In this episode I leave Cusco and the Inca Business heading for the coast and no more high altitude - yeah, right!…I kill a dog (but in self defence), have first real prang (see prev), finally get somewhere warm, ponder the Nasca Lines ((sorry, nothing to do with NASCAR), lick stamps and end up in front of the hospital. It was time to leave having achieved both measures of overstay - eating at the same restaurant twice, and being recognised by locals on the street. It was a cold morning but I knew that before long I would be able to ditch the jacket and thermals, hopefully for the last time. Sure enough, less than 100kms of fabulous boot scraping curves, following the river down and down from the magic mountains, hang on, the river ... read more

Well, the border wasn’t as bad as some - surly, unfriendly, unhelpful - but we got thru’. Bye Bye Bolivia, Hola Peru! I should have taken the black dogs on the road as an omen, having just been thru’ another bout with my own, and having written thru’ it on the last blog. Can you tell? Anyway, most of the dogs along the way, and there have been many, have been the shaggy, fair-haired sheep dog types, (some very Candy-like), but this morning, across the frontera and into Peru, the first half dozen dogs were black! Sometimes mine is a mangy, street urchin cur, other times a big wolf, in that howl-at-the-moon stance, altho’ always silent, even when he comes close he makes no noise, but I always know he’s there, sometimes just on the periphery, ... read more

It’s the 3rd day of the Carnival, no, not Rio, or Salvador, but downtown La Paz, and the energy and excitement and danger are just as full-on. In fact it’s been full-on from Uyuni, thru’ Potosi, Oduro and La Paz…the primary danger being getting soaked as packs of young, and not so young, roam the streets, armed to the teeth with water ‘pistols’, military design, star wars colours and shapes, awfully phallic, giant purple, bulbous headed, red, yellow and green shafts, the pumping action by grown-up boys, sheathed in their plastic condom coveralls, even Siggies greatest critics would have to believe this one! also the water bombs, 12 for 1 Boliviano (about 12 cents) luckily the general aim is shithouse but this also means more potential of getting hit by wild throws! All along the street, ... read more

Strange spending so much time so high, altitudinaly that is, when the highest real estate in Oz, Mt. Kosiusko, is only 2,200 metres or so (I think) and here in San Pedro de Atacama it’s already 2,440 and everywhere else around here is higher. Breathing is always a little laboured but with a mouthful of coca it gets easier! Did a few look-arounds of San Pedro, they really draw a long bow with some of the “famous” features, crikey, but the general scenery is soo fantastic that you can overlook the overblown toury spots general shortcomings. Valley of the Dead, Dry Lake, Green Lake…and, in the Valley of the Moon, the Turtle’s Head that iconic, Incan outcrop, dedicated to the god of constipation. While we’re there, much as the Valley of the Moon was modestly awesome, ... read more

Morning time, off to Salta…a 4-way group this time altho’ Raf annd I move further ahead as we go…..day starts with 100 kms of ripio, then nice asphalto and all of it in deserted roads, fantastic scenery, mountain range to the left like scrunched up old carpet, slabs of bare rock in parts, green fuzz over the rest, clouds hanging around the peaks, off to the right, bare rock in spectacular reds and browns, cactus plants and scrubby thorn bushes, pretty inhospitable but beautiful. Every few kms a washout, as we would say back home, sometimes concreted slipway but others just a broad expanse of gravely mud and waterways, approach with caution, drop back to first, grind it thru’, slip and slide but the old 1150 does the job, look to the end, be the bike, ... read more