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**chris** · #31 24 Jul 2017

Going to get this RR going again after a longer break. It needs to be done and will serve another purpose to take up some of the many hours of boredom I have every day where I’m just sitting around whittling my life away.

The summary so far: Between October 2015 and July 2016 I rode a shagged out Gen 1 Kawasaki KLR650 20 thousand miles around South America. From Sao Paulo in Brazil, via Foz to Iguassu, to northeast Argentina to Bolivia, to N Chile via the Altiplano, southern Peru to Lago Titicaca, where the RR has gotten to so far.

What follows will be more fooling around Bolivia and a New Year on a Brazilian beach with a Brazilian with a Brazilian. Then, following the 2016 Dakar race from Uyuni all the way to the podium at Rosario, it’s down the Ruta 3 to Ushuaia and an Antarctic cruise.

After that the minor case of a ride all the way to Santa Marta in Colombia.

I rode around this magnificent continent on an airhead GS around the Millennium, so will continue to mention my views/ thoughts/ pictures of then and now.

Feel free to comment. It’s a bit boring to just post stuff and hear nothing from anyone.

A couple of pictures...

Out of hospital, but sporting a starship trooper brace

Michael Dunlop on his way to winning the 2017 Isle of Man TT Senior race

**chris** · #32 26 Jul 2017

There's now the opportunity to play cat and mouse with disappearing and reappearing images, all based on the fact that Photobucket is messing people around with their extortion attempt. Rather than placeholders demanding a ransom, it's a case of regular placeholders that signify that no image of that name exists in that server location.

Then following a hard refresh (Crtl + F5 in Windows), different images disappear and others "reappear"... I'm running this RR on 3 different forums and different images are visible/ not visible at any particular point in time, all on the same laptop. Also different on my Android phone. Go figure.

I started trying to link to images on my own webserver, but it's a huge faff editing all the IMG codes and reloading everything. Having said that, this option may well become inevitable in the near future.

If everything goes t!ts up, please let me know!

**chris** · #33 26 Jul 2017

The ride to Lago Titicaca

Kicking off this RR again. I spent a night in Colca town before heading towards Lago Titicaca and the border back into Bolivia.

Allegedly the highest Irish pub in the world. No Guinness served. Nor Jameson. Just one other obnoxious tourist in there. The barman was sh!te too, so didn’t think it appropriate to share my money with this establishment

Christmas coming up, so nativity plays need practising

Wonder what this lorry is transporting….

Views en route

Never say you weren’t warned!

Hippies were all around South America. In 2000/1 and in 2015/6. Harmless enough and still drugged up and broke. At traffic lights lots of squeegee merchants and “jugglers”. A lot of them from Argentina. And why not? Their own country is utterly bankrupt. Still can’t play a decent guitar though.

Catching up at the end of the day

In 2015. However many times you visit it, it’s still mystical.

In 2001:

Then (in 2001), traditional dress

And now, replica football shirt. Fuel still comes out of a drum and dispensed with a funnel…

What a view

Same ferry service to the mainland as in 2001

**chris** · #34 28 Jul 2017

Side trip down the now less than deadly Death Road

In 2001 I rode down the dirt track into the Yungas region, part of the Amazon jungle (whose principle crop is coca leaves… processed into a white powder in Colombia...) from the heady heights of the pass above La Paz to the town of Coroico. In those days there was only one road, barely wide enough in places for two 4 wheeled vehicles to pass.

Then and now the obligation is to drive on the left. On every other South American road, people drive on the right. The reason being is that the road hugs the right hand hill side on the way down and drivers of left hand drive vehicles on the down hill journey can see where their left wheels are in relation to the several hundred foot sheer drop-off. In those days some people did die. Indeed, I saw an older man on the side of the road on one corner with a flag, who apparently made it his life’s work to wave his flag to all cars/trucks/bikes to warn them. He had lost his entire family when their minibus rolled off the road!

Today, however it is the most un-dangerous, un-deadly, average gravel track that can be found 100s of times throughout the Andes. Why: An alternative paved road to Coroico on the other side of the valley has been built. The old “Death Road” has been graded and crash barriers have been put in the corners. It’s still scenic if there’s no cloud or rain. Virtually the only traffic is now cycle tours and other detritus like me.

The bicycle tours are still milking it, as can be seen from this backpacking “survivor” pictured below. He seemed surprised I was taking his picture in an ice-cream parlour in La Paz.

I took the following video on the helmet mounted GoPro, in which I might well be taking the p!ss out of said survivors :-) If I’m honest, it was dangerous for me riding up the hill: meeting mainly female, mainly French, mainly heavy weight cyclists head-on who didn’t know their left from their right ;-) Sorry if any offense is caused. It is intentional! ;-)

It’s probably the most boring 21 minutes of footage on the internet. (See 13.25 onwards ;-) ) A lot like the majority of unedited self-published helmet cam footage out there….

2015 Tshirt. Ha ha

2001: Scary? Yes

2015: Not now

https://youtu.be/c2d7a3V1fPs

The sign says it. This picture was taken by an Israeli couple on their honeymoon. The man tried to convince me not to ride the road as it would be too dangerous for me. They had just ridden it up hill.

It took my best smile and random polite platitudes to get through to him that I was going to flatly ignore everything he told me.

2001 view from Coroico

It rained a lot in 2015

Gas station tourist attraction in 2015?

La Paz, when it’s cold isn’t so much fun. It’s a big and dirty metropolis. Taking this picture was the highlight of my stay

**chris** · #35 2 Aug 2017

The Ruta del Che

I found Bolivians in rural areas, away from the big towns and especially away from the usual gringo tourist centres, to be warm-hearted, inquisitive and friendly. Fuel for gringos at Bolivian gas stations is 3 times the price the locals pay. However, if you get it from a drum on the side of the road you get it for the same price the locals pay = 25% more than the regular government price… Often out in the boonies there isn’t a reliable gas station for many many miles, so local entrepreneurship wins the day.

Don't think any of these 3 chaps are/were ever on P=45, P-10' Christmas cards list. ¡Viva la revolucion!

I think I need my GPS to follow the route...

A map to give you an idea where the Ruta de Che is. It's essentially many different dirt roads that lead to the village La Higuera where Che Guevara was killed by the army in 1967 after he entered Bolivia in order to promote his ideals. The roads are all similarly deadly to the hyperbollox "Death Road" as covered in the previous post. Wide gravel/ dirt with marginally tricky bits once in a blue moon. If you ride/drive off the edge, death could possibly come to pass. If you don't, you're pretty much guaranteed to have no fatal mishaps.

La Higuera lives its infamy large

More largess

Y mas. There were a couple of restaurants in the village. They refused to serve me as I was alone and they couldn't be ar$ed to cook for one solo punter. Ended up asking the lady in the grocery store nicely if she could fry me a couple of the eggs she was selling, along with some bread and cola I bought from her.

3 of Che's disciples who were also killed at La Higuera

Pleasant views

Good memories

¡Si!

Vilagrande. Carrying a 10 litre container with which to walk into gas stations in order to buy gas at the locals' price, having parked the bike around the corner. It developed a hole near the bottom shortly after I bought it ;-) The cell phone coverage in Bolivia is better than in England

Pretty big bridge

Over this...

I spent Christmas back with Mika and his mates in Samaipata, but lost most of the pictures from there as my phone didn't react so well to being dropped in the Atlantic Ocean off Brazil. Probably a good idea, as far too much alcohol was involved celebrating the birth of the Baby Jesus :-)

I flew back to Sao Paulo and the Brazilian coast for New Year to meet with a dear friend, Simone. A pleasant way to see in 2016...

**chris** · #36 5 Aug 2017

Chasing the 2016 Dakar Race: Intro and Overview

Here's a bit of info about what the first half of 2016 would hold for me. Firstly to follow the Dakar for a (long) ways, then take a cruise to Antarctica before the minor case of riding all the way from Ushuaia to Cartagena.

By way of an introduction, here's another screenshot from my gps tracklog

This part of the route takes me from Santa Cruz de las Sierra in Bolivia to the Altiplano at Uyuni and then chasing the 2016 Dakar race via NE Argentina (the prettiest and least commercialised part of the country, in my opinion) to the finishers' podium at Rosario. A bl00dy long way in not a long time. So many hours at 55mph, half of it with a very badly mangled left knee. Thank God for the highway pegs and front saddle bags so that I couple ride with my leg laying straight out on top of it.

I'm going to divide this part of the report into multiple sections (pretty much by the day), as I have quite a few shiney pictures to show.

The official 2016 Dakar map. The web link is at Route: Dakar

Please note this is the 2016 event won by Toby Price, not 2017, where Britain's Sam Sunderland showed the rest how it was done....

A few taster pictures:

Drifting around a curve at the Salar de Uyuni

Hanging with the Bolivian police

Malle Moto, luxury style. Having tomorrow's road-book marked up for you, while you clean the airfilter. I had sneaked into the overnight bivouac at La Rioja

The Top 3 bikes at the podium at Rosario. I also bullsh!tted my way into the VIP area at the podium in order to be in the right place to take this and many other pictures

**chris** · #37 7 Aug 2017

As it's a bit of a faff posting ride reports on multiple forums, an executive decision has been made that all further posts will only be posted at

The Wife takes on Chlamydia. A South American Retrospective | Adventure Rider

I also find the black background and light coloured writing more aesthetically pleasing.

(And on UKgser...

and with links and picture updates via Facebook)

Currently just loaded a video at post #72