T - The trucker stop was brilliant! Cheap, warm, quiet and comfortable. The added bonus was that there was a great coffee stop right next door too.



Today we were off to the town of San Agustin where there is a pile of old carved statues dating back to times before the Spanish came.

Our route today was all highway. But it wasn't too bad. By the time we were settled into our ride the heavens had opened up and the rain was falling steadily. We chugged along, passing tons and tons of landslides and crossing massive raging rivers. The rain was certainly doing some damage! A few smaller towns we passed through had recently built massive levees around the towns so Im guessing they were expecting a lot of water at some point.









C - It was quite amazing to see the sheer number of landslides and the size of these slides. Most of the them coming down straight down on the highway, or in some cases behind peoples houses. Yet, the traffic was left to continue through, dodging the debris along the way. A number of times, Todd and I both decided to zip a little quicker past them as it certainly looked like there was possibility for more slides - particularly with the ongoing rain.

T - We eventually turned off the main highway and headed west towards San Agustin. Then Mabel went and got herself another flat tyre. Weird. I couldn't find anything in the tyre as to what may have made it go down. We had no spare tubes left so Chantelle went up the road a little and found one. The mechanic she bought it from charged a ridiculous amount for the tube, but needs must and soon Mabel was back together and we were off again.

The town of San Agustin was a busy and pretty little place and we had a wander around while we stuffed ourselves with meat on a stick and some coca tea before retiring for the night. A pretty uneventful day today.











Tomorrow we will go to the nearby museum and check out the old statues.

T - Off to the statues today! Some of them are over 2000 years old! We had a wander through the museum and then out into the jungle where the statues are standing. Not much is known about the people who carved them or dug the tombs here. By the time the Spaniards arrived and began exploring the area the people who created them had already gone.

C - I enjoyed the park and find it fascinating that so little is known about the culture who left them here. Some of the statues are near tombs, but some are just distributed throughout the jungle. It was cool!













T - Then it was time to head out. We wanted to get to the town of Mocoa today. It is near the start of Colombias own Death Road. A 63km section of dirt road high in the mountains that has claimed a few lives over the years.

Again our only option was down the highway. We made good time as we pretty much had the road to ourselves. Towards the end we climbed a fair way up some mountains and then zipped down the other side along a mostly deserted road. It was a blast!







The road deteriorated in parts and again we saw massive landslides and water damage everywhere. The scenery though was incredible!





The town of Mocoa had nothing to offer us so we bunkered down in our room with some biscuits and some TV.

Tomorrow we are going to ride the Devils Trampoline and hope to make it through to Ipiales, which is the point at which we will cross into Ecuador.

T - The Devils Trampoline. Death Road. Goodbye My Life. These are the three common names for todays ride. How could we not be excited by that?! We were up early as we weren't sure as to how long the gravel section might take us. We had heard of anything from 3 hours to 8 hours.

C - I have read a little bit about this road and was somewhat nervous about the traffic conditions. What I have read seemed to indicated that it was a super busy road - knowing how the traffic behaves on highways here, I thought for sure the traffic on this road would be no different. Except it was reportedly a mostly single lane road, in poor condition, with few barriers and a VERY big straight drop to certain death if one makes a mistake on a small, red Honda motorbike. Adios, mi vida!!!







T - We rode out of town and soon the bitumen ended and the rough rough gravel road started. It was damn rough. Massive rocks poked up through the surface of the loose gravel and dirt. The road began to wind back and forth and climbed and climbed. At some points the road narrowed to just one lane and we had a few heart stopping meetups with other vehicles on some of these. Generally we were able to squeeze up against the cliff face so the car could pass. The taxi buses though drove like maniacs. Never slowing down, never giving an inch of space. Many of our encounters with them on this road left us shaking our heads.







C - The road started out super rough, our little bikes bouncing, slamming and jamming across the rocks. But after some time, it smoothed out a little. I was also pleasantly surprised at the behaviour of the traffic. Firstly, there wasn’t nearly as much as I expected - there was occasional traffic, not the constant stream I expected. Secondly, all but the taxis and buses were very well behaved. Waiting patiently for others in the single lane bits and allowing plenty of room for others to pass. The road too was in far better condition than I expected - far better than most of the gravel/dirt roads we have done in Colombia so far. It was such an enjoyable experiences and the scenery… my, oh my.. Colombia sure knows how to make your heart ache. The beauty is indescribable.







T - The road was gorgeous. The views were endless and the scenery to die for! We splashed through river crossings, saw countless waterfalls and rode into gigantic valleys like I have never seen. A truly remarkable experience!

We had been expecting the worse on this road as it has quite the reputation of being dangerous. Even the Australian Government has put a “Do not travel warning” on this whole area, bandits, drugs, the FARC etc. Which meant we had to be extra careful as our travel insurance didn't cover us for a while today.











It was totally worth it though. There was a heap of police checkpoints on the road and we saw 4 ambulances travelling back and forth, presumably business is good at times here. Definitely a drive worth doing!











C - It was an adventure bikers dream! Enough risk to to meet the adventure component, a great dirt road complete with mandatory water crossings and scenery to die for. What more can two incompetent wanderers ask for!



We hit bitumen in the small pueblo of San Francisco where our tummies told us it was definitely lunch time. It took us nearly three and half hours to ride the 70km from Mocoa and we spotted a little cafe where we gorged on the famous Comida Corriente, today it was vege and pasta soup followed by fried chicken, rice, salad, yukka and tomate de arbol juice. Yummo!

T - Once we returned to bitumen we resumed our march towards Ipiales. The road here was every bikers dream. Sharp twists back and forth. Alot of heavy use of the front brakes, even on our little posties, as some of the corners came fast and sharp. There wasn't a straight section for about 10 kms and Mabel and I raced along having a blast!

C - Todd and I were laughing at the nature of todays ride. Such a wonderful dirt section, followed by every bikers dream bitumen road. Amazing. The only down side for us, is we climbed, climbed, climbed. We reached well above 3000mtrs before we started our descent.



T - Then the rain came down. Hard. We could barely see out of our visors and then to add to that we had a light hammering of hail. Nice. It was at this time that Mabel again got a flat tyre. Again Mabel? So after dismantling the whole thing, patching the tube and putting her back together we rode on. Again I was unable to find anything that had pierced the tube. Nothing. There was no jagged bits on the rim, nothing.

20 kms up the road and it was Rosies turn to have a flat tyre. Sigh. So we pulled her apart where I fould a slim sliver of steel poking through the tyre and into her tube, plus the tyre valve had snapped in half. I went to pump the tube up so we could find the leak to patch it but our 12volt pump suddenly would not pump any air. Luckily we have a backup manual pump but it is almost useless and takes about an hour to get air into the tyre.

We had just passed through a town about 5 kms back though so we figured that maybe we could strap Rosies flat tyre onto Mabel and Chantelle would ride back to the town and get it fixed. As Chantelle got onto Mabel we noticed Mabels rim was flat on the ground. She too had another flat. What the hell! So we had two bikes with flats, no pump that would enable us to fix the leaks and we were 5kms from a town.

In the end we put about 20psi into each tyre with our very shit hand pump and rapidly rode the 5ks back to town where we had new tubes put into each wheel and our holed tubes patched up. It was starting to get late by now, 6pm, and we really wanted to get to Ipiales which was only 40kms away.

C - It was getting dark and cold (we were still at 3000mtrs) and we had been riding for 10hrs. We were hungry and ready for a hot shower!! We just couldn't believe having 3 flats in the space of an hour! We figured we must of run through a patch of something on the road?

T - Finally we were back on the road as the sun went down. But we were again making forward progress. Yay! That was until Mabels rear went flat again. We had travelled a mere 20 kms. This was a brand new tube and the tyre guy had checked her over. Something really seemed amiss here. We crouched on the side of the road in the dark, using a head torch between us we pulled her tyre off and put one of the patched tubes back in and pumped it up to around 20psi with our pump. Oh I was so over this. I had a really good look at her tyre and rim and again could find no reason for the flat. I was at the end of my patience with this now.

We limped our way into Ipiales in the dark and to our hotel. It was the longest ride of my life.

C - We arrived at the hotel at 7.30pm and thankfully they had a room and secure parking. We both noticed the elevation when walking our gear up what felt like a million sets of stairs! We finished checking in and asked about where to get food. The hotel told us under no circumstances should we leave the hotel now, it was too dangerous outside, so they ordered us food to the room. What arrived was delicious vege soup, roast chicken, rice, salad and chips. We downed the food and drifted off to sleep after a day filled with extreme delight and extreme frustration!

T - Tomorrow I will be taking Mabel to a tyre place and having them try to find what is wrong. I taped the inside of the rim up with silver “Go Fast” tape just in case there was a sliver of rust or steel that was slicing the tubes up. Hopefully they can fix whatever it is. Also her rattle in the top end is getting worse but it is only there when she is really warm. Anyone have any thoughts on what that might be?

Not a single photo today!

C - We decided to spend two nights in Ipiales so we could get Mabels rear tyre sorted. Neither of us were keen to repeat the three flats in 60km again! Unfortunately, Ipiales is a standard border town and a little uninspiring, but there were tons and tons of motorcycle accessory and repair stores here, so we knew we would find the right tyre guy.

T - Poor Mabes. She is miserable with her rear tyre going flat all the time.

C - As we were leaving the hotel to go and find Mr Right Tyre Guy, we bumped into Dylan, a fellow Aussie who is riding around the world with his brother Lawson, both on DR650’s. Obviously, we had to chat to these guys, who have come from Australia, through Europe, south through Africa and are now working their way north from Argentina. Its always nice to meet other bikers, but particularly Aussies!

After lunch, we found Mr Right and in no time had diagnosed Mabels problem. A small, strange wear mark in the sidewall of the tyre. The small patch is very coarse to touch and obviously with the right friction, it has been wearing holes in the tubes. After putting in a new tube, lining the inside of the tyre with an old tube and repairing a tube, Mabel was ready to go. This cost us $2!

A quick visit to another shop for a new battery for Mabel and then a bicycle store to get a new manual pump for any future flats and we were ready for our next country - Ecuador!

T - I have really loved Colombia and I know the minute we stamp out that I am going to miss it terribly. Definately we will be coming back here. I hear houses are reasonably cheap to buy…….

C - It was quite late by the time we returned to the hotel, so we stopped by the supermarket and picked up some and snacks for dinner, then spent the remainder of the evening warm and tucked up in the hotel room.

Tomorrow, we head to Las Lajas and then onto Ecuador.

C - Today, we were both sad and excited to be leaving Colombia and entering Ecuador. We are getting closer to the equator, which is exciting, but leaving Colombia was going to be difficult.



First though, we rode out to Las Lajas, a gothic revival style basilica built above a river. It was really beautiful and thankfully we beat the hordes to tourists! After wandering around, we enjoyed a yummy breakfast and then set ourselves on course to the frontera.











T - The church was pretty spectacular. Built right into the ravine where the river flowed. It had a million bloody steps to get to it though and at 2800mt above sea level it made my lungs scream! Colombia has made me fat and unfit with its kindness and amazing food. Well I guess its now time to say goodbye Colombia. I will miss you!







C - We were processed out from Colombia in a matter of minutes and then joined the queue to enter Ecuador. We had to wait about a half an hour to get our immigration stamps, then what felt like forever to get our bikes imported. The border had a far less chaotic feel it since we left the USA and it was all very orderly and calm.

T - The border was so very chilled out. It was also strange for us to not have to make 17 000 copies of every document we had like in Central America!

C - Our plan today was reach Otavalo, 155km from the border, straight down the PanAm Highway. The highway was in great condition and the views were stunning! It wasnt long before we were stopping to put on our wet weather gear, but thankfully we seemed to stay out of the worse of the black, black clouds.









The scenery along the ride was completely stunning. Breathtaking. Deep valleys, moody clouds draping themselves over high mountain peaks and the sides of the mountains were different shades of agricultural green. B-e-a-utiful!

T - Oh wow. Ecuador! The mountains here seemed bare of any vegetation and I liked it! There was a real rawness to the beauty. Its looking promising for sure! Mabel isnt really enjoying the long slow 3rd gear marches up the mountains though. They are pretty damn steep.









C - We reached Otavalo and after some meandering, found a nice little hotel near the main square.











Tomorrow, we plan to head into Quito and will perhaps reach Mitad del Mundo - the middle of the world!

T - The middle of the world beckoned us! A monument set up just north of Quito marked the equator where it ran through Ecuador. That was our first place on the list to visit. So we packed our gear and donned our wet weather clothes. It had been raining all night and it was still drizzling out.





We sat on the Pan Am again as we climbed up over 3000mts. The rain started to come down quite hard and there was water flowing everywhere! The road was pretty, well we assume it was as we couldn't see very much thanks to low clouds, and we made decent time even though our average speed was hovering around the 40km/hr mark.

C - It was only 90km to Mitad del Mundo and despite sitting on the PanAm, it was not a bad ride. The road was quite busy with trucks and buses though and the views obscured with low cloud. The day did not warm up for us, as we climbed from 2500mt up to over 3000mt. The entire ride was spent in the rain, and we were both starting to feel a little chilled by the time we got to Mitad del Mundo. Luckily, we have a few more layers yet to add to the riding gear, as it is going to get much colder yet.

T - I was surprised to see we had entered Quito, the nation's capital, quite some time before we got to the equator. The city was sprawled out quite some distance from its centre. Wetly we pulled into a drenched carpark and wandered into the Centre of the World City that had been built around the equator monument.







We took a few photos of the yellow painted line that marked the equator and had a short wander round the place. We were wet and cold and really keen to find a place with a hot shower where we could dry off and warm up. So off into the city we went.

C - It was exciting to reach the Equator! We are officially now in the Southern Hemisphere for the first time since we left Sydney a year ago. The Ciudad Mitad del Mundo is a really a tourist gimmick, and actually not really on the equator line (its slightly off at 0.002 something), but we took some shots of the monument and enjoyed the moment. We have now reached the Top of the World (Alaska) and the Middle of the World - now to reach our goal of End of the World at Ushuaia in Argentina.







T - We had decided to stay in the old town part of the city as we had heard that Quito is a bit of a dodgy place to be. The old town was quite pretty and we had a nice wander around before calling it a day. Our hostel comes equipped with a kitchen so Chantelle was very excited to cook our dinner tonight!









With full bellies and a few glasses of our leftover Panama rum we were soon struggling to stay awake.









Tomorrow we head further south.

You two have a lucky sense of timing. The town of Mocoa, which you visited few days ago, was hit heavilly with floods and avalanches last night. More than 120 ppl died.

Colombia president declares state of emergency as flood claims 127

We heard about that. Such a terrible thing. The people of Colombia were so good to us. All we can do is send our thoughts their way.

T - We were up before anyone else it seemed today. Ecuadorians seem to be late risers with nothing much happening until 10am and later. We were hoping to do around 250kms of riding today as Chantelle found a little loop just south of here that would take us to see a lake in an old volcano.

We had to do a little Pan Am to get there though but it didn't seem to take us long before we were on a quite narrow road threading our way into the hills. The scenery out here was incredible! We were already quite high up, around 3000mts above sea level, and numerous mountain peaks loomed up in front of us, many of them with a patchwork of greens and browns on them from farming plots. How the hell do the people farm on such steep slopes here?







C - Ecuador is definitely up there as one of the most scenic countries we have been through. The endless green mountains and valleys, with the clouds moodily hanging off of the mountain tops - it has been beautiful. And the riding today proved to be wonderful as well, as we wound up and down mountains and into valleys with every type of corner imaginable!











T - The road was quite a bit of fun for us, the start of it seemed to be brand new bitumen, covered in recent landslides, washed out sections, and fast cornering fun! Well right up until Mabel got herself another….yep, flat tyre. This is really getting on my tits now. I know there is something in the tyre that is causing these flats. I mark the tyre and the tube before removing them from the rim but I can never find what it is that is causing the flats. Until today.



We sat on the side of the road and had a really good long look at the tyre. I found several very thin, barely discernable slivers of staples hidden in the tread blocks. None seemed to stick through to the tube but they hinted at the fact that there could be more in the tyre. In the end we removed 5 staple pieces and one chunk of broken glass. Hopefully that's it!



The road turned to mud in a few places where the bitumen was yet to be poured. One of these spots had a stream that flowed over the road. With the recent rains it had gouged a small dip in the road which was deep enough to cover our engines as we rode through! It was fun but I wasn't fast enough to get the camera out before Chantelle splashed through.











C - I noticed the water was nearly up to Mabels panniers at one point, but did not think too much about it before I plunged into the freezing cold stream. I was a little surprised when Rosies front end dipped down into a hole and the water came well above my feet. Rosie plugged on forward and climbed out and back onto the muddy road! It was a little bit fun!

T - The road wound up and up and soon we we standing at the edge of the lake. It was very pretty up there. But the wind was damn cold! The bikes did well but poor Mabes was back to 2nd and 1st gear for quite a while on some of the climbs. We topped out at just under 3900mts!







We continued on riding until we made it to a small town near the highway for the night. It was a quiet little place with a beautiful little square and some great food!

















Tomorrow we head down into the Amazon Basin for a while as we head south. We are making up a plan to tackle Peru and think we will likely drive through most of it as quickly as we can. The flooding there has caused some major damage and we don't want to be those tourists who rock up and take photos of people's lives in ruins.

T - The Amazon. Just hearing that word conjures up images of thick green jungle, unique wildlife, and undiscovered tribes. And we were going to ride our postie there! Ambassadors for the little red bikes!

We donned our wet weather gear as the skies were grey and threatening and headed out. To Mabels relief much of the going was down hill. We started at 3000mts and just kept on dropping. The highway took us down the sides of mountains, through long, long unventilated tunnels and deposited us into a much warmer and delightfully humid jungle.





C - The downhill run all morning was very welcoming for the poor posties and we descended over 2000mtrs before reaching the upper level of the Ecuadorian Amazon Basin.

T - The plants were so vividly green and even though the clouds hung low and ominous, the rain held off.

We pretty well had this road to ourselves, which was quite nice. It was smooth bitumen with nice long sweeping corners and as we dropped below 1000mts both bikes got back to their full bone crunching 7 or 8 hp.







We whizzed along, enjoying the jungle, though we couldn't see much as it was super thick right up to the edge of the road. I quite like the jungle. I like the fact that it hides so many secrets just meters in from its edge. As I admired the greenery and wetness of it all old mate Mabel decided that air in her rear tyre was just too much, and she let it all out. Again. That's it. Time for a new tyre. I have had a guts full Mabel!

We took the tyre off and checked it in the hopes of finding a shard of something sticking through. Nope. The hole was in the same spot as all the other tubes that had gone flat, and again we checked the tyre over carefully. We found yet another piece of staple in the area where the tube keeps getting holed. Maybe this was the one, but I don't care. I'm getting a new tyre. Rosies flat the other day also was caused by a shard of staple so we have both run through a patch of them at some point.

C - After threatening Mabel with a one way trip into the jungle should she feel the need to deflate one more tyre today, we packed up our bits and pieces and prepared to hit the road again. I am not entirely sure Mabel, or Todd, was convinced of this threat.



T - Tyre inflated, we headed on. We planned on stopping in the town of Macas today and I hoped Mabels tyre would stay up for the 95kms we had to cover to get there. Being a Sunday most places are closed here in Ecuador so our chances of buying and fitting a new tyre today are slim to none.





In the end we made it with no more flats. Every time the tyre goes down it has been after some fairly nice corners and I suspect the tyre gets warm and soft and allows the piece of whatever to squeeze out of the tyre a little and pierce the tubes. Bloody thing! So Mabel and I now have to corner like adults which leaves both of us sulking as it is mine and Mabels favourite thing to do.

Tomorrow we get a tyre and start making our way towards the border crossing into Peru.

You would be getting that fast at changing a tyre now Todd, you could get a job on a Formula One team when you retire from travelling

__________________
My memory is becoming that good, I should be able to organise my own surprise party soon

Hahaha. No thanks! I have managed to get my technique down pat though now and I can take the rear out of the bike and have the tube swapped out and the rim back in the bike in about 20 minutes! Not proud of that though, as it means I have changed to many flats

T - Maybe we were being a little ambitious today, but we planned on a long riding day. Our destination was just inside the Andes mountains 390 kms away. It doesnt sound like much but since the US we have struggled to do much over 250kms. The traffic, the roads or the hills have always slowed us down.
This area of Ecuador in the Amazon Basin was fairly low down in altitude, under 1000 meters, and the road seemed to stay fairly level. So after grabbing a new tyre for Mabel and fitting it up we were off. We wound through the jungle which petered out and became farmland. It was pretty enough and we has some nice views ut for some reason both of us felt the ride today was not as exciting as it had been.





The road seemed to go on forever and the kms ticked by so slowly. Then Chantelle started to feel like Rosies front end was sliding around under braking and all sorts of weird vibrations were coming up through the handlebars. We had a look and found two loose engine mounts, and loose crash bar bolts. After tightening these up the vibrations seemed to dissipate some but Rosies front end was all weird. Again we stopped and checked the spokes, tyre pressures, etc. It was by pure chance that I happened to notice that Rosie was missing a crucial nut on her steering. The top nut that holds the bars down to the triple clamp that everything attached to was gone. No wonder the front end was moving around everywhere. With just two skinny bolts holding the bars to her shocks we limped along for 20kms until we found a bike mechanic. For $2 he fitted and torqued down a brand new nut and we were back on the road.











Finally we started to climb back into the mountains, much to Mabels disgust. We had 60kms to go to the town of Loja and it was all uphill. 2nd and 3rd gear for km after km. The road was pretty amazing but it was frigging steep! With 20 kms to go we were at 2800mt and the road still went up.











Eventually though the bikes got some respite and we sailed downhill the last 10kms and into town.







Tomorrow we plan to head to the Peruvian border and will cross the day after.

C - Our room included breakfast today, so after a feast of bread, cheese, eggs, juice, coffee and some weird but delicious peanut bread type thing, we packed up and jumped on the road!

We were heading to the Ecuadorian border town of Huaquillas with a plan of crossing into Peru tomorrow. Our only task today was sit on the highway, E50, all the way to the border town. The ride was pleasant with fun, twisty roads through the mountains for the first 100km. Again, the views were stunning and before we knew it, it was lunch time and we were beginning the long descent to sea level.





The girls thoroughly enjoyed their lengthy downhill run! At one point, we came across a LONG line of cars on the highway. Thank goodness for motos! We zip in and out of the parked cars, making our way all the way to the front of the line, where we witnessed an excavator cleaning a large pile of debris from the road. The line of traffic in both directions was about a kilometer long and boy, did they start to get a bit antsy. Lots of hooting and yelling going on!







After a few minutes, the excavator driver began to maneuver the machine off of the road, obviously to allow some traffic to go through. The car in front of us began to aggressively try to push past the digger. I have no idea why - it was really obvious the digger was moving out of the way and then they would let traffic through. But this dude just couldn't wait. The excavator driver was understandably unhappy and the two spent the next five minutes, parked dead still, screaming at each other. What a tool!

We passed through the debris zone and then past all the cars parked in the opposite direction. We rounded a bend to find a large truck parked awkwardly across the entire road, with the smell of locked up brakes hanging in the air. Because there were zero safety signs anywhere, this poor trucky has come around the corner, most likely at or above the 60km/hr speed limit, and then packed himself (I am just guessing this) at seeing the rear end of a big bus stopped dead in the road!

Once the trucky had cleaned himself up and moved his truck, we were back on our way! The air temperature slowly increased and Todd and I were both struck by the contrast of the blue, blue sky and the green, green landscape. Pretty well our entire week in Ecuador has been spent under cloud, so this was the first time we had witnessed this. Just beautiful!

The humidity increased too, much to our delight and we eventually rolled into town at the very reasonable hour of 2pm.

We checked into a hotel and then went for a wander!





Tomorrow, comes Peru. This is something we are both uncertain about. The feeling of being a ‘tourist’ in a country which is recovering from a large scale emergency does not sit well with me. I guess we will only know once we cross how we will approach the country. If we feel it is not the right time to travel Peru as a tourist, we will stick to the main highway and march on through, with a view to returning in the future sometime. Wait and see game I guess!

T - Those of you who have been following Chantelle and I along on our blog will no doubt have seen the odd picture of street dogs show up. Ever since we crossed the border from the USA into Mexico we have seen many of these little souls, and more often than not they have had the potential to break our hearts.



Every day we are confronted with tens of animals wandering the street, sniffing for food or just some love and a scratch. Or sometimes they come out of the bush snarling with teeth bared and chase us down the road their only reward a few shrieks from us and the occasional piece of boot leather of postie bike footpeg.



I love sitting in a cafe and scratching the dogs as they come over, I know they are hoping for food and on occasion I will sneak them a little piece of whatever it I am eating. Most of the time though the staff will whistle at them and shoo them away.



We have fallen in love with so many of the street dogs, from Lola in Mexico who refused to leave Chantelles side in Mexico and actually slept against her through the tent, to the ones we didn't name. The ugly ones with bits of fur missing and the tiny little fluffy puppies. All of them we have wanted to take home and give them an easy life.



The ones that break us though are the ones who themselves are broken. Twisted legs from being hit by cars, trucks or bikes, the super skinny ones with every rib and vertebrae showing, the ones missing eyes, or covered in fat sores. They are the ones that make us feel sad.



One time Chantelle and I saw a dog laying in a drain in Guatemala. It had been hit by a car and was in a really bad way. There was no way it could have survived, but as we rode past we saw it laying there, still moving, life slowly ebbing away, its face full of fear and confusion and there was nothing either of us could do but to cry silently into our helmets as it died. Life is so cruel at times.

Just today we could barely watch as a very skinny greyhound walked past, every second or third step she would break out into a strange convulsion that ran from her swollen back hips right to the tip of her nose. We could count every bone in her body, she was that skinny. Yet when I clicked at her with my tounge hoping she might come over, she gave me a wag and a grin before she twitched and flicked on down the road. Oh my heart. It hurt.



Chantelle and I were discussing this and how we feel this way towards these poor stray dogs, we want to feed them and hold them, show them some love and give them a safe place to be. And yet, when we are confronted by a beggar or a homeless person we don’t show them the same empathy. Instead we feel annoyed and “targeted” as the white tourist. And that makes me feel ashamed. I don’t know what this says about us. Some people may think we are bad, others maybe not so much. To me a life is a life. I can only think that the animals get to me more because they can’t ask for help in words, when they are hurt they can’t get help, an ambulance doesn’t show up and bandage them. They just have to get on with it or they die.



I tried to prepare myself mentally for the street dogs way before we crossed into Mexico, and so far I have dealt with it ok, except for the few times when I feel that hurt blossom in my heart and I struggle to get it locked down before it spills over. Chantelle on the other hand never thought too much about it before Mexico and it hits her hard every time. I can tell by the silence on the communicator when she feels her pain, or the gasps through the earphones in my helmet when she spies a savagely skinny dog, or the swearing when she sees a car driver swerve in the direction of a puppy on the side of the road. Personally, I’ll never forget the day we had to ride away from a lonely cold beach in Baja Mexico and I listened to Chantelle weep as we left Lola behind.



While we know how lucky we are to be able to do this ride, and every day we say to each other just how thankful we are, we do feel for those less fortunate than us, including the animals. Animals have souls too and they deserve better than some of them get. What is the answer to this problem? I don’t know. Instead I shall ride on, take photos of these stray souls and sneak them tidbits from my plate when I can.