Osorno, Chile

Dec 30, 2004

Chile is chilly, unless you are in Santiago. I am about 600 miles south, and it is raining, and the forecast is more rain, then a little bit of rain, with scattered showers on and off between the
spells of rain.

The road down was straight and quick, through vineyards that resemble the Napa valley, then alpine forests and little tin roof villages tucked into the hillsides.

Off to the left the mountain range was covered with snow.

I spent a lot longer than planned in Santiago, and just found out I am about 3000 miles north of my goal of Tierra Del Fuego, which tells me that I really do need to get and occasionally refer to a good map. I was under the impression that I am about 1800 miles away.

The map I got for $2 at the gas station doesn't have Argentina on it, so I am pretty much winging it until I get to an Argentinian gas station and can get a map there with fill up, if they run the same deal on that side of the border.

Bikes Held Hostage, Day 11

Dec 14, 2004

Today we got to see the hostages, in a bodega at the Aduana (customs) office in Quito, but the Aduana was not willing to sign the paper that he was supposed to sign yesterday but didn´t because one of his agents had filled it out wrong, or so the customs agents say. They want to go out with us, the tall skinny one has developed a crush on me, and the daughter of the customs agent is in love with Mark. So the bikes may be here a while. The motorcycles suffered a little
damage on the trip from Panama via Colombia (change of planes), and everyone who crazily chose ride here from Colombia has passed us by. Intensity Mark was practically gloating in his intense way.

I met a nice Colombian woman who wants me to pay for the time I spend with her, but it's a sure thing. Her family back home think she runs a small store that sells handicrafts. Ecuador doesn't have it's own currency. Like Panama, they use the US Dollar. My Colombian friend is upset because the dollar is falling and she can't send as many pesos home to Colombia as she was six months earlier. One of the other members of the party, who would not wish to be identified,  met the daughter of the chief of police who got mad when the one I am with asked her how much she was going to charge.

It´s a little like Groundhog Day...

Tomorrow we are going to wake up, say goodbye to the Dutch guys on the honda 50s, go down to the Agent´s office at 9:00, and wait for the paper to be signed. The clock in the agent´s office will say 4:37 again (it needs batteries) and we will wait around, watching the agent´s employees and children do crossword puzzles and play solitaire on the computer. At the end of the day the clock will say 4:37 and we will leave without our bikes. But 9:00 the day after...

San Jose, Costa Rica

Tue Nov 30, 2004

Interesting and very crowded trip from Playa Tamarindo. Both Mark and I contracted some sort of stomache thing after eating at a place called Pedros, owned by an American, with awful service and evidently even worse food. San Jose is clean, the people are friendly, and it is a lot cooler than the oceanside. But there are still mosquitos. On the way here, we observed that on one long stretch of winding mountain road a bus had broken down. Instead of moving it off the road, the police blocked traffic in both directions and let someone try to fix it. From the looks of things, they had been trying to fix it for some time. Travelling by bike is very practical in a place like this, because we are able to go past all the cars and save an hour and a half over what the guidebook says it takes in the backpacker bus. The Panamerica Highway through Costa Rica is very rough, the potholes are occasionally repaired, and we have both wondered why the richest country here has the worst roads. Another 5 liter bottle of water fell off the back of my Quota. Hopefully it didn't hit anyone.

Watching the turtle lay eggs was a bit of a letdown. And it was Mark's idea. 

Mark and I met a couple of extremely attractive Scottish nurses, and were getting along with them nicely, while plying them with beers and describing our trip in heroic detail. About 11 PM we had to leave to watch the turtles lay their eggs. After a short boat ride across a creek, a tour guide took us down to the beach and made about thirty of us wait for about two hours, then dragged us all out to where there was one turtle, a big leatherback, over a hole with about six eggs in it.

The tour guide wouldn't shine his flashlight on the turtles head so we could see it,  and kept telling me to get back and stop bothering it when I was just trying to get a better look.  I told him I paid to see the f&$king turtle, and I was going to see the f$#king turtle or they were going to give me a refund.  As the turtle laid eggs, a young American woman was collecting them and putting them in a container. After about twenty minutes of this we were led back to the boat and taken back. I jumped off the boat before it docked and went wading ashore. But alas, the Scottish girls were nowhere to be found. Mark owes me. 

When we stopped for lunch there were turtle eggs on the menu. They are served raw in a jellied tomato sauce, and are quite good.



 

Playa Tamarindo, Costa Rica

I made it to Costa Rica. When I first thought about making this trip about three years ago, this was where I intended to end up. Mark and I spent last night in Liberia, Costa Rica, in the Hotel Liberia, where for $7 each we got to share a room with private bath and fan. In the morning, there was a breakfast of scrambled eggs, rice, beans and toast for another couple of bucks. The town is supposedly one of the rougher in Costa Rica, but by the time it gets going, I am usually exhausted and fast asleep. Crossing over from Nicaragua was a hassle. If you don't use one of the border guides to get you through, the officials start nickel and diming you before they will let you leave the country. We had to pay a mayors fee of $1, an after hours fee of $2, and three dollars for a passport stamp, which we got receipts for $2 for, so the government official got himself a couple of dollars for his efforts.

I haven't seen a lot of Costa Rica so far, but the infrustructure seems vastly improved over the other countries of South America. The people appear to take pride in their country, and the only unwashed masses I have seen are the hoards of backpackers that refuse to bathe or pay two dollars more for a room with a bathroom. And I stole their soap, so they can't bathe if they wanted to.

Tonight I'm going to watch endangered turtles lay eggs and afterward have a nice omelette and some soup made fresh on the beach. The beach towns are expensive, and full of surfers and more backpackers.

More Honduras Stuff

I almost forgot to mention the ferry ride from Roatan to La Cieba. First off, I ended up missing the early boat, which takes off at 7 sharp, and sharp means sharp here, which is a bit of a shock. So I took the 1 pm boat, and decided to spend the night at the same Posada (Bed and Breakfast) as I had my first night in La Cieba. In La Cieba, the boat and dock were about the same level, but in Roatan, the dock is about six feet below the boat. After riding 135 miles exploring Roatan from one end to the other, this on my day off from riding, a lot of it in the dirt, which translates to steep wet clay with rivulets and pools of water and packs of dogs that chase me at inoportune times, I got to the dock and watched the stovedores wheel my bike to the side of the boat, about two feet from the water, and then after everything else was loaded, ten of them picked it up overhead and stuck it on the boat, after laughing and pretending they were going to drop it in the water. Both of my Quotas have been on ferries.

At the police checkpoint, where the army officers look very sharp in their winter snow camo (blue and white, very effective in the tropical jungle), I was asked to show them my license and registration, then a police officer came over to talk to me. I was sure I was going to have one of those unpleasant and expensive experiences people talk about having in latin america, but he just wanted to talk about motorcycles, being a rider himself. As soon as you tell them you are riding to Argentina, most people here assume you are crazy and leave you alone.