AdKenz

Thursday 21/3/13 – We woke up, made breakfast and then packed up with full confidence that the town of Rio Gallegos would provide us with a new rear tyre and a mechanic to change Kenz’s chain and sprocket – perhaps we were expecting too much. We rode around to the Honda dealer we passed on the way into town yesterday, but they had no tyres or mechanic. The other large shop in town (a Yamaha dealer) also couldn’t help us so we then rode around trying to find someone to help us. We found an address on an internet forum for a moto mechanic that lived out in a dodgy suburb. When we arrived at the shop it was closed and there were two Argentinean riders who also required his help. They phoned the number in ... read more

Saturday 23/2/13 – This morning we woke up and did some quick shopping before leaving the northern Chilean city of Calama. Kenz’s blow-up mattress has been leaking recently through the valve and it no longer stayed inflated for the whole night. We went to the local hardware store and bought a $10 replacement which looks the business (it has been encouragingly nicknamed ‘Cloud 9’). As we left Calama we rode through the largely abandoned town of Chuquicamata which has recently been displaced by the encroachment of the biggest open pit copper mine in the world. We tried to organise a tour of the mine, however we would have had to wait 4 days before we could get access. We left Chuquicamata and rode to the coastal city of Antofagasta. Just north of the city we crossed ... read more

Friday 01/02/13 – Another day with a border crossing meant another day with an early start. We rode out of Puno and followed the southern shores of Lake Titicaca. Often we passed women or boys wearing thongs while herding goats or llamas along the lakes edge where the small snow drifts and ice still clung to clumps of grass and bushes. We approached the Desaguadero border and were pulled over at a police checkpoint where the cops got all excited by my secret storage tube which they must have imagined was stacked with drugs. I was relieved while they were disappointed when we all discovered that electrical tape and string was not contraband in either Peru or Bolivia… In a word this border was dynamic (in more words: chaotic, dirty, frustrating, confused, hectic…). The border between ... read more

Tuesday 1/1/13 – We were bleary eyed but excited this morning as we took the hotel shuttle to the airport. After some unsuccessful attempts at small talk with the driver, we arrived and went through the monotonous motions of airport travel. Eventually we were on the plane and flying towards the Galapagos Islands (located about 1000km from the Ecuadorian coast), where we would spend the next 10 days. As the plane landed and reached the end of the runway, we spotted a huge iguana sitting on the side of the runway – we weren’t even off the plane yet and we were spotting wildlife already. After collecting our bags, we jumped on a bus which took us down to the waterfront. From here we could see plenty of birds and even a sea lion sunbaking on ... read more

Monday 17/12/12 –We woke up with a grim mind-set in preparation for the border crossing. However I had a more immediate problem to worry about: my bike wouldn’t start this morning. It wasn’t even receiving enough power to kick the starter motor over, so we immediately knew it was a dead battery. I pulled out my battery whose cells were all bone dry (except, of course, for the inspection cell that is used as a guide for judging water levels – this one was full!). Twenty minutes later, we were riding off towards Ecuador and on our approach to the border we met another adventurer on a KLR. We pulled up at immigration and chatted to our fellow rider who was a young Russian guy (Alexey) who had bought the bike 3 days ago and never ... read more