth place which is Shiraz, Iran. He flipped out again and said with utmost hatred that Iranians are not welcomed in Bolivia. “You can’t come in”. It’s impossible to describe how long it took to explain to this waste of a sperm that he was holding an American passport, and my birthplace had nothing to do with anything. He had to call for his wife, and all the other dimwitted short people he had around the stable to hold a council on whether to let an Iranian terrorist inside the “wonderful” country of Bolivia or not.

To say that I was furious is an understatement. The only thing kept me from killing this pest was the mere fact that I was out of gas and couldn’t get far. Finally he was convinced and before I could tell him that I had no money, he slapped the visa (while still cursing at me) in the passport and asked for $130 USD. Then came the moment of truth. Oh god, his face was priceless when I could finally get a word in and tell him that I had no money. He threw the passport in his desk drawer, locked it and walked away. We were kept captive, knowing that it was Saturday, and there wasn’t a bank for another 200km to the north or 650km to the south. Welcome to Bolivia.

Stay tuned.

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Dude. Seriously? Let's get real here. You know where you are, where you have been, and how long you have been there. What the HELL is going on in your mind that can even begin to let you be so uncivil as to call Bolivia a shit hole?

Can we set the story straight?

It seems from your last two posts that your entire ire and dislike for Bolivia stems from one very bad road, and a ridiculous border crossing.

Can we suffice it to say that you chose BOTH of those options?

What else? You are attempting semi-adventurous overland travel on an overloaded motorcycle not suited (in the least bit) for ANYTHING that you are attempting accept carrying your excess of equipment and passenger load down a tarmac road.

You are in the Chaco my man. It is as hot as a witches tit in a brass bra in the middle of an Arabian summer. No shit. We ALL know that. At least you are ATGATT. But you have to deal with it, not bitch to the masses about it.

Roads are not good in that part of the world. That road has been under construction for a long, long time (By Western Standards). You speak Spanish, or so it would seem, and your companion does as well. Are you trying to tell the Horizon Unlimited community that you are so naive a traveler at this point as to completely negate the benefits of asking about the road ahead? Even in spite of the ridiculous effort involved in interpreting the answers your are bound to get, you can nearly always get information from your questions.

Your bike has already blown an engine, become broken and battered, been repaired, cost you thousands of dollars (your donated dollars), but yet you blame the road? Allow us some time to consider that for a moment. A Ural Patrol with a sidecar would benefit you by now. You may be limited to 60mph on the open highway, but you can carry your lady friend and as much gear as you like. But each to his own. Carry on.

The border crossing of your choice is well known for it's lack of amenities, be it food, lodging, banking facilities, or even road side commodities. That is why, unless we are prepared for it physically and mentally and our gear is thoroughly prepped, we adventure overland travelers don't go to these types of places. And when we do, we go prepared.

I refuse to believe that you have allowed yourself to become so complacent as to not have carried US dollars to the Bolivian checkpoint that you were determined to receive your visa from. Especially as you admit to knowing in advance of it's requirements. Unacceptable.

As for the border guard / checkpoint officer / underpaid patrol man... They are all the same. You have crossed numerous borders, and seen it all. Or so it would seem, but yet you still allow yourself to be surprised. Common amigo! If they are nice, they are nice. If not, then it's time to bust out your Zen Buddha patience and settle in for the ride. You ride up hoping for something / expecting a visa without so much as the ability to pay for it, and then profess an inability to believe what has happened after the man locks up your passport? You express your anger towards a man that is obviously undereducated and unaware of the cultural differences that make the world what it is. Yet having had the opportunity for the last MANY MANY months of experiencing it first hand, you are still unable to accept it. Was he obviously biased against your Iranian birthplace. Yes. Was he ignorant to the fact that you are very clearly American? For the time being, of course he was. And yet, by some manner, you prevailed.

And I quote:
"He had to call for his wife, and all the other dimwitted short people he had around the stable to hold a council on whether to let an Iranian terrorist inside the “wonderful” country of Bolivia or not.
To say that I was furious is an understatement. The only thing kept me from killing this pest was the mere fact that I was out of gas and couldn’t get far."

Are you now "holier than thou" and have some type of manifest destiny behind you that allows you to doll out such public hatred? You insult not only the man, but his wife, and his fellow community members. They don't know you, they just know what little they see, and from what I see, I can imagine that it's not very impressive.


Give the man something to work with, and give us a lousy break dude. What kind of petty man would you have us believe that you are?

Will you tell us why you didn't just ride into Argentina and then up through Villazon and into Bolivia? The road is shit there too, but passable. At least the Harley rider on his 1600cc machine will tell you so. Why you didn't simply plan ahead and prepare for the worst is something that I am left pondering.

Will you tell us why you didn't have a couple of hundred US dollars on you in reserve? Or a stash of cash somewhere to keep you on track?

Will you tell us what part of your charity involves the support of a secondary person whose function is at least slightly questionable and mostly unrelated to events, but simultaneously seemingly more so related to the stability of your personal character? A support team for your instability perhaps.

And please, can you show us more of what you have done for your charity, and for your cause, and for your fight against world hunger? I believe that you are fully invested both mentally and physically, and I believe that you truly aim to make a difference. So please do not take this as an affront against your goals. However, what I can't believe is why we haven't seen more of what is real about your charity, and what it is that you are doing for it currently. Where do the donations go?

I've read your entire, impressive website. I know about your struggle to create your non-profit organization and the costs involved. I have at least read about your struggles, even if I don't fully understand them. Can you clarify though which funds you are using for your travels? Are they yours, or that of the non-profit that you are in charge of?

Again, let me say that you champion a very noteworthy and aspiring cause. You are to be complimented for that sincerely.

Yet in this last duo of posts you have simply succeeded in showing yourself to be as racist and discriminatory as your accused perpetrators; be it the individual guardsmen, or the country of Bolivia as a whole.

You have shown a lack of spirit, and an obverse lack of patience, humility, and personal pride.

You have personally, publicly insulted to the highest degree another human being and proven your lack of character in a moment of described injustice.

To me, sir, you are not any better than that man, and at most are his equal at the moment.

Your distinct disgust for what is not your norm is despicable.

Your voiced inability to allow flexibility is disgusting.

The negative vibe that is present in so many of your late posts as to describe as the majority; is disheartening.



Is there another part of the picture that we as the readers can not see? I hope so, for I read of personal failure when I read your posts, not success.


--Alex Smith

__________________
NJ, NR, NBTTN

It is true Chris, you have lost your way, I sincerely hope you find the right path again. It's time to reflect and get your self back on track.
Good luck with that.
Julian.

It’s most amusing that in 3 years of writing these stories, not once I got a comment half as long even for the “noble” things that I have done, and not once in all my life, I was judged and executed based on two paragraphs that was clearly and open ended story without the ending revealed. And most certainly not once have I had a commentator to post the exact same comment on two different forums, HU and ADV for no apparent reason. Here’s a lesson for you, next time write your comments backward, and omit the first million sentences and only leave the last part.

“Is there another part of the picture that we as the readers cannot see?”
For some reason you seem to have fixed your mind directly under your nose, and before you see the object that is there, you use a telescope upon the horizon to see where it came from and you get carried away with what you think I should have done.

“Again, let me say that you champion a very noteworthy and aspiring cause. You are to be complimented for that sincerely.”

So sincerely, how have YOU complimented me for start? I don’t recall a single word from you on that matter. I don’t recall seeing a single black penny coming out of your tight pocket attached to your big mouth when I was drumming up food and emergency supplies for the very same country when it was flooded less than a year ago. Where were you reading on “my Impressive website” that you miraculously blanked out on where I’ve been and what I have done? Or is it maybe your extensive dealing with the Bolivian government and people that put you in the position of their pseudo savior?

“So please do not take this as an affront against your goals. However, what I can't believe is why we haven't seen more of what is real about your charity, and what it is that you are doing for it currently.”

I’ve written double of what I have written on traveling on poverty and malnutrition, yet I don’t recall YOU ever bothering your fingertips to type a single word, let alone contributing to it. Then all of a sudden to justify your single minded criticism, you are all holy and you have the urgent need to put me down to justify your criticism by giving extra ammunition to yourself.

“Will you tell us what part of your charity involves the support of a secondary person whose function is at least slightly questionable and mostly unrelated to events, but simultaneously seemingly more so related to the stability of your personal character? A support team for your instability perhaps.”

Yes I could, but I’ll tell you that it’s none of your ****ing business. How’s that for an “instable bigot?” No one is paying me in my charity; I don’t take a single penny out of the (non-existent) donations (thanks to giving souls like yourself of course), I don’t have an expense account with any god damn organizations including THC, and I have given thousands of dollars of my own funds to this organization, another thing that you would have know IF you actually read my “impressive website”.

So to sum it up for you so you can see it with your telescope beyond your nose again, I don’t get paid by the organization, I don’t touch a single penny of the organization’s income or outcome, I have given over $20,000 dollars to this date to this organization, I have worked as a non-compensated slave for this organization single handed day in and day out, and I don’t owe a soul a god damn thing. So when I say that it’s none of your ****ing business, I mean it in the most polite ****ing way.

As far as I’m concerned, I could travel in a limousine with a gang of strippers and it still wouldn’t be any of your ****ing business or anyone else, because it comes out of my own god damned pocket.

So you wanna know how I make my money? I’m a web developer and that’s what pays for my travels, not you, not anyone else. And to most of you that think I’ve lost my ways, please, either be a champ and pick it up and carry it on from now on, support it, or don’t hide behind words.

If you would have read my “impressive website”, you would have know that never in my life have I said a bad word about people or countries as a whole, nor have judged anyone or anything without facts and firsthand experience.
If you are so irritated with my writing and my ideas as you clearly are, just click on that pretty little X on the top corner and save yourself from my “bigotry”. There are thousands of other posts here that you can marvel on or better yet, do something useful with your time rather than writing bullshit about subjects that have no clue about. When comes down to it, I say what’s on my mind and I don’t apologize or repent to no one.

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BigAl makes some good points about how your recent posts come across. I'd guarantee you that many others reading them have similar thoughts to varying degrees. No reason to take too much offense - this kind of interaction is what the forum is for. Take what BigAl's said and use what you can and dismiss what you can't.

This is an incredibly noble cause that you've taken on, and I don't think that anyone would fault your aims. Perhaps you've simply found a few pitfalls in their execution. I submit the video on the home page of your website for consideration:



Just a mildly melodramatic rendition of a guy traveling around the world on his bike. Awesome. Its what everyone riding their desks all day (like me) come here to see. However, there is nothing here that even hints about the nature of the humanitarian endeavor.

There are a million charities out there and one factor in my deciding where my hard earned mula goes is accountability of the organization and ability to demonstrate their impacts. I cannot find even a clue on your site what would happen to donated funds. The volunteer page is equally confusing - what on earth do you set up opportunities for volunteers to do? Your difficulty in raising funds that you alluded to is surely at least partly due to this vagueness. Typos on the board of directors page don't inspire confidence either.

One solution is simply to partner with an organization that already has the infrastructure set up to work on solving the problems that you aim to bring attention to.