Scott and Pam on the Road

Enjoying the amenities in Middle Chile

Hi all,

We gotta stop doing so much in a week.... these long emails are getting out of hand...

Last left off in Vallenar, where we ended up spending a couple of nights taking it easy. There was a really good restaurant there, run by a Chilean woman married to a Canadian guy who had come to Chile working on a mining project. Very yummy food there so we went back again the next day. I think that Vallenar is about the southern end of the Atacama desert. We were about ready to get out of the desert too. We didn´t notice it, but as soon as we drove through La Serena, a city with some green in it, out spirits lifted. We continued to Los Villos, on the ocean, where we rented a cabana with a full view of the bay and a kitchenette. Hadn´t planned on cooking our own food, but we happened to stroll through this fairly small town and find a sizable supermarket. We hadn´t seen a supermarket like you find at home since Metro (a really great supermarket that we only saw in Lima, over a month ago), and we went crazy! Familiar food- ravioli and bolognase sauce with Parmesan cheese and beer and wine (sold in the grocery store- this is true convenience) and cookies and yogurt and cheese and crackers. That was a good night and I even wanted to stay there through Xmas, just so we wouldn´t have to eat out, but we went on to Vina Del Mar, a beach town outside of Santiago.

Now, in Northern Chile, you can basically travel South or North on good roads and there aren´t too many choices to make beyond how far you want to travel, but as you get closer to Santiago, there are more people and more options in terms of highways. We were able to get off the PanAmerican and travel some smaller highways off the beaten path a bit, but still paved. The highway along the ocean towards Vina Del Mar travels through a bunch of ocean front towns, some of which are quite ritzy. It reminded me of driving the old Marine Drive through West Van. The ocean here is stunning- bright blue, surf crashing on the beach and the day (Christmas Eve) was beautiful and clear and hot. A very nice day to travel this road. We arrived in Vina to find they have... McDonalds!!!! We both scarfed down Big Mac meals in record time. Gotta hand it to McDs- they have excellent quality control worldwide. Hard to tell the difference between a Chilean Big Mac and a Canadian one....

We found a place in Vina but I was kinda blue being away from family at Christmas time, so we had to go out and drink beers, which reminded me of being home for the holidays and we chatted with a couple of families, one from the US and another from Scotland who we met. Scott also stocked up on empanadas and goodies since we weren´t sure how much would be open on Christmas day. We slept in until noon on Christmas day and if anything was closed for Christmas, it must have been in the am only because all the restaurants, anything on the beach front was open and the place was hopping. We had planned to do motorbike maintenance on Christmas day but ended up spending the most of the afternoon on the beach with the rest of the city- it was a perfect day. We finally dragged ourselves off the beach (mostly because we were too thirsty) and found some oil and started working on the bikes. We managed to get oil changed out of the KLR and adjust the valves on the DR, but started running out of daylight. We cleaned up and headed out for Mexican food with a couple of guys we met on the beach (one Aussie from Melbourne, one German)- they work for an international freighting company in a Chilean branch. They had just been transferred to the office and we couldn´t help but think what a great opportunity it would be to be transferred to Santiago. This part of Chile is really quite similar to being in Vancouver, with beaches and mountains all within reach and plenty of infrastructure to be comfortable.

We arrived the next day in Talca to get word of what was going on in SE Asia. First we heard 6,000 people dead and that was already quite shocking. We couldn´t quite drag ourselves away from CNN the next morning and stayed another day, and managed to get some laundry done and finish bike maintenance too (DR oil change and change KLR spark plug). The people at the hostal we stayed at were very nice- Scott needed a 13/16 socket to get his drain plug out and the owner of the hotel, who couldn´t speak any English, just pulled out his huge tool box and left it open for us to use what we needed. According to his son (who spoke pretty good English), his father was a bit of a backyard mechanic and watched the whole process with great interest, every time another part came off the bike, he was right there, checking it all out. Scott speaks no Spanish and the guy spoke no English, but Scott showed him what he was doing all through the process and there was no miscommunication.

From Talca, we headed for Concepcion, again via the backroad highways. We got a slow start that day, again with the CNN. Scott sniffed out an amazing vegetarian restaurant in Concepcion- amazing because it is really out of context with everything else here- they love their carne!! The next day, we ended up in a small town around 2pm and we were starving (you know, because of no meat for dinner the night before- I don´t know how you veg heads can survive). This time Scott located a great place filled with locals. In SA, lunch is usually the big meal of the day, followed by siesta, out of necessity since the meal is usually a huge chunk of meat. And the restaurants for locals don´t have una carta (in English, a menu), they serve a daily menu (in English, a set meal, with some options to vary the starch- you can either have potatoes or rice). But these meals are fresh and hot and this one did not disappoint. Dessert was a big bowl of fresh, ripe, juicy black cherries. Really unbelievable produce here (we had fresh peas and raspberries yesterday). We pressed on to Villarricca (difficult to do after a meal like that, without the siesta), where we are staying up in another cute cabana with kitchenette.

Villarrica is on the shores of Lago Villarrica, near Volcan Villarrica, and 25 km down the lake from Pucon, one of the most touristed places in Chile. We visited Pucon yesterday afternoon and it is like Whistler village in terms of contruction and the “vibe” and Villarrica is kinda like being in Alpine or Emerald or something- far enough away from the hustle and bustle but close enough to all the amenities and sights. We also rode up to the base of the volcano (which they ski on in Winter), but it was a bit overcast so we are going to try again today, earlier in the day because it looks like the view would be amazing and the ride up is nice (although we did it 2-up on the DR yesterday and that was less fun).

We have been really able to take it easy this past week- this area of Chile is so similar to being in Canada, both in terms of the nature around us and the amenities available (like bank machines everywhere). It is nice and comfortable but starting to get a bit boring. However, we are getting ready to head back into the wilds soon. We will go to the Island of Chiloe in the next day or 2 and from there, take a 7 hour ferry ride to the start of the Carretera Austral, which is supposed to be a beautiful route on surfaced dirt roads and beyond that, routa 40 in Argentinian Patagonia awaits. Tonight, there are supposed to be some fireworks on the lake here in Villarrica, and we´ll see what happens beyond that. I´ll try to stay up until 5 am to have a drink with all the BC folk, but it might be easier if you all could have a drink for us at 7 pm, when it is midnight here.

We miss you all and are thankful for this past year. Thinking of friends and family and thankful to be travelling South America and not South East Asia this time around. We last heard that death count was over 120,000. This is truly unbelievable and difficult to comprehend. Seeing some of the footage on CNN reminds me of watching the attacks on New York, only this was yet another tragic natural disaster, and it seems to make it harder to accept when there is no one to blame. Happy New Year to you all from us both. Have a safe one.

Scott and Pam

Pic from Talca

Its not too exciting, but the people who run this nice hostal where we spent a couple of nights doing some bike maintenance wanted to take our pic out front of their place. They sent us the e-pic so we could share with you...

S&P

Titicaca "ferry" crossing photo

The guys are holding the bikes to prevent them from pitching over!!!

The wilds of SW Bolivia and Culture Shock in Chile

Hi all,

Everyone got their Christmas shopping done??? Ha ha.

We are in Villenar Chile. It has been a while since we´ve had much energy or opportunity to catch everyone up. We left off at the end of what we "thought" was a difficult dirt road in Bolivia, feeling high on ourselves and having signed up for a 3 day tour of the Salar de Uyuni and SW Bolivia. The roads couldn´t be WORSE than the Uyuni road.... Sure, the roads weren´t worse, it was where there weren´t any roads that the going got tough... But first that Salar.. The first day was wonderful. Flat, flat, flat and white for as far as you can see. I think we gots lots of good pics of that and Isla de Pescados in the middle, an island in the salt with ancient cactii. It was quite surreal to be on this island, you look out of the scene in front of you and you automatically assume that the white is water because your brain can´t quite wrap itself around what you know you are actually looking at, even though you know what it is.... and then a truck drives away on the "water". Wierd. We had a good bunch in the group: a very funny Brit, and very outspoken Swiss, an intellectual German and a great interpreter in a Chilean-born French guy. Cold, cold beers at the end of the day. Cold beers are very hard to find in Bolivia. "Helado" means it has been in the shade, not out in the sun. It isn´t right.

The next day, we ride from 7 am to 2 pm on pretty good dirt roads. Very beautiful, but we give the camera to the Brit so that we can focus on trying to keep up, which is a challenge, despite the fairly reasonable dirt roads (compared to the road to Uyuni). But we are pooped when we get to the "hard". The road basically disappears and the altiplano above 4000m is a wide scree between peaks with no road and deep coarse sand all the way across. The trucks can fly over the stuff and they don´t stick to the same route, so there are no good tracks to follow. About 30 km short of our destination and only 30 minutes before sundown, we stash the bikes behind an abandoned shack, the only one we´ve seen on the altiplano and hop into the truck. We are jealous as the truck flies over this terrain, which is extremely difficult for the bikes, especially after riding for 11.5 hrs. That night we stay at a basic accomodation on the flamingo-filled Laguna Colorada, which is orange due to a wierd algae with cakey white mineral shoreline.

Next am we get a ride back to the bikes at 5 am and find the riding much easier because the sand is all frozen (nights are minus 7 C or so at this altitude). We zip back to the camp over the frozen ground before the sun thaws it and nap until noon, when a second truck we have hired to carry the bikes the rest of the way to Chile arrives. The truck is a much easier way to see the sights and we actually get to sightsee. We get through the Bolivian border (a new shack in the middle of nowhere) and do all the Adouanes paperwork on the spo, no problem. 10 km past the Bolivian border, we get to....a PAVED ROAD!!!! The most beautiful paved road we´ve ever seen and the first in almost a week. Arriving in San Pedro de Atacama, Scott says "look Pam, infrastructure!" There are telephone poles and ditches and paved roads and an extremely efficient border station where were are made to step in a pan of yellow disinfectant liquid liquid and the wheel wells of the truck are sprayed down (but not the bikes in the back, which are completely covered in Bolivian soil and salt). They confiscate our Peruvian sheepskins we bought at the market in Cusco to make the seats more comfy (sorry Janet). We are sad to see those go, they helped a lot, especially on Scotts skinny dirtbike seat. That evening, we eat a gourmet meal in SP and can barely believe the difference between the 2 countries that share a border. Worlds apart. We have culture shock at being back in civilization and have to escape San Pedro because there are too many gringos there.

We chilled out for a couple of days in Calama where there is a travelling festival on in the evening with a dance troupe and acrobatics performed by a small boy maybe 8 yrs old using a couple of long sashes tied to a stout tree branch in the square. Michelle knows what I am talking about. It was quite professional and still seemed extremely out of context for us. The next day we headed for the beach at Taltal. The ocean was amazing to see after a whole month away from it- the first view of it as we came out of the hills made me catch my breath. Amazing how you can see something almost everyday for your whole life and be caught by surprise when you see it again. I hadn´t noticed I had missed it. The smell too. The hostal we stayed in there was impeccably clean and neat and is exactly the place my Dad and Lois would have if they had a hotel in Chile. Totally reminded me of their motel in Parksville. Wow, I was nostalgic. Next day we camped in Parc National Pan de Azucar (Sugar Loaf Nationa Park) in really nice campsites right on the Ocean. Very beautiful and less than a week before Christmas, we almost had the place to ourselves.

Presently we are in a little town called Villenar. They have a fake Christmas tree wrapped around the huge palm tree in the middle of the town square- very strange sight. This morning, the lady serving us breakfast at our hostal told us about another guy who had been through 3 days before who had travelled from Alaska. It seems our Swiss friend Martin made it through here and we happened to pick the very hotel he did days before. He is now in Santiago, staying in a nice hotel on BMWs nickel (we think) while they fix his busted shock.

Scott and I will probably end up a couple hundred kms short of Santiago for Christmas- we´ll take a rest day and try to get in touch with family if the town we think we´ll be at by then is big enough to have a call center and if anything is open. If we´don´t catch you before then, Merry Christmas to all!!!

Scott and Pam

Bolivia 1, BMW 0

Hi all,

Where did we leave off…… I seriously can{t remember. I think Puno…..

Scott, Martin and I headed out from Puno, following the shores of Lake Titicaca towards the Bolivian border. Beautiful scenery. Farming land bumps right up to the shore and then the lake reed is growing in the water and is also harvested. In places, it is hard to tell where the land ends but the boats parked in the “middle” of the fields of green is a good hint. The border was a breeze. The Customs guy there cursed the customs guy who received the bikes into the country (remember him??) because he said we came in “by air” without specifying where we dropped out of the sky. Scott and I were are not surprised that guy messed it up and had a laugh at his expense. But the border crossing was exceptionally smooth on both the Peru and Bolivian sides all in all. The day ended in a small Bolivian town called Copacabana where we stayed at the best place in town, La Cupula, at the top of the hill overlooking the bay and a gourmet meal including a bottle of wine and chocolate fondue… all for 217 bolivars (around $30 Can) for the 3 of us.

Next day was Martin{s birthday, so we hung out with him in Copa. Very laid back town. It seems that they bless vehicles at this cathedral and people come from all over Bolivia in Jan, some sort of pilgrimage. There was just a drunk guy with his drunk friends there on that day with his bus covered in flowers and religiously pouring one gulp of beer down his gullet and another onto the ground in front of the bus. I guess the virgin of Copacabana favours Pilsner…

The next am, we left fairly early for Oruro. Scott writes:
We left Copacabana Dec. 10 and couldn{t find any gas! 20 km into reserve, and just as I was thinking I would have to knock out Martin and steal some from his 40 L tank, we finally hit a gas station. Yea great, but we are out of Bolivars and the lady serving up the "Combustible" doesnt take US$! Dosent take US$!! "What kind of goll dang country is this"! Lucky for us Banking is in the blood of our Swiss friend and he whips out a 100 Bol note.
Tanks topped and we head for Oruro, 400 KM south. Mostly uneventful droning with the occasional herd of sheep on the highway! One thing that, was somewhat amusing, happened near the end of the day. Pam was out front about 1/2 a klick and this herding dog started after her from about 200m off in the feld. Now you wouldn{t think that a dog could catch a bike going 110 km/h but the little bugger timed it perfectly and almost got her! I wanted to pull over and buy him of the Quechuan lady herding the sheep.

Oruro sort of stank-just another big city- so we headed for Uyuni, or so we thought. We parted ways with Martin for a while as we had banking to do before we left town and he needed a 30 mm wrench to adjust his steering head but ran into him where the pavement ran out in Huari, about 150 km from Oruro and 190km to Uyuni. Scott writes:
They said it was paved, but then they say lot of things down here! A little ways into the dirt, I come over a crest and there{s Martin in the middle of the road shaking his fist and thumbs downing his BMW. It turns out that with all the extra weight and the severely washboard dirt road he had blown the end cap right off the remote reservoir of his rear shock!! What do you do in the middle of the Bolivian Desert with all of your shock oil all over the ground!? Luckily I just happened to have a 5 mm tap in my tool kit so we unscrewed the remainder of the reservoir and tapped the inside of the fitting on the end of the hose. This held the remainder of the oil in till we could retreat back to the town and get a place to stay. So we found a Casa for the night and removed all the luggage from Martins bike. I then thought " a shock is kind of like a syringe so...". We removed the 5mm screw from the end of the hose and attached the breather tube, from my bike, and a funnel and added some 10-40 motor oil to the funnel. Pam and Martin then stated to pump up and down on the back of the bike and lo and behold the shock started sucking in the oil! We tried pumping the shock different ways like short bursts and long strokes (sounds dirty, I know) till no air would come out of the funnel then I pulled off the breather tube and replaced the 5mm, with a little locktite. After a short test ride Martin said it was 80-90 percent as before. Of course it would never be perfect but it would get him to Chile were he could get a new shock. Why did I have locktite and a 5mm tap on this trip? It must have been that survival training I had as a kid.

I think Martin was lucky to have Scott around when this happened. The next day, Martin headed North for a paved route to Chile, where you have a hope of finding a BMW shop and we carried on back to Huari, hoping to find a truck to put the bikes in to Uyuni. After an hour of so, we decided the truck option on a Sunday might not happen but hey, we have a tent and sleeping bags and water and plenty of calories in the form of packaged cookies, chocolate and freeze-dried soup, so we decided to give it a go. Now, Scott has ridden dirt for many years but I am a major newbie. But we figured we had 7 hours of daylight, 4 small towns enroute and gear to camp of all else failed and so we started out. Suffice to say that 8 hours later we arrived in Uyuni and according to the GPS, we were travelling for 6.5 hrs, catching our breath (or trying to arrange a ride in a truck in the in-between towns) for 2.5 hrs, the average speed of the day was around 30 km-hr and the max speed I attained (for around 2 or 3 minutes) was 64km-hr. Sand is hard to ride through and for some reason, 40 km away from our destination, the road was covered with sand to wash out the washboard and then graded so we couldn{t see where it was deeper (harder to ride) and shallower. Luckily the last hour in dusky light was reasonably good, if not washboard, and we arrived in Uyuni, asked for and located the best hotel in the entire town and crashed after a meal and shower. Man, were we dusty and tired. So today was a rest day.

Tomorrow we are booked on a 3 day tour of the Salar de Uyuni and Lagunas Colorado and Verde, ending up at the Bolivian-Chilean border mid-day Thursday. The tour usually includes a ride in a 4 wheel drive truck but our arrangement is for accommodations, meals and transport of gas and our luggage so we will be free to roam the Salar without the extra weight. Yeehaw. After yesterdays ride, (aka trial by fire as Pam learns to ride dirt), I am pumped….

Deep in Bolivia,
Scott and Pam

PS Thanks Tzaddi for this awesome weblog!!!

A nice "fixer-upper" with 360 degree views, hidden in the Peruvian hills...

Hi all,

Well, time is flying. We arrived in Cusco around 5 or 6 days ago and the ride to Cusco reminded me of riding up to Whistler. Then we arrived and the place reminded me again of Whistler with the different bars and places to eat and the atmosphere in general. So of course we drank beers...

I thought I was acclimatized by now. Wrong. The most excruciating hangover the next morning- the high altitude hangover. A couple of Advils and a couple of Coca teas did the trick though. We spent a day shopping and enjoying the food and trying to convince Kylie to change her flight home from Australia to stop in Cusco but I think she was already in the air by the time I had this bright idea. That day, we figured that the cheapest way to get to Macchu Pichu was to ride to nearby Ollantaytambo, find a place to store the bikes and take the evening “backpackers” train to Aguas Calientes (can{t drive there, supposedly), then spend a full day at MP and return by train the next am. Brilliant. Macchu Pichu was amazing. We got a guide for the am to give us the tour and give the background info about the place. In the pm, we planned to hike up Hyuana Pichu (Inka for young mountain), to see the view from the top. Hyuana Pichu is the cone-shaped mountain that is seen behind MP in most of the pics you see. We ate lunch and made our way to the trailhead at 1:45 to find out that the trail closed at 1pm, so that they can get everyone off the hill by 4pm at the latest. After begging the guy at the gate, and convincing him that we were “muy rapido gringos” (and maybe a bit of waterworks to seal the deal), he let us in, as long were done by 3:30 and we signed in on the log at 1pm, so he wouldn{t get in trouble. And we ran up the thing. MP is 1000m lower in elevation than Cusco and I figure that a couple of days in Cusco helped us to be super-fit for this hike, which we did in 37 minutes. I am still astonished at that, but have to say that going down was just as hard and took almost as long. Amazing view from the top, definitely worth it. As Scott alluded to, these Inkas were some masons. Their temples as built from stones that at shaped so perfectly that you could barely fit a scalpel blade between the stones, even after all this time and a couple of major earthquakes. One of the stones has 32 corners, that is to say that it is a big stone that was carved to fit with all the surrounding stones to give a total of 32 corners formed. MP itself is really a highly sophisticated village, where every hut has a stunning view and you can{t help but wonder how the heck the Inkas managed to not fall off the side of the mountain. We can{t believe more tourists don{t do so.

Back in Cusco, we met up with a Swiss fellow, Martin, on a BMW whose bike we had seen before we left for MP and were hoping we would bump into when we got back. He shipped his bike to Anchorage, Alaska and is also heading to Ushuia. He was through Vancouver in August and said that he had never seen so much rain. We apologized wholeheartedly. Martin and Scott did some bike maintenance while I sussed out shipping options for the goodies we have bought so far. This am, the plan was for me to take the box to UPS while Scott loaded bikes but there were NO taxis to be found. This is VERY unusual as usually, you can{t step out your door without being honked at. As an Isreali guy we met put it, with the Peruvians, it is very much “I honk, therefore I am”. Scott figures there is a booming horn-repair market in Peru, that and shock repairs. Anyways, no taxis. It turns out that several South American presidents are in town for a conference or something and security is very tight. This explains the fully decorated cops and riot police we saw all over the place on our way to and from breakfast. So we end up having to strap this 10 kg box to Scotts bike and dropping it off at UPS on the way out of town. It looks ridiculous. To get to the UPS office, the three of us have to turn down a road that is blocked off for motorcades but we ignore the cops blowing whistles at us and park out front. Scott and Martin satisfy the cops need to bend us to their will by moving the bikes to 3 different parking spots at their request while I arrange the shipping. Inside, the UPS people don{t speak much English so I end up behind the desk entering my own info into an Excel spreadsheet for the air waybill, customs (remember Peru aduanes???), and receipt info. Not only are the Excel pages not linked to transfer the info entered on one page to the next, but the dude who is supposed to enter this but can{t type or speak English keeps moving and clicking the mouse and restacking and reorganizing the papers I am entering info from and ends up closing the spreadsheet without SAVING the info I entered. I immediately start calling for a “discuenta”- a discount for all my hard work and begin re-entering the info. Meanwhile, we still have a 400 km day ahead of us and I am holding up our new travel companion. Finally, we get it all entered, we pay and I sign 7 copies of each of 2 forms (for adouanes, they claim and I believe them) and we leave. I think we did get a discuenta, but then again, the box still didn{t have any address stickers attached to it when we left so hopefully it makes it. Anyways, we did end up making the 400km trip and are presently in Puno, next to the shores of Lake Titticacca (teehee). Tomorrow the plan is to head for the Bolivian border and see the lake from that side of the border.

Whew. Exec summary: MP was great, going to Bolivia tomorrow, having a blast as always…

Cheers all,
Scott and Pam

The road to Abancay

Hi gang,

This is Scotts recent post to a motorcycle forum..... so here´s what we´ve
been up to for the past few days.... apologies to the non-biker people.

We left Nazca and stated up to a place called Puquio in the west side of the
mountains. We climbed from 300m (1000ft) to aprox.4000m (13000ft)!!! in
100km!! It was awsome. Switch back after Switch back with short sections of
medium curves. This would be a top ride on a grunty sport bike,

like a Ducati or KTM 920 or a VTR. One or two gears straight up! As it was I havent changed the stock jetting yet so the old DR600 was a bit wheezy but did a comendable job with 45kg of gear hangin off the back. Although power was
down all of the trucks (maybe 8 total, like nobody on this road!) were
having a hell of a time! I could have gotten off and pushed the bike on by.
After a weezy night for ourselves at 3300m (needed a midnight coca tea to
get through the night), we started off down a nasty water-trough dirt road
which only lasted a couple a kms and then on to good pavement again. Guess
what, another perfect road to a plateau with the same kind of riding. The
only problem was that the plateau happened to be at 4500 freaking meters!!!!
This was a long straight cruise with some bends that would have your Busa or
your ZX10 topping out at whatever speed it could possibly attain at this
altitude. Too bad you can´t feed a bike Coca tea. We stopped at a festering
little roadside cafe at 4400m and drank more tea and ate papas frites as
close to the sun as either of us have ever been. Good times.
After holding the throttle rocker open with one finger for a couple of
hours, the road started to head down again, and fast. With the same amazing
curves, but this time with some warmer weather and sunshine to add to the
phenomenal riding. We had to stop and take pictures of these unbelievable
corners heading down into the lush green valley, which leads to the town of
Abancay. Good thing the ride was great cuz the town sucked.
We are now in Cusco, eating good feed, heading out towards Macchu Pichu to
see if its true what they say about these Peruvian masons. Leaving the bikes
in Ollantaytambo, half way there were the road ends and only the train
carries on.

Cheers all,
Scott and Pam