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22 May 2013
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Administrator
Veteran HUBBer
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Join Date: Jul 1999
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Please help out other travellers by reporting on your shipment.
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I’m not sure what I should do about this agent. I want to warn others against his unprofessional service and downright lying ways but don’t want to get bogged down with all the negativity. Short to say, if anyone would like more information on who NOT to ship with, PM me!
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Hi Mark, shipping by sea is always fraught, which is why we never recommend starting your trip that way. We have heard many, many horror stories about sea shipments, and can relate a few of our own!
But it sounds like your experience was worse than many! Please fill out the Shipping Form here and let other travellers know about it.
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/node/add/shipping
Then, the next person who wants to ship this route will know to avoid these guys, just in case they haven't seen your post here! You could be saving someone a lot of aggro.
In turn, next time you have to ship your bike by air or sea, check out the Shipments database and maybe save yourself some time and money.
Shipping the Bike | Horizons Unlimited
Glad you're finally on your way, though, and hope it only gets better now!
Cheers,
Susan
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24 May 2013
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Thanks Susan,
I have updated the Shipping section with my story.
The journey is underway now and already the drama is fading into the distance in the rear-view mirrors!
But the lesson HAS been learnt.......
Cheers
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1 Jun 2013
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Registered Users
New on the HUBB
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Join Date: Nov 2012
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I really enjoy reading your posts. Keep up the good work!
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13 Jun 2013
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Into Ecuador....
We crossed the border into Ecuador at Macara with little challenges. The biggest hassle a wait for lunch to finish which we dealt with by hitting a nearby ‘menu del dia’ ourselves. After a frighteningly quick inspection of the bike on the Ecuadorian side and we were through. The customs fellow almost signing the last paper from his car window, he clearly had a hot date lined up.
Once into the country we plotted our next leg. I had heard of a great ride from the border north and away we went. The twistys began and the clouds fell in sync with the rain. From 1000kms of boring straight Pan-American highway this was my personal silver lining that wasn’t to be. The fog got so thick it was hard to even get close to the posted 40km/h (even though those of you with sharp eyes will be able to spot the speedo in the pic!)
Up until then the road was a brand new ribbon of freshly laid tarmac, winding its snake like way through the densely jungled, steep sided mountains of the lower Andes. Nothing but a tease to now having to over use my rear brakes.
But things got pretty exciting pretty soon as the fresh road disintegrated into muddy slush, newly churned by the road workers currently taking shelter in last gas station for who knows how many more kms!
Now a small admission might be due here. I’m not so good on the dirty stuff. I like the fast corners, late braking cheap thrills of the black-top and the plan was to slowly ingratiate myself into the muddy stuff, especially with a fully loaded bike complete with a wife suffering my abuse at the road through the helmet intercom. The next couple of hours turned my pristine brand new motorbike into something I am kind of proud of, a real touring bike!
The road was a mess and the rain was falling as quickly as my mood. But somewhere inside my helmet came that voice that many adventure riders must hear, “toughen up princess, THIS is price the ferry man demands for future joy!” There are many different ways to look at overlanding. A fair-weather ride and take shelter from the rain or as an endurance contest. I am somewhere in the middle, I’ll do what I have to to get the job done but I would rather conditions looked more like the motorcycle commercials on TV!
In my infinite wisdom (a phrase my wife will roll her eyes at), I missed the turn off to a supposed campsite. Now we were faced with a longer day ending in Santa Rosa around 8pm. It’s only the first week and already I had battled the mud and dirt and broken my rule of not riding at night.
But cut to the chase, we had an appointment to keep that we now had to hustle towards. The result was the need to stick to the torture of the E25 main Ecuadorian highway north. A heady blend of carbon monoxide, crazy overtaking techniques and my own personal game of traffic frogger with the overloaded trucks.
3 days, numerous rain showers and uncountable close calls later we finally start the climb into the cloud forest where we had organised a week or so volunteering in a bird sanctuary/lodge. I should have taken more notice of the adjectives, ‘cloud forest’. We met the man in the small, quaint, rain soaked town of Mindo who gave us directions to the lodge. What followed was a road that made the previous muddy track feel like a German autobahn. Once upon a time it was the main road from Quito, the capital of Ecuador. This would have been around the time of the Romans I think. Now it was a slippery, muddy goat track skirting precipitous drops into the wet depths of Hades. At one point I think my training as a whitewater rafting guide came in handy.
I am happy to report that the score of Mark vs gravity is still well in my favour. What I didn’t count on was the cold, both temperature and that expelling itself from my body. For the last 10 days we have been doing odd jobs around the lodge, mine mainly focusing on marketing the property strangely enough. Carlie has been busy in the kitchen and teaching English while every chance we get we get out to checkout the amazing bird life. What the owner doesn’t know about birds either isn’t worth knowing or would be boring enough to comatose David Attenborough. And he is a great photographer, so good in fact that even I managed to snap a couple of worthy bird shots in his company!
Finally the weather has turned enough to inspire us to head onward. Carlie has booked us a couple of tickets to the Galapagos where we will spend a week or so in the footsteps of Darwin, whose weighty tome I have now made myself a challenge of to digest in readiness. So the bike has copped a clean, a minor service and a stern talking to in preparation of the road out of here. Or maybe it was me that get the stern talking to, I really have to learn to turn the intercom off on the dirt roads!
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14 Jun 2013
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The Galapagos - not much riding in this one ....
Hey folks. We just spent some time out in the Galapagos, one of the '
"must's" of Ecuador in my mind now. I know that there is not much 'ride' in this 'ride report' but I thought to share my experiences.
1000kms west off the South American coastline lies a small archipelago of rocky, arguably barren, collection of motley islands. Their name, quietly and reverently heard in places likely to subscribe to National Geographic, is the Galapagos.
By some stroke of luck they were visited by a young 27 year old naturalist whose thoughts and ideas were both quite revolutionary and inflammatory. But in 1832, some 28 years before his famous book, a young Charles Darwin was quite taken by the place, and so were we!
Skip forward to today and even though his grizzled yet thoughtful likeness graces the front of tacky t-shirts and cheesy coffee-mugs, there is little doubt his influence has saved many a playful sea lion or grumpy iguana. All this and he only mentioned the islands a mere 26 times in his 200 plus page publication.
By another stroke of luck these ramshackle volcanoes in the ocean have also been claimed by the country of Ecuador. I very much doubt the future tourist windfall was in the forefront of the sovereignty all those years ago. But it is now. The cash bonanza that is eco-tourism economics is laying golden tortoise eggs. With up to 125,000 camera toting nature tourists visiting each year, the recipe is perfect for ecological destruction; putting Darwin’s ideas of Natural Selection to a real life test.
What chance does a graceful pink flamingo delicately feeding on nearly microscopic prawns have against the almost boundless resources of the tourist, hungry for that perfect bragging photo or the local industry that has risen to serve them?
The answer lies in the best example of sustainable tourism I have ever witnessed. Gone is the dynamite fishing of the Philippines or the Japanese tourist doing a Kabuki dance on fragile coral in Australia. Here the unobtrusive signage is strictly adhered to, nature not merely respected but almost reverent and a highly trained guide to hold your hand, or slap it, as navigator.
For our journey his name was Ivan. Just as quick with facts as with his own brand of questionable humour. In the Galapagos nature is the star, but to fully appreciate her beauty, you need to know her story and Ivan is her biographer. You know he is pimping his knowledge and that there have been many more before you but it still feels special.
From the ‘chicky—chicky’ mating dance of the Blue-Footed Booby, through the colour changes of the Marine Iguana of Isla Espanola up to the dubious excuses for the national football team’s failure, his insight was invaluable.
The animals themselves display and arrogance bordering on annoyance at us bi-peds. Their genus blissfully unaware of the destruction capable by us so-called top-of-the-food-chain dwellers. Our mastery of nature to do such things as build cities in the desert and create antibiotics is no more than a bit of historical flatulence to a 200 year old tortoise. It’s when a 7 week old sea-lion pup can scatter a highly paid executive out of his way that you know nature has a chance.
And while every journey is unique, our foray seems particularly lucky. Out of season Humpbacked Whales, endangered Chatham Mockingbirds, swimming with Hammer-Head Sharks, Galapagos Flamingos close enough to touch and of course clear skies to illuminate the turquecent waters bordering white sandy beaches.
Time has stood still for the original inhabitants of the islands, but it wouldn’t for us. Even at 8 days we have barely scratched the surface, flitted from one immensely complicated ecosystem, memories made with Nikkon or Cannon, then to another just like Darwin’s’ Finches! It’s not hard to penetrate the minds of those who have dedicated their lives to the study and preservation of this area.
And as I try to keep a steady hand against the swell of an ocean devoid of wind but full of life in depths unfathomable, it is a lesson we all need to remind ourselves of; nature is king and deserves our loyalty. We should pass the hat around and bring the Chinese Communist Party, maybe the Saudi Royalty and even the CEO’s of the world out to the Galapagos, just to spend a captive week with Ivan!
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18 Jun 2013
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Awesome photos - on my bucket list. Thanks for the report
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6 Aug 2013
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Beautiful photography! Many thanks for posting.
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12 Aug 2013
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Its been a while between updates. This is where I procure reasons somehow relating to the speed of the trip or some type of adventure that has kept me away from the keyboard. Given enough time and liquid inspiration then I’m sure I could conjure tales of such entertainment. However I will try to keep this report factual.
The past couple of months have actually been spent indulging in what I call ‘slow travel’. It’s the kind of movement through foreign lands that befits those of us who are time rich, but money poor!
Back from the Galapagos and in Quito we didn’t hand around long. Reunited with the bike, Carlie and I went our separate ways for the day, her to explore the old town and do some shopping for some essentials, me to find a place to watch the spectacle that is a World Cup Qualifier match in South America. These people take their football seriously and the whole city came to a stand-still for the duration of the game. After a 1-1 draw with favorites Argentina the streets were filled with drunken Quitoans, not sure if they should party or commiserate.
The next morning we chartered our way out of the city, once again realizing that we were completely at the mercy of the GPS for our sanity. We were heading back to the coast but firstly a early morning ride over a high pass had us colder than we had been so far on this trip. Yet again we made a rookie mistake and didn’t dress appropriately. The result, Carlie was to spend the next week with a minor case of bronchitis. But these trips are always about the learning curve aren’t they?
On a brighter note the weather was clear and the road west down to Santo Domingo was spectacular. Two-laned twisties with correct camber, small road side villages and a pleasure to blast past the trucks and buses. One village in particular notable for its hanging pigs, must be a local specialty but I was having too much fun to stop for bacon.
We made our destination of Canoa in good time and begun the search for a place that offered camping. Being just out of season however many places were either closed or had simply decided that campers just don’t bring in enough dinero. Finally we found a place on the beachfront that would accept our low budget and set up camp.
We ended up staying for over a week with a couple of great nights with a Dutch family who had been traveling for around 8 years in their tricked out Mercedes truck! I cut a deal with the owner of the place to do some photography and website work for , trust an Australian to work for booze!
But our second volunteering gig was fast approaching and off south along the coast we headed to the small village of Manglaralto, 2kms from its much bigger and touristy brother, Montanita. Where the later was the scene of cheap sidewalk cocktails in plastic cups and dreadlocked surfers, the former was the sleepiest, most genuine coastal village you could imagine. A place where kids played on the streets and cars were a bit of a rarity. Our task here was to assist in building a 4 room hostal for some local owners. Having been given free reign over the style of the place we let our creativity loose. Carlie got colourful with the paints while I built doors, windows and decorations out of bamboo. We had a great two weeks with the other couple, Andrew and Danica before yet again it was time to move on.
This time however, it was the ride and not the destination that was to be the focus…….
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12 Aug 2013
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On leaving the coast we were to head up into the Ecuadorian Andes and our third and final volunteering job for quite some time. We have been travelling at near snail-pace, criss-crossing the country enjoying the amazing diversity that Ecuador has to offer. I sometimes read ride reports that have people ‘do’ this country in 3 or 4 days. Well, hopefully they will get the chance to revisit this amazing country properly later on in life!
We had allowed ourselves 4 days to make the roughly 470kms from the coast. Plenty of time to indulge my new found hobby of discovering roads that the good people at Garmin only see fit to give the thinnest of thin lines to! The first day was without a shadow of a doubt my hardest on a motorbike. Ever.
Once we started into the foothills the road condition didn’t deteriorate, it plummeted. From smooth asphalt to 4 inch thick sticky mud in 5 kms. Add to this switchbacks that would have Salvador Dali scratching his head and inclines more often found on escalators and it really is no surprise that I dropped the bike for the first time. Ever. It was one of those back wheel spinning, forward momentum stopping, gravity winning type scenarios. All was well and the obligatory photo taken before hearing another vehicle approaching, the first car we had seen for almost an hour. After a battle with the mud we were upright again and on our way.
Now we are riding a VStrom. So far I love the bike and it has performed flawlessly. But few will argue with me that there are better machines for mud and serious off-road action, especially 2-up. But my philosophy is ‘test the limits’ and this day certainly put my money where my mouth is! Finally we crested the pass and things dried out. That’s not to say that life got significantly easier. The road continued to be a mixture of large rocks/small boulders, gravel, sand and pebbly river crossings. I don’t know what the designers had in mind for this bike suffice to say that in all the sales literature I saw before purchase I never saw it on a road like this.
Finally we reached some better road and then hit the highway. But my flights of backcountry fancy were yet to be satisfied. Another ‘interesting cut’ was on the menu before our destination was reached. Now I call them ‘interesting cuts’ because no-one who could seriously say they know me would ever call my diversions from the given path ‘short’!
This one had us take the back road up the Andes, a little used, locals-only, rock and gravel incline which, while providing some spectacular scenery, seemed to go on into infinity. At one point we asked a fellow and his wife how long to go. He said about a day, but he was on horseback! Onward and upward we traversed, my choice of Heidenaus justified as loosing grip now and we would get a closer inspection of the houses in the valleys far below.
Just as I was starting to make rash promises to myself never to test the map making skills of Garmin again, our destination hove into view, the chronometer now registering dark and my need for a registering urgent. I have no idea the name of the hotel I slept in, the restaurant I ate in nor even the city I called home for the night. But I do remember the sense of accomplishment I felt. This is the shit for which we do these things!
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12 Aug 2013
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With our destination a small village tucked in the Andes near the famous Laguna Quilotoa and 3 full days to get there we took our time. First stop was the small village of Salinas where in the 70’ and 80’s an Italian missionary decided to empower the local people to pull themselves out of poverty, their claim to fame had been the highest infant mortality rate in the region. He taught them how to make small goods, chocolate and cheese and the results are spectacular for our ‘chicken and rice’ enforced diets.
The weather turned tragic after lunch, just in time for our ride over the nearby 4000m pass. As we got closer the clouds got heavier until they could contain themselves not longer. Then the temperature dropped to around 5 degrees. Then the wind really started! To cap off this lovely ride, a drive the guide book waxes as ‘stunningly scenic’ with ‘towering volcanoes’ the road workers had moved into the area and left kilometers
of churned mud and gravel as the ideal surface. A surface I was now horrified to see was bordered by snow! Now I know there are people that live in cold places and the idea of snow while on a motorbike wouldn’t have them catch a bus. But I hail from significantly warmer climes, the tropics in fact, and my simplistic philosophy reads like this ‘if there’s snow, don’t go’.
Amazingly however, as soon as the summit of the pass was breached all traces of rain, snow and even mud disappeared. It was almost as if a switch had been thrown. It was still as cold as a mother-in-laws glance but the road now stretched on into the distance, miles of nicely curved tarmac heading down into Ambato.
The next 4 hours were monopolized by traffic jams, one-way streets and two large cities, but at least we could now remove layers of clothing. In fact we even had to crack out the sunscreen, giving the locals in cars surrounding us plenty of diversion watching me apply this in the thick of slowly moving traffic.
After spending the night in Latacunga it was off up and back into the mountains. A perfect road wound its way west and up, sheer motorbiking joy on a road all to ourselves. After a memorable 2 hours it was time to hit the dirt again at Zumbahua and towards the laguna. I know I go on about the cold but this place at 3900m was simply too much for us Aussies. It was however made for up by the laguna itself. An extinct volcanic crater now partially filled with water is on many a travellers list and for good reason.
Thats a landslide between a 2km ride home and back tracking!
That's me back tracking....
Next day we wound our way on small dirt back roads skirting the Toachi Canyon, a 1000m gouge into the soft volcanic soil stretching 50km north of the crater. This part of the world is not just going to be our home for the next 5 weeks but it just happens to be incredibly beautiful. Walking tracks and dirt roads wind their way from village to hamlet in between rustic farms and farmers. It will be quite strange to be off the bike for so long but this will be our final volunteering gig for a couple of months. Then its off back to Peru, on the back roads of course.
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14 Aug 2013
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fantastic.
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26 Aug 2013
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Leaving Ecuador
We were heading back to Peru, where drivers want to kill you, chickens that want to die and dogs sleeping in the road that clearly don’t care either way.
The roads in Ecuador were spectacular pretty much since 30 kms out of Macas on the edge of the amazon. Once I battled thru the road construction that is. The road, winding up the eastern slopes of the Andes, was wet marbles in heavy cloud. Finally the roadwork finished but then the surface was still slippery slick and unpredictable asphalt until we breached the pass at around 3300m. The fog finally parted at the behest of a fearsomely cold and gusty wind to reveal a scene taken directly from the glens of a Scottish tourist brochure. We didn’t stop to sample the waters as the ambient temp gauge on the dash had slipped below double figures some time previously. But this same wind had also dried the roads to allow full use of the tire sides.
We carried on thru villages and valleys taking sometimes 40kms to cross a valley 2kms wide and 1 km deep. We passed the Nariz del Diablo, failing to see the fabled engineering feat but marveling at the sheer valley walls and endurance of a couple of bicycle tourists we waved to. As the sun got closer to the mountain clad horizon we hit traffic and negotiated our path into Cuenca. The GPS again the savior in cities, whose otherwise clear grid patterns have become a labyrinth of one way streets. We found our digs after a nice chat with a chap who would have loved to have bought a DL650 but the high import taxes of Ecuador adding another 40% onto the price I paid in Australia. I had to drop a pannier to get the bike into the hotel courtyard which made a perfect site for our first South American oil change.
Finding an oil filter was mission impossible so I had to use the one I was carrying. My preference would have been to hold on to the spare for a place where civilization would not be so civilized but the hour wasted in the search was forgiven in response to finding two of my favorite consumables, tapas and micro-brew!
The next day was a long one, but still on great roads towards the border. First up was a high and cold pass out of town but then things started to warm up. The layers started to shed like a drying onion. Finally we were warm after almost 2 months or more of cold conditions. I made the statement that I would rather be sweating in my suit than shivering in the rain. Let’s see if that comment holds up!
Macara was better second time around. A nice parrilla followed by a midnight banging on the door by a seriously misguided fellow tourist. I think she will consider carefully before knocking on doors after 10pm in the future!
The border crossing went smoothly. The customs guys in Ecuador only checking my papers on my request and telling me that I could return to the country at any time in the future, against some advice I had received on the forums. The Peruvian fellow epitomized the differences in the countries. Indolent, sloth, grumpy and argumentative versus easy-going, professional and facilitating.
All things considered it was an easy crossing, given my experience now of a sample size of two, both at the same place!
The decision not to cross south of Vilcabamba was sealed the day prior when we hit the deck near Loja. Rounding a corner I first saw the landslide from the right hand side of the road. I had about 4 seconds to make a decision, a veritable luxury in motorcycling terms. What to do? The rain had turned the dirt into mud but I saw plenty of tracks through already. So far the road integrity in the wet was good. There were 3 options: hit it hard and fast and pray to the gods of momentum; get in a good road position and speed, grab the bike with the knees and stay clear of the front brake; or stop, hopefully in time in a wet corner. In the 2 seconds of luxury I decided on the middle option, ride it straight and with good velocity, around 30-35kmh. I was off the brakes and on-line when we hit the change in the road colour. I don’t even know how far into the slick we got before we were down. A low side fall that finished with the rear of the bike closer to our destination than the front. It was a calculated decision in a pressure situation based on zero experience. In my own defence we could barely even stand in the mud without slipping, a fact we discovered maybe too late! But we were fine, the bike no more than muddy but my confidence had gone back to primary school being bullied by Paul Jennings in the playground!
Let’s just say that the next 20kms set no lap times!
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26 Aug 2013
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Returning to Peru!
Crossing into Peru and we were back in the dry, hot, barren north of the country, sheltered from the rain by the Andes Range, it was dry and crispy. The road, apart from the frequent chicken and surprise speed hump was fine. A short-cut took us through places few gringos get to write home about and fewer still that would want to.
For the first time in months the road stretched ahead, straight and unwavering. It was with pleasant acceptance tinged with some guilt with which I now rode. For over 100kms the landscape remained static; huge hazy mountains on the left, heat shimmered plains of stunted growth to the right and the regularly broken yellow line hypnotically pulling me forward.
Once we hit Olmos I wasn’t to know but I was about to ride some of the best mountain roads known to motorcycling. This time we headed up the western side of the Andes monoliths, again the road turning back and forth on itself like an epileptic serpent.
As the sun was getting low the search was on to find a suitable camp site. Now it’s not for everyone and there are always arguments for and against but we practice the art of ‘stealth camping’. We never trespass, knowingly anyway, or damage property. The skill is simply to find a place away from eyeballs where we can set the tent and cook some dinner. Our campsite on this day came both with these attributes and also one other desirable feature, an amazing view of 3000m mountains in the setting sun- quite possibly the best campsite I have enjoyed! Apart from the odd stray dog and a shepherd with her herd of scraggly looking sheep we were left in peace.
The next day we continued into the mountain range on fast and curved roads until an odd sound from the bike enforced a quick stop just outside of Bagua Grande, a huge valley where the temp is said to be the highest in Peru. Remember though, I’m not complaining. We stopped in front of an old girls place, her run-down mud brick hut sporting a shady tree and one of the only pigeon coops I have seen in South America.
We learnt two things over the next 15mins of sharing some cookies with her; that she raised the pigeons for food and that the bolt holding the crash bars in-place had completely given up the journey! Not a critical discovery, either one, and so the day continued towards Gotca waterfall , beside a rapid river and through valleys so narrow that at times the cliff hung precariously and defiantly over the road. After a short miss-interpretation of the actual location of the falls we arrived at the small town whose name I can’t remember but view will never forget. Again we camped but this time in the yard of a hostel, our financial saving on accommodation re-invested into a delicious bottle of Chilean red at the flash hotel next door.
Breakfast and a 3 hour walk later we could mark off the worlds’ 5th highest waterfall from our list. Back on the bike and into Chachapoyas to a hotel with parking. We like to mix it up a bit, a couple of days camping and then a proper bed to sustain the fine balance between sanity and fiscal responsibility. That afternoon we treated ourselves to THE BEST steak since I sold my BBQ back in Australia.
Our destination the next day was only 80kms in distance but would take us along dirt tracks clung to cliff sides whose bottoms could not be seen, and not because of the non-existent traffic barriers either! We headed south and then up, towards Kuelap, an ancient pre-Incan ruin said to rival Macchu Picchu but without the crowds. Well, I know why. The road was tough and potholed but thankfully dry. It took us around 2 hours to do 40kms to which our reward was the chance to camp behind a brand new tourist facility that while finished, was yet to be opened.
Our Kuelap experience was a memorable one but it certainly had us hoping that the people were wrong about MP. The amazing thing about this place was two-fold. Firstly it required more stones be brought up the 3100m mountain than the pyramids of Egypt, during the 6th century mind you and secondly it was only discovered in the 70’s. We wandered around the complex in relative peace, disturbed only by grazing alpacas and screeching Peruvians, the view FROM the site possibly trumping the actual view OF the site. An early morning return was rewarded with an amazing sunrise over the very mountains we would be winding our way through that day.
Skip another 80kms down the road and we have found ourselves delayed for 12 hours by road works in Leymebamba. It’s not on the tourist trail and I doubt that situation will change in the near future. But they have coffee and it’s not raining, two things in my motorcycling life I truly enjoy!
A few pics from a visit to the local markets.
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26 Aug 2013
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RobD
Awesome photos - on my bucket list. Thanks for the report
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Thanks Rob,
The Galapagos KO's the budget but even with the fiscal thoughts in mind I would do it again in a heartbeat! It's almost too easy to take great photos when you have the best models!
Cheers
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26 Aug 2013
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Quote:
Originally Posted by VinceSileo
I really enjoy reading your posts. Keep up the good work!
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Thanks Vince,
it almost feels decadent to be writing up all this stuff. Sometimes I look back at the pics and scratch my head thinking, "wow, is this happening?" Hope you are enjoying the ride with us!
Cheers
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Episodes below to listen to while you, err, pretend to do something or other...
2020 Edition of Chris Scott's Adventure Motorcycling Handbook.
"Ultimate global guide for red-blooded bikers planning overseas exploration. Covers choice & preparation of best bike, shipping overseas, baggage design, riding techniques, travel health, visas, documentation, safety and useful addresses." Recommended. (Grant)
Ripcord Rescue Travel Insurance™ combines into a single integrated program the best evacuation and rescue with the premier travel insurance coverages designed for adventurers.
Led by special operations veterans, Stanford Medicine affiliated physicians, paramedics and other travel experts, Ripcord is perfect for adventure seekers, climbers, skiers, sports enthusiasts, hunters, international travelers, humanitarian efforts, expeditions and more.
Ripcord travel protection is now available for ALL nationalities, and travel is covered on motorcycles of all sizes!
What others say about HU...
"This site is the BIBLE for international bike travelers." Greg, Australia
"Thank you! The web site, The travels, The insight, The inspiration, Everything, just thanks." Colin, UK
"My friend and I are planning a trip from Singapore to England... We found (the HU) site invaluable as an aid to planning and have based a lot of our purchases (bikes, riding gear, etc.) on what we have learned from this site." Phil, Australia
"I for one always had an adventurous spirit, but you and Susan lit the fire for my trip and I'll be forever grateful for what you two do to inspire others to just do it." Brent, USA
"Your website is a mecca of valuable information and the (video) series is informative, entertaining, and inspiring!" Jennifer, Canada
"Your worldwide organisation and events are the Go To places to for all serious touring and aspiring touring bikers." Trevor, South Africa
"This is the answer to all my questions." Haydn, Australia
"Keep going the excellent work you are doing for Horizons Unlimited - I love it!" Thomas, Germany
Lots more comments here!
Diaries of a compulsive traveller
by Graham Field
Book, eBook, Audiobook
"A compelling, honest, inspiring and entertaining writing style with a built-in feel-good factor" Get them NOW from the authors' website and Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk.
Back Road Map Books and Backroad GPS Maps for all of Canada - a must have!
New to Horizons Unlimited?
New to motorcycle travelling? New to the HU site? Confused? Too many options? It's really very simple - just 4 easy steps!
Horizons Unlimited was founded in 1997 by Grant and Susan Johnson following their journey around the world on a BMW R80G/S.
Read more about Grant & Susan's story
Membership - help keep us going!
Horizons Unlimited is not a big multi-national company, just two people who love motorcycle travel and have grown what started as a hobby in 1997 into a full time job (usually 8-10 hours per day and 7 days a week) and a labour of love. To keep it going and a roof over our heads, we run events all over the world with the help of volunteers; we sell inspirational and informative DVDs; we have a few selected advertisers; and we make a small amount from memberships.
You don't have to be a Member to come to an HU meeting, access the website, or ask questions on the HUBB. What you get for your membership contribution is our sincere gratitude, good karma and knowing that you're helping to keep the motorcycle travel dream alive. Contributing Members and Gold Members do get additional features on the HUBB. Here's a list of all the Member benefits on the HUBB.
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