SimonFitzpatrick
Vehicle Type
Motorcycle
I've Got Crabs!
Date of update
Updates
Queensberry Rules, Old Boy?
Date of update
21.2.09. Puerto Montt, Chile
This is how it begins...
And this, more often than not, is how it ends...
Giggedy-giggedy-GOO!
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Let's Go To Work. Or Bed.
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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.
Staring At The Sea.
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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.
Ah Cayn't Git Enough O' Your Grub.
Date of update
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*);
Another Perfect Day.
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Live Long And Prosper, Hopefully.
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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.
Starry, Bra-ey Night.
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Voodoo Soup.
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Five Glorious Years.
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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.
Reed All About It
Date of update
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.)
Unnerving Mattress.
Date of update
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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Power, Corruption and Lies.
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Who Loves Ya, Baby?
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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
Screw PETA.
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You're My Favourite Waste Of Time.
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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.
Swell Maps
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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.
Poker Stars (And Blackjack Hacks)
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It's Too Late To Lose The Weight You Used To Need To Throw Around
Date of update
1.7.09 Ibarra, Ecuador
