Sander on a single

Sharing knowledge...

2010-04-12T08:52:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

I'm back in Holland for a while now, and got my life back on track again. You found my blog while looking for information about motorcycle traveling through the americas? If yes, please ask all your questions. I am more than happy to give back my knowledge and experience to new travelers.

Save travels, Namaste

Sander

My lucky number: KL1708

2010-02-01T04:15:00.000-08:00

Looking forward to see family and friends again. Will arrive 4 feb. at Amsterdam at 08.40 (AM that is.....) Going to be good! (cold though...)

In Ushuaia!

2009-12-25T10:02:00.001-08:00

Hi all, I'm happy to announce that after about 18 months i'm in Ushuaia!!! So, IT IS DONE!

I owe a lot to a lot of people. A Big Thank You to all who supported me, took care of my stuff at home, all beautiful people i met, and all who were kind enough to donate.

From the bottom of this continent: Merry X-mas and a happy, healthy and rich 2010.

Saludos!

Highlights of North Chile/ Argentina

2009-12-06T17:58:00.001-08:00

I got some inquiries on my whereabouts not having posted for a while. Thanks to all who are concerned. I apperiate it a lot.

Have been struggling for a long time to get my rear rim fixed properly. First inSantiago, then i left for Valparaiso and Pichulemu, discovered more broken spokes and returned to Santiago again. There i figured out that my bike uses the same spoke/hub sizes as the older WR enduro, and the Yamaha parts dealer had spokes on stock. Lucky me. After replacing a few spokes at a time i have had the whole rim done at once. There's a good mechanic used by KTM. So got all that fixed. Finally. And now, the last bit, i noticed a lot of oil draining from the airbox! Uhoh bad news. Engine throws out a lot of oil through the crankcase-breather-hose, which, I'm afraid indicates warped valvestemseals and/or piston rings. If not worse. It runs fine though and so far I suspect the first, that being a problem before. And I was already near Osorno, having difficulties finding parts. Chile doesn't do big bikes here. I managed to find three valvestem seals, originally Yamaha. Not at the local Yamaha dealer, they order everything from Santiago, but at a tiny little bikeshop. Hope this is enough. At this point, i don't want to invest a lot of time and money for the last 7000km of my trip.

Yes dear all, the past few weeks i'm more preoccupied with the bike than enjoy riding it. Takes the fun out of it and that really depresses me a bit. Strangle how fixing a problem shifts from a challange to a burden, and how it affects my mental well being. Too long on the road maybe?

I'm currently in the nice and friendly Bariloche at lake Nahuel Huapi, Argentina. Where the weather is good, air fresh, pine trees green, the lake is crystalclear and all that against a background of snowy mountaintops. Lovely. Familiar too, like Swiss maybe? There's at least three bikeshops, so hopefully one of them allows me to work in their shop. And maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to enjoy the last leg down and back up to Buenos Aires without problems.

Anyway.

What where the highlights after Bolivia? My route went from San Pedro de Atacama, to Antofagasta back to San Pedro into Argentina to Jujuy, Salta, Cafajate, Iguzul falls, Cordoba, Mendoza and Santiago in Chile. Since La Paz about 9000km. My MT21 rear tire still had 1mm thread left. Not bad at all.

'Mano del Desierto' in Atacama desert.

Was it worth driving 750kms through desert to see the famous hand? Still don't know but it was a good ride. Still travelling with Graham we made a loop from San Pedro to the hand and from there to Antofagasta and back to San Pedro. This desert is beautiful, hot and deserted. All smooth tarmac though.

This scenery for hours.

But just before San Pedro, there's mountains and winding roads. Remarkable, starting at the coast where its cold, going throug almost the dryest place in the world where its bloody hot to end up at 3200m altitude. And its about 300km.

Pretty special.

About San Pedro: THE tourist spot in north Chile. Expensive, shockingly expensive when you come from Bolivia, actually.The whole village is about touragencies and lodging. Take that out of it, and there's nothing left.

Entering Argentina! The road from San Padro to Jujuy, the first city in Argentina of any importance is really beautiful, mountains, great roads to ride.

..GREAT roades to ride...

Salta. Nice , Not special. Spend a few days appreciating the musea and weather.

Absolutely recommended: From Salta to Wine village Cafayate are two roads. On through the mountains, unpaved, and one back, paved.

I urge everyone who happens to be in the neighberhood to take this road. It's really really scenic. The unpaved stretch is easy, way less difficult that the lagunaroute in Bolivia.

One of those did-I-really-did-this?? ones.

Made Graham very happy.

Really weird rockformations. It's a famous area, of which i forgot the name....

Classic...

Nail made 2 holes in my innertube.
I have to say that patching tubes roadside usually doesn't work for me, so i flung on a spare innertube. Quicker and more secure.

Although i was a bit tired of dirtroads after Bolivia. Highly enjoyable.

The paved road back from Cafayate to Salta is through this kind of scereny. In Cafayate, a relaxed, friendly, village, is some excellent wine tasting and tours to do.

From Cafayate i decided to go to the famous Iguazul falls, splitting up with Graham. And it seemed a good idea to take a shortcut east. Dusty rocky dirt again with some small rivercrossings. Not really what i was looking for. But defenitely nicer than a 200km highway stretch.

Crossing the famous Argentina pampas. At this point still an interesting novelty. Which wears out quickly when its 1600kms the same stuff to Iguazúl. Really nothing to see in between.

Ah! So this is where everyone is so enthousiastic about! The worldfamous Iguazú falls!!

Really amazing. I rained quite severely the days i arrived. Because of the high waterlevels the argentinian side closed some of the viewpoints.

Worth the little detour for sure!

Its realy big, look at the tiny people!!

Yup, really rained quite severe...
I put my tent up underneeth a cover. Lucky me...
Nothing like we have in Holland.

Whats this fuzz about shortage of sweet water again??

Ghosts from far gone times. I spend a day in San Ignatio Miní. A village with one of the best preserved Jezuite ruines. At night there's a audio/video spectacle in the ruines which tells the Jezuite history.

What you see here is a photo of a 3 dimentional laser video projection. Very well done.

Cordoba. Well uhm.. Big city period. Not special, crowded. Didn't click, so to do something usefull i experimented a bit with taking pictures at night. Best result out of 25 takes.

Getting from Cordoba to Mendoza. Did i mention i'm a huge fan of Apple ipods? And definitely have to clean up a lot of rubbish from it...

These roads are the least used i've encountered in my trip so far. Lonely. Bloody hot and no shade. Luckily all went well.

In Mendoza i learned that Argentinians really take their siesta serious.
Fountain at 12.59.

Fountain at 13.00. It started again at the end of siesta, around 17.00 or so. Weird.

I stayed too many days in Mendoza. Relaxing. Nice hostal, good people.

I learned a lot about Quebeck from these girls. Aparantly they think the rest of Canada should speak french. Lovely bunch. Jade (red hairband) and her frien (pink hairband) worked as nurses way up north amongst eskimo's. The climate and circumstances are pretty hard there. Respect.

Leaving Mendoza for Santiago I wondered what this white haze was...

The winds were ridicilous strong and turbulent almost blowing me from the road a few times. At some point my bike started vibrating heavily. Ah! I know that feeling! And yes, another enginemount bolt broke. Need to find originals one of these days. But good stuff is hard to find.

Got myself a spare bolt after the last time, so easily fixed? Uhm No. This dumb-ass forgot to buy a fitting nut. I limped 20km to till i found a tire repair shack somewhere. Couldn't make any sense from the heavy dialect they spoke, or maybe it was because the guy missed about all his teeth, but they were kind enough to give a nut for free!

Ah, i see, the haze was snow! Froze my nuts off for about an hour or so crossing the Andes to Santiago despite wearing about everything i had. (Not much these days). Not that high altitude, about 2500m. Things are a bit different than Bolivia for sure. My bike has a thing against cold and wet weather, you might recall one of my first posts in Alaska.

20km befor the border it decided to quit. Luckily at a small village, or rather 5 houses. During my warm-up-instant-nescafé it stopped snowing. Guess what, my bike started again! There's definetly something going one there. Frozen carb? To date still clueless. Continued the last stretch up the mountain to the border in rain and prayed the damn thing would hold up.

Riding in snow didn't happen since beartooth pass in Montana. And i promised to myself not to go to Patagonia too quickly. With all challenges going on lately it might turn out i have to hurry before end of summer!

The bordercrossing was a clownesque event. Reminded me of Central America. Although i really cannot imagine being the first foreigner crossing the border with a foreign registered bike, they were absolutely clueless about the procedure. Very annoying. Or they had a new crew working. I expected better entering Chile. Maybe that was the problem, my expectations of Chile being a DEVELOPT country. They like to believe so.... but at that time i certainly thought otherwise. First time i really got focal about my annoyances which resulted in an official angrily slapping all sorts of stamps on a paper.

The beforementioned delays caused me entering Santiago around 7pm in big city evening traffic. Just got frustrated with finding my way when i looked up a saw this: Andes mountains in afterglow.

And all was good.

...great picture except from the electric cable crossing the street. Anyone handy with photoshop??

I took some time off in Santiago. One reason was that i wanted to wait for the weather to get better in Patagonia, the other that i just wanted to stay put for a while. Besides that there was stil this spoke issue going on. And of all big cities, Santiago isn't that bad.

So far a short update on my trip. All pictures can be seen here.

Suerte!

Bolivia II: Cochabamba-Sucre-Potosi-Uyuni-Laguna route to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile

2009-10-18T00:15:00.000-07:00

Since a few days i'm in Argentina, the land of wine, steaks and tango. Where people actually use their turn signals and behave civilized in traffic, have insane long siesta's and are hooked on maté (thea).

Bolivia, as i experienced, is a coutry where riding days are always longer than expected, where i managed to ride through rain and dark more than once to get where i wanted. And tires preferably go flat when you're already running out of daylight. I saw a fair bit of the of the country going from La Paz to Cochabamba, straigh down to Sucre continued to Potosi, back to La Paz, straight south to Uyuni to cross the Salar de Uyuni and took the infamous lagunaroute to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. Hardest ride so far, for me and the bike. At this point there's little i don't know about fixing tires. I also learned how to change broken spokes and that m10 engine mount bolts can actually brake.

I stayed in north Chile briefly, rode 700km through the Atacama desert area just to see the famous 'Mano del Desierto', probable the most useless thing i did so far. Experienced Chilean biker hospitality (Thanks Jorge and Nelson!!!) in Antofagasta and got out of there asap. USD 1.50 for a liter of gas! Expensive food and lodging too. Not sure if i want to go back there.

All my Bolivia pics can be seen in the Bolivia Photoalbum. But below a few with some comments, as usual:

Cohabamba to Sucre.

Cochabamba. A really charming town, relatively untouched by by tourists. A bunch of nice coffeeshops and restaurant with a bohemian vibe like Café Paris at the plaza of some of the places on Calle 25 de Mayo (towards the end) make it a good place to chill.

En route from Cochabamba to Sucre. One of those mistakes which turned out to be brilliant. 300km, 1/3 paved, 1/3 cobblestone 1/3th dirt. What more can you wish for in a days ride?

The road started from La Paz as good tarmac, after which it turned to an antique cobblestone road, which turned to gravel/sand/rocky before turning to the last stretch of twisty tarmac up the mountains to Sucre. This last part would be enjoyable if it wasn't for the rain and the inevitable end of daylight.

Here i just fixed my rear tire. Not a puncture, but an old patch came of. Aparantly glue deteriorates with time (replace it every half year!). The patch would come of another time later on on my way to La Paz to pick up a package from holland, which resulted in a very rainy last few hours in dark to get there.

Dusty and dark air. Not very promising. And clueless about how much more dirt i had to go. A good example of a secundary road in Bolivia.

Road following river = corners.

Last stretch was quite enjoyable, till rain started pooring down.....

...which was at the last 20km or so bit to Sucre: Wet tarmac uphill. Beautiful, slippery. And because i had a long tiesome day i couldn't really appreciate it.

My first experience with Sucre was a cold, wet and dark one. The more I was supprised the next day: all sunny and warm i took a stroll through the center.

It wasn't that bad actually!

Pleasant central plaza.

Market with jummy fruits and veggies.

Hostel life = Good Life. Group of good people, home cooking and plenty of alcoholic fluids.
Life on the road isn't that bad. See why i don't want to go home yet?

Hung out with this bunch in Sucre and Potosi. Every now and than you meet people you connect with more than average.

Next stop Potosi. The highest city in the world at 4100m. Only one reason to go there: to experience the horrible circumtences the miners work in. Dressed in helmet and plastic I visited one of the many mines. There's nothing funny about it, but it's definetly impressive.

Chemical plant where minerals are separated from the ore. Nasty chemical fumes dominated the scene. Little protection for the people who work there.

Even the dogs are covered in dust from the mines...

Mine entrance. Narrow, and the further you go in, the narrower and hotter and dustier it gets. To go from one level to the next, we had to crawl down through narrow caves. At an altitude well above 4100m not a little effort. Like pumping up a tire on 4500m altitude...

On the way back you have to crawl up which is even more intensive. At some point, the lack of oxygen, fysical effort, confinement in narrow space and dust almost made me panic. Not my forté, those mines.

I promised myself to be happy with whatever job i get when i return, knowing how bad it is here.

One of the miners rattling by on a car full of ore.

The entrance is free, but tourists are expected to bring presents for these guys. Soda, cocaleaves, dynamite, or a local 90% alcoholic drink (!). Literally tastes like spiritus.

Mining god Tio. The miners believe in God above ground, in Tio when under. Tio, lucky guy, gets offers every day. Cocaleaves, sigarettes and alcohol. Cheery fella. The conquistadores invented this god to oppress the indigenous people working the mines. To date this believe is still strong. Every now and then a lama is butchered and it's blood splashed against the mine entrance.

Before i did the tour i saw The Devils Miner, a movie about children working in the mines. Touching.

On my way from Challapata to Uyuni.

Aargh!! I was pretty sure the map indicated 'primary road'!?!

Shortest route from La Paz to Uyuni ends with 200km road under construction between Challapata and Uyuni.

Passed some small dusty villages. Cool to get somewhere were kids are still curious about foreigners.

Further down the road. At this point i wondered if it really was a good idea to take the shortest route. Via Potosi was twice as long, but probably easier!

But, as usuel, the views and satisfaction afterawards made it all worth it. And again, rolled into Uyuni just before dark. Again.

Outside Uyuni is a train cemetary, or rather, a random collection of very old trains. Apparantly the metal used in these old trains is unsuitable for recycling and they just put them out in the desert.

Very photogenetic in late afternoon sunlight.

One more.

Salar de Uyuni. Can't think of a reason to go there. There's not much to see. Oh wait! That's exactly why you should go there!

This picture, i hope, illustrates how insanely wide and vast it is out there.

I traveled this part of Bolivia with Graham, a British bloke doing the same thing. We took a whole afternoon to make all sorts of funny pictures. Apparently a must when you're here. More of that here.

Just before entering San Juan, end of day 1.
After the easy crossing of the Salar, it gets hairy.

Following the laguna route it is a beautiful hell really. Sceneries are breathtaking, and so are the 'roads'. The latter in a negative sence. Washbordes, loose sand, rocks, and a combination thereof. Worst riding on my whole trip.

The 550km from Uyuni to San Pedro the atacama took us three full days. We opted for savety and arranged fuel and food dropoffs to the hostels we stayed in along the route. You can do without that, trying to buy food and gas from locals or organised jeep tours, but that is pretty uncertain.

This part of my trip finally made my bike falling apart. Damage done by the insane fibrations caused by washbord surface: Cockpit assembly is held together with iron wire, tie-raps and expoxy glue. And engine mount bolt broke off (!). Used up all my three spare spokes. Dropped my bike at 5km/h in sand and on of my panniers landed on a rock and has a hole in it. These panniers are really not made for dropping them. Besides that, due to metal fatigue one pannier starts to rip apart. And they are totally not dust/watertight anymore. Should have spend a bit more money on those. It is all fixable though. The real important thing, the engine of my TTR keeps suprising me. It goes and it goes and it goes. Kickstart is really not a problem, its even better on high altitudes. Grahams f650 dakar for example doesn't like high altitudes and we (i actually...) had to push it several cold mornings to get it going. I blame the 15W50 oil for it, make sure you have 10W40. For fuel efficiency i would take a fuel injeced bike the next time though. I didn't bothered to adjust my jetting and on high altitudes in 1st and 2nd gear stuff the fuel economy drops to SUV levels. Fuel Injection adjusts, so there's not much change in fuel economy or powerloss at altitudes. And Graham's Dakar really proves bulletprove. Doesn't use an drop of oil after 65000km, no broken rims, spokes etc. So a cheap bike in the long run is more expensive it seems.

Anyway. More pics!

Uhm... What did the sign say again?

Another laguna. With Birds this time. Beautiful.

End of day 2. Running out of daylight.
The longest stretch was between San Juan and Laguna Colorada. About 225km. We had to wait for the fuel and food dropoff so we couldn't leave before 10am. This proved to be too late, this picture is taken 25km before Laguna Colorado. It would take us an hour in dark on these roads to get there. Fierce cold wind. camping on this altitude is not an option, it freezing!

Day 3. Another beautiful laguna.

This kind of scenery for a few days. Breathtaking.

I did cursed the bad 'road' surface more than once, and had constant fear of parts falling off.

Last look over our shoulder towards beautiful Bolivia, crossing into Chile to San Pedro de Atacama.

We made it! I don't have the words to describe how i felt when we reached tarmac.

Thats it. Done with Bolivia. For me the toughest country to travel, but also the one with the most amazing scenery. It should be a breeze from here on...or should it? We'll see.

From Grahams video footage i put a short compilation about how it is to ride overthere on youtube. Hope you get an idea:

salar and laguna route video

Suerte!

Bolivia - Careterra del Muerte!!

2009-09-21T14:33:00.001-07:00

My route so far: La Paz - Coroico (Death Road!!) - La Paz - Cochabamba.

La Paz. Spend way to much time there. Despite the the traffic congestions, polution, cold nights and hot days, i liked it. Met a bunch of expats who lived and worked there. For me it's interesting to talk to those people about their life. Maybe to help me decide weather or not to emigrate. And to where.

The "Deathroad" trip was quite interesting. I met my buddy Graham in La Paz and we did the road together. We shot some great footage with his videocamera(s). Hope i can upload that to youtube soon.

Here he is, at the toll booth on routa 3 with his totally reliable F650 Dakar (after 60kkm).

The first 50km winding roads on good tarmac with the occasional unexpected bit of gravel to keep you awake...this kind of scenery.

And this.

This stretch, on 4500 about altitute really, really reduces the few horsepower i have to almost none. Next time i take a bike with fuel injection. they suffer less.

Although... For example, a F650Dakar has starting problems on altitude. My TTR has not. FI engines compensate for lean air and use less fuel whereas a carburated engines just throws too much fuel in. It seems.

Just one more then...

El Careterra del Muerte! A 50 km narrow unpaved road with steep drop-offs and great scenery. If the weather is good....which wasn't.

Since the new road is in place there's hardly any traffic except from mountainbike touring groups, which, in particular are dangerous when you go back up i noticed... Almost run in to one of those guys.

The golden rule that you go where you look at sure is applicable here, so as long as you look ahead instead of left or right, there's nothing to worry about. Sort of. Despite all that, it do think this road is actually the safest in Bolivia. Mainly due to absence of other traffic. Man those Bolivians really can't drive! So far i could relate to some extend to the lack of traffic sence i encountered so far, in Bolivia they really pushing the envelope. So yes, i do tend to hit mirrors these days if a dumb-ass taxidriver pulls up in front of me. I keep my music on in cities to ignore the useless honking. And pretend not to see other cars when manouvring through city traffic. In short, i behave like a local. With the big difference that i am consious of what i'm doing. Usually. I like to believe. Some days i really look forward to be back in the overly regulated traffic in Holland with lines, lights, speeding cameras and in general intelligent traffic behavior. Anyway.

I was quite happy with my new MT21's, but less happy i took all my gear. This road is more fun with less luggage, definetly.

Oh, the last few km to coroico is paved with cobblestone. Way worse than the unpaved part, actually.

The death road ends in Coroico, a pleasant village where time stands still and the concept of customer service is not yet common. (Imagine this. You go to a restaurant. You wait. Finally you get the menu. You look at the menu. You ask for food. Guys says there isn't any. And that we should go to the neighber....WTF!?!).

It seems that tourism here came to a halt since the new road opened, allowing touragencies to make the trip without spending a night in Coroico. Pitty. But also, the locals don't do much to market the place for weekend tourism from La Paz. I found some nice chilled out hostels, good food so you can easily spend a few days hanging about. Which i did. And there's some great trairiding to be done in the surrounding hills.

Made it back to the pavement without a scratch!

I write this post party from a Paris style Café at the corner Plaza 16 Sieptembre, with really excellent coffee (best so far in weeks). Cochabamba is great. I am forced to hang around here for a day or two. I hit a rock on the road with my right foot and despite the fairly good boots i wear my big too is all swollen up. Limping around Cochabamba i found several cool places in this fairly big regional city with a great historical colonial center. I finished this post in Café Casablanca, nice bohhemian vibe. Slightly off the beaten track this city is not spoiled by tourists. It has a great climate and is economical well developt, resulting in an interesting mix of traditional and modern Bolivian culture. One can observe an indigenous girl breast feed her child in public while modern SUV's and hip and trendy youngsters passing by. As a 'gringo' you still stand out in the crowd. I like these cities. Not much to do touristwise, but more authentic than metro-poles like La Paz, Lima etc. (what is authentic?) And it's still cheap! And there's always an protest march or two a day to inform you about current problems in this country. After Colombia Bolivia is the next South American country which gets to me. It's diversity: 1/3th is Andes highlands, 2/3 is (semi)tropical lowlands. And the lowlands want to separate from the highlands. A bit more serious than the separation in Belgium though. For me a big supprise, i did associate Bolivia with Andes highlands only. This country should be very rich and developed based on their natural resources, but for years it's ruthlessly exploited by corrupt local government and western companies and (equally corrupt??) western governments. Lots of money goes out of the country to foreighners owning companies, or rich Bolivian families living abroad. I cannot do otherwise than sympathize with the current political direction. People are fed up with the exploitation. Hope they won't go the same radical direction as Venezuele though.

All Bolivia picture can be seen here.

Next route: Go to Sucre, then Potosi and finally Uyuni for the famous salt flats!

Suerte.

Peru - Lima to Bolivia - Copacabana

2009-09-12T14:47:00.000-07:00

Lima. Is there any reason to be there? I almost didn't found it if i wasn't for Juan, brother of my friend Ansreas' wife.
One night he took me around town and my conclusion is: the only beautiful part is Baranco. Oh, And maybe the beach area.

From Lima i took the fast road to Arequipa, Puno, Copacabana and La Paz. Not eventful. I've been to this part of Peru in 2006 and thus seen all the cool stuff. These pictures are here.

Meet the Grahams. Met these guys in Lima. Graham Jr. 22 years old, old DR650, did the trans-america trail and decided to continue through central and south america. Good decision! He met Graham Sr. 60 years old on his DRZ400 in Granada, Guatamala (i think) and drove down from there in 2 months (fast!). Weird, in total i know three Grahams from the UK traveling on a bike, and one Graham on a bicycle. Anyway, we drove together till Ica. Where the DR650 started pissing oil from the primary drive shaft seal. I convinced them to try to fix it here at the oasis just outside Ica. Knowing from my previous trip in Peru that Ica is a dunebuggy center. These buggies brake down frequently , so lots of repairshops and mechanics around, and therefore parts. This assumption turned out to be correct. Luckily.

The Panam through Peru is long and boring. Although for me the boring part wasn't that bad. Good roads, little traffic, cool views.

Not too bad if you want to cover distance fast. You have to actually, because there's not much to do between the regular tourist places, which are far apart.

Plaza del Armas, Arequipa. Beautiful city, so far the best in Peru i guess. I spend a few days enjoing Arequipa and one of it's exquisite female inhabitants. Te amo Pilar! Fue un placer conocerte!

Met the 3th Graham on a bike in Café Las Brujas (the wiches) by coincidence. Talking with a peruvian novelista this Graham walked in. Last time i saw him was long long long ago on Vancouver Island. We sort of keep the same pace, but managed to avoid each other till now.

It was fun cathing up with him. He's hilarious. I strongly suggest to check out his website. And read why you shouldn't go with a BMW...

The fast lane to Bolivia. Desert scenery starts wearing off actually.

Lago Titicaca. Really impressive.

It's a big pond... 204x65km!!

From Puno the closest bordercrossing is at Yunguyo. Again a pleasant noneventful exercise. After the official immigration and douana formalities i was pointed to an office with some military guys. A guy wrote my name and vehicle info in a book and asked me for a voluntary contribution! Huh? No way José. It's voluntairy right?! Bienvenidos a Bolivia. Poor guy, he asked it sort of embarrassed actually, probably his commandante ordered to do so. And he came after me when i was about to leave................handing me a flyer of a nice hotel in Copcabana. Friendly folks.

I didn't change money at the border (forgot, again, check the exchange rate) and did so at a restaurant in Copacabana, the first Bolivian town after this border. After a lot of hard barganing i got a good enough price for my leftover Peruvian Pesos at a restaurant. But... the guy tried to fool me by giving 5 Bolivianos less than agreed. Bienvenidos a Bolivia II. My first hour in Bolivia didn't gave me a good first impression. Hope this changes...

Copacabana beach. The one real beach town in Bolivia since they lost the war with Chile in the war of the pacific (GUERRA DEL PACÍFICO - 1879-83) loosing the current part of Chile between 23th and 26th parallel. If your interested: read it all here.

Copacabana is a fun place to hang out. Nice bars and restaurants, Sunny, Pretty views and relatively inexpensive.

David from Santiago, Chili, and his 1983-ish Landrover. Traveling around Chili, Argentina and Peru. Nice guy, very knowledgeable about Bolivia.

Interesting: he personaly transplanted an Hyunday diesel engine in his Landrover. Took him a year to figure it all out.

Remarcable. David and his friend drew a map of Salar de Uyuni. At first i thought the altitude messed with my head, the map they drew didn't resamble the one in my head. Turned out that on this hemisphere people use south as being 'up'!!! Make sense south-pole is closer for these guys. Something to keep in mind... Hope left and right is the still the same though.

I write this post from La Paz, the busy high altitude capital of Bolivia. Mainly for bike maintainance and waiting for a package to arrive from Holland. The last few days i run in to some interesting people and places which makes it easy to spend time here.
From what i heard from people around here, shipping a packagefrom europe can take 3 weeks easily. The bike part is dealt with, and right know i'm trying to draw up a plan for Bolivia and the last (long) stretch to Chile. Money's running out, and still got at least 4 months to go. Seems long but in my mind i have the feeling it's "already" coming to an end, stupid isn't it?

Anyway. Tomorrow it's time to do THE DEATH ROAD! The main attraction around here, it seems noticing the 100's of advertisements of mountainbike rental shops. I figured that its better to not have to deal with them on this road and decided to to leave after the mountainbike rush and go in the same direction.

Will post a message when i'm back. I met Graham III today and we'll do the trip together. He's got a video camera, so expect to see some footage of me plodding around this road soon.

Civilisation sure comes to an end around here if you take internet bandwidth as a measure, it's a struggle to upload pics. So there's not much of Bolivia on my site yet.

But all pictures of Peru can be seen here.

Suerte!

Peru - Border to Lima.

2009-09-08T14:45:00.001-07:00

Peru is definetly different. Desert, empty, large distances. I had to get used to that. This harsh, brutal environment has its charm though. It definitely gives me a more adventurous ''just me and my bike in the middle of nowhere feeling". After 15 months being on the bike enjoying this feeling still makes me feel very, very happy. Luckily it's a cold desert environment, and not as in Mexico, a bloody hot one. Less tiring. But, as said, the long distances between cool places means long riding days.

I entered Peru at the Macará bordertown. Quit and easy passing. From there to Piura, Trujiillo and Huanchaco, Huaraz and now Lima. Covert a lot of miles. I don't intent to stay long in Peru, and my rout will be the shortest from Lima, Arequipa, Puno and La Paz, Bolivia. Enjoy the pictures!

First thing i saw enterering Peru heading to Piura, the first big city after the border. Deja-vúe? Looks pretty similar to what i saw when i entered Ecuador. Piura is friendly and has lots of cheap hostels, but has little of offer to tourists.

Piura to Trujillo. Did i mention desert?? Heavy cold sidewinds from the ocean. No fun. Max. 80 km/h in fourth gear. Too much noise to enjoy music on my ipod. Almost crashed overtaking a truck, because the sudden wind right after i passed the truck almost blow me and the bike away. Scary! Woke me up though.

Seems that in this season the wind starts in the afternoon In the mornings its quit and lightly overcast. Better for driving, worse for pictures.

The Pier at Huanchaco. Chilled out beach/surfvillage just outside Trujillo. In summer it's really good surfin' 'n beachin' here. In winter it's still good, but a lot of overcast. Tranquillo.

Trujillo to Huaraz. From beach to 3600m. Beautiful road, again. But still desert....

Heading to the mountains. Yup, more desert.

Interesting. I thought it would be an easy day. Only 180kms to Huaraz. Map showed a nice yellow line from the coast to Huaraz. Secunadary and paved i thought. Not! This particular map uses orange as secundary and yellow as tertiary, unpaved roads. Bugger.

Not a particular difficult, But slow. I noticed how fast temperatures drop when on altitude. At about 4 p.m. and 3000 altitude, it gets cold!

And another view...

Oh, I found a free routable GPSmap of Peru. It proved to be very, VERY accurate. Even this unpaved road was on it. So far i think the most detaild map of everything below the US. All bigger cities are on streetlevel. Download it here.

Almost there! Right lower corner: Huaraz. First view of the cordilera blanca.

Leaving Huaraz to Lima. Last view of the cordilera blanca. Impressive sight. Guess whats my desktop background!

BTW. Huaraz as a city is pleasant, but not scenic. Tourists go there usually to do hiking, climbing or even snowboarding. On a bike it's just a cool place to pass through. Lots of backpacker touristy bars and restaurants.

From the high altitudes at the cordilera blanca, you take 10 minutes of switchbacks....

...and the road straightens out to follow a river. Impressive to see how fast you cross dfferent biospheres and how dry this country is. This road goes on towards the coast for about 60km.....

....back to the coast. Heading 200kms to Lima. One of those moments you cannot do without your iPod.

At Chancay the Panam splits in two. One heading inland to Lima, for light traffic and one following the coast, also to Lima, for heavy traffic.

I thought the coastal route would be nicer. Ignoring the sighns (multiple) "No Motos"....

Which also ment heavy bikes, accoording to the policepatrol who stopped me, 3kms before the end of the road. This aparantly VERY SERIOUS traffic violation was about to cost me 400 soles (Eur.100,-)! Ouch. Paying needed to be done at the bank in the next town. As such not a problem, however, the violation was that i wasn't allowed to be on this road, the road was only for heavy traffic, which explained that there were only trucks and busses, and therefore i wasn't allowed to either drive back, or forth. Or that's what the Man said.

The officials appeared friendly guys though. After the usual "no tengo dinero", the official said that problems could be easily solved by giving him a 'propina' (means tip, but in this context bribe) of S.50,-. Way less, but still 5 gallons fuel, or 400km or 10 beers, to give you an idea. A lot of money.... and after a bit of chit-chat about my travel, Holland, more "si, es caro! no tengo dinero" and such the price dropped to S.20 soles, 4 beers that is. Didn't want to push my luck and accepted the proposal and be done with it. Drink water with my dinner for a change. Other bikers i met in Lima didn't had problems at all on this road. But be warned...

So, there it is, after 15 months on the road, about 70000km and 11 countries FINALLY my first, and hopefully last, corrupt police experience! Although i wished i could write i got away with it again. Still debating if this was a bad thing though. In other parts of the world there's no way you can get away with a traffic violation.

Oh, and i sincerely apologize to the international biketraveler community for not being more persistent in not paying.

Suerte

Ecuador

2009-08-25T12:08:00.001-07:00

Hi all. Time for a post again. Still ow you a report on Ecuador.
This post i brought to you from Lima! Lima: City of cities, Modern, expensive, touristy, has Starbucks (yuk) one of civilisations' landmarks of 'development' ...And where girls offer you massages when you stroll around the park... that kind of city. And all girls look like Jacky!

Made some miles last week. And finally found the inspiration to sit down and write...

Oh, i bought a dutch newspaper for the first time in this trip! Looking forward to read that nothing really changed over the past year. Or did it? We'll see.

Ecuador is a diverse country. Huge contrast between traditional and modern culture. My gut tells me the contrast seems bigger than Colombia and further north. It has all: From nice beachplaces like Mompichu and Canoa. Rain forest, cloud forest, and the Andes mountains. There's cool cities like Quito and Cuanca with great nightlife. And, of cource there was the lovely Vilcabamba. Below a short summary of my ramblings through this wonderful country.

Daytrip to Otavalo. Close to Quito is this laid back town of Otavalo. Colonial and traditional. Serves as a regional marketplace where farmers sell their produce and tourists buy touristy stuff.

Girls and Woman dress mainly in traditional clothing. First time i saw this in Ecuador. Looking back i whished i stayed here for a day or two instead of going to Quito.

Lost in the woods... I met Annette again in Quito, and we headed out for a daytrip. Plan was to make a roundtrip Quito, Otavalo and backroads back to Quito. Despite map, gps and two adults of which one reasonable intelligent (gues who..) we couldn't find the right turnoff and got sort of lost on great gravelroads.

Scary: misty at places, so glasses and visor got clogged with fog and dust. Couldn't see a thing, not even the big trucks hauling ass on these roads. Area has cement industry. Great place to do unpaved stuff.

Result was we had to backtrack the same route. Bummer. There ya go dear, you made it to my blog afterall!

Quito is a big place....

Halfway on the really georgeous road between Quito and Mompiche in cloud forest. Absolutely stunning view from a birdwatch restaurant.

Had lunch while a group of german birdwachers bragged about their knowledge of birds and compared lense sizes....

Striking similarity with a bunch of bikers bragging about, roads, almost accidents and comparing bikesizes..... people are the same everywhere.

Sometimes i wish i had a bit more macro and zoom. Although a stock 28-55 does a pretty good job, at some point you just want to have a bit more range.

Canoa, as is Mompiche, of which i don't have pictures, is worth a visit. Chilled beach places with lots of cool hostels and guesthouses. Better in summertime, in this season, winter, lots of overcast.

Canoa is more developed for foreign tourism than Mompiche. The latter recently started to develop and the foreigners who settled down there build some very nice cool guesthouses.

Beach! Imagine this with a clear sky.

Theres really nothing touristy on the crappy road from Canoa to Banos. Took me two days. Slow roads, loads of topes in small villages, roadsworks, potholes, stretches without pavement. Slow.

As usual, the road conditions were generously compensated with the occasional cool scenic views, which, as always makes up for the inconvenience.

Oops!

About 4000m. Andes highlands! Totally unprepared, so insufficient clothes. Cold upthere!

Accidentally run in to this craterlake. Awesome.

Traffic jam....

Cold, Empty, Windy and Rainy. Oh how i miss the days of lazy nothingness on the beaches of Mexico and Costa Rica.

Nice View ey?

As always, there's always someone doing it a bit different. For example this Japanese couple two up on a 90cc scooter. Two up! All the way from Buenas Aires!

Chapeau.

Just as i said goodbye to the Japanese couple and ready to saddle up, this Portuguese guy drove up. Cool bike, the f800. Is definitely on my shortlist of bikes for the next trip. Met a few people with this model, and despite it's a new model, it seems it's pretty reliable.

See the old bugger? He's an Ass. I gave him a dollar, which is a good tip around here. Instead of saying thanks, he said: don't you have more? Aargh! Kept lingering around till i send him away like you do with straydogs. Annoing character. Don't mind giving money to beggars, but i do respond very bad to unfriendliness. Or is it me being an Ass here?

Beautiful Quenca! I liked this city. Fairy small, wealthy, pretty well developed. It has this nice rural-regional-main-city vibe i like so much: Modern but still traditional in many ways.

Next stop: Vilcabamba. A pretty village in a pretty valley. Story goes that this environment causes people to live very long.

So, if you want to get old, live life here. Change is you suffer a premature death caused by utter boredom though.

Pleasant and sunny!

From Vilvabamba it's a long day following a mountain road for a couple of hours before connecting to main road to cross the border at Macara and end up in Piura. The bordercrossing is free of charge and easy. Officials at the border couldn't tell me if insurance is required. And there's lots of stories of corrupt police (this is partially true, i noticed - more of that later). To avoid potential involuntary depletion of my budget, i took out my old US policy and spend a while learning the basics of Photoshop.

Decided to stay at coastal Peru and make my way south quickly. Instead of the supposedly more impressing and adventurous Andes route. Didn't feel adventurous the last few weeks, and want to save my bike for the torture it will get more south. And tires are kinda finished. All sorts of excuses for not doing a week+ trip through the Andes.

The Coastal side of Peru is desert, desert and further south...there's more desert. If you go inland, to Huaraz, which i did, its mountains, but very desertly.
Sounds boring, bud it is not that bad, fairly good roads, great scenery. In short i had a couple of very pleasant driving days!

So, covered another piece of this globe. More about Peru in my next post! You can view all my Ecuador pictures here.

Ecuador - Another milestone: crossing the Equator.

2009-07-30T17:36:00.001-07:00

Yes people, made it to another country!

Smooth border crossing at the Panamericana. Nice helpful people. I was lucky, apparently, because Annette and Barry both had to deal with a very grumpy old dude.

So. on monday July 27th 2009 11:00 am i entered Ecuador. Another milestone! Colombia was one because i entered another continent, Ecuador for passing the magic number N00.00'000 of zero latitude!

First view of Equador, Andean highlands.

The one and only official Equator monument!

They are right! On my way from the border to Quito i kept looking at my gps to see it count down to N 00.00'001 at 'the line'.

I cherish this new milestone. After all, crossing the polar circle, tropic of cancer and now the equator isn't nothing. Looking back, all in all with remarkable few problems.

Right now, with the bike running great, with fixed oil consumption problem, my mental (...) and fysical health, i cannot say otherwise than i look forward with great exitement to the rest of the trip!!

So far this post. Relaxed a few days in Quito, did some daytrips around. I will leave to the coast tomorrow to enjoy the beachlife. Really miss that after all cold nights here in the mountains.

nos vemos!

Colombia III

2009-07-30T17:31:00.001-07:00

Salento. Nice small town with a colonial feel. Outside Armenia.
Why go there? Well, euhm.. Don't no, i guess because i haven't been there. One could live without seeing this, but there was a great hostel and its a great base to visit Armenia and Pereira, two bigger cities nearby.

Ah, now i remember, besides that the central plaza is one big eat and drink fest during weekends, colombians like drinking and eating i noticed, the nearby Valle de Cocoa is a popular Hike destination.

Sunset from Dormitory. Cool.

Pereira and Armenia are midsized modern cities with nothing special to offer, as it turned out. Riding around in this area is great though.

Following pictures are from the road between Salento and Neiva, crossing a mountainrange max. alt. 3200 m. Cold!
Very cool road, lots of heavy transport traffic.

View from the road at the top.

Going down hil through the mountains.

Colombians like bicycles too! The road to Neiva was closed for an hour just to let the equippe pass.

Neiva to San Augustin.

I saw a travelbike at a fuelstation just outside Neiva.
Annette from New Sealand on her Suzuki DR650. She's Doing the same thing. Always cool to exchange stories.We saw each other again a week later in Popayan, after that in Quito. Brave, woman travelling alone on a bike. We tried to ride together to San Augustin, but managed to loose each other twice. Luckily we met in San Augustin again.

Her weblog.

Viewpoint overlooking Rio Magdalena. Beautiful.

Another impression of this stretch. Please let me know if you get bored with the look-how-great-the-roads-are pics!

San Augustin is know for its archeological sites. Interesting because there's not many of it in Colombia. They don't know anything about this civilization unfortunately.

It's quite different to what i've seen so far. But it all comes down to the same: It's either a burial place for important people or ceremonial sites.

Just my luck. De 18th of July seemed to be the day of Virgin del Carmen, which has something to do with travelers. Aparantly.

Between San Augustin and Isnos i got stuck in the middle of a few hundred mopeds, small motorcycles, cars, busses etc.

This was on my way to Iznos the end of the paved road to Popayan. Shortcut through the mountains.

The 'road' between San Augustin and Popayan is 130km of which 90 unpaved. Max. altitude 3200m. Rainy,cold, slippery.

..Which engineering genius engineered that spreading a fresh layer of a mix of mud and stones a is a good idea for road improvement?

~~The bike~~ My love, my life and biggest concern proved her nickname, Old Faitful, once again. Pushed it through 90 km wet, rocky, slippery and rainy dirt road full of potholes, and i mean really full of potholes. Better description would be that sometimes there wasn't a pothole... Good thing it rained a lot and all potholes were filled with grey water which made them more visible.

Halfway the 90km reminded all of the sudden that similar road and weather conditions got me stranded 60 miles from
prudhoe bay, Alaska...did i mention this is cougar teritory??

Alternative is to backtrack two days. No backtrackin'! I learned from my Californian friend That
Wolff. So i just had to do it. At the end i didn't gain any time, spend a day recovering and cleaning the bike... But it delivers something to write about. Although i didn't see much of the environment, i'm sure that on a clear day the scenic views are awesome....

In short, everybody told me the road was bad.... and they were right ;-)

Quite an adventure, felt good to do something 'dangerous' again. After al, Colombia is way too comfortable.

If it wasn't for Uribe, it still would be a dangerous country. And my
trip would definitely more a straight line to Equador.

Uhm, let's discuss his strategy another time, ok? My impression is that everywhere i go people are happy the country is as good as safe for its inhabitants and it shows everywhere. One of the main things is the level of development of local tourism. From what i hear around me 4 to 5 years ago it was unsafe to travel to other big cities, even as a Colombian. So this clean up thing is a good thing, right?

At the end of the day the weather cleared and the last stretch to Popayán
was a real treat on good pavement and curvy roads. Ending the day like
this really made me feel happy. Still have those moments: Damn i'm lucky to be able to do this! Those moments when i recognize i'm actually (still) very happy and thankful with what i'm doing, makes it all worth.

Anyway, very pleased it did this. This would be a great day in an organized all-road tour !!

Road to Pasto. The landscape changes to dry mountainous andes style.

Just before entering Pasto. Just stayed for the night and went to Ipiales the next day to visit Las Lajas Sanctuary.

This sanctuary is build in an area where suposedly an image of Virgin Maria appeared on a rock. More about this here.
Beautiful neo gothic church.

I rushed out of Colombia. Time for something new. Colombia was a real treat. Fantastic motorcycle country. Diversity. Friendly people, lots of beautiful things to see and do. Did i mention the beautiful girls? The level of development of this country really surprised me. And if the country manages to remain politically stable i see a great leap in international tourism in the near future. Current slogan from the ministry of tourism is: Colombia, the only danger is that you want to stay! True, very true....

All pictures of Colombia can be seen here.

Next story: Ecuador!

Colombia II

2009-07-21T09:51:00.001-07:00

Hi All. Way too long since my last post. I'm in Popayán now and finally found the time and inspiration to write a 2nd post of my time here in beautiful Colombia. Bikes running fine. Did a hellish unpaved road between San Augustín and Popayán, lost a engine mount bolt, noticed my chain guide is worn out and some other things. Need to go back to Cali for that. More about that later.
I pick up my tour the Colombia from where i ended my last post, Bucaramanga. The highlights:

From Bucaramanga to San Gil is a real treat following the Chicamocha canyon. Winding roads, gorgeous views. Does it ever get boring? NOO! (Although i can live without the air polution on the road...)

San Gil is a lovely regional town, pretty much (still) left alone by foreign tourists. The central park is always lively. On sundays there's a big market where farmers sell their produce.

Besides the regional function it's also the outdoor sport center of this region of Colombia, Santander. Hiking, Rafting etc. It's all there.

I stayed a few days at hostel Casa Monkara, definitely recommended. Cheap, basic, tranquillo.

Personal highlight: café-restaurant Con-verso owner Nora and her team. Smart independend person. Spend quite a few ours playing "Boggle" to learn spanish words which i would translate in english. Excellent learning method!

Barichara, just outside San Gil, is a beautiful well maintained colonial village. A Jewel. Quiet during weekdays, in the weekend flooded with local tourists.

Probably the most photogenic village so far!!

It's a road trip, thus another obligatory bike-on-road pic. Y'all want to know how it looks like on the road, sierto?
Somewhere between San Gil and Villa de Leiva. Could be Alaska, but it's a cow overthere, not a bear.

Villa de Leiva. Another gorgeous place. Yes, seems to be packed with those. Can you just image doing a 3 week holiday tour on a simple bike around this country? (I want to do a bit of marketng research. There's no motorcycle touring companies here... so.....)

Cobblestone roads, great colonial architecture. Supposedly the biggest Plaza in South America. It's huge indeed. And empty. Except during weekends, there's plenty rich Colombians who like to go away from the city for the weekend, so there's a good tourist infrastructure to accomodate them.

What the... !?!

A genuine German Dorfkneipe on the plaza.
Clueless about how this ended up here. Funny.

One of the many pitoreske streets.

Hostal pet. About 30x20cm. One day i start making pictures of the hostalowners instead of their pets...

My stay at hostal El Solar was nice and relaxed. And the owner, Martha is abosolutely adorable. Recommended.

Daytrip in the mountains around Villa de Leiva. A friend of Marthe took us out in his truck. This place is build and owned by a french guy living here for years. He's (almost) self supporting. The house is build from wood, stones and clay etc. found on his land. He's got a great garden with flowers, veggies and homegrown herbs. All very eco-friendly.

He needs money too, so a few months back he got electricity and started buiding a guesthouse. Nice for a retreat: 45min dirtroad to Villa Leiva. No busses here!

View from one of the trails surrouding Villa de Leiva.
Next time i'll take my bike out for this trip.
Excellent all-road daytrip!!

Leaving San Gil. Pleasant easy ride to Zipaquira.

Zipaquira has one major tourist attraction: a saltmine-converted-to cathedral. Excellent light art. Touristy. Special.

Leaving Zipaquira i saw a pretty colonial center from the corner of my eye. Too bad i didn't check it out. Oh well, next time...

Bogota. Crowded Capital of Colombia. Can anyone tell me why i went there? Oh yeah, needed a new rim. The only nice place is Candelaria. The rest... I didn't like it. Too big, everything too far away from everything else. Cold and rainy most of the time. Didn't do too much exploring the city. Maybe i should give it a 2nd change. Bogota is the capital, and the cultural center of Colombia. Candelaria, the most interesting area, has plenty of great colonial buildings. The modern art museus had a fantastic international photo exposition. Also recommended is the Botero museum.

A tipical candelarian view. Here in Bogota i found, or rather, the local KTM dealer found me a new rear rim. Cool.

First plan was to moun t it here, but after a few days of bogota i had enough of it, and i went to Medellin.

All main brands are present here. Based on what i know now, i think i can say that Medellin and Cali seem the better choice for serious bike maintenance.

The ride from Bogota via Honda to Medellin is absolute fantastic. Winding roads up and down the mountains, with a flat part around Honda. I think it's possible to do it in one day, but it will be a very long one. I took it easy and stopped for a night in Cocorna, somewhere on hwy. 60.

Plenty of great scenic views. Dangerous, it distracts from the winding roads, blind corners and trucks overtaking trucks in those blind corners.

One does strange things to maintain a good average speed, like overtaking in corners (but only when you can see through the next one too!!). My Spanish is not yet on a level that i could explain that to the police, i noticed. Passing a truck cornering a mountain i saw with my left eyeball and a police van, while my right eyeball scanned the road ahead overtaking a tuck Oops.. And indeed, 2 kms further a policeguy waived me in on a parking place. Damn!

In a official book i saw all traffic fines. Overtaking a vehicle in a corner is REALLY $500.000!!! Holy Mother of God!! Thats about eur.175!! Enough to charm the hell out of those guys. And after the "No senor, yo no soy gringo, soy holandais!!, si, si cerca de Aleman, si claro, muy lejos!" , some explenation about my awesome trip and coke (as in cola) and coockies, they were friendly enough to let me go with a serious warning about trucks being dangerous. Like i didn't noticed that already between, uhm mexico and here?? Tell me about dangerous traffic! Anyway, got away with it. Did i mention i liked Colombia?

Medellin is another big city, difference with Bogota is that the climate is better! Which affects the people. They seem a bit more open and friendly here. The surrounding area of the City is very nice and you can make cool daytrips in the mountains (paved and unpaved). The main reason to go to Bogota as a bike traveler is to do maintenance.

Stripped TTR at Suzuki Super Servicio. Remarkeable how all bolts and nuts came off without breaking etc.

Carbonated piston. Lots of burnt oil i guess. One of the exhaust valvestem seals leaked heavily. One valve was dented, dents on piston surface too, so i guess some sand came through the filter or so. Cilinder was scratched, and rings leaked a bit, but not excessive. Decided to replace all. Afterall, still have a long way to go . Replaced my clutchplates, were 75% gone. This first major mechanical repair, mainly preventive, rim included the whole operation costed me $2.000.000 pesos, close to eur. 700,-. Not bad for rim, cutchplates, gaskets, piston, -rings and pin, cilinder bore, valve, manifold, gaskets, oil, filter, breakpads, sparkplug and labour. One intake manifold was about to fall apart, and even this was available from stock! Like everything else: All in stock at the yamaha dealer around the corner. Really unexpected suprise. One good reason to take this bike: The engine is the same as older XT600 and XT500 etc. , and a lot of engine parts are available and exchangeable. Probably the same for XTZ660 bikes. Although, KTM, BMW etc. seem widly available here. Cool thing: the Police rided around Suzuki DR650's and related Freewind. That makes this bike the bike of choice i guess. Travel North and Central America, overhaul everything whats needed in Colombia and leave for the rest of SA. Next time....

My canadian friend Lee brought me to Suzuki Super Servicio. He needed his F650GS Dakar serviced. Here with Carlos, suposedly the best mechanic in South America. Works and knows about every brand. Great shop, clean, profesional. They really like biketravellers and do all whats needed to get them back on the road asap.

All work cost me a bit more than a week, june is a month with a dia del fiesta every week, and businesses are closed.

Me, Lee, Sandra and Alejandro (taking the picture) on a daytrip to
Piedra del Penol, in a mountain/lake area 2hrs outside Medellin.

On the background, Piedra del Penol. This is a massive tourist area for Colombians. From Medellin it's a two hour winding road though mountains and hills to Guatapé.

Other view in this area.

Eventually the road ends at a village Guatapé at a lake. And on weekends Colombians want to have a good time too! Crowded.

I had a good time in medellin, working on my bike, daytrips to surrounding areas with Lee and friends.

My glasses are really scratched after more than a year on the road.

Here an attempt to find proper replacement. Too bad they didn't fit with my helmet. But if they were....

After all repairs on the bike and a few daytrips to see if the new piston holds up, i went to Jericho and Gardin. Accoording to a lot of people definetly worth a visit... And it was.

The road from Medellin to Jericho and from there to Jardin is mandatory for every motorcyclist visiting Colombia. Besides that, Jericho is a peaceful rural town kind of touristy in the weekends.

Gardin is bigger, more touristy, and especially in the weekends, crowded. Nice, laid back.

Leaving Jericho 9 am. Didn't take pictures of the village, but believe me, Jericho is nice.

Leaving Gardín. Same for Gardin, no pics of the village, but gorgeous!

You noticed that there's not a single stretch of stright road in this area?

From Gardin to Manizales is an easy day. Manizales is not worth
visiting. Although. After on night in an hostel in the city i left to
find buena vista social club.

A very basic hostel in the hills just outside Manizales. Relaxed people. Cool to chill out for a couple of days. It's not a real
hostel, more like visiting friends. The surrounding area is beautiful.

Owners of buena vista social club. Cool people, openminded, interested in art, poetry, travelers. Recommended if you want to not be in just another hostel. You have to like hippies though ;-)

So there is a straight road! Boring, hot, ride from Manizales to Cali crossing the Cauca Valley. Not much going on here.

Cauca Valley, is it Sugarcane? Or rice? Don't know.

So from Manizales i went to Cali, stayed a few days there at Hostal Casa Blanca with Mikkel, Danish owner and motorcycle traveller.

Cool place. Cali is nice for a few days, but i always feel that big cities drain energy from me so i returned back north to go to Salento, a tranquillo village close to Armenia.

More about wonderful Colombia in my next posts!

All pictures of Colombia can be seen here.

Colombia I

2009-06-15T10:03:00.001-07:00

Again about month since my last post. At this point i'm stuck in Bogota waiting for a new rear rim. Bogota is a big poluted crowded city with Candelaria area as only interesting place. Good thing is that there are some interesting museums so since long i can enjoy art for a day or two. The city is on altitude and in this time of year grey, cold and rainy like Holland in autumn. A bit depressing, actually. I haven't been in this weather for months, Guanajuato, mexico, i think. But i does give me time to work on my blog. So, here we go, the first highlights of Colombia.

Cartagena. Hot hot hot! The beautiful historic center is one, or rather the only, of the major tourist attractions of Colombia. The humid heat in this area is just barable, even after months in tropical climate, heat still wears me out. Especially while traveling. Cartagena offers just enough to enjoy oneself for a couple of days.

One of the many beautiful plaza's. It's incredible how location affects beer prices. Outside the center you pay about $1500 for a beer, inside it starts at $4000. Same for the food.

Cartagena is an old fort, and today the old wall surrounding the center is mainly used as a meeting point for youth and couples to hang out.

Playa Blanca. The Cartagena beaches are not worth seeing, but at a 45min boat ride from Cartagena is Playa blanca, a beautiful quiet beach. I went there to see Chiara, who i met on the boat from Panama. Wonderful, smart and sweet person. And spend a day (again) in a hammock reading a book. Live can be so simple and cheap if you want it to be.

I didn't take the boat though, afterall i'm traveling by bike.
To get there by bike was a short 2 hour ride. First through a very ugly industrial area at the outscirts of Cartagena, then a 'ferry' and a 15km bumpy dirtroad to Playa blanca. At first it looked like there was no road to the beach, but eventually i found someone who pointed out a trail through the jungle all the way up to the beach. Nice.

(If you want to go there, ask for the trail to hostel Wittenberg from the parking lot. Continue to the beach from this hostel, and you can drive right up the beach. The trail is blocked for vehicles at the parkinglot with trees, but you can squeeze you bike through if its not a very big one.)

"Road" from "ferry" to playa blanca. Playa blanca is definatly recommended. Quiet, and due to the total lack of ambient light the night sky is astonashing. Best so far.

From this little paradise i went to another, Parque National Tayrone....

....with a short stop in Taganga, just outside Santa Marta. Nice former fishing village, but run over by backpackers. There's not much to do, except scubadiving. And hanging out on the beach or in the numerous restaurants. I stayed here basically to write my previous posts and stayed at hostal Dolfine at the end of the main road paralel to the beach and with free secure parking. Cheap too, $15000 for a private room with shower and toilet.

Note: The main road from Cartagena to Santa Marta is not interesting at all, except from the part between Baranquilla and Santa Marta. The relatively new road separating the coast from a swamp/lake area inland, caused a major ecological disaster, which they try to reverse.

National Park Tayona -WOW!
Probably the most beautiful beaches (and i've seen quite a few) till now. The route from Taganga was a nice ride through a jungly setting. From the park entrance you can take your vehicle to a parking lot a few kms into the park. It was a tough decision to leave my bike at the parking, but the idea that there's 24hour gards, and it's inside the park, and pretty remote. I took the change and only paked my daypack. 'Funny' detail is that before this area was apointed national park, this place was a huge mariuana and cocaine growing and shipping area. With a lot of violence etc. I've been told that this is also the reason why many locals have american first names.

From the parking lot it's a 45min hike through the jungle to the beach. Hot, humid. Thank god i didn't carry a full size backpack.

After the first hike to the beach you're not there yet. The really good
stuff is another 1 hour hike through jungle and over beaches to Cabo
San Juan de Guía. Stunning.

Here you find all the tourists in a big
campsite where you can rent hammocks and tents.

My spanish teacher for a few days. I met Jessica on the hike to the beach. From Chile, psycologist. She doesn't speak english. I had a great time hanging out with her. Wonderfull how she kept correcting me or saying things in a way i could understand. With the patience of an angel. Hope to meet her again when i'm in Santiago.

From what i heard from here about Chile, she really made me anctious to get there and take my time to see it.
So how it looks now, Equador and Peru have to do with little of my attention.

From Tyrona i went back to Cartagena. I wanted to go to Mompós, and could not find out if there was a route from this side (there was as it turned out later) . Took me one looooong day to get all the way back with a little detour to Aracataca, the place where Gabriel García Márquez, the famous colombian writer was born. This place turned out to be a bit of a deception. So i turned around and got back to Cartagena asap.

This time i went to hostel hollyday, a smaller but nicer hostel at the other side of the Art Hostel Media Luna (no art!!)
And a private room was a little more expensive than a dorm at the Art hostel. Quieter. Friendlier.

I met a great brittish/australian couple on a bike here. Forgot their names but they were travelling all the way up from Ushuaia following the east coast of SA on this bike, a tiny 250cc honda, bought in Ushuaia.

Two up, with homebrew luggage system. After 6 months on this bike they still had their sense of humor and still loved each other. Yes, they did carry camping equipment too. RTW Bikeprep is for pussies. Had too fix their rear suspention twice though. The engine was still in great shape, hardly used oil. Something i cannot say of mine...
Crazy: the guy crossed Australia, the 3000 km long road through the dessert on a 250cc honda rebel chopper.

Ofcourse i stayed longer than planned. Jessica was here and i took the oportunity to further improve my spanish by spending more time with her. After a few days i took of to Mompós, a colonial town in the hart of north colombia.

Because of the remote location, and long busrides few tourists go here. Riding through this part of Colombia is beautiful. Reminds me a bit of Holland: flat, lots of water.

To get to Mompós from Cartagena side you have to take a ferry just outside Magangué. So far the road is good. At the other side, the last 20km to Mompós is a puthole filled road.

Nice ride on the river.

Unloading the ferry, hectic. pretty well developt though ;-)

Taste of colonial Mompós. This street along the river is packed with beautiful colonial houses belonging to the rich families in this area.

One of the streets with nica atmosphere. People here are not yet used to tourists and they are friendly and curious. Wandering around town for half a day without seeing other tourists is pretty interesting.

Hostel La Casa Amarilla - opened a year ago by Richard, a brittish guy. Perfectly restored colonial building, and only backpackers hostel in town. Dormitories, private rooms, luxurious private rooms available.

Richard lived and worked for 10 years all over south america and is very knowlegable about it, and Colombia in particular.

The road from Mompos to Bucaramanga, the first town from here worth
visiting, is interesting. About 4 hours of terrible bumpy dirtroad with
quite some mudpools when i was there. This was too much for my rear
rim i noticed later. Ofcourse i only took pictures of the least terrible parts.

Funny: the unpaved road has one bridge, the bridge and about 100m on both ends are paved. Then it turns to dirt again.

On both sides is a clear sign that cattle is not allowed on the bridge.

Aparantly not everyone can read....

Great riding here.

After about 4 hours pushing it a little i reached the main road from Santa Martha to Bacaramanga. This is a totaly uninteresting road straight road of about 250km till about 50km from bucaramanga, where you enter a mountainous area. Nice.

Bucaramanga as such has not much interesting to offer unless you want to go paragliding. There is a great hostel uptown, Hostel Casa Guane near shoppingmalls and restaurants. Good people, nice vibe, secure parking around the corner (not free)
This area looks well.

Bud the center of the city looks like this.

At the edge of town are large areas with huge shoppingmalls. Interesting about this city is that its modern, new but not used to tourists, whish makes the positive (female) attention pretty entertaining.

Just outside Buca is another hostel, owned by the same guy, Richy, with
campsite primairilly for people who do a parapent course.

Great view during the day.

And at sunset.

Sometimes it almost looks like if i know what i'm doing with that camera!

I ran around the afternoon flying session shooting away. One of the paragliders was so happy with pictures i made of him he bought me diner and beers. Cool.

The paragliding hostel was nice, i took the opportunity to clean my
bike. After the dirtroad from Mompós there was sand everywhere.

And then i noticed this. Not on one but on 13 spokesockets, or whatever it's called. And why 13?? Bummer. I continued to Bogota, where i am now, and stopped at several nice places between Bucaramanga and here. More about that in my next post.

All Colombia pictures can be seen here.

Panama - Part II

2009-05-20T10:37:00.001-07:00

Punta Linda - Hostel Wunderbar

As said hostal Wunderbar is quite known as a hub for backpackers who want to go to the San Blas islands and/or Cartagena by boat. It's run by a german couple, Guido and Silvia, who traveled by boat for many years. They also have their own ship. Guido is one of those guys who can fix everything and has a workshop and all sorts of tools, so if you are i need of a welder to fix your luggage rack, go here.

Guido and Silvia transformed a piece of land from jungle to what it is today in 2 years: A nice hostal. Amazing what determination can do. Respect.

If you go here, please be warned that there's NO shops around here, just a few small tiendas for the very VERY basics, and one restaurant. The closest by ATM and big supermarked is about an hour by bus.

The $11,- dormitory includes continental breakfast, which as experienced travellers know is bread, butter and jam and coffee/thee. One day we had an egg, another day some fruit or cheese. And we weren't allowed to eat to much. Good enough if you stay one day and leave on a boat the next. After a couple of days i noticed that having a baby around takes a lot of energy which made them quite edgy at times. Their administration is chaotic which caused a discussion about money at several occasions. I hope this is temporary. I wish them all the best in their venture.

You know what?!? I'm probably the world's slowest motorcycle traveller!! Can you believe this: Chilling out in a hammock, waiting for the ship to sail. First, a guy on a bicycle shows up. German. I didn't recognize him, because of the beard, but i met this guy in Zipolite, Mexico! And i gets better! Next day, Graham shows up. Also on his bicycle. I met this bloke in Alaska, somewhere between Fairbanks and Prudhoe bay! Insane coincedence. They did a straigt line where i zigzaged a lot, but still.

Daytrip to nearby Isla Grande.

Isla Grande is an island, and local tourist area with some good beaches and a pleasant vibe. Not much to do, except for a 1 hour hike to a lighthouse and back.

Shipping the bike.
It took a few strong men to get my bike in the Lancha. Here i'm not entirely sure about a happy ending. I sat like this all the way to the ship.

Hoisting the bike aboard the ship.

All went perfect and without damage. I sprayed WD-40 on all metal parts, engine included, except my brakes to prevent corrosion by salty water. The crew packed the bike thoroughly in plastic.

The ships mate, Louis, was a great guy. He used to train tigers in a circus. Saw his pictures, amazing animals.

The ship "MetaComet" a beautiful old wooden fishing boat with quite a history. Modified to ship people, but at this point far from ready. The owners bought it, worked three months and it just started with shipping passengers.

Despite the masts it's NOT a sailboat.

I wrote a whole list of annoyances, problems and shortcomings. Deleted it I just to say that both ship and crew are not ready to ship 12 passengers. The money doesn't justify the service delivered. And $385,- is a lot of money. And i cannot say otherwise than to me it appears that the owners are only in it for the money.

So my advice : If you want to take this route, skip this boat. If you're interested i can send you the detailed list by email.

Georgeous: San Blas Islands!

The islands are
protected from the waves by a reef, so there's hardly any waves to
flush the islands away. As a result, there are lots of small islands, sometimes with only one
coconut tree.

We played beachvolleybal on one of them and if you hit the ball to hard,
it ended up in the water at the other side of the island. Funny.

I've been told that expectations are that the majority of the islands will be gone 30 years from now. If waterlevel rises due to melting icecaps etc. it's probably true. The most islands are just above current sealevel.

The bigger islands are inhabited by the Kuna, an indigenous tribe who lived here since god know when. They have an atonomous status. They sell fish and clothing to tourists and doing pretty good.

We spend one and a half day swimming and chilling out and eating lobster on one of the islands. Nice!!

There's a lot of sailingboats here. Catamarans seem quite popular.

Usually owned by retirees who sail the world. I met a few of them on an island and the lifestyle sure is appealing. The self declared good weather sailors told me that if you time it right it's quite easy to go around the world.

Interesting: in Puerto Lindo i met a dutch guy who bought a 35 ft. sailboat, prepared for sailing the world from a couple who wanted to do this with kids. Only Eur.9500,-! Something to think about when i'm tired of motorcycling.

After 1,5 day on San Blas we went on to Cartgena. It took us 34 hours for the 200 mile trip. Which could have been a bit faster if the engine was on 100%. In this direction, you face the waves and the ship was rolling like crazy whitch caused a few people to be seasick. Not me fortunately. There's nothing interesting about this part on a motorboat to be honest, Although a group of small dolphins playing in front of the ship was an absolute highlight. And there's quit a lot of flying fish around. I think their blind cause some of them ended up on deck...

Cartagena! Made it! This is the first view on the old fort.

After entering the bay you get a much less iddilyc picture. We were urged to get off the MetaComet asap and went to a hostel. Technically this is illegal, since your passport is still with the captain, who should get stamps via an agent. Apparantly all ships to it like this. We could pick the passports up up the next day at 5 pm.

After some discussion me and a german couple with motorcycle, got a copy of our passport with stamp earlier so we could do the paperwork for the bikes at the DIAN office. Took us a day with going to several offices. mainly a lot of waiting. We got send to the wrong office aswell, which didn't help. They're definetly not used to this procedure. It would've been nice to have a bit more info. For instance, the reason to get the passports the next day, which was that an immegration officer needed a visual check. Besides that, there's a lot to do about being in mexico because of the swineflue. They didn't took a good look at my passport apparantly.

Yes, flying the bike is definetly easier. So far this was the most 'interesting' bordercrossing. As was expected, in ports the paperwork takes effort than a bordercrossing by road. Wait, be friendly, and wait a bit more. Importing the bike was free of charge though.

Unloading the bike in an even smaller Lancha! Very instable. And bad organisation, i had to help lifting the bike on shore because the captain forgot to bring enough manpower. Another annoyance. And no photo's. No damage luckily.

So there I am. After almost one year i made it to South America!! In good health and spirit. A restaurant near the hostal i stayed in Cartagena has a huge map of the globe on the wall. Explaining my route to Andy an Maya, a brittish/dutch couple on a triumph scrambler with sidecar, i got a bit emotional realizing the huge distance i covered and with that all places i've been to ,the wonderful people i met and at times the mental effort it took to continue southbound.

All Panama pictures can be seen here.

Panama - Part I

2009-05-19T12:10:00.000-07:00

From some people i met i heard that there's not a lot to see in Panama. For me it was different (luckily). I encountered some very nice and beautiful places and people.

I crossed the border at Rio Sereno, a small crossing in the middle of the country. To find the crossing, go to

The crossing took a few hours, besides the totally unmotivated personell - Clipping nailes appeard to be more prudent than my paperwork - and that for a guy. And he suffered from a slow internet connection, illustrated by the official in charge with a lot of totally unnecessary mouse pointer movement and dito bashing.

Right after the border the road turns to great tarmac. There's no signs and it took me a while to find the road to David, which would connect me to the panamericana.

This road turned out to be brand new and winding through lush hills.

After this joyful ride i stopped for lunch at a village called El Vólcan.

Returning from lunch and ready to go i heard a voice behind me: "You're a long way from home arent you?" (In Dutch). I met a retires Dutch couple, Erikk and Fenna, and, in proper dutch tradition, they invited me for coffee. I stayed the night.

My luck, home made kroketten!

Erik likes to cook for a hobby and he made his own real dutch Kroketten.

Jummy!

...and there was real dutch "snert" too!!

A typical dutch soup, usually only made in winter.

Jummy.

Really the least of all things i expected.

Erik, Fenna, thanks again for your hospitality!

From another bike traveler i learned that Playa Las Lajas is worth seeing. And it is. This beach supposed to be the longest beach in Central America. This fact is a great selling point, and it therefore supprised me that tourism is not very developt (yet...). I stumbled upon a german couple who just started this restaurant-and-soon-to-be hostel. Great place, Great food!

They bought a piece of land with a worn down restaurant and build this huge palapa. From what i'd see, this place has potential.

As usually, i hang out a day or so. Determined to finish a great book i was reading. An anticlimax, unfortunately.

It ended with the hero's falling off the edge of the world and a message that the story continues in the next part of the saga. Bummer, slim change i can find this book in this part of the world. Forgot the name of book and author though.

There's basically one road crossing Panama, the panam highway. Although i try to stay away from the panam, in Panama you don't have much choice.

Some parts are really boring: Panam at it's worst.

El Valle. I was told El Valle is a beautiful spot. So there i went. To get to El Valley you have to cross a fantastic and good winding road for abour 35km. The village El Valle is a hideout for rich Panamenians and Gringo's.
The panamenian harley club was out for a ride. they didn't wave, and one SOB pulled over in from of me to get to the fuelstation on my side of the road, resulting in a close encounter. Good to know my brakes still work OK. For a moment i wanted to get off my bike to tell the person involved that he should see a opticien. Decided not to, considered 40+ other HD riders in the group.

I asked around for a cheap hostel and Myrna from Finland pointed me to campsite called "Camping Yoga Swabi".

A very kind and generous person. This campsite attracted interesting travellers and artisanos.

I spend two days finding a place called 'the sleeping indian'. Local indigenous people in the mountains could not explain clearly what it was, or where.

Myrna and i try to find it, and it lead us through the jungle and mountains surrounding the Valley. Beautifull.

First day we took the wrong way. But we found it the following. The sleeping indian, with some (lots) imagination is in the shape of mountainridges.

In this picture we are on top of one of them.

Panama City. Casco Viejo. Panama city has not much i'm attracted too, big city, lots of construction, crowded. Instead i went to the oldest part of the city, Casco Viejo.

Beautiful french colonial architecture. Sad thing is that the majority of the buildings are in bad shape and inhabits poor people. Recently project developers started renovatinig. Which resulted in nice restored colonial buildings belonging to rich people. Of course, as always, the poor people who live here for generations are 'relocated'.

There's already a lot of restoring done and restaurants, hotels and apartments are neighboring worn down buildings with poor people. This gives a weird vibe to this environment.

Only the richer part is considered to be save. Illustrated by the police guided tour i got to a hotel to meet a friend.

Rainy season. Every day it rained Cats and Dogs for a while. I only encountered bad weather from Panama city down to Porto Lindo.

Interesting. Makes the heaviest rain in Holland a joke.

Panama City skyline as seen from Casco Viejo.

Impression of the bad neighberhood separating the new City Center and Casco Viejo.

For the first time in my trip riding and walking through this part of town give me an unsafe feeling. Awkward.

I'm not sure if it's really unsafe, it's more the attitude towards tourists i guess. usually, at the caribean cost i encounter more indifferent toward unfriendlyness people than in central or pacific side of Central America.

Panama canal locks at Miraflores. A recommended visit, if you fancy big engineering stuff. A great accomplishment considered the tools and techniques they had back in the days they build it. The museum is quite interesting. At this moment work is started to make the canal bigger and build new locks.

The decision to do this was made by issueing a referendum. Very democratic. Too bad for the surrounding ecological systems though. Since the panama canal is the most important financial source of income, i guess it's of the best interest of the country.

Read all about the canal here.

A good thing to know: The ships get through in two batches a day, luckily i was in time to see the last ship of the morning batch. Nothing happens till the afternoon batch.

I couln't be bothered with riding to the end of the Panamerica to see if the road really stops in front of the Darien gap. I wanted to go to Colombia. One of the countries high on my list. Ships leave to Cartagena from Puerto Lindo, so there's where i went, to Hostel Wunderbar, known for it's info on boats and schedules.

Next post: about shipping the bike and San Blas Islands.

Suerte!

All pictures of Panama can be found here.

Cartagena, Colombia!

2009-05-15T06:26:00.001-07:00

Just to let you all know...
I'm here! Yes!! South America! Another milestone in this trip.
Although not entirely without little adventures and (mainly) a lot of annoyances regarding the organization. Of which i will elaborate more in the next post, as usual with some nice pictures.

To Colombia by boat....

2009-05-06T18:17:00.001-07:00

Hi all,

I'm in Porto Lindo now, at the Caribbean coast of Panama. I will not be reachable in the next 5 or 6 days for i ill be on a boat. An old fishing boat converted for shipping travelers and bikes, apparently.

Will enter Colombia at Cartagena via San Blas Islands, supposed to be very pretty. Bike will be brought aboard a ship via manpower and a small boat.

Wish me luck!

Costa Rica - Pura Vida! part II

2009-04-30T20:25:00.001-07:00

Just last week i finally left Costa Rica. For some reason i kept finding excuses to stay in this pleasant country.

I ended my last post with the promise to take another week of spanish in Orosi. But first i followed the pacific coast from Samara down to Quepos/ Manuel Antonio. Except from the excellent dirtroads in the Nicoya interior, not really, really not actuaally, interesting. I made the mistake to stay in Jacó, a tourist dump and a favourite spring break destination. Ugly, Noisy.

The Manuel Antonio national park is a touristy area and luckily there's a cheap campsite where i stayed between artisanos and shoestring travelers. By now, this type of travelers are my favorite public. You meet the most interesting people in the cheepest lodging in my experience. The beaches are excellent.

But, to be honest, i saw more wildlife at the campsite than in the park, but hiking through the park was good.

The road from Quepos via San Isidro back to Orosi was spectacular. From sea level and tropical environment up to a max altitude of 3300m and back to tropical in about 2 hours. It was wet and damn cold up there!
Pretty extreme.

Back in Orosi i took spanish classes again. I really forgot a lot. Staying at tourist places doesn't help a lot. Luckily there were still people i knew and had again a great time there. After this week i needed to go away, the itch returned. Needed to be back on the bike. I thought i was done with CR and headed to the Caribean cost and planned go to Panama from there.

Stayed a couple of days in a Dutch owned hostel in Cahuita, a laid back beach town with nice caribean vibe, great beach and hikes through jungle.

After that my plan changed (as my plans usually do). Someone kept telling me that Nosara is a beautiful place to stay. So i went back to the other side of the country to Nicoya peninsula. One stopover in Santa Ana, at friends i met in Montezuma the previous time i was on the Nicoya peninsula. Rob and Cristin just moved from Canada to CR to live and work here. They are in the process of moving into their new house, start a new job and get settled in in this new environment. Quite stressful times for them. I really appreciate their hospitality knowing they have a challenging period in their lives. I wish them strength and wisdom to make this venture a success.

Here awitness to my efforts to stay upright on a surfboard. Fun and hard work. I liked the strugle to go against the waves and the joy of actually manage to surf for a few seconds.

Nosara is a great surfspot. It is close to 30km north of Samara and you can only get there by 30km dirtroad.
Very hot there, as all of the Nicoya peninsula.

There's plenty of rich ~~gringo's~~ US citizens and Tico's living there in big houses. Which gives a nice mix of big houses and expensive guesthouses.

Tourism as such is fairly small scale though which gives it a good vibe.

80% of the time is spend doing this though. Of the remaining 20% about 50% is a good surf. Which makes above picture a lucky shot ;-)

But soooo much fun!

And then there's 'Solo Bueno' a really cool surfers hostel. I settled there and had a really great time.

Main reason to stay there was surfing, because there's not much else to do to be honest. For a week i spend the days with surfing, reading and hanging out.

I can relate very well to the surfers lifestyle i must admit...

Kimberly, hostel owner and certified looney ;-) Inge en Andrea ready to go Surf!

Every day the sunset in Nosara is beautiful. Every day. And it neve gets old for some reason.

After having enjoyed the (very) basics of surfing for a week it was time to leave and continue my trip. Colombia is calling and Panama is yet to be discovered!

Not before a visit to Monte Verde though. It was still on my list and one of CR's highlights. Jungle/mountain area with all sorts of outdoor activities.

It was on this route that for the first time in 10 months (!) i got pulled over by the police. Because of speeding! I probably was, to be honest, most likely even, since the Panam highway in that area changes from 60kph to 80kph all the time. Police with lasergun signed me to stop and asked papers. I gave them copies with the excuse the originals are well hidden in my luggage. Then the told me i was speeding 22kph too fast. One guy wrote the amount of money on his hand, not actually telling me how much it was. When that happens it's usually not genuine. He asked USD40!! This seemed a bit much. For me anyway... Eager to have a good story on my blog, i started explaining i haven't got this much money with me and that i wanted a ticket. Weird, he kept on asking if i was really sure about wanting an official ticket. I kept insisting and very fast the amount dropped down to USD20. I decided to push it a bit further and kept saying 'No tengo dollares' (i have no dollars) and kept saying 'Necesito Ticket'. After talking to his collegue he waived that i could go. So that was good huh, tr that in europe! They were all friendly though. Most interesting, i think, is that it happened in Costa Rica, a country which supposed to be one of the most civilized in Central America. Oh well, $40 straight to the beerbudget!! ;-)

The road to Monte Verde is a 35km dirtroad through the mountains. Again a really beautiful ride.

Didn't do any of the touristy outdoor activities though. Got the flu. Fever. How the hell did i got that around here! Much be the excessive excercise on Nosara...

The flu kept me busy for a few days. Sleeping, reading, watching some movies i downloaded earlier. After i recovered i decided to leave. The touristy stuff is expensive anyway. If i want some exitement i go ride my bike, don't need a $45,- canopy tour for that.

Leaving Monte Verde, i returned for the last time (at least this year...) to Orosi. I had a key i wanted to return. Paid a visit to my friend Freddy and cleaned my bike after the dusty environment of Nosara and Monte Verde. I wash my bike regularly. Not that i mind its dirty, but to have a close look at it to see if stuffs about to fall off. So far. All is well.

From there i went of to Panama, via Cartago, San Isidro, Paso Real and San Vito, aiming at a small bordercrossing in the mountains: Rio Sereno.

Also this part is a real pleasure to drive through.

...and toilets everywhere.....

Great scenery from the small winding mountainroad.

..and more

Bordercrossing at Rio Sereno into Panama.. And serene it was. I think i heard the leaves fall from the trees here.

Oh, from the main road there's really NOT ANY sign telling you where the 5km (dirt)road to the border is, funny. Looks like Costa Rica doesn't want to know if its there. Based on my experience with the indifferent and uninterested attitude of the officials here, is think it might be a sort of place where disfunctional personel is promoted to.

Crossing was free though, except for $1,- fumigation. And it took a long time to do the whole excersice because of a slow internet connection. I think this crossing was the longest by far, so far considered that in the 2.5 hours i was the only 'customer'...The modern world...

As soon you cross the border the road at the other side is new pavement. I'll show you in the next post why i think they should have SuperMotard races here...

So far in a nutshell part two of my travels through Costa Rica. I definetly will return here, maybe for work, maybe to just enjoy the beachlife. We'll see....

Dont forget to check my photowebsite of all pictures of this part of my trip!!

Next: Panama, where beer is cheap (finally) and nice suprises are plenty.

Adios!

Costa Rica - Pura Vida!

2009-03-28T12:32:00.001-07:00

Costa Rica! It's national slogan is "Pura Vida!" (pure live). An oasis of peace and abundant nature in the poor (yes), dangerous (no), hostile (no) and dirty (so-so) rest of Central America. That's in short the marketing strategy of the government of this lovely country. And it sure is a beautiful and divers country.

I'm here for about three weeks now, and i love it. Particular Orosi, a nice village in Valle de Orosi.
A beautiful spot which isn't too much overrun by tourists (yet).

The part i explored so far is Lago Arenal, Fortuna, Orosi and surroundings, Nicoya peninsula (Montezuma, Samara, great gravelroads all over!!) and the pacific coast all the way down to Quepos, where i stayed at Manuel Antonio national reserve. It's HOT in this part of the country. Nice after all the rain i'd seen, but too much for a Dutch guy, and i returned to Orosi to recover from the combination of heat and humidity. I'll stay here at least another week and decided to take a week of spanish classes. Although i made huge progress, which usually shows up after a few beers, i feel the need to improve my grammar.

In the time i spend here i met many interesting and good people, foreighners mainly, who live and work here. It has my interest, learning how 'extranjeros' try to fit in and live their lives here. The more i see, the more Holland looks like a boring place...

Pictures:

Lago Arenal & Fortuna: My first week in the this part of the country was rainy. Not fun on a bike, no problem for the mainstream tourist which usually ride around the country in small 4x4 cars. Lake Arenal and surroundings are beautiful and lush.

Lake Arenal

Bridge. (duh!)

Orosi as seen
from the hills. Nice.
The village lies in the Valle de Orosi, surrounded by hills with coffee plantations.

I didn't know about Orosi, actually, and if i didn't ran in to Freddy (see below) on my way to the pacific coast, i probably never would end up here.

Random street in Orosi.

There are a lot of luxurious cabins in the hills around Orosi. This one, owned by Jenny is very, very special.

She used to be a cook and started this small scale hotel. The two cabinas are gorgeous and have all luxury, fireplace included!

(http://www.ambrosiaenlamontana.com/)

Daytrip around Orosi. Nice dirtroads in the mountains with Freddy, swiss guy with motorcycle rental business. (http://www.costarica-moto.com/). Francine, his partner makes excellent bread and marmalade. All natural of course...

Freddy rents out Yamaha XT's and XTZ Tenere's ('96-ish models) and does guided tours.

Being a swiss guy, he takes maintenance very serious.

Too me, if you like biketravel, this is an excellent way of exploring Costa Rica and get a feel for central america.

Unpaved roads through sugarcane plantation.

Sugar factory.

Nicoya peninsula.

Caretaker of camping in Montesuma. She's a real sweethart.

After crossing from Puntarenas to the Nicoya peninsula it is a 40 km ride to Montezuma. A tourist place, but small scale. Hotels are expensive, but there is a campsite. Camping on the each is free. Spend a few days around shoestring travelers amongst some free spirits - my term for weirdo's ;-)

Interesting. D.,you definetly do not fall in this catagory!

Waiting for the ferry in Puntarenas, really, the only reason to be there is to take the ferry, believe me, i met Rob on his rented Harley. Canadian working in San Jose in my field of work. Spend some time with him and his family.

Cheers guys, thanks for the beers! To bad i haven't got a picture of you.

View of the campsite.

And yes, even bikers too need to wash their clothes every now and then.

Typical view for the whole coastline at the pacific side of Costarica.

From montezuma you can take gravel/dirtroads following the coastline. Here and there are rivercrossings. This was the longest, other side is the sandy spot above the helmet. In this time of year waterlevels are low.

Pleasant supprise: I 'obtained' a topographical map of costa rice from the internet which proved to be very accurate! Not routable, but the majority of the gravelroads are on it.

Although i have dualsport Pirelli MT90's tires, riding on gravel and this type of rivers is no problem when running on 1,6 bar tirepressure. Amazing how much difference in traction that makes compared with normal pressure.

Downside of doing this stuff alone: No action shots, and if you tip over, you're f*cked. Fortunately i had no problems. I checked every crossing by foot wading through it.

After 9 months my boots are no longer waterproof i noticed ;(

I did reached the limit of traction with these tires though. Did a 180 gr. turn uphil somewhere where it was a bit sandy. If all goes well, you start playing and go faster and faster till...you get it. I managed to control the bike (barely!!) and had a nice big blue spot on my right leg. If the bike was heavier i probably would have lost it. Light is Right!

Pretty view.

It looks all pretty cool doesn't it? In reality, although remote, there's quite a bit of traffic, since this road is the only one from Montezuma to Samara. So help is always near by.

This coastal road, and, as i found out when i left Samara, the interior of Nicoya contains lots and of gravelroads connecting numerous small pueblos.

I'm quite suprised i didn't see more dual sport bikes here.

Imagine the fun without luggage and a set of MT21's!!

Samara is a smallscale tourist place, although quit a bit larger than Montezuma. Again with camping. Two couples from spain and france were my neighbors.

We celebrated Bruno's (young guy) birthday. He turned 20. His travelpartner was 18.

Seeing all those young kids travelling sometimes makes me feel old and regretful that i didn't start traveling when i was that age. Not much though. Everyone follows his/her own unique path in live, therefore there's no wrong here.

Besided that, the idea to go from busstation to busstation doesn't really apeal to me anyway...

I left Samara and after playing on gravelroads for a while i took the highway following the pacific coast to quepos/ Manuel antonio national reserve (nice). Made a stop in Jacó (big mistake, springbreak).

Again, camping available. Manuel Antonio is pretty, although not special. Had a good time with people at the campsite, hiked through the reserve (more wildlife at the campsite than in the park...). It was too hot to do really anything. Fed up with the heat, is returned to Orosi to recover.

So far, Costa Rica is great. Next week spanish classes again. Look forward too it!

Pura Vida!
Sander

Nicaragua

2009-03-16T11:29:00.001-07:00

I didn't spend too much time in Nicaragua. Mainly i visited Granada, a very nice city and packed with tourists, and a couple of days at the beach. Mainly reading and catching up with my spanish, hanging out with people in the hostel. Finally met some dutch people to practise my own language again!

Boy, this post is really unneccesary.

I do want to post a few pictures though, just to show you what it looks like around here.

The main tourist strip with all trendy bars and such.

View from the hostel, late afternoon.

Tha Plaza:

San Jun del Sur. Good surfspot, very touristy.

Nice bay, too bad the winds are ALWAYS strong here, gets you a sunburn and sandblast at the same time.

Good beachrestaurants and bars. Some clubs. Partytown.

That's about all about Nica, i'm affraid!

-later

Honduras

2009-03-16T10:51:00.001-07:00

The bordercrossing from Guatemala into Honduras at El Paraiso is a pleasant experience. No helpers, few moneychangers. Eay procedure. I needed to change all my Quetzales to Honduran-whatevers (start loosing track of all money names), so i asked one of the moneyguys to show me the right order of the various steps in the whole proces. In changed what i got left of my Quetzales with him. I forgot to check the exchange rate and asked it at a french guy who was about to enter Honduras with his van. He did this before andhe confirmed that the offered rate, 2 to 1 was ok.

The whole procedure took about an hour. Nice. I do think i didn't pay too much, but then, you never know do you? ;-)

From the border it's a short distance to Copán, much to my suprise this turned out to be a friendly, but touristy town. After sleeping in a dormitory i thought i earned a proper hotel, which i found for eur. 8,- per night, with cable tv, hot shower and more important,safe parking for my bike. View from balcony:

The copan ruinas where beautiful, although not as impressive as Machu Pichu or Palenque. One of the main differences with Mayan art in the stone carved ornaments is the very high detail of the carved caracters. In the museum there's a large collection of ornaments.

Next stop was Lago Yojoa, a beautiful lake with plenty of exclusive lodging. The road wasn't without obstacles though. A truck missed a corner, crashed and burned down completely. Driver included....

Shortcut dirtroad though the mountains from San Juan to Esperanza, saved me about 2 hours.

More great sceneries on the way to Lake Yojoa:

A bit from the lake, just outside Pina Blanca there is D&D, an american guy with his own miscrobrewery. Funny, smart too, he build the whole brewery in a freightcontainer, shipped the whole thing to Honduras and put it in his backyard. Then he made a nice little hostel/restaurant frequented by lots of backpackers. Good business model. All you need is a good reference in the lonely planet and your in business, it seems.

Pricey though, unless you have your tent with you, then it only costs 40 Lempiras, a double room was 200. I hadn't used my tent for weeks, and i needed to save a bit of money to make up for the hotel expenses in Copán. Good idea. But not when your in a tropical rain forest kind of environment. And although its not rainseason, i was treated several days with lots of rain. Good test for the tent though.

So far i used my Vaude ultralight tent only at beaches and good weather. It proved watertight ;-) Although i think, when exposed to rain AND wind, the too short rainfly will not protect rain from blowing inside. Oh well. Probably, by the time i enter Chili/Argetina i will replace this tent for my rock solid Hilleberg again.

Anyway, nice place. Although a bit remote. There's a big waterfall nearby, go can go there just for a walk or hire a guide who takes you in and behind the waterfall. Pretty intense, good experience.

Fun at the playground with Yoshua and Ada. Funny, Yosh bought the cheapest chinese bike possible (200cc engine!!) in Mexico and plans to go all the way to panama. Just with a backback. Cool.

You can hire a rowboat for a trip on the lake or, if you are into it, and who isn't, you can hire a birdguy to do birdwatching.

For some reason i didn't take much pictures between Copán Ruinas and here, Granada. At this point, after about 9 months on the road i felt a bit bored, if that's a good expression. It all starts looking the same. This 'mental condition' has a big influence in the way i perceive my environment. Maybe i should take a break. Or i should start venturing outside the beaten path. Don't feel to comfortable about that though. My intent is to get to TDF in one piece, preferable with this bike.

I met a american guy the other day, coming up from South America on a KTM 950 adventure with 134000(!) km on the clock. Drove without forkoil since salt in Bolivia eroded the frontforks. His rear suspension was dead to. The engine however stil ran pretty good, although a bit rough. We exchanged stories, money and maps. One of them was a map of whole south America. Impressive. Big. Intimidating. So far i ignored the complete picture and took it day by day. That makes it all easier to deal with. But the whole continent in front of you... So much covered so far. And totally clueless about the road ahead.

Anyway.

Leaving Honduras was again a fairly easy event. Or was it? I crossed at El Paraiso / Los Manos. This time i did use a helper. Or rather, they used me. Looking back i think i was ripped off. To leave the country i had to pay, about USD40,-. Reviewing the whole event i think, but i'm still not sure if paying for leaving a country is really neccessary. It was all very nice and friendly though. But Still, looking back my gut told me it wasn't genuine what happend. And i ignored it. I really should listen to my gut more offen i guess. But at that time i couldn't pinpoint exactly what was going on. And going with the flow is easier. A bit expensive though.

One tip: If you use a helper and after immigration he takes you to de Adouana were you have to pay to leave the country, with your bike check if there a network cable on his computer and look at the screen what happens. The guy might be playing patience. I didn't and till today i'm wonderig...

Not that i mind it too much, but having read so much stories about people getting ripped off at orders i thought that i'm smarter than them. I guess not ;-)

Main thing is with crossing alone that you have to divide your attention between watching your bike, keep the helpers away, try to understand what people are saying, watching your papers and money, figure out what the procedure is, and try not to be ripped off. It's just a bit too much at the same time. That is what makes you vulnerable.

Suerte!

Guatemala

2009-02-27T13:51:00.001-08:00

The former capital of Guatemala, Antiqua Guatemala is known for its beautiful colonial buildings and cobblestone roads. A friendly, and pleasant place to hang out for a few days.

In the past the city suffered from earthquakes and although the most houses are restored the many ruins of churches and monestaries are silent witnesses of these disasters.

Because of the unfortunate geofrafical location of the former capital of Guatemala, the Capital has moved to a more stable location: Guatemala City.

Lively market

...colors

One of the highlights of the city is a museum park inside/behind luxerious hotel Casa Santo Domingo.

The musea are located in buildings which consist of a magnificent combination of modern architecture and building techniques combined with ruines.

Definetly worth the money.

Excursion to Pacaya Volcano near Antiqua.

After a dusty and fairly difficult 500 meter hike up the vulcano the reward is a stunning view.

...And makes good pictures too.

We took the afternoon trip to witness the sunset.

Later i met people who stayed the night over to see both sunset and sunrise. that's even more impressive. You do need warm clothes though.

Monica and i spend a pleasant few days at this georgeos place.
For her it was time to go back to Mexico. For me time to move on.

Or rather, move back actually, to Lago Atitlán. Back in Guanajuato i met Lee, a canadian fellow bike traveler and we kept in touch and here our paths crossed again.

San Pedro. The village is split in two: The local village, and a 'tourist strip' with all bars and restaurants. The latter owned by gringo's of course.

Locals washing clothes in the lake, obviously.

Uninvited guest, a real 10cm big Scorpio!

Not as scary as a bear wandering about just outside your tent, but still.

But then, what can you expect for a 2 euro per night private room!?

I asked a local what to do with it. Stupid question : Kill it ofcourse!!

But i couldn't.. I captured it and released it outside, far far away from my bed.

Members of the first annual San Pedro Bike Rallye...

We spend a few nights drinking beers and exchanged stories about our travels. Lee, Baz, Stefan and his girlfriend. Unfortunately i forgot her name.

(seems to hapen a lot lately, forgetting girls' names, asked me when i'm back..)

The main highway through Guatemala is under construction for a few miles here and there. For the most part the road from the border to Guatamala City is a good quality 4 lane highway with fantastic curves and scenery. This part was not paved yet.

Our paths splitted short after crossing Guatemala City. I wanted to go to Rio Dulce and the rest wanted to go to Costa Rica quickly.

Backpackers hostel in Rio Dulce, nice, tranquillo, tropical, hot.

The hostel and restaurant uses all their profit for supporting orphanage "Casa Guatemala".

So by staying there and eating and drinking beer you help them! Makes you feel good about yourself.

So everyone, if you go to Rio Dulce, stay at the 'Backpackers Hostel'!!

Or donate!

...located below the bridge.

Daytrip to a nearby Castillo. Nice old castillo in a beautiful surrounding.

Local guy in a rowboat. Just a good picture, i think.

My stay in Rio Dulce was pleasant. This place is a hub from which you can go to the Tikal ruinas and from there to Belize, or by boat to other nearby destinations like Livinstone and go in the direction of the bay islands. There's also a bordercrossing to Honduras nearby, but i couldn't find anything but bad stories about that crossing.

Well, i decided to skip Tikal, heard that Belize was expensive and wasn't in the mood taking a risc to get ripped off or spend a long time at the border. So i backtracked a bit to a more friendly crossing near Copán, a nice city at the Copán ruinas in Honduras.

Goodbye Guate, hello Honduras!

Granada, Nicaragua

2009-02-24T16:25:00.001-08:00

It's time for an update again. I haven't had free access to internet for a while and i don't like to sit and write in a cybercafe without a proper cup of coffee.

I rushed through Guatamala and Honduras. There's little regret i didn't took more time for Guate.

Honduras and, so far, Nicaragua aren't that interesting. Here, Granada, is a big touristy area with all services available, so i will spend a few days here find a new chain, update my blog and upload pictures so everyone will be fully up to date with my trip.

More to follow soon!

suerte!

Palenque

2009-01-29T16:11:00.000-08:00

The road from San Cristobal to Palenque, again, was great. i can't say otherwise. Mexico is a GREAT motorcycle country!

Although in this stretch i almost died. Yes, DIED. A stupid mexican kid in a red (i think....) VW Beetle thought it was a good idea to pass a truck where i was riding. Real close, i think there was about 5 cm. between the truck and the beatle and the beetle and me. And me and the road's shoulder. Pretty intense. I had to stop for a while to get my grips, shaking so badly i couldn't lit my cigarette. Jeez. I saw myself crashing. Some way to leave this paradise for another isn't it? Didn't see my live passing the revue though...

I met two other motorcycle travellers on the road. 2 fully loaded 1200GSA's from Quebeck. They cheated though ;-) took a truck to Texas and started from there to Honduras and back.

Some people have money and limited time, others have limited money, but time. Looking at those GSA's reminded me of the good times i had with my GS though. One day...

Still love my TTR though! Still reliable. Wouldn't change it for a bigger bike.

(Observation: I thought a simple small bike wouldn't have the rich gringo appearance. I was wrong. In these areas people don't see the difference between a eur. 4000 and a eur. 20000 bike anyway, so every bike is bigger than what you see normally on the streets here.)

about 60kms before Palenque i had a nice luch at a recreational area. Nice waterfalls. I think it was called Aqua azul.

I met Monica at the busstation and we went
to "El Panchan" a nice area halfway between the village Palenque and
the ruins. Lots of campsites and cabanas situated in a rainforrest.
Hot, humid and beautiful. Here's our Cabana.

Cool place to chill out for a while.

Palenque, the archeological site, sure is beautiful.

Yes! I really was here, in case there's any doubt.

Although the main
buildings are excavated, surrounding areas and buildings are still overgrown by
rainforrest.

This creates a beautiful atmosphere.

During the excavation lots of artifacts were found. Partially displayed in the Museum. Very special is the tomb of one of the great rulers. The moved it from the Runs to the museum. Quite impressive.

Guatemale is really getting close now.

I first thought of going to Belize and jump to Guatemala from there, starting at Tikal, another ruine site. We decided otherwise and backtracked to San cristobal and went to Comitan, were we visited a beautiful lake area.

From there it was an easy crossing into Guatemala at La Mesilla, stopover at Huehuetenango and finally, well deserved, a beatiful couple of days in Antiqua.

You can see all pictures of this part of the trip here.

San Cristobal

2009-01-29T14:48:00.001-08:00

Next stop from Oaxaca was San Cristobal de las casas.

On the map it looked like a boring road. In reality it was mountains and twisties again.

Which was fun, partially. If it wasn't for the storm and bit of
rain. This part of Mexcico, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec is the smallest
part of Mexico and the area where northern and southern gulf streams
meet. Lots of wind and pretty cold (relatively, that is), dark clouded
skies and even a huge windturbinepark. If it wasn't for the mountains,
it could have been Holland. The wind and mountains causes heavy
turbulent winds which surprised me a couple of times. Coming around a
corner and almost got blown off the road into the steep ravines next to
it. Pretty exciting. So if you go there, be carefull!!

It took me 2 days to get to San Cristobal and spend the night in too expensive pesos $200 hotel in a city which has *nothing* to offer. I run out of daylight and it just started to rain when i arrived. Good thing they had satellite tv so i could catch up with Law and Order, Life and other popular american series.

Had to pass some moutainrange and had to go through 10 km of dense mist. Not really funny if you cannot see where you're going with all those curves.

All went well though.

San Cristobal i a nice colonial town, but without the colonial beauty and had many narrow streets. At first sight there is no trafficrules and cars go a bit faster in these streets than is safe.

I met a Canadian on this corner. He drove a big 4x4 pickup truck all over Mexico and South America, even through the Amazon! And was writing a book about it.

He pointed out that there are trafficrules here. See picture. Red arrows mean STOP, Black arrow means you have the right of way.

Simple, aint it?!?

I love San Cristobal with it's narrow streets, touristy vibe and lots of cheap cafe's, restaurants etc.

It is fairly cold here, because of the altitude and the time of year. Afterall, it's winter here too!

(Same as all other cities in the inland of Mexico, btw.)

I kept in touch with Monica. She went all over the world but she didn't travel much in Mexico.
She took a bus, a plane and a bus again to meet me here. From here on we would traveled together for about a week. She on the bus, i on my bike. Too bad we couldn't go 2-up. I learned a lot of spanish from her.

Just outside San Cristobal is are a few authentic villages you can
visit. The local trade is weaving.

Which, of course, you can buy as a
tourist.

The people are not very fond of tourists, and taking pictures
is not appreciated, accoording to our guide. So no pictures of the people.

Nice cemetary.
What you
don't see is all the rubish and trash on it.

Here you can see all pictures of this part of the trip.

Guanajuato to Oaxaca

2009-01-29T14:05:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since i wrote an exhaustive post. I returned to guanajuato to celebrate cristmas at the hostel we stayed before. The owners prepared a meal for christmas eve and all guests were invited. It was nice to spend the evening with a variaty of nationalities.

After christmas i continued my trip. Claudio managed to sell a few stories of his trip to Italian
motorcycle magazines, so he stayed behind to finish his job. Or was it
his girlfriend? Who knows. Anyway i was on my own again and felt
actually very excited about it. We will meet again, i'm sure.

From Guanajuato i went to Morelia, another wonderful colonial town. Spend a few days walking around and visiting Musea. It was here were i met Monica, a wonderful person, and probably the only Mexican who ever visited Finland. Yes, she likes traveling alot!

She took me to a place near Morelia, Patzcuaro, an authentic village
near a big lake. Interesting, but touristy, mainly Mexican tourists
though.

De village is very old visit their website for more info.

A mandatory thing if your around Morelia is to visit the S actuary of the Monarch Butterflies. It's amazing how these insects find their way from North America to exactly this place to cover for the winter. After a hike of about 3 kms from the parking lot you enter a dense forrest. I missed a proper zoomlens, but as you can see the trees contains countless butterflies.

From Tuxla, near Mexico City again a very scenic and curvey road and is a long days ride to the coast (carretera 134) and in dark i arrived in Ixtapa. Much to my surprise it was a pretty huge resort area. A friendly taxi driver took me to the agency where i could book a hotel, it was high season apparently and available rooms were scarce, according to the guy. He didn't want any dinero for this random act of kindness. Which made me feel good, being a US and CAN touristplace i expected otherwise.

Another big supprise was that hotel rooms started at about $1000. Ouch!!
(pesos, but still..). What motivated me to try to find the cheapest
lodging possible. A very helpful tourist official came after me and offered a room for only $550. Huge improvement, but no thanks. Earlier i saw sign "Playa Linda RV park" and went off to check that out. Didn't found it though, instead i found a very nice and friendly trailerpark and camping very close to the beach. (Follow the signs Playa Linda and keep going all the way to the back). For only pesos $70 i could pitch my tent near the beach.

Nice. My neighbors were Mexicans in a mobile home and in exchange for the full story of my trip in Spanglish i got a beer and some nice quesadillas con salsa picante. Made my day. By that time i was tired and about ten o'clock and passed out in my tent. Not for long though. Bad scrimps i ate earlier that day (first time i ate in a decent restaurant) fought their way out in the the opposite direction they came in. Different shape and color though...

In silence, well, not completely, i celebrated my first food poisoning in 7 months time. Oh Joy..

I took a day to recover and continued south for a two days ride following the coastal hwy 200 to Zipolite. Accourding to Lee, another bike traveler i met in Guanajuato, a funky little beach place. The 200 is not the best of roads, although some nice beachy spots exist. I must add that i still felt bad which probably influenced my perception of my surroundings. Zipolite, and that whole area, makes it definitely worth. See previous posting. Spend two days in a hammock reading a book, chilling out with young mexicans and Barbara, the Italian caretaker. Nice beach, good people, and bloody hot. Only $40 to pitch my tent a couple of meters from the beach. It's a nudebeach too and, apparantly as it goes, mostly people who really shouldn't, walk around naked. So be warned ;-)

When i finished my book "Atlantis". An adventure story about the discovery of Atlantis, well written and the way the author wrote it, it could all be trough! I wanted to see Oaxaca and took the 200 further to Puero Angel and went up the 175 to Oaxaca. Again geogeous winding roads through the mountains.

Well the first 130km that is, then it stretches out and becomes a pretty boring ride.

Halfway to Oaxaca is a small village i stopped for coffee. In Oaxaca i learned that this is the place to rent a hammock and chill out with fresh mushrooms and a certain weed. Not my thing, but it might be of interest to other people.

Oaxaca is another wonderful colonial city. Crowded, big lively markets and damn good food! Nice museums and lots of cool coffeeshops, art galleries and restaurants situated around Centro Cultural Santo Domingo, a beautiful church with an old monestary which is converted to a museum. Really beautiful.

Monte Alban, the ruin just outside Oaxaca is definetly worth visiting. There i learned that in 1930 a tomb was found which wasn't discovered before. The above mentioned museum has a collection of the treasures found there, which contains very nice crafted jewelry.

From political engaged people i met here i learned that this part of Mexico is quite politically active. There was even a pro-palestine demonstration! You might think mexicans have enough to demonstrate for in their own country. Although not as severe as in the '90-ties the Zapatista issue still smolders underneath the surface. I still have to explore that piece of history.

This definetly is another side of Mexico. To me, till now Mexico seems a nice, friendly and fairly save place if you take care of your stuff and don't do stupid things. But maybe i'm just lucky, or naive. Or both for that matter.

They do know how to make a church around here...

I spend a couple of days in Oaxaca, it was a while i had seen so many tourists. Understandable, since this city with his ruins, museums, livery mercado's etc. is really special.

Here you can see a slideshow of all my pictures of this part of my trip.

Short update

2009-01-05T16:36:00.000-08:00

Just a short update to let you all know I´m in Playa Zipolite, a nice and small paradise at the coast below Oaxaca. I had a couple of long and rough days. Finaly got myself a food poisoning, not bad after 7 months on the road. Pretty ironic that it was (probably) the one up-scale restaurant i tried. Takes the fun out of riding a motorcycle though. From Tuluca down to the coast (road 134) is a fenomenal road. Countless number of twisties for about 160km, with the occasional small town or Pueblo. Did i mention that i start getting to REALLY HATE these topes? And i'm onbly half way down to Terra del Fuego. Oh well.

Anyways, I probably stay a few days here before going to Oaxaca City. It's quite hippy-ish here. Too bad i cut my hair. Good vibes. Hot and humid thouhg.

I would like to thank everyone for all christmas and new years wishes. Means a lot to know people still think about me.

warmest regards,
Sander

Real de Catorse

2008-12-26T13:59:00.001-08:00

Next stop after San Luis Potosi was Real de Catorce. An old silver mining town approximately 250 km north from San Luis Potosi. The road between Potosi and Catorce is not very fascinating. Unless you like desert:

My mom always tought me that it's healthy to have a divers diet. Taco's get boring after a while and some hotdogs seemed a nice change. They weren't really hot though and there was no mayonesa!

About to enter the cobblestone road to catorse.

Not really a problem, although you need a certain speed to overcome the most vibrations. Above 55kph worked for me, and the bike, because we arrived without losing parts (i know off anyway..). The cobblestones are quite slippery, combine this with oil spilling old cars and trucks and you can imagine that it can get real slippery. Aparantly, because at times my front wheel went a slightly different direction than anticipated.

Fantastic scenery halfway to Catorce.

Waiting for a GO!! the tunnel is the last bit to Catorce and one way only.

Inside the tunnel, just enough time for a pic. Total length is about 2km. Interesting: In the hayday of silvermining the was a railroad through the tunnel.

The light at the end of the tunnel was not from a incoming train, but the first view of Catorce. Nice place, very laid back and relaxed. But not, as i experienced, in weekends and Mexican vacations. The village and hotels are booked really well and the people on the street apply a bit more aggressive sales techniques. Not fun.

If you go there, make sure it's on weekdays!!

Nice pic of the church from our hotel.

By now Catorce is quite famous and the tourism really got to this likable town. There's quite a lot to do: horseback tours to a small ghost town or to the desert.

The museum gives a very good overview of the period when Catorce was in it's prime, which was about 1900. Around that period the silver price dropped and Mexican war for independence started which led to the closing of the mine. Ever since less and less people lived there. The town, although nowadays quite a few people make a living of the tourism, still has lots of deserted houses. Which gives it a nice atmosphere. The museum has usually one or more expositions on contemporary Mexican art.

The owner of an internet cafe told us that back in the days,1925-ish, this was the biggest power plant of mexico.

Everyday street life:

Pictures from the mine entrance. A 40 minute walk uphill. You can hire horses if your health doesn't allow that. Altitude of Catorce is about 2500m.

I liked Catorce. Very laid back and enough to do and see for a couple of days. Oh, i think the coolest bar in town is Club Social "Amor y Paz" . Very wel restored old building and awesome interior. Great contemporary music. Certainly worth a visit, if you happen too be in the neighberhood
:-)

Back on the road - San Luis Potosi

2008-12-17T10:30:00.001-08:00

After 4 weeks I'm finally back on the road. Although i really liked this city with its great colonial architecture, tunnels, and winding streets, 4 weeks is a bit too much. Last week i finished my Spanish classes. Two weeks were great, the last week the grammar got so complicated my brain decided to shut down. Needed another week to recover ;-).
Maybe a little to much. 5 hours a day and homework really intense. The hostel live doesn't help either, English all around and too much diverdad (=fun).

Anyway, right now i feel i know less Spanish than i started with! Not true of course, it's all in my head somewhere, it's just that it's not there when i need it. Strange. Maybe i put to much pressure on myself to learn Spanish in three weeks. What was i thinking?! Not really realistic, ain't it?

Plan was to go to Real de Catorce and loop back to Guanajuato via Zacatecas. Would be nice to spend xmas there. Unfortunately Claudio had rotten peanuts for lunch yesterday and is in the middle of some serious cleansing of his digestive system. Poor guy. Hope he gets better soon. The last part to Catorce is quite a challenging road, so he needs to be fit.

San Luis Potosi is a crowded town with a charming and lively colonial center. Quite a suprise since the first appearance when entering the city is very industrial. Yesterday evening i went for a walk and i saw this magnificent illuminated churches and buildings. They (don't know who...) project animations on buildings accompanied by classical music, turnes out to be the annual Fiesta la Luz. I made some pictures and they turned out really bad, so i stole them from the government website:

There's also a movie, take a look, it's really special.

Guanajuato

2008-11-22T21:14:00.001-08:00

Hostel Casa Kloster in Guanajuato will be my home for the next couple of weeks.
Rented a private room for cheap 90 pesos/night. Parked my bike inside on the patio and settled in.
The past few weeks i've had the feeling i walked in the shadow of my buddy Claudio. I really envy him for his Spanish. Not for him being Italian nor for his bikechoice: A Guzzi!! Although, don't know what it is, if we walk together, girls first see me, i'm tall and blond. Next they notice Claudio, their eyes go his way and pupils start getting big and big smiles all over...

So, in order to appreciate in full all beauty of Mexico and everything south from there has to offer, I need to learn Spanish. Culture i mean here people! Come on!

The past three days i had 5 hours of classes a day and a hour or so homework. And now my head hurts. Jeez. I didn't do anything intellectually challenging the past five and a half months! The only thing i had to think about was to hit the clutch before shifting gear...sort of, anyway. And it's definitely something different. Great fun though. It's good to use your head in a different way.
And it gives me the feeling i do something useful for a change.
Besides that, mi profesora es muy bonita ;-)

Uh..what happened between Mazatlan and Guanajuato your wondering? Not much. Rather boring sceneries, stayed two nights in Guadalajara and moved on. Guadalajara is a very big city, with, ofcourse, al lot of people and some nice buildings and plazas. Too big to my taste really, i missed the nice and cozy plazas and laid back atmosphere of smaller city's. Guanajuanto is more my taste. I do have some nice pictures of Guadalajara though. There are wonderful wallpaintings inside the federal building. And nice fountains and sculptures.

The climate here is significantly different than the coastal area: It friggin' cold here! That wasn't in the plan (which plan??). During the day it's not too bad, but evenings and night go close to 5 Celcius and windy. The city is on 2000m elevation. One of the reasons, obviously. And its winter here too!! Supermarkets here getting ready for Christmas which is a bit weird actually. The temperature helps me focus on my language training. Which is a Good Thing.

The town is quite different from the usual straight and square blocks, consists of winding tunnels underneath the city and lots of twisty alleys. And all is one-way only. By far the best town to get lost, if you have a sence of humor. Lonely planet was right ;-). There's a big university here so lots of nice and trendy bars.

I'm sure i'll enjoy it here. Maybe even three weeks ;-)

I added a lot of pictures to my photowebsite , please do take a look, it gives a better view of the fun i had here ;-)

Mazatlan!

2008-11-15T12:49:00.001-08:00

Maztatlan. Nice harbor city, long Malecon with lots of activities, Colonial architecture and lively night live. Like La Paz, but bigger. Good times here again.

Mazatlan as seen from the lighthouse.

What can i say. My spanish improved quite a bit lately by applying the best method possible ;-) My friends from canada and Junneau know exactly what i've been up to now, so i could leave it with this. For everybody else, i'll elaborate a tiny bit about it anyway. This experience is also part of my trip and therefore of me.
I pretty much stick to the usual pictures and stories of great roads and gorgeous sceneries and this is, i think, a welcome change.

Claudio, my Italian travelbuddy for the past few weeks, contacted a Couch surfing member and she introduced us to a couple of friends. This turned out to be a good move and allowed me to experience a new aspect of traveling. I tend to stay away from romantic stuff, or better, romantic stuff tends to stay away from me, it seems, usually, but not this time.

Must be the sun and lively spirit of Mazatlan and Mexico. Dunno. We had a wonderful romantic weekend, seen all beautiful places in town, drank beer at the Malecon acompanied by music and went out till dawn and had Fun.

Adrianna, if you read this, you'll always have a special place in my heart. Love S.

All good things come to an end and i left Mazatlan with a heavy melancholic feeling. I think this picture, besides its just a good one i want to share with you, reflect a bit how I felt.

Espinosa del Diablo

2008-11-13T15:06:00.001-08:00

I couldn't believe that there would be a better road then the California Hwy #1 at wondelful Big Sur. But i found it! Hwy. #40 between Durango and Mazatlan is a wonderful scenic route with about 100km of a REALLY terrible amount of sharp blind curves and presumable fantastic views. I'm not sure about the views, the driving was quite demanding and fun. Some days I don't want to do a photostop every 10 minutes but just Go!!! And reasonably good quality tarmac. To make it all a bit more challaging for bikers some stretches were coverend with a thin layer of fine gravel. Good times. Missed a bit of power, torque and forkstability again. At the other hand, having a small, powerless bike probably saves me from pushing the envelope to much, which is a good thing. No regrets for my bikechoice, especially if i see how Claudio and his Guzzi are struggled in the rough stuff. I changed my opinion on Guzzi's by the way, with reduced tire pressure i behaved remarkably well. And same for the narrow twisties. Anyway, picturetime again!

Leaving Durango

"Espinosa del Diablo" [The devil's Spine]. Now i know why. We were a bit in a hurry and it was very foggy so not many pictures. Here's a taste. I you find this way on google maps, you see exactly what i mean.

Earlier this morning we left Durango late and halfway to Mazatlan we ran out of daylight and pitched our tent, made diner (coocking noodles that is...) in a small Pueblo were the whole ritual was the event of the year for the kids. Nice experience, lots of regret that my spanish is still not at conversationlevel, even with kids. Unfortunately it is very damp there so the next morning we departed with a couple of kilograms water in out soaking wet tents.

Curious but shy kids at Coffeestop

Tight curved & Trucks do not go well together. This situation took about ten minutes of manouvering before traffic continued.

That's it for this part. Next story: Mazatlan!

Barranca del Cobre - Creel to Batopilas

2008-11-09T13:30:00.001-08:00

We arrived in Creel in dark (again....) and cold, at altitude of 2300mi t gets chilly fast when the sun disappears. The cheapest hostel in town according to the lonely planet was a hostel and it turned out to be a nice place with, as always in hostels, lots of young (relatively that is) people from all over the
world. I forgot the name but it's easy to find: follow the direction to City center, drive all the way down to the plaza, passing lots of other hotels. The hostel is located in the right far corner of the Plaza. The price was right too: $80,- for a bed, diner and breakfast. Pesos that is, not US$ ;-) Cheapest so far. Apparently I move in the right direction. Baja was pretty expensive, with La Paz as an all time high. Other tips: right across the plaza, crossing the railroad there's a small a small green colored shop with great coffee for only $8, and a ~~cute~~ very skilled and nice girl running the place too ;-) Creel is nice to hang around for a day, which we did, and there are lots of tours to do. The hostel rents out mountainbikes.

After a day of recovery from our 2 day dirt road adventure (Which actually can be done in one day if you start early in El Fuerte or Choix and don't spend an hour and a half building up karma credits trying to fix a local's flat tire
or give a local drunk guy a lift. And don't have flats or other
misfortune of course...) we needed another adventure to keep our adreneline going....

Our next adventure was the route from Creel to Batopilas. A 65km dirtroad. After all, not many bikers do this, and it would certainly add to our list of adventures. We figured that since this road is actually on every map it wouldn't be as rough as we experienced earlier- this assumption turned out to be not entirely right ;-).

The first 75 km. is a fantastic road with challenging curves and great
scenic views.

Due to a lack of navigation skills and absence of
preparation (except from water and food, i get smarter every day...) we missed the turnoff to Batpilas completely. And had to backtrack. Funny thing: there's a sign "Batopilas" if you come from the south, from the north there isn't.

The road turned to gravel immediately. First few kilometers were pretty smooth. Then a large stretch of very bad road on the trace currently under
construction. After that it's not that bad actually, see picture above.

Depending your skills that is. We haven't got any of that, and our bikes are heavily loaded with all travel gear. So we took it sloooow and easy. In hindsight, it would have been better to make it a two day trip from Creel and leave as much luggage behind. Below: After 20 kilometer you see this awesome view. You have to go all the way down, cross the bridge and then back up again.

Even if you are the experienced off-road type, the road doesn't invite you
to go fast. There's hardly any shoulders and it's all single lane,
blind curves and lots of rocky stuff etcetera. Is it a difficult
technical road? No, i must say. A heavily loaded Moto Guzzi
can do it, so how hard can it be? What scared ~~the crap out of~~ me
the most was the narrowness, the distracting scenic views -does weird
things with your orientation and balance senses- and steep drop offs right nex to the road.

In short, if you take it easy it's a great adventure and fantastic
scenery. See pictures. We needed about 3.5 hours to cover the 65km.

We took the 2nd hotel in the Batopilas village, a double room for $100, hot shower and free potable water. Very cheap. Downside is that it is a 15 minute walk to the plaza with other
(nicer, more expensive) hotels and a few restaurants. We had dinner at
Restaurant Mary's at the plaza. Good food, nice and fairly cheap.

Batpilas has a strange feeling. People wear guns there and at night public guards walk around with 9mm and m16's. Nice... It's perfectly save though, accoording to a local...

It shows that mexico goes through a turmoil. In Creel a protest display with coffins and a text about the murder of innocent people in august this year made clear that there's a lot going on underneath the surfice.

Personally i haven't had a moment i thought i wasn't save. You have to pay attention to your belonings though. People, kids in particular, have the habbit of looking with their hands instead of their eyes. Ow, make sure you count your change. Although people are friendly in general, the will check out if your stupid ;-) Keeps you awake though...

barrance del cobre

short update - El Fuerte to Creel

2008-10-30T11:01:00.001-07:00

Short update, internet is expesive here.

It took us 2 days to get from El Fuerte to Creel, of which 200 kms dirtroad. These roads weren´t even on the map! ;) But made it in one piece. We had to camp somewhere on roadside though, don´t see bumps, holes etc. in dark.

Luckily i brought Ramen Noodles and Nescafe :)

The Guzzi of my travelbuddy Claudio behaves remarkebly well in offroad. TTR run fine all day in 1st and 2nd gear, running at high temperatures and bounching all over. I love the bike and despite the awkward starting habbits, i wouldn´t change it for the world. Although.... a button would be nice ;)

Detail: the trainride from El Fuerte to Creel takes about 6 hours. But that wouldn´t be any fun, right?

Chilling out in Creel for a day now.
--
http://sanderonasingle.blogspot.com

El Fuerte - daily bikecheck works!!

2008-10-27T15:34:00.001-07:00

We made it to the Mexican mainland yesterday. The ferry (1500 pesos) left from La Paz to Topolobampo at 15:30(ish..) We arrived there at about 22:00. Plesant ride. Which was good. The evening before we had a big party with several hostel guests till 3:00 am. Nice.

Instead of spending the night in Los Mochis we drove to El Fuerte. In dark. Not smart, but the road is very good. Despide that we still arrived a bit late, 1 a.m., in El Fuerte and found a cheap hostel. In general it is safe here, at least that's what my 6th sence tells me. Like Baja by the way. So far only friendly and helpful people.

The planning for today was to leave for Creel. But no. When i took a casual look at my bike yesterday, as i do every riding day, I noticed something wasn't quite right. The bold and washer on my rear axle was missing hmm, forgot to tighten it in the workshop in La Paz apparantly. Must be the high temperatures messing with my brain. Still not used to it, I'm affraid.

The axle almost came out of the link/bridge/whatever. Luckily the spacer for te chaintensioner was still there.

I looked up to the stars, made a cross and said a small thank you to whoever runs this place. Could be much worse, like loosing my rear tire with all unpleasant sideeffects. I Lucked out bigtime....

So anyway, today's entertainment program contains the game 'find a nut in El Fuerte'...

hasta luego!

La Paz

2008-10-27T14:01:00.001-07:00

La Paz... it's friendly, relatively big, has a long malecon. Has great nightlife.
A shopping paradise voor Baja Sur. (Baja california is split in two major districs, Baja (northern part) and Baja Sur (southern part).

I found the cheapest hostel possible: 180 pesos for a room (which i shared with countless ants. Which wasn't really bad, other has cocroaches.

I stayed a bit longer than planned. In the process of trying to loosen up one of the chainadjuster bolts (spray dw-40, smoke cigarette/drink beer, turn bolt a bit - repeat) it broke off.

La Paz is as said a good place with all services, motorcycle repairshops included. A French mechanic (thank god, Mexicans try to solve everything with a hammer) was pretty gentle on my TTR. After quite a few attempts to remove the broken bolt we figured that the only way to solve the issue was to drill it out. We solved the problem with a slightly different system, but it works.

I met an Italian guy Claudio (what else ;-)) at the hostel. He flew his Moto Guzzi calfornia Evolutione (!) to New York and drove through Canada and US to Mexico. We decided travel together for a while. First Stop: Copper Canyon.

Viva La Paz , Viva Mexico!

Loreto

2008-10-25T13:34:00.000-07:00

I''m in Loreto now. A guy i met at The Old Mill, near San Quintin (nice, expensive) a couple of days back invited me to his Hacienda in Loreto. It's under construction but it's free. Hotels are quite expensive around here and a free stay for a couple of days is more than welcome.

Loreto is (finaly) a nice place to hang out for a few days. Something i missed since i left Ensenada. There are a lot of retired americans and canadians here and the local economy is (therefore) good, which is reflected by the nice admosphere (my perception). A nice Malecon, beach and friendly people and good food. And coffeshops with internet. A requirement these days.

So far Baja is not the place for colonial archtecture. It has lots of desert though. So if that's your thing, your right on the spot.

As you progress from north to south Baja, the climate and scenery chances slowly from dry desert to a bit more subtropical.

The past 2 weeks or so i was mainly fighting a cold and not in the mood to take lots of pictures. There's not much diversity here anyway. Long days on the bike on straight roads are boring. To my supprise the last 30 miles to Loreto is a beautiful twisty road following the rock coastline with some beautiful beaches with campsites.I really enjoyed riding again. A bit like Big Sur, less breathtaking though.

will add pictures later.

Ensenada

2008-10-06T16:50:00.001-07:00

I crossed the border in Tijuana. Not the most relaxed place to enter
but i thought, lets see if it is a chaotic as people say. Well, it is
;-)

The funny thing is that you are not stopped. US citizens are
allowed to cross the border and don't need anything aslong as the stay
within a certain limit from the border.

For me, European, and
administrative stuff to take care of, i have to stop, of course. The
weird thing is though, it's not very clear where. Or, at least to
me.....

As soon i noticed that all went all too easy i pulled
over and started thinking. Hmm..I should have done a bit more research
actually instead of going for it totally unprepared. Fun though, albeit
a bit stressful.

So, this is what i've elarned:
* You need a
tourist visa, which can be obtained at the Mexican immigration office
for US$22,75. You cannot pay by creditcard, cash only.(took me an extra
walk back to the ATM....

I parked the bike with an insurance company. a guy watched it for a few peso, he gave me good info though).

*
When in Baja, you don't need a temporary import permit for your
vehicle. You need it when entering the Mexican mainland. You can buy it
when leaving the ferry there, unless you want to enjoy the very
efficient (not) mexican administrative system, then get it at Tijuna ;-)

*
A stamp in your passport is not required. I noticed the following day
that there was no stamp in mine and i went to the immigration office at
the Ensenada Harbor. The official there said it was not neccessary,
there is a stamp on my tourist visa. I hope he's right. (you can buy a
tourist visa here, but they charge you $5.50 extra for it)

* You
need to hand over your US I-94 visa slip to a US official, accoording
to the procedure on the back. The slip was till this morning still in
my passport. I should have handed it over to an American official.
Funny thing is that there are none at the mexican border when leaving
the US. Perhaps i should have taken the exit with "Last exit before
leaving US" on it, i donno...
Not handing this thing over has the
consequence that you are listed in the US immigration system as being
in the US with an outdated visa. This causes problems if you want to go
back in the future.

* Luckily US customs have an office in
Kentuky you can send the I-94 thingy to together with evidence of you
leaving the states. For me this is the Mexican tourist visa, with
datestamp, and a permit for temporary import of my motorcycle. Which i
did this morning.

All should be well now. I think....

Ensenada
is a nice harborcity with a lively fishmarket, A tourist strip for the
cruiseship people, and lots of nice bars and hangouts. I stay in a very
hospitable and relatively cheap backpackershostel ($18,-
night) and room to park your (motor)bike safely behind a fence in the
patio at the back. The hostel is close to the center and has a very
good internet connection. Carlos, the owner is a young guy with lots of
travel experience and he tries to make it a nice place.

I cought a flew or something and sit it out here. Nice to be surrounded
by a variaty of different people, all traveling to and from Mexico.

Mexican flag in Ensenada. You can't miss it, its Big!

New friends. Portugal, Brazil and US.

Ensenada Malecon.

Hasta Luego!

Entering Mexico

2008-10-02T14:03:00.001-07:00

Just a short update. After two weeks traveling with my good friend Arend (Zion to Newbury park, LA) i'm back on my own. This post is made with Scribefire, a Mozilla pluging for Bloggin. I'm not a big fan of the blogger editor, it doesn't insert pictures on the cursor position, which is very, VERY annoying.
Hope this one works better. Anyways....

I'm a bad planner so right now I'm figuring out the insurance thing for Mexico in the public library in San Ysidro right at the border.

Yesterday was an interesting day. I departed late from a cheap hotel. There's no campsites around here, and RV parks would charge me the full hookup price ($71) do the obvious choice is a hotel for the same price. My trustworthy TTR (baptised 'old faithful', will come to that later) doesn't like cold starts in this hot and humid environment (so as me, btw...) So i left at 11:00 am. I enjoyed the LA coast and at 4pm had my first flat tire! Not an ordinary nail or something, nope, not me, i had something special: the valve got ripped out of the inner tube. Below, me fixing tire in beautiful sunset ;-)

Luckily i was at this nice beachpark area, surrounded my the young, rich and beautiful people of San Diege (no pics, sorry...). Good eye candy. None of them helped actually. :( Too busy being cool or something. A guy and his family offered help. It was a russian guy, working for the US Navy (huh?) who offered me help and even better, a bed and a good meal. I like russians. I got my spare 19" in and, ofcourse, puctured it when mounting the thing. The lack of practice i assume. In four months this was the first flat. Not a bad average though. (i don't count the time a bikeshop changed my front tire and punctured the inner tube). I had trouble breaking the bead, after jumping on the tire for a while i used WD-40, smoked a few cigarets and presto! Tire came of from the rim perfectly. Below a picture of Dimitri, his DR350 and Dog:

The following morning i departed on a queste for a new heavy duty inner tire. The 3th bikeshop i tried had one. Quite bizar: when i stopped a guy approached me. Turned out to be a marrocan guy, studied in Maastricht years ago. Nice guy. First human being on this continent who recognised the type of bike actually. He paid for my new heavy duty tube. Funny how things go.

Aad, buddy, thanks for the past weeks. It was good to have a friend near for a while. So far you have been my biggest sponsor of all (two...).

Zion to Newbury Park - traveling with buddy Aad.

2008-10-01T17:25:00.000-07:00

My good friend Aad came over to ride with me for two weeks. He flew to Vegas and drove to Zion where i stayed on a campsite.

Aad arriving in Zion. Getting from Holland to Vegas to Zion wasn't exactly a breeze. Due to hurricane Ike a cancelled flight and unplanned stopover took one extra day all together. But eventually, he here was, on his beaufiful white Harley D.

The plan was to go from Grand Canyon to San Francisco to San Diego where he would drop off the bike and fly home.

Below: Aad is never too shy to show of he's not affraid of heights. Me, on the other hand, i'm a wuss on that matter. As my not really relaxed smile shows..

Nice portrait.

All pictures of our trip from Zion to Newbury Park can be found here.

Northrim

Southrim

Near campsite in Lees Ferry, between north and south RIM of grand canyon. Very beautiful red rock area. Campsite is situated in a Valley, so your surrounded by red rock formations.

Seligman, vollage on old Route 66

Deathvalley entrance

Camping at June Lake - COLD!!! at 2400m. altitude.

San Fransisco.
Timetable didn't allow for multiple day visit. I guess i have to go back. So all we'd seen is the good old Golden Gate.
It's Long.
It's High

It's Deep.

We entered the famous Hwy. #1 in SF. From there we followed the coastline all the way to Newbury Park. We stayed at my friend Thad Wolffe (yes, the guy who wins bikeraces - see earlier post). Aad for a day, he had to catch a plane in San Diego - me for a couple of days. Service the bike for the Real Adventure: Mexico.

The Hwy. #1 is really breathtaking. The tourist information told us about a hostel at a lighthouse in Monterey. Nice.

Big Sur. 70 miles of breathtaking scenic road with plenty twisties in all sorts to make the ride interesting if the view bores you not likely you might think. Indeed. We saw the views three (3) times and nope, it doesn't get boring ;-)

In San Simeon i noticed that i forgot my creditcard in a restaurant in Big Sur. So we had to backtrack all the way, all the 70 miles.

And the next day, we had to do it all over again...

I'll tell ya, Hwy #1 at Big sur is by far the best place (to date) to forget something.

San Diego Beach. Campsite nearly at the beach. Nice.

Another place for bikers to go to: Rock Store.
A (The) famous biker hangout in an mountainous/hilly area near LA. Every saturday/sunday vast amounts of bikers come over to show of and ride the scary twisty roads. One of them (forgot his name) guided us to Thad's house. To bad he didn't see the gravel whil passing a car with a crashed Duc as result. Oilcooler crashed and he bypassed it. His bike was not the only one with loose nuts and bolts.

Above: bad impression of the roads, but i have no other.

Aad had to go. Just before he left for San Diego. Our last picture in two fantastic weeks.

From now on, i was back on my own. Mexico is calling.

Bigfork MT to Jackson Hole Woming.

2008-09-05T15:36:00.000-07:00

I left bigfork with a hangover. The weather was cold, rainy and grey.

Somewhere between Bigfork and Helena i stopped to warm up a bit and have lunch. I had a terrible day, really. But that's ok. I approach life these days with a motto: Evering is a consequence of my own choices. This saves a lot of time whining and makes me realise i have to deal with whatever situation i put myself in. I decide to drink, so i have to deal with a hangover ;-)

When i got back to my bike a V-Strom was parked aside. Ofcourse we had a chat. That's what bikers do. As it turned out, we headed the same way, to Yellowstone, and we decide to ride togetherto Bozeman.

Unexpected weather changes ;-)
Winter starts early this year. For a while i was affraid that my 'planning' caused me to end up in very cold weather. but it seems that my timing is ok, but the weather is off.

Makes nice pictures though.

We drove off in rain and cold. To get to Bozeman we needed to cross the Mac Donald pass between Avon and Helena. As such not very special, if it wasn't for the rain, cold and snow! It was damn cold up there! and this was only at 2000 mtr. altitude.

Things are a bit different in Montana. It's flat...

They call this state Big sky Montana. Not without reason:

We entered Bozeman pretty late in the evening and it was raining and cold. We shared a hotelroom. Still pretty expensive, $35 each, buth worth it.

A few days in the states shows that compared to Canada fuel and food is cheap, but hotels and campsites quite expensive. You can have a proper meal for about $15 incl. tax and tip, but without beer ;-)

I really needed an oilchange and Thad, my riding buddy, needed a new rear tire. I checked for bikeshops around on the internet and i found one really appealing. It was called "The Bike Shack". Good guyes, although the mechanic looked for the oildrainplug at the wrong side of the bike...not very confidence inspiring. After i explained how to change the oil, everything went well. I had to pay for the labor though.

It was sunny, reasonably warm and at 11:00am we were ready to go. Destination Yellowstone park and Beartooth pass, elevation 3300 meter.

Entrance of Yellowstone.

Beartooth Pass, elevation 3300m. Cold!!

Next destination was a nice, cheap hotel in Cody. Way to cold to camp out here...

The next day we drove around Yellostone and Great Teton national parks. Very pretty, look at my pictures, and ended in Jockson Hole. The morning That left i was having coffee in a Bageljoint. I met a guy there, Matt. and i ended up at his couch for a few nights. I had a few good days hanging out in Jackson and enjoying the local beers, bars and art galleries. It's always fun to see the local scene next to the touristy stuff. No pictures unfortunately. Thanks for letting me use your bicycle Zack!!

That Wolff, my riding buddy, was trying to make it to Salt Lake for bikeraces, and i wasn't in a hurry, so we split there. He was a professional racer and faith brought us together a couple of days later. He proudly showed his awards. Not bad ey?

He invited me to his house in Woodbury park, near LA.

A couple we met a few times in the park. Traveled through central america for a while on bikes. Mind the dog, it stayed in the tankbag and loved it!

Finally made it to the US of A!!

2008-09-04T13:47:00.000-07:00

I made it to the US! Finally. People i met on the road start loosing their faith in me actually ending in Terra del Fuego. At the current speed it will take me forever. That's ok though.

Passed three months (what! already three months!?! uhm...that went by really quickly) learned me that traveling is all about serendipity. Planning doesn't work well with this concept. I like serendipity more than planning. It causes all sorts of unexpected things to happen. So far all positive, luckily. Planning causes you to ignore or skip opportunities thrown in your face while chasing your timetable. And that's no fun at all, is it?

Surprisingly enough I appear to function very well in the current lifestyle i choose. And i like who i am here, on the road, outside the daily work routine, stress and secure environment. Actually, i can be a really cool guy! Although, just as at home, there's up's and downs. Downs are forgotten more easily though. It goes by a short conversation, a glance at the beautiful stars at night, or listening to good music during a boring stretch from A to B. Life seems so much easier on the road...

Anyway. I left Nelson after a few rainy days and was really eager to cross the border with the US.
In Creston i drove past the Kokanee beer brewery and realized that 1) i like that beer! and 2) i was lacking a bit on cultural activities lately.

So serendipitous (is that an existing word?) as i am, i recognized this win-win situation and turned around.

Brewing is not all that diffucult, really ;-)

It does require a bit of plumbing though.

I left the brewery, drove a few miles and saw a sign "Riders Range Biker campground". It was 14:00 and decided to go check it out..

The weather was good, people friendly and beer cold. And i wasn't going anywhere (again...) after three beers i got from the campsite owners. ;-)

I totally forgot to make a picture of the proud owners. They were friendly people with lovely dogs.

Next day was an early day. I went to Waterton National park and stayed a night and went the day after to Glacier national park and stayed a night there. See my USA MT ans WY photoalbum for all pictures. Very nice environment, but not special. From Glacier nationa park headed to Bozeman, a town just above Yellowstone. I skipped breakfast and went. Around 10:00am i stopped in Bigfork to have breakfast. I tried a burget and fries instead of oatmeal for a change, and actually liked it! ;-)

As usual when i stop, people start talking to me and before i knew it i said yes to their invitation to join a biker BBQ party. Goodbye planning, hello serendipity! I followed them and it looked good! Old harleys, old bikers, all sorts of good food cookin' and I had my first beer at 11:00.

The couple who invited me, (i think...) Tammy and Curly.
Great couple.

It was an awesome party with a group of friends riding for years. They didn't took themselves all too serious and just want to have a great time. I heard some stories from the old days though.
(I'll keep them for myself for now).

Lots of people showed up, not only bikers, but friends, family etc. They sure know how to have a good BBQ here. People brought all sorts of homemade food.

Real good Music in the evening:

The guy on the right was phenomenal. Very talented guitar player and a voice like the singer of Nickleback. Awesome. The old guys to the left played the blues.

Needles to say that the next morning the hangover was terrible. I should have stayed away from the Tequilla.. It was worth it though!

Banff and Jasper National parks all the way to Nelson

2008-08-21T11:30:00.001-07:00

I'm in Nelson now, a groovy little village at Kootenay lake. Very touristy and a lot of hippy kinda kids. Don't now why that is, perhaps it's because of the art school. Funny to see hippykids with a laptop entering their dad's SUV.

It rains a lot lately. Yesterday it was dry and i wanted to go. But my ipod crashed ;-( .
Music is a priority for me so i decide to try to fix it first. As it turned out, it was the database that was corrupted for some unknown reason. Luckily all music files were still there. After some research i found the Winamp ipod plugin ml_ipod which has a databse cleanup feature. It worked great. Took me half a day all together though. I was really happy i got my music back and donated eur.10,- to the programmer. It made my day. :o)

Because of the heavy rains the day and nght before the tent got messed up and required cleaning. After that i browsed around town. Lazy day. as so many. I love it. Doing nothing comes naturally to me ;-).

As most days i end up spending the evening with nice people. This time a nice couple in an old motorhome from Vancouver. Free dinner and beers and some real scotch whisky! We talked about Canadians, their politics and music. I had a good time. Note: Canadians are afraid that Bush is after their water. I met quite a lot of Canadians mentioning this a the major threat to Canada in the not so far away future.

Oh , and the day before i spend the evening with a Hongarian father and son, enyoing some real Tjech beer. For some reason traveling solo is less alone than at home in your daily routine. Awkward.

Anyway, back to the route of the past weeks.
From Vancouver the route went to Whistler, Lillooet, 100 mile house, Clearwater, Jasper, Banff, Revelstoke, Nakusp, Kaslo and finally Nelson. For some reason it's difficult to go south ;-)

This area of BC, Jasper and Banff and Kootenay national parks, are very, very touristy and therefore fairly expensive. But it's fun, the scenery is great, nice people, reasonable weather although the last couple of days were bad. Even the roads are a bit challenging around here.
But i miss 30hp to make it entertaining, did i mention this earlier?

But not very adventurous. No major breakdowns etc. Bike is good, although it uses more oil than any bmw i ever owned. That's a bit concerning.

There are a few highlights i want to share and remember.

On my way to Whistler i met a fellow traveler. He just returned from a 14 month world trip on a brand new f800gs. He had no major problems in the 35000km he put on it.

We had a chat, went for lunch and he paid for it. Nice guy, i forgot his name though. And he did not had a website to learn from his experience. I left him my emailadress, it would be nice to hear from him. He was just in the 'returning phase' trying to settle back in to normal live and i wonder how that is.

I spend a few days at a free campsite just outside a nice small village called Lillooet. It was 37 degrees celcius....in the shadow. Way too hot to ride. And the campsite was free!

Experiment late night
photography.
The orange color of the trees is light reflecting from campfire.

I like it, but i haven't seen it on a large vivid screen yet.

Yet again, as it usually happens, another biker appears. Scott bought a brand new KLR after 30 years without a bike. He loved every mile on it. There's was no money left for a decent luggage system so he had to improvise with Curver boxes and lots of bungees. Funny, but it worked.. sort of.

We made the heat bearable with some cold beers.

Leaving Lilooet, a picture from the road out of town. It's Highway 99 and basically every mile on this road is worth riding.

For some strange reason the lush forestry turns into something like mexico, dry and desert like. Beautifull and weird because it's not like the rest of BC at all.

Canyon just outside Lilooet.

Campsite at Japer national park. Funny, wildlife crossing the campsite. No bears, but elk. Funny: on the background you see a couple. They turned out their parents were Dutch (as many people around here).

One of them even had a typically Dutch landscape tattooed above her ankle. (I should have taken a picture).

Me, somewhere halfway Jasper and Banff on the icefields parkway.
Beautiful ride, although the fact that you have to pay to take this road.

In alaska scenery is free, and campsites way cheaper. But i does cost you quite a bit to get there though... ;-)

Campsite Banff national park. Here i met Save, a filmmaker from Tjech. Moved to Canada ages ago. He prepared a dr650r for a three week trip to Prudhoe bay, Alaska. He researched a lot and prepared for everything. As a result he needed three hours to pack up. He was seven days on the road now. Good guy though, being a filmmaker he continuously made pictures and video. He took a video of me explaining what i did and will do. I hope i'll see this one day.

Packin'up! His packing ritual sort of reflected his chaotic personality ;-)

He made wonderful sourdough pancakes for breakfast though!
Jummy, with maple sirop or sugar.

On the same campsite Petra en Wim turned up. A Dutch couple travelling with peddlebike for two ears now. Their webite is easy: http://www.wimenpeetzerereet.nl/.
From rotjeknor ;o)

In revelstoke i got company from a father and son. because of a truck (or car) accident the highway they needed was closed for the night. The son turned out to be a Deken. They invited me to have breakfast with them and we spend a few hours talking about Holland, faith etc. He was kind enough to request his Lord for my safety and protection on my travels. For some reason - i have to soulsearch this- i was deeply touched and i hardly kept my eyes dry. Amazing. Honest, kind and good people. And when they left i got a bunch of really delicious sausages!

That's it for now. Weater still cold and rainy here in Nelson, i just have to wait it out i guess.

-happy trails.

Port Coquitlam - chillin'with family

2008-08-21T11:29:00.000-07:00

Next stop after Vancouver was Port Coquitlam. My cousin Cornelis and his family lives there. Cor emigrated about 8 years ago from Holland. To the left his girlfriend Desire and daughter Ammy.

I spend a week on their couch enjoying their hospitality. Thanks guys!

The waiting was due to bad service of DHL couriers. My brother send a sprocket and chain set and that took about 6 days ;-(

The proud offspring of Cor and Dee ;-)

Good to go after putting new chain and sprockets on. This didn't go without issues. Kedo.de send an endless chain, which the the local bike shop kindly broke. Furthermore i forgot to bring a size 30 socket to get the front sprocket off. The local bike shop mechanic (again) was very helpful. Nice people.

So here i am, with shiny new sprockets, reqdy to go another 15kkm.

Vancouver Island, BC, CAN part 2

2008-08-21T11:28:00.000-07:00

From Nanaimo again to Victoria. I stayed with Jorgen (the one with mustache). I met him in Fairbanks at the start of my trip. I called him in Nanaimo to ask him if i could stay for a few days to get my rear tire fixed. He agreed, and i'm very thankful for that.

I was very determined to change the tire myself. But even after 30 minutes jumping on it the bead didn't break. Time for a different strategy. Damn. We made the walk of shame back to the bikeshop ;-(

This concerns me a bit. What if i get a flat? Do i need to buy a beadbreaker? Or just buy slime and put that in in case of a flat to get me to the nearest shop? Oh well, just another thing to think about.

After i removed the rear wheel i noticed that my bearing on the left side was shot. Quite annoying, not even 15k on it. I already replaced the front bearings in Anchorage after my Prudhoe bay and Inuvik adventures, weeks ago. The bikeshop replaced tire and put new bearings in for $90. Not bad.

BC celebrated the 150th aniversary of the state of BC so lots of things to see. I went with his family to the park to witness the grand opening of the weekend in the park.

Impression of downtown Victoria:

It's a tradition that every year with the anniversary, the Victorian Symphonic Orchestra gives a 'floating concert' in the harbor. This attracts thousands of people. The concert takes about 2 hours and finishes with fireworks.

During the festivities the 'snowbirds' gave an air show above downtown Victoria. I made quite a few pictures, about 20. This one turned out to be the best.

Victoria has a great nightlife. One evening i decided to experimented with low-light. Below the result. Not bad for an amateur. Pretty sweet ey!?

Skyline just before sunset.

The city is rich and clean and even the homeless addicts are friendly (and numerous). Canadians tent to say that Victoria is the city of the newly wed and nearly dead. I guess this says it all. Big problem here and over all Vancouver Island are the huge increase of real estate prices due to migration of wealthy Canadians. Bummer for the locals...

Vancouver Island, BC, CAN part 1

2008-08-05T22:28:00.000-07:00

I've seen another wonderful place on this (part of) the earth. I've seen de scenic coast from Port Hardy to Victoria to Tofino. Rode Woodlog gravel roads through the beautiful forrest in the interior. Met wonderful people in friendly Victoria, Touristic Tofino and Cumberland, a small village with a lot of attention to food, health and art. Below a few photo's to illustrate what i've been doning there... all pictures in real size are on the Vancouver island Photoalbum.

The day after arrival from prince rupert to port hardy, i found this campsite in a very nice forest in port hardy. relatively cheap and clean. Awesome trees.

Traveler's diner: Campbell chunky soup with noodles: cheap, tasty (sort of....). I have the habit of eating out lunch and make my own diner, or the other way around. Saves money.

(Hi Mom, you see? nothing wrong with my diet...)

Beach of Vancouver island (eastcoast) somewhere before Nanaimo. It's georgeos there. Unfortunately there's limited beach access. Luxerious houses everywhere. Real estate prices are insane because rich people escaping Vancouver settel here.
From Port Hardy to Nanaimo is a scenic route near the coast. It's worth taking this road instead of the fast and boring highay to Victoria. I still wonder how this big tree end up here...

Ben and Jon, buddies in Victoria. I spend a few days in Victoria with Ben and Jon. Good times.

Jon is a good guy. Can make eveything himself.
I met Ben in Dawson city and we met again in Victoria. The following few days we traveled together. Ben is an interesting and fun guy to be with.

Cruisin' Victoria in '58 landrover Ben could use from a friend. Chicks dig it more than motorcycles ;-)

On the road to tofino. We would travel for a few days. We went from Victoria to Tofino and back to port Alberni via woodlog roads.

Beach at port renfrew. The woodlog industry causes/caused lots and lots of driftwood.

In Greenpoint, campsite and natural reserve, your're not allowed to use it for campfires. Reason: the authorities want to preservve the natural environment. Without the woodlog industry there would be none or little driftwood.

Silly canadians....

Woodlog roads through the interior vancoucver island. beautiful gravelroads through dense forrest: good times! Detail: woodlog industry only logs trees out of sight so the tourists see the trees, but not the vast empty patches after logging. Crazy ey?

Tracy. I met her in a restaurant in Cumberland on my way to Victoria. After a few days of traveling with Ben i went back to see her.

She let me stay a few days at her house to chill out. Weather was bad so that was a welcome gesture. She's a remarkable person. I miss her good vibes and conversation (and her cats too..).

From Tracy i went back to Victoria, i needed a new rear tire. I met Graham (London, UK) at a hostel in Nanaimo. Both looking for shelter for the rain. He's doing the same sort of trip, but without Alaska (bad decision ;) ). We hang out at the hostel and downtown Nanaimo.

Good guy, hope we meet again somewherre down the road.

From Nanaimo i needed to go back to Victoria for a new rear tire. I could get a tire elsewere, but i wanted to check the generosity of Canadians ;-) In the 2nd week of my trip i met a guy from Viictoria in Fairbanks, Jorgen. I got his adress and he told me that i should give him a call when i'm in Victoria. So i did and i had a bed for a few days. I was lucky: the weekend i was in Victoria the 150th anniversery of BC was celebrated Full report in posting Vancouver Island, BC, CAN part 2 ;-)

Juneau

2008-07-19T22:41:00.000-07:00

From Homer i went south to Juneau, visiting my Dawson friends.

I arrived in Juneau by ferry from Haines and much to my suprise Andy was waiting for me at the dock. With his ural. Especially for this event he put on an orange shirt, orange is the royal dutch color. Very thoughtful. All that effort to make me feel at home ;-) .

We had diner at his house, waiting for Dave to be home, so i met his wife's parents and son. Nice family. I washed the bike to make myself useful.

In the evening we went to Dave's place, my home for a few days. I learned to know his family.

Friendly and nice people and i felt welcome. Nice. I could use Dave's garage to work on the bike and clean my gear. After six weeks, i can assure you, it is neccessary ;-)

The next day i spend with shopping and sightseeing Juneau. Juneau is the cappital of Alaska. There are no roads to it. Cruise ships are docking right in downtown Juneau. 1000's of tourists a day come spending their time and money here. A bit ackward. Another peculiarity: although this city has only 90 miles of paved road, Juneau has the highest number of motorcycles per capita in the US....

On the ferry i met Cynthia and her mom. They were great people. I asked them to have dinner with me while in Juneau and we went to a stir fry restaurant. Afterwards we saw a very interesting movie about a Iranian girl growing up in the time of the shah and rising of the Islamic politics, 'Persepolis'. A must see for everyone interested in history. We took the same ferry back to Skagway. The ladies were good company on the way back.

The following day Dave, Andy and i drove around Juneau. Funny that there is even a skiing resort 30 min drive from downtown. I forgot to put my memory card in my fotocamara, so no pictures ;-(
I learned a trick called 'stopdrilling'. If you have a crack, like in my front fender, you drill a small hole at both ends of it. the result is that the crack stays as it is. Apparently widely used in the Juneau airport maintenance dept. because Dave, as airport manager, was quite skilled in it ;-)

Next day was leavingday and the ferry to Skagway left in the afternoon. Instead of taking the ferry through the rest of the inside passage (i leave that for my retirement) i decided to ride the cassiar highway, which is very scenic, to prince rupert to take another ferry to Port Hardy, Vancouver island. Andy, again, came over to say goodbye. Thanks buddy!

The short time i spend in Juneau with my Dawson friends was very nice, it feels good to be welcomed in one's house like the way they did. I did hurt a bit to leave so soon.

Thank you guys!

Homer to Juneau

2008-07-19T20:36:00.000-07:00

I left Homer in good spirit. Good to be on the road again. Besides that in Juneau i will meet my friends Andy and Dave which i met in Dawson. So the route is from Homer to Witthier, ferry to Valdez, Richardson highway to Tok cut-off highway (again..) and via the Tetlin Junction on the Alaska Highway all the way to the Haines Junction and finally to Haines, where i cought the ferry to Juneau. Quite a few miles, but as all alaskan highways, worth the effort.

En route i met a couple of dualsport riders and it seemed a good idea to tag along. Which they didn't mind. Jim and "Dee". Jim on a KLR, Dee on his '83-ish XT500. Cool bike, lots of miles, to mexico and back and this was the 2nd time to Alaska. Never a serious problem with it. I've never seen a simpeler bike than that. And i thought i was doing pretty well on that department.
it seems that the xt500 sort of evolved into the ttr.

Just before the Canadian border we got gas and in the assumption we would camp together, i asked Jim if they would like a beer with dinner. He answered laughing "we are not alowed to drink beer, we're mormones". Yeah right......... and i bought a sixpack.

Just across the border with Canada we found a campsite at eagle creek, so we set up camp and made simpel dinner. i asked Jim and Dee if they'd like a beer. "No thanks, we're mormones, we're not... etc." No Sh...! i tought you were kiddin'!! Damn, they weren't, obviously, and now i had this major problem of having six beers and no mates to empty them. Luckily the campsite was filled with people who could relate to my problem and were more than willing to help me solve it. Nice people here in Alaska ;-)

Jim and Dee, good, down to earth and humorous guys. Also one of the very few who are religious, but kept their sense of humor. If i even feel the need to go to a church, I'll give them a call.

Next day we left for Haines Junction. Beautiful roads and sights again.

Close encounter of the BEAR kind

2008-07-14T09:05:00.000-07:00

Sunday night, day before i left Homer i was reading a book in my tent. It was about 22:00 hours. Then I heard a very low voiced sniffing around, like a dog, but a few octaves lower. A BEAR!! I stayed quite...realy quite, scared as hell, being an ignorant European guy, i didn't know what to expect.

I heard a scratching sound, content of the bag falling on the ground. some poking around in the garbage and a loud eating noise of a bear eating the applecore i left. Some more sniffing and then nothing. Phew.. I stayed quit, very quit for another few minutes. And very scared....

Luckily i didn't had food or candybar wrappers etc. in the tent. yesterday i heard that one of the guys i met in Dawson (Mac) got his tent ruined by a bear while he was in it....
Apparantly the bear walked away instead of attacking him and he got away with it.

For the last few days I hung my garbage in a tree 3 meters from my tent and about 2m high. I thought it was okay, no bear droppings in sight, lots of other guests...

What worried me the most is that i didn't hear it coming through the bushes or disappearing. I took the bearspray out. And promised to myself NEVER EVER leave eating stuff around my campsite.

Amazing how little accidents happen though, i have seen quite a lot of people leaving their food or garbage near the tent. Although you see warning everywhere with the combination of the words "BEAR" and "DON'T KEEP FOOD AROUND YOUR TENT".

I know, I should know better by now with all the warnings. But still, at 50m distance there were people making noise, you don’t expect a bear that close.

Allan told me the next day that it was probably a young grissly. After two years they are abandoned by their moms and that is a critical period for young bears and they tend go to urban areas for food, usually harmless to people unless you scare or frighten them. And that i’m probably on the bears route. The have some sort of fixed route they go where they know there is food. Like campsites....

Lesson learned. I hope you forgive me for haven't any pictures.

The last few days i finally saw a few bears on my way from Valdez to Juneau. Young ones mainly. They don't look dangerous, even cute.....

Stuck in Homer...

2008-07-03T17:57:00.000-07:00

The laptop ordering thing didn't go too well ;( I really want it, so i ordered again in Homer. Totally NOT thinking, i ordered it on July 3th, with July 4th on Friday which is a national holiday. Three days extra waiting time. So, i'm stuck in Homer. Killing time. Oh well..

Homer is a good place to chill out a few days. It rains every morning till about 11:00, forcing me to sleep through this :). Finally, as you can read, i have plenty of time to update my blog. I contacted Allan, a guy i met in Fairbanks - he bought his brand new KLR '08 there, nice!!- and he lives in Homer. Being a Carpenter he build his own house and garage/workshop. It looked professional and clean, well organized. Nice. We spend a day, went to the Homer spit, the place for hallibot fishing (and eating...)

Yesterday I did a tourist trip to a small village called Seldovia, 1.5 hour by boat. Very picturesque and very quit. But with a nice beach. Too bad it was clouded, the picture doesn't do justice to reality. Camping on the beach is allowed. So if you ever end up here, go see it, it's nice.

A bit more about past route. From Inuvik i went back to Anchorage via (again) the top of the world highway (nice!), Chicken, Tok, Paxson, Glennallan and Palmer, hoping for my Laptop to be delivered to Paul & Carol. Also, the bike needed new tires and fresh oil. By now, after all these miles, there's hardly any thread left and cornering starts getting really, really scary...

Initially i wanted to go over the Denali Highway, another gravel road through beautiful nature parks. Weather didn't help me this time and water and gravel and water caused me headaches again. Besides, worn out tires don't do very well on bad roads. I skipped this one, and took the highway. No adventures this time!

Palmer has a nice campsite and ..uh... that's about it ;-) Not really, there's good food and live music at the Vagebond Blues. I stayed one day to do all service except oil- and tire change. Met a group of Texan riders and got one of the guys adresses. He has a workshop, so i have a service station somewhere along the road.

At this point it is a good moment to thank Paul & Carol again. These good people let me stay a few nights when i arrived in Anchorage and again when I was back in Anchorage to service the bike on my way to Homer. Isn't the cat great? She was lying like this and 30 sec. later, when i got the camera, she still had this pose.. Paul is a contractor in construction, Carol is a talented painter, please check her work on http://carollambertarts.com/

I just learned that i have to wait 2 other days.. enough time to finish Ted Simon's Jupiters Travels. Good book, very inspiring.

Oh, in between activities i send back about 7 pounds of luggage! ;-)

Inuvik

2008-06-29T14:11:00.000-07:00

!! Photo's!! finally i got the opportunity to upload all my photo's on my smugmug account:
http://sanderd.smugmug.com/Alaska2Ushuaia. There are a lot of them...
Inspired by new friends in Dawson i decided to go to Inuvik. Afterall, i'm in the neighberhoud anyway... After Prudhoe bay another challange for man & material.

I was lucky again. The weathergods must love me, blue skies and occasionally a cloud. From Dawson it is a 2 days ride up and two down. Altogether appr. 1500km drive in 4 days without proper tarmac. Halfway is a is a gasstation and Campground. Again, challenging ride, lots of roadworks and thus new, loose gravel. I'v learned that the trick is to stay at about 70km/h and pick your own trail. Oh, and ignore everything the first 30 meter in front of you, not much you can do about it anyway ;-) Getting from 0 to speed and from speed to 0 are the scary bits, so not much pictures ;-) Tiring but fun and a great feeling of accomplishment.

I met a few retired guys driving 1200gs-es up that road. They're FAST! Talked to them and they've been racing all their lives. Awesome guys. Had dinner with them and i was complaining on senior citizens in huge RV's. Turned out one of the guys had actually a 1.5 million$ RV. Oops. Sorry Bud! He retired and sold his own transport company. You see that a lot around here.

On my way up (and down) i meet two couples riding both 2-up on a 1200gs. Respect to those guys. They were on the road for 5 weeks now. Without over-loading their bikes. Speaking of "Light is right". Way Cool.

The roadconditions were worse than prudhoe. Although the road was dry. There were lots of roadworks going on. These stretches have loose and very loose gravel.

The worst part was a 70km stretch between ferries: fresh, very loose gravel. After a days ride quite challanging. Tiring and sometime scary. At some point you get the hang of it though. The trick is to stay abouve 70km/h and pick your own point to look -and thus- drive to. Oh And don't mind the stuff 30 meter in front of your front wheel. To late to do anything with that anyway, so ignore ;-)

The scenery is, as with Prudhoe, breathtaking, except for the last 200km or so. Boring woods with small trees.

There was something of a learning curve there. The way up in 3th and 4th gear, the way down in 4th and 5th. Nice!! :-)

2008-06-21T21:34:00.000-07:00

Just a short update. stil no laptop. luckily i can use a laptop of a guy i met today.

This morning i left to Inuvik, the far most north place in Canada. Again, as the road to Prudhoe, i am astonished by the beautiful sceneries. TTR proved reliable. Tonight i camp in Eagle plains, somewhere halfway Dawson-Inuvik.

After a few hilarious days in Dawson (bad for budget & liver good for everthing else) it is good to be back on the road. I'll try to post a new story asap.

Ben, Dave thanks to let me stay in your backyard ;-)

Andy: Stew was great diner tonight, please mail me the link to "the dawson bargirls" threat on ADV rider asap! Can't wait to see the pictures! I hope yer Ural made it home ;-)

To all: St. Marty, Brian, Andrea, Motomac, Gary, and the rest: Thanks guys, I had a really good time!

cheers, sander!

Tale of the lost sparks...

2008-06-13T19:18:00.001-07:00

Edited: for my english speaking friends i translated the Prudhoe Bay adventure.

I could it also call it 'breakdown at pumpstation #2'. Both are good titles for an adventurous story. And to me, with limited to none travel experience, it was. Right now i'm back at the campsite in Fairbanks from where i left. Free internet and a motorcycle shop across the road is good base to solve technical problems on my TTR.

The road and scenery from Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay /Deadhorse is breathtaking. Starting with forrest and, across the Brookrange over the Atigun pass, changes to Tundra. The road follows the worldfamous oilpipeline from Prudhoe to Valdez.

The ride went without problems and all went well. Plan was to stay at the campsite at the arctic circle. When i arrived it was empty, no-one there except me and probably bears. Didn't feel right, so i decided to drive another 60 miles to Coldfoot. The last place for gas and limited shopping before the 250 mile stretch to Prudhoe. It was about 17:30, Spirit and weather both ok, so off i went. Eventually is stayed at a nice campsite 5 miles north from Coldfoot. Hosted by a friendly old couple. From them i learned that the tourist information center gives drinking water for free. Nice people there. The next day got gas and water and left early.

During a break a 1200gs drove up. It's a Colombian guy traveling with his daughter on one bike. We drove together over the Atigun pass and had lunch: Tortillas with cheese and spam. I provided the coffee. He invited me to his home in Colombia. Friendly guy, but a bit crazy: he did Fairbanks-Prudhoe-Fairbanks in one stretch. Insane. After lunch we separated, me no hurry. And, more important, my guardian angel isn't that fast...

At about 58 miles from Prudhoe and 192 miles from Coldfoot the TTR starts to misfire and dies. I try to start, check fuel. Nothing. Damn!! Luckily i'm on a hilltop and a few miles in front there's an oilpumpstation, which means shelter and communication to civilised world. Good. I decide to get there first to be safe and from the road. Trucks don't like to slow down...

The first part is easy, gravity is my friend. I only have to push the bike 2 miles... I'm happy i'm not on a GS ;-) There i start to get the bike apart to see what is wrong. Water enough, powerbars enough, securitypeople at the station. Weather still good although...

My first roadside repair! With enthusiasm i start to dismantle the bike. Underneath the tank, where the electrics are, is a big mess with mud. I get the spartplug out. No spark. damn. Can't find my spare sparkplug. Left it at home, stupid result of to much preparation: I took the spare out of the toolkit in the assumtion it would be with the spareparts. A 1200GS stops and offer me to use one of his. It doesn't fit, but enough to check for a spark: Nope. I check all connectors: doesn't help. After 2 hours i give up and look at the sky, clouds are getting dark. The security gate opens and a voice ask me what i want. I need a towtruck or pickuptruck i answer. They let me use the phone. While talking to the Prudhoe wreckingservice, a security guy send a message out on CB radio. I't my lucky day: Two pickups are willing me to take me and the bike to prudhoe. With security guys we lift the bike in the pickup. I'm joining the other with driver Nancy (thanks again honey!) She guides Heavy loaded trucks. The last 58 miles to Prudhoe are quite pleasant. We had a nice conversation about wildlife, living in Alaska and US Politics. I learned that alaskans call theiselfes "sourdough", you can use that 'title' after living in Alaska for 25 years. And i saw my first Kariboe. This way breaking down isn't that bad... Arrived in Prudhoe a strong Eskimo and me unloaded the bike. I checked in to the Hotel and went to sleep. It was a long day....

The next morning i tried again to figure out the problem. I cannot believe that the CDI or stator are shot. The stator works, when i kick the neutral light lights up. I remember that there is only one stator circuit for both light and sparks. Good.

A pickup stops by and a guy, Tom, a drillingbits salesman offers help. He offers to let me use his (heated!) garage. Business is low apparantly, because the rest of the day we drove around to get parts (WD-40, spare fuelfilters and a can of Bearspray, a very heavy pepperspray. Just in case i break down in the middle of nowhere again. Besides that, the spraycan looks a bit like a fire extinguiser. I want to use it to suprise corrupt Argentinian police. They have the habid of fining motorcyclists for not having that with them. Should be fun i think. We have lunch and i use his office internet connection to check on http://www.tt600r.nl/ what the most common failures are. Thanks Tom, i really appreciate you help, i hope you got my email.

After i check all parts in the elektrick system the TTR decides to spark again. Although i cannot pinpoint what went wrong, i'm glad that no critical parts are broken.

It will be my thirth night in a way too expensive hotel. No choice here, camping is not allowed. I got to know a few workers there, and talk some with an Aboriginal and a guy who has been all over the world. Even in Iran, and that for an American. The only place he ever had trouble was in Amsterdam. He got robbed violantly. Nice country, Netherlands.

The next morning i left with Kevin. He's also travelling solo and rides a KLR. As many KLR's this one is tricked out to be the ultimate overland bike. I should have bought one.... The weather is again, no, still, perfect. On the way up on the Atigun pass it's cold, wet and slippery. I pray to the gods of mechanics that the TTR holds up.In vain, i was soon to learn. After 130 miles the misfiring starts again and TTR dies. I pull over and start getting luggage of, and remove the seat and tank. Again, the elektrics are covered with dirt. And again is start bypassing all obvious sources of problems (sidestand switch, ignition key switch, killswitch). But nothing helps.

Kevin stays and watch the traffic and helps to find the problem. Thanks again man!

At some point a truck stops and a trucker with KTM cap steps out. He's a bike fanatic and is willing to help. It doesn't work out all too well. At that point a pickup stops and a window goes down. A familiair face asks in a funny way if i broke down again (emphasis on again). It appears to be a canadian guy i met at breakfast, back at the hotel, Barry. His businees is to buy, restore and sell old gas and combustion engines. Nice, old, stuff. I ask if it's possible to take me and the bike on the back of his pickup. No problem, he says, but i'll go all the way to Fairbanks. Lucky me. That's exactly where i need to go. I got my ipod, water and powerbars. That should keep me alive for a while, not knowing that it would be a approx. 12 hours drive. I try to make some nice pictures from the back of a pickup truck. At some point i notice that the worst is that i'm looking at the same view as on my way up. This one is nice though:

We arrive in Fairbaks at 00:30. Allan, a guy from Homer helps me to unload the bike. He gives me a cold beer and a cigarette. About what i needed at that point i guess. Thanks Al. This morning Kevin and i left at 8:30. It was a long day and i can't get a sensible word english out of my mouth. I'm tired, worn out, beat etc. I put up my tent and go to sleep.

Next day the whole ritual with cleaning the bike starts over again. First i take all the calcium chloride from the bike. This stuff is sprayed on the roads to make some sort of concrete with the gravel. It erodes like salt. It wears meterial out fast. After cleaning all connectors again. this time i notice that there is water in the CDI connector. Didn't notice this the first time. And, this is the only connector wit a proper seal on it. Bugger. I shoud have checked better. And it does explain why it worked after a day in a heated garage. Oh well. That's called learning as you go i guess.

One day i'll become a good mechanic.

Rest of the day i clean my riding gear, get the bike back together and have in general a good time. And then, just as you relax a bit and feeling quite a guy, this drives up the campsite, all the way from Iowa. The famous Belgium 'manneken pis' with remote control watersystem. Quite hilarious. I gave those guys my last beers.

4 days on the road

2008-06-06T20:06:00.000-07:00

.or to be precise, 3. Total of 420 Miles. I take it slowly ;-)

Thank you for the encouraging mails!

After i left Anchorage i stayed a night camping in Talkeetna, a small very touristic village. I spend the (rainy) evening talking with Larry, a retired chemistry teacher from Colerado. It is interesting to talk with people about current politics. (I bought a book about American History in Anchorage). Again i found out that educated Americans love their country and hate it to see it go to peaces.

After Talkeetna i went to Healy, a really boring RV park. Not much tents around there...
So i passed Denali national park. I should have stopped and do a tour, but I'm a bit to preoccupied about my first 'big adventure' : Deadhorse. At the other hand: the whole road to here is already fantastic. I hope to be able to upload my pictures somewhere. Facilities are not that great around here.

From Healy i went on to Fairbanks where i arrived yesterday. I stay 2 days at this wonderful campsite, Tanana Vally Campground. Except from the muskito's, it's very nice. Today was a shopping day. There is a Beaver Sport here! And a 30% sale on men's clothing. Damn. If i knew that i hadn't bring all my clothes. I needed a new jacket/thermal layer (left it at Paul- stupid) and instantfood for about 6 days and some other stuff. Nice to pay in $ instead of euro's. Also went to tourist information for the road to Deadhorse. This was a wake-up call: for the next 800km (and back..) there are very, very limited services. So: no cellphone coverage, no internet, no -well- one tankstation, no food, limited medical services. What they do have: muskito's, wind, bad un predicteble weather, cold (around 0-5 gr. celsius). Oh i forgot to mention BIG trucks running 90 km/h over gravelroad. And they don't like motorcycles.... This afternoon i spend some time meditating if i really want to do this ;-) Weather forecast is good, so if it stays that way, no worries.

As from tomorrow i will not have access to internet for about 6 days. The route is as follows:
day one: Fairbanks-Arctic Cirle, 318 km -camping on Arctic Circle.
day two: Arctic Circle-Coldfoot, 96km - take as much fuel as possible and continue same day to Calbraight Lake, another 160km. (worst/slowest part, mountain passes)
day three: Calbraight Lake to Deadhorse, 222km. (all flat tundra)
And then back...

If i manage to do this, the rest wil be a walk in the park.

Bike does well, i took a good look at it today. the kickstart lever was loose, hopefully no damage to the axle. The seat came loose, or i forgot to tighten it. Tire pressure seems to drop slowly. Need to keep an eye on it. Camping office closes, so i have to go.

CU in 6 days or so!
Sander

1st Day Anchorage

2008-06-02T21:59:00.000-07:00

I'm there,the bike is, got all my stuff. I'm happy! :o)

Thank you to those who made an effort to come to schiphol, means a lot!

Yesterday i arrived in Anchorage about at 20:00 local time. Paul
picked me up as promised. At his home there was diner, a beer and a
good bed. Nice.

Today was the big day. Paul scheduled his work so that he had time to
help me pick up the bike at Fedex. After passing customs (1 form to
fill in: customs form 3299, no charge) the bike was released by Fedex
and lifted on Pauls Pick-up. Back home we uncrated it. After an hour
or so the bike was ready to start. And for all people having doubts
about kickstart only: i crancked it 2 times, switched ignition on and
at first kick: presto! :-)

After lunch (nothing beats good hummus) i took the bike and picked up
my tent and bought some equipment i needed. This was also my first
driving experience on large 4 lane one-way roads....quite intimidating
;-)

Again I really appreciate the time and hospitality Paul offered. Saved
me a lot of time and money. And more important: It made starting my
trip a lot easier with a helping hand.

Tomorrow it will be a relaxed day. I go to Talkeetna, a small town
about 100kms from Anchorage on my way to Pruthoe Bay. It will be a
relaxed day with time to get used to the traffic, the bike with all
luggage and the campsite setup routine. Everything needs to settle in
the next couple of days. And i already have some stuff i'd like to
send home! ;-)

-later

3 days to go

2008-05-28T16:03:00.000-07:00

My flight (DL045) leaves from terminal 4. Just in case you might want to come over to be sure that i really leave ;-)

Thank you for the encouraging emails the last weeks. Nice. Thanks y'all!

The past weeks i spend my time with relaxing, cleaning my house and throwing lots and lots of stuff away. House has never been more empty and clean. And it seems that even an 80 Gb ipod is not big enough ;-) I tried to choose, really!

Because things went too smooth, Murphey decided to pay me a vistit. ;-(
First, my insurance agent was "wrongly informed" so my bike insurance is not ready. Second, the new Arai helmet i ordered 4 weeks ago shipped 2 days ago. So i don't think it's on time in Anchorage.

And thirth and by far the worst: after 6+ years of flawless work my Central Heating system decided to throw water out where it shouldn't. Damn. I Cannot fix this. Not a serious problem, but very annoying, especially because i hand over the house saturday. I hope i can find a service engineer tomorrow. Only myself to blame. I should have taken a service contract...

But apart from that, everything is hunky-dory! ;o)

-later

But, for the rest everything i hunky-dory!

Free at last! (sorry about the flowers)

2008-05-16T01:37:00.000-07:00

Big day yesterday. I ended my 9 year career at T-Mobile and celebrated this with a drink with recent and former colleagues. Free at last. free. fffrrrreeeeeeeeeee! :-) It wasn't that bad really, to be honest, but preparing for my trip and work is difficult. Especially the last few months were mentally tiring. But that's al over now.

Thanks for the donation guys, I really appreciate this! And i am very,very,very sorry i forgot to take the flowers home and i'm feeling very,very,very stupid about it ;(
I hope you can forgive me. And i will miss you! I hope you will read this log and write me and email every now then.

Past week was very busy crating the bike with help from my brother, thanks Rens!!, finalize packing list and some other last minute preparations, hardly leaving any room for emotional thoughts about leaving work, friends, family etc. Plenty of time to contemplate this the next weeks.

Did i mention i feel sorry about the flowers? Well, i am :(

Bike will be picked up in a few minutes. Yet another milestone reached!

-later

countdown...6 weeks to go

2008-04-11T12:09:00.000-07:00

Time for an update again. Today a few more milestones rached: This morning i went to the US Consulate in Amsterdam. In a few days i'll have my US Visa. Another check on my todo list.

Suspention upgrade : last week i brought my TTR to Hyperpro, a dutch suspension manufacturer . Today i installed my modified rear shock and mounted progressive front springs. The Bike feels much better. Tomorrow i go for a testride to feel the results with a fully loaded bike. I really appreciate the effort Bas (workshop manager) made.

Oh, and a few weeks back i handed in my resignation letter: May 14th will be my last working day. Can't wait to be honest. It's hard to focus on work with your head somewhere else.

In between i started plotting out the route through Alaska and have some sort of day-to-day planning p to june 19th in Dawson. I got an offer to stay a few days with someone in Anchorage. Nice to see that people offer help just because they can. Let's see if i can bring some real dutch treats like Jenever or Berenburger ;-)

more prep

2008-03-11T15:36:00.000-07:00

i added more fun stuff to my weblog. the google-map feature is now extended with display of tracklogs. cool. now i realy have to add a 2nd poweroutlet so i can always have the gps on.

for the curious reader i've added two blogs: one to show all about my TTR, and one to tell all about the gear i bring.

since light=right is my motto, every kilo should be thougt of several times. all my gear is displayd in my livingroom and i constantly add and remove stuff. right now all fit in a 70ltr Ortlieb bag and the two panniers. this includes hiking boots next to the crossboots i will cary (still subject to debate...). So an empty tankbag and small bagpack as expansion. not bad, not bad at all!!

few steps closer....

2008-02-24T12:13:00.000-08:00

this past week was a good one. i sold my BMW R1200GS. i need the ca$h. but it left me mixed feelings. was a good bike, never broke down although there were some issues over the 45000 km i used it. ah well. i thought of replacing it with an KTM 990 Adventure anyway. we'll see. perhaps, some day.. another milestone is that i finished repairs & maintenance on my house. now i can rent it without worries.

so: house done, beemer gone, budget on target. from now on i can concentrate on the bike, the travelplan and the paperwork.

i'm happy, tired, but happy. and can't wait to go!

Fedora 8 Tips & Tricks

2008-02-19T14:57:00.000-08:00

picked up Linux nerd-stuff again. installed fedora and found an easy page to add multimedia programs the easy way.
Fedora 8 Tips & Tricks

Follow me...

2008-02-16T11:07:00.000-08:00

Hi there I added this very cool google map feature. I'll try -not promise- to keep this google map up te date. It's easy. Go to google maps and create a new map. Add your own places. Next thing is to import a gps track or waypoints by converting to KML-, KMZ- of GeoRSS-bestand. Should be cool.
Online XSLT Translator / Covertor: KmlGpxGmlTransform.hta Application (IE only!)

planning...

2008-01-25T13:05:00.000-08:00

almost end of jan. still a lot to do, and the main focus in the next few months will be:
* jan: BMW ready to sell,US Visa arrangements clear / Bike Transport & Flight ticket ready. Break in new Berik boots!
* feb: finalize TTR: tires/chain etc. ready to do weekend trips in march. still have to test riding with luggage. perhaps adjust suspention? further routeplanning Alaska; buy set of spareparts; check on travel gear: finalise purchase list
* march: vaccinations, visum??,
* april: quit job, long distances with TTR, chill...
* may: move stuff from house, chill a bit more, route planning, say goodbyes...

Milestones:
Do. 13 maart Inleveren ontslagbrief
Vr. 9 mei Motor naar Baggage.nl
Do. 15 mei Laatste werkdag
Di. 3-6-2008 Leave!

update

2008-01-19T15:45:00.000-08:00

Time for an update... in past weeks i figured out flight and bike shipping to Alaska. Yes Alaska. Anchorage is the 'the place where it all begins'... Bike still needs work. Other bike needs to be sold and requires some TLC to make that happen. Busy weeks. Work is also busy. Time flies. Need lots of stuf to do. Look at my site! It's finally getting to the point where i want it to be. Still need to figure out photo feeds from smugmug. Oh... i added a Donate button! Feel free to try... ;o)

makeover

2007-12-27T13:35:00.000-08:00

It's been a while. I changed the blog a bit to add more information, but have serious doubts if a blog like this i suiteable for travelreports. Not much picture possibilities.

Current D-Day is 1 June. Stil 5 months to go...

2007-11-05T14:53:00.001-08:00

Dit is 'm dan. vers uit de schuur. wat voeten in de aarde gehad. maar nu bijna klaar voor gebruik! Vlak voor vertrek nog nieuwe banden, kettingset en reguliere 10.000 km beurt. Plaatje toch? Voor de technisch geinteresseerden: alles over de TTR600

paar dagen verder

2007-09-03T10:02:00.001-07:00

ik ben nu druk met informatie verzamelen, webresearch voor mijn motorkeuze
(geen magic button) vertellen aan (te) veel mensen dat ik weg wil/ga. dat
laatste met uitdrukkelijk toevoeging dat het een idee betreft, maar geen
plan is. gevaarlijk. straks moet ik wel omdat iedereen het verwacht!
nou ja. ook niet heel erg, hoewel ik een gloeiende hekel aan
gezichtsverlies heb. al zoekende kom ik steeds meer te weten.

nu eens kijken of deze mail als update op mijn site komt!

tada...

Het begin

2007-08-27T07:40:00.000-07:00

Enigszins onbezonnen met dit blog van kiet gegaan. Eigenlijk zocht ik een leuk tooltje om online mijn eigen links te plaatsen. Een blog faciliteerd daarin. Bovendien ben ik van plan een langere motorreis te maken, noem het een lange vakantie, sabbatical, vluchten, of gewoon reizen. Een Blog is een middel om mijn gedachten te ordenen, denk ik, en informatie en links etc. op te slaan. Leuk als men meeleest, niet noodzakelijk.

Aldus. Eigenlijk gaat het goed met mij, in materieel opzicht dan. Voor de rest ben ik al een tijdje beu. Of liever gezegd, ik merk dat ik mijzelf ernstig verveel. In die zin dat weinig mijn enthousiastme kan losmaken.

Hoewel, 2 dingen wel: Het idee van een sabatical. En de min of meer spontane moeiteloze aandacht een 2 jarig meisje, Famke. Dochter van Mike. Merkwaardig, ontroerend, en vooral leuk dat zo'n kruimel jouw persoontje als vanzelfsprekend ervaart en aan je benen hangt, door je opgetilt wil worden en je hand pakt om je overal mee naar toe te slepen. Ik zal eens een foto plaatsen.

Zal ik dan toch aan kinderen toe zijn? Hum, nooit gedacht. Maar goed. op reis dus. Bij voorkeur met motor. Er valt nog een hoop te doen. Voordat een idee een plan is gaat er zal er nog veel water onder heel veel bruggen doorgaan. We zullen zien.