Texas to Argentina and Back in 6 Months. Two longtime freinds on a journey to visit all of our neighbors to the South.
My best freind Mike and I started our trip toward Argentina this morning, but everyone knows that it takes a couple days to get through Texas. As we run into more excitement we will post more updates. As most people that know me are aware, I am not much of a journalist but I will do my best to keep the content worthwhile!
Thanks for following!
Today was a long day. After stopping to visit my uncle in Utopia Texas, we pushed 300 miles to McAllen, where we intend to cross the border into Mexico.
While visiting my uncle, he helped us weld larger foot-plates onto our kickstands to prevent the bikes from falling over in loose ground. A little bit of welding and painting, and we each had upgraded stands which will make parking loose terrain worry-free.
FORGIVE ME FOR THE SIDEWAYS IMAGES, I am still sorting out this website.
Since the experiences, and therefore the content has been limited, I waited a few days for this next update. Most of the stops were one-nighters off the highway, and since we are far outside the typical tourist areas for foreigners, we learned that these hotels were popular destinations for Mexican vacationers. This area appears to be traveled so little by foreigners, that people were constantly staring at us like we had horns growing out of our heads. Surprised to see white people, and many amazed at the size of our motorcycles (the largest bikes here topping around 300cc vs.
Honduras to Costa Rica
It has been quite some time since my last update, and before Costa Rica things were moving along rather uneventfully.
Honduras
South America, this is where the trip REALLY begins…
After landing in Bogotá, we began to hop from town to town in effort to reach Mocoa. By this time, we had opened our carburetors and dropped the needle down one position to account for the reduced amount of air available for combustion at the higher elevation. This allowed less fuel to flow into the engine, correcting the rich condition that previously had caused the sputtering.
Death Trampoline was our last major stop along our route to Ecuador, so after staying a night in Pasto, we arose early the next morning to make the crossing into Ecuador at Ipiales. Now, by this point it had been brought to our attention that Ecuador was experiencing a slight case of civil unrest. The indigenous tribes are currently angry at the government over the outrageous gasoline prices. For those of you in the USA, you may not know this, but due to large volume consumption and a strong distribution network (along with other variables), Americans get a pretty good deal on fuel.
After crossing into Peru there is no "race to safety" as you guys falsely claim. I just passed through there and everyone was chill and friendly.
I think it's VERY important to realize the difference in the timing of these two reports. I've personally been in the middle of these sort of road blocks in Ecuador, and can attest that they can be VERY dangerous. They can also be great experiences, with no trouble. BUT they can turn ugly, as can any mob.
As for the "race to safety" - calling it false is a bad idea - you have no idea what the situation on THAT DAY was, nor what they were told by local people. When everyone is pissed off and protesting, it could well be that people WERE doing bad things - as we all know, when things go bad, political turmoil and protests happening, the worst people come out and try to capitalize on the situation - so YES, I think they took the well meaning advice of people on the day, and did the right thing.
The best ride reports are those that report things objectively, and cut out all the drama. They're hard to find because eveyone wants the attention. You guys choose to ride down to South America and back on a very tight timeframe of 6 months. Because of that you choose to put yourself in danger and ride through the roadblocks, which are a common occurance in Central and South America. I'm keeping in contact with several other riders who are also riding down to SA, each in different areas, and most of us choose to wait out the roadblocks like everyone else. Besides the roadblocks, these other riders have not reported any other issues. Riding down to through Cental and South America is fairly safe, as long as you use your common sense. Its not as dangerous as you guys make it out.
Thank you for your point of view Grant. As I stated in the write up, and as you have concurred, we followed the advice OF LOCAL PEOPLE, so others can consider me dramatic all they want, good for them. For example, most people, including myself, have great stories of Colombia, but my freind that made this same trip in 2011 was the victim of attempted kidnapping in the lobby of the very hotel at which he was staying in Barranquilla.
If other people have better experiences, good for them. Glad they were lucky. And rather than beat down other peoples trip reports, maybe those people should just not read any further if they disagree.
Chile and Argentina
Ok, time to get caught up and close this out.
The crossing into Chile was rather uneventful aside from the C19 Sworn Affidavit that we had forgotten to submit (promising that we had neither had COIVD or related symptoms). We went through the normal check-out/check-in process and then waited around a bit for someone to certify the inspection of our luggage. There was a slightly annoying back-and-forth of paperwork, and we wanted to get moving with plenty of daylight to scout the next hotel, which would be in Putre.
Wow, like lots of rider reports lots of drama is added to make it sound like its way more dangerous that what it truly is. I've just ridden most of the same roads you've been writing about, including Trampoln del Muerte, and my experiences have been totatlly different. For example, going south crossing from Ecuador into Peru I just crossed at Huaquilles and chose that border because several people commented on iOverlander that its one of the easiest and best set up borders to cross since Ecuador and Peru share the same buildings, everything is clearly marked, and I also crossed there because you buy your Peru SOAT right at the border. I agree with everyone on Ioverlander, I just crossed there yesterday and since I left the US a few months ago that was the easiest border, took me less than an hour. Follow the clearly marked signs: cancel your Ecuadoer TIP, then get your Ecuador exit stamp then your Peru entry stamp in the same room, get your Peru TIPS, then walk around the corner and get your Peru SOAT. Was that easy, have no clue why it took you 3 hours. Then the ride south from there was poor, but there's no reason to ride as fast as you can can like you guys claim, everyone through there was friendly, waving, giving me a thumbs up, even the police waved high to me. I grabbed a hotel as soon as I got to the beach 30 minutes into Peru and eveyone was super chill and friendly.