RTW 2004-2007

. . . and saw more Lenins and Stalins than you could shake a stick at.

I'd forgotten what a 486 PC running Win98 was like. But this is Riga.When I tried to find the centre of Europe this morning it all went a bit pear-shaped, really. I tried to find the A14, I really did, and I followed the signs until they disappeared. And according to the sun I was going in more or less the right direction. But I wasn't. So I found a road which claimed to go left across country to the place I wanted. And across country I went. A few bits of the 43kms were tarmacked, to be fair, but most wasn't.

Road signs are a nearly-extinct species in Latvia. Those that do exist are a) very small, and b) only at the turning. They therefore actually mean "Go 10 km up the road to find somewhere safe to do a U and come back again, you dopey cow".There is a certain amount of disconnection between maps and reality, as well. Having successfully escaped from the centre of Riga on to the ring road (also involving a U as the slip road on to the ring road in the correct direction was closed) I duly found the exit for Ogre (being the first town on the road to Moscow).

The "Rossiya", the M10 from St.Petersburg the 450 miles to Moscow, is the flagship route of Russia. It took me 12 hours.It ranges from billiard-table to dire. Having found it (by dint of guessing that if I turned south on to Nevsky Propekt that would probably be it) I was pleasantly surprised for the first 10km or so - dual carriageway, decent surface. Then at the Novgorod turning it went to the other end of the scale. Narrow single carriageway, appalling surface, frequent suspension service establishments. And it started raining.

It took me two-and-a-half hours to get out of Moscow on Tuesday morning. Absolutely no roadsigns, and two maps which didn't join up so I rather floundered in the gap. Oh, yes, and the one-way systems such that I could see exactly where I wanted to go but had to do an enormous loop and cross the river by another bridge completely (usually in the gap between my maps - and see later about buying roadmaps here).

On Thursday afternoon, the chores having been done, I paddled in the Volga and sunbathed on the beach all afternoon - well, I'm on holiday, aren't I?So on Friday morning I set off for Ufa. ABout 40 miles down the road I had that awful wibbly-wobbly feeling from the back tyre and managed to stop. Flat as a very flat thing indeed. Managaed to cross the road to a wide gravelly area where I could spread out a bit. Removed luggage, propped rear of bike on pannier, removed wheel, removed tyre, removed tube.

Whilst siphoning fuel out of my tank yesterday morning in the hotel car park (as you do) I was accosted by a policeman and one of the MVD men with bulging left armpits who've been infesting the hotel for the last couple of days. They wanted me to move the bike right away from the hotel because the conference centre next door is hosting an exhibition of Faberge stuff, opening night yesterday evening, lots of VIPS expected, massive police presence etc. Naturally, I refused. They eventually let me hide the bike in a little corner by hotel reception.

Lots of people have asked me (including some Russians) whether I'm worried about the rumours of bandits, muggings, thefts, hijackings, dishonest policemen and so on.Quite honestly, the only threat to life and limb (apart from the drivers, who make the Italians look like amateurs) I've come across is the bureaucracy, which can rapidly make one lose the will to live.

Location: Reception desk, Hotel Vladivostok, Vladivostok

Time: 10am, Tuesday 28th September (knackered, after appalling 10-hour night flight, including an hour or so in a transit 'lounge' at Irkutsk, on Air Vladivostok's oldest Tu154)Dramatis Personae: Me (C); Receptionist (R)

Irena is the only person in the entire world who knows how to transport a motorcycle and its British rider from Vladivotok to Japan (recently taken over from Diana, who used to hold that distinction).My worry is that not only is she far too confident but things have so far gone far too smoothly.

Russia doesn't have molehills; it only has mountains. When you ask for help with something only slightly out of the ordinary, the standard response (unless you've had the misfortune to approach a deranged harridan) is "That may be a problem".

Stalina took me to her school yesterday, with a couple of her friends. It's traditional here for ex-pupils to go back to their schools, once they've left, with gifts for their teachers.Inside, the school was light, airy, and full of plants. The teachers were all lovely, and seemed more like aunties than teachers. The gym mistress looked like every gym mistress you've ever seen.

Outside, the paint was peeling and the building looked almost abandoned; but as I said to Stalinka, it's what happens inside that matters, and anyway if you're inside you can't see the outside.

(with apologies to Dostoevsky, but I've just read Crime and Punishment as I've been that bored I'd have cleaned the bike if I had one).Act II

Having already bought my ticket for the boat, but not yet for the bike, I decided (fortuitously, it seems) that it might be wise for me to investigate the station and find out train schedules (if there be such) and the whereabouts of the baggage facility; I had been enjoined, whilst in Yekaterinburg, to make strenuous efforts to meet the train and specifically the appropriate wagon, tended by Sergei and Tatiana.

Girls: The girls in Vladivostok are all around a size 6, at least 5'10" tall, with legs well beyond their armpits. And pretty. If any of you chaps ever consider coming here you'll have to have a slave tagging along with a mop and bucket to swab the ground behind you. The only thing is this: if the fashion scale goes from Sloane Square at 1 to Newcastle at 10, with Essex somehwhere in the region of 7, Vladivostok is around 25. As Nicola (NZ woman around my age who arrived yesterday) said, they all look as though they were out clubbing last night and haven't been home yet.

Whew.

Went to the barber this morning. Once they'd got over their surprise at having a Western female customer I was positively pampered. Had a no.3, and the barber was meticulous with the cutthroat razor on my neck and around my ears. Hot towels and absolutely no hairs down the back of my neck to irritate me for the rest of the day. And it all cost less than a standard at Melvyn's in Thatcham.It's raining, although warm.

Nice sunny pootle for 40 miles along Route 8 from Toyama. The exhaust was still blowing from the joint which parted company on the voyage from Vladivostok, so as I entered Kanazawa I stopped at a Kawasaki dealer and showed them the problem (no English spoken but a blowing exhaust is a blowing exhaust in any language). The bike went straight into the workshop, and within 10 minutes was fixed at a cost of about a fiver. They were most impressed by the patent BMW exhaust ring wrench, and even supplied two replacement cable ties to fix it back on to the panner frame again.

The original one, that is, established 8:15 am August 6, 1945:

N 34 deg 23.699
E 132 deg 27.254Had a lovely ride yesterday. Started down Route 157 from Kanazawa through the Hakusan National Park (wiggly and lots of tunnels) which looked like a great biking road. Sure anough, there was a gathering at a cafe by a dam, so I stopped and joined in. Even did the "There's a nice view, let's take a pic of it with all of us standing in front of it so you can't see it" thing (think I'm turning native).

And it was the bit I needed to find my way out of Hiroshima.Went on a boat trip yesterday (despite the Antonina Nezhdanova experience) to Miyajima, one of the islands in the Inland Sea. Yet another UNESCO World Heritage Site (you can do six of those before breakfast in most places in Japan). There are gangs of deer rampaging through the streets (never mind the monkeys - macaques, I think) but otherwise a lovely place a bit reminiscent (in a very Japanese way) of Portmeirion.

I could write a book about finding my way through strange cities in the Friday evening rush hour using meaningless maps.Anyway, I'm here now, staying will Will Penrice's father-in-law Peter. As luck would have it there's a BMW dealer 200m up the road and this afternoon they did my oil change and checked the bike over, which has saved me a lot of getting mucky.

Now sorting shipping to Thailand (said BMW dealer can provide a crate), and when that's done will go walkabout through other bits of Japan.

Household names: I've so far been either to or through Toyota, Yokohama, Yaesu, Sanyo and Kawasaki. No, I didn't know half of them were places either. There are probably others I haven't come across yet.At roadworks, unlike the Turks who have cardboard cutout police cars, the Japanese have plastic policemen waving lighted red batons.

We certainly felt Wednesday's 'quake. Not bad enough to spill the coffee, but it rattled pots and the ceiling lights swung for a few minutes. Glad I wasn't riding at the time. In fact, if I hadn't consumed so much of Peter's firewater on Tuesday evening I probably would have been. Japan is feeling a bit battered - first Typhoon Tokage devastating the south, now the two earthquakes. The death toll isn't massive (but still too much) and there are thousands of injured and tens of thousands homeless.

The space bar on a Japanese keyboard is very short (on this keyboard it's two-and-a-half ordinary keys wide), and you're ever so slightly inaccurate you end up typing in Kanji or something and can't get out of it and have to close the browser and start all over again. Grrrrr.The following is a first-timer's take on Japan. I'm sure there's wrong ends of wrong sticks in there somewhere, but as always I can only speak as I find.

My next-door-neighbour-from-hell has resubmitted the appalling planning application to which I objected 6 months ago and which was rejected out of hand by the planning officer without it even going to the committee. He probably thinks that I can't object from here. Ha!Jobsworth: had to laugh when I turned up at the Nippon Express warehouse at Tokyo docks. There was the usual uniformed jobsworth waving a magic wand, who was positively shrilling incomprehensibly at me to park over there and no way was I riding the bike into his warehouse. Sorry, pal, and I'm bigger than you.

There I was just before midnight, minding my own business, in bed, watching Beetlejuice (subtitled thank heavens) and the earth moved yet again. Now, I'm in a cheap hotel, on the 4th floor, and the Taiwanese don't seem to be as organised as the Japanese on earthquakes. As plaster from the ceiling fell onto the bed I scuttled, starkers, under the desk. I have to say it was pretty scary. It probably didn't last more than a few seconds but it seemed like forever and I'm not used to this sort of thing (yet).

Went to see Fahrenheit 9/11 last night. The audience included (but was probably not limited to) Thais, Americans, Germans, Chinese and British. It was subtitled in Thai, which meant the Thais got to understand what the Iraqis were saying as well. Interestingly (or, perhaps, unsurprisingly) everyone laughed in the same places, and when one American muttered loudly "Asshole" at one of Dubya's solecisms the whole place fell around. Then I went back to the hotel and watched the Bush/Blair double act and footage of the Falluja battle.

The temperature was 37C here on Sunday, which wouldn't have been so bad had not the humidity been 80%. It's cooled down a bit now, but I think it's going to be pretty horrible riding in bike kit.Talking of which, I went out to the warehouse at Lat Krabang this morning to sort out what happens on Thursday/Friday and what paperwork the Customs people need. Nightmare. And I managed to hail The Taxi Driver Who Can't Read A Map. Found the warehouse in the end after a magical mystery tour involving a bit of off-roading, canals, cart tracks and so on.

Any entomologists out there? Why are there no flies here? There's food being cooked absolutely everywhere at all times down every street and alleyway, and I swear I've not seen one single fly since I've been here. Come to think of it, there were none in Japan or Taiwan either.I have Vietnamese and Lao visas - very easy compared with getting them in the UK. This is my first experience of getting visas outside the UK; on previous trips I've bought them in London before leaving as the trips were temporally circumscribed.

I´ve had a wonderful wlecome from the BMW Club of Thailand. They took me out for dinner last night, and tomorrow is their annual bash to which I´m invited. Not only that, but they´re having a Club outing to Laos next weekend for a few days and have insisted I join them, which fits in brilliantly with my plans.Got the bike back this afternoon - five hours of paperwork then frenetic crate destruction and bike reassembly with the help of a forklift truck.

Riding in Bangkok traffic is more or less as I'd surmised - no problem at all. It looks chaotic but as almost all the car/van drivers use mirrors and indicators, and positively expect bikes to filtering both sides of them, it's a doddle.I went to Kanchanaburi, which is the town on the river Khwae near the famous bridge. Stayed in a stunning hotel called Bamboo House; it's right by the river, and the rooms are bamboo rafts floating on the river or en-suite bamboo huts on stilts on the lawn beside the river, about 200 yds from the bridge.

The roads in Thailand are generally excellent, even the white roads. Road signs mostly have destinations in Roman as well as Thai (thank goodness). Riding here is great; and British drivers could learn a thing or two from the Thais about using mirrors and indicators.The banyan tree near Phimai is huge. There are winding paths through the roots, and lots of shady places to picnic under the canopy. I have no idea how old the tree is, but it's certainly the biggest single plant I've ever seen.

The sealed roads in Laos (both of them) are very good; yesterday five of us blared 500 miles from Pakse, via Savannakhet, to Vientiane and had a lovely ride.The rest of the roads are mainly dirt tracks, but very well maintained so it's possible to do 50-ish between villages (providing there's no-one in front - too much dust).

Laos is a lovely country. Very unspoiled. Tan said it's like Thailand was 20 years ago. It produces the best coffee in the world, and as you ride through the countryside you smell wafts of roasting beans from time to time.

I'm riding the bike around Vientiane in a T-shirt, and no gloves or lid. The max traffic speed here is about 25mph, and it's mostly slower. Saves a lot of carrying stuff around as well.Vientiane is technically a city, but it's a small town really - smaller than Reading; population 133,000. Not surprising it was closed for the Asean summit. Everyone knows everyone else. The entire town knows that I'm the Englishwoman on a bike who's staying with Olivier (he employs 600 people at his factory).

Spent the last two nights at Phonsavan, which is in the middle of the Plain of Jars, which is also more or less in the middle of the saturation bombing by the US during their rather better publicised exercise next door in Vietnam.While there I decided to have a go at getting through the border to Vietnam - the closest crossing was only 140km away at Nan Cam. So off I went yesterday morning and arrived at around 11am. The Lao border chap said there was no point doing me until around 1:30 as Vietnam didn't open until 2. So I was duly done at 1:30 and pootled off to Vietnam.

Made it to Siem Reap today (Cambodia) which is where Angkor Wat is.

It's about 95 miles from the Thai border along National Highway 6.The first 30 miles consists of a series of large and fairly deep potholes, each ringed with a sliver of crumbling tarmac. I followed the moped in front as he seemd to know where he was going, and on the premise that if he could do that route so could I.

I'm back in Bangkok again, and this afternoon Sonja took me to Bumrungrad. I'll tell you about that later.Yesterday I managed the ride from Phnom Penh to Bangkok in around 12 hours. It's only about 450 miles and a border crossing, but more than 10% of it was unsealed road and worse. I rang Bruce when I'd crossed the border and filled the tank (fuel is an horrendous price in Cambodia - nearly $1 a litre; and the pumps are calibrated in US dollars rather than riels) and we arranged a place I could find in Bangkok to meet from where he'd come out and lead me to his and Sonja's apartment.

I'm begining to feel like the Rain God in the Hitchhiker's Guide. Quakes and other disasters seem to be following me around. The tally so far is four quakes and two typhoons.This one was felt a little in Bangkok (they evacuated the 64-floor Banyan Tree Hotel amongst others), but I slept through it (it happened around 8:30am and it *was* Boxing Day).

An APB went out on the ex-pat grapevine this morning for English/French/German-speaking people to look after tourists brought to BKK, whether injured, bereaved, orphaned or whatever.So Sonja and I went and registered ourselves, then went off to the Red Cross to give blood.

Blood donations: there isn't a culture of that in Thailand, but an appeal went out in the Bangkok Post. So Sonja and I went down to the Red Cross today; it was amazing.

So, looks like my plans for domination of the universe have been scuppered yet again.According to the chaps in Singapore, all the Indonesian ferries have been suspended both from there and from KL. Which is a bit of a bummer as Sumatra would have been my first equator crossing and I really, really wanted to do it on land.

Monkeys in a Thai National Park

A wonderful feature of the traffic lights at some of the intersections here in Bangkok is the countdown timer. Nice to know how long you have to get through that green light ahead. But the timers work on red as well (possibly because the phasing can be up to four minutes). You can imagine the result.Had a slight conundrum when I donated my armful of blood. I had to fill in the usual form (not much different from the UK one), and one of the questions was "Have you been to a malaria area in the last 3 months?". Hang about, Thailand *is* a malaria area. What's all this about?

I'm awfully impressed with Malaysia.I've checked in to the Marriott in Kuala Lumpur, and the security card for the hotel car park is specifically for motorcycles and designed to hang on the handlebars or mirror stalk.

Melaka (or Malacca) is a charming little place. There's loads of British, Dutch and Portguese colonial stuff, and I'm staying in a guest house in Chinatown, which is full of old shophouses and temples.Up the hill is the ruin of St.Paul's Church, where St.Francis Xavier used to preach and where he was buried for nine months before being exhumed and taken to Goa.

The average humidity here is 82%, which basically means that as soon as you go outside your shirt is sticking to you and you end up as a puddle on the pavement.

Half of Malaysia was blacked out yesterday for around three hours. Great fun when I arrived in Johor Bahru - no traffic lights (just policemen with whistles) and the hotel chaotic.I hadn't realised how narrow the straits are - it's less than half a mile across the causeway. I'll be taking the second link tomorrow (west of here) - the SGP guys say it's much easier because the tolls are much higher so most people use the original causeway. Of course, bikes don't pay tolls.

1. Check into hotel in Johor Bahru (JB).2. Take taxi to insurance office, which has moved.

3. Fill in even more interminable form than usual and give them money.

4. Be told that because of yesterday's blackout the computers have been down and there's a backlog of work and they can't issue the certificate until tomorrow morning.

5. Curse.

6. Claim that you will incur serious bodily harm from Singaporean motorcyclists if the paperwork isn't in order tomorrow morning.

7. Get vague promise of a certificate at 3pm this aftenoon.

Tomorrow morning I'll ride the bike into a container at the port, and in theory I can collect it in Darwin on February 2nd. All very painless.The BMW Club here are very friendly and helpful. Ai Ling invited me round to her flat so I could upload more pix on her broadband link, and it turns out we have exactly the same tastes in music. We've also been to the Singapore Swimming Club (she's a member) which is frightfully colonial and all that.

Shipping the bike to Oz has been remarkably painless so far. I rang Angie Ong at Megastar Shipping to tell her I was on my way, and when I got there she already had the paperwork ready.Two days later I went to the PSA office to get my security pass, then on to the godown on the dock. Got the carnet stamped, then rode into the warehouse, strapped riding kit on to the seat and collected the delivery note. No crating or anything. Back to the shipper to get the Bill of Lading and pay.

Saw an advert on the MRT train: "Nearly 4 houses are broken into every day". Apart from incredulity at this apparently almost invisible crime rate, I have to ask what they class as fractionally broken into.Steve Davies (BMW R1150RT - silver, of course) and his wife took me out on the town on Saturday night. Had a great time, culminating in one of the hookers on Orchard Road (I think, but can't remember clearly) propositioning Steve and me as she thought I was a bloke. Well, I *was* wearing one of my very floppy T-shirts and had just had a No.2 haircut.

This part of the Northern Territory is called Top End (which accounts for the name of my motel, as that's definitely not a description of its facilities).Look at a map of Australia, and locate the NT; it's the big bit in the middle of the top half. The largest-scale road map you need is 1:3.5M, which shows absolutely every road and track on a sheet of A4. The entire population is no more than 200,000, of which just 71,000 live in/around Darwin. Darwin is around the size of Thatcham, and is a rather charming little seaside town.

This morning's conversation, as I do some bike-furtling outside my
room:[Them] Hello. Nice bike.
[Me] Hello. Yup. You're British, aren't you?
[Them] Yup. Driving around Oz. Flying back home tomorrow. Where are you
from?
[Me] Near Newbury.
[Them] So are we. Woolton Hill.
[Me] Thatcham.

I've been learning lots of new vocabulary. Schooners, stubbies, pokies, all sorts of things. The only disappointment is that Sellotape is no longer called Durex but has been renamed Sellotape.Road Hazards (the Quick and the Dead)
------------
Kangaroos
Eagles
Dingos
Skeletons (usually dead and never very quick)
Stubbies (ditto)
Boredom

The Australians have three obsessions: booze, gambling, and how wonderful they are.Bottle shops abound, often the drive-through variety; as do pubs (of course) and booze seems to be available on a much wider basis than I've ever seen before.

I always thought Bondi Beach was this huge expanse of white sand full of beautiful people and bordered by enormous surf.I went there yesterday to have a look. It's a sort of bijou Bude but without the cream teas. It's really small - most disappointing.

Mind you, I had a lovely ride around the general vicinity of Sydney, and there are some stonking views to be had over the harbour. I took the opportunity to have a ride over the bridge as well, although not as fast as Mark Webber on Sunday (I expect you read about that fiasco).

Easter Island belongs to Chile. For about 50 years, from around 1900 until 1953, it was leased to Williamson Balfour & Co. Williamson Balfour & Co are the BMW concessionaires in Chile. They are owned by Inchcape, who also own (amongst others) Cooper Reading, my local BMW dealer. I have shares in Inchcape. So it would be rude not to go there on my way to Santiago, wouldn't it?

Nearly screamed this morning - the crate hadn't arrived, so crating is delayed till tomorrow. Luckily the shipping people are being very cool about it all.

I think Easter Island may be out as a stopover place. I spent most of yesterday afternoon at a flight consolidator (considered to the Oz's best) attempting to make some sense out of the schedules. Actually, my proposed itinerary was easy compared with the poor chap next to me who wanted to fly to Vladivostok, then LA, then back to Sydney. Non e possibile.

Far be it from me to tempt anything approximating fate, but I think it's sorted.We crated yesterday (jettison fuel, oil, battery; remove front wheel, mudguard and screen; remove top box and saddle and replace them the ther way around; reduce tyre pressures; strap evrything down; nail coffin lid down).

I already like Chile. It´s a sort of Spain with attitude. Smoking is compulsory, and a bottle of very decent Cabernet Sauvignon can cost as much as, ooh, thirty bob.

I think I´m now GMT -4 hours. The confusion has occurred because when telling us local time on landing yesterday lunchtime they omitted to mention that the clocks went back last night, so I was an hour early for breakfast this morning.

Chile is an RC country, and there is no divorce law. So on the immigration card the options under Marital Status were limited to Single/Married/Widowed. I ticked Widowed on the grounds that a) technically it's true, and b) I might have an easier time of immigration than when I entered Oz. And so it was - sailed through in a third of the time of anyone else with no nonsense about return tickets or anything. I´ll have to try that one again.

I knew it was all going far too smoothly.When I collected the battery yesterday afternoon I said "It's too big" and they said "No, it's the right one" so I thought I must be mistaken.

Got the bike back. Mario took me to the dealer first thing to collect the correct battery, charged overnight. Back to the airport, shoehorned battery in, connected everything up, put my clothes off, signed the last bits of paper and off I went into Santiago.

Having spent half the night on the blower to Amex (a most painful and circuitous procedure involving calls to the UK, Germany and the US, and a final conference call between the lot of us) I managed to obtain $684-worth of pesos at the Western Union office this morning.Predictably I got the Jobsworth. Refused to listen to anything I said until I gave him a passport. I tried to explain that it´d been stolen and that Amex had arranged things so I wouldn´t have to produce it (ID numbers, Q&A things, weird remitter name etc.).

The great thing about hotel buffet breakfasts is that you can make yourself a packed lunch.Pootled up into the mountains today. Santiago sits at around 2,000ft; I´m staying fairly centrally, and five miles up the road the city stops abruptly; you fork right on to a country lane which starts rising rapidly; and it only takes another half hour to get right out of the city and up to 7,000ft. Around 25km further and you're at nearly 10,000ft and the road stops, about 5 miles from the Argentine border.

Some of you don't know how much of a sad git I am. All will now be revealed.

Several buses today have borne fresh-sprayed grafitti along the lines of ´Adios Juan Pablo II´.Given that it´s also Sunday I´m amazed anything´s open.

Left Santiago yesterday morning and stayed at Temuco last night. Lovely riding day. I´m now at Puerto Montt and should be able to get the ferry tomorrow night to go to Chaitén. It´s that or go the long way round which involves at least three ferries and plenty of dirt road. And it´s foggy, raining and cold (think October in the UK). At least the radiators in the hotel are the sort you can lay your gloves and trousers on.

Caught the overnight boat (cargo ship which takes passengers) from Puerto Montt to Chaitén, it takes 10 hours, left an hour late after much messing around, so arrived at 9 this morning. While hanging around on the dock I fell into conversation with Arturo and his girlfriend (his surname´s Ellis as his dad´s British). Turns out his brother used to live in Thatcham, less than a mile from where I live.

I set off immediately, hoping to reach Coyahique this evening. Fat chance.

I spent a couple of nights at La Junta as it was pissing with rain. Left and set off down the Carretera Austral for the 200km to Coihaique (or Coyhaique depending on who´s spelling you see).After about 50km I came round a bend (carefully on the loose scree) and there was a row of a dozen big trailies - 2 1150GSs, 4 F650GSs, a Transalp and a bunch of Yamaha XTs, together with a 4x4 pickup. It was a group of Dutch and Belgians doing an adventure trail holiday, on bikes hired in Santiago.

Amazing people. Everything is in the process of being sorted, up to and including a new frame. And I´ve ordered a new screen and tankbag in the UK to be sent direct to Phil to go in the crate.Many, many thanks to Phil the Boxer Man for all the organisification he´s doing for me. I must owe him several crates of Paddy´s by now (incidentally, it was on optic in the bar in Phnom Penh).

It appears I´m a bit of a local hero around here.One of the orderlies at the hospital is the wife of the Customs man at the border who looked after the wreck until Patricio collected it for me, and apparently they get so fed up with treating tourists with twisted ankles and broken fingernails that I was the biggest excitement since they finished the road to the airport. Francisco has a bit of a reputation for refusing to speak English or French to a tourist unless they´re really hurt. I´m flattered.

The problem of getting out of Coyhaique was finally solved by Fabiola (and she wanted rid of me, of course).

Oh Dear

But don´t mention pecs right now. The physio (lifting pudding bottles) went fine, but they kept getting lighter. But I´d still rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy.Enough already.

I nearly lost my Swiss Army knife at the airport because I completely forgot about putting it in my checked baggage. So I put it inside my helmet inside my little backpack. They spotted my ´waiter´s friend´ (which I´d also forgotten about) and confiscated that, but the knife survived. Phew.

Mario the Croatian driver was ever so pleased to see me and gave me a big hug. And the hotel have put me in one of the best rooms for the same price as before.Ye gods, the difference 1300 miles north makes. I´ve been walking round in a T-shirt today, and the snowline is at around 5000 feet instead of sea-level. The bike´s going great, but I´ve had to do a few of those bedding-down tweaks you always need after the first few hundred miles. And I managed to get hold of a rivet gun and rivets to fix the VIN plate to the new frame. Shhh.

Rode the 10 miles from Arica to the border yesterday morning. On the way I passed one of those "must have" road signs - "Bolivia: turn right, Peru: straight on".I thought things were looking rather deserted, and there was no queue at the border; it's the only one between Chile and Peru and is on the PanAmericana, so one would expect there to be at least some traffic.

I parked up and approached the Immigration Control window.

It was like this, you see.On Friday the border situation was still not entirely clear, so I decided to stay an extra day (and this is a very nice place). I went to tell Reception and they asked if I minded changing to a different room, offering one of the rather nice bungalows on the beach instead, so I accepted.

I don´t know how depleted the oxygen is at 16,000 feet (that´s 4850 metres to you youngsters) but it´s certainly a bit of a struggle to ingest enough.Although I´m in winter riding kit (+ heated grips) I´m still in open-face and goggles, and I´ve found that keeping my mouth open as I ride effectively supercharges the breathing. I´m fine while I´m riding, but as soon as I stop . . .

I´ve had to recalibrate the Wow Scale a few times, and am running out of superlatives, and so to make everything easier I´ll use asterisks and you can insert your own.The road from Puno to Cuzco started quite ordinarily and then became more and more * as it rose to 13,000 feet before dropping down to Cuzco at 11,500 feet. A couple of bikes coming the other way screeched to a halt. It was Ed (US) and his Spanish wife Elisa, both riding, I think, Hondas; they´re doing S America before returning to Arizona.

Still haven´t found Paddington, although Algernon and Winnie-the-Pooh have been trying awfully hard.Peru is, otherwise, stuffed to the gills with RTWers and other long-distancers, both on bikes and in 4x4s. I met a German couple on Africa Twins a couple of days ago on my way from Cuzco to Abancay, and three German cyclists yesterday as we Wowed at the sunset on the drop 12,000 feet down from the Andes to Nazca.

I spent most of this morning listening to a pair of shamans (Juan and Vladimir, whose day jobs are as electronics engineers) describing the solar and lunar ceremonies and what they hoped to achieve for a couple of guests here.Here is Vilcabamba, a small Ecuadorian village in the Andes on the edge of the Amazonian cloud forest. It's gorgeous. The desert finally ended after 3,000 miles near Tumbes, 15 miles south of the border (which was the usual bear garden as the actual border is in the middle of a very crowded market).

Ecuador can be very confusing, aside from the road signs.What we (in the UK) call the Ground Floor they sometimes call the Piso Bajo (or PB) and sometimes the 1st floor. When there's a PB the 1st floor is the 1st floor, and if not it's the 2nd floor. So if you're on what you think is the 1st floor but are directed to the 1st floor you may have to go up one floor or down one floor or stay where you are, depending on the kind of building you're in. Alles klar?

Where the roads are good they're very good, and the rest are not terribly good at all.This means that in a six-hour ride (which is about as much as the shoulder will take without screaming at me) I can manage maybe 250 miles at best. A couple of times I've been down to 150 miles or less. But I'll be having a bit of a rest now, which may help.

The buses here are a hoot.They're frequent and very cheap, and extremely fast - I've already learned to keep well out of their way when on foot or on the bike as they give way to nothing and go flat out.

You have to lurk near (never, ever, at) a bus stop, then leap at the door of the bus you think may be going your way. There's a conductor who takes (not much) money but not in return for a ticket, and who usefully tells you that "This bus doesn't go there" or "You should have got off at the last stop".

Most of the taxis here are fairly respectable.The Ecuadorian government has used tax incentives to persuade people to get rid of the old VW Beetles (most of which seem to have leaked intop northern Peru) and buy something a little more modern. Despite this there are still some real sheds around; one I took yesterday had a completely smashed windscreen which must have severely limited the driver´s view.

And oh she's lovely. Complete top-end rebuild so she's like new; crack in silencer welded; and I fixed all sorts of little things which had been irritating me for ages but never got around to.I can't believe the bill though; including everything (a bit of welding on the silencer, a jolly good clean, and all the usual suspects) it was just over $200. If you ever need work done on your BeeEm in Ecuador, Alvarez Barba are the people to go to; ask for Augusto Begnini (Mr.Fixit).

Yet another extraordinary coincidence yesterday.You should first be aware that the Old Dear has a charging system problem. Why it couldn't happen in Quito only the architect of Sod's Law knows. Anyway, when I got to Riobamba the voltmeter had bottomed out and the engine died as I rolled into the hotel car park; the ignition system needs at least 8V to function. Miraculously they were able to lend me a charger, and meanwhile I swapped and tested charging system components, came to no real conclusion and hoped for the best.

Had a stonking ride from Cuenca to Guayaquil yesterday.On the premise that the road through the Parque Nacional El Cajas must be largely paved as the buses only take 3 hours for the trip (both my maps show it as unpaved), I turned due west. The park rises to 13,000ft and looks like a cross between the Highlands and Snowdonia, although the shrubbery and wildlife are somewhat different. As I descended the other side towards the coast I could see the top of the cloud forest. Ouch, can't use lights because of lack of charging.

I was so lucky. Because the charging problem wasn't fixed I had to come back to Guayaquil from Machala, so I wasn't in Peru in the immediate vicinity of the epicentre of last night's Richter 7 earthquake. All it did was just shake my G&T around a bit.It turns out that both my regulators were duds (Law of Sod, clause 35), as established by the local Bosch agent, who astonishingly was able to supply a replacement. So tomorrow I can really go back to Peru at last (please, please).

It´s definitely worth riding some roads twice, once in each direction. The road south from Chimbote to Lima goes through some stunning desert culminating in a climb and then descent over the biggest dunes you´ve ever seen.The terrain changes fairly suddenly at the border between Ecuador and Peru. In Ecuador it´s wall-to-wall banana plantations with mangrove swamps on the coast, then when you reach Tumbes (the first place of any size in Peru and where Pizarro landed) there´s a couple of token plantations and then unremitting desert.

Isn't it fortunate that I decided to turn south? If I hadn't I'd now be somewhere in the general vicinity of Guatemala/southern Mexico where the roads have either been washed away by the floods or destroyed by the earthquake.

I've been having a hilarious time with hotels.The one I'm based at has nice secure, shady parking for the bike (well away from The Alpaca Gang), but occasionally fills up with coachloads of Saga Louts. So they chuck me out for a night while perfectly happy to store my luggage and the bike.

There was an interesting article in the local paper this morning about
corruption.When I was in Ecuador the locals told me (not without some pride) that Ecuador is the second most corrupt country in the world. Apparently (on a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is the least corrupt) Iceland, Finland and NZ top the league with a score of better than 9.5. South America averages 3.5 (Africa is 2.9). And within S America Colombia scores a bit over 3, Peru 4.5, Uruguay 5.9 and Chile 7.3 It
doesn't mention the rest, but do the sums yourself.

A rather bizarre question I was asked last week:

"Who does your scheduling?"

Uh?

Turns out the guy thought I had someone ahead of me to sort routes, hotels etc. When I explained I had maps and guide books he was nonplussed.

"But how can you do that?"

I sort of gave up at that point.
My new alternator has dropped into a black hole. Parcel Farce (UK) swear it´s in Peru; SerPost (Peru) swear it´s not. So another one is being sent, this time by FedEx or DHL, I know not which yet.

Although footie is very popular, the real National Sport is protest marches and demonstrations. Especially if they can persuade the riot police to attend in their beat-up troop carrier with the extremely cracked windscreen. Today's was an anti-Fujimori do - pix on Phil's site when he has a moment.So, the second alternator arrived yesterday; and after I spent all of five minutes fitting it, the yard at the back of the hotel reverberated with the sweet sound of a revving engine and the cheers of the hotel staff as they saw the needle on the voltmeter swing to the right.

Had a cracking ride up over the altiplano to Juliaca, then along Lake Titicaca through Puno to the border at Desaguedero.Just about every policeman I passed flagged me down for a chat; and I think I´ve had more offers of marriage in Peru than the rest of my life put together.

Six days, 2,000 miles and three border crossings from Arequipa; and thanks for the birthday wishes. Now in Argentina and only three hours behind GMT.A Typical Day (yesterday actually)

"How do you keep so fit, just sitting on a motorbike all day?"

"No idea, madam. I put it down to my strict diet regime of caffeine, nicotine and alcohol."
There are two types of road in Argentina - paved and unpaved.

There are two types of paved road - excellent and awful.

There are three types of pothole on the awful paved roads - pothole, POTHOLE, and "Where'd that truck go?"

The unpaved roads are ripio - gravel.

I've taken the liberty of a small detour northwards before turning south again; there's a Horizons Unlimited Travellers' Meeting near Viedma next weekend, and as I missed the Mexico meet I'd like to go and maybe join up with others heading south to Ushuaia.Talking of which, half the world is on its way there - just yesterday I met John and Olwyn from Kings Heath in their camper van at one stop, and six chaps in three 1950's Austin Healeys rumbled in as I was having a sarnie at another stop. I reckon around Christmas there'll be more foreign-registered vehicles in Ushuaia than locals.

As I rode across the isthmus to Peninsula Valdés to see the killer whales I saw in the distance the unmistakeable form of a wheelless bike and a man doing a little light inner-tube wrestling.It was Patrick, Swiss, Honda 400 trailie. So I gave him a hand and we rode together to the campsite at Puerto Pirámides where we met Adriano, Italy, Africa Twin. There followed a couple of days of chilling out by/on the beach with a little light eating and not-so-light drinking. Adriano's on a time limit so left for Ushuaia on the second day, and Patrick has to get back for work in Bahia in Brazil.

The Strait of Magellan is awesome. The little roro ferry crosses Primera Angostura from Punta Delgada in about half an hour for less than 4 quid, surrounded by frolicking sealions and penguins.Tierra del Fuego is also awesome, starting out as desolate pampa and becoming mor mountainous and green as you go south. Much of the road is ripio, but mostly the Chilean kind which is much easier than the Argentinian.

For the first time in my life I've had to buy sunscreen due to the lack of ozone over Antarctica.But it turns out that my bike kit is more or less appropriate clothing, according to the packing list, so I don't have to buy anything extra (they have a supply of rubber waders on board the ship).

If you're interested, you can read all about the cruise at http://www.antarpply.com/public_html/index.html.

The M/V Ushuaia is an ex-oceanographic survey ship with ice-breaking capabilities, and takes 65 passengers.The hull at the bows is six inches thick with ribs every eight inches. Its top speed is 15 knots and cruising speed is 12 knots. But through the ice it creeps at 5 knots. The shore trips are in Zodiacs, with mostly "wet" landings, necessitating wellies and as much waterproof clothing as you can manage. My BMW suit proves to be excellent Antarctic wear, with only the addition of wellies, hat and lifejacket.

You just have to love this place, and this country (in case you've forgotten I'm back in Chile for the seventh time).Porvenir, on Tierra del Fuego, is a town of some 5,000 souls. It covers about a square mile - you can walk from one end of town to the other in around 15 minutes. The main drags are paved but otherwise all roads are dirt, except for the 5km to the port where the ferry leaves for the two-and-a-half-hour voyage to Punta Arenas on the other side of the Magellan Strait.

Had a lovely ride north from Ushuaia with Rupert on Saturday morning, up to the border at San Sebastian. On the Argentinian side was a gaggle of trailies ridden by Finns and Americans, being led by none other than Roberto, the Chilean chap who was so helpful getting me and the wreck to Coyhaique after the Crash. So it was nice to be able to thank him properly and give him a hug and a kiss.This is where the tarmac ends. So, on to the Chilean side, do the paperwork and have a cuppa before the 100-mile hack to Porvenir to get the ferry across the Magellan Strait to Punta Arenas.

My father used to wear what my big brother and I called Spinnaker Trousers.We'd got to Brighton for the afternoon after Dad had finished at the bank on Sauturday, and it would usually be cold and windy. We'd walk along the prom and Dad's trousers would be flapping in the wind like sails. We children tried to disown him.

The Queen Mary 2 is a really beautiful vessel. I was able to do a direct comparison between her and the Regal Princess, a rather smaller and considerably less classy ship in port at the same time.The QM2, of course, sports the correct livery of blue hull, white superstructure, and red funnel with those very narrow black horizontal lines. And by heaven she's big. Unfortunately I missed seeing her steam up the strait as I had to get the morning flight, but the sight of her moored in the port more than made up for that.

The pilot and I are chums now I'm a regular, so this morning I got a kiss and the co-pilot's seat for the flight from Porvenir to Punta Arenas.Let me explain.

Horacio was wonderful (such a nice young man).He came over to Porvenir on his bike and having stayed the night helped me reconstruct the bike and did quite a lot of heaving to straighten pannier frames and panniers; then we beetled off back to the ferry and had a horrible 3-hour crossing back to Punta Arenas. It was only a 1-metre swell, but it's a small boat and although the bikes were roped to the side mine was threatening to over-centre on the sidestand.

I've started the right-wrist-stripe again. All riders get this. For some reason your right cuff rides up a little and you end up with a brown stripe around your right wrist from the sun.And I have to remove the sheep from the seat if the car park has a guard dog. Generally the dog wants either to eat the sheep or shag it. Dunno why, as it's already getting pretty disreputable. It really is very comfortable, though, even when it's hot.

I've had a wonderful find. Castrol GTX is newly available here in SAE25W60 grade. Bloody wonderful.Oscar and Nancy have been wonderful. They found me a hotel room (Viedma is full at this time of year), and The Old Dear is comfortably ensconced in Oscar's workshop. Oscar has straightened the topbox and welded the pannier frame, so the only other thing is to have the right-hand panner repaired (yet again). Did loads of stuff yesterday like oil/filter change, tappets etc. in extremely comfortable surroundings, lubricated by a rather decent Malbec (not sure of the grade).

The River Plate is rather brown and big - the ordinary ferry takes three hours to do the direct crossing to Colonia in Uruguay, and the Seacat takes an hour (which is what I did); the Argentinians think the Seacat is very expensive, but an hour's crossing for less than 40 quid isn't half bad by European standards.I wasn't quite sure what to expect in Uruguay, but my first impressions are good (empty) roads and signs, and friendliness. The driving is very polite (even by European standards), and there's a phone number displayed to ring for free breakdown help.

Just as everyone has ripio stories and "how long I had to wait in some god-forsaken place for parts to get through Customs" stories, there are also "corrupt barsteward cops in Entre Rios province" stories.Here's another.

I crossed the border from Uruguay back into Argentina at the Salto/Concordia causeway. For once there is actually a combined border complex on the Argentinian side, minimising the amount of runing around between offices you have to do.

I'd heard differing stories about Paraguay - some positive and some negative. However, what I and others have noticed is that everyone in S. America is rude about the country immediately to the north. For instance, the Argentinians warn you about Bolivia, the Chileans about Peru, the Peruvians about the Ecuatorians, and so on. So I don't really take a lot of notice.

Brazilian drivers are really letting the side down.For a start, they use mirrors and indicators, and not only that but they mostly stick to speed limits and pull back over after overtaking. What´s all that about, then?

I´m gradually getting to grips with Brazilian Portuguese; a lot of words are more or less the same as Spanish, although the pronunciation is often very different. But whoever described Portuguese as being a beautiful-sounding language must have cloth ears - it sounds exactly like a tape being played backwards and is almost completely incomprehensible.

When I was at primary school we did a ´project´ about Brasilia, as it had just been finished and become the new Brazilian capital. I´d always wanted to see the reality, and now I have.It´s a fascinating city, architecturally and geographically. But the one thing that Niemeyer forgot was that people have legs. So although traffic moves smoothly and there´s plenty of parking, it´s really difficult to walk anywhere.

That´s how far and how long.I´m in Fortaleza, which is more civilised a place than some. Being Easter weekend has meant slightly rearranged plans, but even so I´ve managed a new back tyre and a major service.

It gets worse.

Yesterday a nice taxi driver called Eduardo took me to the docks and helped immensely in sorting my passage to Manaus.The boat leaves tomorrow at 6pm (allegedly) but, of course, tomorrow´s a public holiday (when isn´t it?) so I had to deliver the bike to the docks this afternoon for loading.

"When does the boat get to Manaus?"

"Wednesday. Or Thursday. Maybe Friday."The n/m Onze de Maio sails an hour late, which probably counts as early in Brazil. Sleeping accommodation is bring-your-own hammock. Steerage passengers share the engine/cargo deck, most of the rest eat and sleep on the middle deck, and the lucky few are on the top deck with the bridge, the bar and general hanging out.

I crossed the equator back into the northern hemisphere yesterday.I was amused to find that the US government (the satellites) and the Brazilian government (the sign) agree exactly on the position of the equator on BR174, the road from Manaus to Venezuela. As I inched to a halt to bring up all the zeroes on the GPS I stopped on the line at the small monument beside the road.

Venezuelans are a cheery, friendly bunch; the roads vary from reasonable to superb; best unleaded is around tuppence-ha'penny a litre.roncal 10 from the Brazilian border at Santa Elena, heading north along the border with Guyana the 400 miles to Cuidad Guayana on the Orinoco, must qualify as a WGBR (World's Great Biking Road) - sweeping benderies, perfect surface, no traffic, no police, wonderful ups and downs, and allegedly excellent scenery but I couldn't see it as the torrential rain limited visibility somewhat.

Venezuela can be a little Iranian - it has fuel coming out of its ears, the fuel is very cheap (by global standards), but petrol stations can be hard to find.When I left the border town the only petrol station was closed; I therefore stopped at the next one, 60 miles up the road (in torrential rain, of course). The delivery tanker was in. "OK," I thought, "shouldn´t be long." Wrong. The chaps were in the process of repairing the electric pump which transfers the fuel from the tanker to the storage tanks.

Had another of those days yesterday.Up at sparrow's, and followed the directions of the parking chap to get out of Maracaibo. An hour later I finally managed to get out on to the road north, thanks to a helpful truck driver at the BP station.

The first part of the ride to Medellìn was great - friendly locals at petrol and coffee stops, no rain, decent road. Then I was stopped at an army checkpoint.A young soldier insisted he wanted to search the panniers. I couldn't get off the bike where I was because of the adverse camber, so he smilingly gestured me backwards apparently to a place I could get the sidestand down. Still smiling, he waved me further until the back wheel disappeared into a ditch and the bike and I fell over.

You may remember I met a couple of Colombian motorcyclists on the boat from Belem to Manuasand again in Boa Vista - this is them: Diego and Andras.Publimotos is a magazine and TV program here about bikes, and they want to interview me, so I'll be on Colombian telly - how about that?

Colombia is still amazing me with its friendliness and hospitality - more stories than you can shake a stick at.

Everyone in Colombia is amazingly friendly and helpful, and very aware of their country's reputation in the rest of the world.When they ask what I expected I give the usual list of drug barons, shootings, kidnappings and so on, and they know that's the perception, but they're working really hard to make all visitors really welcome.

You may remember the nightmare of addresses in Japan, which are vague in the extreme and where even the posties* don't really know which building is which.

Reminder: All my pix are here.The centre of Caracas has its own conundrum. None of the streets have names, or even numbers. Instead, the street corners are named, and an address will be expressed as in between two corners. Aargh.

I knew it was all suspiciously easy.It took longer to get to the shipping agent at the airport than it did to arrange the shipping (which took as much as ten minutes).

So The Old Dear will fly to Panama next Thursday - I ride to the agent, do loads of paperwork, spend ages in Customs doing more paperwork and turning everything out of the panniers yet again (no doubt I'll have to do that in Panama as well, given from where she's flying), disconnect the battery and that'll be it. That's the theory, anyway, and previous reports bear this out.

The Old Dear is wearing an enormous smile.

Reminder: All my pix are here.Pedro and Juanita collected me from the hotel yesterday afternoon, on their Virago (the 12GS is in Buenos Aires), and took me to Villa de Lleyva. This is a beautifully-maintained colonial village founded in 1572, to the north of Bogotá. We arrived 8-ish and checked in to a lovely little hotel in one of the colonial mansions, then walked around the village to the strains of a local folk band.

The Old Dear has lost weight as well. She weighed in at 292kg on the warehouse scales in Bogotá, bless her.The whole shipping procedure is completely different every time one does it. The Bogotá-Panamá procedure is as follows:

Yesterday I went to see the Miraflores Locks on the Panama Canal.Some of the statistics are stunning. The enormous container ships which can fit are categorised as "Panamax", which means they go through the locks with just 60cm clearance each side. Needless to say, they go rather slowly and carefully.

And this morning we removed the oil pump from The Old Dear and ordered a new one. Not a word, OK?

And the palindrome: "A man, a plan, a canal - Panama!"

Sigh. Can't be avoided. The amazingly elongated yells of GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL (I timed one at 32 seconds) reverberate through the streets and shopping malls - there are tellies absolutely everywhere.Most Panamanians support either Argentina or Brazil (and some apparently both, presumably to maximise piss-up opportunities); and according to some of the expats I've met here, a Brazil-Argentina final will probably start WWIII right here in South America as they really, really hate each other.

So, on Friday The Old Dear had her new underneaths fitted and everything put back together again. She started instantly, of course.The oil light still comes on at idle, but quite honestly I think I'll simply ignore it now. We can't find any reason for it, it's been happening for over 10,000 miles, and there appears to be no resultant damage.

But . . . there is an Unpleasant Noise at mid-range. The sort of Unpleasant Noise which can develop into an Expensive Noise.

I'm sure you've all been aware that one the things which has kept me going on this journey is those for whom I'm doing it. By which I mean those who'll never have the chance.One of those people was Joyce Brown. Before I left, she and her husband Arthur told me that I had to bear the responsibility of doing it for them; only half in jest (both of them can be pretty fierce). At the time, Joyce was receiving chemotherapy for lymphoma.

The bike having been taken to a workshop the other side of the city to have an extremely recalcitrant big-end bolt extracted, I slept badly because I woke up in the middle of the night convinced that when I refitted the gearbox I forgot to remove the flywheel-jamming tool (which is small and black and thus doesn't exactly leap to the eye). I take such things extremely calmly these days. (And remember all my pix are here.)I'll rewind a bit here.

I hadn't ridden a horse for ten years, and that was just a jaunt around the pyramids with a proper syce. So when Lucy said she'd arranged a docile horse for me for a morning ride I was a little trepidatious but reckoned I'd manage as long as someone told me what to do.Honey appeared as advertised, but as soon as I mounted she went bonkers and refused to to much other than go round in circles at almost a canter (referred to as "a fast walk"). So the stable boy took over, and she went even more frisky.

I spent last night at the foot of an active volcano. It's called Volcán Arenal, near San Carlos de Fortuna, northwest of San José.At night the summit glows bright red, and glowing ash and rocks are hurled out, coming most of the way down the mountain. A spectacular sight with the full moon. As a consequence, trips up to the main viewing platform are out of the question at the moment because they don't want to kill any more tourists.

One sits very still indeed when being approached by a large Nicaraguan gentleman wielding a cut-throat razor.But he did a splendid job of defluffing my hair. I have to say it's absolutely NO FUN at all having a stinking cold in a temperature of 35 degrees in 95% humidity, but I pass the time but hunting for a bar which has not only gin but also tonic. One of my more difficult challenges so far.

I was intending to leave León this morning, but have been trapped (yet again) by the start of the Independence Day celebrations.Most of Central America celebrates September 15 as Independence Day, when they finally managed to get rid of the Spanish. Sometimes the English and Dutch get sniped at as well, as we were in Granada on Saturday. So this morning, just as I was about to get my togs on, the street outside became extremely closed for three hours for processions of schoolchildren with marching drum bands. I couldn't have left even if I'd been able to get at the bike.

Do you remember I said a while back that everyone in South America warns you about the country to the north? So the Chileans say Peru is dangerous, the Argentinians say Paraguay is dangerous, and they all say Venezuela and Colombia are dangerous.Well, there I was having afternoon coffee at a little chef in Nicaragua with Dione and Leigh, an English couple on a pair of Yamahas heading south, and they say that everyone in North and Central America warns you about the country to the south. So the Americans think you'll die in Mexico, the Mexicans say you'll die in Guatemala, and so on.

Riding around the Yucatán peninsula has been interesting, and not only for the Mayan ruins at places like Palenque and Chichen Itza.The province of Chiapas is Zapatista territory (motto "The Government Obeys Us") and there are warnings of 'trouble' even on the main road. Once in Quintana Roo the local police display big handpainted billboards showing which roads are in good, OK and bad condition, which is helpful although so far the roads have been uniformly pretty good.

When I left Belize I headed to Villahermosa. It was a nice ride through the jungle, but inevitably, come the afternoon, the rain started. Visibility down to 100 yds and instantly soaked to the skin.I passed two petrol stations, both closed due to lack of fuel. A digression here: the Mexican oil company Pemex has a monopoly on petrol/diesel sales, so petrol stations, although privately owned because they're franchised, are rather few and far between.

It's always great to see old friends again, especially when they plonk a pint of Bombay Sapphire and tonic in your hand before you've even got your kit off.Bruce (Grove, ex-colleague from Sun-IMP) lives in a gorgeous house on the outskirts of Austin (Texas), complete with cat and a garage big enough for several bikes (he has a Triumph at the moment).

Well, I did warn you before I left.Lone Star BMW in Austin are really, really helpful. Having bought a few bits and pieces there yesterday, I returned today for a pair of tyres and a few odds and sods.

A rather sad Josh came out of the workshop. They're not happy about the output shaft bearings, which, if you can remember that far back, is why I fitted a brand-new gearbox before I left Blighty.

Upshot is I'm here for another week. They've ordered the bits and will do the job as soon as they arrive, bless them (servicing for customers has a three-week wait).

Last Tuesday I went to Lone Star and bought bits and pieces to sort what I thought the minor-ish problems were.On Wednesday I went back and had new tyres fitted. Having asked for 90/90 front and 110 or 120/90 rear and agreed to Pirelli Scorpions (as they had them in stock) I had them fitted, which is when they opined that I might have a gearbox problem. When I rode back to Bruce's place I thought she was a bit tall (had to plan my stops rather carefully) but attributed it to new tyres, lack of luggage, and the new dead sheep.

I've been learning all sorts of new stuff - the day before yesterday I fitted and wired a new bilge pump and float valve, and yesterday I was initiated into the mysteries of the kind of stuff you need when refitting a boat, during a mega shopping expedition with Stuart.

I've been learning all sorts of new stuff - the day before yesterday I fitted and wired a new bilge pump and float valve, and yesterday I was initiated into the mysteries of the kind of stuff you need when refitting a boat, during a mega shopping expedition with Stuart.

Unconditional Love' (aka 'Aransas') is a 37-foot ocean-going racing trimaran designed by Ian Farrier (http://www.f-boat.com).In the last ten days I've learned an enormous amount about boats, and especially how they need to be prepared and how things should be done. I've previously sailed nothing bigger than a National 16, but just sailing a little way on one of these is fantastic.

This island, Mustang Island, is host to just two Brits, myself and Stuart. There is only one town - Port Aransas, population 3370 - which is quite possibly the friendliest place on the planet.The locals are also rather amused that we're both patrons of the Port Medical Center.

Both the the boat and I have been slung.
(Photos are HERE).Stuart motored to the boatyard at Aransas Pass yesterday, manoeuvred it into the dock, the slings went underneath her and she's now out of the water. So we've removed the daggerboard and steering gear for repair, Reba is filling, sanding and decorating, and we're getting on with some other stuff. It's very strange being on a boat six feet above dry land.

George said yesterday that my head looks like a campfire that's gone out. I rather liked that.George is a friend of Pelican John, and they're constructing the nets between the bowsprit and the outriggers, complete with the Caribbean Dunny. This is a hole at one corner, Crew, For The Use Of. Oh, just use your imagination, OK?

Pelican John came round on Sunday evening with his guitar and entertained us all. He's very good. Stuart will be providing a video, which is definitely worth watching and listening to.

On Friday I had the privilege of launching 'Aransas', saying the time-honoured words and christening her hull with the appropriate liquid.She's looking gorgeous now, with her polished hull and the new anti-fouling paint. All sorts of electronic gear has been acquired, and we think we can get it all up and running today, including the radar. I have a lot more wiring to do - so far nothing's gone bang after my ministrations, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. It's all a matter of interpreting the Raymarine 'instructions' correctly.

I could quite get used to this sailing lark; it's a bit like the trip overall really - the good days more than make up for the really bad ones.I only had to wear the wellies once, but that was for 36 hours including sleeping (plus full wetties and lifejacket). It's taken five days to sail the thousand miles from Port Aransas to Cancùn in Mexico on the Yucatan peninsula.

Stuart and Ian have admitted lying to me.They thought I might throw a wobbly if I knew the seas were really 20 feet instead of only 12. Wobbly? Moi? Having far too good a time. Incidentally, the boat is "dry" in that absolutely no booze is allowed on board; frankly we were all too knackered to want anything other than catering quantities of industrial-strength coffee anyway.

Photos will be available before too long, I hope.

A few days ago we'd finished repairs for the day and were imbibing a well-earned beer or three when a young backpacker couple approached enquiring about the boat and whether there was any chance of crewing to somewhere interesting.

Pictures and maps are HERE.Katya is from Leipzig and is an industrial engineering graduate, and Augustas is a Lithuanian software engineer. They met in Spain, and their common language is English - obviously. I mean, no-one speaks Lithuanian except Lithuanians.

Monday:
Stuart: "What's wrong with this b****y outboard?"
Me: "It's a two-stroke."Tuesday:
Stuart: "What's wrong with this b****y outboard?"
Me: "It's a two-stroke."

Wednesday:
Stuart: "What's wrong with this b****y outboard?"
Me: "It's a two-stroke."

.
.
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Friday:
Stuart: "Wow aren't four-stroke aircooled outboards light and easy to start!"

11:00 Isla Mujeres: Taxi to port.

12:15 Ferry to Cancún. 15 minutes late.

12:40 Arrive Gran Puerto.13:20 Arrive airport and join check-in queue.

14:30 Check in and proceed directly to departure gate.

14:55 Surrender water bottle.

15:30 Take off 10 minutes late.

17:45 Arrive Houston. No food on plane. Airport has more defibrillators than loos.

Collect two checked bags, customs and immigration, surrender two bags for onward flight.

Have a bite to eat and buy more water.

The temperature dipped down below 40F as I arrived yesterday, passing piles of snow at the side of the road. This morning the temperature dipped to 20F (that's -5C). So tomorrow on my way to Albuquerque I'll definitely be wearing the heated weskit. The usual winter climate in this region is described as mild. Yeah, right.
Pictures and maps are HERE.There are strangenesses here. There is just one taxi in this moderate-sized town. There are no buses. There are alien eyes everywhere.

After a not terribly interesting time in Roswell I went and stayed with Dan in Los Lunas, a few miles south of Albuquerque. It snowed. And New Mexico licensing laws are even more arcane than those of Texas.On the way I passed Bingham, which consists of two emporia selling 'trinitite', which is a glassy substance to be found around ten miles to the south on the site of Trinity, where the first atomic bomb was detonated. It seemed fitting, as I'd passed through Hiroshima on my way here.

I saw groundhogs in Texas, but that was a while ago.None here today (apart from the usual film on the telly), and there was more snow overnight. The snowploughs came through again at breakfast time during a discussion about resurrecting the moonshine still hanging from the ceiling of the diner.

I finally made my escape from Quemado despite a temperature of 20F, and made it to Arizona without falling off on any ice or snow, of which there was plenty still around despite the snowploughs.
Pictures and maps are HERE.Once in Arizona I discovered a new brand of cigs called 'Montego Austin'; one assumes they don't have the historical baggage we have.

Sometimes things just work out brilliantly.My alternator rotor died 50 miles short of California BMW, to where I was heading anyway. So down to sidelight for the duration, in pelting rain, but no having to stop for map consultations as I knew exactly where I was going, for a change. It's a bit weird being somewhere familiar after so long in totally strange surroundings.

Bless 'em, they helped me swap in the one I've been lugging around since Arequipa (Peru, remember?), and had a new pair of GS gloves for me in my size (predictably loads cheaper than in the UK).

Had a great time at the Airheads Rendezvous in Death Valley at the weekend. It was one of those unorganised dos - camping space booked, but just turn up and do your own thing. Unlike British rallies the beer was free, although I went prepared having stashed a couple of bottles of Chilean Carmenere about my person.The ride was spectacular, but hard on the frozen shoulder as it was nearly 600 miles because I did the pretty route.

I stopped for fuel at a small town and again was told of bad conditions to the south. I thought I'd try anyway as I could always turn round again. But I didn't have to, thank heavens - there was only torrential rain for the rest of the way - and am back in Mountain View to dry out, warm up and rest the shoulder.Anyone who did Latin O-level remembers the Elks and Bison chapter in Caesar's Gallic Wars Book VI. According to Caesar, the elks have no knee joints, so in order to go to sleep an elk will prop itself against a tree.

Despite my domiciliary proximity to the capital, I never managed to ride The Old Dear across London Bridge.

Until today.

In the middle of a desert.

In Arizona.

You remember that shot in the opening credits of 'Dallas' apparently shot from an aircraft racing across the prairie towards the futuristic-looking glass skyscrapers of the city?Well, that's exactly what it looks like. Stunning. Of course, when you find somewhere safe to stop for a photo there are power lines in the way. One of those Immutable Laws Of The Universe.

The USS New Orleans was moored just up the road - it's just been commissioned and is an extraordinary sight.Most of the bars and restaurants have new floors and furniture, of course, and there are few signs of the Katrina disaster. Except, of course, the T-shirts bearing inscriptions along the lines of "Official FEMA Evacuation Strategy - Run Bitch Run". There is the occasional derelict building, and there are bits missing from some of the hotels (including mine).

I'm now a fully-fledged Pirate of the Conch Republic. After nearly a week as a slave I was initiated in a ceremony which involved a certain amount of drinking, and other stuff I'm not allowed to tell you about. The slavery bit was mainly cleaning Stan's mirrors and wielding the whizzer with appropriate ingredients to provide endless margaritas.I was at the Pirate Rally on Sugarloaf Key, around 20 miles from US Highway 1 Mile 0 on Key West. A good gathering. You don't have to ride a BMW but it clearly helps.

I've been having a cracking time here in Jacksonville with Phil's chum Stan.Brill house with enormous amounts of garage and workshop space, loads of bikes, and the van and a Mini which Stan lets me drive. What a treat to drive a car with a manual gearbox again; splendid little car. And Ayree the Australian Shepherd plus a couple of moggies.

The Americans are claiming the credit for forcing Iran to release the prisoners. Naturally. And if you don't believe that, the other story is that the British grovelled and let the side down. Of course.I also thought you should know that it's a really, really bad idea to let fire ants get inside your helmet.

I managed the escape to Canada: 1200 miles in three days from Florida, and no snow; just loads of rain and bloody cold. But at least there was some scenery to look at once I entered the Carolinas and Virginias.

I was always aware that the shoe company Bata was vaguely east European. There was a branch in our high street when I was a kid, and they were famed for their sturdy leather sandals. I confess I thought they were Polish, but they're actually Czech, and now Canadian, and huge. I've seen branches in almost every country I've been to.I spent this afternoon in the wonderful Bata Shoe Museum here in Toronto. Totally fascinating, with footwear dating back 5,000 years.

Spring has arrived, all of a sudden. Montreal was at around 22C, which made the great piles of snow all over the place seem rather surreal.And I've sussed the Canadian accent: it's quite subtle - sort of vaguely Scottish/Irish in that the 'ow' diphthong is pronounced 'oh'. For instance, 'aboat' for 'about' and 'oat' for 'out'. You have to listen quite hard, though.

So after some cogitation I decided to get myself on to the TransCanadienne and head west, more or less to see how far I can get.

Finally tracked down a reliably-reconditioned gearbox in Ohio, which allegedly will arrive on Thursday. I'll be putting a new clutch plate in at the same time - ha'p'orth of tar and all that. Thanks to all who came up with suggestions and weblinks.The squirrels here are black, and there's practically no traffic.

Ottawa is a little like Vientiane - about the size of Reading, which is extraordinary given that it's the capital of the second-largest country in the world. In the rush-hour there may be as many as three cars stopped at a red traffic light. It's a rather beautiful city.

Do you remember that BBC programme years ago with James Burke, called 'Connections'? You know, the chap who was the sainted Raymond Baxter's straight man on 'Tomorrow's World'?

Well, there's a branch of Hakim Optical opposite my motel.

I stayed at Wawa. Can't believe that.

(Remember, pix are here.)The western part of Ontario is stonking. The TransCanadian winds its way through forests and beside lakes. Brilliant. Then you get to Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Almost as boring as Texas. Prairie, flatter than Norfolk, featureless, windy, dead straight roads, Patagonia is more interesting, and not only in the Confucian sense.

Been a long way this week.Left Canada on Wednesday morning with the 11th pair of tyres and an oil change (thanks to SouthWest Motorrad in Kelowna, lovely people). Did battle with US Customs and Immigration. I was the first alien of the day so they had to reboot their computers. After much consultation they still can't give me temporary import paperwork for The Old Dear, so I'll have to do it by the seat of my pants to get her out. It all took an hour so was nearly like a proper border crossing.

Gosh, I'm excited.The latest update shows near-perfect conditions at Cape Canaveral for the Shuttle Launch in 12 hours' time.

When you get a ticket it's for a specific launch, irrespective of date. So I bought a ticket in March not knowing when the launch would be, on the premise that if I couldn't be here Stan would bite my hand off to use it. But I've been really, really lucky. I've dreamt of watching a rocket take off from the Cape for nearly 50 years.

First you see a brilliant light on a trail of white smoke rising above the trees.

Then a few seconds later you hear the incredibly loud roar of the engines.

Then you feel the shock wave rattling your clothes, and the ground shaking.

We could even see the fuel tanks being jettisoned and falling back to Earth.

Atlantis was in orbit before I'd even legged it back to the car.

The Wow Scale has been recalibrated again.

Photos are here.

I've been working. No, really.At the Horizons Unlimited Travellers' Meeting in North Carolina I ended up doing around three hours of presentation plus loads of Q&A, and still haven't got my voice back properly. The Old Dear did her bit as well acting as a model example of how to set up the bike's ergonomics properly.

Yesterday was fun - third crating experience, different yet again from the previous two. Had to do a bit more dismantling this time than previously as the crate is a tad smaller, but it all jigsawed in satisfactorily in the end.The only Hazardous Cargo stuff I had to do was to let down the tyres a bit, make sure the tank was less than a quarter full, and disconnect the battery. This is because she's going on a cargo flight instead of a passenger flight, probably via Washington.

I wish I hadn't sent my Winnie-the-Pooh hot-water bottle home - it's freezing here at night, and there were three inches of snow last week.I'm back into serious oeno-research mode again, and find that a perfectly drinkable dry red costs less than a fiver for a 1.5-litre bottle. Which is nice.

The Old Dear missed her flight connection in Luxemburg (I think she did it deliberately in order to have a bit of a gallivant) so didn't arrive until a week later than scheduled - James Cargo knocked 10% off the bill for the hassle, bless them. Roddy's a good chap (and a biker).The agent in Jo'burg, Junaid dealt with Customs and even stayed late on Friday night so I could uncrate and ride away.

At the tollbooth there were a couple of bikes in front of me. Naturally, a ciggie stop was in order after paying the toll.

"We're going to the Dragon Rally down the road."
"Can I come too, please?"
"'Course you can."So I went to the Dragon Rally not in Wales with snow. Christo, Victor, Quintin and all the others made me very welcome, dispensed large amounts of cold beer (Windhoek - jolly nice) and generally looked after me. Obviously, there was a man from Torquay as well (Chris). I even won the long-distance award (which was cheating really).

Everyone here in SA is so friendly and helpful.

I've had dozens of offers of meets and beds from bikers all over the place, and the dealer here in Port Elizabeth (Continental Cars) was brilliant.

It was all rather silly, really.

I stopped for a photo, and did what almost every motorcyclist has done at least once.