Your fuel pump problem was actually you battery?

Yeh come on ya swine get typing

Argentina....Hmmmm...... Well we didn't get on! I had the worst run of bad luck I have had travelling there. I met some fantastic people but on the whole I just didn't gel with the place. I did I think maybe 3000 km but for me it just never got better. I like to wild camp and Argentina seemed to be a land of fences. I rode across to Salta I wanted some parts for the bike. I found the KTM dealer. He didn't have the bits, that was to be expected. But also the main agent in Buenos Aires didn't have them either! One of the bits was an M8 bolt! I was just being lazy and putting it on the list!

It did get better when the mountains came along, it got hotter too. But again wild camping seemed an issue. I found a couple of great places but again the fences were back. I took to using the truck stops, not the best.

And then the last straw. Again a wild camping issue. Heading for Mendoza and looking for somewhere. Nowhere appropriate and when I tried one place I picked up something in the front tyre. One puncture later, no worries swap the tube. Along the road, flat again! Ok fix the original puncture in the dark and look for a garage with an airline to get full pressure. Five flippin' garages later and well into Mendoza before I could find one with a working airline and gauge! Ok so now I have had enough I will ride through the night to the Chile border and camp there. Too cold for safe mountain riding at night. Again I struggle to find somewhere to camp. Tried three spots, one just too many rocks, the second had dogs barking from the nearby farm and the third I was scoped out by a car, far to interested in what I was doing. Not good. The end result camping at the Gendarmeria post on the side of the road at three am!

Sometimes it just doesn't go right! I would like to go back to Argentina and see more. But it has to be when it's warmer and I would have to be more organised about accommodation. The thing is I don't like to organise. It takes a bit of the fun out of it for me. Still some amazing places with fantastic pictures.

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Thats a shame John i thought at least you'd have got a good steak !!!!

Good last pic mate

Will it be warmer in "Chile"

Ah well it can't always be sunshine and roses. And I don't want anyone to think I am being disrespectful towards a country. As I said I would like to go back. It was just cold and a few things went wrong. My style of travel doesn't help. I am very lucky in that I don't plan or care how things flow. This approach just didn't fit with Argentina. No worries, I have nothing to prove so I move on.

Life is good!

Shrek to answer your question. I am not sure. The bike was in a box for a few weeks. The battery was weak when I left the docks and needed a jump start from another battery. But then the bike ran fine. The odd thing with the pump is the distance I rode meant it must have been pumping something. However as we found later one of the phases of the regulator was shot, so the battery was not being charged effectively. The battery is the original, ten years old, so I don't feel let down by it. Also the KTM fuel pump is known to fail. The one on the bike was a new one when I left and the original was the spare. They work using points and these do break down over time. I will open the defective pump and check it. It may be it just needs servicing and it will be fine.
Why it all happened at once? I don't know. But my bike is used hard. It is also into the 80,000km mark so I can forgive it for getting grumpy with me.

Chile...... a good place! But before I ramble on I need to say something about the amazement of travel. About how it can surprise and teach you everyday. So please indulge me, this cannot always be a look at me aren't I great story!

I left the side of the road, Chilean border maybe 50km away. A bright sunny morning after an annoying night. Cracking! About 2km and the front blows again! So not happy I stop. Now the issue with the front blowing is that due to the weight, trying not to crash and all that, it generally rips the valve from the tube. This has happened already so I don't have a spare tube. Hmmm not good! Still it's a nice day and the sun is out.

Some times you can patch over the old tube hole and reinsert the valve into another part of the tube (if you have the right kind of valve). So I try this. I have done it before but a 200 kg bike and luggage is having none of it. Each time I go to inflate it leaks past the valve.

Ok, spare rear tube into front wheel. Not ideal but what the hell. Hmmm Keep trapping the excess rubber. Now whilst I am mucking about a few bikes pass. I put a thumbs up and they continue. I decide it's brew time! Another chap stops and I sort of explain what is going on. He says the next town is 30 km away. He will go and get a tube and return. Top Bloke!

So I sit and continue going over stuff. Another chap stops. I try and explain I am ok and off he goes. I check over the tyre and pull out what look like cactus thorns. Lots of them. That will be the issue then! Maybe should have checked earlier.

Now I have been here a while, I think the first guy is a bust. So I start to think I will push the bike back to the police post, hitch to the town, get a tube and hitch back. No worries, it's a nice day. Then the second guy rocks back up, with a tube! I speak nada Spanish and he speaks no English. His name is Pablo Oliva from Mendoza. He waited whilst I sorted the bike, would take no money from me or let me give him fuel! He was just pleased to help. Pablo is a star!

I go on to Chile which I will come onto. However second day in Chile as I pull up to a toll booth a bike drops in front of me and pays my toll. We ride on I pull up level and express my thanks. Then we pull over and in perfect English the guy asks where I am from. This is how I met Benjamin. We talked and I asked about campsites. To be told there aren't any in or near Santiago. I then spend four days living at Benjamin's place! Sorting chores and being taken out by himself and his friends.

So over a few days two people who have never met me go out of thier way to help me. I am humbled hugely by their good will, good grace, trust and faith in other people. Travel is good for many, many reasons. Reminding you that people are special and should be treated well and with respect is way up the list.

Benjamin and Pablo, thank you. People like yourselves are part of the reason people like myself can continue to do such daft things. Thank you very much.

Puts your faith back in us nasty humans John , had a couple of occasions similar myself

Nice one John, some of my best friends are from Chile, bikers included, so pop down to Spain next time - meanwhile have fun

Regs

Simon

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Great story. I will hit Chile with the motorbike for sure after that!

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Whatever you are criticized for, do it, because that is what you are!

Chile. Fantastic place! I very, very much enjoyed it. Talking bikes and travel with two guys at the border. The pleasant and interested approach from the border officials, this whilst there was some kind of industrial action underway. The amazing ride down the mountains to the coast, you know when the first sign you see says Curva 17 you know the road will be good. Benjamin and his help. So much! Chile is fantastic.

I had my time off in Santiago and Benjamin's place. Santiago is a huge busy city. Whilst there I had my first earthquake! I was alone in Benjamin's flat two floors up in a ten storey building. Now I know nothing of actual earthquakes. But from my old job a lot about their consequences. At first in my innocence I wondered what was being driven into the basement garages to cause the vibrations! Hahahaha. Then it got really going and the penny dropped. All I can say is wow! I was told it was a big quake and lasted a lot longer than usual, I know it caused a lot of damage in other parts of the country. Benjamin and his friends checked up on me to make sure the uneducated Gringo would be ok and not hiding in the bath tub!

From Santiago I went up the coast to San Pedro De Atacama. It was great to see the ocean again, I miss it when inland. The Trans American Highway is good road, amazing scenery along the coast. Then back into desert, my kind of country. San Pedro was in an amazing place. However the town itself is plastic backpacker territory! Maybe I am getting old? Maybe I just don't mix well with others. Maybe I am just getting grumpy, but two days was all I could take. I worked out a course through the back road to the border. A few things to look at on the way, salt flats, alpacas, desert, volcanos. You know the usual stuff.

Great place Chile, did I mention that?.............

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where are you ?????????????????

I am in Bolivia!!!!................................ er................ actually I am not but I am so bad at keeping this up to date I will use some journalistic licence.

To be honest I find this really hard to do. The stuff in the forum, the comments in threads I am ok with. But somehow this feels like showing off all the time. I am amazed people keep following what I do.

So with that in mind I am going to stop being a lazy so and so, and get this thing back on track. Now South America was set as a year in my mind. Well it just hasn't gone like that. I have again been really enjoying riding my bike. I set out to travel as much to ride as anything else. I am at heart still a kid, damned if I am ever growing up. I tried it once and it just didn't agree with me! Riding my bike makes me happy, sounds daft but it's quite deep in me. When I was getting to grips with leaving and doing this I read other people reports and remember scoffing at the speed some people covered the ground. And here I am doing the same thing and enjoying it immensely. Big mileages have raced by. The bike has been pushed way harder than a loaded adventure bike should be, both on and off tarmac. I have enjoyed my road riding more than ever, and I really was fed up with the roads a while ago. I am awake, alive and flowing. I have for the first time in a long time, a reason to be. And if that isn't what this thread, this website and this whole endeavour isn't about then we all need to give up! Life is good people. I am very lucky to still be involved in it............................ especially after some of my overtakes...................... Man these trucks are huge!!!!!!!!!!

So Bolivia. Fantastic place, wonderful people, reminds me of West Africa a little. People are the important thing. The infrastructure is there but it's the people that make the place thrive. Everything is done on the street. Forget big shops and chains. Just take a walk and start asking. Wonderful, real contact, real trust, real connections. An example, I met a chap in a hostel in La Paz. He asked about food and I said I was going to walk down the street and see which Cooking Mama had the biggest crowd. We walked and then sat down. I still have no Spanish so I look, smile be respectful and ask to be fed. Big Mama smiles, laughs and feeds dumb tourist. We eat real food, we eat good food and we have fun. I have no idea what half the stuff I eat is, but it is always good.

I entered Bolivia with no mapping on the sat nav and just the one page paper map in the lonely planet. So no idea where I was going again. Asked at the border for directions and rode away. Damn near fell off on a straight road with no one else on it. I was looking around so much at the fantastic scenery I hit a big pile of gravel and nearly dropped it! Hahahahaha. Wild camped the first night at 14,000 something feet. Felt like I was camping on the set of the original Star Trek planets. I eventually made it to Uyuni, got a bigger A4 map! and checked out the Salar. Strange place. A whole lot of nothing, like the flats in Botswana but solid and so bright under the sky. The road to La Paz was there, mostly. Just great, no real idea about fuel, lots of guess work. You know keep the volcanoes on your left and don't fall off type stuff.

Got to La Paz in the pouring rain. Nice city, mad place but great fun. Stayed a few days so I could check out the Death Road. The trip up to the road is amazing. The Jungas Valley is huge and a real pleasure in its own right. A massive ribbon of good tar through an incredible rock valley. The road was found and off I go. Now I have to say I have ridden other roads that I thought were more risky and more dangerous. And before people wade in, yes there is a bypass now so it is not full of big trucks, however it is still used by trucks but I think they only go down and not up. Mountain bikers are the biggest user now! There are a lot of crosses on the road and I suspect these are biker going down faster than they anticipated! It is however a stunning place, absolutely beautiful to ride and enjoy. To walk it would be a fantastic days trek. I rode down and then turned around and came up. The last few kilometres were done is a huge thunderstorm, lightening, heavy rain, the lot. I so wanted an AC/DC soundtrack blasting away at me. Again, when I shouldn't I started to push and play! Damned foolish place to do it but I just can't help it. Uphill on gravel with my unloaded bike spinning away. too much fun! And unlike Lesotho I didn't fall off this time! Hahahahahaha. Alfie would be proud. Hahahahahaha.

From La Paz a quick blast to Lake Titicaca with a puncture to keep me on my toes! A night at Copacobana right on the shore. Here I had some bad water, despite boiling it. Man did it make me ill. I have been ill three times over this travel, all three times it was water. Never food. I took the ferry over the lake. Just one of the coolest, chilled to things to do. I miss the water, always feel good when I see lots of it. Strange really, I don't like to sit on a beach and rarely swim in the sea. But having lived surrounded by it for so long I need to see it occasionally. The ferry ride was cool. Master and commander was a million and one years old, and knew more about life than I ever will. I felt like an excited kid!

At the border I was treated to my first bit of corruption. After doing the paperwork the police decided they wanted a chat! Weak, lads. Very weak! No money passed hands and off I went! On to Peru...................... which is where I am now...................... er no I'm not. But I will be when I write it up, 'onest Guv'nor................

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These are just the Death road. Don't take the hype too seriously and go for the views. Incredible place.

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Ok I admit it, now I am showing off.

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You be steady now playing !!!!!
https://youtu.be/e2xTB5BijsI

Good on ya John .................its better to ride than write anyway but i need to feel pissed off every now and then