Category: Motorcycles

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Vietnam Road Trip: Day 1

7 hours, 130 kilometers, and we are a day behind schedule.  They have a word for people like us: Overachievers.

Dodge, my filthy conveyance, managed a flat tire to start off with, then towards the end of the day, the left footpeg and kickstand completely broke off the bike. Jenky, Michelle’s bike, started leaking oil and began having problems with the starter.

All in all, it was a good day. noone crashed, noone was injured, and we stayed at a pretty decent hotel called the Tropicana. This was because noone in the next 5 towns could tell us where a hotel was. It was such a foreign concept that we eventually turned around and drove back to one we had seen hours earlier.

Directions to anything are pretty interesting here. It is either 20 minutes or 100 meters. If it is within 5 kilometers, a local will tell you 100 meters. if it is more than that, you will be told it is 20 minutes. by this measure, one could walk the 100 meters in 20 minutes and drive the 20 minutes from Saigon to Hanoi in about two weeks. I think I am going to write an article about debunking Asian ethnic stereotypes… they are all wrong.

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When meeting strangers in Bologna: A Ducati Love Story

Baci: (n) kiss, buss, osculation (the act of caressing with the lips (or an instance thereof))

In many places in the world, excluding the USA, there exists a kind of chocolate called Baci. I had my first in Italy, and they are pretty darn good. They all come with phrases inside like “Each kiss is a discovery.” Each city, street, and person you find in Italy is a discovery also.

Rome is a busy place. As such, sometimes it is hard to find a place to stay when you are on a budget like mine. Come the weekend, my choices ran too slim and I decided to roll out and finally see one of the things that I had missed with Joanne: The Ducati Factory!

Ducati is a household name with my friends and I, being the gearheads that we are. The thought of being in Italy without making it to this place was not acceptable. So I scheduled my tour time (very important), hopped a train, still with no place to sleep for the night, and took off for a city named after lunch meat; Bologna.

The train station is something of a U shape allowing uncooperative taxi drivers and buses to loop through and pick up the incoming human traffic. It was on the far side of this U that a determined young woman marched up to me and starting asking me something in Italian.

For some reason, instead of asking her if she spoke English, I asked her, “Hablas Español?” Surprisingly enough, she did.

In a few minutes it came out that she was actually from Colombia and we both spoke fluent English. Her name was Paula, and we were also both in similar situations for the weekend, took off on a whim and had no place to stay and no plan. We checked our bags in the luggage area and took off to find an internet connection and a place to sleep.

Even before we found the Bed and Breakfast we eventually stayed in, our mutual love of motorcycles led us to join up for the trip to Ducati. We booked a double room at some place whose name I have forgotten and took off exactly on time for the tour.

Unfortunately, “exactly on time” is about 15 minutes late by Ducati standards.

All tour attendees are encouraged to arrive 15 minutes early. This actually means, if you are not there 15 minutes before the time your tour is scheduled, your tour will leave without you and you will have to come back another day.

Luckily, we caught our tour as they left the factory and got to see the museum and all the shiny wonderful toys that it contained! Paula kept having to pull me off of them before the Tour Guide saw me.

Afterward, due in no small part to my darling partner, we were able to jump in with an all Italian speaking tour to route through the factory and see the way things are handled. It was like entering Santa’s Workshop.

Unfortunately, much as I imagine Santa would, Ducati insisted that no photos were allowed in the factory. Thus, even if I had taken photos inside, which I would not because I am a straight laced law abiding citizen, I could not put them up here for everyone to see. Sorry.

It’s impressive how easily public transportation comes together when you have someone who speaks the local language with you! With the help of a man with the hairiest nose on Planet Earth, Paula and I hopped a couple buses and rocked on back to the Bologna city center to pick up our bags from the train station and drop them at the BnB before grabbing some well deserved food.

Bologna is a great place for seeing Ducati, Ferarri, Lamborghini, and eating bologna (obviously), and a food somewhat less evident, tortellini. That being the case, we decided to roll out and get some local fare and brave the nightlife with a dubiously accurate map and our less than perfect communal sense of direction.

There is something satisfying about eating pasta at a restaurant named “Tony’s.” It is even better when that place is in Italy. We settled in for a couple big bowls of tortellini at Tony’s and asked our decidedly Nordic looking waiter where the cool kids were hanging out at on a Friday night…

At the time we set off for the night, we had no idea how confusing the side streets of Bologna truly would be. We spent most of the night walking around and talking to one another, laughing at what a pair of lost tourists we were. Had we known how the night would turn out, we probably would have done exactly the same thing.

Adversity never seems that way when you are in the company of friends.

While walking back down one of a thousand beautiful little streets, Paula looked quizzically at a bird and asked me, “Why is that bird still awake?”

It’s moments like that which can bond souls. We laughed until we cried.

The following day was something of divide and conquer. We spent most of the morning being lazy in bed or nursing coffee, when we finally decided to get out of dodge. Paula liked the idea of seeing Florence and I felt like making dinner. We reserved seats with In Tavola and even had the foresight to book a place to sleep before we took off to accomplish some errands we needed to nail down before we caught the train; I went to Dainese to pick up some kit , and she wandered off in search of pictures.

Pictures seem to become a part of daily life while we travel. They wrap up the train station, a view from a window, or the smile creases in a face for reminders; some means by which we try to translate the crash and climax of this transient world to those who weren’t there and could never understand… but Paula gives it her best and takes it to the next level. Check her blog out here.

Florence was almost exactly like I remember it, though unique in some ways with a new partner; new discoveries.

Check out all the scandalous details of our cooking shenanigans at In Tavola here. After a fabulous night of food, we wandered around the city, soaking up the experience, taking pictures and eventually stumbling back to the hostel for some much needed sleep.

FYI: Sogiorno Pitti has low ceilings. not much of a problem for a Medellina, but somewhat dangerous to tall Americans.

We wandered around the city taking pictures of peoples dreams and speaking of our own.

It was a brilliant weekend, but it eventually had to end as Paula and I both had to head off to school on opposite ends of the country. I’ve spoken before about my love of Colombia and meeting people like Paula and Mauricio has only deepened my appreciation of the country and people.

This amazing weekend of mine would never have happened if this lovely woman didn’t have the courage to walk up to a total stranger and strike up a conversation. The simple act of saying hello took the both of us on a weekend of comedy and adventure and brought two individuals, born on different continents, together and made them more than the sum of their parts; friends. So many days of the week, we walk past person after person without noticing them; without seeing a smile on their face, or a lost look that indicates we can be of help to them. I can only express to you how much better my time in Italy was because of Paula and her brilliance and hope that her beautiful example makes the world a better place for you as it has for me.

Wrap Up:

Plan ahead for Ducati. Check the schedule online or on the phone for tour dates weeks in advance if you can.

Show up 30 minutes early for your tour time slot. That will put you there a few minutes before they leave.

Trains are the easiest way to get to and from Bologna. Buses are the easiest way to get around within.

Talk to strangers. It’s worth it!

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Napoli, Sorrento, and the Amalfi Coast

Napoli: The bad boy of the South.

Most tourists who come to Italy are given at least a quick precaution about Napoli. Purported home of a few organized crime factions, it gets something of a bad rap. My host, Giovanni, does something to mitigate these rumors.

Each and every visitor to Giovanni’s Home, his hostel on the 4th floor of a centuries old building, gets a lesson in pickpockets, crime, and the surrounding area whether they like it or not. I thought it was great, though my new friend Prue was less impressed. He shows several videos of pickpockets in Italy at work and then begins quoting statistics.

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/26045/

After he is done with PSA number one, he moves on to the surrounding area. I have to say he was pretty correct with regard to almost everything. Ercolano was the exception for me.

Giovanni gave me a great map of the city and marked numerous things to check out and even the best path to walk in order to see them all. I did just that on my first day in town and was greeted with some lovely views and complete traffic madness.

Napoli also holds the shore where the famed Parthenope washed ashore. She was a Siren driven mad by rejection from Ulysses who threw herself into the sea, eventually washing up on the coast near this castle. Something of a love story.

Parthenope's landing space

Even today it is something of a romantic spot.

At the end of my first full day in Napoli, I made a run at the local Carrefour. I managed to get a ton of great fruit and vegetables along with some instant coffee as Giovanni’s house offers no breakfast. (Side note: Hostel of the Sun in Napoli offers a full breakfast spread.) After returning I set to making my closest interpretation of Turkish Dolma, stuffed peppers, and became the talk of the town. I fed myself and a few other people that night, and still had leftover peppers for the next couple days. They were delicious!

Napoli is rather famous for being the birthplace of the often copied but never duplicated Pizza! Gino Sorbillo is noted as being the best pizza place in Napoli and I must say they did not disappoint. If you make it to Napoli, make a point to visit this place. Skip the table wine, though, as it is a bit vinegary.

The second day in town, I decided to do the Ercolano-Vesuivius-Pompeii trip. Ercolano is an old town that was destroyed at the same time as Pompeii when Vesuvius blew it’s top many years ago. Ercolano is very well preserved for a dead town. Ercolano is also stone effing boring. Ercolano was SO boring, in fact, that I decided not to visit Pompeii or Vesuvius as I assumed they would be more of the same.

Instead I rocked down to Sorrento, a place that Giovanni cautioned me against visiting, to rent a motorcycle and go ride the Amalfi Coastline. This was a good idea in theory.

Siesta : Noun S: (n) siesta (a nap in the early afternoon (especially in hot countries))

Anyone who has visited Spain or Italy probably knows about this lovely tradition. In the middle of the day, everyone closes up shop and heads home to take a nap. This is socially acceptable and even understandable from a foreigners standpoint as folks here tend to go to dinner very late. It is also very frustrating if you are trying to do anything in the afternoon.

Most of the shops in Sorrento open sometime in the late morning and close at 1 p.m. They don’t open again until sometime after 5 p.m. This means your options of what to do in the afternoon are severely limited. Add in to that the fact that the public beach area (which I never found except on Google Earth) is about 100 square meters and you are looking at a rather hampered afternoon. I arrived in Sorrento around 1:30.

Eventually, I just hopped the train back to Napoli and vowed to return again before siesta and actually rent a motorbike to take the ride. Ducati Monsters rent out at about 50 euro a day; much less than you can rent them in the USA. This is, of course, if you can actually find them.

I hit the hostel and discovered the rest of Prue’s friends, Team Oz, had arrived and had a chill night talking and went to bed early in preparation for our trip to the Isle of Capri the following morning.

The following morning, it was raining rather heavily. We scrapped the plan around 6:30 and all went back to bed. I have been battling some element of road weariness most of my time in Italy, and decided to simply take a day for myself, back up some of my pictures, and lay low with the guitar hanging in the common room. A guitar which, miraculously, had all 6 strings and was almost in tune.

I was pretty much minding my own business when I noticed I had an audience. A guy from somewhere and a girl from Finland had just posted up at the next table and kept asking me to play another and sing and it was a little awkward for me but they were having fun so I went with it. After a few songs, Giovanni came out and brought another guitar and added all the skill on strings that I have never acquired and we rocked it out for a few songs, till I ran completely out of anything I was able to play. It was an interesting night.

I have to add in a small note of recommendation for Yellow Hostel in Rome. As I write this, I have never actually stayed there, but I have changed my initial reservation to stay with them numerous times to different dates and lengths and each time they handle it without complaint or delay. They really seem to have earned their reputation as the premier backpackers hostel in Rome.

Once Team Oz made it back from Capri, it was on. The 5 of us had a great night talking about everything under the sun and killing somewhere around 10 bottles of wine between us. This did not assist me in making it to the train early the next morning.

It was, in fact, after 11 o’clock by the time I made it to the train station. If you ever do decide to stay a Giovanni’s home, be aware that performs revelry at 10 a.m. every morning so his cleaner can detail the rooms.

Here are some quick details about the train. The line Circumvesuviana runs around Vesuvius, as the name would imply. The dark blue line on the Metro map; it runs through Ercolano, Vesuvius, Pompeii, and all the way to Sorrento. It is not fast, taking nearly 90 minutes to run from one side to the other. As the train does not run with great frequency. The next departure from Napoli for me was at noon. For those of you doing the math, this means I hit Sorrento right after the start of the siesta.

At this point, I just gave in. I let loose of all my expectations and needs and finally embraced the Italian lifestyle. I wandered around the town, found a bathroom to change into my swimsuit and walked down to the port. Lacking any beach, I simply jumped the fence and laid down on a giant black rock and soaked up sunshine for the next couple hours while listening to the iPod. It felt pretty good.

By the time I got back up to the bike rental shop, it was almost time for them to reopen according to the sign on the door. That doesn’t mean they were actually about to open, just that the sign said it. Another guy from England was waiting there to return his 150cc Honda he had rented that morning, About a half an hour of good conversation later, the owner appeared and reopened. Due to my tardiness, they no longer had the Ducati I had emailed them about earlier in the week, nor did they appear to have any other two wheeled means of conveyance available other than the 150cc scooter that my British comrade had just returned. That’ll do.

I was assured that the Amalfi coastal road, much like the scooter itself, was idiot proof. Once again, I set off to prove just how resourceful idiots can be.

Not since I was in Venice had I been that lost that often. Of course, there are signs everywhere. But that doesn’t really simplify the equation. The fact that I was near constantly lost was not really a problem, though. The ride was beautiful. Every minute was enjoyable and thrilling whether I knew where I was heading or not. The freedom that two wheels give a human is near indescribable for one who has never ridden a steel horse. I imagine Icarus felt much the same way before he plunged to his death in the rocks and sea below him.

I would love to say that I rode safely and within the confines of traffic laws as I understand them. I cannot. Towards the end of the day I was riding with the same abandon as every other mad wheeler I have seen in Italy; riding on the wrong side of the road, down the median, practically everywhere but the sidewalk.

After several hours I realized I needed to get back to the office and return my steed. Following signs got me somewhere close to Sorrento, and asking the other madmen in traffic helped me finish up the return trip. Funny thing is, I entered Sorrento from the other side of town. Somehow, I had left Sorrento going south, and returned to Sorrento heading south still. I still don’t really understand what happened.

Returning to Giovanni’s took a while, partly due to the never ending Metro station; you can walk almost a mile underground without surfacing. Finally back, I got to settle in to some more Dolma that I made the day before and relax. One of the girls called me “Master Chef” as I always seemed to be making miracles happen in that limited little kitchen. I loved it.

Eventually, all things good, bad, and just plain strange, must come to an end. Team Oz and I piled out and on to a train to Rome and new adventures. As luck would have it, I wouldn’t be in Rome for long though. Up Next: more motorcycles.

Wrap Up:

Napoli is fun for a short visit, but it mainly serves as a good base for day trips to locations like Sorrento, Capri, and Vesuvius. Plan accordingly and you can really maximize your time here.

Ride the Amalfi coast. This is the best thing I did in Italy. Get up early and maximize your time.

Be aware of your surroundings; make sure someone marks the “bad” neighborhoods on your map of Napoli. Noone wants to lose a passport, money, or pack.

Be open to changes in plans and roll with the punches. You will enjoy yourself more if you don’t stress the little setbacks.

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Autodromo, Brno, Czech

Underwhelming.

In a word that sums up Brno. While I met some cool people and saw a ton of fantastic motorcycles, the city itself was a bit meh. I did have the spectacular good luck of getting to stay with a lovely local girl who introduced me to a number of great people and the sights of Brno, such as they were.

Lenka was a cheerful gem that really shone in an otherwise drab town.

The real reason for coming here was, of course, the MotoGP.

The town itself is relatively well equipped to handle the influx of people and get them to the track. Bus 400 will take you from town right to the Autodromo and back again. It says so right on the back of the ticket. The ticket that I almost didn’t get because it had to be overnighted to me in Prague. It likely cost as much as I paid them for the ticket.

The first day I met some wild Germans with a Huge flagpole with the USA, Texas, and Kentucky flags on it. They were a riot. I shot a ton of photos and was really quite impressed with the Moto2 guys and the way they manage their bikes and each other.

The first time the MotoGP bikes came around the track, I thought I was going to go deaf. They are unbelievably loud. I put in some earplugs immediately and didn’t take them out until it was all over. Here are a couple of shots that show just how physical this sport is. Riders hide entirely from view behind bikes and must perform maasive direction changes in little to no distance on tiny contact patches of rubber.

The day of the race came and I took my place at the side of the track with the other shutterbugs.

I got some fun pictures.

I even managed to catch this little video clip of Pedrosa lowsiding and almost getting destroyed in the middle of the track. To his credit, he jumped up grabbed the bike and ran a few more laps before he finally dropped out to the pit.

The highlight of the day was watching the new guy Spies take to the track. He didn’t do as well as I had hoped he would, but Spies finished in front of Rossi, which does my heart good.

The winners celebratory shenanigans were great. Everything from wheelies, to wielding flags, to a golf putt.

I’m glad I went, though next time I go to a big event like this, I am going to spring for the VIP tent, as it is totally worth it.

Thanks again, Lenka!

Next stop: Bratislava to meet up with the other half of Team Rock ‘n’ Shock.

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Rurrenebaque and Bolivian Magic

Rurrenebaque is the best part of Bolivia. Aside from dynamite, because dynamite is just all around excellent.

This includes the surrounding jungles and is, of course, a sweeping generalization. Getting to Rurrenebaque is rather easy from La Paz if you are willing to invest either the time or money; 20 hours on a bus, or$ 60-75 USD for the plane. Two companies fly on specific days, TAM and Amaszonas, and are often canceled due to weather so Amaszonas is your best bet, with 4 flights daily, if you are on a tight schedule. Their office address is not listed in the Lonely Planet, but they have English speaking staff and are located at 1649 Avenia Saavendras in the Miraflores district.

The plane is something of a flying machine with egg crate seats inside one seat to each side of the tiny aisle with no head or leg room. Luckily it is barely an hour flight. Getting off the plane at the “airport,” read as large grass field, was a very rewarding experience. Leaving the cold and altitude of La Paz for the blessed warmth and 300 meter elevation of Rurre was enough to put a smile on my face. The fact that there were almost zero taxis as well was even better. Grab the Amaszonas shuttle into town for 6 bolivianos; the mototaxis are madmen and everyone knows two men on the same motorcycle are gay.

Once you get into town, have a blast! As soon as I arrived in Rurre, I took off to find a hostel and a tour group. Walking through town I saw many questionable places to stay, but just as many that had beautiful courtyards, perfectly clean rooms and hot water. If you get off the bus and take a left, walking due west, you will get to the only park in town. I stayed across that park at Hostel Oriental. Nice place, all in all.

After I checked in to my room, I came out front to ask the owner about tour companies. Instead, I met the second Argentinian I had ever encountered; Evelyn.

After some brief conversation with the owner of the hotel, the two of us decided to take off and go for a hike to one of the miradors overlooking the jungle and city. It wasn’t a cakewalk. The hike was it’s own reward and the view was quite nice. At the top, we ran into a couple of German girls, Monique and Anika, and decided with strength in numbers to go hunting a tour into the wild for the following day.

Rurrenebaque is not an easy town to get lost in. It is a grid, and though many things look the same, there are landmarks you will quickly come to recognize. Maps are available in nearly every hotel and tour agency, of which there are many! Take your time and walk around the town talking to every tour agency you find. You will quickly memorize the schpiel, as it is the same everywhere, and just get down to prices. Dolphin Tours is located very near the only bank in town. We managed to land a decent price of 400 Bolivianos per person for the full tour package with food, water, transport, etc; the same thing every other agency was offering for a bit more money. Prices can vary wildly, so check around.

There are almost no cars in Rurre. However, there is an absolute flurry of motorcycle traffic on every street. Motorcycles are available for rent from several different Mototaxi booths around town, recognizable by the thatched roofs and dozens of small displacement bikes in various stages of disrepair sitting underneath them. The key to getting around Rurre is either walking or renting a motorcycle; you can get one for about 20 Bolivianos an hour, or 150 Bolivianos for a full day.

Check the brakes first.

Then the horn and lights.

Seriously.

Take an afternoon or three and get up to the swimming pool mirador above the city. It’s a walk, or a rather sketchy motorcycle ride. Taking a bike up or down that “road” is not for the faint of heart. Once you are there, though, it is lovely. Evelyn and I spent the rest of the day just hanging out above town and finally retired to get ready for the Pampas tour the next day.

Punctuality is not a Latin American strong point. Don’t sweat it. Our tour left an hour or so behind schedule, riding out of town in a jeep that looked like it had seen better days. We knew we were in for a three hour jeep ride. We didn’t realize just how much shakin would be going on. The first half of the ride, we all spoke and laughed with one another, until the ride started to shake the teeth out of our mouths and we grew silent. After a while, even the thoughts were shaken out of our heads and we all became zombies. Towards the end it shook the very life out of our bodies and everyone just passed out.

When we arrived at the park entrance, we sat around and stared at one another as brains came back online. I had expected to be dripping sweat and swatting at mosquitoes, but the day was warm and a mild breeze came in from the waters and tempered the warmth of the sun. There were almost no mosquitoes and everything seemed perfect. We traded the jeeps for longboats with outboard motors and slid into the waters like vipers.

Erick our guide spoke near perfect English, if a little slowly. The ride through the Pampas was a godsend; warm sun, lovely breeze, amazing colors and wildlife. I had been waiting for that ride for a very long time. We stopped on the bank at one point and squirrel monkeys came out of everywhere. Not once, but twice one of the monkeys climbed up on top of my head and hung out. We drove past a few different encampments and finally arrived at ours and there was a large cayman sitting securely in the middle of the area. And as we pulled the longboat up onto the shore, another large cayman shot out from under the front of the boat as we ran over it in the shallows.

The food was delicious. That night we went to another building nearby and talked, joked, made duck faces with Pringles, and watched la puesta del sol.

The morning came eeeaaarlyyyyy. We woke around 4:30 and shuffled out to the longboat. I had slept fully clothed and under a mosquito net. The boat slipped into the water with allt he noise our 6 h.p. engine could muster, breaking the near crystal placidity of the water and air of the Pampas.

There was barely light to see the trees lining the banks, luckily for us, Erick knew the waterways well. Eventually, we entered a small lagoon where another boat was already silently floating. Erick positioned us and cut the engines, using the emergency backup plan, an oar, to put fine tuning on the boats relation to the sunrise.

I have been largely very lucky in my random assortment of tourmates. This morning is no exception, of the 7 members of our tour group, not one is antisocial or out of place. We all have a great time chatting, joking, and waiting for our own private Inti Raymi. The stillness off the water reflects the dawn into our eyes with startling effect. Even as the river life around us stirs into action we are silent; praising the coming of the dawn. I even forget to keep swatting at mosquitoes.

Minutes stretched by and we just sat and listened and absorbed the world made new around us. Erick eventually pulled the engine back to life and broke the spell. We were all quite hungry. Breakfast came in a splendid fashion and afterward we were all off to a special part of the river: to swim with dolphins.

In the Amazon, one of the few places these amazing freshwater dolphins exist, they are the ultimate force. Dolphins hunt cayman, eat pirhana, they simply dominate everything. There are parts of the river where it deepens and the dolphins tend to congregate and kill off other would be predators. How did the guides learn what parts of the river was safe? By jumping in. If they made it back out, chances were it would be a decent swimming spot.

Once we pulled up into the lagoon, I was the first one in the water. Not because I was brave, just tired of waiting. The water was cool and lovely, and I was swimming for a few moments when I felt something glide across the bottoms of my feet. Part of my brain started calculating the distance back to the boat and waited for the first bite. It never came.

Others jumped in the water soon thereafter and other than a glimpse or dorsal fins and blowholes from several meters away and repeated swipes at the bottoms of my feet, I didn’t get much face time with the dolphins. On the upside, I also didn’t lose any digits to less friendly water creatures. I think that’s a net win.

The rest of the day was planned for Anaconda Hunting, an activity I am told is rather fruitless and uncomfortable. The Alliance, we few who booked our trip together, had sought to avoid this particular brand of unpleasantness and had booked a return trip to Rurre with another group a day earlier than our current compatriots. After arriving in the pampas, I was a little sad that I had cut this trip short, it was just that beautiful, but I was on a short schedule to make it to Buenos Aires and if even one thing went wrong, I would miss my necessary arrival date. Cutting the pampas short by a day was a way of giving myself a little cushion. The one thing I did miss out on, which I am sad I missed, was pirhana fishing.

The ride back was lovely. The strangers occupying the forward seats in the boat were smoking pot and chatting amiably amongst themselves. I just sat back and enjoyed every second of the amazing boat ride. Even as I write this, some weeks later, this is still one of my fondest memories of all the geography of the Americas.

The ride back to Rurre in the jeep was near identical to the ride out to the Pampas. Once back in town we all took off for the hostel and a hot shower! It had only been a couple of days, but it was a very welcome treat. Evelyn spent the remains of the day at the Mirador pool while I ran around on motorcycles and tried to get some laundry done at the #1 Laundry.

What does it take to be #1? Apparently not much as they lost my favorite bandana and replaced it with a pair of small knit gloves. Either the laundry in Bolivia is as poorly functioning as nearly everything else, or they have some magical new technology that can fabricate new clothes on-the-fly out of old clothes.

With a day left to kill in Rurre, I set off to explore the town a bit more, again choosing to rent a motorcycle. The gentleman who agreed to rent me his bike asked me to prove I could ride it first. I followed him a short distance to a road and jumped on the bike. I ripped off with all the fury of a 125cc engine and quickly reached third gear, maybe 40 mph, before I realized that a large section of the road simply was not there. I grabbed the front brakes and they collapsed to the post. Nothing.

Panic is not an option at that point, so I just jumped on the rear brake and luckily it engaged and i left a wonderful fishtail swipe down the road, letting off the brake and straightening the bike  just before it and i pitched off the embankment through dirt and mud before bouncing off the half constructed road and up on to pavement again where I could stop the bike with the rear brake effectively.

When I finally circled back around to the owner of the bike, he was still laughing. He smelled drunk. he laughed and laughed and eventually sputtered the Spanish equivalent of ‘That was awesome!’  before he produced a small wrench from his pocket and adjusted the connection to the front brakes again so they would engage again. He had disconnected them on purpose. As a joke. Seriously.

Rurre was lovely; at night, during the day, whenever, the weather was deliriously good and the people were unique. If you are ever in Bolivia, make it a point to go there. I can’t really explain how great it felt to be out in the middle of nowhere after being caught up in the feeling of a big city like La Paz. The freedom of so much nature was refreshing and inspiring. It is times like these that remind me that travel and experience is a good thing. That we wander for a while to collect new sights, flavors, ways of thinking, and impressions of mankind and his relationship to other men and the world… so that we can bring all this back to our family, or own country, and refresh old ideas… remove what has grown stagnant and enliven our relationships with people and with the world around us. This is worthwhile. This is it’s own reward.

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Cuzco, Peru and the famed Machu Picchu

“I never said it would be easy, I only said it would be worth it.”

These words have never been more applicable than when referencing the Jungle Trek to Machu Picchu. I arrived at Cusco with an email directing me to come to Loki Hostel and see if they had room for me. I arrived at an early hour, so decided to make use of the internet and restaurant for the first half of the day. Vikki, the tour desk girl was invaluable; giving directions, insight, booking Spanish lessons and tours.  If anyone ever goes there, please give her a hug for me.

Cusco is an interesting city, apparently the only job available there is shoe-shine-boy, but somehow these same people were able to save up enough scratch for a church like this one.

Mauricio, a Colombian gentleman working for the U.N., and I were booking our trips at the same time and went to the tour agency for a debreifing at the same time, so we became somewhat acquainted with one another during the process. The trip to Machu Picchu ranges wildly in cost depending on what tour group you go with, and this particular group charged $185, or $170 for students. Amerigo, the pseudo Italian gentleman who runs the show, quickly passed us off to one of his guides and that was the last we saw of him for days. The guide gave us a quick run down in mild English on the days ahead and we went back to our hostels to sleep and await the 7:30 arrival of the guide the following morning.

7:30 came and went. 8:30 came and went. Finally, a large blonde Canadian tourist came stumbling into the lobby at Loki to inform us that the car is actually a few streets away, and instead of picking us up, we would have to walk to it. Thus it began.

Our van finally got underway around 10 am, which was no problem because we still got a full day of mountain biking in through rain and waterfalls, alongside gutwrendhing drops, and in great company. Our band was a great mix of people from around the world, mountain bikers from Wales, and abrasive woman from Canada (from whose many wonderful one liners came “My stomach can eat my ass!), scattered Americans, and a Kiwi; everyone spoke English, which worked out well for me.

By mid-afternoon we had all reached a tiny little town called Santa Maria. The 4 day members of our group all went to the hostel to get acclimated and Mauricio and I went down to the center of town to get on our transport to the next city, Santa Theresa. Transportation which we had assumed was already arranged. We were wrong.

Due to the recent rains, the road between Maria and Theresa had suffered a large amount of landslides. 7 or 8 of them were currently being cleared by work crews and a significant number of cars and people were trapped on the mountain roads waiting to get to Santa Maria. This information was accompanied by the revelation that our tour guide had not, in fact, arranged our transport onward, he had simply expected to find a car heading that way and stuff us into it. We were in for a wait.

Mauricio and I are of a similar sort that we are not the type to sit around, so we promptly set to work making friends with the dozens of people similarly stranded around the town center. Hours later, our biking group came into town to grab some dinner. We took the opportunity to sit down and eat with them and find out what their day was like. They were all rather impressed with the owner of the hostel, Fabio, and his coffee growing operation behind the hostel that he claimed to operate at a loss in order to employ some local labor. My experience of humans, especially Latin Americans, is that absolutely nothing is ever done at a loss. Regardless of my opinion, the guy seems rather cool when we finally got back up to his hostel. Mauricio and I had opted to change our tour to 4 days, as it doesn’t look like we have much choice. It was near 11 p.m. and the roads are not cleared yet.

After a while playing cards at the hostel with our group the guide, Angel, came to inform Mauricio and I that we need to get our bags because he is sending us off to Santa Theresa. Following this thunderbolt, Fabio pulled Mauricio and I aside and expresses his concern for our wellbeing and asks us to reconsider braving the mountain roads at night. Whether this was him trying to get paid for two more guests or genuine concern for another human I will never know, but I agreed with him. When we brought this up to Ange, stating that we were NOT leaving and would be remaining with the group, Angel chose to inform us that this would invalidate our tickets to enter Machu Picchu and return to Cusco thereafter, leaving us high and dry. Lovely.

Walking back to the town center was no picnic. The rain had taken questionable dirt paths serving as roads and turned them into shifting mudbaths. This sort of thing doesn’t bode well.

Around 11 p.m. we finally got underway through some undesirable and undependable roads. Around 12 a.m. our shuttle stopped in the middle of the road. The driver informed us that it was too dangerous to drive anymore so he was going to stop here for the night. Trying to catch any sleep was next to impossible, as I kept slumping over and hitting my head on the window, waking myself up again.

Around 3 a.m. things started getting interesting. A number of flashlight bearing, poncho clad europeans materialized out of the darkness and opened the door to the van. The resultant session of verbal abuse revealed that these people were force marched all day with no food and no dinner. They were told to walk into the dead of night and did so until nearly 11 pm when they happened across an old Peruvian woman who was finishing up her yard and invited them all in, made them supper, and gave them blankets to sleep on her floor. Then around 1 a.m. their “guide” came back to wake them up and tell them he had procured transport to take them to the next city. Waking them up and marching them out into the night again in the rain. They were then told to purchase flashlights and pochos at the next town as they would be riding in the back of an open cattle car truck with no protection from rain or cold to reach the transport that had already been paid for but whose driver had SOLD THEIR SEATS to locals, Mauricio, and myself. Upon arrival the “guide” asked them all to produce another 10 soles a piece in order to pay the cattle car driver. At this point, I thought I was going to witness a murder. The told the guide that he would need to have the agency pay his impromptu driver and then asked the guide if he would like to further press the issue and be left in the mountains. He wisely settled the debt himself.

The beautiful Polish girl next to me confided that she had paid nearly $300 dollars for this trip and so far it had been something akin to a prison camp. I love Polish accents. Mauricio and I feel a good deal better about our lot in life now that the rain has mostly stopped and we have to push on to reach Santa Theresa. The walk isn’t unpleasant, but it is no walk in the park. After a while we come to another distinctly obstructive road block. The faint at hear have turned back as it is still peppered with cascading stones of varying sizes; some nearly the size of semi-truck tires. The bold are running through the mess. The crazy are standing in the middle of it shooting video of the stones falling around them. Guess which category I fell in to?

The sign for Santa Theresa was a welcome sight. A short while later we rolled into town tired and a bit bedraggled. Our directions of “Find Nancy” actually turned out to be much better than we expected. After 30 minutes or so of talking to the locals, we landed at Nancy’s hostel which was apparently run by her 13 year old daughter. Nancy wasn’t there, so Mauricio passed out fully clothed on the bed and I strolled around town for a little while, unable to shake a feeling of unease. Eventually, I came back and lay down for a while, catching a blessed 2 hours of sleep.

After waking, I rousted Mauricio and we set to work making a plan. We had to figure out a few things:

  1. How to get out of this town
  2. Which way to go
  3. Where was Nancy

When we asked the young girl who I still believe ran the entire hostel herself where Nancy was, she told us that there were actually two Nancy’s in town; textbook “you couldn’t have told us earlier.”

The REAL Nancy was one street over, a good distance for a 4 street town, and was abundantly informative. The guide that we were supposed to link up with left town at 5 a.m. while we were walking through the landslides. With no clear path forward or back, Mauricio and I are forced to consider our options.

There were some taxis heading back down the road we had walked in on, but we knew they would only make it as far as the slide, then we would have to find another means of returning and that meant giving up on Machu Picchu; something neither of us was prepared to do. As we were talking a local teenager came in to the hostel, blue jeans and purple crocs, and gave us a nod. Looked like someone had finally cut us a break.

While speaking with Nancy and the local boy, our erstwhile group came stumbling in to town. Some elated reunion moments and we were all to be disappointed again when Angel told us that we two had to press on, guide or not. With the faith that only the Virtuous know, we left; accompanied by Xavier, his purple crocs, and instructions from Angel, “There will be people waiting at the train depot with your names on a whiteboard. If not, I think they usually stay at Hostel Jon.”

So our new local friend Xavier led the way with his purple crocs. We walked through water, rain, canyons, jungle, and just about every kind of terrain you can imagine. We even had to cross a river at one point on some crazy cable car contraption that “only killed 4 people last year.”

Eventually we arrived at a checkpoint for entering a train station; the end of the line somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Xavier told us that we had to pretend not to know him, as for some reason that no one was able to understand, the guards would not let us into the train area to buy tickets if they knew Xavier had led us there.

For the cost of 20 soles we were led through darkness and confusion by the purple all-terrain crocs of a 16 year old boy, when the combined efforts of numerous grown men and women and the added benefit of experience and thousands of tourist dollars had failed to accomplish anything that could ever be mistaken for a successful operation. Congratulations Peru.

The train led to Aguas Calientes, the town closest to Machu Picchu, where we debarked and looked around for the mystical individuals with a whiteboard. I don’t have to tell you the outcome.

In walking the city, Hostel Jon was easy to get directions to but rather hard to find. Eventually we found a sign that said ‘Hostel Joe’ and went for it. As we approached, sequestered behind another sign was a smaller placard reading ‘Hostal John.” Inside, god-forbid, was a woman writing our names on a whiteboard. We had to get a picture.

No one knew where our new guide was, but they did know that we had a room at another hostel. We stumbled across some of the other people we would be going with in the morning and they told us that our “guide” would be at a certain restaurant near the plaza.

Thus, safely within reach of Machu Picchu, Mauricio could devote ourselves to well earned hot showers. The town was named Aguas Calientes, after all. Not surprisingly, the hostel that we were holed up at, some unpronounceable name in a long desiccated local language, which professed to have hot water, had nothing of the sort.

Dinner came and our “guide” was as surprised to see us as we were to finally see him. In a lightning strike of fortune, the guide produced our tickets to Machu Picchu, and our return train tickets to Cusco along with my ID card they had used to get a discount on my ticket. This was also a surprise to all the other people we were eating dinner with, as none of them had been given their tickets yet, and when they were finally given their tickets, they were told they needed to pay another $15 dollars for the train.

Folks, this up-selling is an all-too-common trend. When faced with this, the best course of action is simply to refuse to pay the extra and walk away. These people entered into a contractual agreement with you, and you DO NOT have to pay for their idiocy. As soon as you have your ticket/food/ride, you are no longer held hostage. Don’t buy into it.

Mauricio brave, and clean, soul that he is decided to take a shower in the arctic water of our cursed shower. I gave it a pass and decided to simply smell bad for one more day.

4:30 a.m. comes early. The bus to Machu Picchu, a $7 and priceless ride, begins transporting people at 5 a.m. Mauricio and I got there before the bus but after about 200 people in line. Luckily, the group we ate dinner with was in line much earlier than us and we skipped forward a hundred people or so in line. This is key. Only 400 people, first come first serve, are allowed on to the Wayna Picchu mountain within the park. I only found this out the day before, but as you will see it is something of a big deal. Machu Picchu was worth every bit of nastiness we endured.

Throughout the day, I met numerous people, including a German girl, Viola, I had seen in several cities recently, and a marvelous Peruvian girl with the Arabic name Zulema who hiked Wayna Picchu with Mauricio and I.

I cannot find words to describe this place. It has withstood massive earthquakes without losing a stone; earthquakes that have leveled many other cities nearby. It is beautiful and strong, and it was abandoned. Go. Just go.

After Machu Picchu, we were tired; bone tired. It had been a long several days at high altitudes. For some reason, I had the bright idea of walking back down the unending stair case from Machu Picchu to the base of the mountain and then back into town. It was just rough.

Aguas Calientes is named such for some thermal hot springs that are situated a bit above town. Mauricio and I took some well deserved rest and sat in the pools for most of the remainder of the day. We met a ton of people there, Koreans, Europeans, Americans and everyone was abuzz with the wonderment of the day.

Finally, after yet another reunion with our first tour group, we went down to the train station. We were told, yet again, that there would be people at the train station with our names on a whiteboard waiting for us. Robbed of our faith in humanity, but renewed with our faith in ourselves and our unending resourcefulness, Mauricio and I boarded a train bound for Ollantatanbo; a city still 1.5 hours by car from Cusco and our questionable reservations at Loki.

Exiting the train, we climbed a hill with the rest of the struggling masses, seeing several people with signs, though none with our names. Finally, cresting the rise, we found our drivers.

They ushered us quickly, along with several others, up another road to a parking lot with a blessed white microbus waiting to take us to warmth, a bed, and salvation. There was another train arriving an hour or so later with the last member of our return bus group. The bus drivers told us that that train had broken down somewhere and there was no word on when it would be arriving and we had to leave without them. True to form, they were lying to our faces, as the train pulled in to the station as we were driving away. We stopped and collected our last man and went on our way. I have seldom been so happy to see a bed as I was when I returned to Loki. True to form, they had somehow lost my reservation, but had a last minute bed that I could use going forward.

The next day I went to the Loki tour desk and explained what had happened and Vikki called Amerigo and had him come over to the hostel. After much conversation, and a little help from Mauricio, I was refunded enough money to rent a Honda Hurricane 250, a complete set of safety gear, and pay for a tank of gas the following day. Score.

The following morning, Sunday, I wandered down to the motorcycle shop and happened to meet a guy named George who was renting a bike and taking off with a small group of people on a tour of the Valle Sagrada. As we were waiting on the street a smallish girl with a too-large helmet on the back of another motorcycle asked me if she could ride with me for the day. This can mean trouble.

She had hired the other bike and man as a guide for the day and opted at the last minute to ditch him and ride with the random stranger on another bike. Ballsy, I had to hand it to her. Some hours later after we stopped for lunch, I was to discover she was not only ballsy, but the most attractive British girl I had ever met.

A long and amazing day on the back of my bike saved her some money and gained her some bruises when I caught a rut the wrong way leaving an Incan salt mine. A quick left hand low side left her quite shaken. I was nearly untouched with legs and arms and boots and helmet, but she scratched and bruised her left leg at angle heel and hip. Trooper that she was, she insisted that we drive on to go see other ruins once the rest of the crew had driven back to Cusco.

If you are reading this, I tell you now as a friend, do not ride Peruvian roads at night. NEVER ride Peruvian mountain roads at night. In my collective life I have never honked a horn more than I did in that single night riding across Peru. Blind mountain corners must be preceded by significant honking as you go through the turn to let someone know on the other side you are coming. The heart-stopping moment comes when you hear the replying honks and you have to wonder what lane they are in and how big the oncoming projectile is. There were times when we were driving along and suddenly the road simply was not. In the space of 2 meters where the light shone, the road simply ceased to be and I had to throw the bike into the adjacent (read as Oncoming) lane until the collapsed road had come back again. This was not uncommon.

Finally, we stopped about 15 kilometers from Cusco at a small gathering of buildings and asked for some hot tea to stave off the chill of the last few hours of riding. We were nearing 4000 meters above seal level (over 12,000 feet) and it was not cold or friendly. Stopping for a while on Domingo Santa (Easter Sunday) we got to eat some neat looking pastries baked on questionable construction paper and weak but hot coca tea accented by some coca leaves I had in my pack. It was a godsend.

Riding into Cusco, we got to say hi to Neon Jesus and some of the locals with their extremely accurate directions around the one way streets to get back to the center of town to return the helmets and bike to the rental agencies. After returning her to her hotel and finishing the exit formalities, I had less than an hour to get to Loki, retrieve my bag and make it to the bus station to catch my next 20 hour bus to La Paz and my new couchsurfing friends. It was time to move.

This short bit of history would not be complete without ending it with a huge thanks to Mauricio, Hannah, Vikki, and the many other people in this tale who made this a harrowing and lively tale of success and teamwork. Thank you all!