We left Ushuaia still absorbing the fact that we had made it to the bottom and our journey was coming to a close. I felt kind of pensive and reflective as we rode toward Gerardo's farm to spend our last night together as a group of the trip. There were strong winds and many kilometres of roadworks before we reached the ferry where we had a short and choppy crossing. We reached the farmhouse which was a beautiful home and must look quite magical in the winter when the snow comes. There was a newspaper on the table with a rather large article about Gerardo and our group completing the trip, quite amazing! We were spoilt with a wonderful home cooked meal and reminisced over drinks before bed. Gerardo had been asked if he could do ... read more
Travelling from Bahia Blanca to Caleta Olivia were transit days with initially lots of farms then crops then fairly barren looking land whîch had a few sheep and cattle, horses, rhea and guanacos. Heading further south toward Santa Cruz there were large stretches of not much but straight road and wind so it was always very pleasing to see a gas station. The river looked beautiful at Corpen Aike which reminded me a bit of Cromwell. There was also some superb coastal riding and in great conditions too. We had an easy entrance into Chile and spent the night in Porvenir which seemed to be a town with a lot of work happening. At 10.45pm it was still twilight and the light came again at 4.30am. The next day we had another border crossing back into ... read more
Iguazu to Corrientes Next day started off fairly straightforward until Gerardo entered the dining room to announce his departure to hospital. It transpired that he had thrown his hand in the air - during the course of getting ready - straight into the metal ceiling fan. This required several stitches which were undertaken sans anaesthetic! This hasn't prevented him from riding albeit with a wet weather over glove as he couldn't fit his bandaged hand into his riding glove. So a slightly later start at around 8.30am. Our next drama was a fright for String when a motorcycle rider (not one of ours) was hit from behind and sent sliding down one side of String whilst the riderless bike flew down the other side of him. String missed both and felt lucky not to be physically ... read more
We spent the day in asuncion looking around the city which is an old city with beautiful old buildings and quaint craft markets selling traditional Paraguayan goods. It's very colourful and vibrant as well as being rather classical in its building style. I was keen on buying a nanduti which is a colourful handmade lace decoration but when I found them they were made out of a coarser material than I had envisioned. It's a fairly small city of around 500,000 with a young vibrant population. After catching up on some washing etc we went to the supermarcardo and bought some nice chilean wine, blue cheese and crackers and olives and went to Deane's room (coz he had the best balcony) and met up with the others while we watched the sun set behind Asuncion's city ... read more
Asuncion to Puerto Iguazu, Argentina After leaving asuncion, we rode to Itaipu, where we caught a bus to see the 2nd biggest dam in the world. The bus drove us around so we could see it from every angle and we got off at two points to take photos and take in the view. It was mind blowing and spectacular to see the volume of water released from the dam which generates energy for around 80% of Paraguay and circa 25% of Brazil. After we finished the tour we rode to an awesome wee cafe which had espresso coffee and a delicatessen, it's amazing what lights me up now! Refreshed we carried on to the border to exit Paraguay which thankfully was not an issue as the mercury was back up in the 30's. Interestingly we ... read more
Puerto Guijarro to campo grande The Brazilian border was a real breeze to get through. If only they were all this way. We rode toward campo grande on a largely straight well maintained road which was tinted in the terracotta colour of the clay. We rode along through the pantanal where there were plenty of wildlife signs advising to keep a watch for many different and exotic wild animals. This area is one of the largest producers of soybeans in the world. Agriculture is huge here with thousands of acres of land cropped and countless cattle. Campo grande to Ponta Pora, Paraguay On arriving at Ponta Pora we didn't initially realise we had crossed into Paraguay as there's no visible border to cross. We then found that one side of the road is Brazil and the ... read more
Urubamba to puno We set off just before 8 and road with Jeff and Deane to the Salinas de Maras to check out the inca salt flats. We were pleased we went as they were pretty impressive. I played tour guide and read out information about the history and how they were formed which I'd previously screen shotted. Travelling today it was interesting to note the extreme poverty. It seems a lot of the people spend their days sitting on the side of the road minding their stock. The women carry large loads of wood on their backs, presumably firewood. It certainly is a different world than the one we live in. We then set off for Puno stopping a few times for photos, petrol and snacks. We arrived around 3.30 where we settled for the ... read more
Urubamba to Machu Picchu A quick breakfast at the break of dawn and our taxi awaited to the train station. Our cabin was very comfortable with windows in the ceiling to take advantage of the mountain views. We arrived at the bus station to ride up to Machu Picchu at around 8.15. We couldn't find our guide so proceeded to walk around on our own (along with a few thousand others). We wanted to climb Wayna Picchu first but found that if you want to do this it needs to be booked about three months in advance. So we decided to go and see if we could find our guide via the information centre. Trev and Deane found him (Felix) and we had a guided tour around the ruins. Next we walked up to the sun ... read more
Lima to Ayacucho We rolled out just after 8 this morning and made fairly short work of getting out of the huge metropolis that is Lima. The first part of the day was spent riding alongside of the coast with the Pacific Ocean on our right and sand dunes or desert on our left. There were lots of huts made of some type of woven thatching or brick dotted in the sand dunes. It seemed a strange place to put a home, miles from anything. Moving towards the mountains we came across several herds of goats and a herd of cows being mustered old school style along the highway. We rode from sea level to 4,746 masl by 2.50pm. I could certainly feel the effects of the altitude but didn't feel too bad really considering. Around ... read more
Breakfast was awesome; I've been avoiding OJ as it looks like it may have water in it but here it actually looked like squeezed juice so indulged in that and the fresh fruit on offer; I've got away with it a few times but I'll continue to be wary. First up we did a city tour of Lima which has a population of nearly 10 million people! We took in plenty of city sites with the - to be expected - churches and old buildings etc but my favourite was the museum and catacombs. I'd always wanted to go to some catacombs as we missed the ones in Rome and Paris. Catacombs are subterranean passageways with chambers used as burial places. They were just as I'd read about. Following this we went to get Trev a ... read more