What a beauty! here we were in this rather understated hotel in Villa Union, Argentina last night and earlier over a few cervazas been talking about robustness of the structure, typical of many it looked like the Big Bad Wolf could blow it down without much effort – when at 3.30 am the whole [...]
Gareth often had stupid ideas but this last one was too much. But I went along with it anyway …. for the good of the team. After afternoon break when we all wanted to be finished for the day HE suggested that I get out in front, and PRETEND I had had a crash to [...]
The day started with the navigation of the one way system of Salta and the morning traffic rush. Soon we were on the outer ring road which lead us on to highway 68 the main road south from Salta. 40Kms down this road we turned off onto highway 30, the start of a 160 Km diversion [...]
We wound our way down the Andes and overnighted at a smallish town called Purmamarka after a dream road. We descended nearly 2000m in 12 km and had 32 switchbacks as well as lots of sweepers to relax around. Surrounded by red sculpted cliffs and marvelling at the engineers who designed this masterpiece I [...]
We left our little mud hut home-stay in San Juan before the others and after wandering a maze of tracks through the desert, following a gps arrow to get a “near enough” direction, thought we were lost. After no sign or sight of any life for an hour, then we saw an adobe mud cottage. [...]
We awoke to a great view and the Sun rise of the Bolivian Salar. There had been a lot of debate over night regarding the much needed diesel and oil mix that we needed to apply to our bikes. Jo and Gareth had relayed their stories 8 years ago on riding across the Salar on [...]
The day always arrives on these trips when the brief sojourn of having wives and families along comes to an end, they return to NZ and the real expedition ride resumes. No vans to follow us around any more, no local guides to point out the best routes (although too often they’re completely wrong on [...]
After travelling through Peru we were slowly getting the hang of how all things work, one such example was the collection of road taxes etc. We often came across booths similar to the one in the photo where a tolls officer inside his booth would charge the trucks and cars the appropriate toll. Motorbikes were [...]
Day 11 started with a visit to the floating islands on lake Titicaca, these islands are famous for the life that the local indigenous people live. There are around 40 of these reed islands floating on the lake. These islands have been in existence for over 2000 years and have been refuge for many of [...]
We descended into the huge crater in the earth that is the location of this metropolis. The sun glinted on the roofs and windows of basic houses hanging off the cliff sides of the huge bowl but we couldn’t take our eyes of the road. Traffic chaos to the untrained eye seems to get everyone [...]