16 February, 2016 We have now been on the road for 63 days. Kalil and I unanimously agreed that the previous 3 days have been by far the best riding of the trip up until this point. That has brought a feeling of rejuvenation to both of us. With a bit of reluctance we now have to leave the mountains of Peru and head towards Lima. Lima is a necessary stop however, since that is where we will need to go to get our tires replaced. After enjoying the cool climate of the mountains, the heat, traffic, desert, and population of 10 million people in Lima seems overwhelming.

It seems that each day spent on the road, there are countless great photo opportunities of the most bizarre things. Unfortunately the opportunities pass by long before I can get my hands on my camera. However, every once in a great while I get lucky!


That is a truck loaded (some might consider it overloaded) with corn stalks! The most fascinating part is that these trucks are loaded by hand…

Lima was a struggle. 20 miles of stop and go traffic, and at one point, Kalil’s oil/air cooled motor started to overheat and we had to pull over in traffic for 20 minutes to let it cool down. The relief of finally reaching our destination was significant! When we arrived at Touratech, we immediately recognized the two KTM 690’s ridden by our friends Chris and Zoe! They stopped in to change their oil. So it was an enjoyable afternoon, catching up and getting our bikes serviced with new tires.

Later in the day, a fellow F800gs rider from Germany stopped in. Olaf was also on a tour of the Americas and was having several issues with his motorcycle and stopped in at Touratech to get some issues sorted out. To make a long story short, one of the issues is quite common to the F800GS, and you can buy an aftermarket part in order to prevent this issue from happened. It just so happens that I have installed that part on my motorcycle. As much as I wanted to leave Lima the next morning, I realized it was a good opportunity to try and get a little extra karma on my side before the last leg of the trip. So I offered to take apart my bike in order to take the aftermarket brace to a machine shop to have it replicated so that Olaf would not have any more issues with his rear suspension.

So we had a little extra time to get a birds eye view of the southern part of Lima:


There are some advantages to taking a little extra time in these big cities, and that is that you get to witness some situations that seem like a disaster waiting to happen:


After 2 nights in Lima, the anxiety to get out of town was growing. However, at the machine shop they were still trying to properly replicate my shock brace:


So while the machine shop was hard at work and needing one more day to finish the job, I decided to get some other issues taken care of. First and foremost was fixing my GPS. I have been using my phone as my GPS for the whole trip, downloading the maps to use without needing any signal or WiFi. It was working great until it was left out in the sun too long in the sun and the heat of Lima traffic. One of the best parts of the culture in central and south America is that they will always try and repair things before they go out and buy something to replace it. So within no time I had found a cell phone repair kiosk in the market. I returned a few hours later to find this:


The lady felt terrible that my phone was a complete loss. The heat had actually melted different parts of the phone together and so it was completely destroyed. No worries, it is what it is, onto the next project:


When you have time, just start taking parts off of your bike and find more small issues! So there I was servicing my steering head bearings.

Finally that evening I got my part back, put my suspension all back together again, and Kalil and I were excited to finally get out of Lima!

The following day we got up early and got out of Lima before traffic could slow us down. Our destination was Cusco, a 2 day ride from Lima heading back up into the mountains. Once the road headed inland from the coast, we quickly gained elevation.


Barren desert hills, but there was something quite serene about the landscape. As we continued to gain elevation, the temperature dropped significantly and the clouds began to darken. And then, this:


Time to put on all the cold weather and rain gear! In the next few hours we encountered some of the most extreme weather on the trip. Downpours, hail, and at one point at elevations above 15,000 feet there was snow on the ground:


That night we stopped in a little town called Puquio, which had absolutely no significance other than it was about halfway from Lima to Cusco. After experiencing a couple thunderstorms while riding, including some fierce lightning, we decided to check into a hotel. As we checked in, we noticed another large motorcycle packed up heading towards us. Turns out, David was heading north from Argentina with the intentions of making it home to San Diego, California. So we spent the evening swapping stories while trying to find a restaurant that served s!

In the morning we said our goodbyes and continued our journey to Cusco. Not long after, we caught up to what looked like a decent sized bike loaded up. As we passed, we realized it wasn’t a big bike at all, but instead a little vespa! We had to immediately stop and see what this guy was all about!


This dude actually spoke no English, but we were able to carry on a decent conversation with him and found out he was headed to Bolivia. He was from Quito, which is where he had started his journey. His days were spent going no more than 60 kmh (36 mph) and usually tried to accomplish 300km a day (180 miles). Quite impressive!

That night we pulled into Cusco, slightly wet from the non stop drizzle, a bit chilly, and most definitely tired. Checked into our hostel, snapped a photo of the town square from the 3rd floor and headed into town to book a tour of Machu Picchu.


The next morning a van picked us up at 7:30 and we began the long 7+ hour van ride. Long story short, getting to Machu Picchu is VERY EXPENSIVE! The only way to get to the town of Aquas Caliente (which is at the base of the mountain that Machu Picchu is built on) is by train or by walking. The train costs $140 USD, the entrance fee to Machu Picchu is $50, the bus to take you up to the site and back down is $24. The total cost of taking van to a town near there, lunch, dinner, hostel, breakfast and the entrance fee was $85. The only issue with this scenario is it involved walking 10 km to Aquas Caliente along the train tracks, hiking for an hour and ten minutes straight up the hillside to the site at 5 in the morning, and then walking all the way back to where we started.

The bus ride wasn’t so bad since the scenery was quite good:


All was going well until we encountered a mudslide which included a van like ours planted in the middle of it:


After an hour of messing around, the van was pulled out, rocks thrown into the ruts and traffic was flowing again on this crazy, single lane road that hugged the mountain sides. This could have been another road of death but the traffic wasn’t so bad! At one point we crossed this very unsafe looking bridge with a packed van. It was barely wide enough,and to add to that, it was a hairpin turn to get onto the bridge. Luckily, the driver was a pro and we crossed safely.


Once we reached the end of the road for the bus, we began the 2 and a half hour walk to Aquas Caliente. The advantages of the walk are that it gets us exercising as well as a break from the bikes for 2 days. Not to mention the train tracks followed a raging river for the entire 10km and some of the views from the train tracks were quite stellar:


The following morning, breakfast was served at 4:30 and we started hiking up at 5am in order to get to the top in time for our scheduled tour at 6:30. Machu Picchu is stunning to say the least. I’d put up more photos, but I’m not a professional and it is too easy to find much better photos by searching on google. But here are a few anyway:


A llama (pronounced djama for all your english speaking folks!) hanging out with one of the tour groups:


After the tour, we had a few hours to walk around the site and came across this Incan bridge built into the mountain side leaving the site:


The path was barely shoulder wide with a big drop and extremely steep side hill. These Inca’s were amazing architects! Ok, one more picture, this one you won’t find on google:


The following day we remained in Cusco to sort out our Bolivian visas. This was a bit of a difficult process for US citizens. It involved online forms, photos, re-sizing photo’s, paying $160 dollars, and a few other hoops to jump through. Thanks Mer’Ka! Luckily, only Argentina and Bolivia have the reciprocity rules in effect where they make US citizens go through the same process and payments as their citizens have to do in order to get into the USA.

That night we yet again met up with Chris and Zoe who were in Cusco where they met up with a couple friends who had flown in from California to visit Machu Picchu. This was Chris’s birthday dinner and we found a really nice restaurant to celebrate! Cheers!


Until next time! If you’re curious as to how far behind I am on the blog, just click this: SPOT Shared Page

The celebration for having survived 89 days on the road on a motorcycle started with dismantling the tent and packing up all the camping gear for the first time in a couple months. Sleeping next to a quietly murmuring river resulted in a good nights rest and a positive attitude. Once on the road, progress was slow due to loose gravel road conditions meandering through the hills and mountains of the Lake Region as I made my way to the Austral Highway. There were 50 miles of slow gravel roads separating me from the highway. Progress was further slowed by all the amazing scenery around every corner.



This was one of the only roads around for many miles and the sparsely populated countryside survived on tourism and what seemed like small ranches. At this point in the year, it is the middle of fall and you could see the landscape slowly changing as it prepared for winter, overshadowed by glaciers in the mountain tops.



Once on the Carretera Austral, the road was a bit more established, with long sections of paved road which wound around many small lakes and hillsides. After about 30 miles or so of fun twisty paved roads, it would turn back to dirt as you could see signs of construction as Chile tried to tame these wild mountainous areas with established high speed roads. So other than the one necessary fuel stop, there was no actual human interaction other than waving to the few other motorists on the road. Which was fine because to stop and enjoy these views without any disturbances was very peaceful.



I stopped for "lunch" at a particularly nice lake with some great views. It is just too difficult to capture the serenity of this road. If anyone ever plans on doing a road trip in and around Patagonia, I would highly recommend finding the time to check out the Austral highway. Simply stunning!



As I continued south, I began to notice a lot more glaciers up in the mountain tops.



After gaining some elevation, there were a few great lookout spots to get a good glimpse of the valleys I had just ridden through.



After a what seemed like a long day of many peaceful mountain settings and stunning views, I found myself in the town of Coyhaique, 260 miles down the road from where I had started.

The following morning I made my way towards the border of Argentina, only 2 days in Chile and I was already leaving. After signing in at the Aduana (customs) I pointed the bike east towards Ruta 40, which was 60 miles away. I was greeted by this view of... not much:



Several miles into this long straight gravel road, I went through a tiny little frontier town and found this neat old horse drawn wagon:



These must have been the main mode of transporting goods before the proliferation of the modern dinosaur burning vehicles. Having seen many old pictures in various places on this trip, I deduced that these were the South American equivalent of the wagon trains that settled the west in North America. The next thought I had was, maybe my tires need to be bigger in order to conquer these rough gravel roads!

After gaining confidence, the speed slowly climbed on the long straight gravel road and before I knew it, I had put 60 miles between me and the border of Chile. Back on Ruta 40, I was happy to be cruising on pavement again and heading south. Well, until boredom set in.



Long, straight, flat, and I began to notice a little bit of wind pushing me around on the bike. All along the road, there were hundreds of Vicuna scattered everywhere. They are the South American equivalent of deer, running around in the wild, and seem to congregate along roadsides. The vicuna are essentially a very close cousin to the llama and alpaca and they have never been domesticated. There were so many of them, it wasn't worth taking a picture. And for they seemed to be quite smart as well because there were very few dead ones on the side of the road, so even though they were all grazing a few feet from the road, they never strayed into oncoming traffic.

The first times I saw the rhea, it was pretty amazing! These flightless large birds which are related to emus and ostriches blend right into the landscape and as you drive by them they jump and run, so it was a bit tricky to get a good shot of one closeup.



That evening found me settled in a hotel room in Perito Moreno. There is absolutely nothing significant about this town other than it is the last town with fuel or ATM's for a long long distance. Luckily the gas pumps seemed to work fine, but the ATM's on the other hand were not working for my foreign card... Shoot, hundreds of miles from the nearest decent sized town that would have an ATM that would work with a foreign card. Stranded in no mans land, completely out of Argentina Pesos, a pocket full of Chilean Peso's and a secret stash of US dollars. Luckily the hotel owner was up to make a little profit and exchanged the $40 USD into pesos which would have to get me to the next big town tomorrow!

The next day I made a discovery: that getting down to the southern tip of Argentina had one major challenge that in all my research I had not come across. That challenge was how to keep yourself entertained for what seemed like the most boring drive of my life! This puts all the long straight boring drives in Kansas, Nevada, and even Nebraska to shame:



And to add to the boredom, I began to encounter wind. It didn't seem so bad at first. Lean a bit to the right and you keep going straight. Set the throttle to 65 and you're fine. It was about 216 miles to get to the next fuel stop. 4.2 gallons in the tank, so I needed to average over 52 mpg. That shouldn't be a problem, should it? After a couple hours, I began to notice my average was slowly going down as I had to lean a little more to the right to combat the wind. Slow down a bit more. Lean a little more as the wind got stronger, slow down a little to keep the mpg. As my speed dwindled to just below 55, I was graced by a large tractor trailer truck passing me by. I quickly grabbed the throttle and tucked in behind him! 65 mph and my mpg jumped through the roof to a whopping 65+mpg! Hurray for drafting!



On a side note, I did have 2 extra gallons of fuel on board in the red fuel can. My stubborn side told me that to use that would be to admit that I hadn't done my planning right, so even if I had run out, I would have been totally fine. I also could have hammered down on the throttle and flown through the boring sections at 75 mph!

After following this truck for about 80 miles, the next fuel stop was in sight! Along with a long line of cars...



160 miles to go to the next town and back up into the mountains, so I didn't wait around long before pushing on in the wind. Unfortunately without a nice big truck as a wind block. Everything seemed to be rolling along fine until I came across a 45 mile section of Ruta 40 that was still waiting to be paved. No problems here, I had accomplished 60 miles of these gravel roads yesterday! Um...



It is no problem staying in that skinny wheel track, until you factor in the stiff cross wind! The stones were a couple inches deep on each side and if a gust hit you just right, it would send you into the loose rock and the bike would start to float around. The only solution is: when in doubt, throttle out! DO NOT hit the brakes! As you accelerate, it reduces the weight on the front tire and you can then manage enough control to get the bike back in the lane. Don't accelerate, or even worse, hit the brake, and the front end will plow through those loose stones making the bike feel like its floating and it goes all over the place uncontrollably. Good times!

After successfully making it through the rugged dirt roads covered in "rippio", I turned right off of Ruta 40 towards the mountains and a small town located on the edge of Glaciers National Park called El Chalten, home of Monte Fitzroy. As I neared the town, relief set in after a 400 miles of wind, straight roads, and rugged gravel roads with crosswinds! I was looking forward to getting out of the plains and the wind and getting back to the mountains!

So for all of you who have been waiting for information on Kalil, here it is!

I last left Kalil in La Paz, Bolivia after we discovered that the motor on his motorcycle had bent the connection rods and would not run without a lot of time, money, and parts. With time slowly slipping away, we both decided that I would continue on by myself and he would stay in La Paz to take care of his now dead motorcycle and make a plan for the rest of his adventure.

Kalil was able to sell his non-running motorcycle in no time at all, which was a very big relief. With the funds from the sale of his parts bike, he decided to sign up for a week of private Spanish lessons in La Paz. During that week, some of the fellow motorcycle adventurers we had met along the way passed through La Paz. Including the couple Chris and Zoe. They were having trouble with one of their KTM 690's and needed to take a break in La Paz as well. During their stay there, Zoe had to fly back to the USA for a family emergency. It was at this point that they (Zoe, Chris, and Kalil) all sat down together and decided to make a deal which would allow Kalil to continue riding south on Zoe's bike after she left for the states.

After a week of waiting for parts, Chris and Kalil were ready to ride! They headed south from La Paz, to the Salar de Uyuni. From there they headed west along what is known as the Laguna route towards San Pedro de Atacama in Chile.


Kalil managed to snap a few good pictures on this leg of their journey.



From there, Chris and Kalil headed south a little bit and then east towards Salta, Argentina. This route would somewhat follow the route of the Dakar race. Once in Salta, they set their sites south and west towards Mendoza. There they enjoyed some wine, met some locals who took them out on some off the beaten path dirt bike trails. After a few days of enjoying Men

Another great update. Great to hear your riding buddy has continued on! Hope you guys can meet up down the trail somewhere for a reunion.

Love the pic with those pesky Llamas!

Ride safe, rubber side down!

G,day guys, great to catch up on your updates, love the photo,s . Seems your enjoying yourself, BMW don,t like to swim, I,m surprised, when in Thailand, 2011 my KLR was able to swim without a problem. keep the photo,s coming, stay safe, cheers, Roger.

On the 16th of March, the 92nd day of the journey, I got to see two of the most popular places to see in Patagonia; Mount Fitzroy and Perito Moreno Glacier. That morning I woke up in El Chalten and went on a brisk early morning walk outside of town. For some reason, I felt like using my timer feature on my camera and get some proper proof that I have actually been to these places! Above is a photo overlooking the river valley leading into El Chalten.

After about an hour of hiking I found a great view of Fitzroy:



Another hour and I found a lake which still had a great view of Fitzroy and decided to test the timer on the camera again:



It's official! I made it down to Glacier National Park in Argentina and I have a picture to prove it. I'm sure there are millions of pictures of this spot, but only one has me in it... Might as well try to do the similar picture without me in it.



After about 4 hours of hiking, it was time to hit the road again and continue to El Calafate. El Calafate is the main hub of Glacier National Park and also an hour away of visiting Perito Moreno Glacier. As I left El Chalten, I had to take a quick photo of the amazing skyline in the distance before I headed back out in the plains fighting high winds and boring straight roads.



After arriving in El Calafate with plenty of time to spare, the decision to get to the glacier for a look was easy to make. Perito Moreno Glacier is 97 square miles of ice and is part of the Southern Patagonia ice field. This ice field is the 3rd largest reserve of fresh water. The last interesting fact I'll add is that the Perito Moreno glacier is GROWING! Yup, you read that right, one of only 3 glaciers growing in the ice field, and certainly one of the few glaciers still growing in the world.



The size of the glacier is unbelievable... The photo above was taken from about a half mile from the glacier. The glacier actually comes down into the lake and meets the hill on the other side of the water. When that happens, the water one side of the glacier builds up over time because it doesn't have an outlet. Eventually, it builds up enough to create a river underneath the ice. Every 4 years or so, the ice bridge will weaken enough and collapse down into the water below. Unfortunately for me, the bridge had just collapsed a few days before I got there so I didn't get to see the ice bridge, only the rubble left behind by its destruction.



Since the theme for the day was to use the timer on my camera, I took the time to try one more self portrait on my way back to the motorcycle.



On my way back to town there was one last photo opportunity to take advantage of to cap off an amazingly scenic day!

After all the excitement of El Chalten and El Calafate, it was time to head down the road to Puerto Natales to see another natural wonder, Torres del Paine. *Today's route would take me south a few hundred miles and then west into Chile. *The first stretch south was very cold. *It was very chilly that morning, cold enough to have the heated vest plugged in, hand warmers on high, an extra layer under the helmet to add some insulation for my ears and fresh dusting of snow in the hills in the distance.

After a fuel stop and some time spent warming up the hands, I finally took the time to stop and get the picture above of a sign I had seen several times but had been too busy leaning the bike over in order to keep going straight.

As I neared the Chile border later that day, the weather turned on me and it began to rain. I had thought I was cold early in the day, but now I was REALLY cold. After another uneventful and simple border crossing into Chile, it was only 15 minutes to get to Puerto Natales. A delicious pizza and a warm shower helped to boost the spirits.

The next morning, I met up with Jota again. Since our parting in Mendoza, he had ridden the Ruta 40 all the way south from Mendoza and from there the rest of the way to Ushuaia. He was on his way north back home to Santiago and it worked out that we would go camp out in Torres Del Paine for a night before parting ways again. On our way to the park, we stopped at the Milodon cave. This is a place where explorers found preserved animal skins dating back several hundred years that were similar to the shape of a bear.



As it turns out, this huge cave was the home to these very large bear-like animals called Milodon. There used to be many of these bears in existence a few thousand years ago, but as the glaciers receded and the whole landscape and animal populations around them changed, they started to die off. The last known evidence of there existence was more than 800 years or so. Pretty big bear!



After the cave, it was only about an hour or so to the Torres del Paine national park. With fresh snow in the hills and mountains around, it allowed for a couple decent photo stops.


As we neared the park, there were a flock of condors taking off in a field as we rode by. Unfortunately there was not enough time to stop and take a picture. It was the last animal on my list of animals to see! Shortly after the condor siting we got our first view of the Torres (which by the way is Spanish for towers, Torres del Paine is a group of giant rock towers circled by mountains). Very impressive from far away.



The clouds were a bit ominous and both Jota and I were hoping that later in the afternoon they might burn off for some clear shots.



After arriving to the park, we set up our tent and had some time so we decided to do a little hiking. After 2 hours of hiking up a seemingly deserted and off the beaten path trail, we had a pretty good view point of the Torres. Unfortunately, the clouds had not burnt off.



With our hopes of the clouds burning off began to diminish, we pushed on for awhile longer. Even with the clouds in the way, it was still very refreshing to get out and hike and get in some great scenery of the valley below.



The last 30 minutes of hiking up, the weather started to get a little more stormy and the hat and puffy jacket had to make an appearance. I could have sworn there were snowflakes!



Since it was impossible to get any pictures of the cloudy Torres, I gave up and took pictures of the valley below. The foothills of Patagonia are extremely flat, windy, and desolate!



Torres del Paine is a very famous national park and many tourists arrive every year. Somehow we managed to find a hiking trail that not many people know about. After spending about 4 and a half hours on the trail, the only people we saw was a group of 3 people who worked in the park. They were amazed that we had found the trail since it is only used for special guided tours for people looking to do serious hiking in the park. It was definitely not the easiest hiking trail I've been on:



That evening, Jota made some tasty omelet sandwiches. It was a very busy campsite, but we managed to find a hidden spot where we weren't bothered by any of the groups that were partying near by.



The next morning, after packing up our camp, Jota and I said our good byes and separated ways once again. He was heading back into Argentina to head north and I was headed to Punta Arenas which from my extensive research is one of the few places that would be 'easy' to sell my motorcycle legally. Punta Arenas is the southern most major city in Chile. A major hub for travelers headed south to Ushuaia and beyond to Antarctica and north to Patagonia. I would have 5 days to try and sell my bike before I would have to turn tail and run north to Santiago as quick as I could to catch my flight back to the USA. If I sold the bike, I would simply fly to Santiago from there. If I didn't sell my bike, I'd have to ride the 1800 miles to Santiago and arrange last minute shipping for the bike to home in less than a week...