Asheville to Argentina

Getting ready to celebrate the new year with a stick of dynamite and a bag of ammonium nitrate. All can be had for under $2 in Bolivia – who knew?

Yesterday I decided to head over to Cordova instead of Mendoza. From here I can ride to Puerto Madryn where there is a huge wildlife park with penguins and whales and such, as well as an overnight stop off for the Paris to Dakar. But when I left I had no idea the road would be so boring. Nearly all day without even a curve. The most amazing thing is that I started this leg of the trip five days ago in terrain like this:

And last night, pulling into town, I saw this:

Tom Waits sings: “They say if you get far enough away, you’ll be on your way back home”

I think got far enough away….

In this part of the Andes there’s a very thin veil between Catholicism and the old pagan gods. There are shrines dedicated to the Virgin mother everywhere, but really they’re shrines to Pachamama. Its a complicated kind of a mix, a little for the Virgin and a lot for the Mama. The people leave little gifts of candy, flowers, candels and bottles of water. I’ve been looking for a good one to take a picture of and yesterday I came on this whopper:

All those bottles are filled with water as an offering. These folks really love their mama… If you look closely, you can see three aisles and at the back of each, there is a shrine like this:

and behind the cage is a statue of Pachamama disguised as  the Virgin Mary.

My little attempt at summiting South America reminded me of a night out drinking. When you first go out, all your friends are there, the conversation is interesting and everything sparkles, but as the night wears on, the crowd dwindles and your left alone with an annoying acquaintance who keeps drunkenly mumbling the same phrase over and over. “It’s flat. There’s a bush over there… It’s flat. There’s a bush over there… It’s flat. There’s a bush over there.” You quit listening but they drone on like a fly at the window. As they drift from consciousness something catches your attention. You think you hear a change in the refrain. “Purple mountain in the distance, smoke – could be a fire…” but the change of rhythm is just a trick of your own mind, the circle of words and scenes repeated over and over until they loose meaning and there is no beginning or end, just your annoying, unchanging acquaintance, the flat desert.

And with that, I’m left with where to go from here. More desert on Ruta 40 South? Should I go East through the desert to Cordova and Buenos Aires? Or should I engage in the insanity that will be the New Year and the start of the Paris to Dakar race (being held in Argentina because of terrorism in North Africa)?

Instead, what I would love right now is to be faced with trying to decide between cooking my New Years Day collards with jowls or smoked neck bones. Should I make ribs or a loin? Do I have enough pecan and apple wood to keep the smoker going all day? These are the kinds of questions whose answers leave your lips shinny and make your house smell good for days. They bring old acquaintances out from the woodwork for sips from the mason jar, a few of them happily overstaying their welcome, lost in the backyard and wishing you happy new year over and over and over…

“…sleepy ditch”

The colors through this mountain range were amazing.

Did I find Big Rock Candy Mountain?

Shrines dotted the roadside

As well as graves

The only trees here grow on peoples farms. I stopped for lunch under one and as I ate, I heard whispering behind the wall I was leaning on. These guys snuck-up on me! For the price of a Wherthers Original, I got two big smiles.

A llama house

Argentines, in this part of the country at least, don’t believe in bridges. The road goes down into the river, and it comes back up. Its funny, because this used to really scare me. After riding the Altiplano, I look and think nothing could be as bad as that, so I down shift, stand up and throttle through.

…. and after this, nothing but flat for days.

Yesterday, between the two small towns of Cafayate and Cachi I ran into a few people I had met before. These are middle-of-nowhere kind of places and I was really surprised. The first was a couple that I met in Abancay Peru when Shannon and I were trying to get him into a helicopter. They have converted a VW bus to biodeseil and are driving it from their home in Mexico City to Terria Del Fuego. Very nice folks and even though we didn’t spend much time together in Peru, it was little reunion. Here’s their website (spanish) to promote alternative fuels and conservative living: laboratorioenmovimiento.com

Here they are leaving Mexico City

A bit  later, really in the middle of nowhere, because I was on an empty stretch of dusty dirt road, I saw group of people beside two cars. I thought there might have been an accident or something, so I slowed down and turned my engine off. Coasting in I recognized one of the group as an Aussie I had met in the Altiplano. When we first met he was traveling with a tour group out of Uyuni and we had talked a while by one of the lakes. Totally random re-encounter and we had a laugh about it.

So, lets see what who I’ll meet today. The highest pass in South America is about 90 km north on Ruta 40. I’m going to ride up and check out the view. Simon and Mike went to Tocuman yesterday for repairs, so I’m on my own till we meet back up down the road.

I’ll be MIA for a few days, so Mom – DON’T CALL THE EMBASSY!

The whole crew in reunited in Salta

My first wheely!

The back road to Salta

The road to Cafayate kept getting better and better

With this little side hike into the Devils Throat

And these weird rock formations

And ended up in wine country.

Just for the hell of it I rode up to Cachi.

And got another full day of dirt with crazy spires of rocks.  This is the stuff I love!

Hi everyone and Merry Christmas from somewhere in Northern Argentina! With the green grass and lots of palm tress, the Christmas spirit is MIA. But thats Ok because being so far away from family and friends it will pass like just another day. So have seconds on egg-nog and maybe pour a little extra gravy on those taters for me!

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A long time ago, when Wanda was queen of the house I lived in, she put up a tree for Christmas and decorated it just so. One night when she was at work I replaced the angel at the top with this little Mexican devil I had. The red devil had a patch of grey rabbit fur for chest hair and putting him at the top of tree made me laugh. But not Wanda. She was having none of it.

So, in the spirit of Christmas, and annoying Wanda, here’s a little devil that lives down in a mine we visited in Potosi Bolivia. The miners bring him gifts of cigarettes, booze and coca leaves in hopes that he’ll help them find a fat vein of silver.  You can print out his picture and add it your own Nativity, then put shots of rum and cigarette buts around his feet. If he favors you, you might find some silver lining your clouds too.

(I added a page with a link to a movie Simon shot while we were riding the Salar. Check it out! -and let me know if it doesn’t work for you, I’ve had some trouble with video before)

Click for the full gallery of photos

The Salar. A huge salt plane in southern Boliva that streches for miles.

The road to Uyuni

The first night we camped on an island of rock and sand in the sea of salt

The second day the Salar gives way to the Altiplano and the roads turn to deep, soft sand. We rode for days in first gear averaging 15 miles an hour. I fell seven times…

Setting up camp the second night out

In the midst of the destert there are salt ringed lakes with flocks of flamingos

And wind sculped rocks

The view from our camp the fourth night. Stark and beautiful.

The border between Bolivia and Chile

Today we fire up the bikes and enter the Salar, the largest salt flat in the world. I’ve got a full tank of gas and twenty liters of extra fuel strapped to the back of the bike. At 8:00 a.m. when the market opens we’re going to buy enough canned tuna and pasta to last a week, and our rag-tag band of five people on four bikes will leave on what could be the most amazing leg of this whole trip. (In Potosi we picked up Didi and Martina, a German couple riding two up on a DR 650)

We’re late in leaving because December rains usually cover the plane with water, but we did a little recon yesterday and it was dry. With that information, our plan is to enter from the east, and in about the center, where there are “islands” or raised areas of sand where cacti grow, we’ll spend the night, and in the morning turn south.

South of the Salar is a volcanic zone with geysers, hot springs, stone sculpted by wind, and colored lakes where, in November Flamingos flock to breed. If we’re lucky, they’ll still be there. From there we’ll cross the border from Bolivia into Chile and finish this little excursion in the colonial town of San Pedro de Atacama. The whole trip should be about five or six days through very remote territory, so hang on St Christopher, we’re gonna ride like the devil!

A few photos from the train graveyard on the edge of the Salar:

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I wasn’t able to upload the post above before we left. Its a long story that goes something like this: After visiting five internet places in the town of Uyuni, none would let me plug a USB flash drive into their computers so I got frustrated and stormed into the desert.

We spent five days camping our way across the Salar and Altaplano, sun burnt, cold and happy. My camera broke on the salt flats and now I’m going through everyone elses photos to pull together a post of the expedition within our adventure. I should have it late tomorrow.

Click here for the full gallery of photos

I’ve heard people talk about “road magic”, and yesterday while coasting down into La Paz, out of gas, I got a good taste of it. We’ve been riding the south western side of lake Titicaca going from Puno in Peru, through Copacabana and on to La Paz, Bolivia. The mid-point on this leg of the trip is Copacabana. It sits on a peninsula that stretches out from Peru far enough into the lake that it’s in Bolivia. Crossing the border here was easy and stress free, but the  Bolivian government isn’t happy with Americans right now. Mike and I had to pay $135 for a visa and fill out quite a bit of paperwork. Simon, on the other hand, is a brit, and he breezed through, signing a paper or two and paying nothing.

Copacabana is a small town with a little crescent moon beach. It feels a bit like the Bolivian Riviera with hotels, restaurants and shops lining a paddle boat cluttered beach.

We spent a nice night here and in the morning set out for La Paz. The road twisted across the top of brown hills affording views of the lake on both sides with the sky and lake a deep blue and the air crystal clear. It was a great day to ride.

Dipping down into a small village we caught a ferry across the lake, and keeping the snow capped mountains to our left, we rode on toward the capital.

Simon riding onto the ferry.
Mike, who, if you remember, we first met in Belize, is riding a KTM 950 Adventure, the same bike that Shannon had. He gets about 150 miles out of a tank of gas before the reserve light comes on, and can ride about 90 miles more. Simon and I are on Kawasaki KLR 650’s, smaller bikes with bigger gas tanks. We don’t have gas gauges. Instead, at each fill-up we reset the trip odometer. Knowing that we usually get about 230 miles from a tank, we keep an eye on our mileage and pull over for gas when we get close. As a safety, when the tank gets low the bike will sputter and I can reach down and put it on reserve. I’ve ridden for forty miles on reserve and I’ve never run out of gas.

Leaving the village on the mainland side of the lake Mike was on reserve and we were on the lookout for a gas station. We passed through a number of towns but few had gas stations and those that did were out of fuel. After about forty miles of riding and finding nothing I figured we needed to do something quickly. In most small towns there is someone who sells gas out of barrels, but this is expensive and you never know the quality. I figured it was time to pull over and Mike could buy a few gallons from one of these tiendas.

Ahead I could see a village with a church tower. I was riding in front and thought that we would head toward the church, which meant a central plaza and people to ask about where to buy gas. I had my left blinker on when I saw about 10 motorcycle cops stopped on the right. These guys could be helpful, and maybe a laugh to talk with, so I dipped to the right and cut my engine off. They were in front of a little shop door and as it happens, just finishing buying gas. They laughed, either at us or with us, I’m not sure which, and told the lady running the shop to charge us $20 a gallon, then rode off. Mike bought about two gallons of white gas in a jar. It looked like moonshine and he paid nearly ten dollars for it, but we were stuck and it worked.

Pulling out of this little town, I looked down and my trip odometer read 202 miles. I had about twenty miles before I needed to switch to reserve and another forty or fifty before I ran out. With La Paz twenty miles away, I was in good shape. As this thought was running through my mind, my bike lost power and sputtered. Hmm, odd. But I switched to reserve and kept riding.

We pulled into about 4 more gas stations, all without fuel, before cresting a mountain and seeing La Paz spread out across a deep valley. Mike and Simon thought it was beautiful and stopped for pictures. I didn’t like it and stayed on my bike sulking. I’m not fond of big cities and big foreign cities mean a stressful mess to figure out. They’re just too much for me to deal with. But from here we could see the road winding into the center, and as we started down it I watched with surprise while my tachometer dropped to zero. I was out of gas after 14 miles on reserve! But it was down hill into the city. Lets ride the luck and see what comes our way.

Simon and Mike passed me. I didn’t want to worry them, so I didn’t signal that I had a problem. I was doing alright until the road started to level out. Pulling to the side I pushed with one foot like a skateboard, but that didn’t last long. As I got off to push, Mike pulled over and helped. We pushed the bike about 20 yards to the next down hill and I started coasting again, even passing a bus in the left hand lane. I hit one more slow spot where Simon helped push, and as I coasted into town on a wing and a prayer, there was a gas station to the right, shiny, yellow and open! Rolling up to the pump I said to the girl “Fill-R-Up!” and she filled my empty tank with “Special Gas” (whatever that means) for less than Mikes two gallons cost him, but I haven’t told him that part yet…