New tires, wheels balanced, a little out of true but on we go!!!!!

Wow – what a day – yes another one of those!
Breakfast, bike packing and gas routine in the morning. Last night we had dinner with Steve and a friend of his – a girl from Hong Kong who has been traveling through South America for the past 6 months alone! Great dinner and conversation.
Ran into two the Brazilian motorcyclists we had met at Valle de La Luna while we were looking for the gas station in San Pedro this morning – cool guys – they were going to the Pacific to check it out… we were heading towards the Atlantic 😉
We did our Chilean exit at San Pedro in no time and we were on our way.
The road was pretty incredible – we went up and up and up – gently though – up to 4800 meters – got quite chilly but bearable.
My wheel wobble would come and go – I guess the rubber would wear down and the wheel would stabilize for a little while but then it would get unbalanced again – very annoying and very unsettling on the turns – the whole bike would be loose and did not feel very stable.
But we kept on trucking…
The Argentinean border was about 1 hour and half away from San Pedro and took a little longer just because there were quite a few people there at the same time but went through smoothly.
The descent from Suques into Purmamarca was quite nice – lots of incredibly tight turns. By that time I guess I got used to the wobbly bike and enjoyed it a little more but still definitely not at my full potential.
We stopped at a nice little hotel by the road where we had a quick sandwich. I asked at the hotel’s reception if they knew of any motorcycle stores or repair shops in San Salvador de Jujuy or in Salta. An Argentinean guest immediately jumped to help me calling a friend of his who gave him the phone number of the owner of a motorcycle store in Jujuy who in turn said that he had tires for my bike AND balance the wheels!
I was ecstatic… but did not last very long because once we got to Jujuy we found out that not only they did not have the tires, they told me that the only motorcycle wheel balancing machine was in Buenos Aires – and that there was only ONE there!
I think that was one of the lowest points of this trip – my tire was down to the bone – I could probably only drive on it for another day before it literally would rip apart – and even if I got new tires, without balancing the wheel, I would wear it down in another 6 days I think. I was miserable. I even started contemplating putting the bike on a truck and sending it to Brazil.
But there was still hope… Salta is a larger city so I asked the guys to find a tire in Salta for me… they did!! Not the exact same tire but it should do. And to balance the wheel I would go to a car mechanic and have him create some kind of an adapter to fit the bike’s wheel on the car wheel machine…
Off we went to Salta – only 70km away but took us almost 2 hours – we got some back road which was beautiful but my bad mood prevented me from enjoying it…
But then again it all changed when we got to Division 2 Ruedas in Salta! The not only had my tires but they knew of a guy in town who would balance my wheels!!
What a relief!!!
And what a great hotel we found for a great price! Now all showered and ready for some dinner!

Short post today – slept in till a bit later than usual had some breakfast and then came back into the room to rest a little more.
Around 11 we took off on the bikes to explore the region. On the way we missed an exit and ended up on another route that turned out to be OK. Went to see these two lakes up in the mountains. Not bad but I think we got spoiled by the Valle de la Luna yesterday evening – that
was just spectacular – these lakes were very pretty but nothing too impressive.
On the way back we headed into the desert to see the Lago Sejas – a lake with high concentration of salt where you float a lot – dirt roads and lots of sand – pity that the video battery died – I was doing a little off road, throwing some sand up in the air while Marc
was filming.
The lake itself was pretty cool as well… I didn’t swim in it just because I forgot my swimming suit and it would be annoying to put all my gear back on with salt all over my body 🙂
Back at the hotel we ran into Steve, the American we met yesterday on the road on a KLR. He was going to the Valle de la Luna – we decided to stay in and rest some more… we’re going to meet later on tonight for dinner or drinks.

From Motorcycle NY to SP

What a day! Last night was kind of cool as well – we went around town to look for a restaurant and ran into Fernando, a local Iquiquean who showed us around and had a couple of beers with us at a bar/restaurant along the beach. Nice town.
Well… today started out with a wonderful breakfast on the 15th floor of the hotel we stayed in.
Then I went to the Yamaha dealer to see if they had a spare tube for my rear tire which I completely forgot to look for yesterday.
I ran into a Brazilian couple – Marcos and Antonela – www.motoconesul.com – who are rode from Brazil to Machu Picchu and are now heading back the same way we are going, just a day later than us!!
Then I met another motorcyclist – a Swiss guy on a Tenere 600 who’s name I didn’t get unfortunately.
The spare tube turned out to be a lot harder to find than expected but finally got it at a Michelin store.
We headed down the coastal road to Tocopilla – beautiful desert and ocean scenario!
At a checkpoint we stopped at a bar where we saw 3 bikes – another 3 were leaving. There was a 1200GS Adventure, an F800GS, and a KLR. The GSes were being ridden by a British couple in their 60’s – very cool couple – they had done the entire world already – amazing! They were going North though so our contact ended there.
The KLR was being ridden by Steve (southatsixty.blogspot.com) – an American living in Panama. He was going the same way as us.
My rear tire was still vibrating annoyingly so.
In Tocopilla we stopped for gas and to take a look at the wheel. Yesterday a mechanic said it was because the tire was being worn down unevenly, another said it was because the inner tube had formed a bubble. Finally the tire repair man in Tocopilla nailed it – some of the weights that balance the wheel out were missing!! The wheel was out of balance!! OBVIOUS!!
Unfortunately no one in that town performed that service.
So we kept on going and stopped in Calama to see if we found someone who would balance my wheel – no again. Nice little town though…
Then we arrived in San Pedro de Atacama!!
Before we got into to town though we took a right into the Valle de la Luna to see the sunset.
PERFECT timing – we got there – walked up the hill and saw the sunset.
We ran into 3 Italian guys who had rented 3 KTM 990’s just like mine in Santiago and were going up to the Salar de Uyuni – a stretch we skipped due to lack of time – next trip 🙂
We also met some Brazilians who were traveling through the region on a van and 2 motorcycles. They gave me some good tips about the road we’re going to take through Argentina.
We have never ran into so many motorcyclists in this entire trip – was pretty cool – I guess this place is pretty special – so we also decided to take a day break here – our second PLANNED break so far 🙂
The town is amazingly cute, full of tourists and nice hotels. We are staying at the Terrantai hotel.
Tomorrow we shall do some “real” tourism 🙂

From Motorcycle NY to SP

Heheh… totally unrelated video to this blog at this moment but had some time to kill this morning and found this video… cracked me up!

I am loving this country and as I said previously it’s the “civilized” country of South America… and maybe a bit too “civilized”.
Check out their Coats of Arms:

Por la razon o la fuerza!!? 

Allright!! Moving forward again!!
But first an update from last night… we ran into two Argentineans who were leading a motorcycle trip around this area… they were the guides of a group of friends who had already left back to Buenos Aires by plane. Nice guys…
This morning we went to court and my guess was right – we got summoned because the guy from SAG – Servicios Agricolas e Ganaderos – was pissed that the guys from immigration and customs were ignoring him and not sending people to his booth… well not quite like that but we were the second or third case this week which had missed some steps at that border.
The judge, a nice lady, who I think is one of the Argentinean’s “girlfriend”, took our statement and told us that since nothing wrong was found in our bags nothing would happen to us. She also said that she understood that the procedures were not too clear and said that there were some animosity between the public sectors at that border. Our statements would be used to improve that process!! Cool!
We then went to Carlo’s place to see if the parts (break pads and visor for helmet) were going to arrive today or not – they weren’t. So we decided to leave.
We thanked him profusely for his help and gave him a bottle of wine and one of whiskey.
As we were about to leave, Mauricio – Carlos’ son – stopped by to say goodbye and then proceeded to drive us out to the highway also giving us some tips on where to stay in Iquique!
Thanks to the Herrera Guierra family!!
Here’s Carlos washing my bike 🙂

From Motorcycle NY to SP

The drive was ok – desert again but with some massive sand dunes again and a bit of crosswinds.
My rear tire is now wobbling a little at high speeds – annoying but nothing serious at all.
For some reason we were both tired and had to take some breaks even though it was only a 4 hour ride.
We got to Iquique and found a mechanic who had my breaks, used but in much better shape than the ones I had one!! I could not believe it! He also checked my rear tire and confirmed that there was nothing to do other than get new ones and not to worry about it.
Now at the hotel Mauricio recommended and going to dinner soon.
Very happy to be back in motion 🙂

I guess we were tired from yesterday – we slept till around 10am today!
Around 11:30 Carlos stopped by to pick us up and go to “Marcela” – his garage/beach house where we… well… his employees washed and waxed Marc’s bike! Mine was done after lunch so we had to do it ourselves… oh… such a drag! Hehehehe…

I also took Carlo’s brand new Yamaha MT-01 1700 out for a spin… yes – not helmet and flip flops – fun though 🙂 Not available in the US for some reason…

We also called up a mechanic who came to pick my rear tire up and fix the tube that we pinched when trying to put it back on – total amateur stuff. I got all the tips from him on how to do it now 🙂
We had lunch at the same place we had dinner last night – DiMango – we weren’t able to pay again!
We have to find some present to give to him… we asked how could we repay him – he simply said that whenever a biker needed help in the future, we would help that guy – pay it forward 🙂
We had a little bit of a scare though – he called up a friend who told him that it was impossible to go from Atacama into Argentina because there was an 800km stretch with no gas! My bike has a 250km safe range – 300km TOPs!
Turns out it IS possible – we checked the motorcycle forums (http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/) – and got the information we need in terms of routes and distances between gas stations.
Turns out that I will need to take some gas with me – one extra gallon (4L) or two – probably will take 2 gallons just to be safe.
Tomorrow we have to go to court to explain why we went through the border without completing all of the procedures and probably pay a fine or hopefully just get a slap on the wrist. Let’s see.
Then we wait for the parts which are going to be purchased first thing tomorrow morning – we ordered a set of break pads for my bike and a new visor for Marc’s helmet. His visor got badly scratched the day my bike had the wiring problem – for the first time he left the helmet inside his side bag and with me riding it back and forth, the visor scratched against the inner metal walls of the case.
Soooo… we should be out of here on the 10th or in the best case though highly unlikely tomorrow afternoon.

Well still missing yesterday’s video but we finally got good and solid internet so I updated the videos – check on the posts below for them.

From Motorcycle NY to SP

Ok – this was probably the most eventful day so far.
Started out of La Paz OK – we saw Jorge, an Argentinean on an old (1979) Kawasaki 660 – he’s on his way back from a “short” ride from Buenos Aires to Machu Picchu and back.
Gas was hard to find on the way out – we wanted at least 90 octane fuel and to pay with a credit card – yeah right! Settled for 84 octane and paid in US dollars at a bad exchange rate.
The GPS was routing us back through Peru and when it finally found a route through Bolivia to Chile it was not showing the roads we were actually traveling on.
I then almost ran out of gas getting to the Bolivian border, which was very easy.
The Chilean border was further down the road and probably the most scenic border you’ll ever see.
We arrived along with a big bus full of people… and got into the line that they were standing on.
Turns out we had to get a piece of paper from office number 1 who told us to go to immigration – house number 3 – who told us to go to customs – house with no number – who told us we were done!
We happily took off noting that there was a 4th step – police – which I assumed was further down the road. I also assumed that house number 2, agriculture and sanitation was for trucks carrying cargo.
15km down the road a check point. It did not look good when the officer called someone and talked to them for a couple of minutes.
We had to go all the way back because we had forgotten to get “a stamp”. Marc asked if we could just do it there but the officer was stern and said that we had to go back – no way of getting through that point without going back.
So we back tracked – a very annoying thing to do on a trip – and got back to the border where we were told that we had not completed house number 2 nor house number 4 – we fled the scene – and that was VERY serious.
I explained that we were told that we were done and police check points usually are further down the road from the border.
He didn’t really care and said that we would have to appear in court in Arica so that a judge could decide what course of action to take with us. I continued arguing that it was an honest mistake and that we had no intention of not following their procedures but the officer was
unmoved and started writing up our summons.
Another guy was being booked for having a mango in his car – he also had forgotten he had it – and was going to have to show up in court on the following day (Monday).
“Wait, isn’t Monday a national holiday!?” said one of the officers.
So now not only we had to show up in court, we would have to stay an extra day in Arica to go to court on Tuesday!! I insisted in trying to make the problem go away right there to no avail. The officer filled out what seemed like 10 forms and instructed us to go to Arica and appear in court on Tuesday – so we’re stuck in Arica on Monday – a Chilean national holiday – waiting for our court appearance on Tuesday 10am!
After making sure we had completed all the required steps we were finally riding in Chile – and a beautiful one I must add.
Halfway down the road we stopped at this small “complex” where you could get fresh juices, lodge, camp, go on archeological tours and even do astronomy at night. We walk in to find a Canadian girl and four children eating at a table watching TV through a PowerPC
Macintosh computer. The “man of the house” was baking some bread. We were welcomed and got some juice and a sandwich. We were told that all the electricity comes from solar panels and wind powered generators.
Very interesting place.
Further down the road, 40km or 1/2 hour to get to Arica I start feeling my rear a little wobbly. I kept on thinking in was merely psychological but at one point I stopped an my fears were confirmed…
A FLAT tire!!!
I proceeded to remove the wheel from the bike and getting to the inner tube when some bikes stopped by to see if we needed help. At that point things were looking good buy we gladly accepted one of the guys help to remove the tire from the rim. They soon left and we were left
there with the task of replacing the bad tube with the spare I was carrying.
I’ve changed plenty of bicycle tires before but a motorcycle tire is an entirely new ball game. The amount of strength you have to put on it to place the tire back onto the rim is pretty awesome.
I couldn’t believe that the tire would simply plop back on to its proper position once you inflated the tube – which we were trying to do with an electrical compressor connected to the bike’s battery. It did not look promising because of the rate at which the compressor was
filling up the tire and because of the position of the wheel on the rim.
So I removed the tire from the wheel again and started it all over thinking I had done something wrong.
Turns out I was doing everything correctly… but the spare tube I had was either damaged as well or I damaged it in the haste of putting it back into the rim!!
So we were stuck in the middle of the road with no way of fixing it there on the spot.
I crossed the road and went up to a couple that was talking in front of a parked truck. Turns out they were having a fight or a big talk – they were both crying! So I diverted to talk to some other people to see if they had a cell phone so that I could call one of the guys who had stopped previously.
“Sure but there is no cell phone coverage here!”
Back on the bike Marc had pulled out the satellite phone! Perfect! 
Not so… we kept on getting invalid number… 
The sun set and it got dark…
Plan B – put the wheel back on the bike and push it to the other side of the road and leave it there for the night – next morning we would come with new tubes and a mechanic to help us out. 
As we were waiting to cross the road 2 motorcyclists and a car stop to see what happened… 
“Wait here – I am going to get my pick up truck and we’ll take the motorcycle into Arica!”
HA!!! 5 seconds later they would have missed us!
20 minutes later we put my motorcycle on the back of his truck and he takes us to his house – well – his garage – which had about 20 cars and some motorcycles and a bunch of people helping out. 
“Leave the bike there for the night and tomorrow we’ll deal with it. Take a car so that you can take your stuff to the hotel and that can drive around – or do you want to take a motorcycle?”
I settled for the Mercedes (M-class) where I put all of my gear and then proceeded to follow him on his truck and his son on another car to the hotel. Marc followed us on his bike.
At a gas station Marc and I just laughed at the whole situation – this day was getting more interesting by the minute. 
At the hotel Carlos negotiated a special deal for us and told us that he would stop by in one hour to take us out for dinner! 
11:30 we hop back onto my new ride and follow his son who came pick us up on his car. 
We arrive at the restaurant – probably the only one in town open so late on a Sunday night – and wait a little for Carlos to arrive. 
Turns out Carlos did a motorcycle trip to Brazil when he was 21 – 4 months on the road as well – so he understood our pain. 
As the conversation went on we told him that I needed new break pads and that Marc needed a new visor for his German helmet – both hard to find parts in this area. 
No problem! They whipped out their cell phones and started making calls. A friend of theirs races KTMs and is going to find these parts on Tuesday morning and take them to the airport so that they arrive in Arica Tuesday early afternoon!!
We tried to pay the bill but his influence over the waiters was greater than ours and even though Marc had given them his credit card at some point during dinner, Carlo ordered the waiter to not take it and paid for dinner as well!
WOW – what a day and how lucky we were to have run into them! Endless generosity!

From Motorcycle NY to SP