Hello everyone!
My name is Yossi, I'm 23 years old from israel, and i've started travelling by motorcycle in south america a month and a half ago.
I've always dreamed of travelling by bike, but it seemed way too expensive and difficult. in santa cruz in bolivia i looked up prices and found that the best decent japanese bike i could get, a 07 suzuki drz-400s, cost 5000$ which is waaay out of my budget. but after looking around some more, i found a chinese 250cc for only 1350$ including insurance and plates, and decided to go for it. if i'll have to i could just abandon it and carry on.
so far i've done 4400km on the bike- from santa cruz to sucre, tupiza, uyuni, potosi, la paz, rerrunebeque, back to la paz and a few days ago crossed the border to cusco in peru.
obviously the bike has some disadvantages- the engine only produces 25hp, and in the altitudes of the andes (3500m+) it probably only has 15hp, so the maximum speed is only 80 km/h. the bike does not have an oil filter, so i need to change the oil every 1000km. the electrical system is crap and keeps on giving me trouble. but the bike is cheap, the parts are cheap, and everything is easily accessible so i'm learning how to maintain it by myself easily, despite having no prior experience and this being my first bike.
so far i've had a few interesting stories-being stuck at the side of the road twice and being accomodated by generous locals, being arrested for crashing into another motorcycle and injuring two women(thankfully only flesh wounds...), drowning in a river and having a friendly local help me drain the water from the engine and get it to work again, and riding through some amazing scenery.
i'll upload more photos and update this thread as my trip continues, i plan on finishing in colombia in three months, for now i just want to say 2 important things:
1. it is possible for a gringo to exit bolivia with a bolivian vehicle, as long as you tell the person at Aduanas that you will be returning to bolivia in a set number of days (i got a permit for 120 days, but i have no intention of returning to bolivia).
2. the chinese motorcycles are not the most reliable, but they're not too bad(so far!). i've done 4400km without mechanical problems, and i met another colombian dude who did 26000km(!) on his chinese quinqi 250cc without mechanical issues. in any case parts are dirt cheap so changing them isn't very difficult. i'll continue reporting as the miles rack up

for now i'm in cusco for the next two weeks, and then i plan riding to arequipa-nazca-ica-lima-huaraz-trujillo-mancora-(ecuador)guayaquil-quito-(colombia)cali-medellin-bogota-cartagena. if anyone is going by that route in the next three months, let me know. and if anyone has any recommendations for nice roads or scenery- please share!