After our turnoff we continued for anther 30km before we had a short break on an idyllic place with a river running behind us.

When we stopped I notice the amount of bull dust on the side of the road, we didn’t notice it when we were riding (I drew a smiley in, hard to see on the picture).

Not long after that we arrived at our next turnoff, the route 231, which is nothing special just a connection road to the border.

Here we decided to see what the oncoming cars would doing if we both drop our bikes at the same time. As it turns out, they were very surprised but helpful.
Seriously though, here’s what actually happened: There was an oncoming car playing chicken with us. He didn’t move to the side and used the whole middle of the road for himself. To make it more interesting he even started to get a bit faster. So we moved over to the side…  …remember the pervious comment about the bull dust?

Yup. I stopped the bike and put my foot down to stop – using the front break for the last bit – which turned out to be a big mistake. So the bike stopped but I couldn’t hold it, and I dropped it. Sigrid was just behind me, and figured we’re putting our bikes down and so dropped her bike as well. Unfortunately she twisted her ankle in that action. Next time she should pay attention I thought, but later on I found the reason for the accident. Her Guardian Bell got stuck (for explanation see last post), so the Evil Road spirit could get grip on the bike again! You see?!? Definitive proof that the spirit really exists. I fixed the bell, so we should be safe from more accidents. This time it was hard to take a picture since we were both on the ground. 😉
Below are the bikes just standing up again.

Anyway, the driver from the following car stopped and helped us get the bikes up. After checking everything was ok and making sure that nothing broken on Sigrid’s leg, we told them that we were embarrassed but that everything was fine. We jumped on our bikes and continued the next 20km to Futeleufu, this time without dropping or stopping.:)
Sigrid felt her ankle swelling so we booked into the next hostal and started the ice treatment. Hopefully nothing else on her foot is damaged; it is hard to see at the moment.

Side note,… the weather forecast said fine for the next three days, then its starts to rain for the next couple of days before the first snow comes, interesting times….

 

Date: 25/03
City: Los Angeles , Chile
Kilometres ridden: 512
Cumulative kilometre: 39625
Street: two lane highway
Weather: sunny, fresh/warm

The Carretera Austral is a road in Chile (Route 7) that connects the most southern cities with the rest of Chile. Most of the road is dirt road and partially connected by a ferry service. That is the only way to connect the different sections of the road. When we left Santiago in the morning, the bikes felt a bit wobbly since we got new tyres fitted. So we decided to take it easy today and ride a bit slower. I kept as well an eye on my new tool pipe too, the one filled with heavy tools that I fitted yesterday. In case you’re wondering: the bell on the tool pipe is a Guardian Bell. As the legend has it,  Evil Road Spirits have been latching themselves onto motorcycles for as long as there have been bikes on the road. These Evil Road Spirits are responsible for mechanical problems and bad luck along a journey. It is said that by attaching a small bell onto your motorcycle, the Evil Road Spirits will become trapped inside the bell where the constant ringing drives them insane, making them lose their grip until they fall to the ground. Ever wonder where pot-holes come from? Now you know! Falling deamons!
And we found plenty of evil spirits which lost their grip during our trip, so the legend must be true 🙂. By the way, the bell works best when purchased by a friend or loved one, so Sigrid bought one for me and I bought one for Sigrid.

Anyway, we arrived in Los Angeles, Chile, without any incidents and finally we managed to stay in love hotel, where the rooms are normally booked by the hour. We managed to get a good price for the whole night, including breakfast and after a long day ride and recommendation from other bike rider, we took it. Here is Sigrid parking her bike, before we closed the door. The arrow on the right door is illuminated during the night, the inside one is green and outside one is red, so that are no mix up in the nights with the rooms and what happen behind these gates stays behind these gates 🙂

By the way, we survived the day with new back tyres without any incident, Yippee!.

 

Date: 26/03
City: Puerto Montt , Chile
Kilometres ridden: 514
Cumulative kilometre: 40139
Street: two lane highway
Weather: sunny, fresh/warm

Today we passed an area of Volcanos and lakes. We decided not to stop here since we want to get to Ushuaia before it gets bitterly cold there.

At the end of the day we would leave the Pan American highway to travel in the Caraterra Austral. This part of the Pan Americana was one of the best roads that we had on our trip so far.

After the last two days, the new tyres were broken in and didn’t feel wobbly any more. So when we arrived in Puerto Montt, I was happy, we had a survived a tyre change without an incident the next day or the day after. 😀
Javier (the Chilinien bike rider) told us we should try a special dish in Puerto Montt, which was best served  in the harbour area, so we did. On the way to the harbour area we had a great sunset.

When we arrived at the harbour we found plenty of restaurants. So after comparing the prices we picked one and here is a picture of the meal (that was for two people. It is chicken, pork and seafood, which you put into a bowl with soup (if you like) or eat it as it is. The portion were huge so we struggle to finish it, but we managed  😀

Date: 27/03
City: Puerto Montt , Chile
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 40139
Street: n/a
Weather: sunny, fresh/warm

We noticed in the morning that we hadn’t got a 3rd party motorcycle insurance for Argentina, which is compulsory and should be organized before entering Argentina. To keep it short, there is no way that we could get a 3rd party insurance in Chile, since our bike are not registered in Chile and we are not living in Chile. It took us the whole day and visits to a dozen insurance agencies to find that out. The problem is that we can’t buy insurance in Argentina over the internet either; we have to be there to get it. So we decided to approach the border and hope that an insurance agent is there, if not, we go into the next bigger town and try to get some there. Tomorrow we will leave and ride the first bit of the Carrtetera Austral.

Date: 28/03
City: Hornopiren , Chile
Kilometres ridden: 99
Cumulative kilometre: 40238
Street: On lane highway, single lane dirt
Weather: sunny, fresh/warm

Got up early, had breakfast and set off for our first bit of the Carretera Austral, then to take our first ferry and continue to Hornopieren where we would stay overnight to get on a ferry at the next day. The first bit of dirt road was not too bad, it was mostly road works having a detour through dirt. Arriving at the ferry, there was a long queue which would take forever to get over the other side. So I ask a guy if we on our motos could get in front, he said no, but we could come further to the front and wait on the side. The first ferry arrived and was filled with petrol trucks only…Hmm this could take a while…But the second ferry took a good number of vehicles and …. us.

I liked the landscape on the ferry ride, on the other side the dirt road was waiting.

The first bit was nice compacted dirt, which to our surprise turned again into tarmac just to end on a road block.

We waited for 30..40 minutes before we continued. The road was from loose gravel, to compacted gravel and eventually to wet clay at one patch. We managed it but it was not as easy. Tomorrow I will reduce the tyre pressure, which I guess will help. After 90 minutes we arrived in Hornopieren, that brings our average to 25km/h. We finally found a very nice hotel for a good price and it had even Wifi. Have a look how the sunset looked from our hotel.

At night three more bikers arrived, Andre and Tony from Brazil and Neston from Argentina. All three just arrived with the ferry from Caleta Gonzalo, which we will do in the opposite direction tomorrow. After dinner we sat together and talked about their experience and route in front of us.

Date: 29/03
City: Chaiten, Chile
Kilometres ridden: 60
Cumulative kilometre: 40298
Street: single lane dirt
Weather: cloudy, fog, rain fresh/warm

We said good bye the two Brazil and one Argentina motorcyclist after breakfast and around we bought the ferry tickets around 10AM. The ferry ride took four hours and the landscape was great.

We kept an eye on the weather, since the clouds got thicker and turned into fog and when we left the ferry the fog turned into light rain.

The light rain was no problem since we had only ten km of dirt road until the next ferry. When we arrived at the next ferry the rain has stopped. This ferry was a lot smaller than the previous one, so not all vehicles would fit on it. We were lucky and arrived early enough to score a place.

The next ferry just arrived when we were leaving, so there was not a long wait time for the other cars.

We started to see some bits of sky in the clouds, so we were hopeful that it wouldn’t rain anymore.

When left the ferry we decided to ride the next 50km to Chaiten, we had enough time before the sun would set. This part of the Carreterra Austral started with very coarse gravel, which did scare us quite a bit. The bike was dancing like crazy, but as Wombat said -put your elbows out and let the bike do whatever it does, so we did and it worked. To make our ride a bit more challenging, it started to rain. Now we also had to watch out for the soil sections, which were like soap. We arrived roughly two hours later in a hotel and rented a nice cabaña, where we could dry our close and sit in a warm room. The good thing was, we just dried the bikes with a cloth and they looked clean again J. Below is a picture from our map, which was packed into the BMW jacket, watertight pocket. As we found out, the pocket is watertight from the outside but not from the inside, great.

Apparently the rain should stop and the weather tomorrow should be sunny, so we aim for 150km distance (on dirt), we will see how that goes.

Date:30/03
City: Futeleufu , Chile
Kilometres ridden: 152
Cumulative kilometre: 40450
Street: single lane dirt
Weather: sunny/cloudy, warm

The rain really stopped, so we packed the bikes, filled them up and had a look at some houses which were not occupied since the Volcano eruption and the later flood in May 2008. The house and the car below were in the main street, it looks like the plants are growing well in the car.

We had a look at some other houses, on one the floor was just lifted up, at in the other you could just see the top of a greenhouse.

The two story house looked more like a single story house with a cellar full of ash. The wall was build to keep the ash in place, so people can later on relate to what happened here.

.

So all goes well, we will leave the Carretera Austral in 100km and turn towards the Chilenien/Argentinian border. First we came across this long bridge. We really love the bridges, particular the long once, since they are mostly paved J.

After 80km we arrived at our turnoff point.

I was happy; we rode the Carretera Austral without any incidents and that with our limited dirt bike skills. We had only 77Km to go until we would arrive in Futaleufu, our goal for tonight.

Date: 21/03
City: Santiago, Chile
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 39113
Street: –
Weather: sunny, warm

We went to the bike shop and discussed what we’d like to have done with Antonio,
the owner. He spoke English and could translate it into Spanish for his mechanic, which made it much easier for us. 🙂

Then we went to a small hardware store nearby to buy some material for building another tube to hang in front of my bike. I hope that all my heavy tools will fit into it and that the bike gets a bit less top heavy. The guy was interested in my small project and helped to come up with some solutions to lock the tube.

After we bought the material we left it at the workshop so we didn’t have to carry it all today. When we went back, Gabriella told us that there are difficulties in getting the back tyres today and that they could only be delivered and fitted tomorrow evening. So we attempted to extend our stay in the hostel. However it was fully booked for tomorrow, as we found out. Before we left the workshop I had a brief look what Boris the mechanic was doing on our bikes J.

Then we walked to the next restaurant with WiFi and looked for other hostels close by. All this couldn’t be done without brain food, so I had a nice beer before we walked to the next subway station.

We found out that a trip only costs US$1.50, which was ok. The train station looked very clean and relatively new and so did the train.

You can walk in the wagons from one end to the other end, which felt a bit odd.

Arriving close to our hostel we organized another hostel for our stay tomorrow night, so we’ll move tomorrow around lunchtime and pick  up the bikes at night.

Date: 22/03
City: Santiago , Chile
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometres: 39113
Street: –
Weather: sunny, warm

Not much happen today, we moved hostels, Gabriela had organized the rear tyres and Boris fitted them, so our bikes were ready to get picked up.

After all the problems that we had after changing tyres, I looked at the tires a bit more careful. They are fitted in the right direction, the valve was straight, the valve nut was not too tight and the tyre pressure was correct on both bikes and the rear axle was set to the same position on both sides. As it turned out, Boris had the same bike we had, so he knew exactly how to service it correctly J
At the end the bikes even got a wash, they looked so much better after that.

Date: 23/03
City: Santiago, Chile
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometres: 39113
Street: –
Weather: sunny, warm

In the morning I booked my visa fee for Argentina which has to be done online BEFORE we enter Argentina. This fee only needs to be paid by US, Canadian and Australian citizens, since these countries also ask for a fee from Argentinian citizens. Unfortunately I made a mistake when entering my passport number, so I sent a mail to ask if that could be rectified. Then I started to build the new tool box and nearly all tools fit in.

I had to stop since we had an appointment with Javier, a fellow motorcycle rider we met in the workshop. He had some suggestion for our trip to Ushuaia, particularly about the Carreterra Austral. He picked us up on the train station and we went to his flat to have a look at maps and get some more info about places to see, the ferry, accommodation and road condition. He had so much information and suggestion that we had to trim them otherwise we wouldn’t arrive in Ushuaia this year J

After we have planned the next couple of days, we went out for dinner. He showed us some nice places in Santiago.


and we ended up in a market, which looked very similar to our central market in Adelaide. The meal that we had was great and reasonably cheap, it was so tasty that we forgot to take a picture of it. In this market there were some fish stalls and when we finished they started to pack up. Have a look what we found in one of the empty fish trays (right picture), I guess the cat liked the smell of it.

Javier brought us to the train station where we took a picture before we said good bye.

Date: 24/03
City: Santiago, Chile
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometres: 39113
Street: –
Weather: sunny, warm
Today we took a maintenance day. I fitted all the tools into the new toolbox and at night we went to the Plaza de la Aviación just to see the water fountain by sunset and at night.

Tomorrow we will start our trip to Carretera Austral.

Date: 15/03
City: Iquique, Chile
Kilometres ridden: 311
Cumulative kilometre: 37267
Street: Highway
Weather: sunny, hot

A wile after leaving Arica we saw some sculptures in the middle of the desert, no sign, no explanation. So I took a picture with the GPS position to have a look later on. It turned out that these sculptures represent some watching guardians.

So we parked the bikes and walked to them and took a couple of pictures. The rest of the ride was normal, nothing special. The road reminded us of the Nullarbor plains.

We arrived in Iquique in the early afternoon and spent for two hours searching for reasonable accommodation, it seems to take longer here in Chile. Just before sunset we walked to the beach. I was fascinated by the high mountains surrounding the city.


Date: 16/03
City: Iquique , Chile
Kilometres ridden: –
Cumulative kilometre: 36956
Street: –
Weather: cloudy/sunny, warm

Today we had a day off. We organized things and caught up with the blogs. In the afternoon we went to a coffee shop called – Oma’s Ecke – and had some coffee and cake.

.

Around sunset we went again to the beach again. I love to walk on the beach and watch sunsets 🙂

Date: 17/03
City: Antofagasta , Chile
Kilometres ridden: 420
Cumulative kilometre: 37687
Street: Highway
Weather: sunny, fresh

Here is a picture of our bikes parked in the hotel in Iquique.

 

Nothing special today, we continued to ride through the Atacama Desert. Around lunch time we had a short break before we continued to Anofagasta.

When we arrived, it took us more than two hours to get some affordable accommodation….

Date: 18/03
City: Chanaral , Chile
Kilometres ridden: 406
Cumulative kilometre: 38093
Street: Highway
Weather: sunny, fresh

Today we had a look at the Desert Hand, just 70km south from Antofagasta.

A bit later an oncoming truck driver warned us with hand signals we did not understand. But then we came across an accident that must just have happened. A truck and the bus driver which arrived on the scene first took care of the traffic. The driver of the truck which turned over seemed to be ok, he was just sitting in the shade on the right hand of the truck.

It was a bit scary thought to witness an accident in the middle of nowhere. We arrived in Chanaral around 4PM and found a hotel relatively easy.

Date: 19/03
City: La Serena, Chile
Kilometres ridden: 505
Cumulative kilometre: 38598
Street: Highway
Weather: sunny, fresh

Today we planned a long day; we’ll try to ride a bit more than 500km. We started relatively early, only to get stuck at two major road works. On the first one we stayed for fifteen minutes, which was ok. Not long after that we hit the second one and here we stayed for nearly half an hour, then we finally got going. During the ride we had to make space for some wide loads from time to time.

I thought we would fit under the load, but Sigrid thought we should wait at the side 🙂
Shortly after this, the road turned now into a two lane highway which was great. It was the first time in Central and South America that we could get to a 100km/h average. The disadvantage was that we turned inland and it began to feel freezing cold, even the when the sun was shining. So we stopped and got our Gerbin’s out. I love our Gerbins.

From now on we continued comfy and toasty warm for the rest of the day. We found some accommodation in La Serana not long after we arrived. There was a hotel Berlin, but unfortunately it was closed. So we settled for a small hostel and I started to oil the chain when I realised that my clip on the master link was gone (hard to see, but the missing clip should be just on the link under the foot peg).

.

Unbelievable!  I had clip master links on my previous bikes and never lost a single clip. This time we had just fitted the new chain with the clip in Belize, which was 12000km earlier.
Anyway, I was happy that the chain had not come undone! I used the clip from our spare chain and fitted it, I love my spare parts 🙂
Tomorrow I will have to keep a close eye on the chain.

Date:20/03
City: Santiago , Chile
Kilometres ridden: 515
Cumulative kilometre: 39113
Street: Two land highway
Weather: sunny, fresh

After the easy ride yesterday, we decided to go all the way to Santiago today. On a two line highway it should be easy to do. Below a picture of our accommodation in La Serena.

After the first 200km we made a stop at a petrol station, our backsides strongly suggested it🙂
Here we meet Alex, a Dutch bicycle rider.

He just came up from Ushuaia and was on his way to Alaska, his timeframe is around 18 month. That’s almost the same time that it took us. Having to cross the Andes a couple of times I think that it’s really gutsy!

We continued to the outskirts of Santiago when I saw the first electrical recharge station.

We arrived at the GPS coordinates and to my surprise the workshop was really there.

I love GPS coordinates, particular in Central and South America! There the street names are often spelled in all the different permutation that you can think of. Or they just renamed the street. This had often resulted in us not being able to find the street at all with our GPS. Anyway, we started to look around for accommodation but couldn’t find anything that was within our budget. So we decided to ask at the workshop for help and Gabriela, who spoke good English, made some calls and organized an accommodation for us. But it took us nearly two and a half hours to get there. The hardest part was to find streets going in the right direction since most of them are one way streets. First we thought the one way streets were alternating; well sometimes they are, sometimes not. In one case only the fifth street allowed us to turn into the direction that we needed. Anyway we arrived relatively late but still got the room. The area around our accommodation had a nice feeling, so we went out for dinner.

Tomorrow we organize for our bike to be serviced and to get new tyres. It was not clear if we could get the back tyre within a day, we will have to wait and see.

Date: 13/03
City: Tacna, Peru
Kilometres ridden: 426
Cumulative kilometre: 36899
Street: windy, tarmac
Weather: sunny/cloudy, warm/cold

Today we were going towards the Peru/Chile border, and would see how far we’d get. We started to climb and the landscape started to get more arid. The trees turned into scrubs and we could see some mountain peaks covered in snow. Hopefully we don’t have to go there!


When we arrived at our pass at 4600m the scrubs turned into sand. We continued on a plateau of sand dunes and beach sand -we felt like we were the only people on earth.

When I was looking into the mirror, I noticed that the scenery in the mirror looked even better than in front. I mounted the photo camera in such a way that it was looking into the rear mirror. When I took the pictures I noticed they look like Sigrid is riding on the other side of the road (like in Australia).

A couple of hours later we started to descend and it got warm again. We arrived in Tacna, the closest town to the border, we checked into a nice hotel with easy parking. There we planned our border crossing. Looks like this is one of the borders were we don’t need to buy anything (insurance, fumigation …) and don’t need any copies of our paperwork. That sounds too good to be true, we’ll see tomorrow.

Date: 14/03
City: Arica, Chile
Kilometres ridden: 57
Cumulative kilometre: 36956
Street: Highway
Weather: sunny, hot/warm

We got up early and left the hotel at 8 AM with only 20km to the border. We finished the Peruvian paperwork in thirty minutes, it was a breeze. Then we entered Chile, there were more queues, so it took a bit longer.

In Chile was the first time that the Aduana (customs) didn’t believe that our number plate don’t have a number on them, just our first names! But after to-ing and fro-ing involving some superiors we got the all ok and could enter Chile. Hello Chile, here we are !

After riding 32km in Chile we decided it was enough for the day and that we would stay tonight in Arica. We had a bit of trouble to find reasonably priced accommodation – this will probably be a consistent problem in Chile – but after looking around for an hour we found one. Close to our accommodation there was a mall where we found an ATM and got our first Chilean money.

When we walked through the mall it felt like home. At night we went for a walk through the town down to the beach to have a look at the sunset.

When we arrived at the ocean, we realized that there was no beach, only a container wharf and some rocky slopes to keep the pounding waves of the road.


Along the beach there were some monuments, one for motorbike riders, one for surferes and one for some Arica heros in uniform.

We liked to stroll through Arica, it had a nice feeling.

On our way home we found, you guessed it, a church. So we had a look at it but it felt like dejavue… I couldn’t put my finger on it….
Sigrid eventually noticed the internal structure looked like the church in Santa Rosalia in Mexico. And she was right; we had stumbled across the second church by Eiffel in the Americans.


Tomorrow we’ll start our 2000km trip to Santiago, where our noble steeds would get new shoes and a complete service before we ride through the remote areas of Patagonia 🙂

Date: 12/03
City: Puno, Peru
Kilometres ridden: 388
Cumulative kilometre: 36473
Street: Windy
Weather: rainy/cloudy/fresh

We got up early, finished packing the bikes and left.

Today we planned to ride 400km which is easy if the road is a two lane highway, but if we get mountain roads with trucks and busses, it would take us eight hours of riding. We were lucky; the road was in good condition with hardly any windy mountain parts. During our ride we found the following sign.

Using Google translate showed that this is an advertisement to grow guineapigs. 🙂

We managed to be in Puno around 1 PM but it took us two hours to find a hotel where we could safely park our bikes. Finally we found one where we parked our bikes in the owner’s sort of living/storage room. We had to remove the panniers to fit through the door, but that was done in no time J

Sigrid quickly organized a Lake Titicaca tour at 4PM, so we had thirty minutes before the bus picked us up. The bus dropped us off at the harbour where we climbed into a boat and twenty minutes later we arrived at the first reed island.

When we arrived four women dressed in their traditional clothing were singing a welcome song J

After we all departed from the boat the locals and our guide showed us how the island are built and how people are living here. The tour enabled us to have a look into the inside of the houses and how they were cooking without catching the whole island on fire….

As we found out, they eat coy as well.

We walked around the small island and took a couple of pictures.

Then we got offered a reed boat tour around the island.


During this time we enjoyed the nice sunset.

Oy

After the sunset the boat took us past the main island where some of our fellow travellers departed for an overnight stay back to the harbour. A taxi bus brought us back to the hotel. What a day. 🙂
Tomorrow we will try to get as close to the Peru/Chilean border as possible. Currently we are not sure if we’ll hit a 300km dirt road as shown on our South American map …. We’ll see.

Date: 08/03
City: Aguas Calientes , Peru
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 36085
Street: –
Weather: sunny/cloudy/rainy

We drove up to Machu Picchu with an early bus which only took twenty minutes. And here we are, the first view of Machu Picchu.

Our guide suggested walking to the Sun Gate and back before we meet him with the rest of the group and that’s what we did. On the way we got a good view of the bus road from Aquas Calientes to Machu Picchu and a different view of Machu Picchu itself.

The right picture shows the view from the Sun Gate. As you can see we had to climb quite a bit to get there.

 

We were puffed when we finally arrived at the Sun Gate.

After a short break and a second breakfast we turned around and went back to the gate to meet our tour guide at 11 AM. This time we paid more attention to our surroundings and found quite amazing orchids and butterflies.

The butterflies changed the colour of their wings depending on the angle of the sun, but they were too fast to be captured on the camera. When we arrived at the gate we met Will again – Will and Nuria were with us on the same boat in Galapagos – he just finished four days of trekking and was waiting for Nuria to arrive by bus. When our tour guide arrived, we quickly made an appointment with Will for dinner tonight to get some stories about his hiking trip. We met the rest of the group and started our guided tour. The guide was enthusiastic and knowledgeable and it was fun to listen to his explanations. He showed us the aqueducts and the storm water system in the town which we would have overlooked otherwise. Before the first house was build, the Incas finished the Aqueducts so that they would have a steady supply of water. On the right hand side you can see how the water was cascading down through different basins.


The terraces were the argicultur area, the topsoil in these teraces was apparently brought up from the river since this was more fertile than the mountains soil.

The guide also showed us the Temple of the Condor. To be honest, if the guide hadn’t explained it, we wouldn’t have made the connection. The wings, in particular, we would have misses. Sigrid tries to show how it was meant to look – Sigird is on the right in the red T shirt J


We found beautiful stone masenarie which intergrated the natural rocks into the building.

With all the maisonary on show, I had to be reminded that the Inkas didn’d use iron or steel. To get this done they were apparently using rocks and copper – and the latter was only used for some intricate carvings. Looking at the picture on the right above at the round wall, the stones of the temple of the sun are just stacked on top of each other and they fit perfectly, even 500 years later, beeing exposed to the weather… isn’t that amazing? The area with the temples had a gate which was locked, so only special people could enter this area.

At the top there is the hinch for the door and left and right are openings for ropes to keep the door closed. Here again, the stones have no mortar between them, they are just held up by their own weight. Outside of the gate we could see the different classes of stones, in the front the smooth finish, used for temples, then the bit rougher finish up to the gate, and the much rougher finish as part of a common housing at the end.

On the left hand side in picture below you can see the highest point of the city with a platform on top of which is the Intihuatana. This is a huge carved rock that is believed to be a place of astronomic observations and various religious rituals (on the right).

 


A look down from the platform shows the height of the city, at the bottom there is a train- doesn’t it look like a toy train?

This was the point were our tour ended and we dicided to have a look at the trunk bridge. First we had to get up to the guard tower which involved climbing stairs again. Again, each of these stairs had to be carved by hand without any metal and then transported and fixed to the right place, amazing!

On our way up we meet Will and Nuria again, so they took some pictures of the two of us and visa versa.

We continued our walk to the bridge, we were again impressed how the Incas managed to build a path like this on a cliff face.

Removing the wooden planks would make passing the gap impossible. It is really hard to get a real picture but the drop from the brigde must be around 500m. From the side there was a rock that could be used to defend this gap, so there would be no way that anybody could cross it.

I felt safe standing on the rock until Sigrid told me that it was hanging over the edge for quite a bit, she shouldn’t have told me that  🙂


From the bridge we walked back to Machu Piccho and when we arrived it started to rain, so we hopped on the bus and returned to Aguas Calientes. When we arrived it was still raining, so we decided to get our bathers and go to the hot springs at the end of the town. I assumed we would be the only ones crazy enough to go swimming when it rained heavily. Wrong!! The hottest pool was croweded, I guess people went in before it rained and were scared to leave now. The bar service at the pool made these decission even easier I guess. And there were the hot foutains, which were the best in my opinion. It was just hot water coming out of the wall, it felt like getting a massage.


And when it got too warm, we could cool down in the freezing fountains, which were easy to find since they were the only empty places in the whole setup.

We tried it and did know why it was empty -hard attack material! Anyway after two hours we got dressed and met with Will and Nuria for dinner. We got some wood oven baked pizza which tasted realy nice. Will was starving after his four days trekking.

We talked about Will’s trek adventure and what the plans were after this journey. Both lived in Australia and at the end of the journey will be moving to Nuria’s birth place, Switzerland. They have an exciting time in front of them! After tea we departed and wished them good luck in Switzerland.

Date: 09/03
City: Cusco , Peru
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 36085
Street: –
Weather: rainy/cloudy/fresh

In the morning I took a picture out of our room, the view was just great.

After breakfast we went to the train station and hopped on the train not long after. It was not raining today, which made the train ride even more enjoyable.

An hour and a half later we arrived in Ollantaytambo where a community bus was waiting for us and we arrived in Cusco at our accommodation two hours later. Sigrid had another look through all the bags, it looks like her mobile is lost :/

Date: 10/03 -11/03
City: Cusco , Peru
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 36085
Street: –
Weather: rainy/cloudy/fresh

We were mostly planning our next steps up to Santiago and tried to find Sigrid’s phone. Sigrid was able to load a software called Plan B onto it and finally got a GPS location back around 10 PM at night. It turned out that the location was in a 200m radius of our hostel, but that was the last time that we received an update. Now it was either switched off, the battery was empty or it moved outside of the internet range. Anyway, we thought we stay a day longer to see if we can locate it in the morning.

The next day we looked for Sigrid’s phone but couldn’t locate it. In the afternoon we gave up and decided to have a look at the South American Explorer club house – to get some road info and to see what we can do about the lost phone – and to eat coy (guineapig).


We got some info about the road from Puno to the border and on how to get the mobile phone back. The best chance would be to go to a particular place on Saturday, there would be a very high possibility that we would find the phone and could buy it back :/ 
We gave that a miss since today was Monday. So the next step would be eating coy….Well, we had a drink before we endeavoured onto this adventure and what better place than the highest 100% Irish owned pub on the planet.

Ok, now we were ready to eat a guneapig :/. We went to a restaurant that offered it as a meal for two. Here it is, one half with head and the claws.

In my opinion it tasted like duck, only there was hardly any meat on it. So after all, I thought it tasted good but it had some strainge effect on Sigrid….

When we arrived at the hotel the side effect had ceased. The porter invited me and a fellow guest to a game of table football. We lost… but it was fun J

Tomorrow we will ride to Puno and have a look at lake Titicaca.

Date: 04/03
City: Chalhuanca , Peru
Kilometres ridden: 326
Cumulative kilometre: 35766
Street: windy good condition
Weather: cloudy/warm/cold/rain/snow

We had a nice breakfast, packed our noble steads and left.


We didn’t go very far and stoped in front of Cerro Blanco before we continued.

It was still hot, so we had all our vents open and were wearing only the minimum of our gear. For the next hour the road went up until we crossed a national park, and here they are, our first wild Llamas -which were actually vicuñas.

We were really excited!! We took plenty of pictures and just looked at them. After a while we continued carefully not to hit a vicuña, they just crossed the road all the time. After a while we stopped just before a Peaje station- pay station for South American toll roads. Again there were Llamas, this time the real once.

Then we continued to the pay station and we got into the wrong lane, so we had to get the bike around to use the outside lane and pass the station without paying. Sigrid didn’t like to pass through two red barricades – which was tight with our luggage – so she tried to get around all lanes all together over a gravel patch. To cut the story short, getting off balance Sigrid laid the bike gently down. She was asking if I could take a picture of it, here it is

Thanks to the boxes and the tank nothing was damaged, only some more scratches. So we picked it up, no harm done.

As short while later we hit a road construction, they were just clearing a sand slide from our lane.

The weather was warm and mostly sunny, so we enjoyed the short break. After the road was open again, we kept climbing until we were over some clouds.

Then the first rain started, turning into hail. We stopped and put all our raingear on.

Now we were ready – rain or hail would not phase us – and it did not stop for a while….But finally it stopped. However riding on the plane at 4000m, it started to get freezing! So – stop again and out came our heated jackets and gloves. Now we were fully kitted out. The picture below shows Sigrid with the heated glove on.

It started to rain again, first light then heavier. Around 4500m we saw our first snow on the side of the road and then on the road… shock for the system. Should we have gotten snow chains for the bikes after all?

We started to ride really slow following the trails trucks had made before us. Luckily after a while we got out of the snow, but it was still raining. Finally the road started to descend and we got down to around 3000 m. There it was warmer and the rain stopped. We arrived in a town called Chalhuanca, booked into a hotel and fell into bed. Tomorrow we will see if we can make it to Ollantaytambo.

Date: 05/03
City: Cusco , Peru
Kilometres ridden: 319
Cumulative kilometre: 36085
Street: windy/straight, good condition, partially dirt road
Weather: cloudy/warm/cold/rain

Started a bit later hoping that the clouds might disappear, but they had other plans. Below are some pictures out of the window of our hotel.

The road was windy and we didn’t progress fast. The weather was overcast/sunny but no rain! The ride went up to 4000m but no rain or snow this time.

The ride was easy; the roads were mostly great and not too many trucks or busses on the road. When arriving in a town called Ancahuasi we took the road to Ollantaytambo. Around 100m after the town ended, the pavement stopped and the dirt road started. After some contemplation we though we don’t need 50km of windy dirt road at the end of the day, particular when it started to get dark. So we turned around and road the 20km to Cucso and looked there for a hotel. First in the outskirts of the city – no Cama Matrimonial,… then inner city, but no hotel with secure motorcycle parking. Finally Bjoern spotted another hostel with secure motorcycle parking and where we could leave the bikes when we visit Machu Picchu for 2 days.

Date: 06/03
City: Cusco , Peru
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 36085
Street: –
Weather: sunny/cloudy/rainy/fresh

Today we were organising our trip to Machu Picchu. Lucky for us, the travel agent was just next doors. There we got prices for the whole Machu Picchu trip (Bus & train tickets, accommodation in Aguas Calientes and the entrance fee). Then we went around and compared it with others and couldn’t find anything cheaper, so finally we went back and booked it, that was easy J.

Then we explored Cusco, and I couldn’t resist taking some pictures from two llamas and a duck.

The expression Lama, Lama, Duck is part of a song, have a listen to it J

While taking the pictures we meet Nuria from the Galapagos trip. What a coincidence! Will, her partner, was currently tracking along the Inka trail- but she had been suffering from Altitude sickness and had to stay in Cusco instead. We agreed to meet at night to go together to a lecture about Machu Picchu she had found. For more sightseeing we walked to the main plaza and took some pictures.

At night we went to the pub were we meet with Nuria.

It turned out the meeting was organized from the South American Explorer club which we are members off. Finally that paid off J Paolo Greer´s lecture was really interesting. He is a guy from Alaska with an interest in the Inca period. He did so much research and collected so much knowledge that eventually he was asked to give a guided tour to the head official of Machu Picchu. The story is that the restorations weren’t done quite properly and therefore some history is lost.

After the seminar we had dinner together and then went to our accommodation. When we arrived at the hostel, a guy met us and told us that there is going to be a problem with the bus to Ollantaytambo the next morning. The bus drivers will strike. We should get out of the city at 4AM. But Sigrid was not well all day and didn’t agree to get up that early. So she negotiated a car around 7.30AM. We packed everything that night and were nearly ready to leave.

Date: 07/03
City: Aguas Calientes , Peru
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 36085
Street: –
Weather: rainy/cloudy/fresh

We got up at seven just in time from the night porter at the hostel to tell us that the travel agent has arrived. She told us the driver will be there in 20 minutes so we got ready and jumped into the car . We got out of Cusco before the strikers blocked the road. The taxi dropped us of at the Ollantaytambo train station where we had a coffee and tea before we decided to go back to the city for the next two hours. In Ollantaytambo we walked around and took some pictures around the main square. On the right there is the storm water system -a bit peculiar, partially open, partially closed.


A bit later we found a local market and had a look around.

We found as well a place where we could buy a cheap wrist watch. Since Sigrid couldn’t find her mobile in the morning and had asked in the hotel to check for it We would now use the watch for timekeeping instead of the mobile.

There are as well ruins close to the city, but it would have taken us too long to get there and back.

When the time came we walked back to the train station and hopped on the train. At this point it was raining heavily.

The train ride was beautiful despite the rain. When we arrived in Aquas Calientes, the receptionist of our hostel picked us up. The hostel was just a couple of minutes away from the train station. The view from our room was great.

At night our guide for Machu Picchu came past to talk to us about tomorrows arrangements. Then we had a short stroll through the town, taking a couple of pictures on the main square.

After that we settled for a pizza and coca tea for dinner.

Date: 26/02
City: Nazca , Peru
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 35440
Street: N/A
Weather: cloudy/warm

Carlos picked us up from the hotel and drove us to the airport. Here we hopped on the small air plane. People suggested taking some sea sickness tablets, we were not sure why, but we followed the suggestion and took some.

After take off it took only a couple of minutes before we saw the first Nazca figurine, first a tight left turn, then trowing the plane around and a tight right turn. I suddenly got the idea why people suggested taking sea sickness tablets… There are huge triangles, nobody knows really why the figurines and lines were created.

And here is a picture of the Hummingbird and the astronout

Below you can see the tower from where we had a look yesterday at the figurines, you can see the Pan American Highway and in the right corner the hands and in the middle the tree.

There are not only the figurines to see, there are also multiple other lines which are the result of vehicles driving around before the site was declared a national monument and some lines which point a certain direction. All that sometimes makes it hard to see the figurines – as you can see below, in middle left side is the spider.

After a short time we returned to the airport, here is a picture of the captain who brought us back in one piece 🙂

In the afternoon we explored Nazca for a bit

We saw black corn and a car used to climb the second highest sand dune in the world, the 3800m high Cerro Blanco. No, we had enough adventure for the day and gave that a miss.

Here is a picture of Cerro Blanco, it is the white mountain in the middle.

Strolling through the city we also found a replacement for Sigrid’s Crocs which were worn through. So no wet feet for her anymore when the streets are wet 😀

Date: 27/02 – 03/03
City: Nazca , Peru
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 35440
Street: N/A
Weather: cloudy/warm

In the morning we joined a guy who had a tour booked for two, but his friend didn’t feel well and couldn’t come. So we visited the Nazca underground Aqueducts (named Puquios) which are still functioning today. They survived the 1996 earthquake that nearly destroyed the whole city of Nazca. Below are pictures of a bit of open channel aqueduct and one of the entrances, which were used for getting water, cleaning the Aqueducts and for spiritual celebrations.

There are around 36 of these undergrounds aqueducts, which bring the water from the mountain to the arid desert and allowed the Nazcas to life here. Then we had a look at the Nazca ruins, which were build 2000 years ago. The ruins are still in the process of being excavated and rebuild, so there was not too much to see, but on the right picture you can see the difference in the building style. The bit rough part was done by the Nazcas, the front part was built by the Incas a couple of hundred years later.

When we returned Bjoern had developed a fever and the next couple of days were needed to recover from an infection. To entertain us there was a folklore festival going on, so there were some street parades showing the different costumes from different countries, here are some pictures.

The streets around the hotel were in the process of being redone so it looked a bit sandy around, but the hotel itself was nice.

When Bjoern had recovered with the help of a local doctor and some antibiotics we explored the city again. We had a look at the central plaza and took a couple of pictures of the art around.

 

 

The next evening we went to a folklore festival to see the Russian and the Brazil performances.

At night we once more sampled the Pisco sour on the central plaza, there was a very nice Purina lady making them. To be honest, I could get used to that stuff J

We just had to try out if it is different in Nazca to how it was in Pisco 😉

In the evening we saw the Southern Cross the first time since nearly a year – no that has nothing to do with the Pisco –  It was the first night with a clear sky since we are back in the southern hemisphere. We stayed a day longer to see the Nazca Mummies. They are around 2000 years old and you can still see the skin on some. There was a also a small room with some mummies behind glass, also showing their belongings.

Some of the fabrics didn’t look 2000 years old, more like they were just recently produced.

Outside were the open graves, where the mummies and their hair were still preserved by the dryness of the desert, some of them had long raster locks (picture on the right).


We did the tour with Carlos; he had heaps of information for us about traveling in Peru. We really enjoyed his stories and his tips for us.

At night we went to the final folk festival evening, today the winner would be announced. The winner was Russia and I think it was not a big surprise after seeing their performance. After the Ceremonies were still some performances from different countries. Some were caring a huge amounts of bottles on their head while dancing, others were performing some acrobatics and some were portraying a fight between two tribes.

Tomorrow we will start to ride direction Machu Picchu.

 

Date: 22/02
City: Tortugas , Peru
Kilometres ridden: 386
Cumulative kilometre: 34581
Street: Highway mostly desert
Weather: cloudy/warm

We started early to avoid the frantic traffic in the city and it worked well. Not far from Chiclayo we were riding through the Atacama Desert for the first time, white sand everywhere you look. We stopped and took a couple of pictures.

We continued riding until we could see the ocean from the Pan American Highway, so we decided to turn off and have a look. When we arrived at the beach we realised that the promenade was not ready yet, but a mermaid sculpture was placed there.

The idea was to find a nice restaurant with ocean view, but this didn’t looked like the right place, so we continued. Riding through the desert and not having too much sand on the road seemed a bit strange, so I wondered if the sand was soft or if it had a crust on top. So we stopped and Sigrid had a look at it, the sand was soft.

We continued further and found a turtle sculpture on road, so we stopped to take some pictures.

Opposite the turtle was a sign to a hotel that was off the highway and towards ocean. So we decided to give it a try and found a small village nestled in a cove. There were plenty of accommodations around, so we had a look and found something suitable with a great view of the ocean.

And then there was the stunning sunset. What a day! 🙂

I like sunsets 😀

 

Date: 23/02
City: Eco-Truly Park, Peru
Kilometres ridden: 325
Cumulative kilometre: 34906
Street: Highway mostly desert
Weather: cloudy/warm

The ride was again through desert. Then, to my amazement, there was suddenly a sugar cane field and then desert again… Just a green patch in the middle of the desert. Strange!
At lunch time we stopped at a road house. After the break we continued until it started to get late. Then we asked the GPS for accommodation and it guided us to a hotel complex that looked like it was out of star wars. We parked the bikes straight in front of our accommodation.

And that was the view from the courtyard.


We had the room in the left corner (first dome on the left).

After we settled in, we were chatting with Bhuvanath, one of the people responsible for sustainable tourism in this resort. It was interesting to hear how they try to save water, harvest their own crops, use compost toilets and all the other approaches to minimise the impact on the environment. I really enjoyed the conversation; we almost forgot the sunset!  We rushed to the beach and just saw the last bit, but it was good enough. The water was once again freezing cold.

Tomorrow we will try to get through Lima as early as possible. We did hear from fellow motorcycle riders that Lima has the worst traffic and the car drivers don’t care about motorcycles; even if the’ve just bumped into one they continue driving. So the cunning plan was to ride through Lima on a Sunday morning, when all the good people are still sleeping.

Date: 24/02
City: Pisco , Peru
Kilometres ridden: 308
Cumulative kilometre: 35214
Street: Highway desert
Weather: foggy, cloudy/warm

In the morning we started early to get through Lima. When Sigrid tried to get the bike from the lawn to the foot path, she dropped it. Anyway, Bhuvanath and Sigrid picked the bike up, before I could get my side stand out, so no picture of the bike on the ground 😉

It was still early when we arrived in Lima and within an hour we were through without any incident. I can imagine how dangerous it would be to go through Lima during the week. It was quite tense sometimes and that on Sunday morning. I didn’t realise that Lima lies in a desert. With the cold water from the ocean Lima is often foggy. 60km out of Lima we had a break at a petrol station, this was the first place without fog after Lima. The rest of the ride was without any incidents and we arrived in Pisco relatively early and found a good hotel with an easy access to the secure motorcycle parking.

So we decided to clean the air filter on both bikes, as it was long overdue. Sigrid found another use for the air filter cages 😉

Ah, the reason why we went to Pisco was to have a Pisco sour, which is the Peruvian national drink! After all the messy oil business we went out to have a Pisco sour and ended up in a nice bar. Unfortunately we now both like the Pisco sour 😉

On our way back we strolled over the plaza and found some arty hedges

After the drinks we though we have something to eat and went to a restaurant that looked typical Peruvian. We ordered Inca Kola and a mixture of skewers, not knowing what we ordered. The Inca Kola we ordered because we saw an advertisement on the highway so we thought we give it a try. It tasted a bit like dissolved yellow Maoam, very sweet.

Then the food came, it looked great but for me it didn’t taste great. To be honest, I didn’t like the taste of any of the skewers. From the taste I would say they were beef liver, heard and a tipe skewers. Well, everybody has a different taste.

Date: 25/02
City: Nazca , Peru
Kilometres ridden: 226
Cumulative kilometre: 35440
Street: Highway desert
Weather: cloudy/warm

We oiled and fitted the dried air filter and started our way to Nazca. A couple of kilometres before Nazca we arrived at this viewing platform.


From the top we could see two Nazca figuriens, the hands and the tree figurines, but I found it hard to get it onto a picture.

So we continued to Nazca and were looking for a hotel and that is where we met Carlos. He showed us the way to the hotel (Google maps got it wrong) and he was also a travel agent who made us a good offer for the flight tomorrow. So after looking around we called him in the evening and booked the flight for tomorrow morning. He was also a wealth of information about Nazca so we talked with him a couple of hours.