Trip Report: Part One

Hi Everybody!
I’m writing from La Paz. We arrived yesterday amid a state of total confusion. At El Alto, the highest place of the city where all the roads meet, there are still the signs of last week’s protests with roads full of broken items and massive traffic backups. Since the first day the tough conditions in Bolivia have given us a big headache. After all the hard beginnings we left La Paz and rode about 600 kilometers to Ayacucho and then over mountain passes above 4000 meters. We spent a day in the town as tourists and after that we went toward Abancay riding about 500 kilometers along barely visible paths. Horrible! When we realized we were lost we stopped at a fork in the trail until, after several minutes, someone coming from the opposite direction told us that we were going back to the starting point. From 4000 meters we descended to about 2000 meters riding on a dirt road full of curves. We filled the tanks. Maurizio was leading while I followed at about 1 kilometer. After a turn on the road I saw him lying down beside his bike. He fell to avoid a little lady ending up in a pothole. The bike had only a few scratches but he was feeling a strong pain on his right shoulder. We rode again at reduced speeds until we arrived at a small village at about 5 p.m. There we found a hostel
> whose owner was gentle enough to try to massage my friend’s shoulder with a cream. According to the man that ointment was a miracle one but it didn’t really work; we thanked the gentleman anyway. Early the following morning we started our riding at a low speed for my partner was somewhat impaired. After about 15 kilometers I ended up with a flat tire. Where did that nail come from? It must have been the only one on the whole trail and I ended up on it! Fixing the tire was a pain since I had to do everything by myself. So we started again. The going was difficult: rocks, gravel, sand, dust, so much dust I think I ate it all. It was about 5 p.m. when we finally ended up on decent asphalt-covered road. We were 200 kilometers from Cuzco where we got hospitality from Kike Polake, a friend of Franco Acerbis who organized with him the INCAS Rally which is the hardest on after the Dakar. Kike’s hospitality went beyond our expectation. We practically used the house as if it were our own. His family had a passion
> for motorcycles; his three daughters and his son were racing motocross in a national competition. We would have liked to continue on to Port Maldonado but if the situation in Bolivia didn’t improve we would be forced to change our direction losing useful days. It became obligatory at this point to visit surrounding places starting, of course, from Machu Picchu. Acting on a tip we avoided using the train; the ticket prices had skyrocketed since privatization. The following day we went on a tour in the Urubamba River valley including Cuzco. Next we left at sunrise on a cold day aiming for Puno on the sore of Lake Titicaca. A beautiful environment especially the mountaintops covered with snow! We saw a train going by with the characteristic smokestack
> leaving a grey cloud while riding a railway at more than 4000 meters altitude. I think it is possibly the highest in the world. We reached Puno again and since it was still daylight we decided to cross the border of Bolivia. There we landed in situation I was
> familiar with for the same thing had happened in several places: put your hand in your wallet. At about 7 p.m. a soldier came to ask me to go to the custom office since the bikes were mine according to the documents. That can create a problem in that part
> of the world. We were told that one bike could have gone through but for the other we had to wait until tomorrow. Of course, they could not guarantee the security of the bike so chances were that several parts, if not the whole bike, would disappear. The
> soldier told me to find a solution so I bluntly asked him how much the trouble was worth. Than answer was $100. I offered $30. $40 would be OK and while he was registering the documents without a problem, I noticed a poster hanging on the wall behind him with writing in capital letters: RESPECT, HONESTY, DUTY, LOVE OF THE COUNTRY. No comment! But it was not over yet! There were the police. A police officer took me in his office and respectfully he had to let me know that his shift was over at 7 p.m. and that was fifteen minutes ago. Since we had no desire to waste more time I asked him how much we had to pay. I was told $25 for the flag standing behind him, for pencils and paper. In a humble way he told me that he had to do it since the government did not provide anything. Even ten years ago there it was the same story but back then the fault was the high oil prices.
Fortunately the Bolivians were more humble despite their poverty and we went through three offices in ten minutes. We were 8 kilometers from Capocabana, famous for its church site of pilgrimages for all Bolivians. The road the last to be occupied by people protesting against the government and there were still rocks and chopped trees on it. The following day we were back to take some pictures. While visiting Sun and Moon Island we met a fellow from Bergamo touring South America for nine months. The following day on our way to La Paz we stopped to visit Tawainaco with the Gate of the Sun being the main attraction but its being
surrounded by barbed wire. It is not what can be called the right choice.
Until next time from La Paz, that is all.
Giampiero

Trip Report: Part Two

Hi everybody! Let’s go in with our diary from La Paz. We took a couple of days off for a well-deserved rest wandering around town to do some shopping until the time came to continue our voyage, heading south early in the morning. It was cold with a winter temperature of about 8 degrees Celsius. After a climb of 300 kilometers we arrived in Challapata. From then on there was no more asphalt on the road but only a dirt road. From here the border to the border with Chile there would only be dust. Since we were attracted by adventure, we decided to travel the off-road completely by entering the Salar of Uyunj from the north side. The trail there had almost no traffic we were told at Salina of Mendoza, a place we reached at about 5 p.m. We soon became the village’s main attraction. At the municipal hostel the manager was nice and helpful for everything. He even succeeded to find the gasoline we needed for the following day at about 30% more than the usual price. The town had no electricity; therefore, there was no hot water to get rid of all the dust accumulated in so many hours of off-road riding. City Hall was the only building with electrical power because of a generator. The municipal commissioner was kind enough to help in any way possible, congratulating us for our daring task. We were so thankful. It does not happen too often to be congratulated in a place lost at bout 3500 meters high in this part of the world. At 6 the next morning after a quick breakfast we were on our way. Again we went over trails and through many small villages until we got sight of the Salar. It is a 11,500 square kilometer surface of salt. For me it was the second time but for Maurizio it was the first time to see it. It was an emotional feeling for both of us. We were alone in a place so peaceful and lonely. We and the whole world! We had no GPS and not even a compass. Maurizio looked at me to say: “You go ahead”. To find the right direction in such a place is not easy but we went right into that limitless white surface heading toward the unknown. We could see only mountains on the horizon with 5000-meter high peaks. After about 40 kilometers and so many pictures taken we headed toward Incahuasi about 50 kilometers away. In that place we found some tourists with a jeep asking us if we had a GPS and they were shocked we didn’t since in Italy, we use that device everywhere. The island had so many
cactuses as tall as 15 meters and we were wondering how those natural wonders could fare at sub-zero temperatures.
After a quick breakfast we headed for San Juan where ten years ago there was nothing. Now it is a staring point for those bold enough to travel across the southern tip of Bolivia to reach the Chilean border, a land of ponds and of mountains passes with altitudes of 5000 meters. We arrived at the hostel called the Sun of Tomorrow where we found two couples from Argentina on a jeep. They were of Italian ancestry and we had a little party with cookies and coffee besides being able to take a warm shower. We remained by the fireplace until the last log was gone. Outside was about 15 degrees but our bikes had been taken car of with antifreeze in the cooling system. In the morning after a farewell to the Argentinians we headed for the Painted Lagoon. After a checkup with an army roadblock we were on our way to the lagoon, riding constantly above 4000 meters until we arrived at Condor’s Pass with an altitude above 5000 meters. To describe the kind of landscape is impossible because it is so different from the part of world we come from. Speaking of roads is a blasphemy! There were dozens of trails going in different directions used by Bolivian tour operators and their tourist customers. At one of the first lagoons we met three boys from Treviso going around the world by different means of transportation. The same evening we met them again at the Painted Lagoon. Exotic birds are here to
> reproduce. How could they do that? At 9 p.m. the electricity generator was shut off, our bedroom temperature falling below zero degrees, and despite seven blankets on our beds it was cold! We took it easy in the morning when everybody was ready to leave. We would catch up with them later on. The cold was brutal! We were riding for four days off-road with cold weather and so much dust. Everyday was the same from dawn to dusk without seeing a living being, the only exception being a quick stop in places of sight-seeing where tourists were around. At Conder’s Pass, after a few days riding, we found trail signs indicating the Apacecha customs on the right and on the right the Green Lagoon and the Chilean border. At the Green Lagoon we found the same group of tourists we had met a few days before. Matteo, a Bolivian guide showed us with pride the Chilean border
> not too far away. We took the last few pictures of the Bolivian landscape with the volcano Lincancabur 5971 meters high reflected in the lagoon. After riding for 8 kilometers we were at the border of Chile where 2 barracks and a wind-shredded flag reflected the squalor of the place. The officer in charge told us that the bikes couldn’t go through but that could be done at Apacecha 80 kilometers away. After a while we convinced the man to help us by putting a stamp on the bike passes stating that the motorcycles were coming from Bolivia. No much later we were at San Pedro de Atacama. After checking again with the
customs we went to the hotel whose owner was the sister of Carlos de Gavardo, the pilot racing with the KTM. The hotel address was given to us by Franco Acerbi to whom we are so grateful.

That is all ...From San Pedro de Atacama
Giampiero


Trip Report: Part Three

Hi everyone!
Last time I wrote was from San Pedro de Atacama, a place where just like everywhere else there are tourists and everything is very expensive but a place that is nevertheless kind of interesting. A third-millennium Katmandu! We went down to the Moon
Valley where the landscape looks like the environment found on our earth satellite. From there we went to the Cordigliera del Sal where it would be a beautiful place after some rainy days but being the winter season there was no rain. We took a day off to take
> care of the bikes like changing oil, cleaning air filters and fixing a little bit a wheel with a good hammer because the impact with a stone back in Bolivia didn’t fare well with the KTM bike. The following day we went up to the Jama Pass since our preferred one, the Sico Pass, was closed because of snow even if both passes are about the same altitude of 4000 meters. After 40 kilometers the Super Tenere stopped working. The battery was gone. Instead of going back to find a new battery we decided to go ahead using the KTM as a tractor. I always had a rope with me and I hadn’t used it once. This time I needed one and I didn’t have it.
Beyond the Jama Pass the road heads downhill. We were on a path and the going was tough because of a cold wind. AT the Argentine border our way of riding because of our incapacitated bike, custom officers were wondering about, I think, our mental stability but we had no alternative. After about 150 kilometers we arrived at Sesques, a small village with a motel and a gas station. We decided to stay for the night. There we met Johnsen, an American boy, whose old-fashioned BMW/RG 80 couldn’t go higher than 4000 meters. He modified shomething and he was going to try again. We were together the whole evening eating
> grilled meat and drinking red wine. The motel manager was helpful enough and we went to a mechanic’s workshop but the battery the mechanic had wasn’t much better than the one we tried to get rid of. It was a windy night and we were at an altitude of 3800 meters. The following morning we said goodbye to Johnsen who was headed north while we were going south. Always
with the Super Tenere in tow we went across the Grande Salilna which is a copy of the Bolivian Salar de Ujuny but here the horizon is well defined while in Bolivia it is not and that was cause of some fear. We went through a mountain pass higher than 5000 meters, then after several dangerous curves downhill, we found ourselves at 1500 meters of altitude. About 60 kilometers later we arrived at San Pedro de Jujuy where we finally were able to find a battery for the bike we had to tow for about 440 kilometers. While we were busy changing the battery by the roadside a well-mannered man asked us what country we
> were coming from. Italians? “Me, too”, he said. When he was asked where from he said he was from a town near Modena, that he was in Argentina since he was a child and he said something else but we were unable to fully understand. When he left we noticed he had wet eyes. The day after we an easy-going day. We arrived at Salta and we visited the surrounding area. From there on we thought about the future. Our destination was Buenos Aires and thinking about all the problems we had in the past days we had to go without taking too many daring trails. We arrived after 1600 kilometers on a Friday at about 10 o’clock in the evening. Laura, an Italian-Argentinian lady we met the previous year in Colombia, gave us hospitality and her help to get the bikes in boxes to be sent back to Italy, along with taking care of the last formalities, was something we really appreciated. In fact, several days earlier we sent an e-mail to Laura about finding the right wood to build the needed boxes and when we arrived at her house everything was ready. The whole day after, a Saturday, we were busy assembling the boxes and the following day, Sunday, we took a ride downtown. With traffic rlowing on a seven-lane highway inbound and seven lanes outbound, we kept thinking about the striking difference of this day Argentina with the Argentina we crossed a few days ago. But the real Argentina is the one we saw when we took a walk in the San Telmo neighborhood with people dancing the TANGO, others acting in funny ways, and
> vendors selling everything from cheap clothing to a lot of other things. On our way back while we made a short stop along the
> road by the MAR DEL PLATA my mind went back to the previous year: Atlantic Ocean, Pacific and again Atlantic. And then what came back to my mind was a taxidriver, to whom I explained the trip I took the previous year, talking about the CHE. There the comparison ended. Those were other things, things of a bygone era but the fascination with South America remains. I have been there three times in ten years and if I did it, there must be a reason. If there is one thing I am proud of, it is that we had gone all the way, especially Bolivia, without a GPS and without technical assistance. It was something that we had to prove to ourselves without losing control of the situations wh had to fact no matter how hard they were. Above all we never lost trust in ourselves while far away from our world of selfishnes.

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