I'm really not proud of that front sprocket. Its the worst I have ever had. Normally I would have replaced it as soon as I saw a bit of curve in the teeth. But I made a stuff up and never checked it!

I haven't been able to find decent quality front sprockets for our bikes, but we still seem to get around 20 000kms out of the front one before they are ready to be changed out. I know have some spares that I picked up in Santiago!

Thank you so much for the offer! Unfortunately I am lazy with the updates and we have recently made it into Santiago. I found some extra front sprockets to carry as spares!

T - Today we were heading to Cusco. The jump off point for most people who want to visit Machu Pichu. Now I will be honest and say Chantelle and I have been umming and ahhing about going to Machu Pichu. I know its the thing to do in Peru but we are sure it is going to be hideously expensive. We will see how we go when we get there.

Again we climbed mountains. The swtichbacks so sharp and piled on top of one another. The mountains here are crazy steep! The scenery continued to be amazing.





We met a few other overlanders on the road today, all heading for Cusco too. In fact since we have been in Peru we have seen more overlanders than on the rest of our trip combined.









Eventually we wound down to a measly 3300mts at Cusco. Both bikes have worked overtime to get us here. We fumbled around town trying to find somewhere cheap to stay for a couple of days. No such luck. One place told Chantelle that Cusco is Perus most expensive town. And we could see why.









Throngs of tourists wandered up and down the roads, buying trinkets and alpaca wool products. The tourist train had been coming here for some time now and understandably businesses were making the most of it.

Eventually we found a little place that would do us for two nights. We had a wander around the old Inca built part of town and chatted about Machu Pichu. Both of us still unsure about it. We both said that if we didn't do it we wouldn't be disappointed. We saw a tour place that was open that sold tickets for Machu Pichu.

Yikes. We could pay $70 each for a ticket and then make our own way there, $100 each for a 10 hour bus trip and 4 hour walk, or $250 to take a train from Cusco. I nearly laughed out loud. Surely thats just taking the mickey right? Both the train trip and the bus trip would only give us a total of two hours at the site before we had to start to make our way back out again. Sorry Peru, too expensive for us right now.

C - The problem with making our own way there, and buying the cheaper option, is the bikes. The closest place to leave them means a 9hr return hike, limiting the amount of time you can spend at the site. Alternatively, you can drive within a 4hr hike, but need to leave the bikes at the start of the trail. We decided that Machu Picchu is something we will do another day, when we have hiking gear and can enjoy the hike up without worrying about our bikes.

T - So we scrapped that idea and started to look at some other ruins that we could see for much cheaper. It appears that there is a heap of old forts around the area so that will be us!

We are going to have a day off tomorrow. Rosie needs a new tyre and both bikes need a new chain so that will probably be all we do.

T - We both woke up feeling a little under the weather today. It was a real effort to just get out of bed and heave ourselves over to the kitchen for a free breakfast. We have put it down to being a culmination of a few things. We have been on the go for 8 days or so straight with some of those days being over 10 hours of riding, we also think we had some bad food or water last night, and the altitude here is probably affecting us too.

Chantelle basically spent the first half of the day i n bed sleeping and I spent the second half in bed sleeping. Ugh. We both felt like death.

We went to get the bike parts we needed but after a lady at a bike shop messed us around with a part, which really annoyed Chantelle no end, we gave up and went back to our room. Unfortunately we have found quite a bit of dishonesty here in Peru and it really hasn't sat well with us.

C - I was probably feeling a little irritated anyway, but I was really annoyed with her. I felt she was outright lying to us about the part. Anyway, let it wash you over Chantelle...

T - Tomorrow we are going to head to some ruins around the place and then we are out of here. Bolivia is only two or three days ride away and we will visit Lake Titicaca on our way out.

Do you guys like videos? We are making an effort to do short ones more often. Heres our latest.

C - We both woke up feeling a bit better yesterday, after sleeping from about 6pm right through 6am this morning. We decided to head out of Cusco and head into the Sacred Valley for a poke around.

T - Whatever it was that we had certainly gave us a good swift kick up the bum. Only one way to go now though, and thats up, well actually south..





C - We headed out towards Urubamba and the views were spectacular as we climbed out of Cusco and then into the Valley. The road wound past Inca sites and we were able to see some ruins as we rode along. Neither of us felt up to hiking yet, so we just enjoyed what we could see as we travelled along.









T - One of the sites we wanted to visit was a 4km walk up a path that crossed some mountains and ridges. I could barely get myself on and off the bike, I was so weak and energyless. There was no way I could have walked 4kms, let alone up a mountain at altitude.

C - Feeling in need of a cup of tea, we stopped just outside of Urubamba next to a raging river and enjoyed a nice cup of mate de coca.











Back on the road, we meandered our way to Pisac, where we had thought we might stop for the night. However, it was still only lunchtime and we were both keen to ride a little further.

Our route took us towards Lake Titicaca and provided us with more of the same gorgeous Andean vistas. When we reached Sicuani, we decided it was time to stop for the day.

After finding a lovely hostal, we stuffed ourselves on rotisserie chicken and chips and then had another very, very early night.

T - It was only 6pm and I was struggling to NOT get into bed and go to sleep. I managed to stay awake until 8.

Tomorrow we plan to get to Puno which is the main city on the edge of Lake Titicaca. From there we will probably head straight to Bolivia.

C - Oh, what a joy to wake up feeling awake and refreshed! We were both ready and raring to go this morning. We were also both starving and as it was very cold, decided to buy a nice, hot breakfast.

T - I had woken up and sworn it was daylight, and because I felt so alive it must have been breakfast time right? Wrong. It was only 3am. So I forced myself back into a world of weird dreams.

C - We found a little cafe serving breakfast for just under $1.. Perfecto! I finally bought a tyre for Rosie after breakfast and then we were on our way.





Our plan today was to reach Lake Titicaca and I was super excited about this! Sicuani sits at about 3800mtrs and so we started the ride in a very chilly morning. As we rode out of town, we saw dark, ominous rain clouds all around us.





We climbed initially and started to glimpse some amazing snow covered peaks as we climbed over 4000mtrs. Fresh snow littered the mountains nearly all the way down to the road - it was breathtakingly beautiful. Todd and I kept thinking it didnt look real, but like a beautifully painted backdrop.
T - The scenery was achingly gorgeous. The snow thick and white up on the peaks and tapering off to a light dusting not far above the roadside. Stunning! Unfortunately it was only for a short section of our ride.



C - Our elevation remained pretty steady all day and it wasnt long until we had left the snow covered peaks behind and we riding along a massive plain. Is this the start of the antiplano??







The day remained pretty chilly and we were ready to pull into a hotel by the time we reached Puno. We saw the lake as we drifted into town, along with the darkest sky I have seen in a long time. We could hear thunder and see lightning cracking around us.







We made it into the hotel carpark just in the nick of time. The rain started to come down just as we were unpacking the bikes.

Tomorrow - Bolivia!

T - Well here we come Bolivia! We are excited to come and see you! Peru has had some incredible scenery but we have to keep moving. But first, we need to say goodbye to a long time traveller friend of Mabels. Squirt was attacked and beheaded by a naughty little dog last night. I found his head outside the dining room door of the hotel this morning. RIP dear Squirt. You will be missed. He has been with me for about 100 000 kms of riding. Bye old mate.



We had about 150kms to ride today to reach the border. So no rush really, even for us! We cruised along the lake side, the brisk wind cutting through every gap in our clothing and stabbing into our cores. It was quite the chilly day! We made some decent time straight away and we decided to stop for a break and grab a few pics of Lake Titicaca.







C - The lake is really quite beautiful and the views improved as we got closer to the Bolivian border, as the grey clouds parted and left us with a clear, crisp blue sky. Beautiful!





T - As we went to clamber back onto the bikes Mabel decided to fall over in the wind and slammed into the side of Rosie. Whoops! Or maybe they were having a fight and Mabes bought out the fisticuffs! Either way we had her standing back up quickly and we hopped on and started to ride off.
As we did so Chantelle said she could smell fuel quite strongly. When I glanced over at Rosie I could see fuel pouring down the side of the engine! Oh that's not a good thing. I suspected that maybe Mabel had torn a hole in Rosie's fuel line when they clashed just now.

Closer inspection revealed that fuel was coming from somewhere on the actual tank. After taking the tank off we discovered a rather nasty looking pair of cracks in the plastic tank where it bolted onto the bike. One crack was leaking heaps of fuel. Dammit. We had just filled the long range tanks up on the bikes too.

So with 10 litres of fuel about to be returned to the earth we managed to get half of it into Rosie's empty underseat tank.

C - This is the second tank leak we have experienced, with Mabel dropping 10ltrs of petrol into the ground in the USA. It is never a good thing - firstly, we feel terrible about possible environmental effects of this and secondly, it such a waste of money!!! Thankfully we could get five litres of it out and then lay the tank on its side on the ground so we didn't lose the other five litres too!

T - We had no glue or tank repair kit so we weren't sure what to do at this point. And we need this tank to hold fuel for Bolivia as it is notoriously hard to get fuel as foreigner there.

All we had on hand was a Leatherman (thanks Dave), a stove and some rubber cement. So we did the only thing we could. We lit the stove, I shaved some slivers of plastic off of the tank with my knife, the heated the knife up and proceeded to melt the tank back together. And yes it still had 5 litres of fuel in it at this point.

In the end it seemed to work! We put the tank back on and no fuel leaked out. Fingers crossed it's fixed.



C - I was so impressed with Todds creativity! This was such a great solution to our issue and one I definitely would not of thought of!!!

Just then poor Chantelle had to scramble for a nearby bush as her bottom threatened to explode. Peru is really trying to make it hard for us to leave!
C - Never a fun experience. I felt completely fine one minute and the next minute… well, not so much. I am grateful there was something to hide behind, otherwise I would've had to do it exposed to the road. Thankfully we did have plenty of toilet paper on hand!

T - We raced for the border as Chantelle began to feel sicker and sicker. We had to make another emergency pitstop at a restaurant and then after topping up all our fuel tanks we hit the Peru-Bolivia border.





There was no one else around and we were processed out of Peru and into Bolivia fairly smartly. We had read and heard about people having to pay bribes at the Bolivian side as the police there are terribly corrupt and will do anything they can to extract a few dollars from travellers. But we were onto them and played dumb non Spanish speaking tourists and they only gave a half hearted attempt at gaining some extra cash from us, then we were free to roam Bolivia.









We rode to the nearby town of Copacabana for the night. There is another dodgy set of cops here that lay in wait for travellers as they exit the town and demand a "donation". But we will be clever and take the roads and tracks around town to bypass these crooked bastards.

C - I felt really quite ill for a little while, but with no options for hotels in the border town on the Peruvian side, we decided to keep on. I am glad we did, as it was not too long before I was feeling a lot better. Copacabana turned out to be a completely beautiful little town on the lakeshore of Titicaca. Except for the all the rubbish - we were very disappointed to see that people had attempted to use the rubbish bins, but the bins obviously do not get emptied. It was sad to see so much litter on the edge of the beautiful lake.

T - Tomorrow we head for La Paz and the famous Death Road.

T - I had been scheming all night with our maps to get past the crooked cops on the edge of town. And we found a way which would take us behind them and bring us out onto the road out of town about two blocks past them.
Lo and behold it worked. The roads were more tracks than roads but buggered if we were paying any cops a bribe. Thanks to every other traveller who passes through and pays them every time. You make it harder for the next traveller.



C - It was so fantastic to get past this checkpoint. Corruption is something that does not sit well with me and so I was pleased not to have an unpleasant encounter with the police.

T - We started our morning with a climb into some amazing mountains. The road was smooth and it wound back and forth and gave us some incredible views back over Copacabana and Lake Titicaca. Spectacular!







We had to cross a short section of the lake as we were stranded out on an isthmus. There was no bridge but luckily for us we had a selection of about 10 boats that moved vehicles across the 200 or so meters of water.

The boat we were on was the worst thing I have ever seen. As the waves picked it up and flung it around it flexed so badly that we could see the joists beneath our feet actually separating from the hull by 2-3inches. We really thought we weren't going to make it across and figured there would be two permanent postie fixtures on the bottom of Lake Titicaca!







C - I was terrified! The boat moved so much, and definitely not in the way it was supposed to! I can not imagine having to see my poor little girl sink to the bottom of any body of water!

T - Many, many wide eyed, sphincter clenching minutes later and we were heaving the bikes backwards of the "boat" and onto firm stable ground. That was crazy! We continued our ride towards La Paz.

C - As we rode closer to La Paz, we saw the beautiful, raw Andes mountains towering above us, covered in beautiful, clean white snow. We were completely in awe of the scenery.







T - Bolivia is already proving to be quite a beautiful little place with smooth roads and happy people. We raced along and soon we were descending steeply into La Paz. The city from above looked huge! Crammed into a canyon and built right up the steep sides of it. Not a place either of us was keen to venture into. But as is usual we soon found ourselves on the main highway and we were flushed towards the centre.

Being that it was quite early we made the decision to head towards Death Road. It was only about 80 kms away and we figured we could possibly ride it today.

That turned out to be the best decision we made. But first the ride to get there. We climbed up out of the city, ever upwards. OUr bikes screaming in 3rd as they strained and gasped and rattled and groaned. More Mabel, harder Rosie, climb girls climb. We topped out at 4639 meters. The highest we had pushed the girls yet.





We had views like you wouldn't believe. They were heart stopping and made me feel incredibly emotional. It was without a doubt the best thing I have ever seen. I stood there in silence. I had nothing to say because anything I could say or do just wouldn't matter. There was something about the scene I stood in front of.

C - Amazing, amazing, amazing. Snow covered peaks surrounded us - raw, devoid of vegetation, rocky summits that dwarfed us. At the same time, clouds were drifting through the valley below, visibly dancing through the valley. What a beautiful spot!









T - We then raced down hill. Down down down. We found a gas station that would sell us fuel and after topping off our tanks we hit the start of Death Road. This is one of the places I had wanted to ride ever since we had decided to take on this trip. It has featured in TV shows like Top Gear and World's Deadliest roads. It was a doozy. A narrow, mostly one lane rough dirt road that clung to high cliff tops with no barriers to stop a wayward postie from plunging hundreds of meters to sure death below.









C - This road has a lot of hype and we knew that it was now only used by tourists. The everyday traffic has a nice, proper highway to use, where the risk of death is reduced. We knew that the busiest times are from 10am to 2pm, when cycle tours descend on the road and we were so happy to be arriving late in the afternoon.

T - Clouds hung low and we couldn't see much below us and it added to the spooky vibe of the road. Now because we had decided to get here a little later in the day it meant we had the road to ourselves. Being as it is a very touristy thing now we have been told it is inundated with cyclists, motorbikes, and tour buses every day. Not for us though. We had to share a narrow section of the road only once with an oncoming car, so we can say we had our little scary passing moment on Death Road. Woohoo!





Waterfalls cascaded from above us and smashed down onto the road. We rode through them and bounced and slid our way over rocks and washouts. The road was gorgeous and we have both rated it as possibly the best riding we have done. So gorgeous.















We rolled into the town of Corocio at the end of the road just as darkness descended and searched around for a while before finding a place to stay.
Wow. We rode Death Road. Wow wow wow. I am so chuffed with our bikes and continously am impressed with everything they do and put up with.



C - Riding Death Road is definitely the best riding we have done this trip. The road is only short and only about 15km of it was truly spectacular. But part of the draw is the history of the road - seeing so many memorials and picturing what it must've been like for the locals using this road. It was a two lane road, with all traffic using it - buses, cars, trucks, motos. It must of been completely terrifying.


T - Tomorrow we have to climb from 1300 meters back up to over 4600 and we will head southwards, back through La Paz, and on towards the huge salt flats of southern Bolivia.

T - We were up early today so we could get a good start. We knew that the next 90kms was going to be all uphill. So it would be a slow ride. We snuck out of Coroico and set our sights on the town of Oruro about 330 kms to the south of us.



We were soon sitting in third and second gear as we climbed and climbed. The bikes again working hard for us. Flat out we were sitting at around 35km/hr. They just wouldn't go any faster. Up and up we went. Slowly slowly.





We entered tunnels and still we climbed. Third gear all the way.

C - As we reached the last of the uphill, we pulled into a mirador and actually got the girls up to 4654mtrs! It was amazing, and windy, and very cold. Neither of us can really believe that these little bikes have taken so much punishment, particularly lately with the massive climbs, where they are working so hard in third, or second gear. We are so proud of them!















T - Finally we crested over the top and shot our way down into the melee of La Paz, again. For some reason our GPS took us a weird 'shortcut' way across the city, which actually ended up with us having to scream our bikes in first gear for kilometer after kilometer up some insanely steep hills, with me even having to paddle with my feet to keep Mabel moving as she nearly stopped several times. Oh the poor bikes. They were hot, they were tired, they were rattly and they were very unhappy. We both know that these engines are getting tired now and we really dont enjoy treating them like this.



C - These steep climbs in traffic are quite stressful. Not only is it difficult for the bikes, but we just can not stop. The postie brakes are not great and it is very difficult to get them to stop still on a steep incline, then tend to start to slide backwards and there is just nothing you can do to stop it. On top of that, once stopped, we would never get them going again. Being in a long line of traffic, where you can not control how fast the other traffic is going, or whether they will stop halfway up is terrifying. I was very pleased when we finally reached the top!

T - Eventually we tore free of the city and we were then sat on the main highway, which was flatish and straightish for the next 200 kms. We knew it would be boring, but the bikes needed to take a breather from all the climbing.





We cruised along for quite some time and many hours later we reached our destination for the night. What a last few days of riding. Next up is the salt flats at Uyuni. Cant bloody wait!

Tomorrow the girls will get a fresh dose of oil and Rosie needs a new chain. We have some timing chains to fit over the next day or two and we will treat the girls to some new spark plugs. They deserve some pampering don't you think?

T - We were staring down the barrel of a long day of highway riding today. Luckily for us the scenery was quite nice.

We zipped along the main highway. Watching our odometers slowly tick down. There wasn't much of note today. We passed through a few small dusty villages as we plugged on. We had picked a cheap hostal to stay in that was right next to the salt flats, but as we rode along we spied some gorgeous boulder fields.





C - Neither of us really wanted to stay in a hotel tonight. We have been paying for hotels with no wifi and generally not much hot water in Bolivia, so we decided it was better to save the money and camp! Which I was very excited about. We have both missed camping, but whilst the hotels were cheap and provided decent wifi, it seemed worth it.

T - So we decided to see if we could find a little hidey spot in them and wallah, we found a lovely little wild camp spot up against an old stone wall. Much better than a hotel!







C - The little spot was perfect! Out of the wind, in the sun, away from the road and nicely hidden from view. Perfecto! We were still up at 4000mtrs so figured it might get a bit chilly overnight, but surely it would be ok, right?







T - We cooked up a great pot of camp food, pasta cooked in pumpkin soup, crawled into our sleeping bags and watched a few episodes of Friends while we scoffed through a packet of biscuits before calling it a night.

Tomorrow we ride the Salar De Uyuni!

T - Holy crap. What a night. Both of us crashed out and slept quite soundly for a good chunk of time. Then it got really, really cold. In fact it got so cold that when we eventually ventured out of our tent this morning we were greeted by ice on everything! The bikes were frozen, the tent was frozen, my face was frozen and even our chairs had a layer of ice on them! Brr. That's what you get for camping at 4000 metres.







C - It was the first time, even in all the camping in Alaska and Canada, that I could feel the cold through my sleeping bag and liner. Brrr! I definitely did not want to get up. But, the morning was absolutely beautiful and the ice did make everything look pretty!

T - After everything thawed out we packed up and tried to warm the bikes up. Mabel roared into life on her first kick, but Rosie, she refused flat out. We kicked and kicked and kicked but to no avail. It felt like she had no compression. I had heard of a trick where people had pre-warmed their bike engine up by placing a camping stove under their engine. So that's what we did. And 5 minutes later Rosie was running too.

C - Well, it seems Rosie is becoming a little precious in her old age. I did not even need the camp stove to get me up and going.. But then again, I did have a nice, hot coffee!

T - As we rode along the highway we started to see a sliver of white shimmering on the horizon. The salt flats! Woohoo!







We pulled into a dry dusty town where we managed to bargain for some fuel and after filling up our tanks we headed down the track that would lead us onto the flats proper. We carefully negotiated some muddy salty puddles and soon the mud gave way to hard white crusty salt. The white was so blindingly bright and it stretched away in front of us to some very distant mountains. Wow. I have never seen anything like it.







C - The Salar de Uyuni was exactly what I expected! Blindingly white and nothing to see. It was extraordinarily beautiful and serene. Except for the wind, which absolutely howled across the flats, stealing all the warmth from the sun and giving us the chills.



T - We had a nice ride in a straight line for about 10 kms and nothing changed. It was quite disorientating really! The salt crunched under our wheels and sounded like we were riding on ice. Another guy on a bike pulled up and had a bit of a go about our bikes being so small and was generally being a smug smart ass, so we quickly said goodbye to him and headed back to town.







We had wanted to camp on the salt flats but there was a freezing wind howling through so we decided to continue on our ride. But first we had to find a car wash to get the salt off of our bikes.





C - It would have been lovely to camp, but with nowhere to get out of the wind, we decided it would not be so much fun.

T - After Uyuni we started to head directly west towards our next destination. Chile. It was a fair hike away and we knew that we wouldn't get there until tomorrow. So we rode out of Uyuni for about 100kms and found another lovely free camp. Rosie has been a bit unwell lately so I decided to change out her cam chain, and set her valves. After an hour of dismantling her engine it turned out that the cam chains I had for the bikes were different to the one Rosie had. So I put her back together in the dark. Oh well! I shall do her valves in the morning, which is what I suspect is giving me the feeling of no compression.











Tomorrow we head into Chile!

T - Another great nights sleep in our tent. It was a little chilly this morning but nothing as cold as the night before. So I was up early and tearing into Rosie's valves.



Yep I was right. Her intake valve was very, very tight. I set it where it should be and closed her all back up. I had also pulled her cam chain tensioner out to give everything the once over so I made sure it was all back in properly.
C - My poor little Rosie. She definitely seems to be having some issues lately. Her performance has dropped, some of which will be due to altitude, but she just seems a little unhappy at the moment. Hopefully the valve adjustment will do the trick?!

T - She fired up first kick, and she had compression again! Yay! BUT, now she had a crazy annoying rattle and I couldn't place it. I had changed nothing but her valve settings. I let her run for 10 minutes and though the rattle quietened down it didn't go away. I thought about it while we had some brekky and decided it must be the cam chain tensioner.

I pulled it out and compared it to the service manual I had. It was definitely in right. So I pulled Mabel's out and made sure that I hadn't maybe lost apart in the dirt. Nope. It was the same. Then, interestingly, when I put Mabel back together and started her up she too made the same rattle as Rosie. Now she hadn't made the rattle previously. So I knew it was something I was doing with the tensioner.

In the end I was so frustrated with this rattle that I splashed some extra engine oil down the tube of the tensioner plunger, and the rattle went away. Huh?? I did the same for Rosie and she too went silent. Well there you go. You learn something new every day. So now with quiet bikes we rode away towards Chile.



C - By the time we left camp, the sun was well and truly in the sky and was starting to warm us up nicely. It was such a pleasure to be pulling out of camp with Rosie having some oomph back in her! Yay!!

T - The riding was stunning. The mountains reared up all around and were snow capped. Wow. It was gorgeous! Very cold but simply stunning.









C - The road was dirt was the whole way from Uyuni to the border, but a well maintained, hard packed road that allowed us to keep up some speed. The riding was good and the scenery was just amazing. Bolivia has been such a treat for its amazing scenery. The whole country has been breathtaking.





T - We turned up at the border and soon we were stamped out of Bolivia by some very grumpy officials and stamped into Chile by some very friendly ones! We needed to get about 200kms up the road to the first town where we could get fuel. There was just one road there and it was mostly smooth bitumen all the way through the most barren landscape I have ever seen. There was nothing out there. Just dirt and rocks and mountains. The different colours of the dirt was incredible! So beautiful!







C - We were on the Ruta del Desierto and it certainly lived up to its name. There was not a scrap of vegetation anywhere. Just sand and rocks. It was stunning to ride through, with snow capped peaks running down the left side and the occasional puff of smoke from what I assume are volcanoes. Very cool!







T - We eventually pulled in to Calama and we were blown away by the modernity of it. Office blocks, shopping malls, clean streets, traffic lights that people stopped at. It was really weird! We found ourselves a small hostal to stay in for the next two nights as we need to do a few errands in town. Chantelles camera has also died so now we are down to using iPhones and GoPros. I would like to sort that out before we get much further into Chile. So much to take photos of here!





So tomorrow we do laundry, get Chantelle some new riding jeans, fit Rosies new drive chain and sprocket, and a few other bits and pieces.

C - The plan for today was to get some laundry done and take a walk to the big mall we spied on the way in. I was excited about visiting a big grocery store!

We dropped off our stinking clothes and wandered around Calama, stopping in at the Mall Plaza and being generally amazed by the westerness of it all.
Todd really wanted to find a camera lense, or a new camera, so we called in to all the electronics store to learn that Sony lenses really are not easy to get hold of here. We decided we would try in the next big town.

After picking up some yummy groceries, including camembert cheese and really delicious looking salami, ham, olives and french loaf for dinner, we wandered back to the hotel to try to figure out how to tackle Chile.
Our first choice was to travel from Puerto Montt to Puerto Natales by ferry, however, we had received an email advising that the last ferry for the season leaves on 6 May 2017. No way we can make that. So we spent much time trying to work out where the ferries run in Chilean Patagonia to see if we can ride the Carretera Austral.

We both gave up trying to do this on the laptops and decided to pick up a good map of Chile at the next opportunity. I do love a good paper map!

Tomorrow, we will leave Calama and head straight down the PanAm through the Atacama Desert. I think this will take us quite a few days, it's quite the distance!

T - This entry covers a few days as we had no wifi to upload with and to be honest we didnt do much other than ride ride ride.

From Calama we had only one choice of paved road south. There was a ton of sandy tracks that disappeared out over the desert, but our bikes HATE sand and we didn't want to overheat their little clutches too much by bogging them down to the axles for hours on end. So we sat on the highway.



The scenery continued to be incredible. It really was just crazy how devoid a landscape could be of pretty well anything. Just massive mountains and sand everywhere with a ribbon of smooth tarmac cutting through it all.



After a while the kilometers seemed to tick by very slowly and both of us were moaning about how slow our bikes were. We rode and rode and rode. Camped and rode and rode and rode and still we were in the desert. On the plus side we were back to just camping wherever the hell we wanted too which was really nice! There's definately a freedom about laying down in any old place we choose.





Each day we would rise with the sun, pack up and ride through more desert. At one point we decided to ride into the desert for something different to do. It was quite hard on top but if our skinny wheels broke through the 'crust' they bogged down.


C - Back to the lands of free camping! What joy! There is something really lovely about camping for free in the wilderness. The desert here is certainly an amazing place to camp - enough hills to find shelter from the wind and the highway and beautiful desert sunsets. On our second day in the desert, the PanAm wound its way to the coast and we witnessed first hand the strange, low lying cloud that forms on the coast of Peru and Chile. It was thick and really cold, and engulfed the whole coastal area - definitely a different kind of beauty.







T - We stopped for the obligatory 'motorcycle in front of the hand sculpture' shot and continued on. South bound.





The camps in the desert yielded some amazing night time views of the stars and it seemed we could almost pluck them from the sky. They were so bright and seemed so close. The bonuses of being where there is no towns to spoil the night!



We had made plans to get off this god forsaken PanAm Highway once we reached the town of La Serena. The constant grind of flogging along the highway was wearing our spirits down and our bikes hated sitting on 65km for hour after hour with very few stops each day.

C - Despite the beauty and rawness of the arid scenery, we were both getting very keen to get off the highway and see something different. We were counting down the kilometres to the town of La Serena, where we would have more road options, and had just packed up from a lunch stop. We knew would reach La Serena within an hour and a half, refill the food box, pick up a new camera for Todd and then get out of town to camp.









T - Obviously our complaining about the ride being a little boring made Rosie sit up, take notice, and decide to throw a spanner in the works. Chantelle was cruising along when all of a sudden Rosie spluttered and coughed and cut out. Almost as though she ran out of fuel. Chantelle switched over to reserve and we kicked and kicked and swore and kicked some more. But Rosie would not go.

We stripped her down to her bones trying to find the fault. She had fuel, she had air, but she had no spark. We swapped out spark plugs, CDI units and even pulled her wiring apart. Nothing worked. She still refused to go.



Finally we pulled her stator off and swapped it out with Mabels. And she started straight up while Mabel now sat there dead as a door nail. Damn these stators. This was number 4 that we had burnt out. Usually they just stop charging the battery but now there wasn't any power produced at all. I tried swapping out the old pulse generator for a new one, but that made no difference either.

C - After four hours of investigating and swapping parts between the bikes, it was time to call it. We just could not fix this problem on the side of the road with what we had. Bugger! And so close to a big town too!

T - Only thing for it now was to tow. So we tied Mabel to the back of Rosie and set off for La Serena. 85 kms up the road. We knew it was a biggish town and figured we could either get the part we needed there or order one from the States if need be.

C - Neither of us have towed, or been towed, on a bike. It was the one thing I really hoped to avoid on this trip. Oh well, there was nothing for it but just to try. We decided Rosie had a better chance of towing Mabel than the other way round, and I figured it was probably easy to be the tow-er.



After just a few minutes, we figured out the gear changes and braking and it was not as bad as I thought it might be. My biggest concern though was the constant up and down hills we had been travelling. Sure enough, we had to climb quite a number of steep hills. Poor little Rosie worked her guts out dragging us and Mabel up those hills. Eventually though, we came down a long downhill, back to sea level and into the freezing cold, damp low lying cloud. I then realised we had to deal with traffic, uh oh.

T - As we approached the city the traffic got worse and worse. Usually we can sort of zip around and fit in but with one underpowered and overloaded bike towing another it was mayhem, and it felt very dangerous. We couldn't easily swap lanes to get our exits due to the masses of traffic and ended up going through town to a spot where we could do a u-turn and head back. Cars flashed by us and beeped and swerved all around us. It sucked. Then we got stuck in our lane again and missed our turn again, which meant we ended up in a highly congested section of the main shopping area. It sucked.
Finally though we made it to where we needed to be. Poor Rosie was cooking hot, her clutch had started slipping and Chantelle and I were both frazzled to within an inch of our lives. We found a nice cheap hostal within walking distance to some bike parts stores and decided to stay for a few nights here.

C - We ended up right around the corner from the massive Mall Plaza and after the most amazing hot shower ever, we walked to the grocery store for a much needed bottle of wine and a cooked chook for dinner.

T - Tomorrow we hopefully will be able to find a new stator and we need to buy a camera as our 3 Sonys we had have all now failed. All three with the same lens issues. One day they work, the next they just don't. No more Sony products for this black duck.