RIO DE JANIERO

The coast road near Paraty.

Cobblestones. I really hate the bastards!

Dirt & fog at the same time?? Give me a break!

Slip sliding away.

Yes, I stayed there! Shutup, I heard that.

The speccy backdrop to Ipanema Beach.

Ipanema. Check the mosaic footpath!

National Park behind Penido.

The Sugarloaf. Dont worry, the cable car was built in Switzerland!

At the Copa, Copacobana.... (sorry).

Almost there.

An enforced wait.

I am now in Rio, & the tour is over. Some of my group has left, & the rest will leave shortly. I am here for the next 3 days to wind down & chill out. This is the first chance I have had to make some sense of it all! As I indicated last time, everything happens fast in Brazil. I feel like I have spent weeks on the motorways just passing trucks & being cut up by all the other traffic. Admittedly, some sections of motorway were pretty exciting to ride, but most of the time it was just bum-numbing & risky. Scariest moment was when Wicki just pulled to the side of the motorway to check the map. Just as I took my helmet off, there was a loud bang from ahead. As I looked up, I saw the back of a semi move a few feet sideways, in a puff of smoke. It looked as though that semi had rearended the one in front of it, but it turned out that that particular semi had blown a rear tyre, causing the trailer to whip out to the side. Just 15 seconds earlier, we had all passed that guy at about 120 kph. Holy Moley, was that lucky or what?

There has been little opportunity to do much else other than get from A to B asap, however, we did spend 2 very enjoyable days in Paraty, where we spent a day on a beautiful old wooden yacht sailing out to some of the numerous islands that dot this section of coast. This was a tour highlight. Earlier, when we reached the Serro do Rio do Rastro (another anticipated highlight), it was shrouded in fog, so instead of riding this series of 180 degree turns which plummet from the mountains to near sea level in about a couple of kms, we crawled down in first gear riding the brakes with the hazard lights on. Visibility was about 10 metres, & with trucks taking up a lot of the road (dont these guys ever slow down?) it was fairly nerve wracking. We have also had to put up with more than our fair share of wet weather, & all the associated inconvenience & unpleasantness that go with it, but thats motorcycing. Sometimes we disappeared into the persistent clouds that seem to cover the flanks of the mountains at this time of the year, which was freaky. Generally, the ride up the coast in the vicinity of Paraty was great. The coastal scenery is very similar to Queensland, & it was a nice twisty road without too much traffic, for a change. Riding in Brazil appears to be a mixed bag. They put a lot af cobblestones on the road in some places, & this is probably the most uncomfortable road surface of the lot to ride on. I am not a fan of speed humps either, but they do actually alow the traffic, & often provide the only opportunity to pass. And riding into a road tunnel which has no internal lighting, while wearing sunnies, is an unforgettable experience.

We didnt ride all the way into Rio, instead finishing the riding in Penedo, about 3 hrs away. We spent a few days here & managed to get up into one of the National Parks where there was some good riding on both bitumen & dirt, & terrific scenery. We were bussed into Rio, & as we came in the back door, we were able to see some of the Rio that most people dont want to see, before being dropped at the central bus station, then getting taxis to the hotel, which is located a mere 3 blocks from the beachfront at Copacobana. The only bit of drama came when we checked into the hotel only to find that the hotel had cancelled our booking due to some oversight or other. This was duly sorted by our usually very mild mannered support driver Lisbet. (Bloody hell, dont make her angry!). The desk clerk got a serve he is unlikely to forget.

So, I did the tourist thing & went up to see the famous Christo Redentor statue overlooking Rio from the top of Corcovado, then took a cable car ride up to the top of the Pao de Asucar (The Sugarloaf to us) for an equally stunning panoramic view. I have no idea why the mountains are shaped like pointy turrets, but I did flunk Geology the first time around at Uni. The title of one of the worlds most spectacular cities is not an exaggeration, & the place fairly hums as well. Yesterday I walked the full length of both Copacobana & Ipanema Beaches, while humming The Girl From Ipanema. These icons are also deserving of their reputation, although the weather is cool so there is not much happening on the beachfront. Apart from some blokes playing a version of beach volleyball, where they use only their heads & feet-no hands- & some wackers pumping iron in a public "look at me" sort of way at the open air gyms.

I have observed that the Brazilians are big eaters, & it shows. Some of the women on the beach could block out the sun, but that doesnt stop them putting on a G-string bikini as though they were built like Twiggy. There are some things a man just shouldnt see! On the other hand, there are a lot of things a man should see. This place is the capital of cleavage, & the babes dont mind putting it out there on public display, although it must be said that some of them have been doing it since Dwight Eisenhower was President, & it is time they packed it in. But I guess that is what Brazil is all about. Outwardly at least, people just dont seem to care or get too hung up about stuff like that. I guess that says as much about us as it does about them.

Something else they dont tell you about is the pervading smell of urine along the beachfront & environs. I suspect this is due to the large number of apartment owners around here that have dogs. Every post, pole & treetrunk gets a regular dose, so it pays to not stand still for too long around here. On that note, I might sign off now.

BRAZIL.. OR HAVE I JUST SEEN THE FUTURE?

I am now a long way from Iguacu Falls. We have really been moving the last 4 days & my head is spinning. This is not what a relaxing holiday is about. What was that about reading the fine print? We started our journey eastwards from Iguacu with a couple of 500 km plus days, made even longer with a couple of navgational &/or logistical stuff ups which had us looking for our hotels after dark, never a good situation to be in. Added to that, it was wet a lot of the time. The traffic is a nightmare, & the roads have potholes & ruts all over the place. On day 3, we had to ride on a long stretch of unsealed road. Not normally too much of a problem, but this was really ugly. It was wet & very slippery, with tricky crossfalls & lots of ruts & corrugations, added to which there was traffic coming in the opposite direction, including trucks & buses. We would have covered about 100 km of this in several stretches, & in places there was 200m or more of nothing but mud. I didnt fall off, so thats gotta be a good thing. As I said, it was ugly, & when we finally got into Blumenau we were pretty well knackered. So since leaving Salta on the first trip, I have covered about 3200 km in 7 riding days. And today I finally saw the Atlantic, the point being that the last ocean I saw was the Pacific when I was in Lima about 5 weeks ago, so I have managed to ride across the South American continent, & I do feel pretty good about that.

I am still grappling with Brazil in general. Its an interesting country, & generally I like the people I have met. It is easily the most progressive & wealthy country in South America, & here are a few random thoughts. A more detailed & critical appraisal may or may not follow later! For a start, it is big & heavily populated. A good look at a map is quite daunting. There are towns all over the place, & many of them are huge. We have only covered a tiny portion in the south west of the country, yet I feel as though I have been riding in the same gigantic city for 4 days! Let me explain. You leave one town & in a few kilometres you enter another. The traffic is intimidating & fast, & cars just carve you up the whole time. Everyone drives as though they are getting the priest for their seriously ill mother. There is no relief, & the pressure is relentless, but one just has to adapt. I cant say that I like it, but I think I can understand it. If you dont drive that way you would never get anywhere. I dont know what people do in this country to get away from it all. There is no escape! Even on crappy goat tracks there are houses & heaps of traffic. The population is a lazy 170 million. Deduct a bit for the Amazon rainforest that hasnt been cut down yet, deduct another 30 million people who live in Rio, Brasilia & Sao Paulo, & you end up with a hell of a lot of people crammed into the bits that are left, and it really shows. I would hate to live here, I really would. I would go stir crazy.

Yet it is a land of contrasts. One the one hand, High rise towers festooned with peoples washing, horses & carts in the streets, the stench of pigs & piggeries permeating just about everywhere, dengue fever & malaria rampant. On the other, modern buildings, nice houses, good cars, shops with everything, the techno revolution. Today we stopped in a huge brand new roadhouse along the coastal freeway. I walked in to buy a coffee, & some pimply faced kid gave me a plastic rectangular thing about 5 x4 with a barcode on it . WTF is this for, I think. Turns out you help yourself to whatever you want, & it gets scanned into their system, & you pay on the way out. Dont really see the point, as there were several bored looking staff standing around scratching their privates. Maybe they just havent been sacked yet. Last night in a bar, I was gived a credit card thing to charge my purchases to. The system has so many flaws in it, it almost amounts to organised crime. Half the stuff I ordered didnt get delivered, I could have got someone elses orders, someone else could book stuff to me, etc, etc. Again, you pay on the way out, to a bored looking cashier, then as soon as you walk outside, some heavy gets a final look at your paperwork. What is all this whizz bang technology all about? Where is the saving? I would have thought with 170 million people, the more of them that have a useful job the better. Like building better roads, for a start.

OK, right now I am in a delightful coastal town called Antonina, in a very comfortable hotel right on the swampfront, freshly showered & sprayed, & about to have a coldie, then a good feed. If only I could hang my laundry out the window. The riding gear is fairly feral at the moment, I dont even want it in the same hotel, let alone have to put it back on tomorrow. Bugger it, I will hang it out. Nobody cares. We will be at a place called Paraty in 2 more days, with a chance to rest a bit, do the laundry, & go on a yacht cruise. And think about what a weird place this is!

PS. I havent seen a fly screen since I arrived in Brazil.

FOZ DO IGUACU, BRAZIL

I am really enjoying the chance to stop in one place for a while. The new group arrives later today (Thurs) & we leave here on Sunday morning. Apart from just relaxing, I have done a couple of touristy things. I went up to the Itaipu Dam, which is the biggest source of hydro-electricity in the world. It was built jointly by Brazil & Paraguay & supplies both countries, in Paraguays case, to the tune of 80 percent. I took the technical tour, which lasted 2.5 hours, & which included a look at the turbines & generators. This thing is just mind blowing, & the statistics are all big numbers. The dam holds back the Parana River (no mean feat in itself) with 8km of both concrete & rockfill structures. The rotor shafts on the generators are nearly 3m diameter, & there are 18 of them spinning away. The spillways have a capacity 40 times that of Iguacu Falls! The security was, as expected, very tight & very visible, & they were tooled up with weaponry. I did notice one of the escalators was not working. No electricity, pehaps? A cheap shot, but the tour really was good.

The 3m diam drive shaft between the turbine & the gererator rotor

.

The turbine inlets.

General view of Itaipu dam.

The spillways.

Another thing I did was to visit the point where you can stand in Brazil & look across the Iguacu River to see Argentina, & at the same time look across the Parana & see Paraguay, kind of neat in a geopolitical sort of way, because as you might expect, it doesnt look any different to the eye. I went out there on a scooter taxi, ie I paid good money to a lunatic on a Honda 150 to be his pillion passenger, another cheap thrill!

OK, time to fess up. Some of you are already aware that I dropped my bike in Bolivia, but for those who arent, here is the goss! I was looking ahead into a corner on a section of dirt a few hours out of Potosi on the way to Uyuni, then I was being helped to my feet, it was that quick. I cant remember a thing about it, thanks to a whack on the head so hard that it KOd me & cracked my helmet. I also landed on my left hip & elbow. That night I was taken to a hospital, if you could call it that, in Uyuni, where I had a gash on my elbow stitched up, without any local anaesthetic. Cost of this service was about 6 bucks. There did not appear to be any major damage, but my hip was quite sore, & has given me grief for the last 2 weeks, as it had swollen up a lot. I saw a proper doctor yesterday who took some xrays (nothing broken) & drained 600ml of fluid from the lump on my hip. He then jabbed me in the hip so many times I expected to see a tattoo when he had finished. I feel better now, even tho some of the swelling has returned this morning & I will see the doc again tomorrow. The whole thing had to be conducted mainly in Spanish because he didnt speak much English & I cant speak any Portuguese (apart from thank you & the name of my hotel!) And it cost a lot more than $6. So, I am taking it easy to give it a chance to settle down before we get back to riding. The incident made a mess of my Barkbusters & the muffler, so I have lost my bond, but luckily I took out the damage waiver insurance & dont hav to pay the actual cost of the damage. All I can say is OUCH !! Catch you later.

PHOTOS, AT LAST

Salmonella City Roadhouse

I dont know, I just take the photos, ok?

The towels in my room at Foz do Iguacu. What talent the girl has.

The mighty Iguacu Falls, various angles.Its so big, its hard to photograph.

Our hotel at Parmamarca, Argentina. The Flintstones used to own it.

Servo in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. Tricky!

Sunset in the Atacama

Dont ride too close behind an Italian, if there is any mud about. Thanks Luca!

Bolivian roads are tricky at the best of times

The Bolivian Altiplano, some of the best scenery I have seen

Out on the Salar de Uyuni. Yes its me. Yes Im riding a dinosaur. No, its not a Triumph..

Bolivian Altiplano

Ditto

Loading trucks at the Potosi mine, Bolivia. They do everything the hard way, it is truly appalling.

Dynamite, anyone. Yes, its the real stuff.

Well, I had to see some eventually, didnt I?

Dried llama foetus anyone? The Witches Market, La Paz

Street market, LaPaz

La Paz. Its like this for nearly the full 360 degrees. We didnt even attempt to ride here, we left the bikes at the top.

Bolivia

On the barge crossing Lake Titicaca at the narrow point, Bolivia

The street parade/festa in Copacobana, Bolivia, which held us up, fortunately.

Ditto

Crossing from Peru into Bolivia.

There is no shortage of mangled English signs

Backstreet in Puno, Peru. Yuk

Reed boat building, Lake Titicaca

Welcoming committee. Hide your money.

Our first high pass. Max & Luca were first, naturally. The spontaneity & unpredictability of these very likeable blokes was great fun.

The Group at Machu Pichu, Peruvian Andes.

me

Sacred Valley, Peru. Young lady selling stuff at the roadside.

Le puedo tomar un photo, por favor?

Si.

Aqui tiene.

MORE OF ARGENTINA

As promised, here I am at Iguacu Falls, Brazil. The rest of the original group flew out to Rio this morning, while the two Italian members Luca & Massimo, aka Valentino Rossi & Max Biaggi, flew to Buenos Aires yesterday. A bit sad to see everyone go, because everyone got along famously, & after sharing 3 weeks of adventure & adrenaline, I think there were genuine bonds of friendship & respect, as well as a hell of a lot of laughs. There was always something going on that called for laugh. So now its just me & the Compass Crew, Wicki & Lisbet, & 10 very dirty GS 650s. These need to be cleaned & serviced, & a lot need new tyres. I have a chance to catch up with things (like blogging). I have no doubts that the new group which flies in shortly will undergo the same process. Bike riders share something that other people dont. (Gravel rash?). You know what I mean.

Based on first impressions of the town of Iguacu, Brazil is certainly different from the other countries we have visited. For a start, the weather is hot & humid, the place is cleaner & a lot greener, the traffic is faster & more furious, & things are generally more expensive. Oh, & Portuguese is not Spanish. I can´t understand a bloody thing anyone says. But the Falls are certainly spectacular. I have seen, heard & felt the power! I wont go back & see them again with the new group, but I will certainly front up for the helicopter flight again, that was just fantastic. A large plume of mist hanging in the air above the raging torrent is visible well before you can see anything else but a vast expanse of rain forest, so you are in no doubt as to where they are. But the suspense builds as you get closer, & the first glimpse is a spine tingling shock & awe moment, & quite unforgettable.

OK, so what happened between here & Salta? Well, in 3 days we covered about 1500 km. Not a problem in Oz, but its a bit trickier over here. Some of the more sports bike oriented people (Luca & Max especially) had sore butts & were bored out of their brains after the first few hours, but I was in my element. The first day we covered about 600km, through open, flattish farm country. It didnt look all that prosperous, it appeared that the land may have been cleared, then taken over by weeds, but we were down to almost sea level, & it was cooler. It threatened to rain, but didnt. The landscape gradually changed to more of what you might expect of good cropping & cattle country, with a lot more stock visible, particularly beef cattle, & some very large feedlots. The Argies know a lot about beef, dont worry about that. We finished the days work at a very forgettable town, & stayed in a very forgettable hotel. I would give you more information, but I am trying to suppress the memories. Basically it was a hole. Along the way, I noticed several roadside signs indicating that ¨Las Malvinas son Argentino¨, ie that the Falklands belong to Argentina. Oh really? I thought that had been decided, & that the final score was Britain 1, Argentina nil.

Next morning we awoke to a thunderstorm, & the streets were partly flooded. As we had a 500 km ride that day, it didnt look good. It rained heavily all morning, & out on the roads, it was very dangerous. Visibility was very restricted, & there was a lot of oncoming traffic, particularly trucks, on the single lane road. The roadside was waterlogged, & there was one dropped bike & a few nearlys as people pulled over to clean their visors. We saw one car which had slid off the road, & at one stage, there was a dead horse next to the road. Gulp! The rain eased after a few hours, but everyone had some wet clothes or gloves.

As we entered the city of Corrientes, we crossed a very large cable stayed bridge over the mighty Parana River. It was easily the biggest river I have ever seen, it was massive, & up until that point, Id never heard of it. The Amazon must really be something! Shortly afterwards, we wee pulled over by a traffic cop on a little trail bike. Wiki had committed the mortal sin of cutting onto a service road at an intersection, & naturally all nine other bikes followed. The cop swaggered up the line of parked bikes asking each of us in turn if we spoke Spanish. Of course, anyone that could immediately forgot whatever Spanish they knew. This seemed to infuriate the guy, until eventually he reached Wiki, who also played dumb. By this stage, the cop was extremely angry, but had realised the bikes were foreign registered, & he smacked his ticket book against his thigh furiously. I thought he was about to burst into flames, then it slowly dawned on him that if he issued a ticket, he would also be comdemning himself to about a year of paperwork. So off we went. The irony of the situation was not lost on anyone. After the mayhem we had witnessed out on the roads for the last 2 weeks, all this idiot could do was stop someone for a minor infringement which had not hurt anyone. Thats South America. Mind you in the interest of survival, we had been routinely ignoring speed limits & most other traffic control measures since we left Cusco, but that is not the point, is it? (is it?). Later that day we stopped for lunch at a roadhouse, which would best be described as a smorgasbord of pestilence. We had to stop because the fridge in the truck had packed up, & for the second time, our potential lunch had to be thrown out. Anyway, I took one look at this joint & decided I wouldnt eat anything, except an ice cream with a wrapper on it. Rarely have I seen so many flies in one place, & the kitchen & toilets were filthy. Next day, some of the guys had stomach problems. Up here for thinking! That night we stayed at Puerto Valle, in an old country estate that had been converted into a luxury hotel, & boy was it luxurious. It was a tropical wonderland on the banks of the Parana, & we were treated to a fantastic BBQ & mucho vino y cerveza, then toddled off & slept like the dead. It was a great end to a tough days riding.

The following day, we followed Ruta 12 up along a narrow strip of Argentina which runs between the borders of Paraguay on one side & Brazil on the other, not that you would know by looking at it. The scenery had changed to green & tropical, & the temperature & hunidity had increased accordingly. Another 400 km or so saw us at the border between Argentina & Brazil. This time it took us a while to clear the Brazilian side, & it got dark while we were looking for the hotel, & the group became split up. This was not the first time, but it looked like it might be the biggest stuff up yet, but it got sorted.

Next day the biggest laugh of the trip happened. While in an ATM centre, with a money exchange next door, Brian Gilbert (aka Barney) managed to get himself stuck in a revolving door between the two. Dead set, it was properly stuck & so was he. Did I mention it was a Saturday? Did I mention I had tears of laughter running down my cheeks? Did anyone help? First things first. Like true mates, after everyone else had filmed this predicament from every angle, & had run out of wisecracks, (ie about half an hour later) we managed to bend the glass door just enough for a slightly bewildered Barney to squeeze out. Luckily he was the smallest guy on the tour, anyone else would still be in there. Of couse this did not stop the relentless payouts, which will continue for weeks, if not longer. This will shortly be uploaded to Youtube, & I will put the link on this blogsite. And as ever, there is the pepetual promise of photos to be posted soon, but this looks like it might now be straightforward.

CHILE, JUST FOR A MINUTE, THEN ARGENTINA

Having crossed into Chile from Bolivia at Ollague, we finally emerged into relative civilisation. A servo with food and an ATM. I pressed the wrong button & now have enough Chilean currency to buy a Ferrari. But I intend to spend 90% of it on beer, wine & spirits, and the rest I´ll probably just waste! We spent the night at San Pedro de Atacama, a pleasant enough place, but as none of the roads are paved, it is fairly dusty. Got the chance to wash the bikes, which were filthy, & do some laundry, as we were filthy as well.

This was just a flying visit to Chile, just long enough to see a small portion of the Atacama Desert, with some very intersesting land forms on offer. We left yesterday morning, completing the Chilean border crossing formalities in SP de Atacama. Then we headed off into the east to the Argentinian border 160 km away! This was a spectacular ride, with no signs of life other than a few llamas, great sweeping vistas of vast plains, salt lakes & snow capped volcanic peaks. We climbed from about 2000m up thru the Paso Jama at 5000m, the highest altitude we have been sofar. On the way, we were delayed by a semi trailer which had jacknifed & blocked the road. No apparent casualties, but a big mess, & it was bloody freezing! Eventually we arrived at the Argentine border post, down to 2000m again & the formalities here went on for ever. They had computer problems & there were several tourist buses already stopped. At least they didnt inspect our baggage, but they did confiscate our lunch from the truck. We speculate probably to feed the drug detecting sniffer dogs, or maybe the border guards themselves. Given that Chile has the strictest plant/food quarantine regulations in South America, I reckon this was just one upmanship, especially when they refused to allow us to eat it on the spot.

Heading for our overnight stop at Parmamarca, we rode one of the scariest roads I have been on, a steep descent consisting of mainly tight switchbacks, but with a lot of loose gravel on the corners. Worse was to come between here & Salta, when we followed a very twisty narrow road, only wide enough for about one car but carrying traffic in both directions, with several horses & cows on the road in places. I didnt enjoy this section as much as some of our group (thrillseekers with a death wish, I say) but it seemed an unneccessary risk to me, & I was tired & cranky. Since when have I beena boring old fart? Maybe I should be home pruning the roses. Anyhow, we are now in Salta, which is a large city, but it seems reasonably ok. After a liesurely lunch of empanadas, the closest thing I have seen to a pasty since Sydney Airport, here I am. We have some big mileage days ahead now (5-600km a day is a lot here, given the roads & traffic conditions) as we head east to Iguacu. The altitude is down to 1200m, the roads are sealed, & it is warm again, & we have to grind it out a bit--thats my kind of riding! See you at the Falls.