When I say I'm doing the trip on a Dominator with a few mods, I don't mean I'm going with a small group of parka-clad scooteristas. Oh no. I mean the Dominator has been fiddled with (by Mr. David Lambeth of A Field, Southern England). This is what it looked like pre-fiddle.... 
Here's the basic plan...
March 04: Give up job. Borrow money from mortgage people. Done that. Oh yeah - remember to pass bike test. And buy a bike.
Sept 12th 04: Ferry Portsmouth-Cherbourg. Potter across France and a bit of North Spain and head for Lisbon, to meet some pals for a week of sunny lager action at the end of Sept.
Early Oct 04: Widdle about in Portugal & southern Spain for a bit, aiming for Gibraltar. Buy Marmite and PG Tips.
About 15th Oct: Ferry Spain-Morocco. Muck about there for p'raps a month.
Further thanks must go to Mr Jeffrey MacPherson of Vancouver, or "the 'Couv" as it's known to residents, a large town in a country called Canadia. He was kind enough to get so drunk with me in a selection of Cologne's most happening bars, that we struck on the idea of sailing a hot air balloon across Africa, with two motorcycles strapped to the side. Voila! 9 months later and fantasy has become reality. Except for the balloon. And Jeff.
Nearly... nearly... I've just stuffed 95% of what was left of my worldly goods and chattels into 9 very big black dustbin bags. Now it's for the fine men and women of Islington's refuse service to bicker and quarrel over my old pants. I wish them well. The men that is - I no longer care what happens to my pants. Our relationship, stout and true though it was, is over, and there's an end of it.
Here's a picture of what's left:
Carteret, 30 miles south of Cherbourg - 12th Sept 04
Le OUCH! 67 euros for the last hotel room in town. Note to self - arrive earlier in future. On the way down, every single French biker waves. It's what your left arm's for, apparentement. It's day one. One giant leap across the channel for me. Tomorrow I shall witness with my own eyes the glittering splendour that is Mont St Michel. Unless I get lost or something.
Sept 13
Sept 16 04 Blimey - I'm in Spain. And Ow! Ouch! Ooyah! I'm in pain. The pain in Spain falls mainly on the neck. Some sorta trapped nerve or something which no doubt will go away soon. Please. Anyway - Espana! Another day of uninterrupted blazing sunshine, now with added mountains. Up at 7am (in Bordeaux) with a rough plan to get to Bayonne, which in the event I sailed straight past, in order to have lunch by the sea in Biarritz. Very fancy, but not somewhere you'd want to stay the night without a platinum Amex tucked into your slacks. And Spain was beckoning.
Sept 17th '04. La Puebla de Argazon. A roadhouse, somewhere between Vitoria and Burgos.
Christ I feel manly! I've just spent an hour in a dusty truckstop in el centro de nowhere, oiling me chain, pumping up me tyres to near-roadworthy pressure and checking me lubricants. A great Sopa (soup) de (of) Pescados (fish) for lunch and a very clean, cool room for 32 euros. It's about 85 degrees. Sodding fantastic mountains on the way here, marred only by jabs of neck pain which is now thankfully on the way out.
20th Sept '04. Miranda do Douro, North-east Portugal. 
Quick! Get to Portugal! They're literally giving stuff away! 20 euros gets me by far the biggest, best, gleamingest hotel room of the trip so far. A further 10 buys me a basket of food in the supermercato that would feed 4 unusually greedy adults with ease.
18th Sept '04. Saturday Night. Young women of Valladolid, I salute you! I can only stand by, mute, and feebly applaud, as my chin hits the pavement *CLANG* and my eyeballs spring out onto my cheekbones *SCHLUP* for the hundredth time tonight.
23rd Sept 04. Guarda.
How come the Portuguese get satsumas the size of melons and we get crappy, pathetic, shrivelled little affairs? And don't give me that "Mediterranean climate" drivel either - these babies are flown in from Uruguay.
3rd October 2004. Sines.
I wobble out of Lisbon at 11am and hammer south for a hundred miles. Sines has a quite-nice beach, a port and an oil refinery or something. On the way an American dude comes over to chat by the pumps.
"What is that, man? Did you build it yourself?"
He's ridden across the US on a Harley-Davidson. His "Good luck, man" words of encouragement fill me with good cheer and make me remember what this whole nutty scheme is all about. Thanks man!
October 6th 2004. Gibraleon. *RATTLE*... Either this is a very badly surfaced motorway or something is amiss with the moto... As I overtake the first of two bumper-to-bumper juggernauts on the A22 towards Faro, the straining and wheezing at anything over 4000 rpm is telling me something's wrong. Something is going to explode or crack or burst or catch fire. At least I know my wheel´s not going to fall off, as a South African mechanic in Portimao fixed it this morning (for an eye-popping 20 euros).
7th October 2004. Utrera, Andalucia.
I'm not one to moan, but Gibraleon was a little bit of a dead-arse dump.
4th October 2004. Monchique, the Algarve.
I've done 2 days off the drinksh after a week of debauchery in Lisbon. It's 6pm and the sun has got an extremely fetching hat on. I think it might be Super Bock o'clock.
At precisely mid-day today, the dreaded oh-please-don't-let-it-be-true event... a puncture. 90 degree heat, no shade to fix it under, and I'd run out of water. Had I, as the book of how to do this properly suggests, practised puncture-fixing before leaving home? No I had not. I couldn't be arsed.
8th Oct 04. Ubrique, Andalucia.
Welcome to the Hotel Califooooornia!
Blah blah blah blah-blah,
Tumpty tum te-tum,
BUT YOU CAN NEVER LEEEEEAVE!
Not if you're a fluffy little bambi anyway. In that instance, the hotel management will have you machine-gunned. Your extremities will then be boiled and nailed to the wall, saving money on both ornaments and hat pegs.
10th Oct 04. Jimena de la Frontera. 
Sunday morning. Outside the front door, double-size ants are manhandling chunks of vegetation up the path. Inside the front door, a large but not yet double-size man is eating anchovy pate sandwiches for breakfast. Augustus Pablo bumps away in the background thanks to the miracle of the iTrip, which turns the iPod into a miniature radio station. This is my last week in Europe.
18.10.2004. Chefchaouen. Oh deary me! Hashish... 
19.10.2004. Tucked away in a valley in the Rif mountains. It's Day 3 of Ramadan and the chit-chat from the street below my £7 hotel room is still chirpy. As a non-Muslim it's quite easy to get food and even beer, but you don't feel like stuffing yourself in front of people who aren't even allowed to swallow their own saliva from sunrise to sunset.
21 Oct 2004 Rabat. Oh maaaan. I'm being wafted through Morocco on a breeze of Islamic goodwill, set in motion by a thousand cheery waves fom chirpy schoolkids and gnarled old men. They must be thinking "What's that pasty fool doing here during Ramadan? Doesn't he know the bars are shut and you can't smoke fags until the sun sets?" Well yes, I am starving by 4pm (after a cheeky hotel breakfast) but I'll live. It's good for the shock absorbers anyway.
27 Oct 2004. Essaouira. Very nice. It's so touristy that I'm not the only European in town even though it's R'dan. Apparently Jimi Hendrix used to come here on his holidays. I bet he checked whether it was R'dan first. Sorry - I'm becoming obsessed. 
28 Oct 2004. Essaouira.
23 Oct 2004. Casablanca. Pictures of the Mosque. Ramblings from a bar. 
--- The Casablanca Regency Hyatt. 8pm. As I loiter at the bar, a cockroach bigger than any I have dared to believe in - mouse size - clambers up onto the black marble counter from behind the beer pumps. It is audibly grunting with the effort. I freeze with fear as it rumbles, Panzer-fashion, past my olives. I consider flicking it across the bar but I'm too scared.
26 Oct 2004. El Djadida.
Having handed over a sizeable bundle of dirhams to Yousef - I'm not sure what for, but he suggests it has something to do with "friendship" - I get the hell out of Casa and rumble off down the coast to El Djadida. I ride around the town twice without seeing anything that looks like a hotel, so I aim for the beach and stand (sitting is for people that haven't just ridden 150 miles) gawping at the Atlantic and smoking fags.
1 Nov 2004. El Marsa.
Woke up next to an endless Atlantic beach. There's nothing to beat a sunny Monday morning on the border of the desert and the sea, apart from a massive bacon sandwich with English mustard. Half an hour down the road, Thomas and I officially enter Western Sahara. Or not, if you're the Moroccan government. We part company as he wants to make it to Dahkla today and my coccyx doesn't. All the best old chap! An excellent fellow on a mad mission...
30 Oct 2004. Guelmim. As I'm paying at a petrol station near Tiznit, a Honda Africa Twin pulls up next to me and Mr Thomas Meisner from Germany introduces himself. 
I didn't think anyone actually rode AT's to Africa - they're so goddamn heavy. He's on his way to Togo, and he needs to be back home in December so he's been doing 500 mile days. My pathetic 150 a day seems rather effete.
2 Nov 2004. Somewhere in the Desert.
Ho-hum. The obvious shot.
In the morning I can't get out of El Marsa quickly enough, but the ride down the coast of the Sahara would have cheered me up even if last night's pear sandwiches had given me dysentery. I stop and inch towards the cliff edge for a look. Huge unreachable beaches stretch for dozens of miles 250 feet below.
31 Oct 2004. Sidi Akhfennir.
In the morning we go with Shiagar and Hassan to the oasis, for breakfast of dates fresh from the tree, in a bedouin's tent. Then we're off down the Atlantic coast, with several stops to point and laugh at the wild landscape, and the fact that we're within sniffing distance of the Sahara.
12th Nov 2004. Nouakchott, Mauritania.
A week is a long time in politics, according to Harold Wilson. Four days in a Mauritanian hospital is much, much longer. If Harold Wilson was a hummingbird, a single beat of his tobacco-stained wings would equate to a week in politics compared to ninety-six hours of grainy Spanish TV with no sound, and being unable to get out of bed and switch it off.
Twat.
31/1/05. Nouakchott.
A very unusual New Year's Eve. Sitting outside in shirt sleeves, drinking pastis, whisky, Heineken and Vin de Pays d'Oc with French people. We eat lobster and duck and I make them listen to AC/DC all night.
Note for ex-colleagues - a Mauritanian sound effects album will need at least the following:
-Squeal of brakes/anguished braying, as yet another euro-banger smacks into a donkey cart.
-Crunch of teeth meeting sand in a mouthful of fish.
It is explained to me over multiple drinks that only people who believe in God deserve respect. Jews, Christians and Muslims are all equals under God. (This is only a theory obviously). Atheists however are like weird monkeys. God-fearing types should avoid them. When I ask why it is that atheists in general are happy to respect the beliefs of others, but the reverse appears to be impossible, a stony "are-you-one-then" silence descends.
Anyway, motorbikes! Great, aren't they!!!
13 Jan 05. St Louis, Senegal.
Senegal is the best country in the world. No – stop – don't even try to argue. It just is. In the last couple of weeks at Auberge Sahara, several people had returned from Senegal in tears, whingeing about the hassle at the border and everything else about which it is possible convincingly to whinge. The truth is that the border is a light exercise in patience, and St Louis is hectic, full of unthreatening chancers and home to the Bountyesque paradise that is Camping Robinson.
19 Jan 05. NKT.
Take Imodium pills and put your helmet on...
Heeeeeere am I sitting on a tin can etc.
I blame Chinese beer.
21 Jan 05.
5th Feb 2005. NKT.
The sight, yesterday, of a saucy girl in a bra on the back of a motorbike on the beach has sent Toby and I into a 36 hour spiral of Beavis and Butthead hysteria. You just don't see that sort of thing in Mauritania and I've been here 13 weeks. Louise (the female bit of Gary and Louise from Cornwall) coins the phrase "Tit Frenzy" to describe this unsettling phenomenon.
Gary and I are reduced to hot tears of helpless, moronic laughter this evening at every mention of the words "box" and "helmet".
------------
4th Feb 2005. NKT.
I have managed to persuade Tiff that me giving her my battery is not the ideal solution to her exploded bike. Phew!
6 Feb 2005. UPS Express Office, 23 Avenue Bourguiba, Nouakchott, Mauritania. I went to pick up my freshly-couriered camera today. The lazy moo at the UPS office said "S'not 'ere".
3rd Feb 2003. NKT (sigh...)
It's out! I went to the hospital yesterday, as one does, and the surgeon said -
"OK, we can take the pin out right now if you like. That's right sonny, without an anaesthetic of any kind."
I enquired, more out of politeness than anything else, how much the procedure would hurt.
The surgeon and his assistant looked at each other. I could sense two very well controlled sniggers.
"Oh, there may be some slight pain" came the reply. I decided to go for the tomorrow-with-anaesthetic option. It's out!
My friend Johnny Mac is a photographer and recently took this, which may be the best thing ever...
Oh Lord Yeah!
-------
ps - I'm in Mali. It's great.
11th Feb 2005. Ayoun El Atrous.
A mostly-easy 130 miles from Kiffa, with a section 100 miles in of big potholes. Having read Doug's description of his pothole day I adopt his technique of imagining myself to be a spitfire pilot and treating them as bursts of anti-aircraft fire. It works up until the road becomes more hole than pot; then it's just a case of going slow and praying for it to end soon.
12th Feb 2005. Nioro, Mali
Utterly disgraceful weather today. Filthy dusty sandy gusts most of the way from Ayoun. Couldn't see the sun. Something ought to be done. I may write to the council.
10th Feb 2005. Kiffa.
There's exactly 1 pothole in the 145 miles of tarmac between Magta and Kiffa, but it's a big one. I'd still be planted face down in it now if a gust of wind hadn't blown me into the middle of the road, as I was gazing at some camels as I passed it.
7th Feb 2005. NKT.
It's nearly the end of my prolonged stay at Auberge Sahara. Those guys are grrrreat.....
Kania
Maryam
Olivier
14th Feb 2005. Bamako, Mali.
Shitty Death! If Jesus Christ himself had owned the ideal off-road motorcycle - a perfect blend of lightness, agility and power - rather than the more commonly accepted bicycle, He would have completed the Nioro-Diema road red-faced, furious and cursing like a hungover docker.
A good bit
10th March 2005. Cape Coast.
Conversations I've had in Ghana:
Young Man - I want to be your best friend. I will follow you anywhere.
Me - Uh, thanks.
Baby - HOWAREYOUIMFINE!
Me - Uh, fine.
Waiter - I really really like you.
Me - Uh, OK.
Mad Woman - These are my children! Come to my birthday! I will follow you to London! Plenty fruit in *indecipherable*!
Me - Uh...
9th March 2005. Cape Coast.
I stop for a fag somewhere in Southern Ghana and within seconds a man-and-wife team materialise from the undergrowth and offer me two - er - things in exchange for a cigarette. They're not coconuts but they might be cocoa-pods.
27th Feb 2005. Po.
For the last couple of days I've been slightly concerned that a tropical spider may have laid eggs in my right hand. Bumps have appeared that are too close together to be mosquito bites, and in Mali I was attacked by, or more precisely saw, a jumping spider.
Today the bumps appear on my left hand as well and it strikes me that what I'm actually dealing with is contact dermatitis from a slight nickel allergy triggered by the poppers in my gloves. Phew!
---
21st Feb 2005. Bamako.
At the reasonably fancy Hotel Nord-Sud. I just met Kolo Toure's brother! The Ivory Coast team are here for a game with Mali. KT - Arsenal defender and truly great all-rounder - is from Ivory Coast, so I approached them and asked if he was here. "No, but his little brother is", they replied, introducing me. Kool!
19th Feb 2005. Bamako.
Christ!
I move into the Catholic Mission, which is quiet and Jesusy. Doug's back from the UK with spare parts (unfortunately for an entirely different motorcycle) which means we can continue the important work we started in Senegal in the field of alcohol experimentation.
24th Feb 2005. Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso.
We stopped at Sikasso in Mali for a night on the way. It's a long hard hot sweaty pain in the arse from Bamako. Every checkpoint and customs post is a sweaty hot waste of time. It's about 40 degrees and while riding you get blasts of even hotter air. Eyes full of grit and shirt encrusted with salt.
5th April 2005. Accra. Having returned to Ghana courtesy of BA's "Upgrade That Idiot To Business Class" service, we have spent 18 nights on the trot in Champs sports bar. Oh boy it's good. 
I had a dream last night in which I was Mr Inappropriate. Mr I. travels from school to school, singing songs for the under-10's.
25th April 2005. Aflao, Ghana/Togo border.
We arrived three days ago to find the border closed. The Togo elections were yesterday and we think the border will open tomorrow.
Quite hungry now as the restaurant in the hotel only serves food in the evening and the only other place to eat in Aflao serves cat. I had some meat on a stick from a roadside stall this afternoon. Couldn't say what it was, but it definitely wasn't chicken, pork or beef.
18/6/05. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Several years of my life roll by as we try to arrange shipment of the bikes from Chad to Ethiopia. The budget also takes a vicious beating. To fly a person will cost 400 quid. A motorbike is 500. The "crate" for the bikes is 145 (haggled down from 220. For "crate" read "lash-up".) Dangerous Goods form - another 40. Oh blimey.
Bargain
7/6/05. Niamey, Niger.
The stomach cramps are coming at two-minute intervals. This allows me time to enjoy several mouthfuls of superb, freshly-made vanilla ice cream between gut spasms. Now I've finished and the waiter had better look sharp with the bill or he'll be needing a mop and a bucket of Dettol as well.
28/5/05. Lome, Togo
Let joy be unconfined! At only the second time of asking (if you count the first six-day attempt as one) I am allowed into Togo. The icing on the tin hat is that my Togo visa actually expired five days ago.
24/6/05 Addis Ababa
Addis is still cold and wet, but it's a convenient place to sit and wait for spares to be couriered. It's also very cheap.
Great things on Ethiopian menus:
1. "National Food". Mmm! Slurp!
2. "Tibs". Is that not a brand of cat chow?
3. "John Worker". Two minutes thought leads me to deduce that they mean "Johnnie Walker". I order some. They do.
4. "Chicken Wot". Well exactly.
11/7/05, Awassa Received wisdom states that the further you get from Addis, the more likely you are to encounter groups of kids chucking rocks at you as you pass. I'm pottering through a village a hundred miles south of Addis when a blanket-clad oaf runs out in front of me, picks up a lump of donkey crap and lobs it feebly at my shoulder. It bounces harmlessly off my armoured jacket. I slow down in order to laugh at him. He looks sheepish; the crowd begin to snigger. I offer him the middle digit of my right hand and scoot.
19/7/05. Garissa.
Six days from Moyale and at long, dusty, stinking last I'm in a proper town with beer (Tusker!) and fags (Sportsman!) and a sit-down toilet and soap and towels and - heavens - a telly with BBC World and TARMAC! In theory it's possible to ride all the way from here to Cape Town on the black stuff.
Great fags
14/7/05, Buna, Kenya.
Near Buna
Tribal clashes with hundreds dead along the Marsabit road towards Nairobi, so I'm diverted by a worried-looking Kenyan along the back road. Chief Osman welcomes me to Buna and I'm put up in a comfortable thatched hut for the night.
5/8/05. Eldoret, near Uganda border.
New Naiberi River Campsite has the most astounding bar so far. It won't be finished for a few months, but it's already a jaw-dropper.
1. It's huge.
2. There's a 200-metre cave-like tunnel that leads to it.
3. There's a river running through the middle.
4. It's really huge.
5. Did I let on about the size of the thing?
26/7/05. Masai Mara.
Contrary to my deliberately-set low expectations, it's stuffed to the rafters with all the greats - zebras, lions, elephants, wildebeest, weird antelope things etc, and that's just the 1-hour introductory spin round when we arrive. Worth every last penny.
9/8/05. Murchison Falls National Park.
120 miles of reasonable tarmac and 100 miles of baboon-strewn dirt track from Kampala to Murchison. I've been in Uganda three days and it's very endearing. Kampala is a proper city. Jinja has death-defying white water rafting, which I intend to do on the way back to Kenya.
11/8/05. Kampala, Uganda. 
Back to the capital for a few days of R&R, bike maintenance, big-city necessity purchasing and mental preparation for the frankly terrifying white-water rafting at Jinja. It's supposedly the second most hairy bit of rafting in the world (after the Zambezi) and the number of times I've done it before, rounded up to the nearest whole digit, currently stands at nearly one. 16/8/05 Jinja, Uganda. Rafting tomorrow. Gulp.
8/9/05. Stone Town, Zanzibar.
On the potato boat to Zanzibar
5/9/05. Tanga, Tanzania.
The Kenya/Tanzania border crossing is a walk in the park, relatively. No bribes, no "road tax" (not even the $20 I legitimately owe the government of Kenya), very few moneychanging touts and several well-wishing officials. It's followed by 35 miles of horribly sharp rocks. I'm now on a non-Michelin Desert front tyre (Metzeler Sahara since you ask) and the primal fear of punctures has returned. Ah Deserts! 10,000 African miles and NO PUNCTURES as Magnus Magnussen would say, probably.
26/8/05. Nairobi.
13,000 miles from Islington. Time to strap a dead animal on.
There's an undercurrent of Satanic beastiality about climbing aboard now. I like that. There is a slight wet-arse problem when it's been raining, but after 10 months in Africa, a wet arse is nowhere near as urgent a warning sign as it would be in Europe.
---
20/8/05. Nairobi, Kenya
The Uganda loop (Jinja - Kampala - Murchison Falls - Kampala - Jinja) is complete. Everyone does it, and they do it because it's great. Uganda is the best African country so far. The people are cool - no-one hassles you, the sights are designed for sore eyes (which I had), the facilities are (generally) working, and the driving is lamentable; although I only lose one piece of plastic from my bike due to an idiot ramming me in Kampala. If only it hadn't been the last complete section of bodywork left.
2/10/05. Mbeya, Tanzania.
Nippers bunk off school to say hello
Being 6'3" is great. Y'know, calling anyone under 5'10" "Ronnie Corbett" and helping old women reach the medicated lavatory tissue from the top shelf; but there is a down side. The lumbar parts can be a touch flimsy, so Rule No. 1 for strapping lads and lasses everywhere is:
NEVER ATTEMPT TO MOVE A PASSENGER FERRY BY HAND.
20/10/05. Lilongwe, Malawi.
A strange mood descended on me just after the first anniversary of leaving the UK. Months 1-12 were (on the whole) just a barrel of larfs. Then Month 13 turned weird on me.
Suddenly I got bored of explaining for the millionth time where I was going, why, and where I'd been. I had to restrain myself from taking a deep breath and exhaling "Moroccomauritaniasenegalmaliburkinafasoghanatogobeninniger
nigeriacameroonchadethiopiakenyaugandatanzaniamalawi", in response to the inevitable.
25/9/05. Stone Town, Zanzibar.
Back to the port for a ferry tomorrow and the three day ride to the Malawi border. In Jambiani yesterday the 1000th person of the trip asked me if they could have a go on my bike. So that's 1000 times I've said "Not if I live to be a billion. I'd rather feed my lips into a paper shredder."
Seaweed farm, Jambiani
22/10/05. Lilongwe, Malawi.
If you spend a year travelling across Africa, at some point you really are going to have to go for an HIV test. That's just the way it i-i-is. Some things will never chaaange. Why are you looking at me like that?
On Friday I located the Seventh Day Adventist health centre and confirmed that
a) Yes, they do HIV tests, and
b) They're shut until Monday.
Fine. What are they gonna know anyway?
3/10/05. Karonga, Malawi.
I meet another overland truck at the last petrol stop in Tanzania. Expectations go guts-up - they're enthusiastic and friendly! Wow!
Kuche Kuche, at 3.7% ABV, is an all-day-long beer along the lines of Senegal's Gazelle, and similarly priced at 30p for half a litre. Slurp. Someone in Zanzibar told me that a packet of fags in the UK is now over 5 quid. Jayzuz.
18.12.05. Swellendam, South Africa.
After it survived over a year of being carted across the worst roads in the world, keeping me entertained in the ghastliest, most joy-sucking rat-pits on the planet, some piss-swilling, dog-faced, son-of-a-thruppenny-strumpet, thieving, pig-arsed, cat-wanking shit-sucker has stolen my bloody guitar. Sod and bastard. ("At last we are free!" - African music lovers).
5.11.05. Tete, Mozambique.
Not much money
Just before the bridge over the mighty Zambesi, there's a campsite called "Jesus e Bom"; "Jesus is Good" in Portuguese. Now then, Jesus may well be very good indeed - who am I to judge - but his campsite is a shithole, so I decide to check into the air-conditioned $20 magnificence of the "Hotel Zambesi" instead.
13/10/08, BA
I am 42 and my willowy days are behind me. C. is 20, raven - haired, fulsome of form and saucy of eye. Battle lines are drawn up in The Gibraltar, and an evening skirmish at my place results in a closely-contested draw.*
That's 20 - twenty - years old. I may have peaked too early.
14/10/08, BA
23/10/08. BA.
Panic Room, 2004-ish.
Really should be called "I am mesmerized by Jodie Foster's chest and as a consequence have no idea what is going on". Five stars.
26/10/08. BA.
One bowls fairly carelessly down the emerald avenues of life, believing that a pea-sized blob of shampoo and a kitchen sink full of hottish water are all it takes to remove stubborn blemishes from the smalls and return almost any of the intimate garments to showroom condition.
21/11/08. Pinamar, Argentina.
So it's bye bye C and hello AT. My 10-year-old, 35,000 mile Africa Twin which I bought on eBay and am somehow expecting to get me to Canada, has been nailed up inside a dusty crate for 6 weeks and sea-freighted diagonally across the Atlantic. It starts first time after being crow-barred free in BA, much to the delight of the cheery warehouse fellas and the relief and near-tearful gratitude of myself.
Mar Del Plata. Argentina. 23/11/08.
A single-handed Budweiser-guzzling competition - man against barrel - leads to a late night steak with a wine "salad". Sleep, in a bed that international laughing-stock Tom Cruise would find restrictive, is hard to come by, and at 10 am I'm kicked out of the hotel and forced, blinking and confused, out into the world to fend for myself. Luckily "fending" on this occasion involves a 200 yard ride to the cafe for tostadas of jamon y queso.
Colonia, Uruguay. 30/10/08.
Wait "up"! I almost forgot an entire country. Among the most debonair of my chums is Robert, who flies to BA on a whim (and back on a 747 ha ha ha etc). We spend a few days on the brink of nausea due to grotesquely immoderate beef consumption, and then catch a ferry to Colonia.
Sierra De La Ventana, Argentina. 29/11/08
An evening of lager and cigarettes at a pavement table near, if not quite in, some mountains. How ineffably winsome! I hear you respond. And it is, despite these facts:
14/12/08 Rio Gallegos, Argentina
800 miles into the gale-blasted flatlands of Patagonia, there's a sign at the side of the highway depicting a tree bent over by the wind. So that's it! I wondered why I was leaning over at 45 degrees while riding in a straight line! So it's breezy then? Thanks very much, The Government!
19/12/08 Rio Grande, TDF, Argentina.
None of your rubbishy Japanese TV's in TDF
17/12/08 Rio Grande, TDF, Argentina.
It's 175 miles from the petrol station ("gas outlet" if you prefer) in Rio Gallegos to the next one, just over the Chile/Argentina border in San Sebastian, Tierra Del Fuego. My petrol tank goes to reserve at 165 miles - if I haven't been too silly and childish with my throttle fingers. All well and good if the station actually has fuel in it; reserve should give me about another 35 miles.
30/12/08. Porvenir, TDF, Chile.
The smell of freedom, on the glorious morning I finally get out of Rio Grande, is the smell of somebody else's B.O., thanks to the rarely-laundered towel I'm provided with at the hotel. It's not until I've showered and dried off with this hellish cloth that I notice a foreign pungency rising directly from my beard into my nose. I sniff the towel: regret is immediate and lasting.
27.1.09. Bajo Caracoles, Argentina
The bar at the petrol station (and why not?) in BC is a hive of inactivity. I've done 138 miles of Ruta 40 today without falling off, so I'm going to sit here, idle as a bee, until either I run out of pesos or I'm physically kicked into the gravel.
Men, yesterday
9 Jan 09. Punta Arenas, Chile
"The second-best cemetery in South America", says the guidebook, so off I trot in search of mortality kicks. It's cool, but a definite second to the "best" one - Recoleta in Buenos Aires, a mini-city of 20 foot tall death-pyramids and granite stiff-houses. After a while I find an unprepossessing little slab commemorating the dead of the HMS Doterel, "blown up" off Punta Arenas in 1881.
30.1.09. Perito Moreno, Argentina.
Pics from Chile, words from Argentina. Strange days indeed.
21.2.09. Puerto Montt, Chile
This is how it begins...
And this, more often than not, is how it ends...
27.3.09. Santiago, Chile.
Having timed my arrival in Santiago to coincide precisely with my birthday - and been out by only a day, idiocy buffs - I sense raucous behaviour on the horizon. The fact that my good pals Drew (who lives here), C (here for a job interview) and John (here photographing Iron Maiden) are all in town increases my disquiet.
9.3.09. Valdivia.
Hot, blue days roll by, spiced by saucy rides along the very, very bike-friendly road to Los Molinos for more piles of seafood and quite a lot of staring at the sea and grinning. Cool black nights fizz away in jazz-sodden El Legado, where the Heineken is frosty and the service isn't.
28.2.09. Valdivia.
Superb things about Chile, currently #1 in my list of magnificent places (apart from Tokyo, which is, of course, in a special super-league with Zanzibar and Ramsgate Harbour *cough*);
24.2.09. Puerto Varas, Chile.
There's a gigantic volcano just over the lake from my bed. Easy on the eye, sure, but given that the one just down the road in Chaiten went absolutely apeshit a week ago, I'm inclined to cross my stubby little fingers and my weird, fat little toes.
10.4.09 Antofagasta, Chile
The great thing about Chile - and Britain - is that you're never too far from the sea. I break my personal trail-bike distance record today and spurt 350 sun-soaked, but relatively cool miles through the Atacama. An eleven mile detour to the left takes me to the coast and Antofagasta.
8.5.09 Puno, Peru.
Call me a hideous travesty of a bastard if you like, but why doesn't everyone in the world just listen to "Exodus" all the time, to the exclusion of everything else (except, maybe, once a week, the long version of "Trans-Europe Express", for balance)? Apart from the fact that it's a perfect song, it's also the most brilliantly produced record ever - fact. (And maybe on Friday mornings, the No Sleep Til Hammersmith version of "Capricorn", for kicks.)
28.5.09 Nazca, Peru.
I'm sorry, truly sorry, if your grandparents perished in an unheated Middlesborough council flat last January, but if it's any consolation, riding them around on the back of a motorbike at 14000 feet after sundown wouldn't have helped. They had a good innings anyway, unless one of them was an England cricketer.*
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11.6.09 Catamayo, Ecuador
I stagger home at 10pm from Bar Lovely in Happyville and decide it's time for a haircut. I'm armed with an electric razor and sheer, bloody-minded, booze-enhanced willpower. I am, literally, Mad Britney, with way less cash. A tramp, if you will.
Just a light trim, please
9.6.09 Colan, Peru
Hang a left (or "turn left" for those of you that don't regularly sport Wayfarers or believe that Teen Wolf is the second greatest movie of all time) off the Panamericana just after Piura, and 30 miles up the road you'll hit Paita, a quite pretty little port. Keep on movin' - don't stop - and you'll get to Colan.
15.6.09 Saraguro, Ecuador.
Bloody cartographers! Lower than pigs, the lot of 'em. Graceless, bovine clods! According to my map of Ecuador, there is but one road north out of Loja towards Cuenca - the Panamericana, an asphalt strip running from halfway up Chile to as far as you can go before you have to get a boat in Colombia.
1.7.09 Ibarra, Ecuador
4.7.09 Pasto, Colombia
The word "hooray" scarcely seems adequate
6.7.09 Popayan, Colombia
Mincing Moses! It looks like the rumours about Colombia may be true! I'm only in the south, but the vibrating greenness of the mountains, the mood-bumping warmth of the people, the eye-popping, shirt-testing Oh-My-God-ness of the honeys, and the (so far) utter lack of getting shot, robbed or kidnapped are all starting to pull Colombia up my (facile and ill-considered) Best Country In South America list.
8.7.09 Cali, Colombia 
We've ascertained, haven't we, what the Worst Song In The World is already. But what's the Other Worst Song In The etc? Spot on! And well done. It's What's Going On by 4 Non Blondes.
-It's a rat with a sore on its leg dying on your lunch.
-It's a burp mishap.
-It's flat, room-temperature Pepsi served by a frowning Mormon.
7.8.09 Valdivia, Colombia 
Bogota eh? Not a pretty name, and it's not a pretty town. The weather's a bit grim too; and you'd have to be dear old Ferdy Magellan to find your way from the outskirts to the centre in less than 2 hours. On top of all that there's The Curse Of Bogota. Within 24 hours, my camera disappears (with every picture I took in Ecuador, Popayan and Cali), my iPod craps out permanently, and someone at the parking place manages to wrestle a pannier off my bike.
2.10.09 San Jose, Costa Rica
People who have, at one time, been truly excellent pop stars, but have later revealed themselves to be horrible little bastards:
1. Gary "I love Thatcher" Numan.
2. Gary "I love pre-teens" Glitter.
Hold tight! I think I spot a theme.
11.10.09 Rivas, Nicaragua
Is that Shakira video (the one where she's wearing a mono-leg "jump"-suit, when she's not wearing a leotard that's precisely the same colour as her skin) making anyone else feel a bit "off" in the morality department? My guess, after close scrutiny, is that she's feeling a bit broody. In that event, I would count myself more than happy to "brood" her.
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10.10.09 Liberia, Costa Rica
A cow, ironically
Last major stop on the north-west highway to Nicaragua, and it's a smiley little town with a freakishly ugly church and a helluva way with a pork chop. I arrive five minutes before the lunchtime rains kick off, having left Samara on the coast reasonably early after the first bacon 'n' egg breakfast in months. Possibly 12 months.
26.10.09 Somotillo, Nicaragua/Honduras border.
Effective Smoking: Tips For Central America
#1 in a series of, I would think, two at most.
23.11.09 Palenque, Mexico. 
If you spent the late 1980's in Britain drinking newly-imported, skinny-necked 355ml bottles of Corona at 2 quid a pop, you were, quite transparently, a twat. A worthless, pink-shirted bozo, suckling at Lord Fashion's distended purple teat with all the grace and imagination of a speed bump.
18.11.09 Antigua, Guatemala
As my left forearm metamorphoses from golden-haired willow sprig into fat, scarlet, insanely itchy rugby ball, I'm forced to hold back a spring tide of superstition. Superstition, as you know, is belief without evidence. Often reinforced by coincidence, it can sometimes take a Brain Of Steel to hold superstition at bay.
4.11.09 Antigua, Guatemala.
Hopped-up on hell-terror and foamy-mouthed with the fatalistic death-worship of Catholicism they may be, but those Guatemalan buses sure are colourful!
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28.11.09 Cancun, Mexico
Trade: di-methyl-hydroxy-loperamide. Street: Imodium. These pills are valued at two quid, and amazingly - against all intestinal logic - they work even if you've "got one in the chamber", acting like a rectal Super Slurper and turning a difficult, "can we go yet / dare I even check out of my room?" morning into a breeze. Hoozah for Big Pharma!
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18.12.09 Campeche
25.11.09 Escarcega, Mexico 
I have to be in Cancun on Sunday to meet Naz, last seen in Buenos Aires. It would've been quicker to go through Belize, but sod that; it's $200 to get a bike in and the cop situation is supposed to be worse than Honduras. The "attraction" of Belize is the diving. There's only one sort of diving I'm interested in, and it doesn't usually involve an oxygen tank.
6 Jan 2010 Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico 
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- However sated you are with Mexican crooners, can I suggest you don't snap, get up from your table, find the one Doors CD among the 2000 Los Amigos Borrachos recordings, and put on nine songs in a row including fully 10 minutes of "The End"?
18.1.10 Mexico City
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Excellent things about Mexico City:
1. 7-Eleven "Big Lunch" sandwiches. While "Small Lunch" would, in all fairness, sum up the defining attributes of these superbly fresh brown-bread starvation-attenuators more accurately, they are easily the least disappointing pre-packed sandwiches in Latin America. Six-and-a-half out of 10!
5.2.10 Soto La Marina, Mexico 
. Apart from the towel, with which a 14th century Dutch farmhand would have been embarrassed to be caught wiping off a sow's teats, Hotel Meda in Panuoco isn't too bad. OK - it stinks, inside and out, but the food's excellent. If you're wondering how it's possible for a hotel to stink outside - guess what? so am I - but I assure you it is. .
21/3/10 Moab, Utah
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The northern end of New Mexico is pretty. Colorado is stunning. Utah is something else entirely. It's a lesson in not thinking "the last place was amazing - next one's boundabe crap".
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San Simeon, CA. 23.4.10
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"Oooh! You don't want to leave today dearie! Terribly high winds on the way!" warns the landlady as I pack up in Flagstaff.
"Pshaw!" I think. "I've ridden through Patagonia don'cha know. No man's put me down yet!"
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24.4.10 Monterey, CA
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At last! Microwave Cheese-On-Toast. *literally dies*
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Before we go any further, I'd like you to look at this photograph of a food product I saw in a supermarket in Arizona, and reflect upon the fact that civilization is wheezing its last.
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4.5.10 San Francisco, CA . 
Yosemite, one last time. Amazoid.
The Most Ridiculous Rumour Involving Mis-Casting I've Ever Heard, #1: Someone on the internet says that, before Matt Smith was cast as The Doctor, one of the contenders was Catherine Zeta-Jones. I would LITERALLY have killed myself (by Aralditing my teeth to Her Majesty's exhaust pipe) if this had happened.
30.4.10 Mariposa, CA . 
. I'm sitting at the bar in the 49er Club, owned and run by the enigmatic, shades-indoors-in-a-good-way (i.e. "I did stupendous amounts of acid 40 years ago and I actually HAVE to wear them") Randy, when a fellow who might almost be Stephen King's weedy brother (same glasses and face layout, more warts) sits down and orders - are you ready for this - a pint of Budweiser with a tomato juice in it. .
2.6.10 Vancouver, Canada . 
. Oof! I forgot to mention that Yosemite National Park is AWE-OID. For future reference, some of it remains closed (i.e. snowbound) until sometime in May, but if you have to pawn your teeth to see it before the awful black silence of the universe engulfs you - do it. The Grand Canyon - a large thing which I've forgotten to mention altogether - is also quite good. .
24.5.10 Seattle, WA. . 
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What in tarnation...? . Her Maj and I roll into Frazier-town at 5pm on Sunday. She's as frantically enthusiastic about everything as the day she was born; I've got damp knickers, and not in a good way. My new motorcyclin' loons are nowhere near as waterproof as the accompanying literature would have you believe. .
