Ted and gang,

Great thread going. I was just thru Bolivia in August, but it seems like eons ago now that I am back in snow country (Maine)! My son (17) and I were in La Paz Aug 1st I believe it was. We came over from Corumba, Brazil, caught the "Train of Death" to St. Cruz, then hoofed it to Cochabamba, La Paz, then on into Peru.

You will be fine on your moto. We made our 6,000 km trip on Brazilian made XR250s... web site about our trip: Around the Block 2007 |

About Peru, I have lived and traveled there almost all my life, alot of it by moto. Where are you trying to go?

Toby

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http://www.aroundtheblockmotoadventures.com/
'We build the bike (in Peru) for your Epic Ride of South America.'

hola amigos
just reading about all the accidents with luckliy few bodily damages.
i went down on the ruta 34 in las lomitas.formosa.
the bike looked worse than me i thought after getting up,paniers and tankback all over the road.
luckily mario a local stoped and helped to get the bike stored and drove me to the local hospital.only 4 stiches to the left elbow and that with my protection gear,short trousers and a sleeveless shirt.
after a week the bike was fine again,the stiches didn't help a thing,the cut broke off the same night they removed the stiches,luckily no infection.took a nurse plus a doctor to remove the stiches,bloody nurse was blind and did only find two of them.
hopefully no more of these stories.
all the best geri

Hi Everyone that knows me,
Firstly I would like to ask Maria what she means by ¨The Wrong Crowd¨
Dave & Neil are two of the best guys anybody is likely to meet and both very succesful in their proffessions and personally. Neil(the hairy one) a very qualified phsyciatric nurse who has private residential care homes and fantastic farm/holday homes in Devon, Dave the one with 2 degrees works in Dubai if I remember correctly in employment law for large multinational companies and climbs serious mountains already on this trip has climbed Aconcagua also made the 5 day walk round T D paine look like a sunday stroll, Im pretty sure neither are crooks nor malicous characters. At no point did either of these two have a hand on my throttle and at 45 years of age I think I can make my own mind up about speed, which is the reason I had chosen to travel with these two funny fellas who do not spend their time worrying about how much anything costs or who might do them wrong. Perhaps Maria an apology if that is in you would be nice!.
Second
the correct e-mail address for Jose Meyer in Santiago is
adventure@aat.cl
Do get in touch with him first (as finding him is a bugger) if you need repairs on any BMW he is good and very efficient had me in and out the carage in three hours that included
realigning forks
engine oil change
gearbox oil change
resetting abs
sorting bent engine bars
new indicator
making good loose instument housing
plus couple of other little jobs
some of these I would normally have done myself but with still bad shoulder would have been very awkward and all at a very reasonable cost
Look forward to an apology Maria
Duncan

Hi Duncan,

sorry I did not mean to offend any one! If I did I truely apologise! It was more meant as teasing than anything else! But getting sense of humour in a post is sometimes difficult and I don´t often use icons ... maybe I should have! Your friends were indeed lovely people and good fun, no doubt about that, and if you meet them pass them my apology!

Speed in unpaved roads is dangerous for others though, as I found out myself when someone crashed on me after loosing control of his own bike on a bend! I was lucky he did not kill me. I would have preferred he crashed alone! Obviously he had nothing, same for his bike, while mine....

I spoke with Rafael today, good to know you have recovered and that your bike is ok.
For us we are still waiting for spare parts from Germany. It´s been nearly 3 weeks now. The guy who crashed on me was riding way too fast and wiped me off the road, straight onto my front wheel. Forks, triple clamp, rim... all is bent, bearings damaged etc... Not much to do than wait now and hope the parts will turn up before the winter set in!

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Maria

www.franglais-riders.com

you can get on the salar without going into water, and the road there from villazon is a blast. recently put it on the best road in south am thread. loads of laughs. few corrugations tho. road out to potosí good too though not half as much fun. what you on about, chuck?
cheers,
andy.

em wants to know if the button holding out after all your "adventures"?

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www.outforaspin.blogspot.com

you can get on the salar without going into water, and the road there from villazon is a blast. recently put it on the best road in south am thread. loads of laughs. few corrugations tho. road out to potosí good too though not half as much fun. what you on about, chuck?
cheers,
andy.

em wants to know if the button (sewn at ushuaia) holding out after all your "adventures"?

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www.outforaspin.blogspot.com

Hi Ted,
Glad to hear you eventually made it into S.America after all those posts on equipment back in the uk. Sorry that I don´t get on line as much as I want to but Chile is more expensive than the rest of S.A. and the hotels I stay at don´t have internet, but there are cafe so I´ve not got much of an excuse really.:confused1:
I met Duncan in Arica and he told me all about your woes, glad to read that at least you got your docs back.
My guide book tells me that less than 10% of the roads in Bolivia are paved, so beware of the Garmin World Map as it does not see the difference between good and bad roads, and is often wrong. I spent an hour around Oruhu looking for a road that no longer exists!! It has been re-routed along a different route. :confused1: On the map getting to the capital, Sugre, looked simple, 6 hrs from La Paz. I arrived 2 days later at 1.00 in the morning after 1 day of 13hrs and another of 17hrs. Many of the rivers do not have bridges but fords, and most of those I went through had been pretty well washed away by recent bad weather. I have never intended to ride by night, but water washing across a mountain road by starlight can look very attractive (wait while I gag at that lie). Also my f650 only does 250miles on a tank, and on mountain roads in low gear, trying not to drop of a 600 ft cliff at every bend in the dark, I only got 160 miles, so take spare fuel as well. I ended up out of petrol at midnight with the lights of Sugre in front of me, but luckily remembered that I had half a litre in my camp stove. Also don´t trust local advice, 2 old men sent me over a mountain instead of around it, I realised after that they were only telling me that is the way they would go, but probably on foot with a donkey!!

One good road that is not on the World Map is the new R11 (I think it´s R11, but my notes are in my room) that goes from north of Oruhu to Arica, NOT the dirt track that Garmin wants you to take, but about 15 miles further on towards La Paz, there is only a tiny sign there, by a petrol station, but just up that new road is a toll booth and they will confirm. There is a small border crossing into Chile with petrol at the end of the Bolivia section and most roads in Chile are fine, also it´s nice to get warm again, although the desert is a bit boring.

Anyway I´m off to Santiago in the morning to try and get my bike serviced as it is playing me up a bit.

Keep the rubber on the road folks. ( huh - look who´s talking)

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Happy Trails

Stagbeetle

It is not the Journey nor yet the Destination, that is the Prize; it is the people you meet on the way.

Blog on http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/tstories/fairless/

Sometimes you can't beat a good paper map. Unfortunately they are hard to find for Bolivia.

If I remember correctly, the best way from La Paz to Surce is via Potosi, not the direct route, and it's a good tarmac road the whole way (8-10hrs), but there have been major flooding there, so maybe things have changed.

The road to Arica in Chile from Bolivia is halfway between La Paz and Oruro. It's a major trucking route to Bolivia's major port in Chile. It's a big intersection with truck turning bays and is signposted. And also not a bad back way into the saltflats.

Yes you are right about the Potosi road being better, I came back that way and there are one or two new bits that are quite fast, so when coming from La Paz ignore the signposts around Oruhu and your GPS as well and head for Potosi.
Just as a matter of interest my Garmin WorldMap and another computor map also shows a none existant road leading to Yuni just west of Potosi, It looks as though either it got washed away or they dug it up!!

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Happy Trails

Stagbeetle

It is not the Journey nor yet the Destination, that is the Prize; it is the people you meet on the way.

Blog on http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/tstories/fairless/

yeah there's lots of inaccuracies in Garmin's World Map for down there. I have v3. Don't know if v4 is any better. They have the road from Uyuni to Tupiza completely wrong (which is a loverly ride, but sandy), and leaves right from Uyuni not back on the Potosi Rd. And they have the Potosi - Tupiza Rd wrong too and spell Tupiza - Topiza. Plus many other things wrong.

The is another South America map at GPS de Argentina y del ConoSur. Which also has plenty of errors as well. Only they are different ones, so you need to cross check it all, and offend they both manage to completely disagree and still both be wrong.

There are good free street level maps for Argentina, Brazil and Chile on the web. But it sounds like you are heading north.

Also, the road from Potosi to Uyuni (the best Rd into Uyuni, best is a relative term), leaves right from the southern edge of Potosi, not back on the road to wards Oruro. It's not sign posted in town and not easy to find. I have a bunch of tracks and waypoints for all these roads if anyone is interested.