South and Central America, 2013-14

its Saturday the 12/10/13 and at last everything is done I took the bike to the airport on Monday to James cargo for shipping to Buenos Aires I follow out on the 15th its been a long time in the planning now its time to get the show on the road I cant wait there has been lots of trials to get every thing done and I have had a lot of help from friends and family so to all of you thanks .the out line of my trip is fairly lose from B/A I will head south to T DF then back up through Argentina Chile Paraguay Bolivia Peru Ecuador Columbia then on to panama from there

friday the 18th i lsft Benito Juraze about 9 heading south to BAHIA BLANCA full of trucks from the port not a nice place then took the 22 to roo colorado on the 251 couple of thunder storms but not to bad then back on the 3 to purto madryn
about 630 miles in all today ran off the road twice by nuty truck drivers they are biger than me so i hhad to go on the verge, About 350 miles was agross the pampas straight roads with a sea of scrub as far as you could se in any direction

it s been a while so just to catch up after puerto madryn heading south to ushuaia

25/ 10 /13 went to the parque nacional nice ride out went to the end of ruta 3 took the usual photos the park is outstanding and a plus the man on the gate did not charch me 130 pasos just waved me in met coulpe from holand with there 2 kids been here for 6 months and 2 bikers from Salta up north
26/ set off back north to get the ferry to the main land the wind was over the top

set out from bariloche this morning 2/11/13 for chile over the mountain to osorno

well i left con con and headed back to argentina great day sun was out lovely ride over the andes lots of road works on the chilen side thoe the ride down to mendoza fantastic untill about 40 miles from mendoza when the bracket on my right hand pannier broke nearly had me off but a taxi driver stoped to se if he could help but i thanked him and with some staps tied it back on once in mendoza i rang carlos winstone desgens a bmw fitter that some bikes gave mke his card he came to the hotel to show me the way to his work shop what a nice guy

16 11 13
after a couple of hot days on the road i made it to iguazu lunch time thursday
i thought i would push the bolt out and check into a nice hotel for a few days
the 1st 2 took one look at me and said they were full it all the dead bugs on my bike jacket i recon any way i tried hotel carmen 3 star no problen nice room good food 2 pools £40 a night friday i went up to the falls lots of things to think about as i was here in 2007 with sue and again late in 2007 after she passed away

i left igauzu on sunday morning headed for brasil crossing the boarder did not take to long once in brasil headed to paraguay that boarder was over the top as its a duty free sone took for ever from there up to asuncion good road i made good time from asuncion i needed route 9 no signs on the way i got well and truely lost took me an hour to find the right road after vill hays i thought i would do 1 more hour big mistake for the next 170 miles nothing and the road got prity rough no fuel i did manage to buy 5 2 lt water bottles full of fuel from a

left villa montes headed for santa cruz once there i was going to turn left towards cochabamba but a guy at the juction said the road was bad and i be better going through sant cruz to monttero then head west, in santa cruz i stoped to ask direction and a man in a 4x4 stoped and said he was from the moto club santa cruz and invited me to stay at there club house for a few days so i followed him to the club what a place landscaped gardens a bar and a pool so i put my tent up he said tomorrow thursday they were having a club night and a BQ and i was not to pay for any

left villa montes headed for santa cruz once there i was going to turn left towards cochabamba but a guy at the juction said the road was bad and i be better going through sant cruz to monttero then head west, in santa cruz i stoped to ask direction and a man in a 4x4 stoped and said he was from the moto club santa cruz and invited me to stay at there club house for a few days so i followed him to the club what a place landscaped gardens a bar and a pool so i put my tent up he said tomorrow thursday they were having a club night and a BQ and i was not to pay for any

mon 21st road out of lapaz north to ride the death road what a ride white knuckle but it had to be done great when it was finnished i droped the bike once in deep gravel about hafe hour later my brasilen friend droped it also so 1 each on the way back to lapaz we took the tarmac road hit lapaz at 5 oclock in the afternoon

left cusco late monday morning took about an hour to get out left with martin a german biker who has been on the road for 3 years good afternoon ride then we started climbing into the moutians great roads but about 4 oclock the weather started to close in 1st thunder and lighting then hail then snow at about 4800meters

stayed in lima for a week to long realy but i had ordered some parts from the bmw dealership and i had to wait for them martin the german biker i was rideing with also had to get new tyres and other bits for his bike on monday we change hostals went over to myfories i think that how its spelt any way nice hostal but not much rest as they liked to party each night i left on the thursday morning martin decided to stay took a long time to get out of lima traffic was so bad any way heading north the 1st night i got to chimbote not impressed hoetel was expensive

i left mancora on the morning of the 27th had to drag myself away as i enjoyed my time on the beach but ecuador was calling i made the boarder by lunch time then the fun started i went and got my passport stamped and then asked where i had to go to get the paperwork for the bike all i got was shugs then a nice man from ecuador came to help he went with me to customs they said i had to go back down the road to where i left peru and get my paper stamped so of i went they did not know anything about it and told me to go back up the road and hand my paperwork in ther

had a good new year night in otavalo the street partyes went on till about 2 in the morning the town was dead the next day alot of hangovers were being nuresed
on the 2nd i headed for coloumbia the boarder was a night mare it took me 4 hours to get through then i had to stop at the ist town to get insurance another hour i then road on to pasto for the night cant say much about pasto in the morning i headed for cali, cant say i liked cali it felt very unsafe police every where