Alaska to Tierra del Fuego: Cheap Aussie Style!!

Kewl. Been wondering.......Hang in there dude!

thanks to the guys at racetech here in santiago for fixing my blown shock on the pig ,the computer here at the hostel sucks arse and wont allow me to upload pictures to my smugmug ,so an update aint good without pics, we all know that ,so tomorrow i am off towards puerto mont and ushuia ,so i will try to update at soem stage ,i have a stack of miles to get on with so cant see it happening unless i find a friendly computer ,the pig has fresh tyres ,new chain and sprockets and a real nice shock rebuild and without a saggy arse now ,so this part should be ok but who knows what will happen

Make sure you eat some seafood empanadas on Chiloe.:dg
And try their licor de oro.

am in valparaiso at a new hostel with a pretty good computer so here goes with a little of the sacred valley,its around 4 or 5 hours from cusco to the hydro power station

there are some nice twisties on the way,bit fresh with the old riggers gloves at 4,500 metres






got to stay at a nice ladies house near the train line at hydro electrica ,but they would not let me catch the 8.30 am train to agua caliente as it s for locals only ,this is the only view you will get of the train ,so off on a nice 12 km walk to machu picchu


finally got to the top ,bit like walking up a 300 story building the last bit,no wonder the fucking spanish never found it

little birdie sitting in this nook ,crying for mama ,hope he found her


interesting pizza oven

after the long haul back to hydro electrica it was a lovely jaunt back down the sacred valley to Cusco in time for the afternoon sunset at the pub on the plaza ,good ole norton rats ,mind you the new venue does not have much going for it except its on the plaza de arms

i ended up going straight to Puno on Lake Titicaca,ran into a pom on a beemer 650 had the usual few beers ,i had a bit of a look around the shoreline


odd place to be doing a bit of band work

relaxing and having a bite to eat on the shore of lake titicaca ,the guy with the boats comes over to scam me for some cash for taking a photo ,i told him to fuck off and go catch some fish if he wants to earn some money

this this little rig was at some protests in puno,not sure what was going on but they were camped at ther plaza de arms


i ended up doing this little loop via sorata ,consata and san pedro to coroico and on to la paz ,seemed like a great idea at the time except it rained for the whole time ,took me 3 days to get from puno to la paz ,i ended up with the flu ,got mud slides and lots of greasy red clay ,oh the joy had some pics some where here but the memory card seems to be having a memory lapse at the moment

Ha ha ha, he's back sweet

Awesome photos, in case you wanted to know the riot truck is a Casspir

Go Dave, always good to read your updates, keep it up mate!

its pissing rain at the moment and i have to wait for my ferry so will try to get up to date ,well it seems i have corrupted my memory card ,could be some thing to do with taking it from one camera to the other ,fuck knows ,i tried some recovery program but that did shit ,seems some of the files are a jumble of numbers and the good ones arent so there you go ,i had some good ones to up in the hills ,there was a mud slide coming down a creek bed looked like red wet cement ,all this from tree felling i would imagine ,so the only alternative was ride 2 days back the other way or build a jump over it ,so in the rain i made a nice jump over this oozy flow and did a run up on the pig and away she went ,travis pastrana would have been happy, with the overloaded pig performing well ,especially with a blown rear shock ,now mind you it was not a 300 footer with a back flip ,maybe 20 feet max ,so off i went to be greeted around a few cornersa by a washed out road and another creek on flow,some guys were in cars and were throwing big rocks in so i pitched in and after 30 minutes we managed to get enough to cross ,luckily that was it just more rain and greasy tracks, but i could put up with that ,the pig stayed upright ,i even lost my pics from the death road ,dunno what happened as i managed to up load one before ,any ideas ,this is on the way to Salar De Uyuni



this is on dusk in a creek bed ,i listened to soem twit who pointed me in the wrong direction ,i ended up it getting dark and up to my arse in sand and bogged ,so let the tyres down and managed to get back on to the right track but by then it was dark and bloody cold


and then came this nice little bit of wire i took this in the morning ,was in no mood to change my tyre and rode 12 km on the edge of the salt flats trying to find colchani in the dark with a flat rear

there are these way cool salt brick hotels out on the edge of the salt flats ,i got to one but it was way out of my budget and the guys from south american motorcycle tours were there ,they felt sorry for me and bought me a beer ,they stayed in luxury in here

i slept out front in my own form of luxury ,i spent the morning trying to get my tyre sorted ,lucky i had that spare ,but the tube ,well you just dont want to know






this was the shitty tube i got in venezuala as a spare ,it lasted all of about 3 hours ,luckily i got my other spare one patched in uyuni

this was a watertank and is now the bar in the hotel i stayed at in san cristobel ,they moved the whole town to build a mine ,pretty cool place ,nice comfy bed after a few dodgy nights out in the boonies

the corrugations were hell with a blown shock ,it either wanted to buck you over the bars or the rear end wanted to try and pass the front end


i was never so glad to see bitumen in all my riding after a few thousand off road with that fucked shocked i was over it ,at least on the tar it was like a pogo stick with it boingin about the place

This picture says it all - hardass Aussie rider bashering up in the dirt,
whilst the Beamer Brigade take it easy inside their plush hotel.

No whining, whinging & waiting for parts to be sent out from Oz!
Good onyer mate for a great gutsy ride.

BTW, had a similar issue with a card that had been used in a Nikon & not reformated
before shooting on a Canon - images are not accessible.

Good luck with the shock, tubes & tyres.
Riding with the rear sub-frame being held up by straps to the yoke,
still has me in awe. :eek1

Safe roads from hereon.
Rhodie

fukin beautiful - blown shock or not - still amazing!

didnt you notice the nice soft smooth looking sand i was camped on ,that was a touch of luxury

wasn't going to mention that you might
be going soft on us...

Give this a look:
http://www.z-a-recovery.com/digital-image-recovery.htm

You're going to stand there and tell me those low-lives who were on the motorcycle tour were kicking it in style in the cool hotel and they let you sleep outside in the street? They bought you a Peruvian Brew and then kicked you out? What kind of motorcyclists were they? HOW DARE THEY?
That's low man, that's low. Shame on them. Not one philanthropic soul even offered a floor in their room for the night? I would have been taking names. That cuts me to the quick. Simply disgraceful. I'm selling my bikes. Enough already!

i was camped in a way worse spot the night before ,at least they got me a beer ,if i remeber correctly i said i was fine and was happy out in the minus 7 desert,so any way i was in abit of a hurry to get to santiago by friday lunch and i only had a few days to get the 2,500 km so off i went , g`that next flat tyre set me back a bit and i had no more spares ,so fingers crossed i said ,got to chile ok only to be pissed off again with the temporary mastercard that only works over the counter ,banks close in chile at 2 pm it seems,shit lucky the servo took my card ,managed to cruise most of the way across the atacama desert but a massive headwind put a bit of a dive in the old fuel economy on the pig and she ran out 30 km short of the next town ,bugger aint gonna get to santiago at this rate

luckily mario came along in his nice mitsubishi and got me and the pig into town ,he insisted after i filled it up i ride the next 200 km with him in the cab and the pig relaxed in the back to admire the view instead of doing all the work,thanks for lunch as well

next day i had to get away early and due to the times i was riding i kept missing banks ,so i was cashless but could manage food and fuel on my card,so i left la serena at 6.30 and had to be at the airport by 12.30 ,plenty of time i thought ,that was until i hit those fucking toll roads which are every where after la serena and no other route ,so it was back to la serena ,mind you the first toll wasnt until 70 km down the road ,i had to wait for a bank to open and had no hope of getting to the airport by 12.30 so any way i finally got to santiago at 4 30 ,and by then my girlfreind who i was supposed to meet on her first overseas trip and ease her into the brutal foreign lands she has never been to ,so kerri had caught the bus and took it upon herself to find a nice flash hotel ,i was impressed ,so what did i do but immediately made her pose for silly photos

cant get anything out of smugmug ,any one else have the same trouble,so cant post pics ,will catch up soon

Although yr smugmug pics are showing up ok, the S/Mug site appears to still be down.