Tales from the Saddle
 

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31 Jan 2015


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Intro.....The story so far....

I left home alone on my Yamaha YBR 125 five years ago, and I still remember well the fears and anxieties of the long journey ahead, to Cape Town first. Having not ridden a motorcycle the thought of simply getting a puncture was terrifying. I've had 76 punctures now....My story is not the best, nor the most daring, but it is mine and I want to share it....

The photos too, are not the best but I hope they are honest and if any are spectacular it is just because of the greatness of the people and the places....and I've to be fair, I've had a LOT of practise!

This write up is just a copy of what began as a fairly standard blog. It has evolved a little to a story more for people who like to sit down and read. Whilst I love photography, I don't think that photos can tell the story (unless there is no story), Photos can certainly help though....at least, this is my opinion....I hope that you enjoy the write up....This below is what I wrote initially so long ago.....

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got shot at in Turkey,
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interrogated by the military on Christmas eve in Syria,

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tailed and arrested in Egypt (who isn't though!),

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crossed Ted Simons Atbara Desert in Sudan,

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underwent surgery in Kenya,

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accused of being a cow thief in Tanzania,


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Crossed still-flooded flood plains in Zambia,

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Enjoyed the delights of Namibia,

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before finally reaching my goal after eleven months; Table Mountain, Cape Town.

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All of this, alone, on a small budget, on a Yamaha YBR 125.

And its not over yet! Now I'm in the Americas, currently Mexico and heading south....you can read about it here (soon, when Ive written it!) but also see the website Tales from the Saddle - Solo Motorcycle Tour Around the World on a Yamaha YBR 125 where there are a myriad of photos, tasty tales and the ubiquitous map with a line on it.

http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/...h/ea0zdf4k.gif You can also follow on facebook

I hope that some people find enjoyment in reading about it, and if not tell me why as Id like to improve my writing and photography too so please give me some pointers as Id really appreciate them!

Until later,
Nick

and now....Mexico Part 2, Jan.22nd
 

I'll skip part one, on account of being lazy and having little internet time...so here's part deux....

It was time to leave the fabulous Colima. I loved this place, for it's complete lack of tourist garb, it's pleasant cafes, plazas and it's comfortable safety...and perhaps too for my fabulous hosts; Ernesto and Lea and other friendly people; those at Koki Moto and especially the great Sigi Pablo and his girlfriend Kaiko. But it was time to leave and, as always I find it hard to leave the comforts of 'regular' life.

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"Don't stay too long in Michoacan." Lea said as I hopped back in to the saddle of a rejuvinated - after his work at Koki Moto - Rudolf. I didn't really know where Michoacan was, or if I was going there...I was off to some volcano as far as I knew and so didn't ask questions...perhaps I should have?

Soon enough I reach the volcano, it seemed nice enough here and wondered what Lea was talking about, the interesting mountain village of Angang the jumping off point to see what remains of the old village, now buried beneath a thick crust of lava. I deny the caberallo his offer of a horse wanting to stretch my legs out of the saddle, with a hike, peacefully through the forest and over the outer limits of lava glimpsing as I approach the church poking up half-buried in the black bubbled rubble, as if it's God against Nature.

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Higher in to the mountains still I go, to view the Monarch Butterfly migration at over 3000m. Waking stiff and cold in the morning in a nearby forest, my heart is warmed by a young man, his son and their ever increasing number of rabid dogs, out together collecting tree sap, providing me with half their breakfast and despite my best efforts won't have a cup of my coffee! I don't say anything about them killing EVERY single tree for their sap.

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The butterflies were a disappointment. Too few, in a dark patch of forest, nothing like I'd been told or imagined and I leave being hounded still by the horsemen and guides...perhaps the wrong time of the migration.

Then, having visited the towns of Patzcuaro and Morelia where I'm requested to return most hastily to England, though not quite so formally by the locals, I find myself at a car accident, a bus, smouldering still....then another and another, still ablaze, a truck shot out and on the horizon more and more fires, the air thick with black smoke, the army and police all around. Something is afoot.


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I ask someone what's going on, how can I make progress on the roads in my best Spanish, which I realise quickly isn't up to much, when he replies,

"I don't know what the f$%! you just said, why don't you talk English...you do speak English....want some gear?"

"No thanks, just directions..."

I realise I'm actually in Michoacan and all starts to become clear - more so later when I read that one of the main druglords has been shot - and I try my best to leave the state, following other cars down little tracks and through fields doing the same...trying to get around the road blocks, trying to get out of Michoacan.

I have some time to spare before a meeting in Mexico City and so pop up to view the wonderful subterranean labyrinths of Guanajuato, a long detour but worth the trip and a visit with another kind farmer who lets me camp on his beautiful land near the city.

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It's another cold night at altitude on my way to the big city, kept awake and then woken by a non-stop barrage of fireworks, commemorating or celebrating Saint Augustine or something....the road is quiet to Mexico City though as most everyone has driven off the road in a drunken stupor and I meet a chirpy Garry Dymond, whom I plan to stay with for four days before catching up with Adam for Christmas.

Two weeks later I leave, having realised that meeting Adam ( Short Way Round) is a bit beyond the realms of even Rudolf's quick feet and Christmas on his mind. Alas, I got to spend it with the fabulous Garry and his equally fabulous wife, Ivonne as well as fellow motorcyclists Rob and Duncan, of Motorcycle Menus | A culninary adventure on two wheels. Top chaps and great cooks both of them and Christmas dinner - served at midnight on Christmas eve.... well a little bit earlier; we were getting hungry - a gastronomic delight, but despite it's true excellence, twas not quite as good as my mum's!!!...there's just no pleasing some folk.

Staying with Garry was a true delight, staying in his house that once stood amongst pine trees on the edge of the city, has since been gobbled up by the growing millions of inhabitants and so gone is the dirt track and donkeys and instead is replaced by the 43 bus route and graffitti world....and a pretty good "panadaria."

"You live in the SLUM!" someone said...actually I think it was Garry...and actually it was fantastic...behind the safety of Garry's 'tagged' gate that is...

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no really it was top! Garry is previously of the UK and so the food was tremendous....cottage pie, lasagne, apple pie, steak, chips....and toad in the hole and chocolate brownies made by yours truly (with no assistance from Aunt Bessie). I left weighing the 300lbs I started the trip on.

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Soon though it's time again to leave those lovely comforts and hit the road though not before one last meal, a lunch of homemade gorditas - my Mexican favourite, made just for me by Ivonne!

I head off feeling extremely lucky to have met Garry and Ivonne...a meeting I am in great debt to the world for....and I consider that I have to earn some worldly brownie points soon, before something catastrophic happens.

Alas, it's too late, high up in the Sierra Gorda all movement ceases and Rudolf literally grinds to a halt....on closer inspection I discover that the bearings in the rear wheel have been sneakily replaced by pieces of tin foil.

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Then my key snaps....

Standing waiting for a truck to help me out, a man in a VW Jetta - itself held together with string and wire - stops and is quick to tell me that unless I can get to Ciudad Valles myself, I'll be in for a very long wait, for there won't be any trucks this way.

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So I strap the wheel together, completely without bearings

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....and tot off a bit gingerly up the road with the VW shadowing me behind - even gingerlier - in his motorised ball of string.

Geoff (or whatever his name was) stops and tightens down the wire holding down his bonnet, signifying that we've made the first 15km to the main road, now for the fast stuff, 25km more to the city so he tells me and I give him an optimistic thumbs up, the wheel having only fallen apart once so far. But I lose Geoff in the obstacle course of "topes" (speed bumps), though I wait for him I assume he got bored and stopped for a cerveza and I carry on to Valles alone, where the wheel gives out again, though this time rather timely; outside the Suzuki garage. New bearings are made and only a few hours later I'm back on the road...I was expecting a lengthy stop in the city of days or weeks, waiting for parts! I start wondering if these very helpful people have just tipped the balance of debt I owe to the world irredeemably even further.....

Back on the road, and looking out for black cats, ladders, tipping balances and gun-touting druglords, I head to Sir James' garden...a highly bizarre and interesting house he built while most likely off his rocker on drugs as it is most peculiar and then a visit to the SPECTACULAR waterfalls in the area, reached only by rowing boat, 4km, upstream in a boat made for 12 sturdy fellas. Though for me it's just myself and my ample guide Celestino. We slogged our way up to the falls, earning several blisters....but it was worth it...105m high of emerald waters, and truly special.

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Sr James Edwards gaff.....

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"Those boats are ginormous!" said David, "El Gringo" in his bike shop in Matlapa. Obviously looking worse for wear after the mighty effort, he buys me superb breakfast from a beautiful woman, wrapped in banana leaves and cooked in an earth oven...the breakfast...not the woman. David, thanks, you're a top chap!

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On I go, out of the jungle, through the cloud forest - where I get to see the inner workings of a cloud close up! - and then into desert! what a landscape! Alas, there are no photos as the camera was soaked days previous exploring some caves....which, it turns out, were rubbish....and full of water.
I need more parts for Rudolf, and email my contact in Mexico City....then I spend all day lost in the city trying to find the place eventually doing so only to discover it is infact a completely different Yamaha store to that which I wrote to!....luckily they are top chaps too....at Cuajimalpa and start taking apart a showroom bike to fix up Rudolf before they nip home for the weekend....Thanks GREATLY to them for helping me out at short notice and goign to such great lengths for me!

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The balance is really tipping now and I ride along on tenderhooks....death must come soon, or maybe a sharp blow to my head....another cold night is all I get, and a still deflating thermarest, 22 punctures and counting - damn you cactus! - but a great visit to Volcan de Toluca and it's lakes, where Rudolf splutters at the altitude

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....and then on down to the Pacific coast to revive him and me, north of Acapulco to collect a sleeping bag from Uri and Jackie, friends of Rob's whom I met in Mexico City.

Alng the way through the Sierras again,

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in a tiny village I meet an old lady hosing the dirt and ask her where I can find tortillas....soon she returns with freshly made tortillas, and then offers me a coke....and then her nephew comes to chat too, Oscar....great chap, who "wants to give me something for the road" and gives me a cake and two packets of chips!!

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Because of all the kindness goign around I'm getting anxious and seeing a boy and old lady with a puncture tire I stop to repair it....I get no thanks and feel a bit disappointed...peraps that's how it's supposed to be, perhaps it's more selfless this way, I shouldn't expect so much....

Then Ireach the beach and my new sleeping bag.....As I pack the new bag away on the bike Uri comes over...

"Nick, we all think it's best if you stay the night, have dinner with us, have breakfast....unless....that is...you have somewhere to be?"
"Are you serious!? Oh, that would be fantastic! I could hug you!!"
Uri mumbles and "OK" and so I hug him.

In the morning, after breakfast, Uri comes over again
"Nick, we think it's best if you stay today too, I mean if you want to and have nowhere to go?"
My reply was much blunter "Sounds good to me."

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This was repeated, and repeated, and finally I have to leave for Oaxaca....where getting very worried about the tipping balance, I stop and help people, give them lifts, fix their punctures and try and be really nice....who knows what lurks....?

Now I must decide whether to race on south and skip the Yucatan, or obviously visit the Yucatan as I think I may have had my fix of Mexico, three months has perhaps been enough and I'm already thinking about exploring dirt roads in the Andes.

A special thanks to Uri and Jackie for letting me stay and bringign over a sleeping bag, Garry and Ivonne a very special thanks for letting me spend a wonderful Christmas with you, it really felt like home.

Thanks for the post!
I feel like more and more people are starting to travel on small motorbikes,
they do have some advantages.
Keep on going , and good luck!!

as usual excellent photos and interesting report, I have been following your trip via your website and email updates avidly as I also run a ybr 125.

Thanks guys!
 

Thanks for reading guys....

I hope it's a little enjoyable, though I must admit there has been little in the way of off-roading in this latest installement, but that¿s just how it goes!

For Mexico PArt one, you canread my own blog, just follow the weblink, or alternatively look at Adam of shortwayround.co.uk own post on it at ADVrider...

Trails of North America...a photo journal - Page 9 - ADVrider

Hey Klous,

Good stuff - both words and pics. And a vote from me for little bikes. Love 'em especially when you've got to pick one up and there is nobody around to help you! :thumbup1:

Definately!
 

Belle.....Yep, picking up the small bike is easier....still not easy mind you! I'm sure it gets heavier too....

I've been keeping up with a KLR recently too on some terrible roads...probably the worst I've seen....so soon you can read about those and me picking up the bike repeatedly!

But I'm all for small bikes on these trips, easy to pick up, get parts, cheap to run, fuel economy, more manove4rable on the rough stuff or if you have to man handle it across obstacles, cheaper shipping, easy maintenance....1litre of oil....ummm....there are more.....but that's enough.

What do you ride? Are you on a long trip....or thinking about one?

SA for the blog, its okay...I don't get much time to do it so its all a bit rushed....the book will be better....but thanks for the kind words, I need encouragment on that front!

Great pics except the one of the outside of my house. Garryhostel has been very quiet so far this year but should get more visitors some time in the future. Leslie and Lloyd will put you up if you go through Playa del Carmen just send me a mail first so I can give you their contact info. What type of sleeping bag did you get and is it any good?
Safe travels

Garry

Fantastic, mate!

Thanks for sharing this awesome story with us!

Great travelogue - written with real style and truly thought-provoking for those of us with an XT sitting in the garage ready for that future 'big trip'...
Thinking back, I had a scream on my old GS...not one of those...a 1983 Suzuki GS125ES not a million miles removed from your YBR.

Keep doing those 'good deeds' and writing them up. Looking forward to the book!

Looks exciting love the Pictures keep it up!

this is fantastic man! Im off to your website. Thank you for posting!
Keep it up!:scooter:

Wow
 

Absolutely fantastic. I am speechless. Kinda puts into perspective just how little you need to do this and what can be done on a small machine instead of a 1000 plus CC advert for acessory companies!

Have added your site to favourites....

Thanks to the readers!
 

A little thank you to the readers.....
Knight of the holy graal, guzzibob, milkman672042000, Noah M, greenmanalishi....hope you continue to enjoy it and let me know if you have any pointers for improvements.....anything....

Garry!!! How are things!? Got a great sleeping bag, very hot and sweatysome down sleeping bag from Kelty, $130, the cheapest I could get....but worth it I think! Thansk for the offer at Lloyds, alas wont be heading that far east, I am in Chiapas now with Duncan....and from here will head to Guat....so any pointers on Chiapas are welcome! How are things back home...how are the yorkshire puddings...regular I hope! Been out on the bike?

Great RR !
PM me if you need any assistance in Guatemala .
Ride safe,
Julio

The End of Mexico......

Like the man said, "you've gotta stay for lunch!" So I did. Uri's kind charm and Augustine's great "ceviche," (a shrimp dish "cooked" with lemon juice) hard to resist, though this does make for a rather tardy departure of 3pm! Not only that but the first thing I must do is find a welder to fix my rear rack! Completed I must go to the "mercado" and stock up...and then finally, 20 miles down the road from Uri's, look for camp!


Then I commence three days of the most boring riding ever, entertained along the way only by the left signal light antics of the Mexicans, do they mean they are turning left, or are they saying I can pass (a risky prospect if one is true!) or are they just about to embark on some undreamt of manouver and are infact using their hazard lights and are just missing between one and three bulbs?!


http://talesfromthesaddle.com/slides...9_09_00033.jpg Receiving a free tire! Needless to say; it was a long ride to Oaxaca that had me contemplating if all my time in Mexico wasn't actually too much time....and money. But things change fast and soon new exciting glimpses of culture are popping up; a strange market, kind people, more freebies including a free tire in Oaxaca from the great peeps at Maxima Motos (mentioned in more detail in a previous post).

With the guys there having tipped my ever biased balance of good and bad (discussed in Mexico Part two) I head off with anxiety, eyes flitting left and right for signs of trouble, trouble finds me three minutes after leaving the garage, in the form of a puncture. Well, look on the bright side, the balance is levelled....or is it?

http://talesfromthesaddle.com/slides...7_46_00040.jpg Fixing punctures in the shops light It's a little after 4pm and people come to their doorways to watch the gringo repair his bike and I sit in one shop chatting with the owner as I frantically do battle with the tire and tube anxious to get to a camp spot....and in a rush I make the novice mistake of pinching the tube with my tire lever....and then I do it again, and again and, just to confirm that yes, I am a novice, I do it again.

And just once more.

http://talesfromthesaddle.com/slides...5_38_00052.jpg Samuel tucks into his dinner Making for a total of twelve holes and lots of tire removals and refits and pumping. Finally at 9pm I think I have it sorted and the shop owner heaves his own sigh of relief that he can now go home for the night. However, all is not finished, the balance is still tipped towards "Good," with a tire pressing gently on "Evil"....I can't seat the tire. No problem, there is a tire repair shop nearby and ride over gingerly and ask Samuel, the owner, if I can use his compressor. Samuel has spent 30 years fixing tires and by the looks of it it is taking its tole, he flits from one job to the next and I fear that the vulcanizing fluids and rubber cement have destroyed a few brain cells. A long story but at 12am I am in his van on the way to dinner, he stabs at the dash looking for a button to turn off the hazard lights, beeping his horn at all passing vehicles, and then blasts out some music and tells me we're amigos. Then, after a great dinner of giant Oaxacan tortilla whose name I've forgotten, I am slipping into my sleeping bag below his bed in his dog filled, pee stenched home of one room.

http://talesfromthesaddle.com/slides...1_09_00052.jpg Samuel's house. "Just hit the rats off your face if they come..." he mumbles as he rolls over to sleep. I lie there with a look of grim reality etched on my face, trying to fall asleep, to the sound of his three dogs; Van Gogh, Anne Frank and Berk (the blue plastercine fella from the infamous British kids TV show "The Trap Door") going potty, wondering where the rats are....feels like a prison, and I contemplate that it's not the prison that makes you crazy but the other inmates....what with Van chewing the lower part of his left ear lobe, Anne just sitting silent in the dark and Berks booming inner voice and strange bark with a Cornish accent.....umm, maybe this joke needs more thought.

Regrdless, I got naff-all sleep.

In the morning I help Sam feed the dogs, tossing the food down on the ground as one feeds birds, alas in ones house and then walk up the street to fetch water from a dank well for a "shower." The water from the well is blacker than a gorilla's armpit and after "washing" my hands, I thank Samuel and him farewell.

http://talesfromthesaddle.com/slides...3_30_00079.jpg Oaxacan streets, hammocks for sale I spend some time in Oaxaca, a nice place with busy plazas and clean streets and ncie templos and iglesas, as well as the archealogical site Mont Alban and with a good camp nearby I'm able to visit and leave daily to camp.

One evening on my way back to camp, I notice a small stadium set up in one village and stop to ask what's going on. I speak with a member of the band, he plays a ginormous bass brass instrument that curves over his head and goes BOMM, Bomm, BOMM, Bomm.....he tells me inbetween bomms that there is a rodeo on afterwards and after buyign a tasty bun I sit inside with a hoarde of sadistic Mexicans drinking moonshine from a upturned cut off coke bottle top, watching silly fellas get pummelled by big dopey looking cows, top stuff.

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http://talesfromthesaddle.com/slides...0_48_00212.jpg Jilberto, a local farmer I then headed to the mountains nearby for a hike in the Pueblos Mancomunados, where I was greeted by the fabulous Zava, who bought me bread and went beyond helpful in putting
up with my "I really don't want a guide" requests. Zava gives me a walkie-talkie, just to make sure I don't get lost and with his two big hunks of bread I head off in to the rural villages, mountains and valleys and talk to locals like Jilberto, who grows potatoes and maize and likes it there as it is safe and there is no music!

http://talesfromthesaddle.com/slides...0_31_00229.jpg Duncan awakes at camp The next day I descend back down the mountains to meet with Duncan whom I had previously met at Garry's in Mexico City. Duncan and I had planned an exploration of Chiapas and we start the day looking at our respective maps and bits and pieces we've scribbled on them, Duncan pointing out a few things from his guide book and me pointing out a few roads of zero note and zero tarmac. And with that, we head to the dirt where we meet local mezcal brewers....

http://talesfromthesaddle.com/slides...9_52_00247.jpg Mezcal mule, grinds down the roasted piña Mezcal is an alcaholic drink produced in a similar way to tequilla, using the piña (very large bulb) of the blue agave plant. After a few sups of the nasty stuff we hit the road again and head into the cloud of the cloud forest, thick fog, damp mud and small villages the order of the day, where people come to gorp, run away, dropped jaws that sort of thing. In one sleepy village, where the only past-time seems to be watching it pass Duncan and I chat with the locals.

"What'd he say?" asks Duncan as I return to put on my helmet.
"I think he said the road's closed."
"Really!?"
"Yeah, but the kid reckons we can do it on the bikes no problem."
"Oh, okay then."
"They always say that though, they think the bikes are magic carpets or something."

http://talesfromthesaddle.com/slides...6_38_00271.jpg Duncan, up in the cloud drenched forest We continue on, carving a path through the thick fog, the strip of red dirt road immediately out front all one can see beyond Rudolf's red nose, to the sides the mountain drops sharply into errie misty depths giving a sense of claustrophobia....a desire to get out of it before camp.

In the next village our fears are somewhat confirmed.

"The road is closed," says a local couple who come out to see what the noise is on the street (two gringos on bikes), "but," he continues "you'll make it on the bikes. He also mentions something about "derrumbes," and "mucho" and I ask Duncan if Derrumbe is Spanish for "magic carpet," it's not, it means "landslide".

http://talesfromthesaddle.com/slides...6_38_00277.jpg Beaten...or are we...? The road turns to thick wet mud which claws at the wheels and feet as we paddle our way through, no people or homes now, no vehicles, no tracks even, save one motorcycle tire tread which gives us hope and we call the rder "Mad Max." We cross some minor landslides and with each think "this is what the locals must have meant," but it only gets worse, and we have huge puddles and mounds of sticky red mud to navigate and dig to make a path, until eventually at the end of the daylooking for camp we reach a huge obstacle, a tall powerful waterfall that has washed away the road.

"Well, we're not getting across that!" I say, and start setting up camp right there on the road, safe in the knowledge that they'll be no other vehicles coming this way.

In the morning, contemplating our position and the thought that maybe we can just make it across the waterfall, all whilst hovering over my freshly dug toilet, I am greeted by three men; an old fella wielding a machete and his two sidekicks Smith and Wesson (odd names for Mexicans I know), who were wielding rather large shiny rifles.

"No passer!" says the old fella.
"No kidding," I say.
"You return?"
"No,"
"There are landslides!"
"How many?"
"Mucho!"
"How far is the town?"
"Ooooooh, it's very far!"
"Possible on the bikes?"
He thinks for a moment, "yeah."
"No problemo then!"

And he trots off to hunt jaguars or something else he shouldn't be.

Packed up Duncan and I set to work on the rocky falls and carve and chisel away a path across, we carry our gear over and with a bit of help from each other, get both bikes across.

"Let's just hope THAT was what the locals were talking about!" I say.

http://talesfromthesaddle.com/slides...6_38_00279.jpg Duncan navigating one of many "derrumbes." We follow the huge channels cut by the torrent of water down the track, around the corner to another derrumbe. Get off the bikes, inspect it on foot, make renovations where necessary, walk back, ride it, walk back, help Duncan by pushing him and holding him as he has me and Rudolf.

Ride another 200m, repeat. I ride along terrified what the next corner might bring, will we have to turn back....surely not, all those derrumbes we've crossed, all that mud and fog....but again we find a way through and again. And so on, until eventually at 12pm, having covered a glorious

1 mile ,

http://talesfromthesaddle.com/slides...1_24_00001.jpg The booby prze, a marmalade tortilla. we reach an impassable derrumbe, a huge landslide with a gaping void of infinite depth barring the way to the other side and with the village within earshot, we must give up, and return. Not before a ruddy good marmalade tortilla. "The booby prize." I say to Duncan, "The Marmalade of Defeat," just in case he wasn't feeling downbeat enough.

Then we have to ride all the way back.

We decide to then head to Puerto -escondido, where Duncan's brother and sister are staying for a short while, taking a beautiful route through the agave field strewn mountains, getting interrogatted in one village by an angry mob of drunken men and their village President on a Sunday afternoon - making a sharp exit.

http://talesfromthesaddle.com/slides...9_35_00001.jpg Nick and Rudolf, dominate the dirt....

From Puerto Escondido we head east along the coast, where I'm a little ill and we camp out on the beach for a few days to recoop. I spend my time fighting a losing battle to get shade whilst Duncan whittles his time away walking the 5miles of empty beach looking for egg laying turtles, finding only dead ones and nests emptied of their eggs by local poachers. Though we did see one live baby turtle scampering into the heavy surf at Puerto Escondido, a magical sight I must say!

http://talesfromthesaddle.com/slides...0_06_00429.jpg One of many lovely people we met along the way From here, visiting markets and fishing villages, great people, great photo opportunities and crazy towns make for interesting days before we reach the coffee plantations of Chiapas where we meet even more fantastic people, all happy to pose for pictures, laughing and joking as they work, a happy place to be it seems.

http://talesfromthesaddle.com/slides...3_29_00005.jpg Get my coffee! Punk!
With Duncans drive chain starting to fall to bits it was time to call an end to our time together, he heads back to Oaxaca and I will head into Guatemala in aday or two.....once I've updated this pesky website!

There is also a video on my website.....

Blog - Tales from the Saddle - Solo Motorcycle Tour Around the World on a Yamaha YBR 125

I've written a new update but it doesn't seem to want to show the photos, so probably best to go to the website, here is available at the website

Blog - Tales from the Saddle - Solo Motorcycle Tour Around the World on a Yamaha YBR 125

But otherwise you can read it here, sans pics...sorry peeps....


I´m at home, in the living room sitting small and square on the couch, tucked over onto one side, wondering why it is I am here....at home....

The journey, it seems is over.

My mother is here. She is cleaning and I watch her, though she pays me little attention and as such I feel like a fly on the wall, well the couch, watching, unnoticed, transported, not really here....surely not...But I am. Two and a half years, and the journey is over.

There´s a strange hum, like electric pylons excited by the rain, except oddly; silent. There, but not there. The room feels odd too; empty, grey and cold; desaturated in every way. A sick feeling fills my stomach. I can´t believe it, that I´m back and can´t remember even, why I am. I look my body over, my legs seem fine, my head and arms too....so why am I here?

Who knows, (Lord maybe and the sneaky twit isn't telling me), for whatever reason I am home, at the beginning, where it all started, back at zero, everything the same, with me left still wanting.....but what to want now? (a bed, hot shower, Sunday lunch...)

"But I didn´t get to see South America or Central Asia!" (ahh, yeah all the bits I missed) I blurt loudly, angry now and I click my flingers as I point to her as if drawing out the exclamation for my remark. I stand up and make my way upstairs, stamping my way up the steps just like when I was a child, the same and nothing more.


The Chicken buses
I hear a cuckoo, he lives in the tall yellow conifer tree outside my bedroom window, I can make out other birds too that sing happily, tapping out their strange Morse code to one another. There are dogs barking incessantly as the first of the smoke pouring morning buses makes it's way to town; atop of which lie men, perched precariously atop mounds of loose luggage on the roof. There is a march band playing in the streets and somewhere the gas van roams reminding customers by playing its tune "Here we go round the mulberry bush" on a device that sounds like a child’s plastic record player to attract customers...and if you don't hear it you can smell it. Far off a woman announces the news from a loud speaker strapped atop a cars roof, sounds like propaganda. A dog barks, the church bells peel and a string of firecrackers go off celebrating the birth of a new born baby (commiserations). The sound of a much smaller bell grows nearer; an ice cream trolley; the bell strapped to it's vendor’s trousers by his boss like a time bomb to ensure he never stops moving (sell, sell, sell!!). I hear the sound of nylon flapping in the breeze and feel the warmth of the first beams of the rising sun, I feel and smell like a tomato in a greenhouse. I scratch the cocktail of ant, mosquito and spider bites over my hands, arms and legs uncontrollably and with subconscious pleasure. The fuzzy image brightens into focus and I realise with a huge relief that I am in fact, not at home and it was, of course just a dream. Paradoxically I also think; I'm still in Antigua.



Camp,with volcan Fuego erupting
I'm still in Antigua, the small Colonial City, surrounded by wooded hills and active volcanoes, punctuated along its seven streets by the crumbling remains of the long-gone Spanish rein reminding one that this was once the capital, now defunct - moved to its present day location 45km away; Guatemala City, after another earthquake flattened the place just when they were cutting the cake to celebrate completing the rebuild.


Antigua
I scratch at my bites some more and with increased vigour, though perhaps I didn't stop and somewhere outside a dog sniffs at my tent and I wonder why I'm singing "Here we go round the mulberry bush." Then my mind continues to swirls with thoughts of what could be causing the most recent problem or development in the great mystery that is; Rudolf, for he is having great problems.


A puncture...at 4am
I've been in Guatemala for over one month, but have travelled for only one week, though it was a fantastic week, and after a lengthy stay in Mexico the change was welcome. The border was a street hardly visible through the chaotic bedlam of shops, stalls, tuk-tuks, gasoline vendors (Mexican fuel much cheaper) and people flowing whimsically from one country to the other with wares, but a simple and cheap enough crossing (about $8).

A town is circled on my map, I can't remember when or why I circled it, but I head there anyway, along a great, smooth, gravel road, through the coffee fields of the north, beautiful people, in traditional colourful dress; flowered print, bandanners, gold teeth and a planetarium of gold spheres around their necks give the look of pirates! Each person balances vases of water atop there bobbing heads, or mounds of coffee or firewood in sacks strapped taught around their foreheads; men, women and children - with mini-sacks - alike, working together as a family.

Local lasses fill my water bottle

I stop beside two women chatting and ask if I can take their picture, "Why?" they ask perplexed, but their Spanish is worse than mine it seems, Akateko being the local dialect and after a minute or two and the gathering of more people I leave with my tail between my legs, and sadly no photo! The people, the lives and the landscape, and the road are fantastic, peaceful and serene, from mist covered green forest to sunburnt brown valleys and azure rivers of icy fresh water to swim and wash in, a more wild side than I'd seen in Mexico and one I'd missed since Africa (though still someway off that, but still brought back old memories!...secret hidden tea shops behind bellowing door curtains for one!).


Bad weather, a damp and dreary street
Unfortunately the weather turns nasty and when I reach the damp and fog drenched town I'd circled on my map I'm left still wondering what the heck I circled it for...the ride at least was good!

But now the dreary weather eggs me along and now, unable to photograph locals and unable to enjoy a good exploratory wander of the streets - being drenched and all - I flee to warmer climes, dropping steeply down from the mountain villages to the big smoke in the warmer valley which leaves me with feelings of mixed relief and anxiety that I've missed out on some of the delights there as I look back up to the mountains from camp.


A lovely bubbly market lass
But it needn't matter, I have the bustling bedlam that is the street market that encroaches in on the cobbled streets of Huehuetenango, to view and to roam, and to learn the nuances of the local Spanish slang. I spend a tiny fortune visiting many stalls, buying fruit and sampling food snacks in a bid to warm people's icy opinion of the camera lens with my Spanish charm(!), to try and get a photo or two....and though I meet happy smiling people, all I come away with is a fat belly and a top-box laden with broccoli....and a lighter wallet!

A short stretch on Highway one confirms that it's not really for me, too fast and a feeling of a certain distance between one and his surroundings and I make the first detour I can, along a dirt track to a dead end; road closed, but here I stop and meet with a family of basket weavers who, contrary to previous experience, allow free use of the camera, and they warm my heart if I don't warm theirs!


Camp over Huehuatenango, treated to a free concert and fireworks
I make my way to Xela, to visit and hike Volcan Santa Maria, which overlooks another and still active volcano. Xela seems to sprawl away on a busy road, a truckers route perhaps, lined with tire repairs and hotels by the hour and finding camp is tricky and sees me lose Rudolf in a cavernous concrete ditch in the pitch black of night, though when I do find camp I am treated to a free concert and firework display from the centre of town, the streets oozing with colour and character.

The volcano is only visible for a short window of time, meaning an early start. I fill myself with coffee at camp at 3:30am and can't believe my luck when I get ANOTHER puncture on my way to the trailhead....at 4am in the city, hardly ideal. When I finally reach the trail I race up it at full steam, puffing and panting at 4000m, managing to shave a half hour from the recommended time and sit in the cool high altitude air waiting for an eruption....and the cloud to clear....luckily it clears just as it explodes, though only barely....


Volcano watch...waiting for the cloud to clear


Beautiful dress of the Tzutzunil,Atitlan
Lake Atitlan and Antigua are only a relatively short ride away and hardly worth missing. The weather turns sour once again, but down at the lake it is fairing better and I trundle down a farm track to the lake edge and meet a friendly fellow who allows me to camp lake side. I visit the towns next morning after having coffee with the friendly farmer, but find them to have been overwhelmed by tourists who seem to have had a negative effect on the local populous it seems to me - I chat for awhile with a local market man (his wife doing all the work) and he tells me my name means Akalash in his language, Tzutzunil, though I check my dictionary I never work out what it means...but it brings a smile to his face.

But after buying more fruit and veg and a chocolate rice pudding in the market (still no photo) I'm keen to leave them to their lives, and retreat up to the upper throes of the jungle where the sound of macaws and toucans reign (actually I don't know what birds were there, sounded good though) and in the morning I start making my way to Antigua, on the way meeting Frank and Simone who I first met in Mexico city.


Lunch with Frank & Simone
and then...Antigua.

It started simple enough; no charging from the bike's electrical system. I returned to Antigua - after an initial three days stop - to a free campsite I'd just left to carry out repairs. In carrying out the repair I stripped the spark plug thread (novice) and had to send the engine head to a machine shop,


A stripped spark plug head meant a lengthy wait...
Then on rebuilding the engine with the newly repaired head, an exhaust valve was bent on start-up, one assumes hitting the piston head...how...it was discovered that the timing chain had jumped a full ninety degrees...but why?


The bent exhaust valve


Rudolf undergoes heart surgery
The bike is moved in to a dusty outbuilding at the campsite, I give the room a much needed clean and make some simple repairs to the lights whilst waiting for parts for Rudolf, parts I must wait for longer and longer, "return at 2pm, return at 4pm, return at 5pm, return in the morning...." and finally I vouch to never return to the Yamaha dealer in Antigua, the worst I've ever dealt with.

A lot of people; fellow motorcyclists, RV'ers, campers, policemen and even the police chief, as well as the ever helpful Julio, Andres and Ian, help in diagnosing the problem and the diagnosis is that essentially we are all a bit stumped, how does a timing sprocket jump ninety degrees, without jumping....

Late one evening, sat basking in the blue-white glow of a PC monitor in the police station office, perusing engine diagrams with very helpful Andres, who's come especially to help,

"This is bad news," says Andres.
"Umm," I say, realising that my stay in Antigua might be longer still (ohh, great).


The ever helpful Andres
Next to us, Officer Elisa - who kindly let us in to the office - picks another song from youtube to pass the night shift, a modern day cheesy version of George Harrison with a smooth and well-combed basin of nut-brown hair, on his head and above his mouth, adorns her monitor and the PC speakers and I ask if she thinks he's handsome: "He's not," she tells me, "but this guy is!" and she quickly clicks a bookmarked favourite revealing an even more - if possible - cheesy fellow, who looks just the same but with added benefit of a sombrero to hide his well manicured barnett, does nothing for the fluffy 'tash.

With a few ideas, Andres and I go to test our theories and I promise Elisa a coffee sometime and soon Andres and I confirm beyond all doubt that the problem is a broken sprocket on the crankshaft, meaning for a full engine rebuild, a new crankshaft. Several options come to mind;

1) Eat cake,
2) Drink tea,
3) Sleep,
4) Get on a plane to Colombia and buy Rudolf Jr.
5) Get a new engine,
6) Fix Rudolf.

After dabbling with options one and two, I wake up after completing option 3 and decide that option six is the only option for me, but only after a completing a new option, option 7: drink coffee. Phew....and To celebrate I have a number two and then drink some tea, probably with a "cubilete," a yummy cake, three of which can be bought for the princely sum of 1Quetzal (8p), and probably in the company of the fabulous Ingulf, a German rider on his way home, or, after his departure back to Germany, fellow Brit; Ian (whom I met originally in Mexico).


With Ian's help the engine is taken to pieces, one piece at a time, day by day, as we spend half a day here finding a tool, or half a day there making one, designing one, trying to get someone to make one, or breaking a part, shearing a bolt, scratching our heads, reading the manual and drinking more tea and eating mounds of cubiletes.


Thank God for Ian
Finally, the crankcase is split, the crankshaft now visible and exposed and now the problem I realise wasn't the crankshaft (good work speedy) at all and I must rebuild the engine, seemingly for no reason other than bad luck and a few dozen dumb idiots with silly ideas....me included. The moral - and one I struggle it seems to learn - is that it's always, always, always, always the simplest answer....and usually your fault, in this case; the camchain had come off it's sprocket and jammed behind the flywheel, meaning it would still turn the camshaft, but would slip occasionally (though to be fair, in my defense, I'd already contemplated this possibility).



The waiting game continues
So, again I face the recurring problem; the need for parts...and back to the Yamaha dealer in Antigua who tell me that only two of the dozen parts are available...seems odd. As I hate these guys and have broken my promise to myself never to return to this store, I write to another store in Guatemala who are not only much more helpful (in that they are actually of help) but they also tell me that I can have the parts for free, provided I do an interview...a fair price I reckon....he'll even ride out himself with the parts....but now I must wait just a little bit more....and go crazy.....in Antigua, but the road beckons, I can sense it.....

Bike troubles in Guatemala....
 

After over 5 weeks of obtaining parts, tools, and breaking said parts, tools, as well as obtaining faulty parts and sending the engine off to the machine shop several times.....find out if Rudolf the Wonderous YBR will ever wander again....in my latest video....made because I have a lot of time on my hands....

A VERY special thank you
 

A huge thank you must be sent out to Guaterider....Julio, thanks so much for everythign you have done so far....

I'll buy the fish and chips in the UK one day...and I'm still working on the wedding tickets....

And the Queen is polishing Phil's sword ready for your knighthood, Thanks!

Rode one of these in Vietnam last year two up for around 300kms. The seat was so hard. Great little bike otherwise. Great write up and blog.

Mine was okay, though it got a bit of a groove in it and became really uncomfortable. I re-sponged it last year, admittedly not a great job done, but it is better!

Otherwise a really workable bike!

In-between takes...
 

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mZVKHOVckb...0/IMG_7928.jpg"The Moment of Truth, Take Four" was complete and hot off the...umm, developing table, but it didn't take long for another problem to crop up and "Take Five" was soon created, leaving me feeling like an overused actor, in a worn out ongoing story line...like in the endless "Saw" movie series; I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII.In fact, I wonder if - like the movies - this was my own slow torture, to rid me of my selfish bad ways, taking, taking, taking, never giving, riding around the world, take, take, take, and now to cure me of my demon I must perhaps give up something dear to me....Rudolf?

The story of Take Five was like all the others, this time Rudolf was bleeding to death....through an engine bolt which had stripped itself clean of the engine, meaning for a long, slow and anxious ride back to the big bad "Guat-ay"(Guatemala City) and henceforth; a face, leg and foot covered in piping hot engine oil which was leaving the bolt hole quicker than I could pour it into the oil cap and I anticipated Rudolf's final death rattle.

Still, the good folks at Yamaha Canella in the city were on hand and soon enough the bolt hole was plugged and re-tapped and I felt that, finally, all was well....I'd learned my lesson Mr.Saw.

After a few trial rides along with my trusty mechanical cohort Ian on his BMW 650GS, there was still one more problem to solve; a leaking battery easily solved, and though I finally felt that I was ready to leave, I was hardly brimming with confidence in Rudolf.



http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-h234fPlIFz...0/IMG_7911.jpg The next morning, two months almost to the day after arriving in Antigua, I opened the door of our cabin at Lorenzo's Valhalla Macadamia farm and looked at Rudolf, sitting there waiting to go, wondering how much further he could go and thinking of all the places we've been, the times I look across to him sitting there whilst I eat lunch and just laugh to myself at the whole thing.I pack quickly, couldn't wait to move again, to fire up the bike, slip into the tiny space on the saddle, clunk into first gear and move off, to feel the fresh wind in my face, wind my way down the road unshackled from my thoughts....and to get the heck out of Antigua!

But I couldn't, because I couldn't find the flippin' road.

I asked again and again, for there were no signposts and I could tell by the peoples quizzical faces and the way they rotated my map or put their fingers to places nearer Panama than my destination that no one knew of the road I wanted.So, I decided there was nothing for it but to follow my instincts, but even these were telling me in muffled tones that "You need GPS!" and so I ignored them too and followed my nose instead, damned instincts, and....eventually, found it beyond the hectic humdrum of the busy and bustling smokey town of Chimeltenango.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yPLpY8V9Ds...0/IMG_7941.jpgThis lead me finally on to the dirt road to Joyabaj andthe locks to the shackles released, the chains floated off and I - literally - took a huge deep gulp of fresh air, the sweetness of which I can only seem to find whilst aboard Rudolf.

I was heading towards the Ixil Triangle, made up of the three mountain villages; Nebaj, Cotzal and Chajul, an area caught amidst the lengthy civil war that officially ended in only 1996.These villages have been largely undisturbed by modern outside influences and anyway I always like a ride in the mountains.

But with my lengthy time off the bike it takes me a little while to find my feet (not hard:they stink!); to pluck up courage to speak with locals, to ask for a photo, to be declined a photo again and again and still keep asking or to try new foods like chuchitos (a bit like a big brick of maize with meat and sauce inside), or the abundant odd fruits like jocuotes (big stone, plum like), granadia (fruit frogspawn), or dragon fruit (an organic dragon's egg filled with bright pink flesh!).But I quickly meet nice people in nice places and soon find a good camp spot on my way to Nebaj and, despite still being anxious over Rudolf, am soon back in my stride and content once more.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Bex_faUHqW...0/IMG_7959.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PRcF281p9m...0/IMG_8000.jpg

Nebaj is reached and quickly passed, unspectacular and disappointing, leaving me wondering what all the fuss is about in the guide books and reports, until that is I reach San Gaspar Chajul; a ramshackle village of wooden huts set about the mountains besides dusty rutted streets, where women wash laundry or weave sat in the shade of their house porches, children with knotted hair play penny pitch - with bottle tops - in the streets, and the men make their way to their fields perched precariously somewhere in "them there hills."

I walk for an age along the rough streets, despite sweating buckets on the steep slopes in my riding gear, looking around in awe, looking for photos or mainly just being laughed at!I'm far from being the first gringo to have visited this popular spot, but perhaps the first to have walked to the very edge of town and here in particular the children gorp, run away screaming, start to cry or practice saying hello in Spanish (the first language being Ixil).Women try to sell me cloth skirts and, whilst being exceptionally made I exclaim that "I'm not a girl!" and they laugh all the more.Others make fun of my hair, my boots and quickly I learn the word for gringo in Ixil and start to catch people, turning to point them with a joking scorn!Despite being very kind people, they decline every photo I ask for.So with no photos and as sticky a snail's armpit in my sweaty motorcycle suit, I hit the road.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fmFNJtBTR-...0/IMG_8020.jpghttp://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SXdoqe9_eH...0/IMG_8010.jpghttp://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LglY4JYYca...0/IMG_8028.jpg
But apparently the road doesn't exist and the interrogations, like in Chimeltenangobefore, continue.Pointed this way, then that way, then back the way I came, then back again and so on, they tell me it's very far, doesn't exist, is very bad, or that I must go back to the main road, making me understand why they haven't had any outside influence!

"But it must exist, it's on the map!" I say to the lady shop owner and group of men, who all eye each other before shaking their heads and saying, as if in conspiracy;

"Ohh, no, no."

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ME9kx9jg0A...0/IMG_8037.jpg So I just ignore their directions to turn back too, and keep going.They must have thought me stupid going seemingly in the wrong direction.But, as I go, another junction, another dirt road and down each one; a dead end, another village, another instruction to return, or perhaps just riding a loop back to a vertex of the Ixil triangle....a land based twin of the Bemuda Triangle perhaps?A waterfall marks another dead end, but a spectacular one and I sit there to eat lunch, watching a Mayan woman launder on the rocks amidst the frothing waters, her son perched on the banks waiting patiently, wondering if I should just give this one up.


http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gQHRWxczuo...0/IMG_8058.jpg But rested and fully fed the negative thoughts quickly dissolves and I find the road eventually, the start of which is marked by a group of armed guards who obtain for me permission to go to Ushpantan. The guard gives me very specific instructions, complicated directions and tells me NO PHOTOS and I push on, only to get lost 50m after the gate trying to remember his instructions amongst the web of dirt roads.Another guard with a whopping big rifle points the way and I follow the crystal blue river through the valley village....and get lost again.Another chap points he way; to a small col in the mountains trying to pierce the atmosphere about three billion metres higher, "that's the way to Ushpantan, not this way," he says, gesturing with pouted lips and a backwards tilt of the head, the Gautemalan way of pointing, (from now on I'll call this a "Gwout") and I turn about to find the track (lost many time again) and Rudolf and I just barely manage to surmount the peak such was its steepness, leaving Rudolf red hot!

It was worth it though, a great stretch and I drop into Ushpantan I stock up and, with the rainy season in full flow, nip out of town quickly to try and find camp before the regular evening downpour.However, it's a highly populated stretch of road which gives no hope of finding camp; farms, steep cliffs, a river and mountains all barring the way until in the final desperate minutes before the deluge I find a steep rocky track which gives some hope but that takes me, despairingly, to a farmer's front door.Carlos, the farmer, clearly without the pressures of time, or much else it seems, sits on his stoop sorting through some black beans surrounded by chickens, and I ask him anxiously if I camp on his driveway, before the rain.

"Yeah, just go there..." he says Gwouting to point the way.I put my tent up as he continues shelling beans and his tough, quiet wife leans on the stable door to the house, watching me as if I were stark raving mad, though even I had to wonder when it started pouring down ferociously with rain and I was left dodging lightning forks.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gnUkZaoCML...0/IMG_8072.jpg

In the rising mists the following morning I get a little time to actually talk with my host, Carlos, between downpours at least.He's a man of little intrigue and few words, leaving me to do the talking.I ask him every question I can conjure up in my limited Spanish including "what's inside your house?Does it always rain so much here? and do you like fish?"But soon the rain is falling again and Carlos slowly walks back to carry on with his beans and tell his wife how boring I am whilst I pack up in the rain.They continue to watch from the porch and I go to thank them before tip-toeing down the rough track aboard Rudolf in the rain back to the main road towards Coban.

This stretch, to Coban, is notorious for being closed due to the heavy rains and landslides.Here, children walk from their homes up the road to known spots to move rocks and clear the way after the night's rain in the hope of receiving a small monetary tip from drivers, though more often than not on this quiet stretch I find them playing when I round the corners, and the sound of my engine galvanises them into action!

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dpW--mgEzB...0/IMG_8092.jpg
The rain stops momentarily, just enough time to get a puncture....and then it starts again.

I hate punctures.Number 53 was no different.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vRng5WxEFR...0/IMG_8094.jpg
People come to watch me repair it and tell me the road is closed ahead.I contemplate my rather crappy spot, a puncture in the mud and rain, and remember my last puncture, at 4am in Xela and wonder if Mr.Saw thinks I still haven't quite learned my lesson? Puncture fixed (take that Mr.Saw!), I can't figure out why the road was closed, a huge landslide that occurred two years ago still remains, impressive too, and the "temporary" route around was choc-full of trucks, engines off, not moving, and I couldn't make it past.I had two options, sit and wait and hope something might happen, or turn around and find a way around.I simplified this to:

• do nothing, or
• do something.

So, I turned around without much thought, asked a truckie to use his compressor to seat my stubborn tire - failing - and then stopped in a garage to try again, finally successful.And then stop at a little shack to eat a snack watching young girls walking through the rain with bowls of maize kernels atop there heads ready to be ground in to flour for tortillas.

It was only much later, after a late lunch in a rainless spot, when I looked at the map and considered how far I now had to go to get to Coban....it was a long way and I wondered if I had perhaps been a bit hasty in making my decision.I tried to convince myself for the rest of the day, whilst I rode, that I hadn't been too hasty.But at camp that night, I quickly concluded the complete opposite that I was indeed a hasty twit.This starts a whole train of thoughts including even if this whole trip isn't a complete waste of time - I get this occasionally, and only point it out in the interests of being honest, it's not all roses - tired of being wet, having to look for hours for mediocre camp spots, punctures, worrying about the bike breaking again, and kind of actually wanting to be mindless in an office or in front of the TV seems like a great prospect!!

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XZTOlpk8pl...0/IMG_8117.jpg
Alas, it didn't last, it never does, with a bit of sleep and as all was not lost, as I had noticed a dirt track on the map, heading out east to Rabinal, meaning at least I didn't have to go all the way back to near Antigua as I'd first thought and all my negative thoughts were dispelled!It was a nice stretch of steep dirt road too that required more asking for directions, and more Gwouting from the locals, great lunch spots by rivers, friendly visitors and even a panaderia in the mountains that sold cubiletes!In Cubulco, a small town on my way to Rabinal I notice the rather slick looking cowboys, carrying machetes in decorated scabbards looped on to a thick belt around their Lee Jeans over cowboy boots, and fitted shirts with tassles or subtly decorated shoulders shaded by a big cream white sombrero, and a very good Zapata Moustache.Though they too declined photos!

That night looking for camp I find my way up a track behind a small mountain which catches me out when it turns into a narrow single track path cut into the mountain side.It's very, very steep, to either side, but certainly more so going down.As I almost complete a turning maneuver with deft control of the clutch and breaks, the ground gives way....sending me careering backwards; handlebars over head, front wheel rising up into the air, looking at the blue sky.

I contemplate falling 300m.

I have a conversation with Rudolf, thanks for the good times, sorry for being so hard on you, it was fun while it lasted, it had to end sometime, that sort of thing until, luckily a sturdy bush halted my fall and my ribs halt Rudy.I untangle my bruised, burnt and knotted legs quickly free of the bike and start thinking about how to get Rudolf upright....a quick spot of trigonometry tells me that it will be difficult proposition on such a steep face.I whip the bags off double quick, petrol dripping out in a steady flow onto the sunburnt dry shrubs and a few hernias later I have Rudy on two wheels and I'm starting to feel like that snail's armpit again.Rudolf reminds me that not everything is fun, payback...or that tricky devil Mr.Saw again.

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Then I just stand there holding him upright, catching my breath, contemplating that I talk to my motorcycle and wondering what next to do. How the flippin' heck will I make it back on to the track? I slip again in my first attempt, what with the weight on the steep slope and loose dirt and begin my slow tumbling descent to the bottom again, and then putting hernias on my hernias to drag it out of another bush and pick it up again.But now, further down the slope, the easiest thing to do - still tricky and also rather dicey - is ride downhill to a small plateau and hope I can maintain enough speed to keep it in the 10bhp "powerband" and gun it back up to the track, and luckily, with a bit of buckaroo action, I manage it!Thoughts of finding camp are replaced with thoughts of a cold coke so I back-track a long way to a tienda (village shop) to grab one, and drink it in the shade still dripping with sweat, watched by giggling girls, a well spent 24pence.

Finally at camp I discover that another one of the engine bolts is loose, is it stripped? I don't know, but riding on the next day towards Coban lunching in a chayote (vegetable pear) field, I see that the bolt is loose again and I know that it is stripped, meaning a return trip to the city, that like a lot of travelers, I'd planed to avoid.

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The great folk at Yamaha Canella decide to repair all remaining three threads, just in case.Then they notice the electrics are shot too and start fixing that....and they are still fixing it now, weeks later, having sent the stator off to be rewired five times or more!Luckily Julio and his wife Luisa, who'd been so helpful in the early days of problems, were on hand again and kind enough to let stay with them. But, with the days turning to weeks and with my visa running out (for not only Guatemala, but the CA4 (Guate, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua)), means I've spent three months here and only travelled about 10 days.I decide with much consideration of all the facts, and many days going back and forth on the idea, to buy a new bike.

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With so much time lost, Julio points out that making it to Ushuaia for the summer season will be a bit of a rush and maybe I should find some work or volunteer.Then, as luck would have it one of Luisa's employees walks out of her teaching position, and poses an interesting opportunity for me not to be missed, as well I can help Luisa at the same time too.So, now I am teaching here until August, staying with the VERY generous Andres who's letting me stay free of charge!Then I'll fly home for a few months of work there, see the family and meet my niece for the first time...and try and recoup some money before returning to Gautemala to continue, giving me plenty of time to go slowly to Ushuaia.

BUT.....I still had one important decision to make, which bike to buy?My budget was hardly grand, I was done with YBR's and wanted something different, and I finally settled on a Honda XR 125, which I've just taken delivery of!To say I am happy to have some wheels again is an understatement!

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It's a good job I didn't make any plans.

Special thanks to Julio, Luisa, Andres, Ian and all those at Yamaha Canella!

So Rodolfo's life with you has come to an end. What will you call the new bike? Will it be a girl or do you like riding a guy all day?
We will be in England for 2 weeks in September so might see you there.
Garry

No way!!
 

Hey Garry!

You're in England! That's great! Well, I think so! Where are you going be...perhaps I can borrow a bike from someone and we can dominate the roads of Wales?

Yup, Rudolfo is dead, well, at least for now. Hopefully I can sell him here and give him a new home, a more stable permanent one! Alas, the new XR is pretty sweet...I was finding it hard to let go of Rudy, but in the end, with it breaking again and again the decision seemed a bit easier!

How's the strom?

What's happening in Mexico?

Can you now make Yorkshire puddings?

Awsome, keep em coming when you get back on the road

Day Rides...
 

Days ride photos whilst working in Guatemala City.

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Some mayan ruins near the city, called Mixco Viejo. Nice and quiet I was the only visitor


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And here they are again, whilst I get pestered by a wee kid for bread, a quetzal and he asks if I'm on my own, with conspiracy to "muerte"....perhaps.

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And again...the boy now gone, watching me from up yonder.

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Eddie Liz-ard. Funny if you're British...and have a low threshold for laughing.

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Chinga! A very bad word in spanish....being repeated by both father and son alike whilst trying to get the oxen to lug the heavy load of rocks.

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Having spent too long looking for hot things at volcan pacaya I get caught in the afternoon rain, it took only ten minutes for the road to become flooded.

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Can you see Nick and Bike "No.2"...on the shortbut delightful stretch of dirt road between Santa Maria Jesus and Palin, near Antigua, on my way to Volcan Pacaya.

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Standing on the ring of fire....Viewed from Volcan Pacaya; Volcan Agua looms in the clouds and in the background Volcan Fuego erupts.

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Volcan Pacaya and perhaps an old visitors centre, now closed and graffited up.

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...and the path where many a panting gringo has stepped to toast marshmallows on the hot rocks.

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At Volcan Pacaya, I went off a-wandering looking for lava and hot spots....the closest I got was this where steam seeps out, rocks are hot to touch, and the air is thick with hot earthy smells...the volcano has been dormant for a little while now....

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Reaching the caldera lake for a spot of lunch, a little bit of rain...and a lot of mosquitoes.

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Volcan Ipala's caldera lake, magnificent.

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Streets near Guatemala city, maybe Chichimecas....

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On the road to Volcan Ipala, lovely stretch, despite being on my lesser favourite, asphalt.

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...but soon on dirt...to San Luis Jiltopeque again, a Sunday football game underway on the old mine below...

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On the beautiful trail up to Volcan Ipala....

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...still on the dirt road....

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Then a really great stretch of dirt to San Luis Jilotepeque (Hee-low-tuh-peck-ay)

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Stuffed full of cheese, beans and bread...I still managed to find space for a "coco frio" a big drink of coconut milk and then a belly full of coco flesh.

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And here the chap cuts open the coconut and scoops out the inside for me to stuff my already full of coconut milk belly.

Guatemala, Finally the finale
 

After several passes of curiosity, the boy comes over to my corner of shade outside the "tienda."
"Where are you from?" he asks shyly.
"England." I reply, taking a thirst quenching sip from my cola.
"Is that far?"
"Ohhh, yes! Very far!" I tell him.
"Is it close to Germany?" he asks.
"Mmmm, more or less, yeah."
"How long does it take with your motorcycle?" he says leaning closer now on his bicycle.
"Ohh, you can't go by motorcycle."
"What about a bus?"
"Nooo, there's no road!"
"No road!?"
"No. There's a big ocean, so you need a plane! It's about 6000km or so."
"A plane!"
"Yeah, it's about 16 hours...." I say to him, but he looks confused and add, "or maybe a month on a boat!"
"Farther than the city?" he asks after a moment.
"Oh yes! Much further!"
"Further than USA?"
"Oh yes," I say staring at my empty coke bottle contemplating, "Yup....." It is very far, and seems impossibly so now, when only days ago I was there saying goodbye to my family....

That fleeting moment, a goodbye. Apprehended, but unplanned. Not a moment for lingering, a moment when all the unspoken could be said, but for that the moment slips away and then you slip away, turning your back, time stopping whilst you move away, leaving a painful wake, that catches up with you sooner or later, for me at the baggage check.

So, I was alone again, fending for myself again, a peculiar and forgotten feeling after so long, but it doesn't last for soon I am with Andrés, at his home in Guatemala City, my home from home it seems. Here we fettle with bikes, me on the new unnamed one, and he on Rudolf which he has working again....for how long who can say, but he seems very pleased with his gift, the least I can give for all he has done for me. All Saints Day comes and a visit to Sumpango is in order to see the "barilletas gigantes" (giant kites), a grand day out and mightily impressive, where locals fly these giant kites in the hope of their dead loved ones being closer to the gods, to rid the lands of evil spirits and suchlike, and a hundred small and large kites decorate the sky, on what must be the longest pieces of string ever...some of them seem to disappear in to the stratosphere!



Andres and I return and spend days visiting welders and shops for spares, working on the bikes from early until late and soon the Unnamed One (the Honda bike) is ready - apart from a name - and I suppose I should be ready too, though I am far from feeling so. I think again of my early days leaving England; how come this doesn't get any easier, I should be an old hand by now, at goodbyes and stepping off into the unknown. But the unknown again terrifies me and I find myself trying to plan for every eventuality....with scenario after deathly scenario running through my mind.

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The luggage leaves little room on the saddle; my first time on the loaded Honda and the first day is uncomfortable, though passing through roads I have seen before, several times when travelling back and to, to the city, when Rudolf was faltering and needed help. Now I head to Joyabaj, a camp spot I have stayed at too, several times.


I hate the loneliness, but I know now that it's a passing phase, it will fade and eventually I will be better for it. Wondering if we are not actually meant to be alone, solitary nomads, with only inherent weakness keeping us together, the fear of the unknown. Or is it only my own weakness and failings that push me away. The noise at camp is unbearable, how do I sleep amongst this! Buses and animals, music, the wind in the trees, or the falling pine cones giving me a jolt!

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When I reach my old farthest point, where I last left off, my target is a small "aldea" (village), named Lancetillo, north west of Coban. Not much seems to be know about the road, even if it exists and my odd fixation with came about through not wanting to turn back from the more popular aldeas in the Ixil triangle (see last blog) - the norm being an out-and-back route. I heard that the road is "very bad," but when I get there and ask around it seems that actually it doesn't exist at all, only walking trails from Lancetillo. There is, however, another way and so I take this thinking that if I make it to Lancetillo this way, perhaps ther I can retrace my steps on this supposedly non-existent route. Or otherwise try to reach Coban directly. But again, when I ask on this route it seems there is only a road to Lancetillo, one must return back the same way.

I push on regardless, maybe they are wrong, or maybe this is just a waste of time, after all, there is nothing there and I only want to reach it for, well, for what? And I ride along wondering if this is a bit of a pointless road to take in mud and fog, only for me to have to return, no better off, at square one, the same person as before, only with time having passed.


I find a good camp at a waterfall, where I can contemplate my thoughts and decide over a good sleep, but in the morning, packed up and ready to go, I still can't decide until I find myself at the point at which I MUST decide; left, downhill and ride through the river to Lancetillo, or right uphill back to asphalt and maybe even sunshine. I don't decide, fate does that for me, or was it the Gods, or just gravity....whatever, I'm coasting down to the river, where taking a photo of the little crossing, my foot slips and I slam palm and camera first in to the gravel, breaking my new - and fifth - camera on day two. Mierd.

It's the darn balance again!! (karma - see previous blogs!). Perhaps I didn't deserve the camera - a fantastic gift from my dad - or the time at home even and I have an outstanding debt. Or maybe now I'm in credit, and can expect good things....yes, that's it!

But then it starts to rain and I must wade through trenches of slippy mud and a fug of fog, still wondering if this is a bit pointless.

"Yeah, Lancetillo's great," a man tells me roadside when I ask him, "lots of bars, food stalls, a hotel....and loads of women!" he continues. But he also tells me there are no other roads, I must come back this way. This does wonders to raise my optimism, though the rain seems to be trying it's equal best to cool my desires to reach Lancetillo and eventually I pull over to turn around. As I do so, a quad bike comes tearing through the fog behind me, passing by and stopping eventually half a kilometer further, before beginning to slowly reverse back along the cliff edge road.

Leon pulls alongside, dressed in a bright yellow mac with a hood that hides most of his face, save a pair of dark sunglasses, a black bin bag protects his legs from the rain.

"Where are you going?" he asks.
"Not sure. Lancetillo I think."
"What for?"
"I was thinking that myself..." I say, twisting up my face.
"For work....?"
"No, just a tourist."
"Aventura!"
"I don't know about that!"
"And after?"
"I don't know, I wanted to go to Coban, or maybe to Putul. But, I'm not sure if there are any roads."
"No, this is not possible, only walking trails."
"Then I think I'll go back then." I say, until he slips in,
"But there is a road to Laguna Lachua." And instantly everything changes. I was going to visit there anyway, but it's far north, far from here and I wonder if I can make it even on my fuel. Excited Leon phones his friend in Lancetillo and from the one ended conversation I hear, it is obvious tha tthe road is either hardly in existence, very hard and possibly dangerous, or maybe all three.

"But he is an adventurer with a big dual sport bike, he is very _______." Leon says down the phone, I'd like to correct him on all counts, even the one I didn't understand, but the conversation is animated t osay the least and shows no signs of abating, until suddenly Leon says, "Yup, there is a road, what are you waiting for, let's go!"

Is this fate, the work of the balance, or even, I wonder if there could be a god...in which time Leon has disappeared leaving only the booming resonance of his exhaust note behind, and I must catch him up.

I manage to do so only on a steep rocky section, where it seems, he is having trouble engaging any gear on his quad and I tootle past, asking if he is okay....
"Buen adventura, no?" he says, stamping on the shifter still trying to find a gear.

And it is, I suppose. Yes! he's dead right! And, trying to chase Leon, into the unknown, trusting only others, this is why I take stupid pointless roads! This is why I do it....people always ask, why? And this is why! And I smile a huge grin as Leon connects with first gear and disappears again far off in to the distance and I watch the yellow blob screech around the corner of the mountain on two wheels not to be seen again until I meet him at Juan's house in Lancetillo.

"So this is the idiot!" I assume they are saying when I arrive (actually I don't think that!) and they go on to tell me in detail the route ahead, which villages to go to, to ask for, which fincas, then a bridge and then La Playa. They mention one hour, plus three hours. I wonder if this is one hour is easy, then it's really tough or the other way about, and if this isn't the old "it takes 4 days in a car, but on THAT bike you can do it in ten minutes."

Lancetillo itself is a quagmire of mud and puddles, where people walk about barefoot and ankle deep in the stuff, ignoring the many planks of wood that have long ago sunk in to the ooze.


Beyond Lancetillo the road turns steep, and rocky; loose rocks, that along with the lack of power of the 125cc bike make progress almost impossible, trying to keep the speed up, to keep in the "power" band, tight hairpins must be hit at maximum speed, to ensure I keep in the band, and the large rocks buck the bike left and right and send the front wheel into a weightless wheelie, and eventually, one rock too many, I end up flat out in the ditch. The bike creaks and cracks, the sound of heat dissipating out through it's every square millimeter, and I must drag it down the hill to have any chance of picking it up, from where it wants only to slip down the precipice, and take me with it.

I manage to get it upright, and then must go back downhill, a hill start is impossible, to gain speed and try again. On attempt three, with deft use of the clutch and flailing legs paddling upwards, I make it to the summit....just. A little bit knackered, breathing a sigh of relief....and wondering "what next?"

What goes up, must come down and I'm faced with a decision, to go down the mountain, which could be worse; steeper, washed away, muddy, a landslide, impossible perhaps, and what about the bridge,m after the rainy season? Perhaps I should turn back, I could be riding into a trap.

But those little scallywags the gods, or fate, the balance or that little bugger gravity have other ideas, and somewhat reluctantly my left foot pushes me off and the mountain sucks me down towards the darkness of the unknown, downhill towards, I pray, a bridge of hope.

As the path slips beneath the wheels I scout the trail, muddy, steep, rocky with fallen trees, "I can't make it up here...."

"The bridge is that way," says a man sitting amongst the grass at the bottom, taking a rest from lugging wood down the hill in the harsh glare of heat, "but you can't pass," he adds, "the bridge is out."

I was afraid of this, and am left with only one other option, to go back....if I can indeed go back. And I can, though only by running, scrabbling, tripping, falling, and all the while pushing the bike ever upwards, and eventually back to relative safety my body again starts to contemplate things other than survival; namely food and water and rest.

When I pass back through Lancetillo I see Leon's friend Juan, who asks what happened. Onlyfor him to then explain that it was passable, with a rope or something that I don't fully understand (though I wonder if he is right) and I curse myself for not at least having gone to see the bridge and this thought plays on my mind all the way back to last nights camp.

Alas, there is plenty more on my horizons in Guatemala and next I head to Semuc Champey, passing through the delightful lakeside town of Santa Cristobal Verapaz; the essence of "tranquilo" and then Coban....which though in the guidebooks is an area not to be missed, seems to lack any personal appeal and should in fact be wholeheartedly missed.

Champey is reached through the slightly rough rough road through to Lanquin and beyond, down into the hot valley floor of the river Cahabón. I think about camping at the park when I arrive in the evening, but decide against it on account of it a) being 50Q ($6) and b) being crap.

Riding back towards Lanquin I wonder about my options - or lack of - when I see a man working in the cooler evening air in amongst his maize field and stop to chat. I approach him and ask about the possibility of camping at his place, soon surrounded by the entire family who have limited Spanish. But it seems, there's no problem and I start setting up my tent next to their house. The tent is a thing of amazement for them, and we are soon chatting as darkness falls and the mosquitoes rise.

"Do you want some tortillas?" the children ask as I cook my dinner.
"No, thanks, I have some already, and vegetables, carrot, beetroot, broccolli, onion and some biscuits, I always have biscuits!"
"So.... are you coming then? Vamos!" It seems they don't understand a word of what I've just said, so I decide to just go with them, led to the table, told to wash my hands....where....just there...what here, in the middle of the room, yes....okay.....and the boy tips some water on my hands. "Is that okay?" he asks, I don't know, they were kind of okay before I think to myself....

I sit down at the table with Manuel, the father, and somewhere in the candlelit darkness sit his wife and seven kids in a room that is the house, no bigger than a living room, along with three beds, a fire cooker and a years supply of maize. A bowl is brought forward to me, containing an egg and some soup, then chilli and salt and of course, tortillas!

"How do I eat it?" I ask sheepishly.
"Just put the egg in the tortilla." says Manuel. So I do as bid and put the whole hard boiled egg in the tortilla....and look at it, that stupid thing the egg, sitting there forlornly in the middle of a large tortilla, thinking to myself that this doesn't seem right, it looks a bit silly, the whole egg sitting in the middle of the tortilla, so I wait to see what the other do...how do you eat the soup....without a spoon....the kids come and stick their fingers in the chilli, then the salt, and mash a bit of egg in....and I follow suit. feeling kind of bad that I'm taking their food. I chat with Manuel as we eat, and soon coffee is bought over....the coffee granules floating about the cup.

"I think you need a coffee filter," I say, hoping my bad Spanish doesn't come across as rude, but luckily he doesn't understand. "Give me a moment...." I say darting out the door.

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In my tent I grab a coffee filter I don't use and after some hesitation - for I love them so - I grab my biscuits, and go back to give them to Manuel. The coffee filter is well received but the biscuits are disliked by all, except the mother who seems content to eat anything! Darn it! Perhaps I should have kept them!!

In the morning I take a poo in the middle of the woods - at the actual toilet I should say - in full view of the road, the house and the shop, and the family. I wonder if they are playing a big trick on me, but it seems not. Then it's on to Semuc champey.


The tranquil aqua pools of Semuc Champey actually sit atop of the natural bridge that is created by the torrent of the river Cahabón, so whilst I swim peacefully amongst the fish in the pools, somewhere below me the river is raging foaming white and angry and pops out someway down to continue as the wide and deep rio.

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From here I ride up to Laguna Lachua, getting another dreaded puncture along the way, a six inch nail which rips the rim tape too, a new experience for me coming from alloy wheels which don't use these anda trip back to Coban is necessary to replace my sellotaped repair. Still the balance has it that good things must come in return and soon I find myself sleeping at a large finca (rich guys farm) where the men are hard at work drying the beautifully yummy cardamon seeds.

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Lachua is reached along an easy but arduous stoney road, but it's worth every effort for the lake that greets me on the far end of a the walk through the jungle is perfect, a million miles from the rest of Guatemala, peaceful, tranquil and alive with animal and plant life, monkeys, jaguars, huge fish diving in the waters and electric blue butterflies the size of my hand. I don't see any jaguars unfortunately, but other than the monkeys I see I feel at least that I am the only one in the park, for I see no one the entire time. Reluctantly I drag myself away from the lake, looking back all the while, walking back through the mosquito infested jungle to the bike and another camp at another house.

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Here at camp, Augusto, the man of the house invites me to eat an orange with him, they laugh a I peel the orange by hand - for they use knives and when I go to set up camp I am surrounded by their three staring kids, amazed at my tent, my blow up bed and my stove and carrots....apparently they'd never tried them until I offered them some, with a tortilla for good measure!

I ride into the deeper jungle of the north then, into the region of Peten and instantly feel a change in the people, who seem at least from the outside not as warm as the rest of Guatemala as I have found and I camp alone in one of many a maize field that seem to have taken over the jungle. I am in awestruck by how much jungle has been razed to make room for "tortilla fields".

The reason for anyone's trip to Peten is usually always to visit Tikal, the site of some of the best regarded ancient Mayan pyramids. I was keen to avoid it, at $20 it seemed a rip off, until that is I visited the free El Ceibl (which was pretty dire) and spoke to the staff who had worked all over the archaeological sites in Peten, and told the prices of some others I had planned to see, all over $100. This made Tikal look a bargain, so I went there!



http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m7dcqRucmt...1-13_00435.jpg I'd seen pictures everywhere, on tourist posters and on the side of Bimbo snack trucks and was actually a little under-awed despite having the place largely to myself at 6am, though still an enjoyable visit nonetheless. I expected this actually, as I had considered that nothing had gone wrong on my way there and so the balance was simply, for the time being; on an even keel....!!! ....until after my visit and I got another puncture!! This time a watch strap pin! Hay caramba!

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nN4QZNDcDJ...1-13_00450.jpg"Do you mind if I put my tent right by the lake?" I asked the staff member at the free campsite of Yaxja's archaeological site after having enjoyed the perfect sunset from atop one of the pyramids.
"If you want, but there are 'crocodrilos'!" he told me. I told him I had no meat for them to want to even bother me and he said it was fine, and it sure was! A great spot...though the beady orange eyes of the crocodrilos at night were kind of eerie...as were the howler monkeys!

Then it was simply a case of heading back to the city on my way south again, to write this pesky blog(!) and catch up with friends there, stopping at Laguna Flores, the unimpressive Rio Dulce and the much more enjoyable road from El Estor through the valley back towards Coban - top stuff - stopping along the way to get hit by what looked like a giant high velocity black bee at 40mph, then stuck in some lovely deep wet mud and then - with the balance tipped in my favour - at a fantastic house with the loveliest family in Guatemala surely..... and then the city, though feeling sick after a special treat; a meal out!



From the city it's to Honduras, finally I will get to truly carry on my trip, with the Unnamed One, south.

Stronger than Vinegar, Peru II....part 1 of 3
 

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"You cut like a girl, Rrrrrambeta!"
I roll my eyes and continue swinging the machete....like a little girl.
"RRRRRRRRambeta!" he taunts again with a smile.
"Yeah, yeah. Anyway, shouldn't it be Ramba?" I point out, hoping to inflict some damage, "RambO being the masculine...Or maybe even Rambita, for Little Girly Rambo?"
"I suppose," he says waving my comments away like another pestilent mosquito. "But...I like Rrrrambeta."

This was Charlie. Remonstrating against my efforts with the machete to cut through another stubborn bush on our return from a fruitless quest in search of Inca ruins. Charlie was all squares; square legs, square torso, square shoulders, square head, like a Lego man. I swing again, swearing the blade was blunt whilst also wondering if perhaps Charlie's Indiana Jones-like hat concealed a little yellow lump, reminding me that earlier he was calling me 'Indiana Jones Jr. the Third', for some other derogatory purpose no doubt, though what it was I'm not sure I know.



"Anyway, " I say stopping for a breather, "it wasn't me who landed us in the very midst of the one place we began by saying we should avoid at absolutely all costs. Remember? You called it the, uhhh....the...what did you call it again?"
"The **** Fest."
"Indeed. The **** Fest. And yet, here I am cutting our way through it."
"Be quiet Rambeta." he says turning to sun his face.

I do as bid, and swing and swing. The two dogs, Attenborough and Shackleton sit besides Charlie conversely patient and nonplussed, though likewise sunning their faces. Eventually we four escape 'The Fest', though my trousers now resemble a pair of colourless maypoles. Back at the car then and we drive back to Charlie's tourist lodge which sits on the very edge of Peru's Sierra Nevada, a prime location nestled between Peru's highest peak Huascaran and arguably it's most beautiful, Huandoy; a pointed slate of rippled cream, missing only a cherry.



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Shackleton and Nick
(with a wet leg after 'the Shack' pulled me in the river!)


The next day I walked the trail to Huandoy's glacier and was sitting there trying to muster the saliva to consume some of Peru's balsa-bread, when a group of Indian males pop over the top of the glacier looking like they'd well and truly lost their corn crop. They bound down in their wellies and inform me that the ice has just avalanched and one of their friend's, as well as a few donkeys, are buried in the ice. The man stares, waiting it seems for me to provide some grains of wisdom, whilst the others dab something from small nail-varnish sized wooden vials into their cheeks, revealing brown stumps of teeth.

However, I have but breadcrumbs, and seeing this, the group begin to disperse, climbing back up the glacier to continue their search in their leathery felt hats and thick woollen sweaters full of holes. One turns back to me as he goes and asks,

"Do you have one of them cameras?"
"Eh?"
"You know....lets you look inside the ice."
I think for a moment before realising...."Ohhhh, a thermal camera! No, sorry. Just my bread and bananas."
"Oh." He says looking downcast.

When I walk up around the glacier I find the search abandoned, the group sitting on the banks chewing stalks of grass. Beyond them the mountain rescue team have arrived and are likewise sitting amongst the boulders eating sandwiches and a youth who was crying without restraint a moment ago, is now happily tapping his foot along to the music, a video to which is being filmed on top of the ice.....and, on top of the still cooling bodies....


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"Hey gringo, you want to dance?"
"You call that dancing?"
"DAN-CING." she says in English, assuming I didn't understand or to prove her prowess in front of others.
"Urgh, No, thanks." I say, I can't dance, I never know what to do with my face, my facial repertoire consisting mainly of mocking and derogatory expressions.

Whilst I experiment with my facial muscles, I notice the singer's have tensed and taken on a glacial chill - I'll have to learn that one - and she projects this iciness adeptly through rapid speech. I'm not to sure what she says, but the certainty is that it was bad. Everyone, but me of course, is laughing now. I give a thin smile, shoulder my bag, and leave.

From Charlie's the road sweeps downhill, through sweet smelling eucalyptus and a fairly sour smelling pack of dogs with crazy glassy eyes and an appetite for things that move, down and down to the town of Yungay.

Before I can continue south I have to pop into my favourite little restaurant, run by a sad looking widow, who today looks particularly despondent; the hired help hasn't arrived and her son I see, is sitting incapacitated with a broken foot which he rests upon a chair.

It took several visits to the restaurant before the suspicion faded or even a word was spoken to me. Not so now, smiles all round and invited to sit with the son next to the table-sized plasma television showing a psychedelic Latino cartoon, upon which all eyes are fixed, despite the clientele being mostly fifty years older than the target audience.

We chat for a while, in which time the invalided son discovers that English people speak English and so he goes on a well-meant channel hopping spree in search of English programs, or the Olympics. All eyes move simultaneously to me, narrowing as they do so making me sweat more than my hot soup. Luckily no English TV is found and peace resumes when the crazy coloured Latino blob returns shouting on the screen. But no sooner and all eyes are on the move again, mine included, this time to a pretty girl walking by, parting the crowd, her long ink-dark hair flowing behind in her wake, leaving behind an invisible but almost tangible something. She catches us looking and smiles towards us....before slicing her finger sharply across her throat.

"I guess that means NO, then!"

But, I like her already.


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



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Blackadder III

Screaming. I'm finding it hard to see. My spectacles jump on the bridge of my nose make the road too bounce like a jumping film-strip.
A rut. Must be more than 35kmh. A rock. In first gear. Oop, Jesus. A curdling scream. Can't keep this up. BRRRRRAAArrrrrrmmnnnn agrees Rodney, with a descending engine note....like a chainsaw dropped into water. NO! COME ON! COME ON! NO! NO! NO! No chance mate. My head drops with the rev counter. I could curse the machine, but it's pointless and I just give my most inexorable Blackadder face, Rodney will feel much worse I'm sure.

I slip from the saddle and start pushing.


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I reach my destination eventually, Laguna Llaca and at the end of the rough trail I find, unsurprisingly, a taxi and a minibus, as well as a lone park guard. The guard stares up to the snowy peaks wistfully, a thick silvery stubble on his small round face as if he's been staring up for several days, and amongst the stubble too a feint but happy smile. He likes it here. There is an air of calm about him and, as if he were expecting me, turns his smile to me and says, "You want to camp?"

"Urgh....Yeah, if I can."
"You can camp here on the grass if you like." he says sweeping his hand across it before returning it with the other behind his back.

He's far from being a wizard, his woollen hat not quite in keeping for that. But he looks....he looks like....well, how does he look? If I stuck a light-sabre in his hand I dare say he'd look quite a lot like that little Yoda fella in a woolly hat....just not green.

Very poetic.

Alas. I suppose if I read more mythic tales I'd be able to conjure up some magical comparison, but as I think they're full of well, myth (LIES I TELL YOU!) I'll have to stick to my (photon) guns and go with the green fella.

"Umm," I say pondering, weighing up the grounds, thinking I've got a good face for this one. I'm not thrilled about the view, the car park, the refuge and the outhouse, especially having made such an effort to arrive, optimistically I had my hopes set on actually seeing the lake. I tell him as much, but he informs me that it's not permitted to camp at the lake. However, after a friendly chat, and a devilishly tricky light-sabre battle, he tells me that "okay, you can camp at the lake"....now just to lug all my gear up and over the tidal defences. I trot off, duffel in one hand, tent, water, stove and food in the other, on my way grabbing a gift of toasted maize kernels from someone else I'd been chatting to, then dash up the steep loose dirt before being reminded quite forcefully, that no, one doesn't dash at 4500m. Well at least I don't. Crawling over the lip of the bank, legs kicking in the dirt, dribbling a bit, dragging and pushing the now dusty bags I heave myself up to look around, finding before me my favourite spot in all the Andes. What a place! A formidable lake, which runs straight to the very edge of the thick blue glacier leading up to the huge razor sharp ridge of rippled snow and the pointed peak, Ranrapalca, at 6162m. I get a few quick pictures of the tent as the sun sets but, with a paralysingly cold wind blowing cunningly straight up my shirt and out through my sleeves, taking all my warmth with it. I am forced to jump into the tent, and then the sleeping bag, where the wind tries it's best to jump in too.



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Spot the tent


Settled in, all clothes on, woolly hat tied tight around my ears and my hands wrapped around my steaming tea, I let out a sigh of relaxation, alone at last....Then, outside, something. A whistle. People, and the whistle tells me they want my attention.

Bugger.

I wonder if I can just wait in my tent, maybe they'll get tired and leave. Or freeze to death. But I know they're just intrigued, and I don't want piles of frozen corpses in my sunrise photos, and I mustn't be nasty and so I start unzipping myself from my feathery sarcophagus. Outside, two men, carved from wood and dressed in fatigues; Peruvian Commandos. Their handshakes are like a couple of nutcrackers and I tuck my cold cracked hands in my armpits and step from foot to foot as we chat, though these two tree trunks stand rigid, little effected by the cold despite their measly fatigues. They tell me that as well as not getting cold they don't get paid either, just free room and board, but one can understand the perks...and the peaks. They tell me that they just came over "that" pointing to the lethal blade of ice that bridges the two formidable peaks at the far end of the lake, surely over 5600m, 59 Commandos, with 30kg packs, and the Captain is 50 years old. Jungle though, they maintain, is far worse. I bid them good night, open the icy tent flap and get into my now chilly sleeping bag.

By morning the tent is thick with ice and the sleeping bag damp with cold breath. Once the sun is up I head off around the lake towards the morning's target; the glacier. Approaching it through boulders, pools and chunks of melting ice I can make out the glacier's jagged translucent blue flakes, curved humps and hollows, arches, tunnels, caves and overhangs. But when I arrive at it's edge, it's not the sight so much as the cacophony; dripping water, hissing sand, dropping dust, tumbling boulders and beneath it all the generator-like hum of a huge thrust of water, flowing somewhere below. The roof of the glacier is hidden below a layer of dirt and mountain debris like moon dust. Rocks teeter high up on the brink of the glacier or jut out of the ice face in rows like jaw lines of teeth.


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I sit there for an age, next to a huge overhang of ice, watching the mountain move and wondering what might happen if that overhang should fall into the lake....I move to higher ground to a solitary mound of fine sand in the midst of the boulders and from my new vantage point I notice a large hole, which, under closer inspection, I see is an ice cave. Still, it could fall any minute, a horrid death, premature I feel, alone for certain. No, a beastly demise. I return to my hump. I watch the opening, enticing me to enter, watching the ice drip and drip, as my mind it ticks and ticks. I go back to the cave. As I get near a large pile of debris, rock and sand falls with a nasty clatter. Mmm, perhaps not. Back to the hump. But then I decide I can't be a coward, if I'm really quick, once inside I will be safe.....from rocks at least. I dash in before I have chance to change my mind and find myself standing on a layer of the finest sparkling white sand, beneath a low ceiling of bright bubbly blue waves of ice. I give it a punch, solid as rock, a fact confirmed in that glacial ice is actually a metamorphic rock.

I walk to the end of the blue tube and look back over the lake, back to my hump and stand in wonderment! What a treat. What more can one person want. What else is there. A solitary man, in a tube of ice. But before the tube was no longer a tube I nipped out, back to my hump.


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

I crane my neck back. My throat burns like searing bacon. Up above a pair of black dots separated by one red dot. Each time I look to them, they are no more ahead of me but make the summit seem so much farther, they hardly seem to be moving. But I suppose that means that likewise, I'm not moving either. But my God, it's steep, and loose. All I see is the black and white of dust and stones, like trying to climb bird-shit on a window pane. The heavy pack pulls me backwards, and its straps cut into my shoulder like shiny-sharp cheese-graters. I swing my head round and down, more coloured dots below, they're not catching me at least....is anyone moving? A chunk of the Siula glacier tumbles down the face turning to dust before hitting the creamy lake below, my camp spot from last night. And I smile, what a spot it was. I twist my head back to the trail, which splits in two here, but my head is heavy like water. Or vinegar. Pickled. I just can't decide which to take, though they rejoin each other in several meters. I just look from one to the other. Spot the difference. Seems awfully complicated. Then I hear something. Blast and darn it! The girl has caught me up, and now the summit is even farther. She looks up to me in anguish, a face not unlike Joe Simpson's on the cover of "This game of Ghosts." Funny, he's the reason I'm here.


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I shake my head in mock mirroring anguish and laugh. "Steep, no?" I ask.

I've picked up this silly habit. In Spanish 'no' is said like a verbal question mark, one can put it on the end of just about any sentence, and one can even say "Si, no?" See?

She let's out another groan, looking down at her feet like they were some Chinese appliances, so oddly disappointing.

"You know," she says as we move off, "we have a name in my country for people like you?"
"Oh yeah. It's not the same as in my country is it?"
"I don't think so....We say," she pauses, forced to take gulp of air, "We say that you're stronger than vinegar."

Another fork in the trail it seems, does she mean I have an acid personality or that my strength is about 6 on the ph.scale? I can't figure it with my pickled egg head, vinegar on the brain, so I just ask, "What's it mean?"
"I don't know. It's just what we say." So, I'm stronger than vinegar.



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Looking back on a fine camp, besides the second lake.


We reach the top together, though we've left the best mountains behind and the view over is actually a little disappointing. It's one of the few points about Huayhuash, the main range is small and as well the main trail far from them, often out of view. It necessitates therefore that one walks the lesser, more difficult trails, like this one, though the rewards are great.

Sat on the top, a half dozen other walkers, the red and black dots finally reached. As well, two children, locals selling cola from a plastic paint bucket. They'd passed by my tent in the morning, despite the trail being a few hundred yards away.

"You want a coke?" asks the boy.
"No thanks." I reply, finally removing my pack, damp with sweat. "I saw you this morning, no?"
"Yep."
"Here then," I hand them a pack of biscuits, "you must be hungry."
"Thanks!"
"No worries."
"That bag is very heavy!" he says.
"It is today! I thought it would be lighter after four days and I would be stronger, but it seems to weigh more and I'm weaker! How are the biscuits, good, no?"
"Mmmm." they both say with happy grins.
"What are your names?"
"Fausto." says he.
"Margarita."
"I'm Nee-ko-laas."

Someone else asks how old they are, Fausto is ten and his sister is only five.

I don't really feel hungry, though I must be and force down a bag of peanuts whilst chatting to the others, telling them of the fine spots they have to come, as they're heading north. After a while, I heave up my pack onto tender shoulders and start downhill, Fausto and Margarita decide to join me, and this in itself is one of the other benefits of trekking in Huayhuash, the locals. Whilst Huascaran is a National Park, Huayhuash is a community owned park. The downside is that the "communities" all require you to pay, and it gets expensive, to the point that almost everyone you meet asks if you've paid, "What, again!" and I was a bit tired of "communities" of two huts asking me pay for a camp spot next to a lake surrounded with turds and toilet paper. They'll tell you the money is for security. Which of course means you are paying the thieves.



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Fuasto and Margarita selling colas at the top..


Luckily Fausto and Margarita didn't want paying, or maybe they were just after more chocolate biscuits, but I don't think so. In the valley I meet their mother, a lovely lady in a floppy felt hat fetching cow pats for the stove. She seems impressed I deduced what they were for, though she wasn't impressed with her son and she gives Fausto a good clack for not selling the last coke to a group now on the summit. "Israelis." he says pulling a face out of my library, adding, "they're really dirty!"

The two children invite me to camp at their house, but with mum saying little to that effect and me being absolutely dog tired, I continue on down the valley to the lake, though Fausto and Margarita cling desperately on!

"Do you sell coke everyday?" I ask Fausto.
"No, only on the weekend."
"So what do you do with the money you make?"
"We buy more coke!" he says as if it were obvious.
"Oh, right, of course. Well, what do you do the rest of the week?"
"We have school."
"Where's that?"

I can tell you it is in the same place as my motorbike, which I will not reach until tomorrow afternoon!

As we go we spot some huge white beast farther down in the valley, in the fraction of a second before it spotted us, I thought we'd stumbled upon a very lost polar bear, then spotting us, it turned it's huge white rump and scarpered in polar bear like fashion. Fausto maintained it was a fox - some effing fox - that likes ripping tents open in the night in search of chocolate biscuits. I told him that it wasn't very funny. He said it wasn't very funny either.



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A Polar Bear in the Andes


Fausto's back at the tent in the morning and we have a nice chat. I wonder if I'll go back one day, when I'm older, and find Fausto in the same hut, walking up the mountain to sell cokes....he'll have his work cut out with his current work scheme, he'd have millions of cokes by then......one day perhaps.

I continued to meet people that day in Huayhuash on my return to the motorcycle, and didn't walk alone for any of it. First Fausto, then a man whose name or photo I didn't get and all I remember are his horse's pointed feet for they were without shoes. Then, Rosa and Jorsten. She too was out collecting dried cow pats, and her red cheeked nephew was helping, he wanted to one day be a pilot, he looked a bit 'Biggles' in his woolly hat. Then two girls who asked me why my feet were soaking wet,

"Because I crossed the river there." I say exhausted,
"We normally take our shoes off, otherwise it's very cold." they say with infinite wisdom. But I was too tired and now wondered if I'd regret this laziness later on the bike. The two girls go on to ask with lovely intrigue the names of all my family members, then all their ages,

"My great grandmother was 100 years old!" I tell them.
"My auntie is the oldest in the village." she confers with her sister, "She's 48 I think."

Then it's the sheep herder who asks what happens if a black person and a white person has children.
"Pint of guniess!"
"Eh?"
"Oh...half and half. You know, black legs, white body. That sort of thing"

He seems a bit confused, it's just not funny, "Not really," I say, "you just hope he has a black penis....."



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Rosa, Jorsten-Biggles and cow pats



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I see my first grey cloud in Peru, a large solitary one, beneath which reside the bleak mining towns on the road that runs to Junin. Here, in the market, murdered meats hang bleeding, the blood runs in the grooves between the tiles mixing with water which drips from the suffocated fish and plucked chickens glare with Monet screams. Herbs wither, bread dries, vegetables and fruit soften into palpable rot and amongst it all the vendors who sit gloomily surrounded by or beached on their produce, their self-made prison, counting down days perhaps, until they can escape, to wither and die. Between it all a small space for feet, where piss and roam the dogs. Flies are the pigs in proverbial and real, shit.



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Bit of snout anybody?


It's not all bad of course! Here in particular I'm lucky to see the indigenous mountain dwellers day-tripping to the low lands to sell and to buy. The women wear the usual firm felt hats, but decorated with rather ludicrous amounts of tinsel, of all colours though non that match the rest of their attire, turquoise leggings, yellow cardigans and pleated 'crepe paper' skirts. Somehow, as ever, they pull it off and look fantastic! It's a friendly place too, and encouraging calls of 'gringo' come from all sides offering sugar cane juice, chicharron (pork rinds), or jellies with custard, or otherwise tugged by the elbow to inspect a cloth laid out on the floor neatly arranged upon which are broccoli, peppers and oranges, and so nice is she that it's hard to resist buying a little something.



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Easy on the tinsel love.


Camp is beautiful, the men and women - wrapped up against the cold, skin puffy, smooth and red like wax - return late with a their fattened herds of sheep and lamas. They're back again early the next morning after the bitterly cold night and I'm glad to find the road heading downhill, beyond the high barren pampas, down through wild valleys of black mountains and blue lakes and, warmer now, the women sit in the sun spinning and weaving wool. Farther down, the valley is neatly cordoned by stone walls, probably home to one of Peru's 2000 potato varieties. A lovely solitary route leads to a HEP plant, beyond which the weaving black valley changes to the warmer pastel shades of a deep desert canyon. Roads fork off left and right and I can only hope that I’m on the right path to my destination, as recommended to me by a friendly local Peruano; the coffee district of Villa Rica. But the confirmation signs are soon there, neat wooden frames supporting plump green avocados, which they call “palta” in Peru, and later the neat rows of musty sweet smelling coffee. It wasn’t Villa Rica I had reached though, it was Oxopampa.



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Oxopampa, my favourite town in Peru


The first thing that I notice about Oxopampa is that it is clean. The street is spotless and wide and lined with neatly trimmed and thick, rich, green grass. A woman is sweeping this grass. No tooting horns at the traffic lights. On every corner a pair of rubbish bins, one of which for recyclables. Houses have grass gardens which are otherwise unseen in much of Latin America and the clapboard houses and shops look like old-time America, especially with their Peruvian banners fluttering on the porches. The main square has a church of stained wood that looks like a barn. Shops accept Visa.



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Fitting a new tire in Oxopampa's clean street

Despite trying in all the cities and bigger towns I’ve visited for spare-parts, I am certain that this is the place that I will find them. And I do. New wheel and steering bearings, a new front tire, oil change (I also greased the side-stand Adam) and no trip to a parts shop is complete without another box of….tire patches!

Chatting with the locals it seems they all have two things in common; they are happy and they are riding old Honda 250cc Bajas. “The new Hondas," they tell me, "are crap. Made in China.” Quite right, and the old 250s still hold their price costing only a little less than a brand new, made in China Honda 250. Another guy does have a Chinese branded bike, which is currently having new piston rings installed, "it's the law!" he says, with reference to Chinese reliability.

A popular route for weekenders from Lima is to a village near Oxopampa, Pozuzo. Limons, as I call them, are possibly weekending from further afield, Mars perhaps. They arrive in exploratory probing clans in two, three or four 4x4s. Debouching en masse, photographing every angle, posing with smiles copied from the latest billboard, before grabbing bottles of Inka Cola, armfuls of ice-cream, and bags of toasted maize kernals to fuel the sitting and smiling, or the boredom, and then – still ignoring me, waiting patiently - jumping back in the convoy and flooring the accelerator pedal. I must follow behind in a thick cloud of dust. At a viewpoint I get to talk to them, they ask some funny questions between mouthfuls of food, “Shoh…” chew, chew, “what boike are uh roidin?”
“You mean the one I’m sitting on?”
“Yohhh.”

I look up and notice that from the pickup someone is filming me. He asks me to give him a peace sign. I think about giving him the finger. Luckily though, with them buying more snacks, and taking photos of themselves holding snacks, I’m able to sneak off before them and have a cloud free ride….and what a ride! Through the Yanachaga canyon, passing some spectacular waterfalls on the way, that carve out through sandstone and pass right by my shoulder…



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On my way to Pozuzo...! :-O


The trail is smooth and fast all the way to the village of Prussia, where I pass signs for Schmidt Alberge, and Herr Schlaksig, and Frau Bruste and soon arrive in Pozuzo (How's your German dad?). Born in 1859 when a group of 300 Tyrolese and Germans finally arrived after a two year slog from home, Pozuzo is the only German Tyrolese settlement in the world, and a lucky find for me as I only came to watch some Independence day moto-x having seen a poster in Oxopama. I have so much fun looking at the architecture, houses with tiles, kitchens with cupboards! toilets with seats, and the menus with wienerschnitzel, that I end up skipping the moto-x. I was hoping to blend in here, and was even asked if I was German by Limons, but the general theme continued and most people smirked at me and I was still far outnumbered by mixtos. Then I started to notice the bad side of things, stray dogs humping and the nice, previously German homes now falling into disrepair under their new owners, peeling paint and piling up junk. So, before I see too much more I head out hoping to maintain my positive view of Pozuzo, and it was a magic little palce, and anyway, I was all too happy to head back, towards my favourite town in Peru, Oxopampa.



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Hans Kohels house


I nip through Villa Rica, with a short stop to buy up some of their fine organic coffee on my way to Satipo, which lies out towards the jungle. From here I would head back inland up on what looks to be a fine day's ride, judging by the map at least, which shows the trail rising up from Satipo, only several hundred meters above sea level to above 4500m, and back down again to come out at Concepcion, near the city of Huancayo.

A barrier across the trail and a woman runs over, just to sell me oranges, followed by two men holding antique rifles, they look more like man-sized wooden toy stencils.

“Why the guns?” I ask, buying some oranges.
“Ah, sometimes there are robbers, bad men.”
“Oh, those guys…is it safe to camp?”
“Oh yeah, perfectly safe here.”
“Umm, okay.”
“Just be careful of tigers!”
“OK, I’ll make sure to leave an orange outside the tent!”
"What for?"
"So he'll eat the orange! And not my stash of biscuits!"

I find camp overlooking the village of Mariposa at an old mine, and new rubbish dump….and the local recreational and procreational spot for the village youth who turn up on their motos at night….so sadly little chance of tigers.





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The Lost World

From the lower reaches here, lush green and as well the burning brown of smouldering forests making way for crops of yams, and as I progress up the fabulous valley, gaining altitude all the while, the green changes to silvery green and then thickens out to jungle green where every tree and plant seems unique with not an inch to spare between them and I feel like I’m in Conan Doyle’s Lost World with this thick forest rising up steeply to high ridges. I imagine some tribe hidden upon these ridges, watching this solitary red dot progress up the valley, before imaging myself looking down on myself from way up there, where perhaps feet have never been. Twisting up and up along the trail, eventually the trees stop, abruptly like leaving tunnel. Then bare black and white mountains amongst cold damp air where grows asparagus in season, fat feathery heads being chopped from thin stalks and stuffed into sacks by the whole family, filling the road with a green waste of leaves and stalks. I’m freezing cold when I make it down to Concepcion and stock up and head out after a long chat with the friendly shop owner, and having spotted a tall crucifix on my descent decide to ride back a little and try to reach it. With a few dead ends and a bit of pushing up the final meters I make it! Another great spot, overlooking the town and its cloister.


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Huancayo, the city near Concepcion, was one long strip of shity (opposed to city) and I passed through quickly continuing on towards Huancavelica and, save an interesting bridge which led to a small lively market where I watched a witch doctor taking pulses and dispensing green potions from Pepsi bottles, the road was dull, and Huancavelica too. Beyond Huancavelica though the dirt trail breathes life to myself and to the mountains, which glow iridescent; blood, blood red and deep, deep fiery orange in the setting sun. I glimpse a mountain that, from the road at least, somewhat resembles Arizona, USA's "The Wave". I try to reach it for camp, passing a returning herd of lamas laden with sacks of potatoes -and pink ribbons - the herders are invisible beneath thick wrapped layers of clothing, but I can't seem to find a way to the Wave, and before it's too late I set up at a small lake, certainly no hardship, a great spot.



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Pure silence


Here, even my pen sounds loud scraping on the paper, but not as loud and terrifying as the sound of ducks landing on the lake! I tried to remember if I'd ever really heard this sound before, that of wings cutting and beating the air - not the sound of beating wings - a spectral ghostly noise that tore me from drifting into sleep with a jolt. When I do fall asleep it is fitful and full of disturbed thoughts, though simple every day thoughts, bananas, brake pads, her, water, fuel, tomorrow, words and sentences from the pages before bed or ones I seem to be writing that drone on and on in nonsensical monologues. Roll over, groan, check time, 1am, roll over, where's your hat, check time, 2:42am, roll over, the hat is hurting my ears, what's the time? 3:02am. When will morning finally come? Then it comes, too soon. And the ducks are gone. Tired and heavy, like I'm being squashed, and cold, but warmed at least by the thought that tonight I'll be in Paracas at the coast, though I wonder what I'll find, I have only brief cuttings of a conversation I'd had with a local who recommended I go there, "...should go.....Paracas....compass....Pisco.....south."

Stronger than Vinegar, Peru II....part 2 of 3
 

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The Trail of Coloured Mountains

....CONTINUED from Part 1 of 3 above!

I turn my back on the lake, at least for a lifetime and continue on my road, passing through the land of colours that I've never before seen, and I try to describe them to the inside of the helmet, but I can't do it. The lakes are easier, blue. Deep, deep lazerite blue and I pass many of them, finally losing some height on a road that is much longer than I'd anticipated. With thirty kilometres to go I see them the formidable, vanquishers in the mist. Old enemies. That terrifying beauty. Dunes. I hadn't expected dunes. I hadn't really expected anything. It's late and I rush to get petrol, food and directions and continue towards the dunes, coming ever near like approaching ships. I turn ninety degrees and pull off the main road towards the pack of dunes, darkness. It's black sand here, firm enough but finding a way to the dunes is impossible; natural groves of palms, areas of bushes and shrubs, soft sand, and acres of bones, thousands of bones like hip bones. But not bones at all, mineral deposits that crumble like clumps of sugar, though still impossible to ride on.

The sun is gone now and the dunes seem no nearer, sinking back into darkness. One dead-end after another. I've twisted in so many circles, around obstacles this way and that, that I fear I won't even be able to return to the road again, wherever it is. The wind comes ferociously at me, straight off the dunes with handfuls of sand and I wonder if these are grains of wisdom or even a warning. I set up camp amongst the palms out of the wind to think things over. But even here I'm not safe, sand piling up against the wind-battered tent like doubt, until it is an insurmountable dune, and I am buried. Can I make it up the dunes? Those massive monsters, so stark and lifeless they seem to represent death. And, if I can make it up and beyond, what about the next one and the next one? Or if I cannot return? Or I breakdown? Alone. Weak. Vulnerable. This would be easy with two. The wind would retreat. But alone it doesn't, and it brings with it a bleak coldness, though this has the effect of waking me from my stupor and I write my diary.

Aug. 2nd, Day 1431. NEAR The Dunes, Paracas.

Surprisingly cold. Increasing vulnerability. Things take on their true importance; the bike becomes my most needed friend, if it fails you; you're stuffed. Your stove, your fuel, your food and water, tent and sleeping bag etc, so important without these where would you be? Don't forget one, be careful with them. I think, 'if only I could ask my parents, "can I do this?" if they said yes, I will believe them wholeheartedly and carry on, and "no" likewise but back to the main road.' I must cont. To prove my worth. To turn back would only show my true weakness. I fear I will wake in the morning to find the whole world vanished, washed away by the wind, which takes all sound with it, leaving me far away from those I cannot hear.



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Can't reach those dunes....


In the morning it is almost true; the wind seems to have taken all colour away, a strange stillness and hanging mist. There is just me, no movement and the only sound is that of sand crunching under my feet, another world, or may as well be. With the poor weather I sit reading, waiting to see if things will clear, but they don't so I head to nearby Pisco with plans to return later, camp and try again.

I buy lunch, fingers tapping and legs bouncing with nervous energy, eyes flick left and right following the thoughts flying around my brain. Many days of this and I'll be exhausted.

I ride back passing the odoriferous fisheries and the dirty tiny beach houses along to the coastal side of the Paracas national park, to try from this side, through the park entrance, to look for camp. There's a well used trail, over the sandy ground to some of the tourist spots around the entrance and I take that, the wind is picking up again but with the benefit of sweeping away the hanging mist. There are no palm trees here, no bushes, no bones...but brilliant coastal trails that lead to the deep sea cliffs dropping into the foaming blue sea! The views! The sea! These cliffs of jagged chalk! SPACE and dunes all around! More, the dunes are firm and ridable!



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Following the coastal trail....


I reach "The Cathedral" that in the past was a huge natural stone arch at sea, but has since fallen but it's bay is still a fine and breathtaking spot. Whilst the few other visitors are turning about to return to the entrance, I continue on south, the trail a little fainter, hugging the cliffs and bays and so beautiful it is that I'm reluctant to head off alone and I ride free. But soon, the desire becomes too great and I nervously cut inland away from the security of the trail on to untouched sands towards a high col in the distance.



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...breaking free, following the compass.

A strange feeling, like I've left the bike and all it's luggage behind and it's just me flying along the sands freely. The sand flies beneath me though the target seems to get little nearer, like the Hitchcock zoom effect....




This is all until I hit the dreaded "wedgies!" - something that over the coming ride I'd become all too familiar with - and I am sharply reminded that I am after-all still aboard Rodney. Formed by the strong afternoon winds that whip along the surface, these wedges of sand form in the wide valley floors and are impossible to steer through or skip over and often meant a big detour, or a sore bum....



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A "Wedgie!" Just replace the underwear with a motorbike


The sand is firm otherwise and great to ride on, though it softens towards the top of the dunes and at times feeble Rodney struggles to make it to the top, but make it he does. Then, from this new lookout, a whole new vista and one to savour before I check of the compass and pick out a distant point, far, far away on the horizon, before dropping off the dune. At times these were frighteningly steep, too steep and too soft to ride across and down and I fight with brakes, left foot off the peg and digging into the sand to try and slow the bike and stop the rear-end from jack-knifing me off the bike until, at some terrifying speed I reach the salt pan bottom, or more likely, more Wedgies! But one can skirt these, and fly along flat plains through the most incredible landscape. This. Is brilliant.

Inevitably I find another track, a moto or car trail as the landscape forces us one way or the other around gullies, down steps, rock fields, cliffs, humps and burrows until I reach another high point and look down. I squint down the steep slope, through the now horrific wind shooting waves of sand zig-zagging
along the ground up towards me and sent
mercilessly away, to a trail that bisects my own path. I decide that in case the weather becomes impossibly nasty that it is probably wise to camp near this trail, giving me an easy escape route. But finding a camp spot in this wind is goign to be tricky. I walk miles in circles looking behind every conceivable leeward side only to find wind, it's just everywhere! In the end, after a desperate search I give up and start putting up the tent on a patch that, despite being in the wide-open, seems to somehow have less wind. But, when I go to drive the first peg into the ground I get only a centimetre or so before the peg stops, I try the next, and the next, all the same. I rub away the top layer of sand and sea shells to find a solid white....It's the bones! Like the minerals from last night, only a solid floor! An ancient seabed! NO! I let out a low sob as the tent rolls away into the desert like tumbleweed with the wind and I slump on my knees. Stronger than vinegar, but beaten by salt.



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Afternoon winds tearing through....


Most likely I sat a moment and ate some biscuits and then came up with the idea to use my old trick of a cunning pile of rocks and using the bike as a wind break and giant peg. Well frott me, it worked. I get in the tent, and drop dead. When I wake up, seconds or hours later, the moon is rising up over the mountains and all the wind has vanished...I put the tea on and start the diary...

Not lonely but very alone. Absolute silence. Even the wind has gone.



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Patent Pending, the Jones Peg


The sand whispers over the ground like an Arabian dream, piling up in soft waves of rippled gold. I watch it from the tent porch in the morning and notice a plastic bag stuck in an eddy floating high above without moving at all. I spot something far off, a couple of vehicles, or is it an animal train, I can't make it out...I grab the camera and on full telescope I am able to learn that it is in fact, just two boulders. I remember staring in to the darkness of Atbara, flame torches moving in the distant dark, and then all of a sudden, heart racing, panic rising, upon me!....or not there at all. Gone. Like the camel mounted boy who guided me through the dunes, past the adventurer's jeep, buried up to it's windows in the soft sand...there, encouraging, there, willing me on, and then, just gone. I never know if he was ever there or not.



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Saturn

The weather is colourless and foreboding, like yesterday. Cloud but no cloud. Soft but hard. Swirls of wool and marble. Over breakfast I decide which way I'll go, beyond the Saturn-scape of yellow, cream and black, a maze of mushrooms, gulleys, arms and fingers knitting into deeper valleys. I warm the engine, look over the camp spot for any 'forgottens', click first and just ride away. The freedom is both delightful and tiring in the anxiety it brings. At every rise I reach the anxiety is rejuvenated by the huge expanses ahead of me, distances that I must cover, to the road that cuts back inland, the road I keep expecting to see, at the next rise, at the next rise, but it never comes. These distances hold hidden traps, large drops, and steps, secret fields of wedgies and rocks. But then, after passing one huge expanse after another, confidence grows replacing the anxiety with vast amounts of delight. I'm doing this! I can, do this. The pronoun is important! A dangerous one though. One. If one breaks down.....

Luckily I didn't....or the bike and I reach the road, though I nearly missed it and via this, heading back inland reach the long range of golden soft sand dunes and a more beautiful sight one will never see, those golden soft velveteen ripples, running off in the distance all the way to the town of Ica. Arriving in Ica was a sad moment, litter and tires cover the sand, squallid shacks and horrid huts, signs that read, "For Sale, 100 heactares (of sand).", "Private Property." and mines dotting the sand. So much sadness. I ride to the oasis of Huacachina, which likewise is squalor, somehow being turned into a tourist village where the streets are filled with V8 dune buses, ugly buildings, ugly people. "'The horror, the horror!' he cried in a whisper, at some image, at some vision, he cried out twice, a cry no more than a breath."

An unbeleiveable day, says the diary, but Ica has filled my joy with a city of junk.



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Desert Camp




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The oasis at Ica

On the way back to Pisco, the long dying drone of the engine running out of fuuuueeeellllll, managing only 8km on the reserve tank...though luckily coming to a stop outside a fuel station. From here I backtrack further, inland beyond the high blue lakes and colourful mountains, towards Ayacucho and a small village called Quinua. Quinua it is clear is famous for its crafts, particularly the very Tim Burton-esque churches which the villagers place on their roofs to ward off evil spirits. I was ferociously ill here and spent a few hours in the hospital and a few days in a hotel here, and in Ayacucho, recovering.



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Quinua's Evil Defences


It used to be that trying to sleep in the tent was difficult, the fears at times, but more the noises and the proximity to them. A puma outside my tent, when I first wake, I think - still deep in the tunnel of sleep - how can I describe this in words? And oddly, not what is it? And I must have been writing my blog in my sleep and continue to think in cliché book form, An animal outside the tent, it sounds like white-noise backwards, no, no....that's not it....Sounds big though, A big animal outside my tent, like....oh crap I had a simile a second go....what does it sound like....umm, I TELL ya what it sounds like Jones me old boy, sounds just like those toys at Teohuatican that you blew into to sound like a Jagu...It's a JAGUAR! Noooo, can't be....foolish thought.

But then I hear its footfall as it turns, Jeepers! It DOES sound big...and that fella mentioned pumas earlier just today...What are you doing....get out of the tent....!



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Ayacucho's main street

But I was too slow, it was gone. I look around for footprints, nothing. But then I went straight to sleep, without a thought and now it seems I can't sleep in hotels. The noise! My God! The melee of dog, taxis tooting at cars that can't go anywhere hemmed in by the badly running buses which, when they can move, roar up narrow streets in clouds of black, people shouting, traffic police whistling at everyone who can't move to get a move on, music blaring, cockerels crowing, toilets flushing, rats scurrying....How does anyone sleep?! Ayacucho was raelly nice, but get me to my tent!


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The man tells me I can pass to Abancay. Another voice calls out from down in the ditch, where once was a road,
"Sell me your bike!" he says popping his head up like a gopher.
"Yeah, all right, how much?" I reply, but it seems he's all talk and his head vanishes.
"So I can make it passed then?!"
"Yeah...."
"To Abancay?" I say, meaning I'm not just popping to the shops.....



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Spot of roadworks....


In Abancay, safely reached, a festival of some sort, though I seem to have missed the men dressed like gorillas whipping each other. A woman sticks a pin on my chest, Blackadder comes forth again as she asks for one "solito". The money in Peru is the 'Sol', so a 'solito' (or dollito) is like saying one "small" dollar, as if asking for 50c but she wants it in dollar bills. I look at what my dollito has bought me, a blurry laminated stamp of Dolores. Not very good. Come on, let's get to Cusco.



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Whipping gorilla

Cusco is of course home to the world famous Machu Picchu but it's an expensive place, and a busy place too. So, after much consideration I decide I am not willing to pay the large fee, small dollars or otherwise. By chance though, I arrive at a trail-head to some other Inca ruins, Choquequirao. Not many people visit this Inca site, certainly the trail head was deserted, probably as no one can work out how to pronounce its name to a taxi or bus driver. A local girl at the trail head tells me it's a three hour walk, sounds perfect and it's also much cheaper. But then, packed up and setting off a friendly man tells me it's actually three hours to La Playa, from here it's another 4-5 hours to the ruins....and then back. I realise this is going to be one tall order.



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Timor

When I encounter haggard hikers returning up the trail to the village, like troops from war, I learn that they have taken three days. I pass several as I run down, chatting with each one and filling me with doubts. It's not until I reach Timor, a bearded Turkish man with legs speckled with a mosaic of bites and his shirt wrapped up on his head, that I realise it is hopeless. Timor spits out the ball of coca leaves from inside his lip and points out the onward trail across the valley, zig-zagging up a desperately steep mountain. This means that the trail drops, from my start point near Huanipaca two vertical kilometres to La Playa, the beach at the river in the valley. People then usually camp here, to be ready to make the huge effort up to the site itself, at 3,000m! A total climb of 5,000m! I knew that it was seven kilometres in length down to La Playa, so can assume that in total it is perhaps a 30km trail, to go and return, meaning an average gradient of 1-in-6! So I decided to join Timor on his ascent back to Huanipaca. Timor had cut grapes in France, cut marijuana in USA and busking just about every other country on his way to Peru. A true hippy, he was travelling with five others in a combi-van whom he met with at a Rainbow Family convention. After a while though and I leave Timor behind, eating salt and some herb root mixed with water, and then meet one of his friends, a Brazilian girl with bouncing black ringlets of hair. Well, they weren't bouncing now, as she's sat in the dust, legs straight out in front, chin on chest. She smells of hippy, like dirty hair and old underpants.

"How much further?" she asks hoarsley.
"Urgh...I think I just passed the 4km marker."
"QUE MIERDA!"
"Ummm....indeed....sorry about that....do you want some bread?"

She snatches the bread as if possessed by some Satanic hunger and then, of all things, we start talking about biscuits and she tells me her favourite are Casino. I reach into my bag and pull out a pack of Casino and toss them to her. She cradles them in her hands, looking at them without comprehension, as if I've just handed over some long-lost heirloom, as if she might just cry.

"See ya!" I say with a big grin and in Portuguese she replies "Until later!" her eyes now returned to the biscuits in her lap.

This must be one tough hike and surely harder than my Huayhuash trek. This trek enjoys the thicker air of lower altitudes, but it also enjoys all-day, blisteringly hot, intense sun. I was getting through my water rapidly, and with no streams in the trail, even I was meditating on the red and white cola label and I was even a little worried for the tiny girl and Timor with their large packs so far to go late in afternoon heat.

"You want some sopita?"
"NO JUST GET ME COKE!" I say desperate.

He squeezes between a group of men eating the soup huddled on and between sacks of rice, sugar and oats, crates of Cusqueña beer, to pull out a bottle of coke. I slip past the woman filling the doorway and spread out like a rag-doll, and also eating the soup to sit on a mud wall in the street and savour my coke. The village is populated by the dirtiest people and I watch them pass by - seemingly with no purpose. Shirts and jogging trousers sullied and soiled as much as the thin sandals with wide straps that are filled by fat squares of cracked and muddy meaty feet. One man, walks up the street in zig-zags and stops in front of me. Given a moment he turns to look at me, he let's his face do the talking, "oh, I say chaps, it's a...burp...it's a bloody gringo..." His thought train is derailed by the surging alcohol and he looks back up the road, trying to remember where he was going...or where he is. The old woman in the shop is now groaning like this man's internal voice, though she merely wants to get to her feet.

The man turns back to me again, and raises his eyebrows in surprise..."Well, bugger me, it's hummmmpff it's a gringo!....Don't I know you, sure I've seen your bloody mug somewhere..."

By now the woman has made it to her feet and, bent double, is feeling out for the door frame. The groaning continues.

The man prevaricates whilst the woman expostulates and I just contemplate how perhaps to help things along. But, no sooner and the man seems to wake from his reverie and continue his zig-zagging up the road between the houses like a ball on a tilting table. The woman too is making good progress, around the corner between the shop and the low mud brick wall...what's she doing?....she shuffles down the wall as if participating in a shallow spot of rock climbing, demonstrating adept usage of the chimney technique....



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Then she takes a poo.

I chat with Aliessi, as the woman hikes her skirt back up and slowly groans her way back to the shop floor. Aliessi is a lovely man, his face says so, though his Spanish is fast and hard to follow, something about a Japanese garden, valley, gringos, and the fact that he is about to start his 7km walk home. I'm then tugged by the arm and led to a party, the Presidents wife is 48 today. I'm given a drink of 'chicha', poured in this case from a petrol can. Chicha is a drink made with maize and fermented, and it tastes a bit like one might expect; like runny cream of wheat and petrol. I try to refuse a second helping of the lovely stuff, but as the world over they insist and the communal cup is thrust at me, brimming with combustible porridge. After about ten minutes I get worried that maybe someone else might want the cup, so I take a swig. Now they told me that this chicha also included sugar, but there's something else, something, something a bit...a bit bilious. You were expecting a great punch-line there weren't you?



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Aliessi

Time then, of all things, for dinner and it seems I'm invited, though I can think of little else than discourging my stomach's contents. All sit around the room, sullenly, eating, as if this were the last supper, or maybe the one just after.

"This is a good experience for a gringo,no?" says the birthday girl's son.
"Indeed, it is an experience." Another of her sons sits the other side of me, his plate untouched, seeming a little worse for wear from the night before, the birthday-eve being the big celebration.
"Want to dance?" asks an old lady, all my favourite things, but an opportunity to work on some new faces. And, perhaps they work, for more people join in, and we have a merry time pulling faces and moving feet. The president even joins in, telling me that they are building a cable-car to the ruins, "We can't wait!" he says, "in twelve months they'll be loads of gringos here!"
"Yup! And in about 18months you'll hate tourists!" I say with a smile.
"Oh, no! We can't wait, $25 a ticket...loadsa money!"

Indeed. Loadsa wonga! I have a feeling he'd fit in in Birmingham!

With talk of singing, I get a quick sprinkling of good-luck confetti on my head and escape fast, to find camp, where I contemplate their kindness and generosity. I think they will make a lot of money and, if they can keep up the hospitality they and the tourists will be winners for certain.



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Nick with good luck confetti head, more chicha, my dancing partner and the president.




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Cusco


The first thing that strikes me about Cusco is that there are no moto taxis! No homeless dogs either! Banned and shot by the tourist police perhaps and replaced instead by Toyota estate Taxis and gringos! I sit on the steps outside the grand Santa Domingo cathedral in the beautiful main square watching them, the taxis and the gringos coming and going along the broad cobbled avenues. "These are gringos!" I think to myself. Silly shorts and silly shoes, shoes made for running though the wearers look only likely of running out of money as they dish it out in front of me to children for photographs. And I thought it was an Indian myth. I wonder too, if the tourist police didn't get things wrong. I want to scream. A man next to me hands out a Peruvian day's wage to two kids, I'd happily garrot this fellow without trial, with his fancy camera strap. And then steal his camera...

http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...907_n.jpg?dl=1I wonder if Gringos and Limons aren't much different, they look at every stone as if it was called Rosetta, or edible, or do I not look hard enough? But then I'm a gringo too. No unnatainable truths here though, just stones. Though one must admit that Inca stonework really is a thing to marvel at. They really knew their craft and their giant, smooth blocks remain hermetically fixed in place where others have fallen. Standing the test of time, of earthquakes, of rain, of photos...and, of urine. Nowhere though is the smell stronger than in my hotel room, and stronger still at night when the rat comes out and scratches around beneath the floor boards. But despite the smell I liked my hotel, it was otherwise peaceful and my host was lovely and I liked Cusco too.

"You're a bad man!" says the woman, back in the square.
"Sorry. I just won't pay for photos." I reply, surely I could have roused some sharper remark, but as she walks away I wonder if she's right.


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More photos from cusco in the album Peru IV

Stronger than Vinegar, Peru II....part 3 of 3
 

Continued from Part 2 of 3 above!

When I reach the village of Chinchero, near Cusco, I'm dismayed to find that to even look around the non-Inca village, I must buy a tourist ticket. This is also expensive but does at least includes numerous sites and museums. Even so, my first reaction is to turn around and I start walking to the bike, but once I reach it I also reach the conclusion that if I don't buy a ticket, I won't be seeing anything. I know it's not really my thing, but I might kick myself if I don't see anything, but it's a lot of money. I sit on a bench to think about it long and hard.

Inside Chinchero is the village church, though this is Colonial Spanish from the early 1600s. Inside the church it is beautifully decorated, painted from bottom to top with green and reds and faces, and as well a hodgepodge of frescoes and mini-altars and the main altar filling the end with garish fake gold. As no photos are allowed inside I stare at the walls with concentration willing my brain to remember....but it's fairly useless.



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This is taken from http://www.marklauri.com

I also meet Sonya, a weaver finishing off a two month project, a table piece that she might sell for $300, though she says an exporter comes around the village collecting pieces every Sunday and so she'll sell this one to them. Sonya was a lovely woman, despite the heavy flow of tourists and my explaining I couldn't buy anything. I watch her as we chat, threading the needle through threads fixed for tension to a metal gate, twisting a piece of wood, sliding a collar of wool and twisting the threads to finish off the border, an intricate coloured eye of eight or so threads, itself taking two days.



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Sonya's hands at work.




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Inca stonework at Saksaywaman

Soon though, too soon, I am bored of Inca, bored of rocks and regretting buying the ticket a little, especially as my visa for Peru is running out. I visit many other sites included on the ticket, going through the motions because I've paid, and then the museums in Cusco which are poor as well, with more Spanish Catholic art than Inca artefacts. Still, the return to Cusco gives me a chance to go to the customs office in the hope of extending my vehicle permit, confirming only what I already know.

“So I have to leave the country?”
“Yes. It is the only way.”
"How long do I have to stay outside the country?"
"Ah. The law does not say this."
"And you can't just give me a new paper here? Because I can get a new visa for another 90 days here in Cusco."
"No, this is not possible. The law says that vehicle permits cannot be extended."
“Okay, but I don't have to have an extension, is it possible to have a new one?” though it seems my Spanish is a bit poor here, and to clarify I say, “and throw this one in the bin?”
“No, you must go to the border. The nearest point is.....”

Miles away. But at the very least, commendable behaviour of the official. So I camped overlooking Cusco, watching the planes come in and go out, and then set off towards Puno, Laguna Titicaca and the border.



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Camp over Cusco


I feel sick. I actually feel a bit like an accidental arsonist might feel after burning down his best friend's house...with his kids in it, post hence, a man with a secret. A post coital rapist with a conscience, bit strong I know, but it's bad. Things are bad. "Rapist" is a word on my mind. Rules, too. I'm thinking about breaking rules. My rules. The horror! The horror! It's not that bad. But the stumps of teeth, the finger nails like a corpse's black and yellow and ridged and long, the rheumy eyes, the desperation. I can't possibly break the rule, I can't hand out money. No. Absolutely not. That would be bad, very bad, terrible, you know that! But she was poor. No, she was beyond poor...where are the charities now...? No, where are the neighbours! We don't need charities. But....I have fruit, I can give her that at least. But it's nothing, it won't help....But better than nothing....I make a u-turn and race back. Is she eating grass? I hand over the fruits I have and she cradles them lovingly in her arms. She speaks, I wonder what she is saying? I only stopped to take a photo of the house but then I saw her. Charities.



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The lady...all because of a picture


I ride on and for the rest of the day wonder if I'm wrong and I should give money to the people I meet. I'm always telling people they should help their neighbours, their communities, rather than work with charities. Are my neighbours therefore, the people I meet? But I also know that there are reasons why people are poor. And much of the time I don't really understand these problems, or the people they involve. I've gained the idea that charities are, generally speaking, not very good (apologies to my friend Tali and many people besides) and I spend all day wondering if my opinion is merely conjecture. Or, if perhaps with my knowledge, if there actually is any, I could actually help the charities to really help the people. But I probably can't. It's a big job. It's a tough job. What a job! And actually, I usually always decide that it is quite simply a case of overpopulation.

Then, at lunch I meet people living in the exact same environment, in clean clothes, riding motorcycles purchased with money from crops and cattle, happy people, off to a wedding, lovely shining happy people. I was invited to the wedding and was just on my way when another gent arrives and tells me that “Oh, no. That's a waste of a time, it's not until tonight.” So that I could hardly follow him, as essetially he'd just univited me.


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So I pushed on towards Cusco, stopping in Lampa a lovely little village of red mud and large Gothic church that wreaked of pee. Then to lake Titicaca, a popular tourist spot for it's big (8372km2), high (3812m) and pretty deep (281m) making it one of the highest lakes in the world that you can float a big boat on. I saw no big boats, but I saw an awful lot of beautifully deep blue water, and as well on the Capachica Peninsula, the lovely hats of the Lachon peoples, hats that look like drying and curling up old pizzas with giant coloured baubles. The people wearing them though were equally unsavoury and unvaried in their response to me, laughing and mocking all the while, hysterically in my face. This treatment has actually been common outside the cities in Peru and, whilst I try and give them the benefit of the doubt, that they are not really being spiteful, but I just get annoyed, my doubts were small, tiny and shrinking all the while. Because of the recent treatment in Peru, I'd cut my hair, laundered, trimmed the beard and polished my boots – often the subject of mirth – but, to no effect. I often find that this treatment will vary from one village to the next, only several kilometres, so I always try to forget the past, and enter a new place with an open mind. But here it was incorrigible and that night my diary was deeply etched with scrawlings in block capitals, referring to the STUPID EFFING MONKEY LIKE GRINS and laughs that drove me to astonishing and a shaming amounts of anger.


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I've been asking people why this is, including the monkeys, but they only laugh all the more. From others it seems simply that I'm white in place where there are perhaps no white people. I've been travelling quite a long while now but have never quite experienced this amount of ridicule, even in places deep in Africa where it was obvious that I was the first white person in at least a while to pass through, or one of very few to visit there. Here in Titicaca though, surely no excuses as it's a tourist hotspot.




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My mood presented itself ahead by way of a thin hanging funeral veil of rain falling from a murderous black sky. These veils, a strange phenomenon, a little like slicing the taught underbelly of some huge grey beast that bleeds ink, sinking into the atmosphere as if in water, and yet never quite reaching the ground, diluted. The thin veil ahead appears razor-thin so that I'll pass straight through within seconds, and be safely into the sun clearly visible beyond. But, as the rain starts to hit this isn't the case, seconds turn to minutes, though I try desperately to keep going, to push through, I saw the sun, I know it's there, just keep going! The smell of grass comes bursting out then, the sweetest most lovely smell, and then onions so powerful. But then nothing. Nothing but wet. Wet and cold. I realise that the blue sky I had glimpsed earlier has long gone and when finally I turn around it isn't one small curtain but a huge draping sheet that wraps me in its cold damp. Soaked through I search desperately for a camp spot, on and on I go trying every half-chance I see until eventually I find an old mine where I can tuck away, just out of sight. I race to get the tent up in an effort to keep it dry. Futile. May as well have put the tea on. Then, in the rain, take off all my clothes which I pile up into a sodden heap inside the porch and get in the tent. I'm shivering badly and rush to put on what dry clothes I have to get ready for a cold and thunderous night. As the hot tea boils, I pray that the morning will be sunny so that I can dry my riding gear, otherwise riding away at over 4000m is going to be frankly horrid.

And frankly horrid it is. Well, actually, when I wake, not too bad, cloudy and grey in preparation. I decide to get away early before there's any chance of the more common, afternoon rain.



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Getting ready for another drubbing


Over the border in Bolivia the officials are friendly, but tell me that I have to spend a minimum of 24hrs in Bolivia. I don't really want to do this as that also means I have to import my bike, change money and sit and camp over the border. The stamps hover over the passport for an excruciating time though eventually they do give me the two seals I need, "as friends.” he says, adding “But, if you're not back here in one month, I'm coming to Peru to get you!" I wondered if their procrastinating was in an attempt to get me to pay a bribe, but as well I think that genuinely they just want me to visit their country. Back at the bike and the Bolivian customs official beckons me into his office. People who say "you can't judge a book..." well, you can for when I get inside the office and see the man, I know I'm in trouble. I wonder what my face says about me? His face tells me he is a bad person.

"Vehicle Papers."
"Oh no...I'm going to Peru."
"OK, Temporary [Bolivian] paper."
"No, I mean, I came from Peru, I just needed the passport stamp....now I'm going back."
"But your motorcycle is on Bolivian soil."

Ah. Fiddle sticks indeed. I go to the window to look where my bike is, I know where it is, it's just there, it's in Bolivia, I know it, I rode it there, and wonder why I'm performing these theatrics, but at least it gives me time to think without looking at the bad face and to come up with a strategy.

"Umm...sorry." (nice strategy).
"Peruvian temporary vehicle permit."
"Well...I don't have it! I just gave it back, I've left the country after all."
"Then you have a problem. (yeah, it's you!) You should have left the bike in Peru and walked over."
"Wait, give me a second. I might have a receipt." When I go to the bike I find I do, by some fortitude have the old paper, but I'm still certain he is about to diddle me so when I go back into the office, I do so with renewed avowal.

"Sorry," I say, "I really didn't think it was a problem. I just, well I just rode without thinking. I didn't know. I wasn't thinking. Here." I hand him the paper, which he scans over before asking,
"How much did you pay?" He is of course referring to bribing the immigration officers. His voice is different now though, more human, his face too, and I realise I'm free.
"Nothing!" I say, snatching the paper from across the desk and with a wry smile add "that would be corruption!"

(For those interested, in hindsight, it would be wiser to get your visa extended at the immigration offices all around Peru and only exit the bike at the border, thus negating any need to visit the Bolivian (or other) outpost. The bike can be renewed indefinitely, but Brits at least have only 183 days per year allowance in Peru.)


Less than two minutes at the Peruvian border and I'm away, now with a slight weight off my mind with regards time limits, though one weight added by way of the customs official, I fear he'll give me trouble when I return to enter Bolivia. But that thought soon vanishes along with the grey cloud, a new curtain raising, and I too, up and away from Titicaca lake towards Moquegua. Instantly my mood is quite different from that at the lake, a beautiful trail and few people to spoil it, like getting away from a really bad party full of people you don't like. Passing through fields of tall wind-cut rock fingers towering over the small thatch homes on my way to the fabulous salty lake, Loriscota. A brilliant trail, and a beautiful high lake is Loriscota, surrounded by distant volcanoes and inhabited by a multitude of bird-life, the big beaked flamingos a really special highlight.


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Flamingoes at Laguna Loriscota

The great route continued from Moquegua. Dropping again in altitude through fantastic desert canyons, with little traffic and easy camping having only yapping foxes
for companions. This led to the colonial city of Arequipa, which has
its splendid backdrop of volcanoes Misti and Chachani. A nice but busy
– as always – city.


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The road to Arequipa





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Santa Marta church in Arequipa, Volcan Misti in the background



After the recent rains I'd experienced in Titicaca I was fearful of the arriving rainy season, especially with all of Bolivia yet to see at much the same latitudes as Peru. With this in mind I decide I must be quick on the final trails in Peru, only a one loop left now; but one that looks formidable on the map, taking me to Colca Canyon, Cotahuasi Canyon and the Valley of Volcanoes.

But things start badly when I reach Lluta. I shouldn't have reached Lluta. But I have and must consider the fact that in taking the wrong trail to Colca Canyon, I've just lost another day . It's a long way to return, too long, but anyway the trail is stunningly stark and wild, the few people friendly, asking me to “take a photito!” and too, I can still reach Colca from the end of this trail.

I spend a lot of the ride trying to read the landscape in accordance with the map, trying to ascertain if the tall mountain that is to my right is the one that should be on my left. If it is, then I am on the right trail and the map is wrong! The rest of the time I spend looking at large birds of prey, proud grey eagles and then up above, a condor. I see the condor swoop down and land to nestle in a hollow of grass. I get off the bike and go skulking over, camera fixed and ready. When I get to the lip, within 5-10m, the condor takes flight and with it my motor-functions. I stand there agape as it KAW KAW KAW KAW!s loudly away, spreading it's huge wings and dropping off into the valley. No photos then....but 'ere's an eagle who came screaming torpedo like past my tent one morning having spotted a tasty mouse 3000m below in the canyon....perhaps.



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Heeerre, mousy, mousy, mousy....


I stop for fuel in Chivay, a small town nestled at the head of Colca Canyon from where I hope to back-track essentially, but on the correct trail, over Colca Canyon.

“It's that way.” says the pump attendant.

His face and pouting mouth seem to be pointing awfully close to where I've just come from....
"What....that one just there?"
"Si."
"That one I just came from?"
"Uhh, si."
"That goes to Lluta?"
"Si."
"And Pedregal?"
"Si."

And so I come to realise that I have just passed the second deepest canyon in the whole wide world and hardly noticed....oops. Still the trail was no hardship and the condor was good and I have Cotahuasi to come, which is the deepest canyon in the whole wide world! It's taken much longer than expected to arrive, and I'm still worried about time, especially having seemingly wasted a large portion of it in some invisible canyon. But, in the morning I decide that “I'll go, but must go really quick...no reading!”

Fool.

Time limits are the travellers curse...ask Mr.Magregor.

So I raced off, if one can call it that, for the trail is steep and Rodney is running very poorly, worse even than normal. Any sort of uphill gradient means 1st gear and flat roads are 2nd or, if I can get a little bit of a downhill spurt, 3rd. Tedious. I never remember feeling this frustrated on Rudolf.

As is common in Peru, almost any dirt trail is breathtaking and here it is the wide-open spaces amongst the mountains that amaze, riding along arrow-straight roads through the wide-open plains where graze wild horses and fluffy plump lamas.



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Sppppaaaaaaaaaaaacccccccccccceeeeeeeeeeeeeee!


These wide-open spaces give the impression that the very end of a cloud is attainable, like a rainbow whose end you can see in a similar open space. And these grey clouds are regrouping, building, moving in and tightening their grip. A tiny archway sits on the horizon, not a rainbow, but a doorway leading clearly out from under and beyond this brewing storm, to heaven, to sunshine. I push Rodney as hard as I can, downhill now, transfixed on this archway and praying that the trail will lead me there, and not steer me off towards the misery. The road turns one way....but then, thank God veers back again...then another...but gratefully again returning me to put the arch within sight once more! But then, the horror! the horror! as the road turns ninety-degrees, pointing me straight towards the misery. I've tried my best to ignore it and now, staring it in the face, it looks seven shades darker, a horrid face, ugly, worse than any pizza-hat wearers, worse than the grinning monkeys, worse than the customs official...oh but I'd pay a bribe now! I know what's to come, the sky so black now, so black, blacker than a black man's big black bumhole and I fear, I fear. I fear the bumhole.

Almost crying now, but then, then, a blurry vision, a mirage? I see something, and then I hit it, a deep swinging berm that flicks me fast around and away...back towards the arch! And now, look! Look! I can see the whole trail ahead, running straight and true, all the way up to the horizon and through my gateway...a bit of Frank Sinatra seems appropriate and I sing, "Heaven,
I'm in heaven, and my heart beats so that I can hardly speak!"



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Archway to Heaven, though seen from the good end.


From the pleasant village of Andagua, the road drops down and down, into the black, black hell of the Valley of the Volcanoes. Surrounded both high and low by volcanoes, winding and twisting down and down, between and amongst towering piles and ridges of cool black and rusty brown lava. Vast, vast quantities in a vast expanse and, popping up amongst the detritus, some of the eighty tall cones of dead volcanoes.



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Valley of the Volcanoes


But then time was pressing, and it presses now too as I sit at the computer! For this blog is epic in proportions....and I hope in trials, trails and tribulations....ride on, write on, ride on! And I'm running out of energy, my mind is a dull block, no words, no poetry there, need fuel, some of those biscuits perhaps....but then, not now, not here, but there, in the valley, with the volcanoes, I needed petrol....the tank was again dry, and only 305km (60mpg!). Luckily the dirty dregs in the stove's fuel-bottle are just enough to get me back to Andagua, where I buy two gallons from the village shop for $16.00, and not the small kind.



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The steep pass that leads rising away from Andagua



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Rodney JUST made it....and what a view.



"What you know it?" I ask.
"Yes, of course! The Queen, the pound, Manchester, London, the wars with France."
"No with Germany."

"Don't you know history?"
"Yeah, well, some of it...France were our friends!"
"NO! Come on! Nelson...?"
"Ohhh yeah, him. Who was the other fellow?"
"When the Spanish came, you English were here too."
"Really?"
"Pirates! You bought the Pound with you too, very strong! A very strong country!"
"I'm related to Blackbeard you know."
"Then Germans and the Russians!"
"What, pirates?!"
"NOOOO! In the World War."
"Ohhh, I'm following...."
"Hitler! Terrible! He wanted to take over the world."
"Almost managed to as well...you could argue he was brilliant."
"Oh no, terrible man, killing the Jews...."

At this point the old man goes off into a little bit of a monologue that I struggle to follow. He spoke loudly and with much animation, so that passers by appeared to think that I was Hitler getting a good telling off for my rather hideous behaviour!

"So, how long to Cotahuasi?" I ask, when eventually the opportunity presents itself.
"Oooh, about seven hours."
"Plus a bit more for the canyon I think."
"Hour an a half to...(a town I didn't recognise)"
"Okay, great, thanks! Too far I think, I'm bit worried about the rain."
"Oh, it won't rain today."
"Well, I assume it never rains here."
"Gets a bit windy sometimes."
"Anyway, I must go! Long way to go! Nice talking with you."
"You won't forget me, will you?"
"Doubt it, hard to find anyone with something to say. Until later."
"Hope it goes well!"

And so I turned back to Arequipa, leaving Cotahuasi Canyon for another day, another trip, another lifetime.



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Riding the bulldust back to Arequipa


Who knows what came before? Or what will come later? Here and then gone. Though never really there at all. Time is unkind. This way. Or that way. Unkind is time. Those grains of wisdom slipping down, through the narrow space, until the last grain drops...but where are they? Even the hour glass lies. Bottomless. The black hole of our time. Leaving nothing behind.

I'd like to leave something behind, I think to myself as I sit looking at these rocks, maybe just a grain or two. I wonder who sat here before me, in this scorched field of boulders? I try to picture them, three of them, children with chocolate skin and eyes like black-holes. They wear woven loin clothes decorated colourfully with the same animals that they are carving into the rock, these rocks, condors, eagles, fish, pumas, camels and snakes....people too; shepherds and hunters and sad crying dancers, the moon and the sun.

The sun is pure searing heat, penetrating all corners, leaving no shade and no plants either, cream and white hot rock. I hop from rock to rock, hundreds of them, thousands maybe, brushing away sand to reveal more petroglyphs, what a place! Down below, the river runs on and on, next to a road that is not mine.

I wonder what I will leave.



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The very brilliant Toro Muerto

Those eagle eyed will notice that there is a big jump in proceedings from Guatemala to Peru....

This is because I'm always having problems with the formatting on horizons' hubb, so I tend to stick it on ADV, almost as bad, and more preferably of course my website.

This last install from Peru seems to look reasonable....as you will notice it is very long!

If you do enjoy this, I recommend you go to the webpage www.talesfromthesaddle.com or www.facebook.com/talesfromthesaddle

There are many, many photos on both of these pages as well as the missing articles in the blog...though if you have missed them, then you've got some catching up to do!

Enjoy....any questions, comments, please let me know!

I hadn't seen this RR yet (been on the HUBB for a couple of months)...

Um. Wow.

That is all.

Ride safe Nick and if you're still out in 2014 I'll see you out there.

Well, it's been a while since I posted on here! Glad you like it...unless you mean "Wow...this blog is the worst thing ever"...hope not!!

Now you need to catch up on teh rest....I'd defiantely recommend at least reading Ecuador and Colombia, and maybe Darien too! If you want me to post them here, I can do that too!

Have some pics, just entered Bolivia....

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Had to ride the famous "Road of Death"!


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And a trip to a quiet beach on Laguna Titicaca.

Good stuff!!,thanks!!

Good to see a 125cc.
I had to put a different air filter on my xr125l to drive high altitude,
and change the front sprocket from 17 to 15 to be able to ride mountens.
Did you change anything on the bike?


Saludos and good luck!

I met my first traveller who was also on a 125 just a few days ago, a CG125. Good to see indeed! And there are many peopel on them too I think?

I've been looking for a smaller front sprocket but haven't had any luck finding one. Someone did offer me a smaller rear sproket! Your comment does remind me though, and there is a store just here, I'll go and ask! (But when I ent just now for some other things he said "sorry, most peopel ride the 250 here!" Doh...

I wondered actually about an air filter mod, as the standard one seems to be on it's limit and needs to be really clean to function ok, and I'm cleaning it all the time.

Do you have any details on this filter mod? Where did you find it?

I always ask in the stores, the latest answer was "just take the filter out" which I said seemed a bit stupid if it was getting dirty so regularly....! Oh well.

Usually I can just make it, if only slowly! The highest pass in S.Am is in Bolivia according to my map, just over 4900m I think it was....let's see how that goes! (Actually I just checked, my map is telling lies!)

Is this road closed to trucks and cars now???

Hola ,thanks for your respond klous

i had go back to the bike shop 3 times before they finally had the sprocket that fitted the xr125.
It really makes the bike perfect.
Before i had to peddle along with my feet going up a steep goat trail.....
A lot more power, 10 a 15 kmph slower i think.
Its the same sprocket as the honda bross 125.

The air filter that i put on is a universal one.
Attachment 7943
Never had problems with dust, they sell them in a lot of those
little bike shops in almost all cities for 10 to 20 $.
This made a real difference in all situations high and low altitudes.
The engine feels happier, give it a try!
The original air-box is just chocked ,very chocked.
It will always be a 125 but this makes it a bit more fun!

I have been following your adventure also on ADVrider, and
wish you a great trip an will be following you posts:thumbup1:

Are you still happy with the choice of bike you made?

Saludos Amigo

I don't think so, Nicola. I camped along it and had one truck and a handful of taxis pass by through the night/morning. As there is a new route that is all paved though no-one uses it now really except tourists and the few people who live along it.

So, it is certainly no longer the deadliest road! Just need to watch out for tourists on mtbs bouncing from rock to rock and silly sods on motorbikes! :o)...it is actually just a really nice route regardless of it's deadly fame!

Nice one matey! Good info!

I'll have a look for the filter whilst I'm in La Paz! Thanks! That said, I just changed the wheel bearings, chainset and front and rear brake pads so I'm kind of fed up with maintenance...! I notice my head bearings are gone (again) and the fork seals (again)!

I managed to pick up a 16 tooth sprocket....alas only one tooth smaller, but it will help....a little! as far as I know the Bros and the XR are the same....I'll check the rear sprockets when I see one in the street to see if it collaborates. I say this as when I go for parts I always say "bros" rather than eh-kuh-say-aire as it's a bit easier for my mouth in Spanish! The sprocket I have now is taken from the Honda NXR150.....which is perhaps the bike to have!

So, to answer your question about if I like the bike, I'm afraid no I'm not really happy with it. That said, I think I expect a lot more of it than I did my Yamaha...however....

The old Yamaha, which was fuel injected was a monster! I could take that thing anywhere. I could write a lot about this but to keep it simple, essentially,

-I can't take the Honda anywhere, if I think of some of the roads I did on the Yamaha and I think "There is no way the Honda would have made it up."

-Fuel economy is upto 50% worse, meaning a multitude of woes! one being fuel tank range is a dismal 350km (the Yammy was upto 650km!), I might as well have a big bike. Just think how far I could go with the Yammy with a 5litre jerry can as well!

-things seem to wear out very quickly on the Honda (though I understadn it's hard to be fair in comparing this) bearings and chains, brake pads, fork seals, (but maybe it's the road and weather conditions being harsher here than Africa....though I don't think so.). Luckily the engine seems okay, one very small oil leak only. Lots of rain early on with the Honda and I put it down to that, but good weather since makes me debate things.

-With the Yamaha I never had to think "Umm, shit I might not be able to make it back up here..." i.e. if the road became impassable ahead, or if looking for a camp-spot down a steep side-trail. In fact I had TOTAL confidence in the Yamaha (until it broke!) and I don't in the Honda.

-Working on the Yamaha engine was just a bit easier, two caps to gain access to the engine valves, side cover for the air filter. Honda means removing all my bags, and the saddle (not horrific, but still...) and the valves mean removing the tank, the engine cover and exhaust gas return pipe. To adjust the carb I have to remove it (but this is only pilot screw and so essentially unnecessary).

-No adjustment on the rear shock, and when it breaks it's expensive, the Yammys two shock actually worked pretty good for quite a long time, far from great of course, but at least they had pre-load adjustment and cheap to replace. That said, I think the Honda ride is better as it has a little more travel, but without any rear adjustment the bike has way too much sag, but this is expected of course, even on big bikes I think without shock modification.)

-tires, Honda has 19 and 17" tires which are a bit awkward to find good replacements, especially the 19" front (lots of street tires or OEM copies which are not upto much). (A Yamaha XT125 for example uses the more normal 18 and 21"....my mistake as much as anything.)

-Anything slightly uphill, from a standign start with the Honda, especially when cold, is a struggle! Add to that rough, steep and at altitude and essentially you have one really annoyed klous! Pullign away at traffic lights even in La Paz for instance! I have to be doing 20kmh before the engien realyl starts to kick in, 35kmh (in 1st!) up steep rough stuff, but even then.....it diiiiiiieeeeeessssss!

STILL....without having the yamaha side-by-side it's hard to really fair...

So, the NXR150 I mentioned, is the same chassis but with the benefit of 25cc more and most importantly it is fuel injected! I very nearly bought one of these but some dickhead told me not to buy it! I regret this decision immensely. I think that despite the other niggles this might be a good buy (so long as the fuel injection doesn't break, and that is rare). It is quite a bit more money than the regular XR mind you. It also means you have a fuel gauge rather than a reserve that gives you 8km as I have mentioned above I think in my blog.

Having said this, I met a chap on a Honda CGL125 (Brazilian), and this was even worse than mine. (Through gearing I assume).

So concludes my monologue!

In case anyone is not aware, there is the,

The website

Facebook Fanpage

and, sorry Grant....
ADV Thread

On the webpage there are a glut of photos, stories, maps, FAQs and all that shenanigans.

Hola Klaus,
i appreciate the time you took to answer my question!
Even if i answer wasn't the answer i wanted........(poor honda:()
But i know what you meen, my wife has a suzuki gn125
and that thing goes everywhere you want( a lot) more pulling power
than the honda xr125.
But that has changed with the chance of the sprocket and air-filter.
Fuel consumption 34km per liter.
Hopefully i have more luck with the maintenance part than you had.
I know two xr125l's that have high mileage without trouble.
1 has about 100.000km and the other has about 135.000km .....(that's really a lot, not?) so there is hope!

You got really good writing skill Klous ....i keep enjoying!

Saludos

No worries!

And thanks likewise!

Yep, that's good mileage from the XRs, hopefully mine will continue to function okay!

I did find one air filter, it was very small. I'll take another look, but I've been sick again these last days so walking to the shops is a big struggle!

Glad you like reading, any ideas or pointers, please let me know!

Thanks again!
Nick

I think you need to buy a nice Suzuki GN125. Although mine is a little slower than your old Yamaha it should go faster than your Honda. If you ride it then you will have a considerable weight advantage over me riding and it'll go even faster. It will probably be up for sale at the end of 2013 but you would need to come to Mexico to pick it up. This means you could spend Xmas with us and make us some Yorkshire Pudding. The bike is in near new condition and is regularly washed and polished.
Good to see you are still on the dirt roads south.

Garry

:clap:Haha! Now, I am told that the Suzuki does have rip-roaring power! But you are right, no math for little Rudolf the YBR! Still a Xmas dinner sounds pretty tempting, even if the return leg is a bit of a stretch...! in any case, we need to get Duncan and Rob there too, otherwse we'll be eating yorkshire puddings and apple pie....could always make a yorkshire pie (ie with apples)....

I always thought you'd sell the STROM! I thought i might have tempted you with my lovely tales!

And my next bike s most likely a move back to Yamaha (I love those guys!), a WR250X....but maybe, just maybe, a DRZ400....but that will be in 2013 or 2014 after some work :thumbdown:

Hi, I have one quick question for you -as another budget traveller to another.
Are you actually managing on $5 a day? If so how are you doing it? Because fuel to move more than 5 km per day cost that.

Not quite anymore.

Depends where I am of course, and you are right, fuel is the key. Ecuador was cheap, at $1.50 a gallon, but even then of course it is $4.50 to fill the tank. Having said that I might not re-fill for two or even three days if I am on some difficult and, therefore slow trails.

On the flip side, in Peru the fuel is $1.50 per litre! So to fill my tank it was $18! Oh man oh man! Peru is killer! In Bolivia a bit better, 45c per litre.

Food is cheap, and I spend little there and that, is my only other daily outlay. Oatmeal, fruit, bread, rice, vegetables, tea and my budget killer...biscuits!

A big change was the bike, the Yamaha I had originally had a 50km/litre fuel economy! The Honda I ride now is much worse!

AND!! One still must add on parts, women, boats, visas, and customs....

Luckily though my budget is a bit more comfortable now too, in Africa I was really tight on cash.

So, yes, the title is a big fat lie. Someone else gave me the idea to use this type of title ("they" always know best don't they), to try and entice the readers! But, it should really read "As little as $5! per day", alas, I can't change it now :(

As such I'd like to apologise to all, really, as I hate lies and the blog is otherwise quite honest.

Having said all this, I doubt anyone spends less than me, and that was really the whole point.

And, I certainly manage more than 5km though, it's not a panzer.

Lots of new photos on the website from Bolivia if you'd like to take a look, and on facebook too,

Photos Website

Photos Facebook

Nick

There's some new photos (Bolivia Part 2) on the webpage (and facebook once the upload completes).

Sorry there are so many, I tried my bestest to delete them...

Website photos are here http://www.talesfromthesaddle.com/picasa/photos.shtml

Facebook will be here, but please wait a few minutes, the internet's pretty bad....
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?s...7388151&type=1

Hope you like them,
Nick

Five bucks a day ? Inspirational. Pity I missed you in Cape town

I spend more than $5 now(see answer above)...because I can (thank God!)... still pretty cheap though I think...I'm thinking of doing a piece on how to save money....

Anyway, glad you like it (well, that's if you still think so if I spend $7? :o) )

If you are interested in budget, since leaving San Fran (in Sept or Oct 2010) I've spent something LIKE $13,500....(I thought it was as little as 10k....hence the edit, I'd forgotten a cash job in Guate, sold my car back home and my exchange rate was a little low. Hopefully now is there or thereabouts.)

I might be wrong this is a quick check of statements, so maybe there's something I'm missing. Remember, this includes a $1500 plane ticket home, a new bike and $450 to cross Darien and about 800 days (it being December).

Budget
 

I've looked more closely, and spoke to my folks at home, and have come up with this....

Since September 2010 when I landed in San Francisco, USA until now December 2012 (Bolivia) I've spent roughly $13,000. This is working it out with an exchange rate of 1.6 US$ to 1GBP (I'm British so work in pounds usually, but for easy understanding for all).

This includes;

A new bike in Guatemala - (18,500Qs) $2350
A visit/flight home $1250
Replacement of worn out camping stuff when I went home, $1000
Crossing Darien - $450
And $500 on health insurance.

I worked in Guatemala, and at home when I visited a total time of about 5 or 5.5 months, I also sold my old car (and had to pay to get it road worthy to do so!, I forget how much that was)....but hopefully this gives some indication. I don't think this includes shipping my original bike (...that later broke in Guatemala) from South Korea (where I worked after the Africa stint) which cost $1000, as I paid for that in Korean Wan and so from another bank account.

New Blog Post, Bolivia
 

New blog post:

Bolivia Part One: Blog - Tales from the Saddle - Solo Motorcycle Tour Around the World on a Yamaha YBR 125 and Honda XR125


You can also download ebooks files for:

Kindle AZW file is here:
http://www.readability.com/articles/...wnload/kindle/

Or an Epub file for other readers is here:
http://www.readability.com/articles/...download/epub/

Photos from the Carretera Austral
 

Some new photos on the website and on facebook, from the Carretera Austral:

For website photos click here.

For facebook photos click here

Here are just a couple:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.n...68439297_n.jpg

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.n...56232750_n.jpg

Good to see you are still out there.
We hope to start our trip soon. I don´t think we will have a blog but Ivonne bought a fancy camera so we may post pics.
Keep an eye out for us in South America.

Garry

Thanks Garry! To be honest a blog is a lot of work....I think it is better not to have one and spend your time enjoying yourself! You definitely need photos and you'll be needing a SuperTrigaToneGibyte memory card to go with the fancy camera...

I might wind my own blog down too after I've finished the S.Am bit, criticisms and people trying to prove they are better than you are quite tiring. Still, I'd raelly like to see your own pictures and see how you are enjoying things!

It's amazing how quick the time has come! You must be really excited after the long wait, all the best....have you set a date?

Lagunas Route
 

New Blog Post finally:
Blog - Tales from the Saddle - Solo Motorcycle Tour Around the World on a Yamaha YBR 125 and Honda XR125

This one from the Lagunas Route in Bolivia.

I'm hoping to write slightly shorter posts more regularly....more photos too.

I hope you like it.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4CQSd5XaoV..._5348+copy.jpg

Lagunas Route Part 1
 

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4CQSd5XaoV..._5348+copy.jpg
Continuing from Uyuni Salt flat from part one…..Read the continuing story from the town of Uyuni where I'd previously returned defeated - and tired - in the previous chapter Bolivia Part One, after an unsuccessful search for fuel in Bolivia's altiplano.* Now I try again, riding 700km in the south-west corner of Bolivia on its famous, popular and remote Lagunas Route.* But the fuel issues weren't over as I rode and continued on my way round Bolivia via ghost towns and endless high passes and volcanic lakes to finally leave the altiplano heading to geologically stupendous Tupiza in search of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid!*




Download Kindle File (MOBI)
Download ePub
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Valle de RocasThe wind charges through like rushing ghosts and the red rock reaches out of the ocean of sand like hands and waves fighting against the tide.* The tent, for once, is cosily placed, embraced and shielded by one of these tall red waves of rock, out of ghostly reach.


I turn off the stove and pour the hot water on a tea bag before turning to my book.* A lizard scurries along the course sand and I look up to see him curl between the cooling stove and a warm rock.* His skin is the colour of pebbles and he looks back to me with innocent black eyes as with his quick forked tongue he tastes the air.* It tastes of tea and feet.* I move for my hot cup of sweet tea and he scurry-scurries away to back from where he came.** I turn back to my book and before reaching the very same line on the page, he is there again…..and then again, always the same spot.



“You’re a brave fella, aren’t you…..curious at least….hey, you’re not coming in my tent are you?”


Considering this perhaps, the lizard looks for a while longer, before this time courageously scampering quickly around and behind the tent, out of sight.* He must be going home, for the sun is beginning to set.* I think about reading the same sentence in my book for the umpteenth time, but with the temperature dropping, so too is the wind; time to go off and get some photos.



http://lh4.ggpht.com/-2cXlDJNs-Hw/Ua...jpg?imgmax=800Walking, I watch as the rock turns deeper and deeper orange and the sky morphs into a huge and spotless dome of violet.* I take pictures of the colourful waves of rock as the shadows rise up from the ground and the world vanishes for the night.


When I return to the tent, the light-show over, I can’t seem to settle my mind enough to relax and read; perhaps it’s the stone claw hanging over my tent waiting to fall and maul me.* But no, it’s not that.* I’m camping in the Valle de Rocas, the first point along the “Ruta de las Lagunas.”* It is a somewhat remote route running south-west on the 4000m high altiplano away from the town of Uyuni and its impeccable salt-flat to the border of Chile.* I can’t really convince myself how long the route is, 400km or 700km….all those little twists in the map’s lines.* And, though remote, it is well used; in some areas by mining trucks going to Chile but mainly by numerous 4x4 tour groups, having the effect – I was to find - of making it not quite so remote after all.* There are villages too, though these are few, far apart and quite small, or otherwise outposts set up mainly to serve the tour groups at key spots.* I’d been lucky to speak with someone in Uyuni during my time there, a man who works in the national park which contains the lagoons and of course the “route” itself.** This meant I knew the best route, according to him at least, and importantly where I could get fuel.


Even so, the first and most secure point for fuel, San Cristobal, just 85km from Uyuni and which actually boasts a service station, was out of fuel.* After a long search there, a friendly beer, knocking tentatively on doors, telephone calls, and a lengthy walk, I managed to secure two cola bottles full of fuel (4 litres/1 gallon).* And so the reason for my restlessness; did I have the fuel to get me to the next point, Quetena Chico?* A small village according to the map, no service station, “bolsa negra” (black bag) only and so; would they even have fuel?

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First two days on the Lagunas Route

As the temperature cools I bundle myself up amongst the sleeping bag, sat on airbed and surrounded by my familiar heaps of paraphernalia.* No amount of staring at the map and gauging distances with finger, thumb and screwed-up face can soothe my fears.* How much fuel have I used anyway?* With the wind having dropped I can now safely add the final two litre cola bottle of fuel into the tank.* I heave myself from the tent and pick up the now dusty bottle, looking at it forlornly in the last of the day’s light.* All this worry for a liquid, so important, what will we do when we run out of it for good?* It’s then I notice that the fuel is full of….spermy bits!* Little translucent white bits floating around languidly from top to bottom.* I take the cap off, knowing the reason already, the little rubber seal within the cap, great to keep the fizz in one’s coke, but obviously: not solvent proof.* On the bright side it isn’t sperm, but the rubber has dissolved into a slimy gunk, now floating within the fuel.* With some panic-stricken thinking I cut another bottle in half for a funnel and filter the fuel through the only thing that comes to mind: my old helmet bag.* Luckily it seems to work, though for safety’s sake I let the bottle stand overnight for any fine solids to settle in the bottom.

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Not a solvent proof lid seal!

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Filtering the fuel through the helmet bag!
The fuel looks as fine and clear as the crystal cool-blue morning and so I add it to the tank, which takes on its reassuring fullness once again, as hoped.* This means my calculations, even at altitude seem to be accurate so far and confidence is restored.


I unfold my tattered map of Bolivia which shows the road continuing west from camp before turning left and south - not too far from the border with Chile –towards the lakes.* But after an hour or so riding I reach a line of parked-up trucks with the road still continuing west; I’ve made a mistake, I’ve missed the turn-off.* A friendly Bolivian border official comes trotting over the dry arid land and asks me where I’m going.* He confirms my error and points me back to where the turning was, where I’ve just come from, “Yeah, I saw it!* I just didn’t think it was the one!” I say, recalling the only turn–off along the road.* He smiles back as if to say “bad luck, but don’t worry, you won’t run out of fuel.”* Still, it’s a long 30km back, and so I’m down 60km of vital fuel.*

What little time I don’t spend cursing myself on the 30km return, I spend re-doing maths; juggling fuel quantities and distances; can I still reach Quetena?* My guesswork has it that at sea level I could do 440km, going very slow and with an absolutely brimming tank.* Here, considering the altitude considerably less, perhaps 350km.* But whilst these and more numbers swirl around my head, I still don’t really know how far it is anyway, so it’s elementary, and with all the worry I’m missing the scenery.

It’s a great relief to finally return to the missed junction, turning off between two tall dark volcanoes, the 5858m Caquella and 4903m Chulluncani, and though still cursing my mistake I am now at least making headway south.* It’s a nice track too, rising up to the shoulder between these two volcanoes but, wanting to conserve fuel, I try to maintain a barely open throttle.* However, this steep rise has me wincing as I must twist the grip, rev the engine and encourage the low-powered and thirsty mule uphill.

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Very tame flamingos along the lagunas route
Dropping down from the crest, through a broad sandy section littered with squirming 4x4 tracks, two cyclists push their way doggedly upwards towards me.* I pass them some way off to the right as the tail of the bike squirms through the sand.* For me now it’s downhill at least and a little farther on and I reach the first lagoon; a deep shadowy blue teeming with big-beaked and plump flamingos.* I step off the bike next to one of many 4x4s and get talking with one of the drivers and accompanying guides.

”How’s your group,” I ask, ”nice people?”*
”Yup, pretty good I think…” he says looking to his guide for confirmation, who nods as she bites into an apple, “it's only the first day.* Five Germans, over there…”* he adds pointing through dust raised by other vehicles which are turning up and disgorging stiff-limbed tourists left and right.
”There’s a lot of tourists….,” I say, “it’s like Cusco.”
”Ha!* Always!….You’ve been to Cusco?”
”Yeah!* That place is llenisimo with gringos!* But it’s really nice!”
“So, you’ve been to Machu Picchu?”
”No, actually….it’s very expensive, and anyway…here’s more my sort of thing!”
”It’s beautiful no?!* Hey, want an apple?”*
“Ooh, yeah, thanks….actually,” I say staring up at his roof rack, “you don’t have any spare fuel do you?* It’s just, I missed the turn back there and might be a bit short.”
”Yeah, sure…how much do you need?” He pops the bonnet on his Toyota Landcruiser and very kindly fills my two coke bottles from its fuel pump.* His group return and - seeing the car’s bonnet up - get a bit testy with the driver, fearing something is wrong with the car.* The driver quickly shuts the bonnet and says “adios”, leaving me to do more maths in the dust.


http://www.stinkbrown.org/wp-content...s-man-math.jpg
A Buddhist Koan.....without the enlightenment!However I calculate it, I can at the very least make my first planned camp at Laguna Colorado, and so for today I should have no worries.* That said, it is about 180km away, and together with the 60km detour and my lackadaisical moto, it will mean a long day, if I can get there at all.* I leave my unanswered riddles scratched into the dust to push on, skirting around and above this lake onto a plateau and following the seemingly endless chain of the volcanic Andes bursting out of the ground on my right, ever south.* The route fans out here as the landscape opens up and the 4x4s look for dust-free air and smooth untouched earth.* I see one or two of the 4x4s flying along the horizon far off to my right and left, as if going for the land-speed record sending up dust, and yet hardly moving at all until, all of a sudden, they are gone.*

All these trails actually make the place look a bit abused.* I often think about the damage I’m doing by travelling, living.* When I camp in the desert especially and see the patch where the tent has been I feel sorry.* Around it; perhaps bits of toothpaste and cooking residues, somewhere a toilet and always footprints. I hate to see my footprints, hundreds it seems, in just one night.* I’m quite a clean camper but my presence is obvious.* Nature is powerful, but the desert is weaker and will take years before those and these marks are smoothed over.

They’re not smooth now.* Criss-crossing over the rough and corrugated landscape, and I’d been warned about the sand here, but have encountered only a little.* I find the bike terrible on these corrugations.* Sometimes if the wind is behind or if it’s a tiny downhill gradient I can fly along at full-speed and hardly feel them, but the other way around and it is like trying to ride over railway girders and the bike just stops.* Riding out from Uyuni on my way here to my first camp, I could ride full speed; 80-90kmh, whereas - if you remember from Chapter 1 of Bolivia - I nearly drove myself insane trying to ride to Uyuni on the very same road, at* about 40kmh.* Here it seems worse still, I can hardly get going at all and I toss my fuel conservation strategy aside like Bolivian litter and instead grab some throttle.* The corrugations cost me a gear, down to fourth, the altitude another, the wind - which is directly against - one more, and any upward incline at least one more; I’m in minus first!* I actually spend most of the day in first and second gear, the engine screaming and my inner voice too.
*
The landscape is generally flat or gently undulating, and whilst any sort of gradient uphill here means running in first gear, a downhill has hardly any effect at all and I’m still stuck in second gear.* Sometimes, if I race the engine to the point where I can feel my teeth vibrating against the underside of my brain, I can possibly get into third gear, but only momentarily as I frustratingly hear the engine fading, before angrily having to kick back down to wide-open-second, and never up to fourth.* It’s incredible.* It’s interminable!* The wind doesn’t seem that bad; not fast but it just ‘thick’ as if riding through glue.* I can’t imagine how it must be for the cyclists, the true heroes here, miserable perhaps mind you, or so it appears.

I’d started early this morning in an attempt to miss the increasing winds of the afternoons, but my 60km detour has scuppered that.* Part of the problem, mentally at least, is the huge visibility in this massive landscape, meaning that I feel as if I am barely making headway!* I am barely making headway!* 30km/h.* I think about asking a bicyclist to swap, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about fuel!* It is however, a glorious landscape but sadly I am not enjoying this as much as I should.* I wonder if it is because of the bike, or myself; my impatience, or if the area isn’t as good as I’d somehow expected?* Or are the 4x4s and tourists distracting and detracting from it all, too many humans perhaps, the great consumers leaving me only footprints or tyre-marks.

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One of the numerous beautiful lakes....and a 4x4!

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Second gear folks.....
It’s late in the afternoon and with my mind fixed on reaching Laguna Colorado to camp I haven’t thought about food.* At a particularly stupendous black-red sweep of land I decide to stop and eat, slumping down on to the ground behind the bike. The wind though, ever present, quickly dries my bread to dust in my hand.* I eat only half a piece and with a sigh toss the rest into the top-box and push on again.* I hope I’m close.* Not far away and I enter the national park boundaries and here the trails funnel down into one track and, well used, become smoother.* Finally, summiting a sweeping rise Laguna Colorado comes into view, my planned camp-spot, and what a sight!* An expansive puddle of wine-red lake and salt in a volcanic bowl!



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Laguna Colarada
Adjacent to the lake is the entrance to the national park and I am a bit dismayed to find that it costs 150Bs($22) to enter (compared to 15Bs in Peru for a national park).* I’m given a seat in the office as tour-groups come and go for tickets.* One of the guides, having seen me pass-by earlier, asks me why I didn’t stop for the Rock Tree, one of the famous sights along the route.* “Ahh!* I thought I’d seen it in the Valle de Rocas!….* Meh,” I groan dejected, ”it’s just a rock….”* The guide laughs, but I sure don’t, and I’m disappointed as I can’t go back for lack of fuel.* My rock tree was not nearly as good I later learnt.

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NOT the rock tree!!!
I top up my water-bag amongst the wood shacks, that are hotels, before riding away from the entrance hut up to the viewpoint of the lake.* As I go I wonder where I might camp as, despite the fee, I’m not allowed to at the lake and curse the effort of the day trying to reach here and the good camp opportunities passed….Soon forgotten, I move onto concentrate how best to capture this fabulous lake in a photo.* I stand at the top of the viewpoint upon pale boulders worn smooth by feet and look out over the lake before snapping away a few shots.* But, for some reason my attempts all come out blue!* 4x4s turn up, as I stare at my camera in dismay, people debouch, take a picture doubtless oozing full of red, maybe a smiley pose or two, cheesy grins to go with the smooth wine lake, and then leave, one 4x4 after the other.* I notice now the dilapidated tourist village of shacks over there, even more 4x4s over there, and the bright colours of outdoor gear dotting the landscape shuffling about here and there….and my pictures are blue.* I’m starting to feel blue!* Well, not exactly, but I’ve felt better, I’ve felt happier, I’ve seen lakes, not red ones but wet ones, nice lakes, blue, yellow, salty, flamingos, volcanoes….but alone, really alone, in unspoilt landscapes and for all these things they seemed so much the better.* At least that’s what I assume it is.* Or, is it me?* Or is it the place?* I’m a bit worried.* I hope I’m not “travelled out”.* I’d have to find out.

I ride all the way around the lake, north, south, east, west…blue, blue, blue….BLUE!* God damn, GOD DAMN!* said Beatrix Kiddo.* Obviously the red bacteria that cause the colour are camera shy!* Still, it’s approaching 6pm, time to find camp.* I scan the vast landscape and notice a canyon cutting into the flatness a few kilometres off, a deepening gash heading towards the volcanoes.* The road seems to pass nearby and I should be able to ride into it and get out of the strong cold wind.

A green-backed vizcacha (chinchilla) darts up the smooth fractured rock as I ride up along the sandy base of the canyon and then push a little farther to a large ice fissure.* Surely the creek is the campers favourite, a fine spot and respite from the wind.

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A fine camp to end Day Two
Whilst nights are chilly the sun rises almost vertically and in no time at all has replaced the dry chill with searing heat.* The canyon’s walls however mean a good chance to rest in shade and recoup after the long day prior and I spend a good part of the morning reading.* When I finally ride out and on to the road I notice that the lake looks red already, and more red than yesterday, contradicting what the guides had told me, that it was only red in the late afternoon.* I hum and haw before deciding to throw caution to the altiplano’s already potent wind and burn a little fuel in hopes of getting a red photo….alas, I end up with caution all over my trousers in a smelly yellow stain, it was only red from afar and I wasted fuel pointlessly.* Lakes.

I soon forget it as I ride up the hill beyond camp, riding slowly up the burnt-orange hill.* A solo bicyclist frantically spins the granny-gear, he gives a jovial wave as I pass, met with my chilly gloved thumb.** Farther on I meet two mining trucks bound for Chile and thence Europe, and I follow in their choking dust-cloud, before managing to slip past them on my way to the “Sol de Mañana” geyser.* I was told that the best time to see the geyser is at 5am when the sun is just about to pop-up, hence the name “Morning Sun”.* I’m not sure if this is because it is more active at this hour or simply looks better in the sunrise.* An agreeable hour however it is not, and I saunter on over at a more languid 12:30pm.*

Here the trail winds between steaming holes, bubbling mud-pots and sulphurous smells, and of course more 4x4s.* Some of the tourists come over to talk, friendly fellows all, but meetings are momentary, terrified as the people are of being abandoned in the altiplano by their 4x4’s eager drivers.* I ask them how they are enjoying it, in hopes of finding out an answer to my fears from yesterday; if it’s just me, or the place.* The consensus seems to be a shrug accompanied by a “mwehh”, one tells me, “laguna Verde was all right…” and one girl seems to be having a bad time of her group who all know each other and get drunk together each night….without her.* Maybe it’s not just me after all though it’s hard to say as often their questions, answers and converse are usually brief and cut off mid-sent…..

And punctuated by a cloud of dust!

Once the dust settles I trundle off and find that actually the riding is nicer today, perhaps as today’s distance is much less.* It is smoother and less windy too as well as the ever present and awe inspiring volcanoes, huge landscapes and even more lagoons to see.* First up is Salty Lagoon, then on the way to White Lagoon sprouting out of the dune fine sands are the impressive Salvador Dali Rocks, named after the Spanish surrealist painter, though for why I know not!* Then, just beyond Laguna Blanca is the piece de resistance….Laguna Verde.** I can’t wait for this one.* But I’m afraid I’ll have to as I now run out of fuel.* Ahhh nuts.* It means I’ve managed a pathetic 270km on a brimming tank, 22.5km/l.* This would never have happened with the almighty Rudolf.* Or even a BigMoneyWaster 1200GS.

There were several reasons I originally chose to ride a 125cc bike.* The main points all reaching towards the same goal; cost.* Cost of bike, cost of spares, cost of shipping, cost of carnet and cost of fuel.* Whilst the bike is reasonable and provides other benefits I hadn’t considered, the engine’s high fuel consumption together with high-wear on ancillary parts means I’ve lost two of the main benefits.* Luckily ancillary parts are cheap here but I use at least 30% more fuel with this bike compared to the Yamaha, and often as much as 50% more!* But even then the total cost of this extra fuel equates to perhaps several hundred GBP (or $) for the whole of South America.* The big loss then, is fuel-tank range.* Old Rodney could run 150km on it’s 3litre reserve alone, this bike has managed less than double that on a full tank, and this time managed a pitiful 5km on reserve.

Still, I have about 400ml of petrol (gas) in my cooking-stove bottle, and one benefit of even this benzene-burner is that it will run on a little puddle…just not for long at 22.5km/l.* I pour in the vital dregs and consider how many times the little red Primus bottle has gotten me out of trouble.* This time though, it could be a few kilometres too far for man and machine and even then only to a refuge.* From there it is a further 80km to the village of Quetena where I hope to fill up the tank completely.* It’s only 10km back to the refuge now and downhill too.* Even so I ride very slowly, watching the trip-metre tick by, 100m, 100m, 100m…100m less to walk.


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Better (clearly fantastic) riding, day 3
Thankfully I make it and pull into the refuge as the bike conks out.* There’s a bicycle parked up outside and as well a solitary 4x4.* The bicyclist is nowhere to be seen but the driver of the 4x4 is hard at work repairing a puncture in a wheel’s inner tube.* It seems he’s out of patches which means that I can help out with those (as I have them in abundance) and luckily he can help me out with fuel (which I don’t).* The driver’s accompanying guide also helps us both out with juice to drink and biscuits.* Another 4litres of fuel, meaning my provisional calculations in Uyuni were pretty dire, that’s 8 litres extra on top of the 18litres I’d planned for…only 45% off.* What can I say, I’m optimistic.* Now, using my recently obtained knowledge, I should hopefully have about a 90km range.* This means that I have about 10km to spare on my way to Quetena.* However, I use most of this looking for a wind-free camp-spot and I’m forced to take a non wind-free spot next to an old salt mill, itself hidden from the main route behind a bluff, next to the Laguna Salada.* It’s late again as I set up, the sky turning to a luxurious swirl of purple and orange marble as the sun sets and I look for boulders to anchor the tent.* I walk around the old salt mill and poke my nose in here and there in the last of the day’s light before returning to and collapsing in the tent.* I quickly tuck myself in the sleeping bag to get it warmed up before the night gets too cold, cook, eat and lie back to sleep with a warm belly.



Lagunas Route, Day 3:http://lh4.ggpht.com/-QHFmeUThiXk/Uc...jpg?imgmax=800

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Days 4, 5 and 6, Click to view map
Rather than follow the somewhat more regular return loop back to Uyuni, or continue south to Chile, I had already decided to continue from the lagoons in an easterly direction, on the still popular route but back towards the heart of Bolivia.* The first stop of course is via a turn-off for Quetena Chico for fuel, water and food supplies.*

Immediately, away from the main north-south route and onto the quieter east-west route to Quetena, I feel much happier, or perhaps at least, more at peace.* I find I get caught up in the humdrum and pace of others around me and so, with the frenetic pace and constant coming and going of the 4x4s, I was trying, subconsciously of course, to keep up.* Or I was otherwise being disturbed by them in a small way, enough to stop me sitting and enjoying, or perhaps just thinking and concentrating.* I prefer to, indeed need to, strip away everything, no clutter, no time limit, no goals, no TV, no internet, no mobile phones, no noise….and no (or few) people.* I’m easily distracted, and we strive often for more, more, more, we all know it, that’s no insight, and maybe we should be striving for less.* Maybe it’s just me, unable to resist the pull of the internet or TV, other people and conversation, bad food and beer, having to have it forcibly taken away to be free of it, to be free.* But, I feel lucky to have had this small insight of not having these and other things available, to be rid of them, and want only to maintain that clearness and simplicity.* But I’m still unsure if these are the real reasons for my earlier disquiet along the route.* Who knows what presses the button that says “Happiness”?

This road does surely does.* First up, after leaving camp I cross the small salt flat that edges up on Laguna Salada, by a road nestled between ploughed shoulders of white salt.* Rising up from here then, on to a gritty desert plateau where there are more lovely lakes to be seen – oddly one never tires.* There are even one or two houses now too, people farming the salt and just one or two 4x4s, the drivers wave now as I pass by, a good sign anywhere.* Otherwise I am alone again, with the exception of the flamingos, ever present, though now they fly away when I approach, as opposed to the busier lakes where they stayed put, but this makes for spectacular photos especially with my adept usage of the Canon (ahhh, but for an SLR):

Lagunas Route Part 2
 

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Slightly less tame flamingos, but equally photogenic!
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Excellent section here riding to Quetena
At camp on day two, I’d noticed that the number plate of the bike was breaking at it’s mounts thanks to the continuous vibrations from bumping over the corrugations.* I’d tightened the nuts and put a zip-tie through one of the holes as backup security.* Today, thirty kilometres out from camp and trying my best to fill a memory card with honking flamingos I notice that the zip-tie is there, but Houdini the number plate has gone!* Mieeerrrrrrde!* I go through my morning photos to see when it was last in place, and the only photo I can see the plate still fixed to the bike is at the salt-lake; hanging from the zip-tie.* This means that it is somewhere between me and a point 2km from camp.* Who knows; it could be just over there, 500m away, or it could be 28km.* It makes no difference, I don’t have the fuel to get it in either case.* This said, I can’t leave it, I’ll have problems at borders and checkpoints without it.* It means I’ll have to ride the 40km remaining to Quetena, fuel up, then ride the 60km back in the hope that no one has picked it up….then return back to Quetena again, another 60km!


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Ride this three times....no problem!
“Huhhh, bollox,” I sigh as I slump in to the saddle, “you idiot.”* I pop the helmet back on and slip in my glasses, which scrape painfully against the side of my head and look up.* To the left and far off to the right ahead I can see cone-shaped snow-topped volcanoes, amongst them the highest in the area, Uturunco at 6008m, purple and black.* I smile, I’ll happily ride this twice!* The road tends to the left towards the lesser volcano, and then drops very steeply into and then across a deep-cut and gorgeous sandstone water channel.* When it rains the water must rush down from the un-vegetated sides of the volcanoes and down through this channel.* But for now, during the eight months when hardly a drop of rain will fall, it is a broad and gentle, spongy green stream teeming with grazing llamas and their indigenous female herders.


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Llamas grazing in the lovely mossy channel, Uturunco in the background at 6008m
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To the left, and continuing on across the channel, brilliant!
There are two villages with the name Quetena; Quetena Chico and Quetena Grande, ironically Chico is the bigger, but it is Grande that I come to first.* On either side of the road are crumbling adobe homes, turning to dust in the dry heat of altiplano daytime.* Places like this make me think of Egypt, or Sudan, some ancient ruins, and yet lived in.* Camels wouldn’t look out of place.* A biker does, though perhaps only a little here, and soon a friendly man comes over from stacking pale adobe bricks, making a house next to the village square.** He rubs his dusty builder’s hands on his blue shirt and shakes my hand.* We chat, always his tongue poking out to one side of his cheeky face as if in perplexed thought.* Perhaps though, it’s my Spanish, or because we have to speak Spanish at all and not his first language, Aymara.

“Where are you from?” he asks going to peer around the back of the bike,
“England.” (it is only rarely that people know ‘UK’ or ‘Wales’).
“England!* Hey, you’ve got no plate?”
“Yeah, it fell off back there!”
“But why didn’t you go and get it?”
“I couldn’t!* I don’t have any fuel.* Actually, it’s why I’m here, I’m going to go back now.* 60km!”
“60km….” he ruminates, perhaps the number means little to him.
“Yeah, ummm….I think it’s near the salt-flat.”
“The salt flat….!* Puhff, that’s a really long way!”
“Not as far as England!”
“How far is that?” he says, ruminating again.
“Depends, about sixteen hours.”
“You rode sixteen hours on a bike!?”
“No, that’s in a plane….it’s about 9000km.* You can’t drive it, it’s over an ocean.”
“Pufhh! Nine-thousand!* Well, anyway, I’ve got some fuel.* Head over there,” he says pointing across the square, “and I’ll come over in a second.”
“What that one there?”
“Yeah, the shop.”
****
I trundle over, not quite sure where he means, I don’t see any shops, not one and don’t want to look a wally, hard as that is.* But soon he is there again, with a smile, a good smile, that tells me that I’m in good honest hands, which now point the way, “Go on, go on!”* guiding me in.* I ride into his dusty courtyard which resembles a miniature refuse dump; toys and bicycles, bits of car, an old motorcycle, animal skins, plastic bottles.* He sends his little five year old nephew off in his dirty sweat-pants to search the village for some bread.* After a long while, the bike still empty, Alfonso, the man, get’s his wife to make me “tallarin,” spaghetti with chunks of beef, pepper and onion.* We eat together at a rough wooden table in a small and dark cave-like room of the house.* In the room, a hammock is occupied by a sleeping baby niece, which the woman swings reflexively.* A double bed, a wood oven and wood stove, and a TV complete the house.
*****
Alfonso does have a shop too, which his wife runs.* At regular intervals, people poke their faces into the darkness of the house to ask for laundry soap, cheese or sodas from the shop, though usually the answer is “there isn’t any”.* I need to stock up myself and go inside to look, though like all altiplano shops the shelves are filled with only sweets, biscuits and tinned food (no problems for me then!).* The nephew eventually returns, though sadly empty handed, the village is out of bread and so he continues his game of driving a plastic truck beneath my motorcycle.* I’m given some of the family’s own bread and I argue with Alfonso about this, not wanting to take their food but they insist.* It’s unleavened, and made with fat instead, to resemble a puffed up cream-cracker; free, fresh and yummylicious.


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Alfonso and his Jawa 350cc two-stroke!* A lovely, lovely man.
I thank Alfonso and tell him that I’ll be back tomorrow morning needing more fuel if he can spare it - and more yummy bread.* I then start back up the road up to the higher plain via the llama canyon, towards yesterday’s camp and hopefully the number plate.* Now though, that steep descent on my way here is a steep ascent and actually a much steeper one than I realised.* It’s too steep for Rodney and even with a ferocious run-up the bike won’t even start up it.* The hill is long, continuously steep and a little rocky.* Even so, I was hoping to make it at least most of the way.* I sigh as I lay the bike on its side-stand and start removing the bags, panniers and top-box and carry them two-by-two to hide them up amongst the rocks.* A family of chinchillas play here, long tails streaking through the air as they jump from rock to rock, squeaking with joy…or laughing at my bike, “watch my stuff whilst I run up the hill fellas…”

And run I do.* Even unloaded the bike manages only a few hundred metres and I start pushing, running alongside and up the loose gravel trail.* I’m soon left paralysed with exhaustion, and slump over the bars to gasp for breath which won’t come quick enough.*



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Hell's teeth!* Pushing again in thin air at around 4500m.
With a bit of growl I gain the top of the hill and heft myself into the saddle and ride along for a farther fifty-two kilometres before, having just caught my breath back, spotting the number plate sat in the dirt.* Gratefully I slip it into the map case, turn about and start back.* Downhill, downwind and unloaded I can race along now to collect my bags from the chinchillas, and then look for a cosy camp; lower and warmer.* However, it’s hard to get out of the wind, even here in the gully where I’d expected an easy time.* Tired, I go on foot and try numerous nooks and crannies that might suit the tent and be free of wind, but eventually settle with something only so-so in this respect, though a lovely spot.* I go hunting for boulders amongst the soft sand to anchor the tent and I consider just putting the sleeping bag out against the rocks but fear scorpions and ruthless chinchillas.* Once the tent is up, I drop inside and start brewing up.* As the stove purrs delightfully, I see through the tent porch the women, cloaked in red shawls held to their faces against the wind herding the podgy well-fed llamas back home.* Leaving me with the just the sound of trickling water turning to ice as the air cools and another unbelievable sunset.*


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Sunsets are always fantastic on the altiplano
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In Quetena Grande again the next morning and I get fuel, though this time with Alfonso Jr., bread however is completely elusive.* The next fuel stop shouldn’t be too far away, San Pablo de Lipez I hope, perhaps 250km.* Once I leave I pass several locals along the road riding Jawa 2-stroke 350ccs, the motorcycle of choice in the countryside.* They remind me of old Triumphs and seem just as useless, but have the advantage that they actually hold their oil!* I cross the river again before reaching the far entrance of the national park, though the office is deserted.* The road splits, one way heads back to Uyuni, and the other, my road, heads east to Tupiza.* Not long after moving off and I see a sign to Laguna Celeste.* I don’t know what Celeste means in Spanish (well, I do now), I just think of pirates.* I’m not sure if it’s worth the trip, or how far it is.* But with the tank full I’m feeling confident (complacent) that I can make it to the next fuel stop, a few extra kilometres won’t hurt, and so I decide to head off.

I trundle along slowly, indecisive whether this might be a waste of time, especially as the kilometres build and I become unsure whether to carry on or turn about and get to San Pablo for food supplies.* I often take these tempting trails, not wanting to miss out, only to get to the end and think “that’s why no one comes this way!”* Sometimes of course you might find a gem and this time I’m also thinking that if it is a nice spot I could set camp early, an early finish sounds good.* It’s another pretty trail, though not in great condition, a trail made through use, rather than actually made; riding over slabby rocks like thick plates of red slate that tinkle beneath the wheels.* It’s not the road but my indecision that slows me down and this slowness makes the trip seem so much farther, which only feeds my indecision!*

Finally I come to the lake, looking down on it from the trail and the red slabby plateau.* It is, well, average.* I can see another silty lake set in a small cauldron in the volcano’s side too, but I can’t reach that one so I slip back into the saddle and continue on the trail to drop down to the head of the so-so lake to camp.* But, though the trail swings down and around, it doesn’t go to the lake’s beach-head.* I continue ever onwards watching the trip-metre anxiously as the kilometres build and build, wondering where the trail will go now.* I pass through a deep gully with sandstone walls rising up on both sides out of the powdery sand, hiding the volcano from view.* Rising out of the gully, what’s this….!* There, I reach the lake.* But, not the one I saw, another one entirely.* A sight I can’t believe.* This is Laguna Celeste; Heavenly Lake, glowing eye-squintingly bright turquoise.* And for some reason, I have it all to myself.


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Holy Heavenly cow!!!!* Laguna Celeste!
In Spanish they use the word celeste to describe this turquoise colour, as well the direct meaning being “heavenly” and it is also used to describe blue eye colour, so they say my eyes are celestial!* Whilst my eyes are not, the lake is certainly heavenly and I will happily camp here, if I can just get out of the wind. I put the tent up besides the biggest boulder I can find and settle in for a stupendously great camp.* The wind fades to absolute stillness and the lake fades to grey, the air filling with it’s icy coolness as the sun sets and the darkness rises.* A cold night ensues.

The small birds twitter lively between themselves in the morning from pockets in the rock face behind me, arguing – probably – why they have their nests over here whilst the morning sun is over there, on the far side of the lake.* I’m certainly wondering the same!* It was a very chilly night, though soon the sun is up and injecting colour into mountains and lake and heat into me.* I feel sad to leave this place behind, and take a longing last look back over my shoulder as I* drop down into the sandy canyon out of which I popped yesterday to be so pleasantly surprised.* I wish I could wrap these places up and take them with me, or at least the feelings they bring, orbs of happiness.* But I can’t, it is gone forever and now I must search again.

I reach the main road quickly, my indecision of yesterday had me believe that it was much farther than the 20km it actually is.* From here a winding road with not a bit of traffic, making me wonder if I will be able to find fuel after-all in Lipez.* The road drops sharply into a broad valley between ridges of volcanoes, towards another deep blue lake ringed with a jagged border of salt.** On the far side of the valley I can see a tremendously steep road running straight upwards with not a single curve.* I assume this is some local trail and that it isn’t the way, at least I hope not.* With the small bike I’m often fearful of dropping into a insurmountable valley, getting stuck in the bottom and have had some close calls in the past.* The road down into this valley is very steep and almost certainly too much for Rodney, and simply too long to push.* The other side looks even steeper.* I hope the road will follow the flat base of this valley and out towards easier ground.* It’s headed that way until I lose it momentarily where the trail has been washed away by rains and a river of sand, before I pick up some vague trails, though now heading straight towards the steep hill.* Rheas (South American emus/ostriches) run alongside at up to 60kmh as I approach the hill and as I reach it I realise that the vertical trail is in fact a short-cut.* The actual road sweeps up in shallower hairpins, but even so it still means pushing Rodney, initially to a viewpoint over the lake at 4855m then up farther still around the back of Mount Maracaracana.
****
From the top of the pass at 4911m one can see the way ahead; a vast expanse of volcanoes, dwarfing the road which resembles a fine thread on the earth’s surface.* It drops and twists into and amongst the tight weave of mountainous knuckles, before rising up and disappearing out of sight.* It’s much quieter here than I expected, no people, houses or traffic and this leaves me not only worrying about fuel but also about food and water and my lack of them.* I remember a bag of peanuts that I have, a rather pricey luxury that I don’t usually carry and so had forgotten about.* I tuck in to them greedily and talk to Rodney as I try to keep the large mouthfuls in their rightful place! “Christ, it’s pretty quiet…nice though….you better not break Rodders, or we’re stuffed.”


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Macchu Pichu
For now at least the bike starts and we drop downwards, though I - and Rodney too no doubt – somewhat hope that maybe the trail will actually turn left out of these mountains on to flatter and easier terrain. Thankfully, it doesn’t and my slight fears are soon forgotten.* Instead it ascends again, delving deeper in to the volcano field, so that they’re rising up on all sides, lifting up out of the earth in mounds of yellow and purple.* The road runs around them, rises up them, or snakes between them and always up close unlike earlier on the Lagunas Route where they often seemed far off in the distance across a huge barren plain.** It’s an immensely enjoyable ride, and as I get closer and closer to my destination, rather than be comforted my fears swell that perhaps I’m somehow on the wrong trail, going the wrong way.* That is until I reach the old ghost town of San Pablo de Lipez an old Spanish silver mining town which, so the story goes, was abandoned when a plague of vizcachas arrived in town, sent by God to rid the place of the people overly greedy for wealth.* Rows of roofless stone houses pass by at my sides as I weave along the ancient streets, passing the main square and church, all set beneath the distant volcano.* Some say that so fast did the people leave that some silver coins remain buried in the area.* Still at 4690m, Rodney chugs up the hill to look back over the whole town, my Machu Picchu perhaps.

The new San Antonio is some way off, and rather than stone it is adobe houses.* I find a shop amongst them and buy the only things available, Pony Malt (unfermented beer, horrid) and biscuits.* I sit against the wall as a short train of 4x4s pass through, the first I’ve seen since yesterday.* Some local boys come over to talk, stare and answer my questions in painfully short monosyllables;

“You have brothers and sisters?”
”Si.”
”How many?”
”Four”
”What, brothers?”
”Yes.”
”All four?”
”No.”
”So some are sisters?”
”Yes.”
”Do you like Pony Malt?”
”Yes.”
”Really!* Here, have it….do you want it?”
”Yes.”

And so on infinitum.* They do however help me find petrol, from a girl who speaks even less, and then look for water which won’t reach the petrol seller’s house on the hill, too high and too little pressure.* I find the culprit a woman daring to fill laundry bowls slowly with the full force of the water system, a dribbling trickle from the tap.* I poke my head in shyly and ask the two girls who begin giggling equally shyly, if I can fill up my bottle.** With not a vegetable to be seen dinner looks set to be rice pudding and tea and with that culinary thought tempting my empty belly I leave Lipez to continue on to Tupiza….and buy a much needed banana.

I find apples later in distant San Pablo and despite knocking on numerous doors which lead to hidden shops, much chatting with locals, both bread and bananas remain elusive.* I return to the bike, parked up in the square beneath a blond thatch roof of straw and next to the adobe bell tower of the church.* Here the local men on long car journeys stop, hammer fists impatiently on a metal door to another cave of treasure and are handed bottles of beer which they drink noisily, before leaving the bottles on the side and tearing off into the dust.* Maybe she has bread, I think and wait until the men have gone before tentatively knocking on the door, too timid to hammer loudly and my calls go unanswered.

The volcanoes continue and more high passes, though they call them “abras”, openings, as they are not true passes merely crossing one mountain to the next.* There are several turn-offs here, and with no GPS, no road signs, no people to ask and no discernible difference between various routes I resort to trusting the compass.* One turn off that is signposted is to the still functioning mining town of San Vicente, where I head to see the supposed graves of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.*

Butch and the Kid originally arrived in Tupiza, 200km away, hoping to rob the town’s bank.* However, when they got there, they saw that it sat opposite the town’s police station, something even they were not willing to attempt.* They made plans instead to rob the payroll train going out to the mines, from the same bank.* Foolishly, they robbed it and then went to the mining town for a celebratory dinner and a pint.* Sadly – though I’m making assumptions here - all the locals worked in the mine, were probably a bit miffed at not getting their paycheques (paychecks), and so fed Butch and Kiddywink whilst also alerting the police of there fairly unbelievable presence, who turned up en masse and filled them with holes, before filling said – now famous -hole with them.* The hole, i.e. the grave was, I’m assuming again, originally unmarked – considering they were non-catholic thieving gringo bums – and the sign marking the grave is a rather contemporary looking bent piece of black metal.* Unromantic it seems and placed merely for us tourists, though what should one expect for a thief?* Why do we love them so, anyway?* I snap a picture, give a Gallic shrug and leave.

Easy and fast riding here, rising up to the very crest of a pale green ridge and stays there on its way to Tupiza, affording great views of a tumultuous ocean of hills and mountains on one side, and a deep and colourful valley of deep jagged blood red rock on the other.* I decide the red rock looks worthy of a look and if I’m lucky I might be able to camp there.* I turn off and go searching.* Another fabulous road, dropping down steeply from the ridge into the network of “washes”; sandy bottomed flash flood channels, twisting through tight narrow faults.* I pass several houses tucked in amongst the geometric beauty, with tall pinnacles of rock rising up stout and square.* A half buried church makes me wonder how anyone can be religious but then I thank God for my beautiful spot peacefully amongst the red rock spines.

Leaving the Lagunas

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Lost the next day, tearing around these enjoyable sandy trails, somehow I loop around to the far side of the crest, arriving at the main road from the opposite side.* This seems inexplicably impossible, at least without a bridge or a tunnel.* Not having realised this however, I turn right when I return to main road to Tupiza as assumed, but I know something isn’t quite right.** My internal compass wonders why the ocean of mountains is now on my right and the red rock from camp is now on my left….Completely bamboozled, I decide to re-ride all the trails back to the original trail I had taken last night and I realise my mistake.* Once pointing in the right direction, I drop gradually down from the altiplano towards Tupiza where, even from a distance the sandy flutings of multi-coloured rock stand out as if illuminated; cobalt blue, platinum grey and silver, amethyst purple, jade green, ruby red and orange, providing an amazing natural city gate.

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Despite being at over 3000m, Tupiza is surprisingly hot and with it’s interesting geology more resembles Death Valley or Anza Borrego.* It’s a good place for me to recoup, wash, take some days off the bike to hike and as well think about my next steps from here.* Back north to the city of Oruro, or continue east towards the even lower, and surely incredibly hot lowland amazon.* Sitting on the balcony of the hotel and staring at the map as I regularly do, slowly the pieces come together.* A star on the map marks out the Pilcomayo Canyon several hundred kilometres to the east and though a long way, could provide some very interesting riding.* From there, two options; the main road north to the city of Santa Cruz, or a solitary thin red line running north west all the way, 5-600km, directly to Sucre.* There isn’t a single other road bisecting this at any point, no towns to speak of and will rise from sea level in the jungle to 2600m at Sucre.* The road could provide a tough challenge and the middle 200km – far from any populaces, rarely used - could be ferocious.* From Sucre, who knows, out then to Santa Cruz further east, or crack on south towards to Chile, Argentina and importantly to Patagonia before winter sets in?* I’ll decide that later.

Read about that soon, in Part 3!

Stunning pics, great write up. You are the real thing.
To avoid losing the plate you could get a color copy of it, get it laminated and mount it on a metal plate. that way if you lose it you will still have the real one in a bag somewhere. if done well enough it should look good enough to get you through borders.

Excellent idea on the plate! I carried it for a long time in the bags and so rode without it. The police were all pretty happy with my explanation that it broke recently, but this is a much better idea and not one I'd considered.

Thanks for the kind words too, Garry! It takes a lot of time as you can imagine, and whilst I love to write, it does make it even more worthwhile if I hear good things from readers, as I don't get so many readers. So thanks, really.

Have you left yet? If not it must be terrifyingly soon!

Stunning pictures and great writing :thumbup1:
Hope to see you soon here in Antigua bier

Nice one Julio! I'll bring the beer, you do the cooking....

Debe ser bueno que tu estas afuera de la ciudad......y con todo los gringitos!

Hopefully that's about right.... I'm missing Spanish :(

Have you been watching Murray?....he's a big steak and kidney pie fan you know....it's what helps him win :)

Hi Klous,

I agree - stunning photos, the blue skies are amazing. Thanks also for so much detail in your writing. I was there with you! You are really doing it hard on your little m/c, I admire your tenacity. Great work. Keep riding safe amigo!

PN

Thanks Paul! A nice comment to read! :thumbup:

I - or my camera - can't take credit for those vivid-blue skies though, they're really just that blue all the time (in the dry season at least!). It's a really lovely area (and farther north I really, really enjoyed too too...following the volcanones down to this point......actually that post is missing from my report here, but it's on the blog if interested.)

The small bike has lots of benefits, but I'll be going at least a bit bigger next time!

As for the detail - it's definitely a "reader's" blog, some say it's a bit too much, but it's as much for my own record as much else and I enjoy writing so this is how it is....I'm glad some people take the patience to read it and hopefully you've found it worthwhile....

Next instalment soon....thanks again Paul, for reading and the kind comment.
Nick

The Devil's Road, Bolivia Part 3 (I)
 

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Riding in TupizaIn Part 3 of Bolivia, read as the journey continues, still dropping in altitude on my way from the high cool altiplano to the lowland Amazon. From Tupiza now in the south of Bolivia, heading out east through meteor craters and down towards sea level again and the hot jungle, and the hottest place I’ve ever visited, before attempting a ride through this infernal green ocean north along the fiery “Devil’s Road”, one long isolated trail, 600km direct to Sucre….maybe.


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A small pair of legs hang plump like cooked brown sausage links, wiggling and kicking as if trying to get in to the deep chest freezer. The shop owner, a man with a droopy face watches on, propping up the lid with a raised arm. He looks fed up.

”How much is this one?” comes the muffled voice from inside the freezer.
”5 Bees,” he says. The man’s shoulders are narrow, narrower than his waist and they arch over as if they’ve been propping up this freezer lid since the beginning of time.

The legs wiggle more frantically, higher and deeper, there’s a scraping sound of boxes on ice and then, ”how much is…is…this one?”
A sigh, ”8 Bees.”
”Hhmmmff….and…this one?”

I think about jumping in the freezer myself, it’s hot and I feel like a cooking sausage. The man’s eyes narrow and his bushy moustache bristles with tension as he looks at the boy’s weighty form. The droopy man looks inside, “well, which one?” The boy’s legs fight and spasm,lots of movement but with little gain until with straining digits he just manages to finger the ice-cream buried deep within the recesses of the icy tomb, “ESO!”

Looking at me, all eye-lids and jowls, Droopy says, ”6Bs.”
”Oh,” says the boy.

The boy’s body slumps on the freezer wall like a damp towel, exhausted. Soon the feet drop down to the floor – still attached you understand - revealing a tubby boy who brushes himself off and then empties his pockets. Among the sweet wrappers and marbles is a small amount of change, maybe 1.50Bs. Droopy shuts the freezer door, dunkk. “Hmm,” the boy thinks, “just a coke then.” and Droopy hands one over and turns to me.

“How much is….” I begin, “ummm…I’ll just have a coke thanks.” He reaches into a chest fridge and down into the piled-up bottles to pull out a coke, pops the cap and wordlessly clears an arm-chair in the corner for me. I slump down and grasping the red and white I empty the sweetness into my mouth. Ahhhh….I hate buying coke. I mean I love the taste, don’t get me wrong and here it tastes even better, glass bottles and sugar cane. But, it seems like such a waste of money, I should drink the water I make so much effort to carry. But I'm not in Africa now where money was so tight. Now my budget is a little healthier, but even so I’m still marked by my time there….and it does only cost US15c. As well, this treat comes as a congratulations for having just saved a few dollars on fuel…at the cost of about an hour and a half in time.

With my bike’s number-plate broken off, I was hoping that I might be able to persuade the fuel attendants to fill my bike up at the lower nationals’ price. Here in Bolivia the law states that “Vehicles with foreign plates must pay 9.22Bs per litre,” an increase of nearly 250%. If you remember, in the previous chapter the bike’s number plate broke off whilst bouncing along the wearisome corrugations of the Lagunas Route. But this got me thinking, without a number plate could I argue that the bike doesn't have a foreign number plate…because it doesn't have a plate at all? Usually I'm buying fuel on the black market anyway as pumps in the countryside are rare, and there it makes no difference, the prices fixed for all. And technically, I should pay the full 9.22Bs at the pumps, it just seems unfair somehow, despite the reality being that it is completely fair; I don’t pay Bolivian taxes, but then who does? Whilst it would work later, it didn't here in Tupiza, but I still didn't want to pay the full price, hence the long search for a black-market (or “black bag”) seller who had some……and the resultant celebratory drink!

As I sit sipping the cola droopy-faced Alfonso makes me a sandwich from his lunch kit. Into a white bread roll he spoons filling; “aji” (red-hot chilli pepper), seasoned with a sprinkling of tuna. “PPPPuta!” I splutter as I take a bite, “I think it needs more pepper…!” Alfonso smiles.

The shop is crammed wall-to-wall with fridges and freezers and Alfonso sells ice-cream and sodas rather reluctantly to those who dare disturb his reverie. He rises heavily from the other sofa to wade through the heat of late morning to a face in the doorway glistening with sweat like condensation on a cold glass…always they have the same questions, “how much is this? How much is that? And this? Hmfh, okay, I’ll just take a coke.”

Where the walls are visible behind the jumble of fridges one can spot the usual eclectic mix of posters; the Virgin Mary, cola ads (“¡Ahora en 2L retornables!”), naked blondes and calendars depicting llamas photoshopped into the Swiss alps, usually poorly and missing a hoof or ear. I’m laughing at the pictures as Alfonso slumps down into an armchair. He raises his brows quizzically, tipping his head back, “que?”

”Is that your daughter?” I ask gesturing to one of the blondes.
”Hm, one of them.”
”Your wife must be very pretty?” I say. He twists the corner of his nose up, not really. I gesture over to the facing wall and ask, “And what does she think?” Alfonso’s brows knot in confusion, so I add, “the Virgin Mary….of the blonde?”
”Ah…It’s ok…it’s no problem” he says breaking into a twinkling smile, “they’re both virgins!”

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Alfonso, AKA Droopy
A man comes in, dabbing his brow with a handkerchief, a big man with messy hair and his shirt half out, he looks tired. He asks how much a few things are and then buys a coke.

Alfonso slumps into his seat.

The man leans in the doorway and takes a deep gulp from the dewy bottle, a sigh of pleasure like a wave on the shore. He goes on to tell us about his journey from Tarija, which I’m interested in as it’s my next destination…

“OrrrrrreeEEEEeeblay!”

Oh well. He tells us that the journey has taken him all night, ten hours for what normally takes four or five.

A young girl comes in then, holding a shiny precious coin out in front of her, like a guiding compass. She asks how much every individual sweet is, holding the compass to each, lemon drops, caramels, cola sweets, lollipops, gummie sweets, fruity chews and on and on. She looks glumly at her coin not so precious after all and then leaves, without even buying a coke.

Alfonso slumps into his seat.

The dishevelled man goes on to tell us that he took the main road from Tarija, heavy rain causing a landslide. I’d actually planned a different route; a minor road direct across the mountains to the north. The prospect of a landslide-challenge ignites momentarily, but I decide to stick with my original plan, reasoning that sitting in the rain and not moving won’t be much fun. Shouldn’t force things.

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Leaving Tupiza

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A Woman leads her goats out to feed on thorny desert bushes in Tupiza

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Into the mountains, heading east to Tarija, storm clouds to the south
I ride away from hot Tupiza then, heading north before turning sharply to the east into the mountains along smooth grey dirt. I look far to the south, to the obvious thunder clouds, below which must be that other road and I ruminate over my decision, whether right or wrong, dry or wet, brave or weak. To soothe my concerns the road here is excellent, dropping into a hot fertile valley of bizarre and huge angled wedges of rock; an ancient meteor crater. I stop in another shop for another drink in a lovely little farming village, crumbling sandstone buildings around a small square reminiscent of Italy. A man sits listening in the corner of the cool interior of the shop, quietly drinking as I chat with the owner. One or two friendly farmers come in to buy some local - and supremely “special” looking – clear brew, either taking a few quick nips or else filling their own bottles from the large plastic gallon bottle secreted behind the counter. They head off to sit in the shade against the wonky golden walls of the church or else start off on the long walk home through the fields, at least partially drunk. I leave to find camp, spending an age trying to find a spot along one of the huge blasted-out shanks of the earth on the high lip of the crater, but can’t quite make it. I find a very fine spot all the same with long views down the broad red valley.


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My trail joins the Pan Americana highway the next morning, as it heads ever southwards, here on its way to Tarija at 1,800m (6,000ft), and even provides some beautiful riding. However, along with urban Tarija, it all comes as a bit of a shock after several weeks in the altiplano where even bananas were hard to come by. As I walk around the centre of Tarija a man pulls up alongside in his car and asks if ‘that’ is my motorcycle parked several streets over, I say yes and he tells me that I’m a bit foolish to park it there, it will be robbed. I thank him and tell him it’s fine, though now I’m not so sure. I continue on, looking for a hostel with parking, but failing, hot, sweaty and a little concerned for the bike I turn about and start back.

Rodney, my trusty companion is still there parked up when I return. I pat the tank, “vamos amigo, let’s go.” I find my way out of Tarija where for the first time my ruse works and I buy fuel for the local’s price and from here on main roads heading lower still to the east. However, the anxious feeling remains, a feeling of being out of place, like I don’t belong in this odd urbanised area. I’m made happier when the paved road stops and, with a bump-bump, I drop off its terminus and continue along dusty red dirt towards the lowland Amazon, the temperature conversely rising rapidly.
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I see condors enjoying the cooler air up high, circling atop the hot rising air of the thermals. Down here though and all I can do is think of the heat which is now incredible. If I stop the bike, only for a moment the petrol in the fuel-line evaporates and the bike won’t start. So, when I reach a frond-roofed shack and stop for a coke I find I can’t restart the bike. I chat with others, truck and bus drivers, all parked up, either broken down and waiting for parts to arrive, or simply waiting for sunset. All agree that today is simply too hot, for the engines particularly, on this slow, twisty and steep road. After a few attempts I manage to push-start the bike, though after all the effort I’m considering turning it off again and going back inside for a second litre of coke!

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Another(!) coke....55°C/131°F
The sun burns white and fills the sky with light and heat leaving little blue to be seen. It’s even hotter riding than stationary, the air as hot as flame, burning my face and filling my stomach with a swelling sickness (probably all the cola you greedy git). I pass numerous broken down vehicles as the road carves its way through low gnarled trees and bushes, including my favourite; the plump bellied Toborochi tree. This tree, they say, is the hiding place of Araverá, an ancient goddess. Araverá was pregnant with a son who, it was prophesised would destroy the evil spirits, Aña. These chased her everywhere until they lost her when she hid, and remains today inside the Toborochi tree. I wonder how these trees can bear the 55°C (131°F!!) heat…I’m not sure if I can, despite a belly-full of cola….maybe the Toborochi manages better as its belly is actually a storage for water, and not cola….or a goddess.

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Toborochi trees...and maybe a goddess
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The Pilcomayo CanyonA telephone-box like cabin sits perilously close to the edge of the road and the Pilcomayo canyon as I approach. A man steps out, squinting into the dazzling heat, his face the usual blankness of someone with a bagful of coca crammed into their cheek. He doesn’t tell me to but I stop and wait as he stares absently left and right and spits bright green. Confirmed by radio that the single-lane is clear I’m waved through and the man repairs to his small cabin to cram more leaves into his numb cheek, to keep him going through this intense heat. Along I go, traversing the vertical walls of the canyon by the very narrow and excellent, but sadly short, trail cut into the towering sandstone walls brooding over the Pilcomayo river whose waters run brown and warm below….water….oh, water! I drank mine long ago and I search for a shop in the last of the light and, finding one, I buy two litres of Fanta before riding back to the canyon to set the tent up riverside.

It’s not a river for swimming in, running fast, brown and turbid. Black cormorants stand unmoving on rocks and boulders amongst the river. They look cooked and shrivelled up, like old dry bugs and not once do I see them fly, or move. The sun, mercifully setting, is still all powerful and I strip off quickly to underwear. Ants dart about on the floor like people burning their feet on a hot beach, and mosquitoes and flies buzz around angrily drinking my sweat and blood, forcing me into the tent. Inside is unsurprisingly stifling, despite putting only the inner-tent up and though I’m rather sick of the sugar, I take endless gulps of the already hot tang until the bottle is painfully empty. I certainly can’t entertain the idea of eating and instead choose to lie down and sweat into the mattress, which sticks to me like Velcro. I put on a t-shirt to alleviate this, but in this heat the T-shirt feels more like an electrically-heated, fleece-lined, goose-down polar jacket and even slipping my head-torch on feels like donning a woolly hat.

The sandstone floor under the tent burns hot as smouldering coals and makes sleep impossible. Perhaps not just the heat, or the noise of trucks as they erupt into life as darkness falls and pass by one after another, but perhaps it is because I’m worrying about my next problem; tomorrow. In the previous chapter (The Lagunas Route) I had finished by describing my decision making for this route. This basically involved my choices to visit this canyon before turning north along a long and isolated route directly to Sucre. It looked to be a good challenge though even in Tupiza I was worried about this one and if perhaps I was taking on a bit too much. My estimation is that it is between 500km and 600km, maybe even more. It’s almost impossible to tell due to the difficulty in taking into account the elevation changes. Once, a road that looked 10km on my map turned out to be a near vertical switchback decent over 30km, or short sections to a town 2km away – by crow and by map - are actually circuitous routes down, around and up valleys 50km or more. Not only many times longer but also inevitably many times slower thanks to endless hairpins. And so now on the eve of this route I’m quite worried and night-time thoughts whirl around my mind; how far will it be, how much fuel do I need, can I even carry enough, and how much food and water, how many days? I'm also worried that if it’s this hot it could be quite dangerous….if I get a problem…..better not to think about it. I spiral around and around my thoughts, again and again and again, until eventually falling asleep.

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Parrot in the shop

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Camp, the ground like smouldering coals

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In the morning, already roasting hot....and the sun isn't even up!
The black cormorants are still there unmoving when I rise early next morning. I want to beat the heat but I also want to reach nearby Villa Montes early, stock up with several days food and water and find two large bottles to fill with petrol, before back-tracking to near my camp-spot to start the road north as early as possible. The sky is just lighting violet as the unseen sun approaches the horizon, but even so it must be approaching 30°C (86°F). I consider riding in my underpants, but can’t carry the extra clothes on the bike. Putting on my riding jacket is absolute torture and the helmet is damp with the slimy now-cool grime of yesterday.

The Devil's Road, Bolivia Part 3 (II)
 

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Petroleum towers along the way
The road to Villa Montes is very twisty, far exceeding the map’s perspective greatly and, at 70km, much farther than I expected, delaying my start along the Sucre road. I pass by several oil drilling towers as I twist and turn along, wanting only to arrive. I stock up quickly in the markets of Villa Montes which is just waking up, people setting up, unwrapping blue tarps from the neat bundles of their stalls of fruit and veg. I'm delayed finding the two four-litre oil bottles for fuel, but do eventually and fill up those, the tank and not forgetting the life-saving 0.5L stove bottle. I get a slight scowling frown from the pump attendant at my lack of number plate but again pay local prices. Finished, I then buy two litres of fruit juice, it’s before 9am and in the shade of the cool concrete shop it is already 32°C! I drink my juice down easily, wanting more, and talking at length with the shop owner who agrees with a smile that yesterday was killer, “today will be better,” he says, “there will be clouds. Yesterday there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky!” I ask him both how and why he can live here…him and his friend smile, ”when it is hot like yesterday, we don’t work, we just drink.”

Whilst I’d like to just drink, I’m preoccupied, thinking of the possible difficulties and unknowns ahead that one can never plan for, only worry about. Who knows what I'll find. My mind moves to another place now. The man is talking but I’m not listening, as if I can see the words, see him talking but make no sense of it all. I’m too busy thinking. I’m thinking that it would be nice if I could carry more fuel, more food and more water. I’m thinking I can’t, the bike is fully loaded, including 9 litres of fuel. I’m thinking the road could be more than 600km. I’m thinking about my recent forays in the altiplano which taught me that perhaps my fuel range is much less than I’d thought, perhaps only 500km. I’m thinking how on the one hand I don’t have enough fuel and on the other that there’s nothing that can be done. I’m thinking; what if there’s a problem. What if I fall badly. I’m thinking I just want to get going, I want desperately to get moving, to just leave the voices and fears behind. So, I bid the friendly chaps farewell and start off, back the way I came through the Pilcomayo canyon and to La Palma and my turn off north on to the Devil’s road.

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The beginning of the Devil's Road

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Click to view the map
There are several roads in this area all running parallel from south to north along the basin and rising up towards Sucre at 2600m. I assume that they are all old petroleum hunter trails. With the heat and the dense scrub land being hostile to almost all but mythical goddesses and the hardiest organisms, there is little to tempt people to live here, far from Villa Montes, Sucre or Santa Cruz, even with these roads in place. The initial part of the route is as expected very good, leading to a petroleum well and with some rural houses along the way whose inhabitants manage somehow to scrape a living farming tired-looking (pre-cooked!) cattle, or else at the oil wells. There are several junctions and feeling lost and a little anxious I am eager to speak to anyone and everyone I can, to quiz them about the route ahead and not feel quite so alone. This is always a bit of a Catch 22; asking means more information, and more information often means more fears, things I hadn’t thought about. If not this then they have no idea about the route at all, which is almost as worrying as it only shows the lack of use it receives. The consensus here is that the route does seem at least to exist, is a very long way, is very sandy and meant only for horses. But they say I will make it. I hope so.



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The last photo, hereafter I was to anxious to cover ground and didn't take any until things got easy again...and Irelaxed
Narrower, the trail tunnels deeper into the gnarled jungle which closes over and around the thin strip of dirt, closing me off from the houses and people behind. After some time I surprisingly see two men amongst the trees making a concrete water trough for cattle. They give me very complicated directions and explain that just round the next curve the road becomes bad, no people, unused. I get a photo here and pour in the first of the two 4litre jerry cans, which the tank gobbles dismayingly, meaning I’ve covered just over 120km. I’ve not even started, I hope I’ve got enough fuel.

The trail is oppressive in the darkness, becoming rocky and the two men were right; clearly unused now. Rather than being totally flat the trail undulates and twists through the vast jungle to the point where I have no idea of direction at all and I realise my insignificance, a small dot of red among an huge ocean of green. The darkness at least puts me and machine out of the scorching grasp of the sun’s reach, which I'm grateful for. But I don’t like this trail, ghostly somehow, not a place for the living and I think about turning back. I can think of little else only of covering ground and so anxious am I that I stop taking photos in an attempt at haste.

When I arrive then at a junction I have to try hard to remember the directions given in all the conversations earlier. I seem to remember that the first instruction was to keep left, that right was bad, maybe then I’d follow a channel or canal, and perhaps once I reach a school I can turn right. I can’t remember. I was so busy worrying about the quality and length of the trail, or perhaps simply: just worrying, that I didn’t really concentrate on the directions. I try desperately to remember, feeling like the boy on the freezer, reaching around inside and stretching out his digits, fingering memories. I take the left and pray I understood correctly.

After the early rush from camp and the frantic preparations in Villa Montes this morning, time slows now to an equally worrying standstill. Whole days seem to pass by to cover single kilometres. Anxious and confused by this warping of distance and time, I look more and more regularly at the odometer, which seems to barely move and eventually watching these numbers becomes more important than concentrating on the trail. Large salmon-pink iguana flash colour like lightning along the floor of the ominous jungle where darkness otherwise consumes the green of leaves and the beige of bark, and lichen hangs from branches in shadowy webs of black. Even the jumbled rocks of the trail are black, slipping, tilting and tinkling beneath the wheels as I ride thoughtlessly hoping only that the odometer has caught up one-hundred kilometres, but when I look again it has moved barely one. I feel certain that, in spite of these small 1km increments, I am still using up all my reserves of fuel and, at the same time as getting no nearer my destination, I am moving many hundreds of miles from the last houses, people and help. With my total distance covered at about 141km, I still have a rather discouraging 400-500km to go and my fears move away from fuel, to that of time. How many days will it take? and, have I got enough biscuits?

From this all-enclosing darkness I eventually emerge into a much more open area; one of colour and sunlight, of grass and breeze. A great relief, but I am far from relieved. A building then, which I hope is the school, though it’s hard to tell as it looks unused like from a ghost town. I see a woman sitting on the hard-packed dusty floor beneath a shade tree outside the long rectangle of her house, and I pull over to check if I’m going the right way.

When I talk to people I have a need to remove my helmet, to get off the bike and say hello with a handshake, thinking that perhaps it’s not very nice talking to a pair of alien blue eyes and a big white nose, wearing what looks like a paratrooper’s jacket and sat – seemingly very happily - atop Apollo 14. Whilst perhaps this is a good idea, those few moments when the people watch as I remove gloves and helmet and twist out of the saddle, seem oddly tense. Kids come out of the shadows and stare as the woman, solid-looking and in a dirty blue smock worn thin with use and torn, takes a few steps towards me. I remember that; her smock full of holes and her odd walk; a stiff-legged waddle, like Frankenstein’s monster or a large zombie with their arms down. She stops well short of me and stands apprehensively back. Usually any tension I feel or imagine fades when I shake hands and say hello, but here it’s another still-familiar conversation, one of disbelief and the fear that I’m another petroleum hunter (or gold hunter as when I was captured by Indians in Colombia). It means that her questions seem oddly probing and my answers only seem to raise more suspicion. As we talk together I look around to the house, the shed, the landscape, the children, wondering how she and they can live here in this tiny speck of light set amongst a vacuous black hole. I ask questions to this end, but these only raise more suspicion, and are met with avoidance and generalisations. I look for vehicles too, and seeing none and wondering how she reaches town I ask if buses pass, “no,” she says, “so who uses the road?” I ask, “no one, no one ever passes.”

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Not THE woman but nearby days later I took this photo of the same dress style...this one without holes
Another problem with long isolated routes is the lack of villages between – in this case – here (wherever this is) and the target, Sucre. It makes navigation difficult, with less to aim for. Here too, in rural Bolivia the distances are perhaps magnified/shrunk one-hundred fold as the common vehicle is not the car but the sandal….or maybe even two. In this case there really isn’t much to aim towards and the ones I mention she doesn't know so I have little choice but to ask how to reach Sucre itself. Initially she points me back, with her chin, to Villa Montes where she could take a bus to Sucre if she so wanted. I explain again and she goes on to confirm that I can continue along this route to reach Sucre, though this only highlights another problem; does the person you are asking really know the way? Egyptians, I noticed for example, always tell you to go the way that you and the bike are pointing, ie they always tell you it’s straight ahead. One becomes a little better to judge people as time goes by, usually a lot of time…spent getting lost. But you also learn that you have little choice than to trust the people and take the information available whether you think it good or bad.

There are two more houses here, making a village of three, and I pass by them on my way out of “town”. The route changes here, staying now in the relative open and meandering alongside a dry river northwards with the green darkness ominously just off to the sides. The trail crosses this river repeatedly via its dry and soft sandy bed of rounded grey rocks, and at times I seem to lose it completely as it fades from existence, lost to the pressures of the growing jungle or the river, until a patch of what is more obviously road momentarily reassures me. Suddenly I’m at a junction with six exits to choose from and not a single sign. Miraculously there is someone building a house at this junction and I go through the trees into the shade, to the house but there is no-one there. Damn, now what? But then after a moment, from out of the darkness comes a man with a bulging cheek of coca and the familiar feint delirium. When I ask which way to go he points with his chin and then with a spit of coca slime says, “the careterra,” to which I reply, “but which one is that!” I pull him out by the elbow to the 6-ways junction. He obviously thinks I’m stupid and he tiresomely points the way, across the broad riverbed, chopping the air with his hand as he says “sssiiiigue, siiigue, sigue,” meaning the road is easy to follow, just stay straight……

And upright, I think as I cross the deep sand again to the other side. There’s hardly a tire mark here now and plants and trees grow freely and hang into the road. The farther I go, the more and more of the hard-packed sand road I find has been consumed at some time by the river, and so more and more often I’m riding along the tricky riverbed itself. At one point, I try to slip narrowly between a tree leaning half-uprooted, bent forwards in the sand from an ancient flood, and an area of softer sand cut by the few tyres that have passed this way. I catch one of the tree's tough branches on my body and tumble off, stopping with a jolt. Before I even hit the soft sand I’m thinking to myself, “turn back…this is crazy, if it’s like this now, what will it be like in 100km!”

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The 6-ways junction
I wiggle out painfully from under the bike sunk heavily in the sand, burning my leg on the engine case and hurting my ankle as I rush to tug it free from the heavy heat. I go to heave the bike up and as I do a spurt of blood surges out from somewhere on to the sand. “Bloody hell….that’s a lot of blood!” I picture a syringe full of blood being squeezed hard without a needle. My hand is cut and I wipe it on my trousers ineffectively but can see that whilst it’s quite nasty, it’s quite a small cut in my finger, maybe the brake lever or a branch stabbed it. But no time for that, vital fuel is leaking out from the tank; I have to get the bike up. I plunge my bloody hand amongst the soft sand and fix it around the grip and heave the bike a second time. This time my reddened hand slips from the now wet grip and I fall backwards and tangle in the tough tree branches which I fight angrily against. I get manage better third time and push and run the bike along the riverbed and across to the far side.

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A slow awkward fall and a small but bloody cut to my finger.
The injury and fall have really brought things to the fore, I want out. This isn’t a very wise place to be alone, or maybe I’m just not good enough or tough enough, it’s the same feeling I get when I’m climbing far above the last protection, a fall would be big, and my first thoughts here are to turn back. The road isn't that tough (though I say this in hindsight), but it is long and isolated and the difficulties reside not in the depth of sand, or lack of people but in my head. There are some trails that as soon as you put your wheels on them, you just know that it's bad, it won't be easy and most likely you will reach something unexpected, some obstacle around the corner. It doesn't help that my bike is slow (or I am) and the distance seems huge. If I go on I'm just riding further into trouble, more than getting closer to my goal. Some people tell me I'm brave, but I knew all along; there's no such thing, or else I'm not brave and no matter what I do I can't change that.

Inspecting my hand I see the blood coagulating now, sticky like jam, thanks mainly to the help of the sand. I should clean it, but need the water. Then I start to think - as is usual - not about turning back but instead, “just a little more, just a little more effort, you can always turn back, just see what it’s looks like…”

It looks like a bad road, but like I've said, not that bad though I fall several more times and then take several more turns along un-signposted roads, for some reason I choose left invariably. After a long while, incredibly, I come to another house set in a large clear area of baked dry dirt. I can’t believe it and it reminds me that these are the real heroes and I’m very much a wimp. A mother and teenage daughter kneel in the shade of the small porch plucking chunky “choclo” corn-kernels from cobs into large red bowls. They look fairly shocked as I poke my head inside and ask if I can reach Sucre this way…and shocked further when I raise my hand and ask if I can wash it…they even had a tap.

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I spotted trucks then, building a new road and relaxed enough to take photos

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Only to fall
It’s mid afternoon when I see a truck. What’s a truck doing here? They do have a comforting effect on me though, other people, and this comfort brings on thirst, tiredness and hunger. I stop amongst thick shoulder-height grass roadside, to eat some bread and drink and I watch as another truck passes by. I follow behind this when I catch it later, the road churned up in to deep soft ruts of sand, and I pull over after some time at another house. I slip through a small gap in the grass to speak with an excited woman who comes over and explains all, “they’re building a new road!!” she says. Unsure if I should be relieved or disappointed, or even believe it, I give thanks and continue along the old road as long as possible until I reach a wide, stony and depressingly brand new road. Looking back from this the entrance to my trail is instantly lost amongst the tall grass and bushes growing and closing over it already.

I ride on feeling both happy and hard done-by, in fact I don't know what to think, unsure if it was hard at all, or as hard as I think, or thought and now over it seems so far away, another world, and from this end the trail seems easy, or was it. And does it even matter? The tall jungle grass and bushes continue to grow, growing over my memories, lost now, a new road, which I continue along, ever onwards in search of something and even now, writing this I still don't know.

I see that the jungle trees have disappeared, making way for rich bright-green cattle-pastures, and for comfy new houses. I stop at one to ask for water having drank almost all of my own day’s provisions. Amongst my feet run the piglets of a beached pig, the sow heaped in the yard where play two boys and a monkey. As I fill the water bottle, the man - to whom I've barely said a word - asks if I would like some dinner. Having hardly eaten all day I jump at the chance and sit with him on the thick round roots of a grand old tree eating, the colour fading from the world as the sun sets, and we talk. We discuss the monkey, whose name is “monkey” and he tells how the two boys caught it in the nearby jungle using a slingshot. “There’re loads!” he says. Not for long.

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"Can I get some water?" I said, "Yeah...do you want dinner, too?"

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A monkey named monkey and the boy who caught him with a slingshot :(
I’d noticed a lovely spot earlier; an oxbow curve in the river, curling tightly beneath very tall sandstone cliffs and I return there to camp. After much consideration of the dangers I place my tent near the upper edges of the cliffs. Then, after photos and a walk and as I brew up some tea, I hear a landslide below and decide, “probably best to move the tent…”, as always. As the sound of birds and insects crescendo and the kettle too for the second time, a thunderstorm arrives, and I move again…as always. I get soaked in the process and, in the dark, put the tent on top of an ant’s nest! And you think they’d be pleased for the rain-shelter!

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My original position for camp...until I moved it...and again





Bug noises as I clean the day's sand from the camera


Some night time noise??

I go toucan hunting in the morning, spotting one with a long yellow beak and, in my memory at least, a white chest, bobbing up and down, up and down, as it flies by. I watch boys racing horses along the dusty road as I pack away, WOOOOing as they go on their galloping beasts to watch their grazing cattle in the pastures, happy souls all. Iguanas and lizards run across the road almost constantly as I ride, small and large, spinning their angled legs in a blur of motion to run out of sight before a good photo is to be had!

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Corr, there were loads of iguanas and lizards on this road, continuously crossing the road

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On the new road now, unsure whether to be relieved or disappointed, I carried on towards Monteagudo...very far east of Sucre, my intended target.
Reaching the large village of Rosario del Ingre I stop in the hope of finding bread (writing this I wonder what I was planning to eat and drink if the road was still the old road…sand and blood probably). I ask in a shop if there is some in the village, “did you see the white chair?” replies the friendly youth.
”Eh?” I say.
“Just up the road there.”
I look on blankly.
“The white chair…if the white chair’s out there’s bread….wait a second.” he walks around the counter and pokes his head out of the shop but says glumly that the white chair is in, no bread today.

I sit outside on the porch tucking into sugary drinks, biscuits and wafers, my Bolivian diet. The youth comes out with a wooden chair and sits besides me. “Where’ve you come from?” he asks.
”Villa Montes….mieEEERRde! it’s hot there!”
”It gets hot here.”
”Umm, maybe….but not 55°C!”
”Fifty-five! No, puffhh, up to thirty-five here. But…which way did you come? That way?”
”No,” I say, “that way".”
”That way! Is there a road?”
”Yeah….but it’s pretty bad.”

One by one other people come to talk, old women and teenage school children mainly, each more disbelieving than the last; a white person all the way from the UK. They are delightful and it’s a long time before I think of moving off. The school teacher, a raucous bubbly female, clearly has desires for me to settle here in the village and live as her love-slave and they all ask me about the countless women who must be falling at my feet. I correct them repeatedly, explaining that the only reason women would fall at my feet is because they stink. I stink. I elaborate that I wear clothes full of holes, rarely wash, live in a tent and that my idea of a good meal simply means more biscuits. I explain that my tent is very small, that it is only a “one-man tent” but then add with a wink-wink nudge-nudge to the teacher, “...and three women!” starting her off again and the jocular banter and innuendo continues from all whilst I sit there smiling and turning red.

I ask them all about the road, and importantly about the fact that their village isn’t on it! At least according to the map. It’s hard to say, but it seems that my route doesn’t exist as it does on the map. I should be farther west but the school teacher’s family live out that way she tells me and that no road exists. She adds that another trail loops from near here a little to the west and possibly to Rodeo, but it’s a very long way “zig-zag, zig-zag,” says the teacher, and still not my intended route. The initial excitement and challenge is lost now, it was lost yesterday when I reached the new road, but even so I decide I shouldn’t give up and I go back to take a look at this road. However, I’m soon lost again unable to find the turn-off. I speak to a petroleum worker who clearly knows the area well. From him I learn that maybe a direct road to Sucre begins from a point much farther west along the Pilcomayo canyon road, farther from Villa Montes towards to Tarija. Though the man admits that it’s existence is doubtful, and doesn’t believe any route links up to Sucre.

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The very friendly people in Caserio, the teacher is in the pink skirt
In any case, having made such a detour I don’t have the fuel to reach Sucre even if the trail is there. I decide to leave and despite my non-arrival in Sucre, I’ve had a really good two days, interesting riding and great people. I ride back and through Rosario del Ingre and push on northwards to the main road at Monteagudo. Once there I buy food supplies and as well antiseptic cream for my hand. I walk around a small but lively market where people shout for one’s custom in the tight weave of streets, the current craze here is small fancy biscuits and – as always - fried everything. I sit and drink coffee to savour the atmosphere, just enjoying the happy presence of people, to listen and to talk to the coffee stall women. I buy a fatty fried dough from her which reminds me of “andazis” in Africa which I ate together with the sweetest, milkiest and yummiest tea I’ve ever known from fly infested cups. There wasn’t a single shop hoarding or advert there. The tea shops were marked not by signs but only by the smell of incense that they burned outside the door in small urns. The scent caught in my nostrils as I rode by, and I’d swing about quickly in a sharp U-turn regularly to spend 10p. I couldn’t talk to them then, only watch and say, “té” and nod yes to andazis.

I won’t be U-turning now, but I’m happy to sit and savour and, having arrived earlier than expected and in a place I hadn’t expected to, I have to decide where-to next…… as always.

Find out where next time!

(Author's note: Obviously since riding this I realise it was not as hard as it seemed at the time, knowledge is power after all. That said, if I'd have been able to follow the route - as I had assumed I was - on my paper map all the way to Sucre on this bad road then perhaps it would have been a pretty stiff test, as it turned out not so much....I've written, or tried to, the story from my point of view as it was at the time, which was quite obviously without this knowledge, and whilst it might read as me trying to BIG up my route, that is not what is intended.)

Hi mate!
I just stumbled over your story and am impressed. Very nice read and pictures. Now I am looking even more forward to get there. Am currently in Costa Rica...
I guess I have to read some of your earlier reports in order to find actual inspiration and hints, for right now and the coming weeks...
Good luck!

Good God!!!
You can write, shouldn't you be saving this for your upcoming book?
Thank so much for sharing,
best and take care
Stuart

Haha, thanks....it has crossed my mind, but I just like writing, if it ever comes to a book hopefully I can do quite a bit better....we'll see. Bit more to see yet, not sure I can cram the whole story in a book either!

Nah, just take a look at the map for inspiration! Reading other blogs can sometimes spoil any surprises you might find along the way!....anyway, enjoy your trip and if I can ever help with anything just let me know....thanks too for the comment!

I guess you are right. : )
Thanks for the offer.
Ride safely and have fun!

Fantastic stories and pictures Norschweger. If you make it to anywhere near Santa Cruz de la Sierra in your travels let me know. Our motoclub travels a fairly wide radius around Santa Cruz on the weekends.

Bolivia Part 4 - I
 

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Heading to Padilla, a house along the way.

In Part 4 of Bolivia: After the testing Devils' Road (from Part 3), I take it easy in laid-back Samaipata, go in search of Ernesto "Ché" Guevara during Holy Week, and then visit Amboró National Park first from the mountainous south and then across the rising rivers of the north as the rainy season begins. *As usual I write far too much about far too little....


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eBook Files:

Kindle File (mobi)



ePub File

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Or just read it at the website! http://blog.talesfromthesaddle.com/2...ia-part-4.html


I'm walking now, in a town called Padilla.* The streets are broad and dusty.* An iron fence surrounds the large tree-shaded plaza and there’s a man leaning against it.* He turns his face towards me as I stand deciding where to go and I notice his leather hat.* It has a broad peak and is the colour of red mud. The colour matches his own skin.* In the shadow cast by the hat, I see his two eyes glowing white as light and a warm friendly grin shines out as well.* It’s the only smile I receive here in Padilla though as the other men, sitting in plastic chairs lining the avenues, are drunk and drinking….and staring.* I don’t like the stares, even knowing they are purely drunk inquisition, and I feel a little uncomfortable.* The women appear tired.* Tired of the men perhaps and they pay me little attention as they walk with heads that hang like so much weight, feet dragging in the dust.* And so, as the men drink and the women amble, it is the children who are left to manage the shops; selling wine, beer and cigarettes to the inebriated men.* So strange, to allow so many days of so much sin for the whole of Holy Week.** Thanks be to God.* And to Jesus who died for our sins.* Would it not be better if we died for our own?

My footsteps echo as I walk down the narrow passage hemmed-in between white walls.* It leads to the town’s market and inside, tucked into one corner, a solitary woman at work making neat pyramids out of purple, red and orange.* There are sacks of green and the smell of earth; that metallic tinge of freshly pulled potatoes, and on the floor lies a baby, kicking its legs on a colourful cloth.* The woman smiles and the baby too, making three smiles in Padilla.* Despite struggles with baby, the woman counts apples and tomatoes into a bag for me and then goes back to busily preparing her vegetables, expecting an imminent rush.* Then, as I walk further, back on the pale avenues now and looking for bread, the stares are glares like many hands, kneading me small.


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Another man hunts for the feast in Villa SerranoVilla Serrano, a short ride away along smooth red dirt is in complete contrast with Padilla.* The exception though is that still everyone is drunk.* Thankfully however, they are smiling and quickly I lose count of just how many smiles I receive.* Even before I've stepped from the bike an excited man hurries to tell of a huge feast to which I must go for a belt-tearing lunch.* I'm beyond hungry, it’s late and the afternoon hot.* I sweat and sweat as I walk and walk in search of the fiesta, expecting and hoping to stumble upon the great and noisy feast.* I look out for open doors and listen for the familiar tinkling of cutlery on china, or for people returning home holding taught bellies, sighing and grinning with over-fed satisfaction.* But, I find none.

Exasperated and hungry I return to a shop beside the main square.* There’s a metal gate in the doorway and I whistle into the dark interior.* Feet shuffle, and from the wood and shadows comes a friendly woman who brings me a coke and the last of some old looking empanadas.* I take these to the park together with some green mangoes bought from a nearby truck-full.* Famished and parched I bite into the empanadas, the old cheese cracks between my teeth like plastic.* Children come over giggling nervously to practise English as I struggle to quickly swallow the dry pastry in my mouth, “My name is Angelique.* What. is. your. name?”* With my mouth still half full I reply, “My. name. is. Nick.* Nice. to. meet. you!”* Angelique looks at her friend, let’s out a shrill and they run off giggling all the way across the plaza.* Tired from a long morning’s ride and as such content, I sit there enjoying the time, the place, the mood, to just be and watch.* Then a boy trips and falls on his face and cries and cries, the moment is broken and I return to the bike.

“You have been to see Che! [Guevara]” asks a man as I reach the bike.*
”No, I’I'm going there now!* I've just come from Padilla.”
”Ah, okay….so you go this way?”* he says pointing up the hill.
”Hm, actually I don’t know, is it that way?”

The whole family begin describing the route in great detail, each one confusing me with little titbits of information,
“There’s that tree….” says the first.
”And that big hill….” says the second.
”And then the bridge.”* says the third.
”but you don’t want to take the right…” says one of them.
”oh, no!” says another.
”The right?”
”You know if you go right mi amor, it brings you out on the opposite side of the river,”
”no that’s the turning after the house….”
”no that’s the left before the bridge, I’m talking about the right AFTER the bridge?”
”What bridge?”

And so on until perplexed.

But soon, with their legs buckling under laden stomachs they succumb to sitting on a bench with sighs of relief, the directions stop, legs outstretch.* I tuck the last of the hard empenadas into the top-box and as we talk it’s not very long before the family are inviting me over to their house to eat their Easter leftovers, “I made too much,” says the mother, “we’ll never eat it!”* I contemplate squeezing in a second lunch but also the very preposterous notion of rejecting a good meal.* I hang my head and admit that, no, sorry, I’m simply too full to eat any more and I have to decline!* Before I have contemplated this too long they turn the conversation to ask more about my travels.

“So where do you wash?”
”Rivers usually, pools, the sea….” [not a boast, I’m just tight]
”Que hombre!” (not true)
“No, well, actually it’s a bit tricky here [in Bolivia], the altiplano is so dry and cold, not many rivers!”
”So, when did you last wash…”
”Hmmm….about one week ago, outside of Tarija, a very nice river!”* With really big tadpoles I remember.
”You can take a shower at our place if you like?”* the daughter says.* I think about my feet, they are awful, smelly.
”Nooo…really, thanks, it’s okay.* They’ll be rivers ahead, it’s no problem…I don’t like to be any trouble.”
”Ah don’t worry it’s okay!”
”Well,” says the son-in-law, “you’ll be able to wash in the Rio Grande ahead!”

We laugh, because it's obvious that I won’t of course.* We continue to talk for a long time, though I can’t concentrate on what is being said.* Instead I find myself wondering why it is that I have turned down all these fine offers.* But I know why.* And my smelly feet are just one reason.*

Leaving Villa Serrano I kick myself for turning down the one thing I’d have hoped for on Easter; Sunday lunch with a friendly family.* I pass by the mango man at his truck on my way out of town with a nod, and as I continue along open roads I begin to analyse things past. *What was the problem, why did I turn down a free lunch? *I can’t leave a problem unsolved, there has to be an answer. *It leads me to wonder why do I do what I do, and why do people do what they do.* I treat people (and myself) like a problem to be solved, trying to work them out, to find the answer, and once I have the answer I’ll be on to the next one.* Or else I can’t solve it and will move on anyway, will leave it behind, fearing the problem, my problem, me.* Until I forget the people, the laughs, the beauty, moments of connection until all I can remember is the problems.*

As I ride, finding it hard to leave the questions behind, eventually the way has me concentrating and enjoying.* The road stops, disappearing into a muddy river which only barely slides by.* There are two tire ruts cut deeply into dark wet sand leading into it .* It’s a small river but it looks very soft and I fear getting helplessly stuck in the deeper sand in the middle, but I’ve little choice.* Across I go, wincing, fearing the saturated sand, but this time Rodney manages to pull through.* I puff my cheeks with relief as I exit and continue along, up and into airy pine forests.* I love pine forests, love the cool air, the soft warm floor of orange needles, the enchanted feeling, the husssssh of the wind through the trees.* I think about camping here until I see the route ahead, zig-zagging down into a triangular valley and boxed in at both ends.* Perhaps just a bit more then!* Soon though and I remember back to the Pilcomayo canyon where it was so hot in the valley floor, up to 55°C!* Whilst not wanting to hit the higher heat 2000m lower, I remember that I have no water for camp and no fuel until distant Samaipata meaning I’ve little option now but to continue onwards, downwards.*

Reaching the Rio Grande and there certainly isn’t an opportunity to wash.* The river runs black and angry amongst a mass of huge jagged boulders.* I can only imagine the carnage which the rain must bring.* Without my old Katadyn water-filter (broken, I’ve only a - crap -Steripen now) the water is undrinkable and I’m forced to back-track a short way to a few shacks. I park up outside the fencing and whistle out towards the buildings and a solitary pair of bare feet which I see pointing skywards at the end of a bunk-bed.* The guard comes out, chats, takes my bottles and – glad for something to do - fills them up from his own supply which he probably filters and boils himself.* He has the unenviable job of watching over some mango crops and works 30 days on and 30 off.* No books, papers, TV or friends, just mangoes.* And the odd (as in occasional) gringo.

Down down goes the road and looking back it’s hard to spot the way I’ve descended, just sheer green walls on all sides, I’m surrounded.* The steep road provides no opportunities to camp and the few houses I find are deserted with no one to ask; locked up for Easter.* Eventually I find a section of old road where a landslide has left a smooth lick of black lava-like dirt.* Having taken the trees with it, this landslide area also gives out to a fine uninterrupted view down the valley, all the way to the glittering Rio Grande snaking still farther below. A fine spot!

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Parakeets, kwok kwok kwok! *Nice noisy comany
Around the far side, noisily singing amongst the remaining trees are parakeets.* I leave the half prepared tent to walk along a narrow uneven path amongst the debris of the landslide to get a closer look. I see swarms of the parakeets then, sweeping up and down, pausing occasionally and filling the trees with flecks of luminous green and red.* I inspect how much foot traffic might still be using this section of road – in case I should expect company - not much, and none recent.* As I finish preparing the tent I see, passing above me on the mountain ridge, the slumped shoulders of an arriero and the bobbing neck of his tired mule and I wave.* The sun sets, grey and purple and I stand admiring the view, excellent.* Then I kick myself for not accepting the Easter lunch.* Stupid.* Utter silence then, no traffic, and for tonight the valley is mine, o mine.

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Camp, Rio Grande in the distance
By morning the parakeets have gone and the cool mist brushes over me as it reaches out from the valley towards the rising sun.* I sit and read and read and by the time I finally jump into the motorcycle’s saddle it is scorching hot in the late morning sun.* I'm alone on the road and ride slowly downwards into the valley, content, looking out from the road to the Palo Blanco trees with their small yellow buds like buttercups popping out on their pale, leafless and papery branches.* As the ride progresses and I near my destination, La Higuera, I start to wonder about the route, and the man behind it, it’s called “La Ruta de Che”.* I know little about Che Guevara and I wonder how many people really know much about him, save for the image on a T-shirt and the fact that he rode around South America on a motorcycle.** I was hoping to find out more.*






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Some homes along the way, looked nice now, must be dire in the rainy season

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Palo blanco tree in the background
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Bridge over the narrow break over the Rio Grande I reach La Higuera and talk with three men who are thick as stumps.* They’re drunk as Holy Week continues but they’re very friendly despite the obvious tourist trade visiting this tiny village.* They sit on worn wooden chairs, painted light blue, and lean back against adobe walls thinking “here’s another one.”** On the floor are slim glass bottles of liquor and on top of the heavy brown walls lie the familiar green plastic bags of coca leaves for chewing.* Together with the leaves is also a crumbly silver powder that acts as a catalyst for the coca chemicals, perhaps ash of quinoa.** I don’t ask for a picture, though I want one of this popular habit.* Instead, shy, I move off to a museum which is set up in a small bland adobe building.* The museum, not much bigger than my tent, is probably a bit crap.* But then at only 90p ($1.50) I’m going in anyway.
**
Inside, it is a long and thin room, like a big coffin.* There are some photos, a military green jump suit, like Che’s though not his and a calendar of events in Che’s life.* One wall* is almost completely covered with contemporary notes thanking Che for his example, his commitment, his inspiration, and his sacrifice to “the cause” or “freedom”.

“They were caught here,” says the curator pointing to a map of the valley, “they were spotted by a peasant when stealing his potatoes.”
”Ahh, right.” I say, not really sure about Che’s story, what has Bolivia got to do with him?
”They had very little to eat. The peasant told the military that the guerrilla were here and the army came and cornered them in the valley. Then he was brought here.”

I carry on reading.

“That’s where Che was shot.” says the woman.
”What, here!?” I ask dumbstruck.
”Yes, he was sitting here and asked to go here.* He was shot nine times, by the Bolivian Army, in the legs and throat.”
”Nine times!”

It seems hard to believe, not that it’s unbelievable, but instead simply incredible that here, right here, is where Che was shot.

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Ché was shot right here“They [the CIA and Bolivian Army] wanted it to look like he was killed in action,” continues the curator, “after he was shot, they took his body to Valle Grande,” a town nearby.* I don’t understand some of what she says then, but gather something about his hands being cut off and his body being thrown in the woods.

The photos depict a man almost completely unlike Che, certainly of little resemblance to the guy on the T-shirts, save the hard dark eyes.* I’d have to read and find out more about him I thought, and over the coming evenings and mornings whilst sat at camp I did just that.

The full story of Ché’s life is long and quite extraordinary, despite its relative brevity.* His Cuban nickname was Ché – coming from the Argentine tendency of using the word Che like the British say “mate”.* His actual name was Ernesto Guevara.* Travelling South America Che’s eyes were opened to the exploitation of his continent by the north Americans.* With a growing interest in socialism/Marxism/Communism, Che ended up in Guatemala for the sole purpose of bearing witness to the country’s revolution.* It was there in Guatemala that Che’s opinions of the north were solidified, as he saw the CIA-backed (in conjunction with United Fruit Co) guerilla forces overthrow the socialist president Arbenz (who was at the time carrying out land reforms to hand land owned by UFC back to the Guatemalan people, hence the name you may have heard, The Banana Wars and probably also, Banana Republic).* Later Che fled to Mexico city, where he first met with Fidel Castro.* It was the beginning of Che’s rise to fame, both with the public and the CIA.* Together with Fidel, Che trained, planned and - despite his non-Cuban status - became an important part of the guerilla force planning to invade Cuba to over-throw the dictatorial government.* On 2nd December, 1956, Che and Fidel together with just 85 others landed on Cuba’s beaches as a guerilla force. After three days march, Fidel’s forces were attacked by President Batista’s – CIA assisted - Governmental Army. (Later the CIA’s funding was ceased when they realised that actually Batista was a murderous dictator (hence Castro’s invasion)).* Of the 87, only 22 (or twelve depending on sources) survived the initial skirmish. The rest of course is history; these 22 (or 12) somehow successfully destroyed Batista’s army, over-threw the government and by January 8th 1959, both Fidel and Che had arrived in Cuba’s capital, Havana.

Some time later and with Ché hoping to spread communism further, he left in search of the next revolution; the DRC (then Zaire) in Africa. Ché however, eventually gave up his fight here, thanks mainly to lazy, drunken Congolese colleagues.* He returned to Cuba and planned his next mission; to rid South America completely of “gringos”. His plan was to start in Bolivia, rather than his homeland of Argentina.** With Bolivia bordering five countries, he felt it would better facilitate the spreading of communism, on all sides. But unlike in Cuba, where the locals were quick to help, the Bolivian people seemed apathetic.* Unable to see further than the next meal or fiesta (perhaps) and hoping for a quick fix, the Bolivian people were easily bribed by – CIA assisted -governmental forces, paid into informing and double-crossing Ché at every step. It meant that Ché walked into one ambush after another.

As the situation worsened, running out of food, they turned to stealing and in one particular instance were spotted by a farmer as they stole his crop of potatoes.** The military soon arrived again, this time shooting Ché three times, catching once his rifle barrel, piercing his calf muscle and then – more to his chagrin - his famed beret. He was taken to the village school in La Higuera – now home of the museum where I am - and there the military awaited instructions.* The order soon came from the Bolivian president to kill Che, relayed by Felix Rodriguez (a CIA official at the scene), who instructed the Bolivian army to make it appear as if Che had been killed in action.* Asking for volunteers, a drunk militiaman named Teran stepped up to avenge his three dead peers.* The CIA official, Rodriguez stood outside, heard shots at 1:10pm and walked off to make notes.

Ché’s was shot nine times on October 9th, 1967, he was 39.* His body, first displayed in Valle Grande was later tossed, without his hands, somewhere into the woods.* The body wasn’t discovered until 30 years later, in 1997.* Exhumed, he was then taken not to his homeland Argentina, but Cuba, where he now rests (though probably not in peace, as it must pain him that some capitalist bastards are making a fortune from selling t-shirts made in China and worn by gringos!).* Other points worthy of note, Che was a phenomenal writer, a nasty murderer, about as far left-wing as Kim Jong-il and to top it all; he never actually rode a motorcycle around South America.

Bolivia Part 4 - II
 

http://lh5.ggpht.com/-Z9GOqJ07VP8/Ur...jpg?imgmax=800As I leave the museum I read in the doorway, “By this door left a man to eternity.”

Myself?* Well, I’m off to a place called Samaipata.* I take a route as advised by a Frenchman who I also met in La Higuera, he was a friendly guy but I got the impression that he more or less lives a life of lazy drugged debauchery, inviting travelling Che fans to sit, drink a beer, smoke and eat munchies.* On the other side of the road his father runs the the only other hostal; the Telegrafista Hostal.* So the family have a nice monopoly on the tourist trade there.* Something else to please Che!* Que mierde!


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Alberto Korda's famous picture that made a million shirts.The Frenchman’s recommended route is tricky to find, though this in part due to everyone that I ask for directions being a tad tipsy for Easter.** Up and down the road I go again and again, looking for the turning.* I stop as a man tosses a red snake into the road and watching it land with a flat splat I see that there are three other snakes in the road too, red and dead.* The man is slicing his way through the tall grass of his garden with a machete.* When I ask the way, he simply points with his chin to a younger man nearby, “ask him.”** Without so much as a second glance the man returns to his work, preoccupied I suppose with red snakes.* I’m told by the second man that I must turn off a little way back, at the school.* I saw no school but take him at his word and when I return again the school seems obvious and huge.* A road doubles back behind* the building and then, sweeping around gently, the red trail crosses the valley plain directly towards a sharp green ridge of mountains.* I hope to find camp away from the village somewhere in the mountains but when I get there I find that there is not a single opportunity to leave the road.* After crossing the mountain pass, I drop down the other side into a second winding and fertile valley and with still no chance of camp, I continue onwards, zigging and zagging tiresomely up a second towering mountain ridge.* Finally, a little exasperated and approaching the top beyond the tree line, I find a great spot and thankfully start to set up thinking of nothing but a thirst-quenching brew.

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Continuing to Samaipata

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Entering Pucara, I think


Slap slap slap go their feet on the hard pack. Heavy feet filled with drunkenness, finishing work for the day and leaving the fields, talking loudly of the night ahead at the Easter fiestas.* Whilst the drunk men pass nearby on both sides, luckily they seem not to see me and once the sun sets I have a quiet night.* With the only noise being the sound of spoon on pot as I eat hot veggie soup, I look off to the distance, towards the first mountain ridge which stands out black against a moonlit sky.


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Camp, looking back over the day's ride and the distant ridge,
itself beyond many ridges and beneath the cloud!The cloud, warmed by the rising sun tumbles heavy and plump over the same distant mountain ridge in the morning.* By midday, I've ridden down from camp and into a third valley which I follow north to reach the main paved road to Samaipata.* As a Sunday, Samaipata is busy and it’s obviously a popular town for both foreign tourists and local weekenders from nearby Santa Cruz.* These people in trendy clothes come and go on quad and motocross bikes and fill the street tables of cafes surrounding the plaza and actually there seem to be few genuine locals.* I don’t eat out very often, mainly for budget, but today - perhaps to make up for my lack of Easter lunch - I decide to eat out!* As much as I yearn for one of the chunky burgers and chips on offer, I force myself to find something somewhat authentic and by luck I find a really great place.* Here the cooks are grandmothers and mothers, the waiters and waitresses are the children, and the owner is a mafia-don-like Godfather.* I get the very last of the day’s Easter special meals; a huge serving of chicken, rice and salad.* All this is served with a drink of mocochichi, a juice drink made with dried peaches, each glass with a big peach-pit.* Sat in a plastic patio chair, as is quite common, I sit contentedly eating, listening to the coming and going of people, and the happy party talk of the large Latin families.



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Juan, top man!The hills of Samaipata are a lush green of perfectly trimmed lawns dotted with exceptionally fine houses.* These houses are European in style, clean and neat, the archetypal chalet retreat in the forest, away from the city.* By Monday almost all of these houses – immense by Bolivian standards - are unoccupied, save a gardener who ambles about the large gardens and pools.* All that effort, a perfect house, and no one living there!* I stay in a hostal and the owner, a crazy teacher called Juan, gives me a tour of the town and -more so- its surrounding houses, “LOOK!" HERE’s ANOTHER $45,000!” he says in complete disbelief as if we've unexpectedly stepped upon a gold mine, then instantly, “LOOK, HERE’S ANOTHER!* $40,000!”* I don’t have $40,000 I think, but these houses are massive and I could easily make do with a much smaller place (for $4000)…and without a gardener.* Back to the hostal and it’s coffee time with Juan, his wife and the hostal’s housemaid (oddly I was the only guest).* Juan likes nothing better than smutty jokes and innuendo and whilst it’s obvious his jokes have been told a thousand times over, we all have a very good laugh together, Juan especially. *Juan decides that he wants to buy my bike, as for him - and all other Bolivians - genuine Japanese bikes are hard to find and expensive with the market instead being dominated by cheap Chinese copies.* I like Juan and right here I change my trip plans, promising him that once I reach Ushuaia I’ll ride back to Bolivia when he can buy the bike.
"But let me buy it now!" he says,
"I kind of need it, Juan!"
"Just take the plane!!" he retorts.


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Hunting for lunch, SamaipataThe charm of Samaipata is its cool fresh tranquillity, away from the humid bustle and smoke of the city and yet not as chilly as the barren altiplano.* I find it hard to stop in one place any amount of time, worrying as I do about costs, even in economical Bolivia, but so friendly and comfortable is it at Juan’s that I decide to stick around a few days and catch up on laundry and bike maintenance.* Juan goes to work at the school early in the morning, looking comically serious in shirt and tie as I recall the jokes he was telling last night. As the only guest I'm left free to work in the hostal’s cosy tiled courtyard.* I chat with the maid as she launders sheets and clothes in one “pila” and I launder my own disastrous rags in another.* The large red parrot chirps in occasionally as we work and watch the “tele novellas” (Latin soaps) on an old black and white TV set.

My laundry finished and hanging next to the parrot under the eaves, rain starts to pour down making the tiles of the courtyard slippery.* Famished as always, I leave for the market, scampering down the streets as the rain fills potholes and gutters.* I see a dog poo wrapped in plastic as tight as a sausage skin; the dog had literally eaten a bag of litter, nutrients zero.* Into the market then, a dark and morbid place, all shade and shadows, but dry at least.* Past the first stalls selling crap, Chinese who-knows-what crap, past three children playing in the bloody black muck of the market floor.* Bowls of bowels on a chair, offal and hooves and cow hide and heads.* Out towards the far end of the market where there is fruit and veg, more open here, colour and light.*


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Courtyard of the lovely hostal“Why do you always buy from her!” hawk the other ladies, or tut as I buy my daily rations.* “Because she smiles!” I say over my shoulder with a grin.* And she does, seeming happy for my custom, my few pence, though she seems anxious too, I fear.** I see a dog rather happily trotting out, the plastic dog-poo dog perhaps. *The dog holds his chin high; to save snagging the long furry cow’s leg and hoof he carries in his mouth.* Bread I need then, the bakery I know is on the edge of town, difficult to find the shop once, harder still a second time.* I find it finally and sniff at the door, it seems cooler than usual and there’s a distinct lack of bready odour.* I whistle and the woman comes out smiling and slapping her hands clean on her apron, “mas tarde!” she says with a smile recognition.* I’ll go back later.

I hadn't needed the bread. Juan provides plenty with another round of sweet black coffee in his kitchen.* In between his laddish jokes I talk to him about my route ahead.* Whilst I haven’t made any plans from here, I’d noticed several tour companies offering trips to Amboró national park and I ask Juan about it.* Juan can’t tell me too much though, only that there are toucans and that the jaguars take a particular fancy to green tents and “gringitos como te!”* “Me!* But why?* There is no meat, I’m so skinny!”


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Heading to AmboróThe next day I ride away from Juan heading to Amboró, promising to see him again in March and sell him my bike.* Whilst it had crossed my mind some time ago, only now travelling on the wet and muddy road to the park do I realise that I've been travelling too slowly and the rainy season has begun.* I’d only expected to spend a month in comparatively small Bolivia but it’s been two months already and I'm certainly not ready to leave yet.* But it’s not just here I'm a little anxious about, but also Ushuaia, which I must reach before the winter, during which time I'm told the roads will be impassable.

Amboró has two sides, a lowland north and an elevated south entrance, separated by a less visited central area.* It’s possible to actually cross the whole park by foot over two weeks.* There is even talk of a road being cut straight through the park in the future to speed up exports from the lower jungle farther to the east, which currently have to travel to the distant Brazilian ports rather than cross the Andes by circuitous routes to the actually closer Peruvian ports. *This is actually a bone of content amongst Bolivians and Chileans, as Bolivia lost its seaports in a war against Chile. The pact was agreed similar to that of the Panama canal, a one hundred year lease, only the hundred years ended five years ago. Chile would lose two large cities, key ports, its border with Peru and a vast area of mineral rich altiplano. *(Don't take my word for any of this, this is just what I was told and has no citations).

I’m travelling to the southern entrance of Amboro which, as well as being closer to Samaipata, also contains the majority of the birdlife, in an area called “Los Volcanes.”** The trail is a variety of muds; hard-packed red clay, sandy dust or loamy soil and is either dry, saturated, or else a steep glassy sheen of solid clay that has just a sprinkling of water making it slippery as a toad.*



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Burrowing through the jungle to AmboróAs I round a cliff top, several large parrots fly by in pairs, dipping amongst the trees and across my path.* I leave the bike to walk in hopes of a closer glimpse, camera ready.* They are turquoise, white and orange with black faces, and I call them “panda parrots” for I feel sure they have white ringed eyes, but now in memory that seems a bit absurd.* In any case, they are skittish and fly off always just out of view until finally, tired of my hunting they drop down into the immense valley.* Turning to watch their flight - and curse the buggers - I then notice the tombstone-like red “volcanes” rising up steeply from the valley floor and supporting the low rain clouds.

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Los Volcanes

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Los volcanes
Back on the bike and snaking along the top of the ridge, the road forks off left, angling down the steep sides. *It could be too steep for my bike to climb back up, especially in the wet and certainly if rain continues overnight and I worry about becoming stuck in the valley.* For now it’s fun, tunnelling through the dark green of the jungle on thick and loamy wet soil and mud and bridges.* I pop out then into bright light and a large neatly trimmed lawn surrounding the national park lodge.* However, when I speak with the staff I find that camping is not permitted and the rooms are by reservation only.* I try to explain to the staff, that I need just a small square, perhaps 0.5% of their space for my tent.* Understandably they hold their ground.* They point and I follow their outstretched arms to behold; the high mountains down which I’ve just descended as unmoving as their unbending rules.* I sigh.* I get back on the bike as a small jeep pops out from the trees at the base of the mountain and crosses the grass to disgorge another group of brightly coloured smileless reservees.* Pricks every one. *Though perhaps I was just a bit envious.


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STEEP! *Dropping down to the refuge...hope it doesn't rain.
Spot the bike.In the saddle again, away from them, up the hill, a bit of clutch, lots of revs and actually the bike makes it up better than I’d anticipated, which is to say it made it up.* When I reach back to the fork in the road I turn left to continue onwards around the high ridge above the Volcanes valley on new ground, deeper into the park. This road doesn’t appear on my map, but I know that I’m heading roughly north east and I wonder if I might actually be able to cross the national park by some secret road, this road.* I pass one or two small farms as I rise and fall, skirting just beneath the peak of the spiney ridge until I come to a lofty and abandoned refuge.* The refuge resembles a research centre from Jurassic Park, torn apart by a T-rex!* It has a very commanding position, looking far, far out to the north across a vast plain of unspoilt jungle.* The road becomes very feint here and unsure where it goes I decide first to ride back to where I spotted two men working on a telephone mast and ask them about it.*

As well as the two workmen is a family that actually live in the concrete shelter which otherwise houses the electrics of the telemasts.* They tell me that this road goes nowhere and now I feel as if I’ve wasted a whole day going nowhere, here in the rain.* We continue to talk as a second engineer climbs down the mast and the father looks back to his family huddled apprehensively together in the doorway of the building.* We talk about the park, the birds and wildlife and the father assures me that there really are “loads of birds,” and just to prove his point he raises his chin and says “there’s a Great Big titted warbler” or some such.* “Where?” we all ask, as not one of us can see it. “There!” he says and the bird warbles again, calling out as if to say, “He-are-he-are!”

Unable then to cross the park by this road I have just one option remaining; to return.* Descending a steep pane of slippery smooth hardpack I decide to pull off before reaching the busier main road with its inherent difficulties for finding camp.* I leave the road by a thin foot trail through the jungle a short way across angled slopes to an opening and shut out off the engine.** It’s later than I’d thought and darkness falls as I set up and with it comes a crescendo of pleasant bird chatter and insect noise. *Amongst the noise is the very interesting throaty bark of the “wailing death bird,” which starts off as a blood curdling wail and finishes as a sleepy whistle, “WHAAAA.whaa, wha, whaf, pfoo, pfoooh ….WHAAAA.whaa, wha, whaf, pfoo, pfoooh!” An interesting one that never fails to make me smile despite my nagging fear that if it rains in the night getting down this steep trail tomorrow will probably involve me using the bike as a sled.

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Ants come in one size: BIG
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This fella was also big, and digging a hole
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This chap was a little bit bigger than the ants!

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Camp in the jungle, a bit tight, noisy and niceAnxiously I leave the tent in the morning, half expecting to find that it has been engulfed by gnarly green roots of the jungle, but it’s not, it’s even dry and Rodney is still there too, though he is going to take some extricating from amongst the trees. Not wanting to give up on Amboro, stubborn fellow, I decide to try and enter the park via its northern entrance.* This means a lengthy ride today, all the way around the national park via Santa Cruz to the village of Buena Vista on the park’s northern border.*

Fixing the camera, just an example of jungle noise:



Despite good paved roads which link Bolivia’s industrial capital Santa Cruz with outlying cities, it takes much longer than anticipated and it’s not until the end of the day that I arrive in Buena Vista, the jumping off point.* Wanting to be prepared for tomorrow I rush around the market to stock up and also to replace broken shoelaces.* The latter proves a little tricky as I only know the Spanish word for ropes, “cuerdas”. *I walk then looking for the national park’s information centre, passing a man sat at a roulette wheel on the pavement waiting for betters and farther up I find the entire populous of school children playing fuzzball at a set of tables actually filling the street.* The information centre for Amboro is contained within a small home and a helpful girl concedes that most visits from this side, like the south, are with organised 4x4 tours.* Also I can only enter the interior of the park with a guide, but this isn’t the biggest problem as - with this side of the park being more inhabited - I can use local guides.* The biggest problem is to actually get there. *With the rainy season getting underway, and having had several days of heavy rain the rivers have become impassable and even 4x4s normally carrying the organised groups have been forced to postpone visiting.* The silver lining however, is that on the bike I might be able to use a canoe to get across the worst and highest river.* Thereafter are several lesser rivers and I’ll have to cross those alone. “Oh, and normally,” the girl continues, “the last section you have to walk, buuuutttt, wait….you’re on a motorcycle, right?* Maybe you can make it!”** Maybe.

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Not many takers at the roulette wheel

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Because everyone is playing fuzzball!


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Riverside camp
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A great moment when you see this view and KNOW
with all certainty that, "this is the spot[to camp]!"I ask the girl about a good spot to camp for tonight and she gives great advice which leads me far outside the village until I come to a point where the muddy road stops and disappears down into the huge twist of brown river, the Surutu.* A large patch of grass here provides a great spot for camp (#527 on map, the river must have moved/widened) and offers a high viewpoint over the river, which looks immense.* Whilst I don’t need to cross here I fear that I won't be able to farther upstream tomorrow.* A man arrives then in a taxi, the taxi stops, the man gets out, the taxi leaves, and I ask the man where he’s going, “over there.” he says gesturing to the far side of the river and picking up his bundle.

”What, you live over there?”
”Yeah.”
”But…how?* How do you get there?”
”Caminando,” he says.

And sure enough he walks across. *Maybe I can cross!

The night is thick black, like the first moments after turning out the lights and you can’t see a single thing.* This time however your eyes never adjust and you continue to be blind.* Despite its proximity I can’t see the river and can only barely hear it, as if the darkness -like a black hole- is swallowing all, reducing the noise to a muffled hush.* My tent is tucked up on a grassy corner between river, road and jungle and with dinner finished I sit in the darkness sipping tea, just observing the darkness which seems new and unique, trying to see or hear something.* The birds are quiet now, hiding away in the safety-net of silence amongst the trees for the night, but then I hear something; the unmistakable snarl of a cat.* A big cat I think, though I hadn’t heard a single twig break and I wonder if maybe I’m mistaken.* Then I hear the noise again, an angry hissing snarl, as if the cat has seen the tent, doesn’t understand it, doesn’t like it.* Without a moments thought I reach beside me and put my hand on my head-torch and quietly I get out of the tent. * I stand slowly and slip the torch over my head but leave it turned off.* It is dark, dark and somewhere, the river hushes by.* In my socks, I feel the soft prongs of grass and the cool wetness of the mud seeping into them.* I stop, the cat I know, was close.* I stare and squeeze my eyes to try and squeeze life into them, to see. *But I can't, I need light. *Slowly I reach up, up, up and put my hand around my head-torch.*
CLICK.
And there is light.

One of the worst things about camping in the dark, is how inconspicuous your light is.* Like sneezing in a library.* All of a sudden, everyone notices you and in these cases, knows where you are.* And yet I have little idea of where they are.

The river hushes by and as I stare I realise that what I’m expecting to see is two eyes, green or marble purple shining back at me.* What are you doing, this is silly, I think for the eyes see me, but I do not see the eyes.* But then why would I?* They are not here…at least I don’t see them. *But there was something, I know it and now I want to see it, if only to confirm that I was right.* And so, one foot follows the other into the jungle, crrrrunch, crrrrack and splodge through mud, leaves and twigs and somewhere the river hushes by.* I push branches out of the way as others brush against my bare legs and after barely a few steps I stop, poised…and think and think; no, I decide, if it IS a jaguar….go back, get back in the tent….I turn to look over my shoulder, and the light tunnels through the darkness, but there is no tent, where is the tent?”* Panic surges and I hurry back then splodgecrunchcrack, until with relief, there it is, I see it!* I get inside, quick-quick, zip the porch, zip the door, zip the sleeping bag and listen, and listen and listen and the river hushes by….Hussssh.

Bolivia Part 4 - III
 

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As butterflies go....pretty fancy.The birds bark and cackle, squeak and squawk in the morning and I stand staring into the jungle, staring at the noisiest of all of the trees, but not one bird can I spot, not one.* It’s always the same, a ragtime cocktail of tunes but I can never see the source.* Breakfast company is more visible; long leech-black millipedes and butterflies of orange, pastel green and a beautiful black dart-shaped one.* I

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One, two, three, four...wait, stop
moving fella!ride back out along the lovely fast stretch of dips, ruts and whoops, back beneath the trees heavy with mangoes to Buena Vista.* From here along the main road to try and find the trail which leads to the park.* The morning is a hubbub of life and noise, buying and selling, motos, trucks, pickups and buses loading and unloading people and wares.* I’m so preoccupied by the sights and sounds that I miss the turn off and it’s only when I cross the river by huge expanse of bridge that I realise I’ve gone too far.* However, now on the far side of the river it crosses my mind that I should just drop off the road onto the dirt and ride to the park directly from here, surely avoiding having to cross the river! The locals must know better though, so I go back and find the turn-off.

A rocky bed scarred with a variety of tire-tracks darting off in many directions.* The bed is dry here and piles of wet sand and gravel mark the river’s recent high point.* Just beyond the drying detritus is the river, curling around like a thick brown question mark.* There are no other bikes nor a canoe, certainly no cars, but there are people crossing by foot, under burdensome loads.* I watch them carefully as they cross, using thick sticks to steady themselves against the muddy current, a little less than waist deep and all the while wondering to myself can I cross?* The thought disappears as I make the decision, let out the clutch, and the front wheel enters the water.* Whilst sandy at the edge I find as I progress that the middle and far side is littered with larger rocks and I buck and dip into hollows deeper than anticipated.* Uncontrollably I veer off left but just manage to catch the fall before gladly making it out.* As I ride up the riverbank, bags, boots and bike dripping dry, a group of locals chuckle amongst themselves at my recent bucking, seat of the pants, feet off the pegs, ride across.* They tell me that passing to left is the better way to take, shallower and smoother.* I’ll remember that for when I return. *Frustratingly, more locals arrive on motorcycles now, they would have shown me the way had I been a minute later.* Some men I notice prefer still to push their bikes, their Chinese machines perhaps more susceptible to the water.* I help one culprit with tools and labour to get his bike running though he is completely indifferent to my help and once fixed he sits there all the same, in no rush to continue.

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I fixed this bike after he flooded it, the owner is in yellow and clearly in no rush to move.


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You should pass to the left, gringito!I leave the men behind to ride on towards Laguna Verde, passing a village with homes of broad wood planks and shaded by frond roofs.* There are no road-signs and the route is littered with rivers, many of which I cross twice as I take wrong turns.* There are two distinct types of river crossing; slow moving, muddy and soft, or otherwise fast boulder-strewn white waters.* The trail thins and thins as I progress until it is just two tyre marks in the tall grass.* I love the trail and love the place, until occasionally rounding a bend, the muddy trail drops steeply between the trees and all that I can see ahead is muddy water….and then more trees.* And then I don’t like it so much.* There’s something about it, just something I don’t like, the narrow field of view, the darkness, a tunnel through the jungle but no light at its end, just a river....Rivers, you just never know until you are safely across.* My fear is always of getting stuck half way, either flooding the engine with water or just bogging down in impossibly thick mud and not being able to push out alone. *Luckily today I make it each time and then pass a sign which tells me I have entered the national park.* This sign however doesn’t seem to deter the locals who – as it is well known - are still burning down swathes of jungle to make way for mandarins, beans and yams.* There are few houses now , far from Buena Vista and the trail becomes a footpath then which I ride along until it too peters out, outside the refuge.

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Idyllic

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Lovely trail, not too long.
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My guess is that Laguna Verde is in those mountains
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Just don't like these...and there were quite a few.
The refuge for chickens.* A nice sign states that this is the start of the footpath to Laguna Verde, my target, but I can’t find the path.* I find a lot of chickens, and a lot of signs with tree names on them, and a very empty refuge (save for more chickens). *There is also a house at the end of a large flat pasture and I walk to it, but find it is deserted too.* Amboró is just not working out for me!
*
I’ve spent five days now just trying to get in to the park!* Sometimes you just know.* Sometimes you have that feeling that you have to try butthere is also something else in the back of your mind telling you - not so much that you will fail but - that you are just wasting your time.* Of course these amount to the same thing, failing and not arriving, but failing to my mind means that you gave up.* Sometimes though, it’s futile, you can’t do it no matter how hard you try.* And perhaps worse is that you know it…..and yet you still try anyway, then try again, and again.* I knew it, I knew it seven days ago sitting in Samaipata as the rain pelted down, before I'd even started.* Now there is little else I can try, save for walking randomly off in to the jungle.

I eat an apple and watch photon-beam birds, listen to their bright darting calls and start thinking about trying, luck, skill.*

Photon-beam bird:



I used to think that you could do anything and that if you tried, practised and worked extremely hard you could do it, you could do anything.* But it’s not quite like that.* One day you are dreaming about what you want to be when you grow up, watching these guys on TV whilst you do your homework, or reading about them in books whilst working your crappy part-time job, and then the next day you wake up and think “shit, I’m grown up” and the guys on TV are younger than you.* It’s not that I’m old, let’s get that straight, just that a lot of things require you to be kicking some amount of ass at an early age. *I’d spent so much time thinking about what I wanted to be that the opportunity -to be something a little bit special - had passed. *The world IS full of opportunities but if you (and likely your parents) don’t cotton on to one's God given opportunity from day one, then it will likely just pass you by.* Gone, boom. *So, to quote Joe Simpson,

“You gotta make decisions. You gotta keep making decisions, even if they're wrong decisions, you know. If you don't make decisions, you're stuffed.”

Quite right, and whilst Joe decided to try and get out of the huge crevasse he foudn himself in, I decided to get out of Amboro.

Just after setting off back towards Buena Vista I stop at a house not far from the refuge and talk to a man.* I wonder what opportunities he has had and missed, what was his gift?* He offers to guide me to Laguna Verde himself, but not today, it’s too late, he’ll take me tomorrow.* He knows the way well and –sadly for me - he’s no fool and won’t let this opportunity pass him by, must know what the tours are charging and therefore he wants a similar premium.* Well, I think, I’ve put so much time in, I can either keep going or quit Amboro, so I make another decision; to pay.
“Yeah OK,” I say, “can I camp here then?”
”Oh, no!”
”No?”
”No, if it rains tonight, you might not be able to get out across the rivers!”
”Mmmm, yeah, OK, well….if it does rain, how long does it take for the rivers to drop?”
”Maybe four months!”

And that was that for Amboró!


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A cheeky meal
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A cheeky monkey
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Cheeky chappies
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A cheeky....owl


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Fishing on the SurutuSo I carry on back to Buena Vista, riding the ten or so rivers a second time and return to my previous night’s camp hoping to see the jaguar!* Instead I see a group´of men turn up in a car.* It’s dusk, pink and purple and bang bang bang go the doors on the pick up.* I poke my head out of the tent and say hello.* They are uninterested and disappear down the red mud bank to the river.* When I look again, they are walking abreast each other, holding a net across the breadth of the river, trapping the fish as they walk upstream.* I notice that it’s not raining and I realise with some sadness that it won’t rain tonight after all.* The men return late in darkness and throw their machetes and fishing nets into their pickup, waking me from sleep.* Their torches dart over the tent and they chatter.* The sound of the beer cans then, psst, psst, psst.* Four men with machetes drinking beer outside my tent in a quiet corner of Bolivian jungle.* The nocturnal voice in my head says that they could rob everything I own, chop me up and throw me in with the fish, and not a soul would know.* I try to stay awake, to be ready, tell myself it's just evolution keeping me worried at night in order to stay alive, until I tire of the voice and succumb to sleep.*


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El papaI gasp and wake damp with sweat, I’ve slept a little late and the sun is high and burns hot on the tent.* Later, as I munch cold porridge and fruit, some local men arrive to gaze at the river.* They talk to me about “the men that came to fish,” and tell wild stories of how the fish were abundant, easy to catch, the biggest they’ve ever seen and “swimming so close to their feet that they could catch them with machetes!”*

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Okinawa squareEverything packed up, I look at the map to the loop of Jesuit Missionaries out east beyond Santa Cruz.* I’d been thinking about these a long time, before I’d entered Bolivia having seen them dotted on the map.* Ushuaia will wait.* I cut across from Buena Vista on a lesser road, avoiding Santa Cruz, and instead passing through a busy industrial-farming strip, including the Japanese colony of Okinawa. *As I progress the route become ominously quiet until the reason for this becomes clear: the Rio Grande.*

New Blog Post
 

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NEW BLOG POST - The Mission, Bolivia Part 5

After Amboro, I head further east, deeper in to the Amazon, following the 1000 km Jesuit Missions circuit towards the Brazilian border.* Ravaged by mosquitoes and savaged by spiders, I continue to Laguna Concepción and an interesting ranch stay before travelling on through the Mennonite colonies to reach Santa Cruz.

The blog post is HERE

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I'll post it on here too if I can, but the forums give me a lot of grief with formatting problems, much better for viewers on the website... so better to click the link, there's also a new look website, too.

Enjoy :)

The Mission - Bolivia, Part 5, P.I
 

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After Amboro, I head further east, deeper in to the Amazon, following the 1000 km Jesuit Missions circuit towards the Brazilian border.* Ravaged by mosquitoes and savaged by spiders, I continue to Laguna Concepción and an interesting ranch stay before travelling on through the Mennonite colonies to reach Santa Cruz.


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eBook Files:
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The river doesn’t so much flow as sit, vast and heavy, like a flood.

The two boys jump in to the muddy waters and spit arcs of brown, smiling happily, shining in the sun.* They dive below the surface then, unseen, to untie and then drag a raft of shaggy planks out from among the many jumbled at the shore. *I hear the burble of an outboard motor approaching from across the river,* a raft nearing us with a silver pick-up truck filling it from bow to stern.* It rolls and yaws as the motor fights against the river’s invisible force.* Hidden among the gurgle of the motor is a noisy hubbub of the Latino workers.* They holler and shout, laugh and whistle, energetic and happy for the brief moment of work among the many hours of lethargy and wait spent besides the river.* I turn and see a motorbike speeding across the hard sandy floodplain towards us, feathers of dust rising in its wake.* The pilot is a huge man who dwarfs the bike, making it appear as if it were for a child. When the man steps from the toy-machine to turn toward me he appears square, like a shoebox with a penny for a head.



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This rather Mexican-esque man took me across the Rio grande...Señor Shoebox



The man is the boat pilot, the boss. *Without having to break his stride, the pilot walks from his bike to the raft and steps aboard just as the two boys nudge it against the shore.* I’m called to push the bike on, the boys clamber aboard and the pilot pulls the starter rope.

Sat on the bike, I plant my feet wide to steady myself and in doing so catch my boot on a long bent nail.* I know it is long because there it is, almost all of its six inches and looking around more closely I notice its bent brethren poking out here and there like wild mushrooms, all heads and elbows.* Some of the wood sits loose in the bottom of the creaking raft, as structurally useful as a paddle.

Foolishly I had pushed the bike in nose first so that now, as we approach the far side of the river, I realise that I’ll have to drag the bike out backwards. *The square man smiles at my revelation, shiny teeth lined with gold, he knew my mistake all along.* Worse is that the flat bank of entry is instead on the other side a steep slope of soft sand as high as a man.* The pilot lifts the motor, a dry throaty gurgle, and it clicks up in its cradle and is turned off.* He then begins to fettle his teeth with a toothpick held between plump finger and thumb.* He won’t be assisting with the bike then.* Luckily the boys and others on the far side do help, six all told, managing to find somewhere to place a hand on Rodney and heave him out and up the steep sand inch by inch.* Laughing and panting at the top of the bank, we all shake hands and wipe sweated brows, whilst Square Man walks calmly up to the bow, flicks the toothpick into the river and steps on to the sand with not a rivulet of sweat on his brow. *I'm almost certain I can smell the detergent from his shirt which looks clean and starchy crisp. *A silence falls now as he steps over from the boat, it’s time to pay.* There’s an odd sense of tension, the quiet, him waiting, the teenage staff watching like jackals and vultures, as if I may attempt to ride away without paying for “the goods”. The price is actually fair and there is tangible relief as money changes hands.* It is quickly split into decreasing cuts, the last of the helpers looking particularly forlorn at his own share. *I'm instructed by Square Man how to get off the plain and on to the road…..and my impression is I should do just that, pronto.

After the dirt here, the road joins the main branch north-east from Santa Cruz, paved.* There are Jesuit missions marked on the map by asterisks and these are linked by a long loop of red which later turns yellow.* And so my goal is simple, to run the loop.* I expect no difficulties but when I reach San Xavier and the first asterisks, I find that the locals know little about the missions, nothing in fact, nor even the word, mission.* Synonyms, cognates and pronunciations fail one by one as I try asking for; Jesuits, church, big church, big old church, and more besides, but there are no answers, just blank looks.* Eventually I find the mission, in the next town – I wasn't in San Xavier at all.* Now though, with the delay, it is late and San Xavier’s mission doors are sealed, thanks be to God.* However, the exterior of clean white paint, contrasting dark twirls of wood and regal gold artwork are more than enough for me.* Truly divine.

I speak with the locals, leaning in their doorways as they watch their children idle in the dust and grass.* I ask them about camping, “sometimes the tourists camp in the plaza,” they say, but their twisted faces suggests that perhaps it’s not wise, or not wanted. *In any case I don’t rate too highly my chances of finding a private bathroom spot in the morning.* The police offer less assistance and I return*to the bike thinking over the ride here, trying to remember any opportunities I may have missed or forgotten, even half chances.* But there were none, certainly no clear chances.* The only thing I do remember is a crossroads and the two side-roads leading off from it which might provide some feint opportunity, I’ll have to try those.



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The first Jesuit mission built in 1749 in San Xavier, Very, very nice! When the Jesuits arrived, no one spoke Spanish, all tribal languages. Only Jesuits and locals could stay here, merchants were allowed 3 days. The Jesuits were kicked out in 1764 after Spain handed over some territories to Portugal, who believed the Jesuits were siding with protesting Guarani Indians and were also (European Jesuits) plotting to kill the President



A broad road of smooth dirt leads off on either side of the crossroad.* Too smooth.* It must be busy, well used, populated.* I look at each in turn, left and right, left or right?* Sometimes just deciding where you want go is hardest, getting there is easy and the goal always so simple.* Left or right?* Looking for some clue, some sign…some reassurance.* The wrong choice here could make for a bad night, or at least a long one.* There’s little in it though, so I go left.

The trail is lined by fences on both sides and beyond them fields of green crops and pasture. *I pass many locals on motorcycles who have curious looks as they head into town after a hard day’s work.* It’s clear I won’t be able to camp here, at least initially as it’s impossible to leave the road.* If it continues in this way I will have to turn back and attempt the opposite trail, though I don’t imagine that will be much different.* Instead I continue onwards, hoping that road will change in my favour until I’ve gone so far as to have no chance of returning to the other trail in daylight.** Without any option I push on still farther, dusk falling, until suddenly things change, miraculously the fences stop, the land is wooded and open.* I daren’t question why and without hesitation I turn sharply from the road up a step almost as tall as the wheel itself but no match for my desperation to get off the road to camp.* My feet are bucked from the foot-pegs as I summit the step, I waiver and almost tumble before recovering.* I dart and weave through tall grass and bushes, hushing and snagging on the panniers and my trousers.* I pray no one is passing on the road, watching at my back as I aim towards a small cluster of trees.* There, amongst the branches I hear the invitations of parrots squawking “HERE! HERE!”* and as I bound toward them I'm sad to see them fly away.* I shut off the engine and at last remove my helmet to rub weary eyes .* A long way to camp, but in the end a fine spot.



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I had to travel very far to find this camp, all the same it was a lovely spot.



It’s warm and sunny, and I can sit out until late in the evening in just T-shirt and shorts, amongst tall dry grass, with birds in the trees and ants at my feet. *What a change from the cold barren Andes where I had to be wrapped up in the sleeping bag by 6:30pm or struggle to then warm it through.* It's not just the climate that is different, but also the people, their things and their places.* The towns I've found that whilst they are not huge urban areas, are long single boulevards of hectic bustling life.* There are tuk-tuks, taxis and moto-taxis, cars and trucks, bicycles and buses, and of course there are people, in hot grimy clothes on red muddy streets.* In contrast to the Andes the populous seems younger here too, or - more correctly -there are teenagers, where in the highlands there seemed to be few.* In fact, the majority of people here in the lowlands seem to be children and teenagers; going about in dentist/lab-coat like school uniforms, playing video games at Playstation rooms and facebooking in internet cafes, eating unhealthy snacks from street vendors, or else blitzing the streets on their 125cc Chinese motorbikes.* These bikes are stripped of all fairings, dials and lights for a cool, retro, naked bike look. *Continuing the cool they are usually ridden with helmet carried not on their head but in the crook of their arm, and usually with a giggling girlfriend on the pillion seat.* In the highlands there are few motorcycles, driven mainly by more mature men. * It seems common for the teenagers, once old enough, to move away to the main cities, often to study or else in search of modern life, work, or – I am told- in search of the glamour they have seen in the TV soap operas.



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The locals like their bikes minimal, no lights, no electrics really, no speedo, no rear end save the seat, no stickers (SHOCK!) and a MASSIVE booming exhaust.



Whilst they won’t find glamour or glitz they will find a certain way of life in the lowlands that has to some degree, many of modern life’s “pleasures”; alcohol and bars, motels (brothels), fashion (in a sense), electronics (copies), food (deep fried), money (cash crops), motorbikes (Chinese), cars (“Ford Ran-Gurs") and no doubt some of the Soap Opera like drama that accompanies a town of drunk men, brothels and bargain-priced tarty clothes.* But I might be painting a false image here, it’s not all debauchery, alcohol and tarty teenagers.* These single avenues are full of a variety of temptation in other, more acceptable guises and in the avenue people bustle and barter, buying and selling at stalls, shops and on foot.* The key to selling in the Latin market is clear; make people aware of the product and put it within easy reach.* Maybe that’s every market but in Latin America this generally means putting the product in your face, under your nose or failing that just everywhere.* If a product is there and people are liable to pass by it, then most likely they won’t pass it by.* Even buses are susceptible with vendors using elevated platforms –* think upturned broom-handle with a shelf – which reach up to bus windows to put racks of crisps, chocolate, nuts and sodas tantalisingly within reach.* They can’t resist.* It is laughable.* And busyness breeds business, crowds swell curiosity. I could sell a piece of old rope, provided it was fried.* Honestly I could.

Historically these busy backwaters have all grown up thanks to the work of the Jesuits in the 1700s who first created them.* Originally this was to offer the - then nomadic – Amazonian tribes a fixed meeting point and to guide introduce them to Christianity. *These also served to link up other Jesuit missions as far afield as Brazil and Paraguay (then of course a wild Amazon, not like today) and of course as trading points.* It is perhaps this historical movement of people, of much passing traffic that has created these long towns which depend so heavily on the vast numbers of passing travellers rather than the core of actual residents.***The reality then is that now these towns have become busy bus and truck stops as people and goods make their way to and from Brazil, with the locals fighting for every customer.* It means that the centres of these towns – away from the main through-route - provide some of the quietest streets and some respite.* There the hectic bustle calms considerably and movement slows to a shoe-shuffling snail pace more in-keeping with the stifling heat.

In the centre are the missions, though originally these didn’t last long, thanks mainly to the changing hands and creating of new countries of independence in South America (i.e. the influx of Portuguese after the earlier Spanish) and by 1750 few actual Jesuits remained.* With the later rubber boom more Mestizos (a grotesque word that means people of mixed Spanish/Portuguese/Native Indian descent) arrived, outnumbering and eventually eradicating the natives.* Much later, from 1972 until 1999, a Swiss architect (and Jesuit) named Hans Roth worked at restoring the missions which had fallen into dilapidation.* Thanks to his efforts I am able to see them in their current and rejuvenated splendour on this long loop of road from Santa Cruz, north east all the way to the Brazilian border, south to San Jose de Chiquitos, and then back around to Santa Cruz city, almost 1000km.

The next morning I return to the mission in San Xavier, stopping first at the market to buy bread and fruit.* After the long ride in from camp, I’m already hungry and I chew terribly stale sweet breads as I make my way back to the mission.* Thankfully today the doors are open and I find the interior is airy and fresh – unlike the bread - and as with the exterior the mix of European and native building techniques and materials continues in a really fantastic blend.* The sun throws oblongs of light onto the square-tiled floor and the rows of plain dark pews and a shaft of light hits the golden alter.* Completely in contrast to the almost bland flooring and plain pews are the twisting pillars of pale wood spiralling up to the ceiling. * This ceiling rests on walls painted with golden cherubs strumming harps and floating over rather austere looking confession boxes.* I wonder what I would confess?* “I've not worked a day in over two years and I've left a trail of craps all over the globe!”



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The steps to the bell tower.


In a room behind the alter, a door of rough wood leads me outside into the enclosed garden and courtyard.* At one end spiralling upwards towards heaven is the tall dark bell tower, its bells silent, hanging a bluish green with decay, religion entirely.* In fact the whole church is silent, not a single person at prayer, though I’m sure they must come, they should for the church is beautiful if nothing else.* I leave then, half empty and half full of nasty bread, eager to pursue the loop, to find more of these angelic buildings.



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Then heading further east towards the Brazilian border, on a long loop taking in 6 more missionaries



The road is as straight as a spear, heading to the heart of the jungle and abruptly, seemingly at random, it turns to dirt bright red as from the termite mounds of Zambia.* Whilst straight the dirt at least gives me something to concentrate on where the asphalt was lacking.* There is hardly a break in the trees alongside the broad road and the few villages I pass are not hostile exactly but somehow unwelcoming.* Perhaps they are tired of Mission tourists or maybe it's just closer to the Brazil and the common no-man’s land feeling felt near borders, making me think again of Zambia and the border with Congo.** (All just perception though).

The road is very wide and rutted from the rainy season.* Small trucks making their way back west to Santa Cruz yaw slowly this way and that.* On the bike it’s fast and easy going but even so it’s a long time before I reach the second mission in Concepción.* Similar to the first but with artwork somehow less refined, more colourful but a little gaudy.

Before reaching a forth mission in San Ignacio I consider stopping to camp but the dense jungle means that there are few places to leave the road.* Several small rustic villages look interesting, quiet and might help provide me shelter.* I pass several not really sure at each if it is “the one”, or if I even want to stop and ask at all; it’s been such a long time since I asked to camp because I just haven’t needed to.* Then the next village hits a chord.* There is often that feeling, a place that I've never seen but feels like a vague memory, soft, blurry and missing detail, as if I've dreamt of it, or been there long ago.* It gives me a reassurance that my stopping here is preordained, that this is exactly where I'm meant to be, even going so far as to think that maybe I haven’t messed things up – generally speaking in life - after all.* I actually think all of this a little way beyond the village, standing beside the bike, part of me still not quite sure, trying to pluck up some courage, out of practise, but I tell myself, this is where I'm meant to be, I'm in the right place.



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In the right place, Pablo was more than quick to offer his space. Here he shows me his cheese press!



I turn back and ride to the edge of the village which fronts on to the road and there’s Pablo, coming over, smiling like an old friend who’s been expecting me, like he’s had the same blurry future-memory as myself.* There is no doubt that I can camp, in fact it feels as if I needn't even ask.* Before I've spoken I find we are all of us sitting down together on plastic chairs outside on the yard as the cockerel pecks at the bare earth, the sun setting, drinking coffee and laughing.* Whilst we have the chairs, the girls of the family sit cross legged on the hard dirt floor in a triangle, plucking nits from the next, from the next, from the next, from each others smooth dark hair.* As the boys finish up playing football on the large patch of grass central to the village, I begin the magic show; setting up my tent beneath an arbour that would drip sap all night.* As always the tent poles bring the biggest smiles from the family as the segments unfold into a pole and then bend into incredible arches to help make a sheet a home.* Then the bed, blown up with a “pillow pump”, and finally the petrol stove lit with magic straight from my fingers (a flint), fuhGOGH!* And they jump as the spark catches and a quick lick of flame dances over the ground.* The stove flickers orange and splutters before settling into it’s steady blue roar.* I make coffee for myself and Pablo which brings a nice smile to his face.* I return to the tent then in darkness to cook and am followed by a small mob.* The tent porch fills with faces edging ever closer, old and young alike, mouths agape like children watching TV.

“What’s that?” asks the older girl,
“It’s….what, this?* It’s carrot…...do you want some?”
“Yes.”* No please, thanks or even hesitation.

I slice a piece and pass it to the girl.* I continue chopping the rest of the carrot and tossing it into the boiling stock as the girl nibbles experimentally at the edge of the carrot slice, and then smiles. *She’s never eaten carrot before.* Later I would hear her talking excitedly to her father, Pablo, and her mother about how she had just been eating carrot and peas and sweet potato, and I would notice particularly how she had to pronounce “zanahoria (carrot)” very carefully as if it was a foreign word and difficult to say.* There isn't just her of course, those others crammed inside the porch around the stove are also fed and I offer each some of the cooked dinner.* They tell me, quite seriously, it is the best thing they have ever eaten and ask how to cook it (boil some stock and throw in some chopped veggies, simmer for as long as your hunger will allow, eat).* I consume a small fraction of my dinner with the majority given away to eager hands and smiling faces. These smiles come at the cost of an empty stomach and later I secretly and selfishly eat my biscuits all to myself….

In the morning I wake from dreams of food, a stomach painful with emptiness and a pillow damp with dribble…as if I tried to eat it during the night.* I very sneakily eat a lot of cold porridge only to then be invited for coffee and bread together with Pablo and I feel guilty for being so selfish with my porridge, always so selfish.* We sit at a wooden table, rough like bark though worn smooth and made black over the years of meals.* Flies are abundant, a million clones look-look, buzz-buzz.* Pablo’s wife washes dishes as he talks of the tough day he has ahead, working in the fields.* I get the impression that actually Pablo will saunter over in his own sweet time and plod back some time later not having so much as dirtied his machete (I don’t mean this nastily, just Pablo was extremely laid back).

Pablo is called by his daughter from outside and he saunters out momentarily to milk her cow leaving me in the company of his wife and a squadron of flies happily licking away at the grimy table.* His wife becomes friendly, chatty and outgoing where moments earlier in Pablo’s presence she was diminutive and silent.* She sings along to the radio but complains about how she must always buy batteries for it.* I tell her she should sell it and buy one that works from the mains electric, an empty socket right next to the radio.* She says it is too expensive.* I wonder if I should buy her one, but the idea is quickly quashed by my golden rule, cultivated in Africa, to be careful not to act like a gringo (mzungu) charity.* I cover Pablo’s cup with his plate to protect it from the flies, but his bread remains easy pickings for them - though to be fair they seem quite content with the grimy table.* When Pablo returns he looks a bit bemused as to why his plate is on top of his cup and smiles to himself, “gringos!* aren’t they strange!”* When he goes to bite his bread and is joined by four flies also tucking in just at the end of his nose, he is unperturbed.

”Did you get much milk.” I ask.
”5 litres.”
”Hm, poco.”
”Do you have cows in England?” he asks.
”Yes.* Well, I don’t have any, but there are lots.* Only big farms now, each with maybe 200 cows.”
”200!* How much milk do they make?”
”I don’t know, maybe 20 litres each per day?”
”20 litres!”
”Yeah, maybe it is the climate, lots of rain so we have lots of good green grass!” then I say, gesturing to the roof, “we don’t have grass roofs though!”
”Ah, you have tin roofs….” he says, “it is better.”
”No, there’s not many with tin, people think it’s a bit ugly, we have slate (I actually say “stone” because I don’t know the word for slate). *Does the grass roof let the rain in?”
”No, no, it is very good, but after a while it rots and we have to change it.”
”How often?”
”Maybe once every two years…I want a tin roof but it is too expensive.”
”I don’t know, they make a lot of noise in the rain, you won’t sleep and the grass is free!”

We go outside and get some photos of the house, the camera is shown around the family whilst I look more interested in Pablo’s cheese press.* I take photos of it and I'm asked to take photos of the chicken, the dog.



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And this is house! He loved looking at my equipment, and drinking coffee....though he had a little less to tell me, though I tried really hard to find some questions....



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Beneath the arbour, a lovely peaceful village in the Amazon



Farewell I say and greedily, selfishly I store away some memories, a few paragraphs in this, my story.* And what have I left them?* Nothing.* And still I wonder if they’ll remember me.

White butterflies fill the air, like leaping hearts, jumping from the grasses at the verge of the road, hundreds, perhaps thousands of them for many kilometres.* A junction and a side road slicing north, a band of red mud between the vast green, heading to Noel Kempff National Park.* I’d wanted to visit there but had forgotten about it on grounds of time limit; my visa soon to run out.* Even so I'm tempted, but on top of the issue of time I'm also lacking fuel, money and a reservation, all of which mean that with a pang of regret I continue east.

The Mission - Bolivia, Part 5, P.II
 

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In San Xavier, I've seen a few of these bulbous trees!


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I want my house like this...


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Inside...here the altar


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Some instruments of torture perhaps, "You WILL become Catholic, or else sweep my floor infidel!"


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The gardens...


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A statue in the plaza...music also played a large part


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And ANOTHER mission!


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Jesus looking a bit fed up with his slow donkey.



Soon, with five missions under my belt I reach the sixth and final one in San Jose de Chiquitos.* From here the dirt road terminates as it joins the main east-west route which links Brazil, the border of which is now 375km further east, and the city of Santa Cruz.* In fact not far from here is the original site of Santa Cruz city founded by Ñuflo Chavez in 1561, it was later moved several times as a result of tribal hostility before being relocated to its present day position 200km farther west.* The final mission here is quite different to the others I've seen, with a broad stone front* – rather than adobe - of plain red and pale orange. *It looks more like an Arabian fortress, particularly in an old drawing of the site, with palm trees and a barren, desert-like square.* Inside the mission one can see the results of the renovation work and also the discoveries found during these renovations.* Whilst carrying out the work layers of paint beneath the exposed layer revealed paintings of Spanish aristocrat….including the King of Spain, Fernando VII.** They found up to nine layers of paint, each with its own function, to teach about religion, Spanish military history and even*a layer of paintings of jungle animals to calm locals into entering with a more familiar habitat.

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Chicha seller....


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King of Spain, Fernando VII, 1810


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The exterior of the Arabian-ish fort like mission in San Jose de Chiquitos


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....and how it started out (well, phase four or so, the tower was a later addition)



The paved road bores its way relentlessly to the western horizon and to Santa Cruz taking straightness to a whole new level, and taking me to….sleep.* I wake with a gasp as the bike brrrrrrumps over cats eyes as I veer left.* Thankfully there’s no traffic. *I spend the trip trying to keep my eyes wide open, to force cool air into them in an attempt to stay awake, but…. eventually….I….fall…asleep.

I pull over to eat lunch and try to nap but mosquitoes are abundant, like a plague, instantly on me and poking angrily at my jacket. *Hungry, tired and now swelling with itchiness I move on.* I try again later but find that if anything the mosquitoes are even more virulent.* I’ll have to push on.

When I see a signpost pointing to Laguna Concepción I need little encouragement to take it, away from this paved road and hopefully to an early camp at the lagoon to rest up.* Along this dirt road, a second sign post points to some cave paintings and as always the early camp looks like it will have to wait.* It’s a narrow undulating road that leads me to a third sign, of much size but little information.* One thing is clear, I must walk through the jungle to the caves, but if five minutes or five day’s walk is unclear.* I grab my head-torch for the caves and place the helmet on the handlebar, noticing the sponge liner acting pin cushion for the many mosquitoes angrily stabbing its grimy surface in search for blood, my blood, I better get moving.

The harsh sunlight bounces off the green leaves of the jungle making them appear like glimmering mirrors. It's not the jungle like I'd expect it, tall, shaded and damp, but instead is shorter, hotter, drier. *One feature is present and overwhelming; the whine of mosquitoes and I'm forced to keep a good pace to avoid being bitten.* Even so my trousers appear almost hairy beneath a layer of mosquitoes from hem to waist.* My jacket, which I wear for protection is likewise covered and I watch the mosquitoes stab, stab, stab at shoulders and chest, beneath which I sweat, sweat, sweat.* I break of a thin tree branch and whip it in front of my face to ward off the mosquitoes trying to bite my ears, eyebrows, and nose.

The trees thin and then stop altogether, giving way to a lovely raised vantage point over the jungle, a hazy green thatch reaching all the way to the horizon.* Savouring the view costs me a dozen or more mosquito bites and I hasten onwards, only to find I can't.* I can't see where the trail continues beyond this open area.* I find it eventually and reassurance comes later when I stumble up to a sign post pointing downhill. *It tells me I'm just 15 minutes away.* From this point onwards the trail meanders downwards amongst knurly trees and hardy plants and following the path is simply trial and error. *Moments of indecision lead to a glut of mosquito bites, eye brows, lips, nose, cheeks, ears, fingers.* A stubborn bastard I fight on and on, hoping to find the cave, some little traveller’s gem secreted away, one to boast about.* Finally, after an hour or more, I reach a small mangrove of palm trees, shade and black stale water and then the paintings, a little rough, eroded away and hidden behind overgrowth, good but no gem.


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The cave paintings, not quite the hidden gem I was hoping for!



I sit on one the many fallen palm trees rotting in the damp muck of the shade, also savouring a new silence….there is not the whine of mosquitoes, bliss.* Hell is here, or at least just beyond the shade, the mosquitoes, this low jungle and I wonder if I can bring myself to leave and return to the bike.* Sitting, I remember back to talking with the Peruvian commandos in the Andes, telling me that of all the places the jungle was the worst of all.* It was unanimous amongst them, worse than any desert or Andean ridge.* I remember they complained most of the of the insects, of the spiders particularly, snakes and as well, jaguars.* They could be right, worse maybe, but perhaps not as dangerous as either. *Then thinking back to my time amongst the chilly mountains of Peru, I tuck in to my little lunch, it’s 4pm!

I walk back quickly but carefully, it’s getting late and I need to find drinking water before looking for somewhere to camp at the lake.* Coming to a fallen tree the trail doesn't seem to continue beyond it.* I’d felt certain I was on the path, but when I look back I see that the jungle floor shows no signs of a path, just uninterrupted greenery. *I’ve lost the way.* And I’d felt so certain.* I try backtracking to regain it, but there’s no way back, I can’t find it.* Things that look familiar lead me only to unfamiliarity until I’m walking tangents and lose my bearings all the more.* Lost completely I panic slightly, pushing through the trees without thought, thicker and thicker, desperate to re-join the trail. (on a positive note and in hindsight, I had at least forgotten about the mosquitoes).

Now what.* I feel sure that the path is running across the slope somewhere above me.* It’s impossible to walk directly upwards and as I’m forced one way then another by trees, plants and bushes - intent it seems on swallowing me up, feeling as if they are physically attacking me.* I waiver between certainty and doubt, scratching and bumping and falling through the green and flickering mirrors.* Pausing to weigh things up and thinking I've gone too far upwards, I look down with a sigh and notice that beneath my feet is the path….Relief.* Then the feeling I'm missing something; I pat my head, my head torch.* I have an idea where it is, a tree I’d crawled beneath, if I can just retrace my steps….But looking down the slope it’s impossible to see where I've been and come from.* Instead, hoping my guess is wrong I head down the trail, maybe I took it off when I ate lunch in the shade. *I walk back, but it’s not there and resigned I start back again*being even more careful and also curious to work out where I went wrong the first time…only to do exactly the same again.

I repeat my path almost exactly, at least it feels so, a tree that looks familiar, a piece of rock, a section that really looked like a path, a fallen tree and above it (I can still see it in my mind now), is the spot where I feel is the last hope to find the torch, but it’s not there. *I crawl under and up towards the path, feeling beaten....and there, draped over a thick prickly leaf, is my headtorch! bringing with it great happiness, greater even than finding the cave paintings perhaps!* Brilliant!


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Finding the head-torch! By now I was thoroughly annoyed, red hot in my jacket - which I was wearing for protection, the mosquitoes the worst I've ever encountered!



Back at the bike I quickly drink the last of my water…the NEEEEEEE of mosquitoes at my ears, biting my pinkie finger when I tip the drinks bottle up, or my bum the moment I bend over the panniers to clasp them shut as the trouser material tightens to my body.* Clipping the panniers closed it is then that I notice it… it can’t be!…NO!…NO! NO!* I move around to the front of the bike, grip the front tyre and press my thumbs into it, puncture 77. (Sob)* So much for an early camp.

As I heave the bike up and wriggle the wheel axle out, my body squeezes the last of its moisture into my jacket which sticks to me like a wet towel with the added grime of sweat and a few weeks without a wash.* I wipe puddles of sweat from my glasses and tell myself as I slip the tire levers in that at least it’s the front tyre and not the back.* I'm so eager and so thirsty - and with so much practise behind me – that I fix the tyre and get rolling within 15 minutes.* Now to find water.


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When I returned to the bike and found I had a puncture, I was pretty well going crazy....but at least it was the front tire.



I ride a short way back to a very small village, a dozen houses no more, neat and tidy set around a green central square of trimmed grass.* This neatness and squareness must be a result of the few German descended Mennonites I’ve already noticed, stamping down some authority and organisation.* There’s a public water tap behind a locked gate and a metal hinge.* I go to ask a man if he minds if I fill my bottles up.* The Latino is hoeing his vegetable patch and comes over, smiling.* He’s happy to let me get some water and once done I go back to chat with him.* He explains that because of recent heavy rains there are more mosquitoes than usual.
“How do you deal with them?” I ask,
“We are used to them."
“Oh.* Right,” I say disappointed, I was hoping for some miracle tip. He stands swatting at his face, then his arm, then his other arm, his leg and then he says – with some surprise – “son bravos!” (literally, “they’re brave”, kamikaze mosquitoes, desperate for food).

It’s nice talking to him, despite the conversation revolving largely around mosquitoes, but as he points out, it’s late and I've far to go to reach the lake.* Past the trail-head and on to new ground the track becomes narrower still and has that certain something, the feeling that trouble is afoot. *The handlebars are wedged one way then jolted another between sharp rocks.* I approach a steep drop, like approaching the brink*of a waterfall; all you can see is the edge and beyond that nothing but the tops of the tallest of trees.* Here not the boom of water, instead just the putt-putt of the engine and the bump-bump of bouncing bags.* I approach the edge slowly, dragging the brakes like a paddle, slipping slowly nearer.* The bottom of the trail curves around to the left into shade and greenery, out of sight.* It’s not a waterfall of course giving me the luxury of being able to stop and think.

It’s not vertical either, far from it and I know I can take it steadily down with little problem.* But maybe the luxury of thought is not, perhaps I’d be better off not thinking!* My fears bubble to the surface; it’s obvious the trail is very rarely used and the likelihood is that there is a reason for this, one I don’t know, not yet, but one I could find ahead, something impassable.* If that were the case then I’d be forced to come back…and back up here.* The problem is that I won’t be able to, too rough and too steep for my bike and I could be riding myself into a trap.* Yes, better not to think...so I forget and push on downwards.* The ADV motto, surely, or maybe it was the Russians, "forward or death"!

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Puncture repaired and back going again, I came upon this lovely trail....the question was, what if I had to turn back, could I get up this?



I feather the brakes but the rear-end threatens to overtake me on the slabby descent and I only barely manage to slow enough turn the corner at the bottom.* The trail continues then along twisting smooth dirt interrupted occasionally by large puddles filling the breadth of the road.** It’s easier but I still find reassurance when I see another motorcycle’s tire-track and I follow its weave like a friend. *I lift my visor up as visibility worsens, fading light and a few drops of warm rain fogging my glasses and visor

I see something then, in the road ahead, feint, floating, dark amongst the darkness.* I squint to try and see it, but all too soon and I'm upon it.* There’s a noise, a feeling, Dink dink dink dink, something hitting me, the visor, helmet and my jacket, too with these resonating little dinks.* Something seems to move in my vision, blurry and not vivid, like a light after you've turned it out, a half exposed image, never quite able to focus on it.* Then it happens again but this time I work it out…it's spiders!

Spiders!* I start to piece it all together now; the dark floating shape is the web somehow floating in the road, strung across it and dotted with the black blobs of them!* I hit another web, then again and again, six, seven, eight times, Dink dink dink, scurry, scurry, scurry.* Each web has a dozen or so fat-bodied black spiders which dink like liquorice drops over me to then scurry over my face and jacket and hands and – I fear – up my sleeves and down behind my collar.* I am powerless but to wince, tighten into preparation and shake them off with a shiver down my spine and a scream, “UUUUAAAAHHHH!!! hateit!hateit!hateit!hateit!”

The Mission - Bolivia, Part 5, P.III
 

I’m just beginning to think those Peruvian commandos were perhaps right after all until finally I exit the green spidery tunnel and come out into a very flat plain with mountains rising up to the right like the walls of a crater.* Across the grassy plain to the left I see the lagoon for the first time and this view, this openness comes like a release and is a relief.* Whilst I’d planned to camp lakeside the land looks marshy, the lagoon a long way from the trail through bike-deep grass, not to mention the mosquitoes which could be very bad.* I’d been concentrating so long and so desperately on just reaching the lake, that I hadn’t really stopped to consider the obvious; that it wouldn’t really be suitable for camping.

The sun dipping low towards the horizon and with my goal – the lake – reached, I now ride along thoughtless and tired, without any real plan.* Several miles on auto-pilot and I pass a group of cowboys at a small ranch as they herd the cattle into the pens for the evening.* It’s several hundred metres before I even think to stop and when I do, it is outside the central building of San Juan ranch.* A quaint red metal hut with a rustic wooden porch running right around and ahead of me the trail seems to stop, fading to a weave of horse trails.* Dotted around are burning fires to ward of mosquitoes and behind me are the cows, who moan and groan as they are put away for the night, each moaning moo perhaps another mosquito bite for one of them, defenceless.* The cowboys come over, wearing leather chaps and cowboy boots with tingling stirrups.* They wheel around in front of me, as cowboys on feisty horses are wont to do, perhaps thinking to themselves, “well what have we here boys!”

”Where you going?” asks one.
”I was hoping to get around the lake….”
”Na,” he says in the short Latin way, “Road stops here.”
”No chance at all?”
”Na.* Just horses, even then only a little way farther.”* The others stare from their mounts, arms crossed resting on the pummels of the saddle.
”So, it’s impossible to go around?”
”Hyeh.” he says with a backwards nod.
”Anyway,” says another, “it’s getting dark.* It’s very far, where would you sleep?”
”Well, I was hoping to camp, near the lake.* I’ve got everything; a tent, a bed, cooker.”* I say, patting the bags.
”But what will you eat?” asks one.
”I’ve got some rice, vegetables.”
”And drink?” asks another.
”I’ve got water too,” I say, and they look at each other with mumblings of surprise.
”Just camp here,” says the first. *He asks me without checking with the others and I look to them for approval, but they just stare.* I say yes.

They jump down then and pull the reins over the horses heads. We talk about what I’m doing here, alone, in this place.* As we chat they quickly become more smiling and friendly, perhaps reassured by the fact that I will stay.* Some loose horses gallop off in a group together around the corral and then running off in to the distance, playing in the cool air at the end of the long work day.* One of the men, still mounted takes off with a sharp kick of the heels, leaning forward as the horse pulls hard and hammers off.* Another runs off, grabs a horse tied up and in one movement springs into the saddle, gives a sharp kick and is away, “yeeooooow!! ow! ow! ow!”* After a spectacular horse show those loose are gathered back in and put away.* The men return breathing hard and smiling with excitement.

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Rancho San Juan



Some of the cowboys leave.* Us remaining move over to a second building, shallow and wide, a kitchen, a bunk room, and outside a table.* A woman appears bringing coffee and also with her are her two young children.* She is wife to the head cowboy who invited me, though whilst the boss, he explains that he has been working here barely a month.* The others are old hands and each have several years experience, even one just 17 years of age who has been here since he was 14.* This younger one has a sharp wit and a fast mouth, perhaps picked up from working amongst men.* The head cowboy is in contrast quiet and preoccupied with his children.* Then there is Old Hand who barely speaks but when he does they are grains of wisdom to which all stop and listen.* He moves to his hammock just up from the table and swings himself from side-to-side and free of mosquitoes.

The sun has set, the cows quiet, the fires dotted around us float in the darkness and the mosquitoes diminish though never entirely.* We eat a light meal of everything one can make with milk; cheese, buñuelos (deep fried cheese breads) and dulce de leche (condensed milk, though here more like sugared butter).* No distractions such as light, TV, nor even a face or noise, complete darkness, save for us shadows.* Occasionally there is the slap sound of someone being bitten by mosquito…and conversation.

The Young Gun figures in most conversation, firing off rapid successions of words, usually followed by the laughter of all.* Often I laugh myself even though not fully understanding.* If not this then when finished speaking they all look expectantly to me for an answer.

“Sorry, what?”* I say, “All I caught was ‘hunting’ and ‘man’…… you don’t want to go hunting for men, do you?”
”No soy fresco!” he retorts a little defensively.

The men laugh all the more and I learn a few new words for “gay” in Spanish.* In fact they’ve been laughing for some time now, and me being me I wonder if it is actually at my expense.* We talk more seriously about hunting, what they hunt for, how they hunt, though I find his rapid speech so difficult to understand, not to mention*I’m quite tired too.

“So what do you hunt for?”
”Armadillo….” he lists a selection of animals so fast it’s hard to make out, finishing sarcastically with, “tigre”!
”Y hombres, claro?”
”ha ha!* No hombres, only las chicas!” we laugh and he continues, “are you married?”
”No, afraid not.* Travelling, motorcycles, eating rice, being bitten by mosquitoes and not washing aren’t exactly what girls are looking for.”
”No they just want sex!”
”And money.” mumbles Old Hand.
”But, really, not even a girlfriend?” he continues.
”Well, I have one.” I say, hoping to end it the topic.
”What’s she look like?* Is she nice?* Where is she?* In England?”
”No, she’s here, in the duffel bag.” *Plan B.
”Que?”
”I take her everywhere and only bring her out when I need to, you know.”
”Que?” he looks confused until the head cowboy chuckles and says, “mujer inflablé!” and Old Hand’s sleepy laugh joins in from the swinging hammock too.
“MiiiiERRRde!” he says, shouting the one syllable excessively and slapping the table, smiling. *(A pronunciation I quickly picked up)
“She’s much cheaper,” I add, “Shit cook though.”
“I have three girlfriends,” he continues undeterred.
”Three!?* Jesus.* Really?”
”Yeah.”
”Inflablés?!” says Boss Man with a laugh.
”No!!”
”Feas?” (uglies) I say.
”No!* Puta eh,” he says gesturing to one, “son bonitas!” he makes a gesture with his hands, two melons.* Big ones.* He says something about tetes.
”Where are they, Santa Cruz?”
”One is, I have them all over.* So, come on, seriously, you have a girlfriend in England?”
”Four.”* I say, just to trump his three.
”Ah, mi-EERRRR-de!”

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Young Gun, this guys was funny! "No soy fresco!" The names are in my diary, but these were sadly stolen later on the journey.



Shower time then, from a bucket with a cup and after a sweaty day, it is a great shower taken in the fragile privacy of darkness.* Hunting it seems is forgotten, maybe it will be later in the night, though nothing is spoken and already it’s late and they are all in their beds and hammocks and tents, falling asleep.* I start to put my tent up next to the bosses’ own on the porch.* I see a tarantula next to the wall, a big fella, so I set up quick as a flash, get in and zip up.* Of course now that I’ve the opportunity, I can’t sleep and as I lie reading page after page after page after page, one of the guys gets out of his tent and relieves himself off the porch.* It is punctuated by a fart, maybe a scratch and a little groan of pleasure. Through the mesh of the tent I see the fires around the ranch have died down and they smoulder away like puddles of lava.

Needless to say I wake feeling quite un-refreshed in the morning.* It’s also very early as the day begins with milking which Young Gun is clearly very excited to show me.* The men gather tiny one legged stools to sit on, and clean plastic buckets.* The wife comes over holding plastic mugs, each with a shot of coffee. *These are passed around and each fills his mug with frothy milk straight from the udder to make a freshly whipped cappuccino, what a treat.* Whilst I feel like pushing a cow onto its side and using the udder as a pillow, the younger cowboy is exuberant and asks repeatedly that I take his photo as he feverishly milks his cow, yanking the teat hard into the very depths of the bucket, moaning that the milk just keeps coming the bloody udder won’t stop.* The cow looks bored.* Then Young Gun tells me to take photos of Old Hand and Boss Man’s too, “le-me-see!* Le-me-see!* Ha HA!* MiiiiEEERRRRde!* Take one of us both!”


http://lh4.ggpht.com/-ABnkfi3rJF8/Ug...05_11_1094.jpg
After a bit of dinner and a good chat, morning came. I was asked if I wanted to milk a cow....the woman of the farm came with mugs and shots of coffee, a squirt of FRESH milk and a cappuccino awaits!



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One of the great chaps, this was Wise Chap.



I turn and see a large American silver pick-up truck, though I never saw it arrive. *It's the owner of the ranch, a city man, fat and with fashionable clothes.* Other cowboys are here now too, from another section of the whole farm, six all told, plus a mechanic who is talking to the owner and looking at an old tractor, a hand-down from the Mennonites.* The first time the owner speaks to me is to ask if I will go and collect some spare parts for the tractor from a local store.* I can’t even begin to imagine that there is a store here and* I wonder if I have misinterpreted, surely he means Santa Cruz?* But no, he tells me it’s close and so I agree, “OK sure, no problem.”* He adds that I should take the mechanic as he knows the part needed and he can also guide me there.* I unload the bike of all its luggage and off we bumble.

Normally with the luggage on the bike handles quite badly, the overloaded, deeply sagging suspension wanting to buckaroo the pilot off on any bump.* So with a passenger twice as heavy, it’s like steering a medieval catapult through the jungle.* We reach some derelict buildings which I recognise from last night.* Beyond here is the spider tunnel and the steep section of rocky road. I fear the worst but what I didn’t realise is that the road actually forks here around and behind the buildings and we can continue around the south side of the lagoon.* Whilst easier – and less spidery! - there is instead sand, mud, extremely deep ruts and deep puddles.* These deep puddles fill the road making them tricky to ride around, the jungle encroaching on the sides snagging bars, pilot or passenger and always the puddles of thick gloop angled like craters which the tire fights desperately against by its very edge.* The deep ruts twist off into the distance around corners out of sight, making line choice critical. One picks a line and must then stick to it, only to find an obstacle and having to man-handle the bike across a rut to continue, only then to find the ruts criss-cross each other leaving one stranded in the middle, or else the rear wheel drops in leaving us sideways. *After 37km of falling we reach more open arable land only to be overtaken by the big American silver pick-up.* Soon after and we reach the shop, a white clap-board house set amongst huge rectangular fields of maize, through which bumbles a tractor piloted by a Mennonite man in blue overalls.


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Slippery as a fish



The ranch owner steps from his silver pick up, that rich son of a bastard, and queries why it has taken us so long, despite us being filthy with mud and sweat.* “I thought the motorcycle would be really fast!” he says.* I could say that it is because of assholes using their pickup in the rains that there are impossibly deep twisting ruts, but actually and in all fairness, he says so himself, minus the asshole bit, “I suppose I really shouldn’t use the track in the rains.”* He buys us all a soft drink each and between us a pack of large pack of biscuits as our breakfast.* We are served by what is best described as an Aryan boy.* As blond and tall and blue eyed as one would expect, wearing a set of pristinely pressed navy blue overalls and a checked shirt with its sleeve cuffs rolled millimetre perfect and square just above the elbow.* His mother sits sternly besides him behind the counter, nursing baby.* She is not permitted to speak Spanish, she is silent and talks only with her eyes.* The boy, perhaps 15 years old, can speak to us (being male) and his face says his mother will give him a ruddy good clack if he falls out of line and as such he is as diminutive as a mouse.* The shop sells just about everything, from toys to fan-belts.

“Amazing isn’t it?” says the son of a bastard.
”It sure is, they seem to have everything.* It’s like Walmart crammed into a post office.* How did you ever find it?” I ask because from the outside it is just another German-esque house in the middle of a vast expanse of crop fields and other similar German-esque houses.
”Hmm, I don’t know, I think someone must have told me about it.* Otherwise you’d never find it!* Come on, eat the biscuits, help yourself.”
”Thanks!”
”Did you get breakfast?”
”Well, just some coffee.”
”Eat then, you must be hungry!” and we all tuck in then quite greedily.* “So, you are travelling all over the Americas?”

I reply, but he doesn’t listen.* It’s clear he is more interested in his question, his voice, whatever I have to say is worthless to him, and his question seems almost a display of power.* It’s clear in his presence that neither the mechanic nor the other cowboy should speak unless spoken to and whilst before they were friendly now they only eat biscuits quietly.* Next to each other the differences between the Aryan boy and the Son of a bastard seem even more apparent, with the boy being perfectly respective and well-mannered.* The bastard reminds me of a gringo running a mine.

Outside he talks some more, his slaves occasionally giving mutterings of agreement.* “They are very strange people,” he says of the Mennonites, waving a biscuit in the air as if it were a cigarette holder or an epiphany, and adds* - gesturing to a home made lawnmower, an ingenious amalgamation of a toy car and a bicycle - “but very clever.”* He eats something else then, something just for himself which is not shared.* He offers me some, I decline.* He thanks me then for helping with the parts, “Thanks.* Now I don’t have to waste my time driving back.”* Extremely satisfied with himself having saved himself a job he gets in his pick-up and drives off, taking along one member of the team to the city as he has time off.

Myself and the mechanic start the long ride back to the ranch.** We get stuck in some mud on the way, but as I become more accustomed to the additional weight and also knowing which lines best to take, we fall only once or twice, a vast improvement.* It’s lunchtime by the time we get back, feeling as if I’ve done a full day’s riding and famished.* However, no sooner are we back and Young Gun is there chomping at the bit to go fishing. Despite tiredness and hunger (nothing unusual), his enthusiasm, the kind invite and without the option of a cool dark hole to crawl into, it is impossible to decline, so we saddle up the horses and go riding towards the lake.

My horse is stubborn and slow (not unlike Rodney then), with wild unkempt fur like fuzzy felt.* It will only follow the others reluctantly and rejects all of my commands, in Spanish or – rather harsh - English.* As we go we cut off two branches of trees with the machete and later, after a bit of a search through the bush, find a dead cow and slice off a piece of rump.* “It wasn’t as dry as I expected,” says Head Cowboy, “I thought it would be tougher by now”.* Perhaps it’s been there a while, it sure looks as if it has.

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Slow Joe



My horse stops to munch on some leaves occasionally, but eventually me and my furry companion reach the lake, though some time later than the others who wait with smiles. *It’s a lovely spot and the view here is of the wedge of mountains to the left and the vast plain of the lake, smooth water that looks deceptively as if we could walk upon it, to the horizon and out of sight.* The water here barely reaches the horse’s knees and so flat is the land that we can walk a long way into it, and must do, to fish.* This also means that the surrounding grassland plain is only barely above the water table, and is therefore a terrible bog, hard going even for the horses, and a good job I didn’t try to camp here last night.

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After running some errands for the farm, involving a 74km trip up the muddy trails to a shop I came back to be asked if I wanted to go fishing for piranhas! Sure thing, want to go on horse? You bet!



We stop then and prepare the two coils of fishing lines which we bait with pieces of the dead cow which I cut with a sharp folding workers knife.* Thirty seconds later and we have our first bite and the piranha is slotted onto the branch we cut earlier through its gill and out through it toothy mouth.* The second catch takes much longer.* We bake in the openness of the lake, occasionally the horses cool themselves and us by flicking water with whips of their tails.* A little way off a caiman skulks in the water, a pair of nostrils and a long nose leading to a beady eye.* Young Gun took first blood but the Boss then catches seven in quick succession making Young Gun a little angry. *“MiiiEERRRRRde!” he shouts as another one slips from his hook and returns empty, “more bait!” he snaps.* We have enough fish to feed us but The Boss wisely waits patiently and even seems to let one or two piranhas go on purpose as others nip at the horse ankles. *Finally number nine is caught by the Youth and with all satisfied, allows us to begin the ride back to the ranch.

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30 seconds, number one caught! We caught nine all together to feed us for lunch, the poor horse got nipped a few times! There were caimans too!


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Boss Man, looking happy having caught seven fishies!



When we return to the ranch the tractor is almost completely rebuilt.* While we were fishing I’d been asked to repair a puncture on Young Gun’s motorcycle and I get started on that and the wife begins scaling the fish and barbecuing them over wood. *She makes a fine meal, though from which she receives only seconds and leftovers.* The children get the fish-heads which they eat messily with entrails hanging from slimy lips and fingers.* The fish is excellent however, though full of sharp and slender bones which makes the meal slow, noisy and messy.* I’m even more tired now than the day before, feeling as if I haven’t really stopped since waking up yesterday.* The guys try to persuade me stop another night, “we’ll kill a pig and eat a BBQ”.* I can tell they really want me to stay, perhaps not to share my own company, which is poor, but for the novelty and distraction I can offer them here on the secluded ranch and its repetitive normality.* However, I can see things soon moving from the jolly banter to short-tempered boredom.* It’s already late in the afternoon and whilst it makes little sense to leave now I don’t want to ruin the otherwise good memories we all share.* Truthfully I am not naturally sociable at all and have to work very hard at it.* Up until now I feel I achieved relative success, and to me that’s almost all company ever is, a game, a score.* How did I do?* Did I make them laugh, happy, thoughtful, interested, inspired?* Or did my jokes miss the mark, was I dull, was I selfish, tiresome, did I say something I shouldn’t have?* Did I win?* The prize; a friend.* But now, tired, I’m worried that whilst I’ve done well, I can’t keep this game up, and eventually I’ll lose.* I’m scared to lose.* So I apologise and say genuine thanks a thousand times, but decide to leave.* Better to leave victorious.

I make it out from the muddy road of the lake in good time and stop at a place for a drink, making the mistake of saying hello to one of the Mennonite Women who scowls at me.* The Mennonites sit all together, a large family drinking soda from a large bottle, talking with the store owner, who herself does little but take my money.* Boys run barefoot, blonde-blonde boys and girls too, like nymphs or pixies straight from the forest with eyes a wild blue and chunky dirty feet with thick soles.** I sit at my table as they sit at theirs, listening to them talking a strange mix of German and Spanish, happy and content.* Alone I wonder about leaving the cowboys, the ranch and their kind offer.* One can spend their lifetime wishing for things and wishing to be a certain way, but sometimes one must accept that we are who we are.


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Post lunch Nick, after milking, riding 74km to the shop, fishing and repairing the guys motorcycle tire, I was pretty tired...I was worried about overstaying too...and got going.



I stop at houses along the way, looking for food supplies for the evening but the only option they tell me, is to reach the main road and the few shops there.* When I reach them a woman shop owner asks if I will help three others carry her concrete sink to a truck, she had ordered it but it is the wrong colour. *In thanks she gives the men beer and – obviously a good judge of character – gives me a coke.* She is friendly and tells me the way to a house which might have some fresh bread.* I follow her directions carefully, up a dusty street and into a large open courtyard of a house where I find a young girl playing with her imagination, she’s perhaps seven years old.* Her mother comes out, a timid woman, says she might have some bread and goes off to look.* With her gone the curious little girl asks me many questions.* She is more inquisitive than any adult I have met and as wise as an old woman.* I tell her mother as much when she returns with a small plastic bag of steaming hot breads like English muffins, and she agrees that her daughter is especially intelligent.* It’s hard to see what this intelligence will gain her here in this village supported only by the passing traffic on its way to Santa Cruz.* The inhabitants here are not even farming now as the Mennonites – the Latinos admit - can do it so much better and so much cheaper than they can thanks to tractors and great swathes of land, “they can sell it cheaper than I can grow it!” says one man.* The woman’s bread however, is delicious and cheap…tough even for the Mennonites to beat!

I return back into the hot prickly bush on the fringes of the Chaco (more anon) and find a large open patch amongst it all, perhaps an area left over from the road building in the past.* Despite the lack of grass and considering the large distance from the lake, the mosquitoes are ever present.* I quickly start a fire (a rarity for me) which keep all but the hardiest away, though sadly they have many hardy specimens amongst them!* It forces me to retreat into my tent, filling with billowing smoke and even more heat, I surely can’t move the fire and I sure as hell am not going to move the tent so I take what little comfort I can in knowing that at least it’s cooler than Pilcomayo Canyon!

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I very rarely make a fire, but the bugs demanded it....it helped, but only a little!



In the cool of morning there are few mosquitoes and I can leave the confines of the stuffy tent to enjoy breakfast, sat in my underpants.** With the air rapidly warming I think about packing up, but I’ve been waiting patiently for this time of respite and feel reluctance to move.* A toucan flies overhead and I soon forget my lethargy, throwing down my bowl to chase it, to see it, but too soon and it is gone.* Not long after and the heat has become heavy as a weight on my back and I pack sluggishly. *Finished, I'm then eager to get moving and feel the cooling breeze on the motorcycle.

Along the way, straight and paved and I see many Mennonites.* I have seen Mennonites before, here in recent days and in Mexico where I passed through, each of us staring at each other in some amount of awe, not really understanding each other.* I see them sat rigidly and regimented in horse-drawn carts going about their business, often with a 200litre fuel drum angled in the back. *Even so they look a bit out of place lining up at the petrol stations in their horse carts.*** From the rear, all that can be seen of these carts apart from these fuel drums are a tall gangly blonde man holding reins and women and girls in broad straw hats or bonnets.* Captivated more than I have been before I pull off the main road to try and get a closer look, but they seem to disappear once away from the main road and I find only Latinos.* I return to the main road and continue, all the while looking for German sounding village names on signposts, hoping for a clue or a way in but all I see are signs saying “No Caretas” (no horse carts!). *Before I know it I’m at the outskirts of Santa Cruz and its concentric set of ring roads of increasing traffic.* I’d have to look harder….

New Blog Post
 

NEW BLOG POST - Mennonites, Bolivia Part 6

Quick Summary:
Having completed the Jesuit Mission circuit I was back in Santa Cruz, hanging out with the “Quirkies”, looking for Mennonites and feeling sorry for market girls. I travel back in time to the 1940s and the Riva Palacios Mennonite Colony to visit a family, before returning to the mountains near Samaipata to hunt condors…..

The blog post is HERE

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I'll post it here eventually, but for now....

Budget update
 

Update on the budget:

Obviously I knew Arg/Chile was going to cost more, largely because of long distances covered (I have one bank statement ranging from an ATM in Ushuaia all the way to Asuncion (Paraguay)!) and fuel costs.

Because my diaries were robbed I'm not sure about mileage covered, though I know both bikes together has been 175,000km, though this mileage accounts for Africa too (which the budget doesn't). I would estimate 100,000km for the Americas.

So, from the previous update in Santa Cruz, east to northern Chile, then south, and north a bit, then south a lot to Ushaia, then all the way back to Santa Cruz, selling the bike (I still have that money, it's in dollars), bus to LA Paz, climb a big mountain and flight home:

A rather large $6674
With the only major expense being a camera $180 and the flight home, $800 and of course fuel.

So total for the Americas, $19,674.00, 100,000km and two months shy of three years.

Mennonites - Pt 1 of 3
 

http://www.talesfromthesaddle.com/ne...iteHeader3.jpg Mennonite girls looking back from their horse carriage (Image © AP)

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A paved road leads me west towards Santa Cruz city. *The road is straight and flat and to the sides the land is green but completely featureless, no trees in sight. *I see some wooden shacks ahead then, a traffic cone in the middle of the road, just one, and beside it; a police officer.* Sometimes I can sneak through but this time the officer raises his hand and I have to stop. *I pull over on to the hardpack dust, there is litter, dogs, diesel fumes and heat, the throaty cough of trucks and buses coming and going. *The shacks I saw are vendor's stalls, small restaurants, taking advantage of the stopped traffic. *All this for a cone and an officer. *The officer is friendly though*and can't contain his smile, chatting excitedly and giving my driving license nothing more than a cursory glance.* Like most people he asks where I'm from, where I'm going, why my number plate is missing and - as is becoming more and more common - if he can buy my bike, to which I explain that he can't because it's not Bolivian, it's foreign registered.

"Pah! no problem!" he says, slapping his hands together, wiping the scandal clean away as if a little dust, "it's just a piece of paper and this is Bolivia!* How much do you want for it?"
I ruminate and the officer beings to tap my license against his hand impatiently turning out his lip, raising his eyebrows suggestively in encouragement. "Well," I say, "I still have to go to Argentina and -"
"What for?"
"Well, what do you mean, I don't know, I want to…"
"But why?* Just take the aeroplane."
"But I won't see anything!"
"So, take the bus!"
"Look, I'm riding to Argentina and then I have to come all the way back!* By then the bike is probably going to be complete junk!* If I'm lucky maybe $1,000?"
"$1000!" he says as if I must be mad.
"Yeah…" not sure if he thinks it's too much or too little.
"But is Honda no?" he says, frowning down at the bike, "Pah!* Is too cheap, it's worth at least $1400." *I only paid $1800 and knot my face in disbelief until he adds with a twinkling smile, "…but I'll take it off you for $1,000!"
I reply that I will come back after Argentina.

It takes me a long while to find a hostal in the city centre, but eventually I find a good budget place with just enough space to squeeze the bike into the entrance-way.* The hostel is quite basic, run by a laid back tubby couple who shuffle about the place, cleaning occasionally but mainly sitting for marathon sessions in front of the TV.* The rooms are Spartan but nice; no dark places holding creepy unknowns or bad smells of a creepy past. *And, whilst the mosquito mesh is untorn it is stretched between wonky frames and the clumsy clattering doors likewise fit like square pegs in a round hole.* There is a squeaky metal bed with a sunken mattress and a bedside cupboard perfectly sized to store vile smelling boots.

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Boot locker

Despite the slightly rough edges, the place is kept very clean and tidy, leaving the only other concern with budget accommodation; the clientele.

When a traveller buys a ticket to anywhere, they are actually buying a pass.* This pass permits the removal of all the shackles society has placed on them, leaving them free to be whoever they want to be, think they are or just who they actually are.* Hostels therefore are the assembly points for these oddballs on extended day-release. *There are those that are amusing, interesting, peculiar and often quirky, living the lives of bums on a semi-permanent basis.* There are those who have fully embraced the travelling lifestyle and who do absolutely everything in their power to say, "I am a traveller," they appear to be sponsored by an artisan market and drink "mate de coca" (tea of coca[ine]) as further testament to their traveller status, they've probably worked on a farm, most likely they can juggle.* Then there are groups of guys, three is the magic number, often with matching beards and matching clothes, at least one guitar between them, their Spanish begins at Hola and ends at Gracias, after ten days drinking in Santa Cruz they'll get a bus to Sucre and start over, then they'll go to Cusco and get pictures of Machu Picchu and everyone will think they are legends (yes, yes, I am a condescending shit), they probably can't make a decision individually by themselves, they try hard to walk in step with each other.* There are couples too, inseparable, impenetrable, except to other couples, terrified of soloists, believe us to all be rapists, serial killers or just shits judging by looks given to us.* There are those who seem to dislike travel, or perhaps they've just started, not quite in the swing of it ( I remember the days!), they appear to have just stepped out of a North Face catalogue and into a land where the drab pastel shades stand out just as much as an Indian waiting in line in KFC holding a spear and with his penis strapped up in a piece of bamboo would, they look scared when people say hello and cling on desperately to a smart phone, a laptop, the West.* And finally there are "dodgy folk," often out for long periods of the day and night, they leave looking edgy, and return looking edgier still, pale, greasy, slimy even, looking - you feel sure - to steal your socks the moment you put your feet up.* We all share one thing in common, we all eat noodles.* And actually, here in the Santa Cruz hostel, I must say they were all very nice noodle eaters and I was instantly happy.

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The courtyard of the hostel, tranquilo

The shaded rooms of the hostel are set off from a narrow open courtyard of bright sun, white walls and hot terracotta tiles.* Chairs are occupied by baking towels whilst people hide within the cooler interior of the rooms to sleep until late in the day.* As the sun and temperatures drop so too the quirky characters skulk out of their rooms to feed, bask, drink, talk and to read.* I read whilst a group of German girls and lecherous Latin males bask, drink and talk.* Talk which seems a bit inane, a load of preamble, foreplay.* I sit staring at my book, the same damn page, wanting them to be quiet, but I can't help but eaves drop, and wish they would just go and have sex already!* Jealousy.* As I read a man comes over, dressed for safari, a bit Ray Mears, and picks some leaves from the plant next to my chair, to make tea, as one of the Latinos – not very Ray Mears - comes and stubs his cigarette out in the pot.* A couple passes by on their way out and I smile at them, the man doesn't notice me but the girl scowls at me like I've occupied*the hostel's honeymoon suite.* Sitting opposite me is another reader, and as I wonder what my face must say to people to deserve such scowls, I also wonder how long he's been there, and what he's thinking, maybe he can help me not be so cynical.

"Do you think they'll ever shut up?" he says.
"Funny, I was just thinking…."
"Jesus, she's got a nice ass though."
"Mm." We look a moment as she gets up to rearrange the towel on her chair, a silence falls as we, the Leeches and all others in the vicinity – except Ray Mears, quite busy with his tea - take a moment to leer until too soon she sits. *Immediately conversations resume all down the courtyard.* "Nice everything," I say, "except her voice, siiiiii yarrrr, grarseearse!* You know sometimes I think my Spanish is sort of okay, and then I hear someone like her and I start to wonder if I sound like that?"
"You speak Spanish?"
"Well, a bit, you know, I get by."
"That usually means it's good."
"No…it's not honestly.* Well, I dunno, some days I think I've totally got it,* I can understand everything and talk with people for hours.* Then other days I can't understand one word, not one, and I wonder what people must think of me.* You?"
"Well, actually Spanish is my first language, I'm half Bolivian." (though his accent suggests USA).
"Ha!* No way!* From Santa Cruz?…I'm jealous!…"
"Nah, come on…!"
"Well, I just mean it must be so nice, to understand everything.* I wish I could, especially in groups!* I'm terrible in groups!* I suppose I should study more….What you reading?"
"Well, it's kind of funny, I've just got off reading Maugham….." he pauses and I nod an "ahhh, Maugham" face, "I'm telling ya," he continues, "that thing was massive!* Practically a cube…MASSIVE.* God forbid I ever dropped it, I virtually had to winch that sucker back up to the lectern," he pauses for effect, thinks he's on Broadway or something, "….anyway, so now I'm reading Jurassic Park."
"What?"
"Jurassic Park.* After Maugham I sorta needed something a bit lighter, you know?* So, I was a looking around the shops, right, and there isn't really much in the way of bookstores here, it's kinda hard to find anything, just Clive Cussler, Twilight…and then I saw…"
"Jurassic Park?"
"Yeah, right!" he says, "This Crichton guy is badass, I'm right there with those raptors."
"Hmm, well perhaps I should check it out!"
"You like Hemingway?"
"Huh?"
"Hemingway, you like him?"
"Oh yeah!* Actually I'm reading Moveable Feast!"
"If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris," he begins, " then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris[I join in] is a moveable feast." the book's epigraph.
"Jesus, that's quite a memory."* I say.
"I'm studying Hemingway for my doctorate." His phone rings then, it's his girlfriend, asks what he's been doing, "you know, reading Maugham, went to the bookstore, studied, wrote a little."* So, he's one of the quirky bums I think and the German girls erupt into booming deep laughter.

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The orchestra sets up in the plaza

Nico and I walk into the city centre to sit in the plaza and watch the girls watch the boys, watch the world go by.* Nico believes that almost every girl is into him.* Maybe they are, I wouldn't know.* I can't remember ever seeing a girl and thinking, "she's into me".* I'm not saying they don't think it, just I've never seen it, most of them look at me as if I've just dumped them.** Opposite us is a chess*table where a frantic game is being played out, the men serious, narrowed eyes, the pieces slammed with resonating clacks from square to square and watched by a crowd of old men on tenterhooks.* Children are chasing the pigeons around the fountain, or else feeding them and a large brass band is setting up.* Up in the trees birds squawk and a group of girls laugh amongst themselves as they pass by us and sit on the bench next to the chess*table.* The girls are perhaps 18 years old, but that is of no concern to Nico. "If she looks up and looks at me," he says of one in particular, "then she likes me…" I wonder if it's that simple, if she might instead look at me and not Nico.* Then, right on cue, she looks up, at Nico, "booom!" he says.
"Nico, she's about 12!"
"Well, you know what they say.* Old enough to bleed, old enough to breed."
"Yeah, right, grass on the pitch and all.* But seriously."
"What, you wouldn't?"
"You would?"
"Sure!* What, you think she's too young?"
"I don't know, I guess.* I mean, how old do you think she is?"
"I don't know, 18?"
"More like 16 I reckon."
"I slept with a 13 year old once."
"What?* How old were you, 15?" I reply.
"Nah, I was 30.* She was a hooker."
"And thirteen?"
"Yeah, It was my birthday, and my uncle got her for me, I remember it, he called me over, said, hey come here I got something special for ya, took me through and there she was."
"What, and you…."
"She liked me, I wasn't her usual type of clientele, you know, not some fat old sleazy guy, I could tell she was in to me."* I didn't tell him that he thought every girl was into him, "and she loved it, obviously had a lot of experience.* You know this guy here," he says pointing to a man walking by.* The man pushes a trolley carrying green and cream coloured thermos flasks – coffee and milk - and small paper cups, he wears a cream suit with green cuffs and collar, sort of like a chef or a doorman, but with the triangular hat of a burger boy. "He's been selling coffee here for 40 years.* He started all this," says Nico, meaning the coffee trade in the plaza, as many others now sell it, "but his is the best coffee.* You been to the museum?"

Nico and I would spend a few evenings hanging out together, talking about his sexual escapades, or watching his magic tricks and slight of hand, or watching boxing at his local club as the women spectators shouted "kill the pig!"* Then we'd head out to eat skewers of chicken hearts or sit in a juice bar.* I liked Nico, his intense stare, sharp intellect, extreme memory, rapid changes in conversational direction and even the way he'd never laugh just say, "ha, that's funny," but I'd never hear from him again and I knew it even then, for him it seemed I was just a spectator.


http://lh4.ggpht.com/-1ewgohnppPw/U_...o/IMG_6725.JPG
The main church in Santa Cruz

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A tense chess game

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The early morning plaza in Santa Cruz


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Watching the "boxing"

Mennonites - Pt 2 of 3
 

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Seeing the lawyer to extend my customs papers (I didn't even have to do this at the border!)


In cities my plan is simple; walk around.* But, with every street in the Santa Cruz grid looking almost identical, the same pale white walls and wonky terracotta porches, I often find myself walking in circles trying to find the juice bar I'd passed yesterday, the market I'd seen five minutes ago, or just trying to find my way back to the plaza, the hostel.* After a few days in the city I've worked out my favourite vendors and make sure to buy from them every day (if I can find them).* I'm not sure why I do this, maybe a friendly face and some conversation, or perhaps because the fruit girl lets me try all the tropical fruits or because I feel sorry for the timid juice-bar girl working for the overbearing owner and I just wanted to be nice (actually I felt sorry for the fruit girl too, she worked very long hours).* When I'm not lost or buying things needlessly from people I feel sorry for, I am extending my visa and customs papers in two packed offices whose "systems" only a sadist could have devised.* Most annoying is that it is much more complex than the border.* However, the time spent queuing in immigration does give me chance to watch Mennonite families obtaining their visas and perhaps passports, standing there quietly, patiently whilst the locals around them fan themselves, agitated, vocal.* It reminds me that I really need to find out more about them.

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The fruit girl who left her house at 5am and returned at 11pm 6 days a week

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Juice bars, mix ice, sugar, milk and fresh fruit, yum yum yum

The first Mennonites came to Bolivia initially from Paraguay, though their roots take them back as far as Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands.* Not to be confused with the Jesuits of course, who also arrived much earlier, nor even the Amish, the Mennonites didn't arrive in Bolivia until the 1950's and at first just twelve families. They have been a people always on the move, migrating from country to country in an attempt to maintain their traditional way of life, one that eschews electronics, radio, TV, alcohol, cars, bicycles, sports and music (other than their own religious music), violence and war, they do not pay social security, health insurance nor do they accept benefits, they wear "plain clothes", speak Plautdietsch (low German) and live in fairly sequestered communities whose education consists of the bible and the farm.

http://www.talesfromthesaddle.com/ne...2414_thumb.jpg From Google Maps

Those families now in Bolivia could trace their ancestral movements for example, through Paraguay, Belize, Mexico, Canada, Russia, Prussia and all the way back to Germany.* As Anabaptists, their migrations were initially a result of religious persecution from European Protestants and Catholics.* Whilst today their religion is more widely accepted, other, contemporary pressures remain from surrounding society; their surrogate country's legal requirement of standard education, forced use of the country's language or military service requirement.* If not from surrounding society then the problems stem from within the colonies; lack of available land and water due to rapidly increasing colony population, or in disagreement with their colony's adoption of more modern methods of living; use of electricity, computers, mobile phones, rubber tyres, or even cars. Moving to Bolivia, the Mennonites were offered land in the Santa Cruz region, on the fringes of the Gran Chaco, a semi-arid jungle with a harsh climate; extreme heat and dry winters.* For those newcomers the difficult climate meant life initially consisted of just barely subsiding.* Now though, they prosper, growing vast amounts of soy and sorghum and manufacturing dairy products in an almost industrial way.* Whilst these farms are small taken one by one, the burgeon of population thanks to large families (sometimes twelve children each), means that the environmental impact the Mennonites (and others in the region) have made is vast.* Drive any road in the area (or just look at google maps) and one thing is clear, they have taken a lot of land.* Land that was once low thick jungle is now a patchwork of open fields, long, narrow and perfectly flat, tilled to the horizon with hardly a tree in sight….though sometimes a tractor.

One tradition they would prefer to lose, is that new problems are just around the corner, to hinder their way of life, and in Bolivia today there are perhaps two main threats; land-reforms and an influx of non-Mennonites and accompanying vices; drugs, alcohol, consumerism, electronics, music.* With president Evo Morales looking to give back land to the people and claiming that some of the Mennonites have taken land that wasn't theirs to take, the Mennonites could find themselves without a home, or else with a large debt.* Non-Mennonite locals however, think otherwise, stating that Evo won't be as foolish as to let the Mennonites leave, after all they are not just feeding themselves, but a large part of the nation. For now they are here and in Santa Cruz they are always to be found visiting the same place, the far end of the market, farthest from the attention of the main centre and closest to the ring-road out of the city.* The men and boys still wearing work-overalls and navy truckers caps, spotlessly clean and pressed to absolute perfection despite the heavy heat and crazy bustle of the market, the women in their plain cut, homemade, floral dresses, wire framed spectacles and bonnets or straw sun hats.

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Batman Chicken Porters

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Pineapple sellers

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Not a tow zone, but best not to park here

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Repairing my trousers

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A young vegetable seller

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How girls normally look at me ;)

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More meat than they can possibly sell....at least today

The market isn't huge, but those streets it does fill are bursting with activity.* There are shops whose wares spill out on to the pavement, on which are stalls, standing alongside wheelbarrows of sliced pineapples, butting up to baskets stacked high with towers of bread, overshadowing cloths laid on the floor with a neat scattering of ancient relics dug up from the rubbish tips, besides juicer trolleys - the women frantically pressing oranges - then tattooists tattooing, barbers shaving faces, women painting nails, all in the street and amongst a mob of desperate shoppers.* The flustered shoppers are aided by porters, porters proudly sponsored – for some reason -by the main fried chicken restaurant chain in the city, called "Batman Chicken" (a chicken in a Batman outfit).** These porters carry or trolley loads of purchases forcefully out of the market to waiting buses or taxis, taxis which are also senseless enough to drive through the market.* All of this makes stalking Mennonites quite difficult and after a week in Santa Cruz I have just three dismal photos of Mennonite limbs and staring gormless Latinos.* I decide that a change of tact is in order…and I have just the plan.

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Stalking Mennonite man

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Stalking Mennonite Women

After several days humming and hawing about the deeper technical aspects of my new plan, I eventually pluck up some courage and go in search of any Mennonite man with a friendly looking face.* Finding one I introduce myself and tell him directly, and nervously, my plan; that I want to visit his house. "My house?* You want to visit my house?* What for?"

I hadn't anticipated questions, nor were my nerves considered as part of the plan and I realise those days spent planning were not spent wisely.* I bumble on for 10 minutes talking about my trip, my interest in his culture, punctures, the weather, his family's laundry/ironing habits and those impeccable trouser creases.* Luckily I don't mention stalking them in the market for several days nor the fact that more or less all girls think I'm a baby eater.

"But what will we do?" he asks.
"I don't know…talk, look around……eat lunch?"
"You want to come to my house and eat?"
"Well…."
"Ahh, OK," he says enlightened, "so you want to see how we live and what we eat?"
"Yeah, I guess, well, more or less." I say.
"OK," he agrees with a shrug, maybe just so he can escape, and he promptly fires off an address, one which seems impossibly short, "219c".* Not sure if I've heard correctly, I ask him to repeat it, and then ask him – just to make absolutely sure – to write it down.* 2-1-9-c. "Is that it?"* I ask, "But, where is it?* How do you get there?"
"Down route 9 and turn left,"
I try to remember which one is route 9, but can't and unsure I just ask, "How far down route 9?"
"I don't know, are you going by bus?"
"No, motorcycle…"
"Well in the bus it's about half an hour…I don't know about motorcycle," he says, and perhaps finding my questions a bit arduous, "It's easy," he adds, "just ask for Peter Peter."
"Peter Peter?"

Feeling that I've pushed the limit with my questioning I say goodbye and begin wondering if I might have just let my best chance slip by, or that perhaps he was trying to fob me off, I mean who calls themselves,"Peter Peter"?* Surely I'll never find this place.

The next day and long after leaving the hostel I'm not sure I've even moved at all, still trapped as I am in the thick of the city, the narrow corridors of twinned streets.* At long intervals I find myself at a place I recognise, a certain roundabout with a statue, the large glass Samsung building, the uniquely wide boulevard exiting eastwards (I want west), or the street that doubles as a taxi and bus stop - a hectic and maddening road which I'd sworn to avoid. *Motionless and*despondent I think of Peter Peter telling me to turn left after thirty minutes, but already I've been at this for hours.

With some relief I reach the turning south on to Route 9 and feeling like I can finally make some real headway, I stop at a shade tree to eat lunch and paddle about in the usual accompanying litter.* Then, I continue on along the main paved road south until I come to a few huts, one or two shops amongst them.* Glad to be out of the city I sit down for a drink and it's then I notice a turning off the main road here, and actually it's been about half an hour. *Here seems as good a spot as any and I decide to take the turning and slam my bottle down with galvanised resolve.

A broad and rutted laterite road spears its way east into the lattice work of other similar dirt roads and flat fields.* No sign of Mennonites yet, but pausing at a wide open crossroads a Latino man approaches from a repair shop and asks where I'm going. "Twenty, fifty, one-hundred….." he ruminates, ticking off plots along the horizon, "mmmm…..219….219….I think that's real far, over that way," he says pointing north east, "what's his name, who ya goin' to see?"
"Well, he said his name is Peter Peter."
"Peter!* Oh yeah, I know Peter, real nice guy…but ooooh, that's far….!"* I can't believe my luck, perhaps now I've got a chance after all!** The man gives me some incredibly lengthy directions to compete with Maugham and I try my best to remember, quickly thanking and leaving the Latino man the moment he finishes, before I forget.

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Mennonite House

http://lh3.ggpht.com/-emmqq-HUeMw/U_...o/IMG_6760.JPG
Mennonite carriages

Shortly and I feel like I must be getting closer, now in 1940s rural Germany.* It is truly incredible with horse carts kicking up dust on the rutted mud roads, girls in bonnets, in a line walking from church, boys pushing out trolleys carrying silver churns of the afternoon's freshly drawn milk, men on old tractors, outside sheds and welding, or with horse and controlling the reins standing on a flatbed trailer along with his flock of blonde sons.* There are red brick houses, white picket fences and wind powered water pumps; the shiny metal turbines rising up into the air.* There is not a telegraph pole nor electricity pylon in sight.* I forget all about the directions and just ride along slowly and carefree between the white fences, turning left or right at will and staring girls with muddy hemmed dresses and blonde blonde hair.* I knew the colonies were secreted away here somewhere, and finally I've found one.* I want to stop and put up my tent, to sit in its porch and just watch, to photograph it all, to remember, just remember…but instead I continue pushing on, north east and hopefully towards Peter Peter.

It's getting late and seeing a man I stop at his driveway, to try asking about camping.* Two boys I hadn't spotted watch me from the short trees lining the driveway and when I remove my helmet and step from the bike they run off towards the house.* I walk up the driveway, somehow riding up didn't seem right, and the father comes over, a huge burly man whose huge chest acts like a held out hand saying "STOP".* He leans confidently against the gloss black sweep of his horse carriage, and from between the wooden wheels he watches me with an unmoving, calm gaze as I approach.* I shake his hand though he doesn't raise from his lean.* The children, they crowd around, near and far, seven or eight of them, inside, around and on top of the safety and familiarity of the carriage, some leaning on their hands closer, staring, intrigued, barefoot, others hiding behind the father.* Pixies and elves and nymphs every one.* I realise now the difference between Europeans and South Americans, intrigue and interest.* But also they have reason and when I ask about camping the father replies matter-of-factly, "what's in it for me?"* I can only shrug, thinking to myself "not much, actually."* We continue to talk then, about his family (from Canada, umpteen children) and my own travels, what I've been doing and why I've chosen to come here to the colony particularly.* Our conversation, which has become friendly and relaxed, gives me the impression that perhaps he is interested and I am almost expecting him to say, "well, if you still want to camp you can, just stick it over there."* But, instead he explains he has work to do, and I say goodbye.

Miraculously I find Peter Peter's house, quite some distance on, a lovely neat red brick house set off from the road amongst tightly cut grass with a broad view out over flat fields all the way to the horizon.* As luck has it a boy comes out, one of his sons surely, polite and formal, listening very carefully.* He tells me Peter is still in the city, he won't be back until later, 6 or 7pm, it's now 5:30pm.* I ask if I can wait, but he seems unsure and I tell him not to worry, I'll come back tomorrow. Reluctantly I go in search of camp, taking some condolence in the fact that I have at least found the place.

Not only is darkness coming but also a storm, giving me something else to think about as I look for camp. *These roads will be dire in the wet, there amongst the deep narrow ruts carved by the thin wooden wheels of the carts - which would no doubt handle the mud with aplomb. *I also remember one of the men that I spoke with earlier was welding up a set of steel paddle wheels for his tractor, testament to the difficulties and - I fear - in preparation for the storm.* Camp is therefore tricky to find, as I worry about being able to exit in the morning if the rain is bad.* I ride up a field track which is near the main (dirt) road running north back to Santa Cruz from which I could get help from a passing truck if need be.* It's one of the problems with camping often overseen, especially in tropical climates where the rain can really pour down in huge quantities, will you be able to escape camp in the morning? *Will you even wake up in the same place you went to sleep or find you have been washed off! *And if not one of these delectable scenarios will you otherwise find the rivers to be flooded leaving you stranded in no-man's lands in-between towns?

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Having found a Peterless house, I had to camp....

Mennonites - Pt 3 of 3
 

That night the rain is bad but not horrific, a warning of things to come as the rainy season gathers pace.* I backtrack to Peter-Peter's house next morning and with great relief I see him come out of his garage as I peer up his driveway and he waves me to ride up.* Parking the bike, Peter passes by his horse and carriage to shake hands.* He looks happy with the smile of an old friend and I hope he likewise.* Back in the garage and he's using a soldering iron to plug a cracked radiator from his generator, a generator used to power his tools – he's a carpenter making horse carriages.* Whilst the Mennonites frown upon electronics and cars they will use tractors for work, buses to get to the city and electrical tools and petrol engines around the farm.* A neighbour arrives, Jacob Enns, he likewise wears pristine navy blue overalls and trucker cap, making me feel doubly dirty after a damp night and a muddy ride.* "Why did you camp in the fields?" says Peter, "You could have stayed here!" making me wish I'd hung around in the dark and returned later last night, what a missed opportunity, I could spend weeks here.

Across from us I can hear children singing from a small hut, the school and for a moment my thoughts are lost as Peter and Jacob talk amongst themselves in German.* The main study material in Mennonite schools is the bible, written in Gothic script, singing is formally taught as is reading, writing, arithmetic (measuring land, time), and spelling.* They write on slate.* Girls usually receive six years of formal education and boys seven years.* I'm mesmerised then as I see the boys leaving the classroom, a dozen filing out, one blonde clone after another, flicking their navy blue caps onto their heads exactly as the one before them and then running off, stride for stride.* The boys are followed by the dozen girls who walk out as prim and proper as only girls should!* If any of Britain's children had to attend such a school I can only imagine that it wouldn't be long before they were tossed into the well, or else severely beaten with the King James.

"Are you hungry?" asks Peter.
"Always."
"OK, come on.* Let's go inside…" he says with a smile.

Inside and everywhere is so clean, I worry about dirtying everything, and say as much.* Whilst clean the rooms appear quite bare and despite colourful curtains and decorative cupboards, conversations reverberate off the white walls cold and hard.* Peter and Jacob remove their caps and place them on the hat rack hanging from the ceiling, from which dangle the black ribbons of the women's own straw hats.* Peter has a small family by Mennonite standards, just three children, though apart from his eldest daughter who helps her mother cook, the others won't eat until later.* Peter's wife has uncommon auburn hair, though she is still as stocky as the next Mennonite woman, and more Russian Babushka than Swiss dame.* She and her daughter rush around frantically preparing food as if for a Victorian banquet, though soon enough we all sit down.* Peter and Jacob bow their heads in silent prayer and no sooner; begin to consume food at a frantic pace.* With this particular colony (there are 25 colonies in Bolivia) originating from Mexico, the food is likewise; I see fried tortillas, frijoles (beans), cheese and fruit though only for a few moments until very quickly it is gone. *Satisfied, Peter and Jacob bow their heads in another quick and silent prayer as if picking up the signal from a UFO and the meal is finished.

I take some photos, wishing I'd asked earlier, as Peter encourages me to do whatever I like, the wife giggles shyly and disappears, the daughter on the other hand is keen to have her photo taken - at the behest of Peter - though she is likewise shy, and I notice - as is common - she looks downs meekly away from the camera as if to be punished when *the camera is pointed.* I comment on Peter's laundry machine as we walk out; a lawnmower engine and two stainless steel tubs, made proudly by himself and then back outside - Peter thinking that time is up - says he's got work to do, and whilst I wonder about asking to tag along I don't want to push my luck, for I am immensely lucky to have met him.* I thank him greatly, before heading off.

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Cattle feeder


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Hat rack in Peter's house

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Dinner time!

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Jacob Ens, left and Peter Peter. Top chaps, and really kind to let me visit.

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The shy daughter of Peter, was still excited to see this picture, even if it was a bit blurry


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Peter made horse carriages, this his very own, outside his house

With my visa running out I begin heading back to the west, back up to the altiplano and towards northern Chile.* It means backtracking on roads taken earlier and as I approach the green mountains near Samaipata it feels like coming home, the air is sweeter and the mountains stand besides me like old friends should, and no more mosquitoes! *I decide to stop off along the way at a place called "El nido de los condores", "The Condors Nest".* Whilst I'd nearly tripped over a condor in Peru, I hadn't got a good view and don't want to pass up what could be my last opportunity.

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It rained in the night, and made the road a bit slippery

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I had quite wet feet!

The trail-head is at the very end of a narrow dirt road running into the very bottom of a hot valley.** At first I struggle to find the footpath, not realising that the road continues a little farther beyond two small river crossings, ending at a small farm house.* Two mad ladies tell me this is the correct place, I need to sign my name and pay 90p, I'm the only visitor today.

Having had some bad experiences with hiking trails in the past I ask the two ladies a few questions; is the trail*straightforward, is the path obvious, clearly marked, are there any junctions, is the path overgrown,to what altitude does it go, how long will it take, how long will it take and finally; how long will it take? *Of course the crazy ladies have a good old joke about this, telling me there are tigers all over the place, that I will surely die, get lost and that they will inherit a slow bike, a rusty tool kit and a mouldy tent.* I give as good as I get, all in good fun, though exact details are lost from my memory and I'm pretty sure they call me a "cheeky bugger" despite me not knowing the Spanish equivalent.* They tell me the hike is six hours (I'd read it was 8) then she says I will get there at 1pm (it's already 10:30am), so I ask if it's six hours there and back, no it's six hours, so how will I arrive by 1pm?* She looks up into her mind, thinking, and changes the ETA*to 2pm, then 3pm then, laughing manically, "maybe by 4pm."* Finally she goes into the back room and comes back to hand me a machete and also offers me a torch, her friend giggling away like a little school girl sidekick.* I grab some hunks of bread and water and tell them to make me a coffee for when I get back (I would have said "smoke me a kipper" Red Dwarf fans).


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Labourer chewing a huge wad of coca

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I reached Samaipata and returned to my previous camp spot on my way to see the Condors

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The road to the Condors Nest was good!


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A bread oven outside a house

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Maize masher


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Nice animal skin

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Kitchen

Beginning the trail* I realise that the path is blatantly obvious and there is no possibility of getting lost, I could walk up with my helmet on backwards and there is certainly no need for the machete which I lean against a tree to collect on the way back.

I have this thing about trying to complete hikes in half the guide time.* I don't know why, it's not to prove a point, I just like pounding uphill and it actually takes me less than two hours to arrive at the summit, which in contrast to the scorching valley is cool and nestled in thick damp fog.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/-atagfnfE7Z0/U_...o/IMG_6847.JPG
Reaching the top I found it nestled in fog, no chance of seeing Condors, I was extremely disappointed


The fog makes for impossible condor viewing and I sit despondently, ruing my bad luck and eat lunch.** It tastes bland and dry.* However, I'm not really sure I'm in the right spot, is this the top, or is there a higher peak up there, maybe out of the mist?** There's certainly no signposts, so I go in search, visiting the neighbouring peaks all the time knowing it is pointless as the condors won't fly in cloud.* I walk miles.* When I finally return to my lunch spot, I decide I can wait until a latest of 4pm, at which point I must descend before darkness to look for camp, though the cloud shows no signs of clearing, thick and unbroken.

At 4:10pm the cloud, within seconds, miraculously clears.* Almost instantly I spot something far, far, far off, circling below, perhaps a mile or even two away, just a circling black dot.* I watch it for a while, sweeping around, losing the small dark shape occasionally amongst the shades of rock until all of a sudden it catches a thermals, rises effortlessly and incredibly quickly and more miraculous yet, turns towards me!* As if it had spotted me all that way away it comes over, all the while getting bigger and bigger and BIGGER, until finally right above me, staring down with a beady eye and with intrigue and its gigantic 3m wing span.* I watch it land heavily on the rocky outcrop to my right, curling up its wings somehow on its body. *I try sneaking towards it until I see it unsheathe its wings and jump off to*float in circles below. *I see the long white stripe across its wings, then it catches a thermal shoots up and disappears back into the distance.


[url=http://lh5.ggpht.com/-qGeIAaxUeTg/U_uozzkSwGI/AAAAAAAADpA/9lbdNGfiZyQ/s0/IMG_6855.JPG]http://lh5.ggpht.com/-qGeIAaxUeTg/U_...o/IMG_6855.JPG
I stuck around until after 4pm and miraculously the cloud cleared, and out came Clive the Condor

[url=http://lh3.ggpht.com/-MxA9jn-NTsk/U_uo3B3faiI/AAAAAAAADpQ/_A0NrxB5j70/s0/IMG_6891.JPG]http://lh3.ggpht.com/-MxA9jn-NTsk/U_...o/IMG_6891.JPG
I found this nice little patch to camp at on my way to Valle Grande [Camp 536]

With my visa running out I have to get a move on and began heading back towards the west of Bolivia and Uyuni to cross into Chile via the altiplano.....though I'd happily stay forever.

New photos posted
 

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-4...545%20copy.JPG

New photos up from southern Argentina and Chile (Chalten, Fitzroy, Perrito Moreno, Torres del Paine, Ushaia, penguins)

You can view them on:
The website or facebook or flickr!

New Blog Post
 

There's a new blog post here : Drinking with the Devil, Potosi – Tales from the Saddle
I'll post it up here pretty soon, but for now, view it there :)