CUZCO PERU TO SOUTHERN CHILE
From: "Ricardo Rocco" <aroundforpeace@hotmail.com
To: TYNDA
Subject: Riding south, ´till the road ends - Part 1
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 16:12:05 -0000 Riding South, `till the road ends
Is part of the international motorcycle expedition Around the World for Peace. Ricardo Rocco, former Ecuadorian Rally champion, who already rode around Southamerica last year, is riding his motorcycle to Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of the continent, completing the first stage of the world tour, taking a message of peace and against drug abuse.
Rocco is preparing for the next edition of the famous Paris – Dakar rally, in which he will compete during the third stage of Around the World for Peace.
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Puerto Montt, southern Chile February 12, 2001
Dear Friends and Sponsors:
From Cuzco, Peru to La Paz, Bolivia: Cold, rainy and electrically weird
Temperatures up in the Altiplano are very low during the "Bolivian winter". This time, are getting a lot of help by the rainy weather. We leave the nice city of Cuzco very well into midday, the 3 of us, Ed, Matt and myself, plus Lars and Tina, form Germany on their Africa Twin and Richard And Christine, from England on their BMW. As soon as we leave the hotel, Richard starts today´s ordeal with some electrical problems with his starter, then I get a rear flat tire, luckily, close to a "vulcanizadora", then, Lars has a little trouble with his brand new transmission chain. But the real fun starts, when it begins raining heavily, then my Honda just refuses to run again. I`ve check this problem several times during this trip, but seem not to find a definitive solution for it. Something in the bike gets wet and she just quits. This time, it gets combined with another flat tire. That´s it, I take a very expensive truck ride into the next town, a very small village somewhere in the Andes, where we all stay fixing our troubled bikes.
Cool but sunny next day, we head towards Lake Titicaca in the border with Bolivia. In the afternoon, after a nice lunch in Puno, the last big town before the border crossing, it rains again, and what else can my bike do, she decides to quit one more time. I decide to stay in Puno and solve this dam problem, hopefully, once and for all. Ed and Matt, good riding partners and friends they are, decide to stay with me, the two couples keep going south. I take the bike apart in a small bike shop, while outside keeps raining cats and dogs. I spray water all over the motorcycle with the engine running and go for test rides and find no problem. This is nuts. We stay overnight, in the most horrible cheap hotel with the hardest mattresses anybody can imagine. It was COLD and it was HARD!
Another cool and sunny day. We ride into the border at Desaguadero an get into Bolivia with no problems at all. After a side trip to visit the famous ruins of Tiahunaco we make it to La Paz where we find the Honda dealer. The owner Walter Nosiglia, not only is a very fine person and a great motorcyclist, he`s been Bolivian Motocross champion 16 times!; but he´s also a good friend for the moto travelers and offers us his shop for one of our, repair, replace and modify marathonic sessions. This time I check everything, including taking my cylinder head out to fix a thorn spark plug tread (accidents happen during plug installation under rainy, freezy weather in the Altiplano).
I could've sworn that my weird rain related problem was cured, the bike was running perfectly, it felt as she could run forever. We leave La Paz with mixed emotion, on one side we would like to ride more Bolivia, on the other the weather is so miserable in this Bolivian winter that makes travelling not fun. We are going towards the Chungara pass, on the new road from La Paz to Arica, Chile on the Pacific coast. As soon as we leave La Paz, a light drizzle, and there she goes again, she wont run!!!
At this point, I'm puzzled. I have taken the bike apart five times to look into this situation, have replaced every possible part causing it, and have waterproofed everything, except maybe the air entrance to the carb. I feel totally disappointed and plainly pissed off. I feel like forgetting about Tierra del Fuego and riding back home. I think about returning to La Paz and trade in this f.... bike. Whatever, but continue.
I look at the road traversing the Altiplano, back to La Paz, and I look up the road heading to the Andes pass towards Chile. Almost without thinking, I hit the throttle wide open and head for the mountains. If I keep it wide open, she runs, and won't die, the rarefied air does not help, but there we go. The road keeps ascending and the weather dries some, although in the horizon, dark clouds bring negative perspectives. We make it to the border, it is sunny up here, at about 4.000 meters high. As we get into Chile, the scenery is magnificent, with snow capped mountains all over, shinny blue crystal clear lakes and a great road. The fun does not last very long, it starts raining heavily as we descend the westerns Andes. It´s freezing. My bike seems to make a lot of effort to keep the pace. I have no choice but to go wide open all the time, very dangerous road conditions make my heart pump adrenaline all the time. Down in the horizon, something that looks like bright skies keeps my hopes high. As we keep descending, tired, cold and hungry, the wet mountains slowly give away to the big open spaces of the Atacama Desert. It stops raining and gradually temperatures begin to rise. Finally, after a long downhill, the dry valleys of the upper desert show their impressive vastness and we stop to eat and get rid of our bulky cold riding gear. I´m so glad to be wearing my "home away from home", the Aerostich Darien suit. The suit looks wet and damp, but inside of it, I´m dry as the desert floor. At sunset, we make it to Arica, and down to the beach, where we finally get to camp, enjoying the mild weather of the Pacific, and even take a nice deep into the warm ocean water. RELIEF!!!
The Atacama Desert: Hot, dry and endless
One of the most dry places on earth, the Atacama desert extends vastly over a huge and long plain between the Pacific ocean and the Chilean Andes mountain range. In Arica, a very pleasant town, its warm and dry at last!! We take the Panamericana towards Iquique, its a long stretch with heavy head winds, barely make it to town with he lasts squirts of gas, where we try, unsuccessfully to get some new tires for the XR´s. Its a Sunday, so most of the businesses are closed. We hit the new coastal road going south and camp just out of town. It looks like a very nice spot from the road, but once we get there its dirty and polluted, it seems that people don´t take very good care of their beaches down here. On one of our stops along the very scenic route, we meet with a couple of Swiss riders, on Yamahas. They been traveling through the Andes for several months. We ride in their company for a while, until me meet a couple of riders from French Guyana, she´s riding a Suzuki DR 350 and he´s riding a new Honda XR 650. After that, we see a couple of riders going north, they look and act German and don´t even stop.
After that, we see in a town, another couple of German riders on BMW´s, they seem to have a hard time raising their hand to wave! Strange! We declare it adventure motorcyclists day!
We make it to Antofagasta next day, again with our last hope of gas, very long stretches with very little service stations. We try to camp on the beaches before town, but find again only very polluted and littered places. We camp over some hills overlooking the bay and the city. Laying on my sleeping bag, I have a full view of the sea, the sky full of stars and the city in the background. Romantic? Nop, magnificent.
We plot a course that will lead us to Pan de Azucar national park, hoping to stay away from main cities, the main highway and hopefully find unspoiled beaches. Right out of Antofagasta, while replenishing our gas tanks for the long haul, we hear the typical sound of a BMW boxer engine pulling in the gas station. It´s Richard Mather with his wife Christine, coming from San Pedro de Atacama, in the upper section of the desert. This hard core adventurers, going around the world two up, have made a long stretch of more that 300 km. today, and is only 11 am.!! After sharing road tales, we say good bye to our dear friends and ride long and hard sandy tracks into the desert, and find ourselves actually going faster that on pavement. The wind seems to give us a break and we find ourselves a perfect camping spot, after trying unsuccessfully to visit one of the many astronomic observatories in the Atacama, right next to a gorgeous beach, where we take a badly needed bath, even if it has to be in sea water.
In a couple of days, me make it to La Serena and then Santiago, glad to be over with this endless stretch of road. No more pavement please!
In Santiago we go directly to Lira street, where most of the motorcycle shops and stores reside and set an appointment at Moto Stock, to work on the bikes. There, we meet Richard and Christine again! Small world!
This time, I take the bike inside the washing room and hit every component with high pressure water, no problem seems to come out of this experiment. I may have found the problem at a rusty wire connector under the tank. Lets hope so!
The Central Valleys coast: great roads, beautiful beaches and missing child
Our short visit to Chile´s capital ends with a ride to famous Viña del Mar beaches, where we stay overnight, and escape next day because of the high prices and vey crowded places. On the toll road to the beach, I get an uninvited visit inside my helmet by and unfriendly bee, which stings me very close to my left eye. The left side of my face looks like a watermelon.
On the way out of Valparaiso, we loose Matt. He keeps going on the highway out of town while we wait for him at the port. Of course, when he thought we where ahead he kept going. We try to catch up with him but can't find him. Ed and me, decide to keep going south as we planned, hoping to find him later.
I get deep and great pleasure to ride small roads, usually uncrowned, out of the way routes that only the locals seem to know. Chile´s central valley coastal roads are challenging, twisty, unpaved marvels. Smooth dirt stretches between small fishing villages with great uncrowned beaches and friendly locals. Once in a while, a tractor pulling out of a farm or a careless motorist will give you a good scare. These smooth dirt roads give the chance to ride at high speeds, but it takes all your concentration to stay on the road safely. If you want to watch the scenery you better stop. There are no loose animals in Chilean roads, nothing like Peru or Bolivia to find every kind of four legged beasts in the middle of the road. We head inland to see the "salt farms" where they extract the salty powder from the seawater driving it inland through channels. There we meet Gabriel, a motorcyclist from Santiago traveling with his 16-year-old daughter on a Yamaha Super Tenere. We team up with them and he takes us to the most remote beach spot, a place he visited 20 years ago, to camp. On the way in, the sand helps me drop the bike, braking my windscreen. We cook a great meal of rice in Ed´s stove and share road stories with this great person and experienced motorcyclist.
In the morning we head south to find our "missing child". When we get to the ferry crossing of the Maule river, we are told that Matt was there half an hour before. So, he still ahead of us! I tackle the road at high speed trying to catch up with him. After about a half an hour, I see in the distance what it looks like a motorcycle, I accelerate even harder, and while entering a small town, I surprise our missing child. We are happy to be together again. A real motorcyclist never leaves a partner behind. With the team complete, we head into Concepcion, for a mechanics session and to replace my broken windshield.
The great thing about summer time, the sunlight lasts ´till 10 pm. We camp in the first of the inland lakes, lago Lanalhue, from where we enter the great region of the lakes.
We visit the parque nacional Conguillo Los Paraguas, where we watch the smoking summit of the Llaima volcano, enjoy a fantastic dirt road and watch the full moon raising before sunset.
On the way to the touristic towns of Villarica and Pucon, in the heart of the lakes region, we miss our road and end up having to camp in private land and got thrown out by the owner at 6 am.
It may have been the lack of sleep, or simply I got careless, but my wallet got stolen while I was at a Internet place in the town of Villarica. Of course all my documents where in that wallet. You see, this was supposed to be a short ride from Ecuador to Cajamarca in northern Peru, from where I was supposed to go back home, and it ended being a ride to the "end of the earth". So, I didn´t even prepare my "dummy wallet", like my good friend Dr. Gregory Frazier suggest in his book Riding South.
My credit card company can send me a replacement card right away, so that´s no problem but what am I going to do without my motorcycle paper and my drivers license? Easy, I go to a good computer center and "fabricate" myself a very official looking document for my bike. I make it look even more official, using a couple of old Ecuadorian sucres coins, which with a little dye, make great stamps on my new motorcycle registration card. (Another lesson learnt in Riding South, thanks Dr. Greg) Then I go to the Police station, and file a complaint: how is it possible that in such a nice touristic town this could happen? They give another very official looking document stating the robbery of my documents. This hopefully will help me get away with my lack of drivers license. I try never to show it anyway, I always start asking a lot of questions to the police officers with the map in my hand and usually they "forget" to check the license anyhow.
There is no luck such as bad luck, so while I´m waiting at the Police station, I meet a couple of really nice local girls, Mariza and Susana. They invite us to their beer bar and we end up hanging out with them. When its time to go to find a suitable camping spot they take us to a small farm Mariza owns right out of town, where we sleep in a humble but cozy shack, after my friends and the girls empty a few bottles of the local Pisco liquor.
They want us to stay more time, but such is the tough life of the adventurer. We go to the neighbor town of Pucon, a trendy tourist town full of vacationers from all over. We spend the day resting at the lake beach. Our eyes don´t get to rest, though, to much of a beautiful scenery and to many gorgeous girls around. As much as we like to stay here, our limited budget prevents us to stay in this nice but expensive town. We head to the mountains to see the Villarica volcano national park, and find a great camping spot next to a clear water stream.
I wake up with the nasty sound of rain hitting my tent´s fly. Its raining sporadically but its cold and damp. We stay in our tents all morning waiting for the weather to clear up, with no luck. We decide to go farther south hoping the weather will be better in the other side of these mountains.
The road traversing the park turns into a muddy track, we have a hard but fun time keeping our overloaded bikes "rubber side down". On the way out of the park, I see a small sign saying: "stay on the road". My latino mentality enters in action, and I ride on a jumpy track alongside the main road, until I run out of track and find myself in front of a vertical drop with some nasty looking huge rocks adorning it. Too late to brake. At the last moment, I gas it, but I´m in third gear and the bike just gives me enough thrust to save the rocks, but not enough to jump the drop, thus, crashing on landing and breaking my brand new plastic windshield in the process! Shit happens!?!
In a couple of days we make it to Puerto Montt, where the only motorcycle mechanic in town, my friend from my last year visit, Richard, will help us get the bikes ready for the carreterra Austral and the lasts stretch before arriving into Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego.
As last year, we find ourselves a nice local family home in this picturesque town and while waiting for parts to be sent from Santiago, my bike´s clutch gave away, we enjoy the fantastic scenery and the great seafood of this shores.
Please check cool photos of this adventure at: http://communities.msn.com/AroundtheWorldforPeacePhotos
medical insurance provided by SALUD S.A.
Ricardo Rocco Paz
Alrededor del Mundo por la PAZ
Around the World for PEACE
www.andesmoto-tours.com
FOTOS en: http://communities.msn.com/AroundtheWorldforPeacePhotos
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