Sorry to hear about the robbery
I would suggest that going forward you never go alone, in SA. Join a larger group and play it safe.

On other fronts, Bolivia's recent contribution to science:
Why Bolivia reversed its clock – Global Public Square - CNN.com Blogs

Wooow Ellen, hope you are oke, you also Andi. Try & give this f^&kup a place & let it go. Camera can & will be replaced, now try to get over the shock, it leaves a sh*t feeling when u have been mugged, that is for sure. In Ireland we have a saying when this happens & you lose something, we just fervently say "and let all bad luck go with it". Andi don't let your anger cloud yer judgement. Guys thinking about you & wishing you both well. Hugs Vince

Im week behind on your guys blog, Mike and Jing told us what had happened to Ellen last night.


Ellen we hope you are feeling better and we are glad you are in one piece, although its tough to accept at the moment, the stuff you lost can be replaced, YOU are far more important.


I wont get started on what should be done to the scumbags who did this to you, one day they will get their payback I'm sure - hopefully with a painful dollop of interest.


The apathy shown by the cops is a total disgrace, it wouldn't surprise me if they were in some way connected with the scum who did this, but we will probably never know.


Time will help heal the wounds (both physical and mental) Ellen, you are one tough cookie, support each other and move on guys.


It would be worth putting a mention of this in the travellers advisory section to make sure this scum doesn't do it to the next overlanders rocking through this area.


Hugs to you both, Grif & Lisa

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Cheers
Grif

'11 KTM 450 EXC
'09 Suzuki DR650
'00 Discovery Series 2 V8
'95 Defender 90 300 Tdi Overlander
http://gipperstravels.blogspot.ca

Heya Grif and Lisa

Yeap all good, moving forward and getting organised now, trying to get replacement stuff is hopeless here and a mission.

Onwards and upwards to better things for sure, death road tomorrow then off east we go, last place to see with be Noel Kemff National park then we hit Brasil

Love to you both and same gidday to Mike and Jing too

Cheers Andi

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Cheers Andi & Ellen .... https://twomotokiwis.blogspot.com/ Two Moto Kiwis Alaska - Argentina - April 2012 -> Somewhere

Heya all, ok just went back 6 pages to find out where we left off, with the blockades ,strikes, Ellens robbery etc we sorta lost the plot back there then had no wifi for 8 days.

Cochabamba

We enjoyed our stay for a couple of nights at the hostel then found a couchsurf with a Costarican man with a Colombian wife that were moto travellers.

We moved to their apartment and talked about travel and motos and of course the world cup was on so Ellen and I made a stop at the super market to get some table goodies to munch on while watching the games.

We had a rattly cam tensioner and I wanted to deal with that as Jaime has an electric drill, I just needed a drill and tap to complete the equation from the tool we carry.:clap

The cam tensioners are oil pressure fed, not sure which one was the issue as there are two so I bought a drill and taps and did the mod which basically makes the tensioner pre tensioned with the oil finishing the last bit off....that was successful.:clap

I went upstairs to get some bits and pieces and that is when I found Ellen had just got back from her walk and had been robbed and beaten ...gut wrenching.:cry:cry:cry

No need to go back over that now but it was a shock and a half and after having had all the other crap previously I was ready to kill someone. Too much shit from one country and it was not getting any better.

While in Cochabamba I tried to buy a small oil cooler as well to help Maya keep her cool in the heat, I could not find one for love nor money and every shop was totally confused despite having the translation and pictures ... they acted as they had never seen one before despite nearly every small moto having one .....WTF...no....can’t be ****ed.

So, “come back tomorrow”, “my friend has one in his warehouse”, “no problem ring me back at 4 pm and I will have one for you” .....these we some of the good ol lies again so we gave up trying to get one there.

Staying with Jaime and Maria was good, nice people, we were going to stay 2 - 3 nights with them but after Ellens incident they said stay another night and get sorted which was very kind of them.

They took us for a drive in their suzuki jeep so we bought lunch



We also did our bike papers which was a needless nightmare, every other country issues 90 days, no Bolivia, 30 at a time and you have to go back and back to get it sorted, we did however meet a nice guy who had lived in the USA, talked english and had an XR650 with bike tank, Baya headlight setup etc which he was rightfully proud of.



Sorry we do not have any more photos as they are all in the camera that wrongfully has a new owner somewhere :baldy:baldy

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Cheers Andi & Ellen .... https://twomotokiwis.blogspot.com/ Two Moto Kiwis Alaska - Argentina - April 2012 -> Somewhere

After surviving Cochabamba .....just, we defiantly decided to hit the 25 back road to Coroico which is at the base of the famous “Death Road”

Jaime joined us for part of the way on his XR650L which is a very nice machine, leaving mid morning we ventured out into yes ... more protests and blockades, todays strikes are the public transport and taxis blocking as much as they possibly could.



The policemens wives were also protesting about something as well so pretty much Bolivia came to a standstill yet again.

The blockades meant some pretty unusual riding tactics to negotiate the vans and buses strewn all over the intersections, at one point we had a policeman on a KLR650 in front of us, he took a wrong side of a bus and ended up behind us, we mounted the kerb, up onto the footpath, around some fruit stalls, past a bus shelter and along some shop fronts only to have Mr.Plod think that our route was much better than his and he followed us.



Buses parked diagonally across the road to stop everyone



Minivans parked all over intersections ... some too tight for us to fit through meaning alternative routes like center islands and footpaths.



I wondered if he was gonna get grumpy with us so I was armed and dangerous and was ready to tell him to take a flying leap but he didn’t and just turned off his way.

Finally through the blockades, some 20 - 30 of them we came to our turnoff, we wanted to gas up but the YPFB (Petrol station) would not serve us, they said they didn’t have any petrol ..... sure.

Anyway, having the super tanker we still had enough to get to our lunch stop which also we could fuel up at Morochata but first we were sent to 4400 meters above stress level to stunning mountain top scenery, with the public transport and taxis on strike we had the road pretty much to ourselves which was so nice, thanks guys ... go on more strikes please.

Bit of a rough section here



The range we rode over, sorry for the lesser pics as they are all taken with the little camera which gets lost in the big long scenes.



Zig zag :clap





In Morochata we found two more girls that smiled, actually the whole town was friendly which was so unBolivia, although shy the two girls that were serving in the restaurant were genuinely interested in our moto, gringo faces and where we were from so we had a nice chat with them and yes I had my picture taken so that was three smiling people we found in Bolivia thus far, with the exponential growth in smiles this place has possibilities.



See in the background in the photo above the other faces looking around the corner at the aliens ... it was funny. :rofl

Two happy kiwis after a nice lunch and friendly people clap:clap



From Morochata the road opened it doors to an array of exciting scenery with spectacular backdrops, to be fair if there is one road worth doing in Bolivia it would be this one, I hope the death road is much more dangerous cos this one was a serious contender, in places it dropped 400 - 500 meters straight down with no stops except at the bottom which would not have hurt because you would be dead.





This made me keep my mind on the job, all the heartache and crap in Cochabamba pushed to one side and fresh mind-food put in via the scenic eye candy.:freaky

Destination Independencia, time to put our feet up for the night and lay the heads down.

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Cheers Andi & Ellen .... https://twomotokiwis.blogspot.com/ Two Moto Kiwis Alaska - Argentina - April 2012 -> Somewhere

As you know Bolivians are the best at blockades and strikes, as it would turn out today was one of those days, as we went to leave town we found our first one, logs across the road and stones etc, they were not going to let us past, Ellen hoped off and went to shift one log and they all got upset so as quick as a flash I rode to the right and over the log, a big fat woman was angry and tried to stop me but her arse was too big for her to be agile and I made it over no problem, Ellen climbed on and we rode of amidst yelling at screaming at us .... not our doings....

Just up the road they had cut a trench across the road and left a part wide enough for people to walk across so we took Maya across no prob, more trees down, more branches down and small road blockades ... just when I thought we were home free we came a cross a truck, a digger and some big rocks and a bunch of angry men pushing BIGGER rocks onto the road.

They tried to stop us, there was just enough space to fit through the last hole before they closed it with a big rock which would have left us in no mans land trapped, again thinking quick I shot for the gap and one of the ****wits threw a rock about 300 mm round into the gap, as he through it it piled in just behind the front wheel, I had enough pace on that the rock rolled smashing into the bashplate and the back wheel going over it .. kinda rodeo style really but I got over, again amidst yelling and stone throwing Ellen got on, I cracked it opened and we took off giving them the ADV salute on exit.

Now I don’t mind if they wonna protest but to take it out on us ... no I don’t think so, not our doing, we made it out thinking it was going to be a long arse day of blockades and trouble, turns out that was the key entry point and we had made it through and had the rest of the road to ourselves.





All was well until we found a wee creek .... full of brown water ... and flowing...bridge pylons only ... no bridge, gezz the day was getting very exciting now.



We picked our way down to the river, picked our way onto the river then picked our way up stream, this all happens at the confluence of two rivers, after where they had joined into one there was no way we could cross so we had to try other tactics.



Now being a keen 4 wheeler for many years I used my river reading and crossing skills to try and get us across as dry as possible, the only other alternative was to go back 70 km into the blockades and bullshit ... no bloody way.



We rode upstream probably 1 km past the confluence so we only had to deal with one river at a time and pick the most braided spot, we made a few small crossings where the river had braided out, finally after 5 - 6 small crossings the main course was in front but river crossing tactics had paid its way, the main stream was an easy crossing only 500 - 600 mm deep ....the last bit had some bigger lumps called Murphy rocks hidden underneath the surface so Ellen came out to help with that section, thankfully only 10 meters or so.





Happy to report we made the main stream easy enough although boots were full to the brim, a small detour around the sinking sand stuff we made the second smaller creek crossings with ease, the last one deeper than we thought but easy doable.



There was a casualty of the crossing tho, our faithful glue bottle full of chain oil drowned never to be seen again, that trusty small bottle travelled 90450 km sitting in the bashplate .....R.I.P glue bottle and thank you for your service over the last two years.

River done and dusted we climbed up to Pucara for lunch and boot emptying much to the amusement of the locals, now some confusion was had with the GPS saying go left and a local guy saying go right, we decided to take the locals advice which sent us on a 65 km one road end goose chase...wanker, so 130 km later we return to the same village, quick retank of fuel and set off before dark encroached, we rode to just prior 6.00 pm to make lost time, Ellen spotted a soccer field so we found the track down to that and set camp for the night.



The video of part of the crossing.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/PKpat1OLUts" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The rest of the road looked similar to this



Mushroom soup if you wonna know and yet is was nice.

Bed early, I was spent as the road was very greasy and we had a HUGE moment with a near highside at about 50 km/hr, the BIGGER worry was the side of the road and more to the point what wasn’t on the side of the road ....it was a long way down.

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Cheers Andi & Ellen .... https://twomotokiwis.blogspot.com/ Two Moto Kiwis Alaska - Argentina - April 2012 -> Somewhere

Heya Vince

All is good and all is starting to go forward, we are in La Paz today and trying to get a new camera, got to make sure it is genuine and not a genuine fake!!!!

More good stuff to come, death road tomorrow then out to Brasil.

Thanks for your kind words mate, appreciated.

Cheers Andi

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Cheers Andi & Ellen .... https://twomotokiwis.blogspot.com/ Two Moto Kiwis Alaska - Argentina - April 2012 -> Somewhere

Heya bigman73

Yeah normally we walk together but just not this day, let your guard down and shit does happen eh.

Never mind, onwards and upwards

Bolivias contribution, for me being on the ground here now for 2.5 months I can totally understand their backward thinking for the clock, for me it symbolizes where they are and where they are heading which is back in time, that article just proves to me I am correct about their neanderthal way of thinking which will see them stagnate or go backwards

Cheers Andi

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Cheers Andi & Ellen .... https://twomotokiwis.blogspot.com/ Two Moto Kiwis Alaska - Argentina - April 2012 -> Somewhere