On this trip we have passed though some fantastic scenery and you constantly think it cant get any better but Paso de San Francisco surpassed everything so far. It crosses the Andes between Chile and Argentina through desolate but beautiful altiplano on a 120 mile dirt road reaching 4726m - it was part of the Dakar Rally route in 2009 and will be again in 2010. There are some excellent sections where you can zip along the gravel at 60-70mph and some tricky bits where there is deep gravel or soft sand and progress is slow at 10mph. A few people got caught out in dramatic fashion by the changing surface but we managed to stay upright. En-route we pass salt lakes, snowy mountains, flamingos, Salto de Ojos - the highest active volcano in the world, ... read more

As we sit down to breakfast in Puno there's an enormous queue of large skirted and bowler hatted ladies outside the bank. Most are in red skirts but there are a few rebels in blue or green. After a brief conversation with someone in a uniform they all go running off down the road. 10 minutes later they all come running back again. Turns out its business credit pay day but only women are eligible so they are queueing for their handouts. It makes a very colourful and entertaining start to the day. Edwin is packed off again, this time onto a reed boat to visit the floating Uros Islands on Lake Titicaca - his assessment “its ok - bit strange walking on something not firmly attached to the ground”. Out of curiosity we also visit ... read more

450miles of coastal desert in one day with the journey broken only by 'Zona de Neblinas' i.e. misty patches, chicken sheds - there are thousands of them, the occasional sandy cove with nice waves and Lima. It took us 2 hours to get round Lima in one solid traffic jam with hawkers wandering in and out of the traffic selling all sorts of items you never knew you wanted. There were lots of signs proclaiming how pretty Lima is - not from this angle . There are lots of peajes (toll booths) along the road. Motorcycles don't have to pay and there is usually a small bypass on the far right hand side. These are sometimes very difficult to spot as some are literally just a tyre track though the grass. We negotiated most correctly but ... read more

We only have 3 days in Ecuador but it takes us 5 hours to get into the country. Why? - they have modernised the vehicle entry system and introduced computers, only the link is so slow it takes 30 minutes to register every bike. What's more its quite cold and we have to queue outside, I spend most of the 5 hours ferrying cups of coffee backwards and forwards from the little coffee shop supplying everyone in the queue with warm drinks (its generally agreed that the term coffee cannot be applied to the liquid in the cups!!). We even supply some to the one little customs man who is looking rather overwhelmed by the large queue of foreign motorbike owners. When we finally get our permit and step into Ecuador it is to a setting ... read more

A Banana Bridge forms the border between Costa Rica and Panama. For miles and miles on either side of the border there are vast banana plantations with blue plastic bags covering the bunches of bananas hanging on the trees to ensure that they reach our supermarkets in pristine condition. Going down to the border there are container depots everywhere including the Man from Delmonte - its the first real industrial area we have passed for weeks, everywhere else has been pristine, green tropical countryside and little villages. The banana bridge is what it says - basically a bridge across the river to carry the train that carries the bananas. Being a railway bridge its got train tracks down the centre and a couple of planks on either side - well there are planks most of the ... read more