Category Archives: Dual Sport

Villa del Faro to Todos Santos

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As it turns out, once dinner is finished at the Villa Faro patio restaurant and we’ve made our way down the long path in the dark guided only by the stars and flashlights and we retire to the stone cottage, build a fire to add some additional ambiance and warmth and recline on the only piece of indoor furniture, which is the bed, there is not much else to really do. That, of course, is exactly why we went there. Continue reading →

Celebrating the New Year in San Diego

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I had good intentions to get some postings up sooner but the internet connections have been sporadic since we crossed the border on New Years day. I was told that the internet and cell phone system for all of Baja was offline all day yesterday. Ahhh, life in the slow lane.

A little bit different than our trip from Seattle to San Diego, I only took this one picture.

Continue reading →

Into Chile – the longest crossing yet!

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Wednesday April 3, 2013, Pucon Chile, Hotel Vientos del Sur

Has it been a week already? Geesh, I must be getting lazy in my blogging duties. We’ve had some great days riding and a couple of adventures along the way. I left off last Tuesday in Cafayate Argentena where we spent an extra day catching up on laundry, some bike chores and a day of rest. Wednesday morning, Deby, Michael and I saddled up our steeds to ride south. Dave, Keith and Jim were still a day or two ahead of us and we were hoping to get in a few miles to eventually catch them before Pucon. We were in the middle of Holy Week in Argentina, which is a major holiday and we heard from our advance scouts, that hotels were full in every city. With that in mind we made reservations at a casa in Chilecito, Argentina. According to my GPS we rode exactly 300 miles between hotels. I realize now that I only took a few pictures from the day. Here’s one from a beverage stop at a small town. 

We had a room booked at the Cabana la Martina which was a short distance from El Centro. It was a nice country stay in a stand alone cottage with a full kitchen and two bedrooms, perfect. Instead of making the ride into town to look for a restaurant, Michael and I went to a nearby supermarket and bought provisions for dinner and breakfast. We dined under the stars at a picnic table on the grounds. We bought fresh bread and sliced ham and cheese from the deli to make sandwiches with a side of potato chips.

For breakfast, (because Ethan wants to know), we had yogurt with granola, bananas and coffee. A perfect way to launch the day. Interesting thing, yogurt comes in a plastic bag here and is really thin. Perfect to be used on cereal. 

Thursday we continued south towards our destination of San Juan. Again, we went online to try to make reservations and everything was full. We finally booked what I thought was two rooms at the San Juan Hostel. Wrong.

The ride towards San Juan started out great, winding through some red mountains. 

It wasn’t long before the pavement ended. 

I don’t know why, but it was fun riding on red dirt. 

As usual, the road was cut into the side of the steep mountain. 

I’m glad it wasn’t raining because it would have been slick. 

Somehow after this we lost Michael. When it’s the three of us we don’t always ride within sight of each other and he had the information on the hostel reservations so we weren’t worried until we arrived in San Juan and there was no sign of him. While we were waiting I went to check into the hostel…. hmmm, not two rooms as I thought but two upper bunks in a small room with about eight bunk beds. That wasn’t going to work.

The person running the hostel spoke decent English and was nice enough to make a few phone calls. Even though all the hotels were full he found us a private room in a hostel down the street. It had a shared bathroom but Deby and I could have our own room for $35.00 USD. We jumped at that and left a message that if another biker showed up to send him down the street.

We got unpacked and the first thing I did was fire up my laptop to check Michael’s SPOT. Sure enough he had just set off a “check in” from the main square of San Juan. I grabbed my helmet to go find him and as I walked out saw Michael standing next to my motorcycle. That was easy!

The next day was Good Friday. We had a message from Jim, Dave and Keith that they planned to be in Vina del Mar just on the outside of Santiago, Chile. Concerned about finding a hotel on Good Friday I went online and booked rooms for the three of us in Valparaiso which is close to Vina del Mar. We checked the miles and it was about 350 miles and included a border crossing, yikes! The previous crossing into Chile from Peru was easy and only took about a half hour so we hoped that would be the case again and headed south to the Paso Los Libertadores crossing between Mendoza, Argentina and Santiago, Chile. You can click on the link to read about it.

We got an early start and made some really good time including a fast bypass around Mendoza where we turned west into the mountains. Beautiful weather and great stretches of road greeted our day. 

By 1:30 in the afternoon we had gone almost 200 miles and came to a small mountain resort town of Uspallata, only about 50 miles from the border, we were feeling pretty good about completing the last 100 miles into Santiago and catching up with the rest of the group. Just as we were leaving town I saw three big motorcycles coming towards us, hey, that looks like Dave! Then Jim and Keith! What were they doing going the wrong way? We stopped and had a small reunion on the side of the road, we hadn’t seen them for a few weeks ever since we split so we could hike Machu Picchu in Peru. They had turned around because a gas stop on their GPS didn’t exist and they needed to return to Uspallata to get gas. Glad to be back together we agreed to wait at the border for them.

The time stamps on my GPS and camera documented the rest. It wasn’t long after Uspallata that traffic came to a halt, it was 2:00 PM. As far as we could see down the mountain road cars were stopped. Thinking it was a construction delay (part of it was) we did what is common for motorcycles to do in Central and South America, we rode past all the parked cars. I’m not sure but I think we rode for at least 2 miles and passed hundreds of parked cars. I was starting to feel a little guilty. Eventually we came to the entrance to a long tunnel between countries. That must be it. We “filtered” to the front of the line where  the cars were stopped at a toll booth. No cars were passing through. I somehow managed to ask and determined that there was no toll for motorcycles and we would just have to wait for the tunnel to open in one hour. I wasn’t sure why it was closed but went back to the bikes to report to Deby and Michael. When I got there Jim, Keith and Dave were in line with us. They too had passed the line of cars and parked near the front with us. The hour went quickly as we got caught up on three weeks of riding stories. Eventually the tunnel opened and we went through. On the far side as we exited the tunnel traffic was stopped again. What? I looked ahead and as far as I could see down the twisty mountain road cars were stopped. They were only letting so many cars through the tunnel at a time so cars wouldn’t be stuck idling in the tunnel. We came to a snow shed that was probably a half mile long and was full of stopped cars. Somehow after we passed cars on the shoulder and rode to the entrance an official person moved a cone and told us to ride on a gravel road along the side of the tunnel. Wow! We must have passed another hundred or so cars!

Here you can see the snow shed way in the background, it was full of cars. 

This next picture was taken at 4:48PM. 

After the shed we were within sight of the border crossing but as we got closer there were police patrols watching for people cutting into line. I fell back and let Keith take the lead. When the police stopped him I pulled in behind a car to watch the outcome. Sure enough, Keith and Jim were being turned around. Surely they wouldn’t be sent back the many miles through the tunnel? The came back to me and tucked in with us thanks to an understanding driver behind us. We resigned ourselves to sitting out the final mile in line as the clock ticked towards sunset.

By 5:15PM we were a little closer. 

Since we had plenty of time to discuss the situation with the travelers around us we learned that on the Argentina side there was road construction and they only let traffic go West from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM and East during the nighttime hours. Holy cow! It was nearly 6:00 PM and we were barely moving towards the border.

This picture was taken at 6:44 PM, we were almost cleared to enter Chile. 

The border crossing is at 10,400 feet, it was getting dark, cold and we had prepaid hotel rooms in a city 150 miles away. Just before 7:00 we were set free by Auduana and Michael, Deby and I raced down the mountain to try to get through Santiago into Valparaiso, in the dark before we dropped from exhaustion. Dave Keith and Jim didn’t actually make reservations anywhere so they were going to ride and hope they found a place to stay in the peak of of the holiday week.

We made it about 40 miles when we came to the town of Los Andes and saw a nice looking hotel on the right. We rode past it and then I stopped. After a brief pow wow we decided to turn around and see if by chance they had any rooms. I was in the lobby negotiating our fate when our three amigos pulled into the parking lot. Great minds think alike.

Yes, they had rooms, we were in. We settled into our rooms and then met in the hotel restaurant, together again finally, and spent what was left of the evening swapping tales and catching up.

I’m sure most of the cars we passed never made it across the pass that evening, we barely did. Perhaps that is why the hotel had rooms? We’ll never know, but I was glad to eat the non-refundable charge for the Valparaiso hotel.

Next…. the final stretch into Pucon, the destination city for Keith and Dave’s trip 50 years ago.

 

High Adventure in Peru

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Monday March 11, 2013, Cusco Peru. Casa SanBlas Hotel, elevation 11,200 feet MSL.

Deby and I arrived in Cusco Saturday the 9th of March after a 304 mile ride through some of the highest points in the Andes. I know from my days as a licensed pilot that supplemental oxygen is required for pilots in non-pressurized cabins above 12,500 feet. I was thinking of that as we rode for hours at elevations above 14,000 feet. What were the symptoms I learned about in my “high altitude training” class? I was’t thinking clearly enough to remember them all….. let’s see….. a sense of euphoria? Check. Confusion? Check. Impaired visual acuity?  Check. Mild headache? Check. Perfect for riding on super twisty roads while enjoying the scenery and dodging cows, goats, llamas, and pigs and the normal road debris including potholes that would swallow a front wheel and sections where the road was just washed away. We had water crossings, washouts, mudslides to maneuver around and intermittent light showers to keep the road just a little slippery. It was a great day!

First, let me backtrack a little to fill in what we did since Lima. We left Lima on Thursday the 7th without the rest of the group. Dave, Keith and Jim decided they didn’t want to go to Cusco because they’ve been there already and they heard reports of rain and thunder showers. Deby and I had reservations to hike the Inca Trail on the 12th and needed to be there or loose a sizable deposit. We had been keeping in touch with Michael and he was on his way to Cusco to meet his fiance’ Dee Dee. Michael was a day ahead of us and had his own adventure that I will describe in a separate post, it was that good.

Alone for the first time, Deby and I headed south out of Lima back into a vast stretch of hot,  straight desert. I called it the Zona de Billboardas.

Huge billboards cluttered the road for about 50 miles, it was almost surreal.

Finally, the billboard frequency dropped off until we were back to the long, hot and straight road….. boring. 

As we neared out destination of Nazca we saw a lone tree with a couple of chairs and a small shack. We stopped to re-hydrate and had a great conversation with the family that lived there. They only spoke Spanish us only English, it was comical but enjoyable. 

Nazca is one of the famous tourist places to visit in Peru, it’s known for the famous Nazca lines. You can read about it HERE in Wikipedia. Some people think the lines were made by ancient aliens, you can read more about that HERE. Remember, the truth is out there……

Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry:

” The extremely dry, windless, and constant climate of the Nazca region has preserved the lines well. The Nazca desert is one of the driest on Earth and maintains a temperature around 25 °C (77 °F) all year round. The lack of wind has helped keep the lines uncovered and visible to the present day.”

What? Really? When we went through it was 95 degrees F with some of the strongest winds we’ve had on the trip. If that keeps up the Nazca lines will be blown away in no time.

Just outside of Nazca there is a spot where we climbed a tower to see some of the ancient patterns. 

It’s hard to tell from my pictures but here is a petroglyph of a bird. 

Probably instead of my pictures you will get a better idea by clicking HERE

We stayed in Nazca at a really nice hotel that was recommended by our Touratech Peru friend Ivan. We were extremely grateful for air conditioning that night.

In the morning we arranged a flight with a local tour operator to see the Nazca lines from the air. 

I took a bunch of pictures of the lines but none really turned out that well. Deby took a good one of me. 

Here is the surrounding countryside. 

The city of Nazca from above. 

The flight was 30 minutes in a Cessna 207, we had a pilot, co-pilot and four passengers so it was pretty full. As you might expect the flight consisted of a non-stop series of steep bank turns so passengers on each side of the plane could see the images. It seemed that women can’t stomach the turns as well as men. Deby was woozy all day after that flight.

Back on the ground we took a cab to the hotel for a late checkout and headed into the mountains. Immediately we started climbing out of the desert heat. Ahhhhh, the cool air felt  fantastic and the scenery almost instantly got more interesting. That’s the road in this picture winding up into the hills,

It’s a little hard to tell in the picture but that is a mountain completely covered with sand. 

We climbed from 2,000 feet in Nazca to 13,000 feet in the first 60 miles. After a relatively short 95 miles we arrived in the small town of Puquio about 3:30 in the afternoon. The sky was threatening rain and according to my map we were heading into a relatively remote area of Peru so we decided to stop for the night. The elevation at Puquio was 10,400 feet. Would my altitude sickness return?

Our hotel on the main square. Nothing to write home about but it only cost the equivalent of about $20.00 USD. 

This picture pretty much covers the whole room. 

We went for a short walk around the not very crowded town, found a bite to eat and called it a night. 

Friday we woke up at 6:00 AM, there was no coffee to be found so we took showers, that were thankfully hot, and packed up the bikes for an early departure, we were on the road by 7:15.

Immediately the road climbed still higher into the Andes. I took this picture looking back at the city of Puquio. 

The road kept climbing higher and higher, well into the 14,000 foot range before leveling off and winding eastward through remote high tundra. After an hour or so we came to this shack, the only thing for miles so we stopped to see about desayuno, preferably with huevos and cafe. 

I took this picture on the way out looking back to show how remote this outpost was. See it along the road?

When we stopped I recognized a few semi trucks that we had been passing off and on for the past two days parked in the parking lot. When we entered the door we were greeted with a chorus of Buenoss Dias amigos from the truck drivers. They were totally entertained that two motorcycles were traversing the mountain range and one of them was a woman! Even though they didn’t speak English we sensed that we were part of a special club of intrepid adventurers. They were really excited about our journey and the bikes and on the way out pulled out cameras for pictures of us. 

I felt a little better knowing these guys were behind us in their big trucks, I’m sure they would have stopped and done anything needed if we had a problem.

After paying our tab for a huge breakfast of rice, eggs and chicken the owner signaled for us to follow her to the kitchen. Hmmmm, what’s this about? She wanted to show off her baby llama.

And a pet falcon who had his own room!Wow, what a great stop. We left full of coffee and food and climbed even higher into the mountains with a great feeling about the day.

By 11:00 AM, we were at the highest point of the day. 

This breaks a record elevation for me on the motorcycle, previously held at Mt. Evans last summer in Colorado. This time we climbed to that elevation and stayed there! I checked my GPS log and we were over 10,000 feet for over 100 miles before dropping briefly into a 8,000 foot valley. The scenery was stunning, we rode past a series of high lakes. 

We found out later that Michael rode through this area the evening before as it was getting dark, while low on gas, broke because he lost his wallet and on a low tire that he had to fix along the road with a plug. Oh, and about here it started snowing.

We had a much better ride, Llamas were everywhere. 

One of the few small villages we rode through. 

Pictures really don’t do the beauty justice. 

As we neared Cusco there were dozens of water crossings, waterfalls, and evidence of many landslides across the road from the heavy rains over the past few weeks. 

Finally, towards the end of the day on the outskirts of Cusco we stop to check the map and make a plan to navigate the crazy city traffic. 

We dropped into the maze of roads and got close before finding a cab to lead us the last half mile through the narrow streets to the hotel. Best $10 Soles ever spent (about $4.00). I fell back in a section with not much traffic to take a picture of Deby up ahead. 

What you can’t tell from this picture his how steep an downhill grade it was. You can get a little feel by looking at the rooftops in the distance. Deby stopped at the point where we turn left into our hotel. Here is the view looking to the left towards the hotel lobby. This young girl was posing for pictures, awww, it was worth uno sol. 

Ahhh, a really nice place to call home for three nights. 

With a view of the city off our patio. 

Whew, finally in Cusco, we reconnected with Michael and Dee Dee and settled in for a couple of days to acclimate to the altitude, see the city and prepare for our four day hike to Machu Picchu.

Not all was perfect however, somewhere while riding into Cusco my rear shock blew a seal and leaked all the fluid out making it somewhat useless. Everything was closed on Sunday in Cusco so this morning (Monday) Michael and I set out to find a fix for my shock and a repair for his tire. I sent a couple of e-mails to our friend Ivan from Touratech in Lima to see if he had a shock. No, he could order one and it would be here in about 3 weeks. Hmmm, that wouldn’t work. (Thanks again Ivan, you really helped us out).

Fortunately, Cusco is home to Peru Moto Tours that is run by a well known rider in the ADV world, Alex. I found out his shop was only a few blocks from our hotel so this morning Michael and I walked over to see what Alex recommended. No problem, Alex said as he called his mechanic. We made an appointment to return with the bikes at 11:00 to meet with his mechanic and see what could be done. The mechanic, Richard, looked at the shock and seemed to think he could repair it. I told him we were leaving on a 4 day hike and would be back late Friday night. Not a problem, he would ride it to his shop and have it ready when I return.  I felt slightly strange giving him my keys and walking back to the hotel but I have complete confidence in the reputation of Peru Moto Tours and it’s owner. Alex sensed my slight apprehension and assured me that my bike was in good hands. That was good enough for me.

Michael’s bike was easier, all he had was a slow leak where he had plugged the tire on the side of the road (more later on that). The mechanic pulled off the tire and applied a patch to the inside. Good as new! Hopefully….

Tomorrow we leave for our four day hike up the the sacred site of Machu Picchu. I’ll blog about it when I get back and let you know what happens to my bike.  I’ll try to have time to convey Michael’s story before we leave.

Whew, long post today. Hope you enjoyed it.

Donn and Deby 🙂 🙂

 

 

 

Lima

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Wednesday March 6th 2013, Lima Peru, Hotel Senorial

Tuesday was a leisurely start for the short ride into Lima. We immediately were back in the mountainous desert. On the way into Lima we rode past this encampment that we learned was basically a squatters camp on some ex-military property. 

It was a great road into the city. 

Before we knew it we were getting into famous Lima traffic. 

We managed to find the hotel on after about an hour of crazy riding through thick traffic with only a minimum of diversion (getting lost). At one point we saw what looked like a freeway going our direction and eagerly took the on ramp to get out of the gridlock. Somehow we missed the sign that motorcycles were not allowed on this road. We wondered why the cab drivers were all frantically waving at us. Eventually we came upon a traffic cop directing traffic who forcefully waved to us signally us to pull over. We have a rule…. we don’t stop for cops unless we see a gun…. so we kept going. Dave even waved back. I think we might now be wanted by the Lima police for evading arrest.

Shortly after checking into the hotel, we were met by Ivan Guerrero who owns the local Touratech franchise. Dave knew him through a connection and made arrangements for him to assist us getting tires on four of the bikes. Check his shop out on Facebook HERE. Ivan was over the top with his help coordinating new tires including letting us follow him through the crazy streets of Lima to the shop. If you are ever adventure riding in Lima be sure to look him up.

One of the things we needed to do was get a dent fixed in David’s rim, Ivan to the rescue. He made arrangements with a local wheel shop to repair the bend. Ivan drove us  to the shop which was behind a door in an unmarked blue wall. 

No problem, it can be fixed…. come on in!

Back at the hotel the group got together for some drinks and riding stories, Ivan is on the left. We were joined by his motorcycle-riding friend Ignacio (Nacho) who had a Mercy Corps connection with Dave. Thanks to them they strongly recommended we take the southern route into Cuzco because of heavy rain and muddy roads in the mountains.

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Wednesday Deby and I signed up for a double decker bus tour on the Turibus !El Bus de Lima! on Ivan’s recommendation. The most amazing thing was a stop at the convent of San Francisco and it’s Catacombs. Take a minute to check out the Wikipedia link, pretty amazing.

Under the church are the catacombs where it is estimated 70,000 people were buried. The bones were dismantled and arranged in “bins” in geometric formations. We weren’t allowed to take pictures so here are a few I found online.

A well with skulls and bones.

It was pretty creepy ducking through the dark catacombs under the church with stale air and low ceilings and then seeing row after row after row of bones organized in patterns.

In a previous blog comment, my friend Sal asked, “when was the last time you did something for the first time?”. That was yet another first for me!

Somebody from the bus took a picture of us. 

More ancient ruins in the heart of Lima.

I’m not sure how this bus maneuvered the traffic but the driver managed. 

We happened to be at the capitol for the changing of the guard. 

One last picture for today…. having fun. 

Tomorrow Deby and I are leaving the group to get a jump on the ride to Cuzco where we are meeting Michael and his fiance’ Dee Dee. The four of us have an appointment with a guide for a 3 day hike up Machu Picchu Dave, Keith and Jim will linger a little longer in Lima and meet us in Cuzco on the 15th.

New tires and ready to roll!

Donn and Deby 🙂 🙂