Status Update:

Current location: Bochum / Germany

50 countries, 1226 days, trip mileage: 124200 km

24 Aug 2010

Atacama Desert Panoramas

The Atacama Desert is the world's driest desert. And its most famous town, San Pedro de Atacama, could easily be retitled to 'San Polvo de Atacama' as the place really is fairly dusty.

The landscape here is simply stunning: lagoons, salt lakes, geysers, volcanoes... really, a landscape photographer's dream. And thanks to my trusted motorcycle, I was able to visit these places individually, rather than the crowded & pricey tourist tours.

I don't think that 'normal' pictures do this amazing place justice, so I decided to upload quite a number of panoramas to the panorama section (Gallery 3), which you can see here. Hope you like the images.


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27 Jun 2010

Paso de Jama – Three times...

... Argentina -> Chile -> Argentina -> Chile. I'm soon gonna run out of blank passport pages. Here's a little episode of what was one of the worst weeks I've had in a very long time...

It all started outside of Jujuy, where I got to know Juan, a member of Jujuy's "Horizons Unlimited" motorcycle community. Horizons Unlimited is a really great community of like-minded overland travellers – and I've met some great people through that website. But in this case, I wish I had never met the guy. Don't get me wrong – he's a nice guy and we had a good roadside chat. But his recommendation for a 'nice' route from Argentina to Chile was something I wouldn't even DREAM about recommending to single motorcycle travellers. (Team of two: no problem)

My initial idea was to cross the Andes mountain range from Salta (Argentina) to San Pedro de Atacama (Chile) via the 'Paso Sico'. When I told Juan about that, he insisted I should really take the offroad tracks from Salta up towards 'Paso de Jama', where I would hit good tarmac after just 150 km, and that 'Paso de Jama' was waaayyy better than 'Paso Sico'. Those 150km of gravel, Juan said, were very easy, very compact gravel.... "no hay problema"... and that he's been on that track several times with a bigger and heavier bike than mine. So for me, it'd be even easier.

"OK", I thought, "when in Rome... do what the Romans do". So, the next morning I followed Juan's advised route. (Salta, R40, R38,...) Big mistake! The first part up to San Antonio de Cobres was straight-forward. The following Ruta 40 was OK (though needed full attention due to some hard-to-see sandy patches in-between the loose gravel and deep washboard). Then a left-turn onto Ruta 38, where corrugations got so bad that whatever speed I tried, I just couldn't "fly over" them. Then a few km of deep sand. Once I dropped the bike, I couldn't pick it up again – even after I took all the luggage off.

Ruta 38, Jujuy:Northern Argentina - On the way from Salta to Paso de Jama (Jun 21st 2010)

My heels simply dug into the sand, instead of lifting the bike. After a few attempts, I decided to wait for help. One hour later, I saw the only(!) car of the day coming my way, and together with its very helpful driver (who also got stuck in the sand) we managed to lift the bike. 200m later I was stuck in the sand again, so the car driver came back to push me out.

No centre stand needed... (Jun 21st 2010)

As soon as the road got a little better, I saw the turn-off for the shortest way that would lead me back onto tarmac. 15 km later, the 'road' was washed away by a river and the locals told me to turn around, backtrack and take the long way back to tarmac.

After a long day without food, about 30 minutes before sunset, I finally left Argentina for Chile. Some 60 km later, I finally crossed the highest point of 'Paso de Jama' (around 4800m), and in complete darkness descended the last 100 km down to San Pedro de Atacama. I was wearing EVERYTHING I had and it was so cold I couldn't feel my fingers or toes anymore.

Paso de Jama, just before sunset (Jun 21st 2010)

San Pedro de Atacama brought the next surprise: at the Chilean customs office, I realized that ALL my bike paperwork was missing! I must have forgotten it at the Bolivia/Argentina border in La Quiaca, "just" 800km away! The border crossing was somewhat confusing, with 3 different customs officers dealing with my bike paperwork). Luckily, the Chilean customs officer was kind enough to let me into his country with an electronic copy (photograph) of my paperwork, which I had saved on my laptop. After nearly 13h of travelling from Salta, I checked into a San Pedro guesthouse at 21:45. My old travel buddy Carlos & his girl-friend were already waiting for me so we could celebrate into Carlos' birthday that evening: in a nice & cozy restaurant with warm open fire place and a good botlle of red wine, I could finally relax and warm up from the cold ride.

The next day, I e-mailed my friend Gustavo in Buenos Aires, who phoned up the border in La Quiaca. Indeed: my paperwork was at the border. But they refused to send it on to th Chilean/Argentinean border. There was no two ways about it... I had to go back ALL the way to the Argentinian/Bolivian border. 1600 km in 2 days "roundtrip". (Including a 2h discussion with Argentinian customs to let me into Argentina without any bike paperwork). The good thing about it: I was finally able to see the beautiful landscape around Paso de Jama during DAYTIME for a change. And I'm possibly the only "moto gringo" who crossed Paso de Jama 3 times within a week.

Lagoon near Paso de Jama : Chile
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2 Jun 2010

Celebrating 2 Years On The Road

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I've recently had my "2 Years On The Road" jubilee, so went through images from the past 2 years. A lot of things have changed since 2008, and travelling for such a long time certainly moved energies and the general 'travel-mood'. I often think back to friends & family I left behind. And in recent months, whenever I went to see a so-called 'tourist highlight', I sometimes felt a bit 'over-saturated' and was missing the "WOW!" experience.
Bolivia – Yours, Truly Muddy.... (April 2010) Brisbane, Australia (Sep 2009) Laos – Massage in Vientian (March 2009) Australia (June 2009) Indonesia (April 2009) Leaving our friends in Tehran Tajikistan – Khorog Paraguay – Hartmut and his BMW R69 (March 2010) So it was good therapy for myself to look at some of my old images, which brought back some memories of people, places, food and other things. I've rearranged the images into new Photo-Albums & Slideshows. Here's the Collection. And the individual slideshows: With regards to my current wherabouts: I've been stuck in Sucre / Bolivia for a while, due to problems with the thermostat and waterpump gears on the motorbike. I went for a test-ride yesterday & it all seems to good to go again.
So with a 3-week delay I'll be heading out to the Salar de Uyuni – the world's biggest salt-desert in nearly 4000m altitude. Although it's gotten pretty cold there over the past few weeks, I'll give it a go with camping as I really would like to see the sunset / sunrise in this magnificent landscape.
Images to follow soon I hope ;)
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10 Apr 2010

Paraguay

The Paraguay photo-diary/slideshow is online now. Had a very interesting & fun time there: cheap electronics shopping in Ciudad del Este, very friendly people, hardly any tourists, quite a hot ride on the Trans-Chaco Highway, some wildlife and an interesting encounter with some motorcycle-crazy Mennonites in the Chaco :) Leave a comment

3 Apr 2010

Photo-Diary: the new Blog Format

Dear all,

For the 2nd part of this round-the-world trip (South America) I've decided to change the blog-format from a 'normal' blog to a more casual photo-diary, which you can find here.
I often found myself way behind with blog-writing, whilst spending far too much time behind my laptop, trying to come up with somewhat interesting blog-writing.
The photo-diary allows for more regular updates – and I'd like to hope that it's also a little more interesting for you.

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