All the way south

After following some contacts in La Paz, Theo was able to identify an interesting charity project in Sajama, Bolivia.

Mountain climbers know Sajama as the tallest mountain in Bolivia at 6,542 meters or 21,463 feet.  The town of Sajama has a couple of hundred people and is located at the base of the mountain in Bolivia’s Altiplano.

The Altiplano is a very rough environment as it is a high altitude desert (Sajama is around 14,000 feet).  There aren’t many people living there because there is so little vegetation.  The majority of what I saw while driving to Sajama were alpaca (!!!!!) and very small villages of indigineous people.

I didn’t see if they were selling lentils, but I did find it interesting that I was in a region of the world where I could directly meet recipients of US foreign aid. That photo was taken at a roadside market.

Here you can see some of the locals at the market. This place was very well stocked as many other places we’d stop in Bolivia, you’d have a choice between crackers and crackers.

This part of the world is absolutely beautiful.  Driving around Bolivia really made me feel like I was experiencing planet earth, not human civilization.  There were very few cars and trucks on the roads.

The presence of alpaca was significant along the way.

Everything is sandy.  Fortunately alpaca are able to eat the grass that grows in the desert.

I’m going to write about the charity project in a seperate blog entry later, so I’m going to skip over that part and just write about the town of Sajama.

The town is located in the national park of the mountian and consists of a few sand roads of houses and shops with a huge plaza in the middle.  Sajama has many amazing opportunities for nature tourists (or should I say eco-tourists, vomit).

Hotsprings!

Bolivia’s highest mountian

Geisers

Bubbling geisers that shoot up many meters into the sky (not this one though).

Amazing sunsets

Here’s where I stayed in Sajama, Alojamiento “Los Andes”, or hotel Los Andes.  It was very comfortable and humble.  Everything was perfectly clean and it had one of the more interesting bathrooms in my trip.  Just a toliet where you had to use a bucket to flush it yourself.

There were no street lights at night so it was an experience trying to find our hotel after sunset.

Again, Nevado Sajama.  Such a beautiful mountian.

The roads were pretty rough– you had a choice of either corrugated (washboard) sand or loose sand.  Whatever happened to hardpacked sand?

Alpaca queueing up to cross the road.

Sometimes you’d have to wait 5 or 6 minutes to wait for the line of alpaca to cross.  Whats amazing is there wasn’t any sheperd leading the herd.  They just queued up natually.  So cute AND smart.  What great animals.

I’d like to formally declare that Alpaca are now my favorite animals.  I’m sorry penguins, but you had a good run.  I’ve liked you little flightless birds ever since I started working at ADIC when I was 16 years old (see their logo).

Alpaca, cute, fluffy, careful, and curious… how I love you.  Those who know me know that I have a propensity to fluffy animals (see my dog INDY!, the Australian Shepherd).

They’re all over the place in Bolivia and a few parts of the Peruvian highlands.  Atleast thats where I saw them.

In addition to their fluffyness, they only crap in designated crapping areas.  It is amazing because when you walk through a field that had cows, you’ll see cow crap everywhere.  If you go through another field with alpaca, you’ll see only gently munched grass.  Yes, they poop, but they all poop in the same spot, you can call it the pooping area.  Because of this, it is possible to house train an alpaca.

Alpaca laying down getting ready for bed.

Here you can see the different colors.  Read the wikipedia article linked above to see all the varieties.  You can see 3 or 4 of them in this photo.  So cute AND colorful.

This is the most famous alpaca I met on the trip.  I was asking for directions and there were two alpaca in the back of a minivan.  I naturally asked if I could take a photo.  The driver said that these were prized alpaca that were featured on several billboards and posters around Bolivia.  It was an honor to meet such a famous camelid.

Unlike other herding animals crossing the road, alpaca queue for hundreds of yards to cross the road in a straight line.  They’re so careful.  What a great ungulate.

Such a sad sight.

Oh yeah, I am a tough biker.  You just watch out.

BOLIVIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I looked forward to going to Bolivia my entire trip.  It is the country that I had the most curiosity about.  The more I read, the more I wanted to know Bolivia, first hand.  It is also the country that was only second to Colombia that people from back home said I should skip.  Maybe I was just lucky, but I had _NO_ problems in Bolivia.  Like Colombia, the only trouble I had was leaving.

Bolivia started out with a bang.  It did not disappoint.  The border between Puno, Peru and Bolivia was INSANE.  People EVERYWHERE dragging things across the border.

I’m pretty happy to be here as the photo shows!

Theo’s happy too.  According to his original research, Bolivia was also a no-go country.  I think I can speak for him too in that he really enjoyed Bolivia.

The annoyance that I have with Bolivia is the visa fee for United States passport holders: $135.  That’s right, one hundred thirty-five dollars.  OUCH.  I spent more entering the country than I did the first week staying there.

It was kinda funny.  The first thing you do is check-in with the police.  There we were talking about the fee for entering the country and the police man generously offered to let me in for only US$10.  He was of course joking (I think) as he didn’t have access to the visa stamps.  We were joking the whole time.  How could I not?  He looked like a 60 year old version of the evil terminator from T2 complete with the mirrored oversized sunglasses covering most of his face, mustache, and rigid posture.

There is also when I starting having my first problem with my bike:  The starter switch wouldn’t work.  I’d press the button and nothing would happen.  Switch off the bike with the key, check that gearbox is in neutral, hold the clutch, switch the bike on again… and still nothing.  Eeep.

Fortunately there were about 370 people standing around at the border who were willing to help clear a path and bump start me.

After leaving the border area we started looking for gas.  Another problem with Bolivia that I read about was gas.  While I had no problems with the fuel, every and I mean EVERY single person I asked had no idea about the octane.  Hell, I even know the word for octane in spanish.   Another interesting thing is that there are military at every gas station keeping track of how much gas you buy and tracking your license plate.  Strange.  I don’t know much information about that.. if someone else does, please comment.

La Paz from the toll-booth.  Notice the Evo Morales grafiti.

I found it interesting that people had signs not accecpting US dollars.  I really expected an anti-american sentiment, but I never encountered it.

This is a shoe shine kid.  They’re all over the place and all wear a baseball cap with a ski mask covering their face.  My understanding is that it is a looked down upon if you are shining shoes so you hide your face from your friends.  It is also incredibly creepy and I didn’t want a shine from any of them.

La Paz was one of the few large cities that felt different than your typical metropolitan.  There is a huge and obvious indigineous presence there.  I had an American Day and went to Burger King for lunch and it was full of couples where the woman was wearing a long skirt and a bowler hat.

The one thing I did in La Paz was ride the old Yungas aka “DEATH ROAD” of Bolivia on a mountian bike.  While I met a very cool american moto traveler who was working there, the Death Road was nothing special.  It’d be much more interesting if I hadn’t been riding death roads all over central and south america for the last 6 months.  I have a CD of pictures and movies that I need to go through.  Other than the cool kiwis that I met on the bus, there is very little worth mentioning about the trip.

Just a photo post.  Puno was nice but nothing too interesting happened to warrant text.  We did have some pretty pics though.

360 degree rainbow.

These guys lived on floating islands.  Wikipedia says “

The Uros is the name of a group of pre-Incan people who live on 42 self-fashioned floating man-made islets located in Lake Titicaca Puno, Peru. The Uros use the totora plant to make boats (balsas mats) of bundled dried reeds as well as to make the islands themselves.^[1]

Los Uros island

The Uros islands at 3810 meters above sea level are just 5 Km west from Puno port ^[2] (20 minutes in a boat ride from Puno). Around 2,000 descendants of the Uros were counted in the 1997 census,^[3] although only a few hundred still live on and maintain the islands; most have moved to the mainland. The Uros also bury their dead on the mainland in special cemeteries.”

The President explains stuff to us.  He’s floating in the middle of a lake but has a DVD player and TV thanks to solar power!

Here are photos from Theo’s camera.  Visit his website!!!

I made friends with two peruvians who gave us directions.

When we stopped and asked for directions to Santa Maria they pointed…. then asked if I had space to give them a ride.  Of course I said yes and I wasn’t even going to charge them a sole.. only a picture!

Here’s the hostel we stayed at.  The owner was really great.

Waiting at the train station at the hydroelectric plant.

Uhg.  Aguascalientes.

Only buses, no cars.  MERCEDES buses.

Yup.

Theo took some great pictures.

Yup.  I’m here.  Strangely I forgot to bring pants so I had to wear my riding pants for 3 days straight.  They smelled before my 3-day-a-thon.

Theo’s at machupicchu

Me too!

OK.  I am happy to be here.

Here’s the watercrossing I was talking about the last ride.

The death road in bolivia is for whimps.

The ride down the pass to Ollantaytambo.

Look at those twisties.

Have you ever seen a road so beautiful?

We splurged one night and stayed at KB’s hotel.  It was beautiful!  Thanks KB!

KB — You’re the man!

Yeah yeah yeah, I know its been a long time since I’ve updated.  I’ve been traveling almost non-stop.  I’m going to spend the next couple of entries catching up with my pictures and telling some of the more interesting stories.  For the record, I’m now in Mendoza, Argentina.  I’m going to work on my blog posts in between eating massive amounts of steaks and chorizo coupled with fantastic wines.

Anyway!  On to Machu Picchu!

Biking through the Americas has its benefit:  Instead of having to travel with the herds of gringos along the Inca trail or the train from Cuzco, I got to ride to Machu Picchu on my motorcycle.

Fantastic Ride.

Super fantastic.  In fact, I’d consider it one of the best rides of the trip.

I started the ride from Limatambo,where we stayed at a hotel that also raised cuy.  Another cuy video to follow!  CUY!!!!  They were safe as we weren’t that hungry.

In Lima, I met an American who told me to look up a guy named KB who runs KB Tambo Hotel and Tours in Ollantaytambo.  We showed up in town and amazingly the first person we asked where KB was knew exactly who we were talking about.  After finding KB at a coffee show we met up with him a few minutes later at his hotel.

KB is a great guy.  I’ve met many travelers who are always looking for something– I think KB is one of the few who’s found it.  He’s from the US and bought into the hotel a few years ago before Ollantaytambo was as developed for tourism as it is now.  KB lives a great balance of work and lifestyle.

After talking to him for an hour, he told us about the following route:
Ollantaytambo -> Santa Maria -> Santa Teresa.  From Santa Teresa take a collectivo (microbus) to hidroelectica, the hydroelectric plant.  From there, you can take a train or hike for 3 hours to Aguascalientes.  Upon arriving at Aguas, you’ve once again rejoined the herd.  Here you can either take a bus like everyone else or walk up the mountian to Machu Picchu.

The pass from Ollantaytambo is amazing.  Truly spectacular.  This is only one half of the road that made it one of the best rides of the trip.  It was completed a few years and the pavement is smooth as glass.  There are hairpin turns where you can really lean the bike over as well as parts of the ride where you ride 65 mph through gental shicanes.  One more thing:  NO TRAFFIC!!

Eventually after crossing almost the entire pass the road turns dirt for a couple of hours.  It was an all weather gravel road that was in OK condition.  If you stuck by the side of the road, it was fairly smooth.  After about one hour of riding through tourist free villages you get to Santa Maria.  You make a left across a bridge and there is a row of abandoned buildings.  I wish I knew more about these, but they look like they haven’t been used for a few years.

Then the second part of the fun starts:  The ride from Santa Maria to Santa Teresa.  This was the most perfect non-paved road I’ve ever been on.  The views were fantastic.  There was even a nice photogenic water crossing.  The surface was smooth and predictable.  The penalty of error was severe.  This road makes the “Death Road” in Bolivia’s Yungas look like an interstate.  The road was thin and twisty with massive drops if you strayed away from the mountian.  Absolutely beautiful.

Once the road ends, you’re in Santa Teresa.  There are tons of very simple Peruvian style hostels.  You could expect hot water from a death heater in a shower where you have to stand over the toliet.  Small rooms lit by a swinging lightbulb….. BUT things were clean and cheap.  My favorite!

Theo and I found the hotel “Hospedaje Auqui”.  They were clean and had great parking for atleast two bikes.

The town was charming.  They had beautiful statues and people were actually living in the town, unlike Aguascalientes which is an actual tourist trap.

The next day, we woke up and took the collectivo to the hydroelectric plant and train station.

Arriving at Aguascalientes was a shock.  It was terrible.  As I said previously tourist trap.  I really mean trap too– there is only a train to enter/leave town and a bus service that goes up to Machu Picchu.  Everything is 4-10x as expensive as the rest of Peru.  It is full of retired people wearing thier overpriced hats that brag about thier Machu Picchu visit.

So I finally made it to Machu Picchu.  My visit to South America is official.  I do have to say, it was beautiful.

Even though I’m part of the herd now, there were tourists everywere you looked.  MP is a money maker.

See.. I was there!!!

The one non-tourist I saw on the mountian.

I’m glad I went because the ride to Santa Teresa was tops.  Honestly, I could have skipped Machu Picchu.  It was nice but for me, it didn’t really pop past the pictures that I’ve seen.  I am certianly lacking some appreciation for the history, but as far as the piles of old rocks I’ve seen on my trip, I prefer Tikal.

I don’t download Theo’s pictures that often so I’m just going to make a huge confusing post of his pictures.

His nikon does a great job of capturing the trip.  He also takes pictures of me, so it is good to have proof that I was actually on the trip, not just the bike.  Again, donate to his charity work at: http://world-tourer.de

Me very happy to see the bikes arrive in Colombia.

We’re not the first bikers on the Panam.

I met these folks at the church in the valley in Colombia

Stupid tourist shot balancing one shot on the equator.  I have the benefit of reading many other ride reports and blogs so I know what pictures to take.  Once I did this shot, several other tourists followed my lead.

Jump shot, equator style

I’m happy to be in Peru!

I met these guys at the side of the road.  I stopped to take some pictures of some goats they had tied up.  All of a sudden a crowd appeared and they insisted that I drink Chicha.  It is a lightly fermented homemade corn drink.  It was pretty tastey, but I ended up getting a case of the D for 3 days after it.  Ohh well, it is part of traveling.

I’m happy to be in the desert

Lonely desert rider.

This is a great photo of Theo’s taken in Canyon del Pato.

Me putting on rain gear before an amazing storm.

Drop number 3 of the trip.  Like time number 2, I was turning around.  ARGH!

more desert offroad riding.

Here is me chitchating with the spanish/french couple at the Nasca tower.  I have tons of respect for the bicyclist travelers.

I’ve been making some serious time while traveling through Peru.  We drove for 4 days straight from Lima to Cuzco.  It is a very long but incredibly scenic ride.

There were these chicken houses all over the side of the desert next to the Pacific.  I was so amused by them that I even have a video posted on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/dghomefry

Look at all those chickens!!!!

My bike did well in the desert.

dunes… dunes!!!

Theo getting ready to ride down a dune headfirst on a duneboard in Ica, Peru

I met a canadian pair of snowboarders who’s skills translated well on the dunes.

Theo and our big buggy.

I’ve always wanted to run down a sand dune.  So I did it and I got a little bit of sand in my shoes.

Don’t mess with the Germans.

ARGH.. I can’t remember their name.  But they’re really cool and here is their pic in the dunes.  Please email me with your name so I can fix this post!  That and send you the clips of ya’ll coming down the dunes.

Nasca Tower.  Wow.  And by Wow, I mean that in the most sarcastic wow as possible.  While I didn’t want to fly in the old/overweighted single prop cesnas to do a fly over, we did climb the tower for 1 sole.  It was… kinda cool?  maybe a little.  My favorite part was talking to the bicyclists who were there also.  You can see their bicycles in front of the tower.  They were from Spain and France and were cycling for 6 or 7 months.

Yup.  That’s one of those mysterious nasca lines.  They’re signs to a god for fertility.

The tower wsas a great vantage to take a picture of the bikes.

The drive was just filled with fantastic views.  Peru is beautiful and diverse.

Llama!!!

And even more cute… Alpaca! Soo fluffy!

Thats my current desktop.  So. Much. Fluff!

Next up is my ride to Machu Picchu.  Theo already wrote a blog entry about it on a german language newspaper website:  Here

After making some serious miles, it is a nice break to stay a couple of days in Lima, Peru.

I’m staying in the Miraflores area which is not like the rest of the city and even farther from the rest of the country.  Unlike the desert where I saw mudhuts without electricity or power, Miraflores has Starbucks, McD’s, TGI Fridays, Chiles, Burger King, and a few sidewalk cafes that I swear were swiped from the streets of Paris.

To only add the the surreal aspect of this experience, I went to a bullfight.  Warning, the following pictures are quite graphic but are the best way to tell the story of going to a bullfight.

The road to Lima on the Panam!

Miles and miles of desert

Lots of religious messages in the sand.  I’ve been asked a few times by locals what religion I am.

Musician at the bullfight.

The plaza del toros

A picador, the guy who rides a horse and uses a spear to weaken the bull.

Ornate clothing

Picador in action

The matador.  It is really easy to get pics of these guys as they’re always posing

Celebrating after killing a bull by taking a drink of wine that someone threw down from the audience

More picadors.

These guys throw darts into the bull to weaken it.

The matador sticks the sword directly into the heart of the bull from over his head to kill him very quickly.

See, I was here.

This is the taxi drive Juan Carlos.  See Juan Carlos, I told you I put you online.  Now sign my guestbook!

I’ve been meaning to try cuy (guinea pig) since Ecuador but didn’t get around to it until Peru. The Ecuadorians say it is better there and of course the Peruvians disagree.

This post is more about pictures than it is about words. So Enjoy.

If you want to see the really graphic pics, just mail me. There are a bunch that I have online that bring you even closer to my dinner.

So cute!

This is where Mr. Cuy was cooked

This is the drink that Theo was drinking– Inca Cola and beer. He has been drinking Coke and beer, but when in Peru you HAVE to use Inca cola. It isn’t that bad… really

Mr. Cuy is now cooked

See, I liked him!

Now he’s quartered for sharing.

Theo likes him too!