The Wife takes on Chlamydia. A South American Retrospective

Just a quick update should anyone be interested. Been out of touch in terms of RR updates for a little while.

In early June I had a great time watching the TT on the Isle of Man. I want to find the time to post a few pics here.

Last week following and accident in my house I was operated on my back and have some nice new pins there to set off airport metal detectors. Hope to make a close to full recovery, but no bike riding for me this year :-(

As you've also seen by the image place holders above, the fcuker from Photobucket are partaking in some very sharp business practices. There's a thread at http://advrider.com/index.php?threa...ed-to-charge-for-third-party-posting.1236862/

So I'll have to spend many hours sorting this situation to make the images reappear on this RR and my other RRs. Won't be giving those sh!ts any money. I won't be blackmailed!

So, wishing everyone a fun summer! And beware of gravity!

Chris
 
Hi Chris,
great reading,some pics fab, but I thought it was only me who can't see pics due to photo bucket 3rd party rubbish message..
I am glad you mentioned.........sad business
..hope you are getting well and keep up the spirit...
cheers Albatross
 
Thanks for the kind words Albatross!

Just an update. After a little birdy whispered me a workaround to the extortion attempts of the fcukers at the image hosting "service" Photobucket, Greg was kind enough to edit all my posts to make the images display again. Thank you Greg!!

I'm on a Windows 7 PC running Chrome. They also appear on my Samsung cell phone (Android and Chrome). If you can't see them (i.e. only see placeholders demanding money...), please let me know.

The workaround in adding ~original immediately after the .jpg in the IMG code.

I've downloaded all my images from photofcukem and will self-host all digital content in future.
 
Going to get this RR going again after a longer break. It needs to be done and will serve another purpose to take up some of the many hours of boredom I have every day where I’m just sitting around whittling my life away.

The summary so far: Between October 2015 and July 2016 I rode a shagged out Gen 1 Kawasaki KLR650 20 thousand miles around South America. From Sao Paulo in Brazil, via Foz to Iguassu, to northeast Argentina to Bolivia, to N Chile via the Altiplano, southern Peru to Lago Titicaca, where the RR has gotten to so far.

What follows will be more fooling around Bolivia and a New Year on a Brazilian beach with a Brazilian with a Brazilian. Then, following the 2016 Dakar race from Uyuni all the way to the podium at Rosario, it’s down the Ruta 3 to Ushuaia and an Antarctic cruise.

After that the minor case of a ride all the way to Santa Marta in Colombia.

I rode around this magnificent continent on an airhead GS around the Millennium, so will continue to mention my views/ thoughts/ pictures of then and now.

Feel free to comment. It’s a bit boring to just post stuff and hear nothing from anyone.

A couple of pictures...

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Out of hospital, but sporting a starship trooper brace


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Michael Dunlop on his way to winning the 2017 Isle of Man TT Senior race
 
There's now the opportunity to play cat and mouse with disappearing and reappearing images, all based on the fact that Photobucket is messing people around with their extortion attempt. Rather than placeholders demanding a ransom, it's a case of regular placeholders that signify that no image of that name exists in that server location.

Then following a hard refresh (Crtl + F5 in Windows), different images disappear and others "reappear"... I'm running this RR on 3 different forums and different images are visible/ not visible at any particular point in time, all on the same laptop. Also different on my Android phone. Go figure.

I started trying to link to images on my own webserver, but it's a huge faff editing all the IMG codes and reloading everything. Having said that, this option may well become inevitable in the near future.

If everything goes t!ts up, please let me know!
 
The ride to Lago Titicaca

Kicking off this RR again. I spent a night in Colca town before heading towards Lago Titicaca and the border back into Bolivia.

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Allegedly the highest Irish pub in the world. No Guinness served. Nor Jameson. Just one other obnoxious tourist in there. The barman was sh!te too, so didn’t think it appropriate to share my money with this establishment



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Christmas coming up, so nativity plays need practising



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Wonder what this lorry is transporting….



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Views en route



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Never say you weren’t warned!



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Hippies were all around South America. In 2000/1 and in 2015/6. Harmless enough and still drugged up and broke. At traffic lights lots of squeegee merchants and “jugglers”. A lot of them from Argentina. And why not? Their own country is utterly bankrupt. Still can’t play a decent guitar though.



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Catching up at the end of the day



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In 2015. However many times you visit it, it’s still mystical.


In 2001:

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Then (in 2001), traditional dress

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And now, replica football shirt. Fuel still comes out of a drum and dispensed with a funnel…

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What a view



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Same ferry service to the mainland as in 2001



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Side trip down the now less than deadly Death Road

In 2001 I rode down the dirt track into the Yungas region, part of the Amazon jungle (whose principle crop is coca leaves… processed into a white powder in Colombia...) from the heady heights of the pass above La Paz to the town of Coroico. In those days there was only one road, barely wide enough in places for two 4 wheeled vehicles to pass.

Then and now the obligation is to drive on the left. On every other South American road, people drive on the right. The reason being is that the road hugs the right hand hill side on the way down and drivers of left hand drive vehicles on the down hill journey can see where their left wheels are in relation to the several hundred foot sheer drop-off. In those days some people did die. Indeed, I saw an older man on the side of the road on one corner with a flag, who apparently made it his life’s work to wave his flag to all cars/trucks/bikes to warn them. He had lost his entire family when their minibus rolled off the road!

Today, however it is the most un-dangerous, un-deadly, average gravel track that can be found 100s of times throughout the Andes. Why: An alternative paved road to Coroico on the other side of the valley has been built. The old “Death Road” has been graded and crash barriers have been put in the corners. It’s still scenic if there’s no cloud or rain. Virtually the only traffic is now cycle tours and other detritus like me.

The bicycle tours are still milking it, as can be seen from this backpacking “survivor” pictured below. He seemed surprised I was taking his picture in an ice-cream parlour in La Paz.

I took the following video on the helmet mounted GoPro, in which I might well be taking the p!ss out of said survivors :) If I’m honest, it was dangerous for me riding up the hill: meeting mainly female, mainly French, mainly heavy weight cyclists head-on who didn’t know their left from their right ;-) Sorry if any offense is caused. It is intentional! ;-)

It’s probably the most boring 21 minutes of footage on the internet. (See 13.25 onwards ;-) ) A lot like the majority of unedited self-published helmet cam footage out there….

2015 Tshirt. Ha ha

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2001: Scary? Yes

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2015: Not now





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The sign says it. This picture was taken by an Israeli couple on their honeymoon. The man tried to convince me not to ride the road as it would be too dangerous for me. They had just ridden it up hill.

It took my best smile and random polite platitudes to get through to him that I was going to flatly ignore everything he told me.



2001 view from Coroico

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It rained a lot in 2015



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Gas station tourist attraction in 2015?



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La Paz, when it’s cold isn’t so much fun. It’s a big and dirty metropolis. Taking this picture was the highlight of my stay
 
The Ruta del Che


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I found Bolivians in rural areas, away from the big towns and especially away from the usual gringo tourist centres, to be warm-hearted, inquisitive and friendly. Fuel for gringos at Bolivian gas stations is 3 times the price the locals pay. However, if you get it from a drum on the side of the road you get it for the same price the locals pay = 25% more than the regular government price… Often out in the boonies there isn’t a reliable gas station for many many miles, so local entrepreneurship wins the day.




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Don't think any of these 3 chaps are/were ever on P=45, P-10' Christmas cards list. ¡Viva la revolucion!




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I think I need my GPS to follow the route...





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A map to give you an idea where the Ruta de Che is. It's essentially many different dirt roads that lead to the village La Higuera where Che Guevara was killed by the army in 1967 after he entered Bolivia in order to promote his ideals. The roads are all similarly deadly to the hyperbollox "Death Road" as covered in the previous post. Wide gravel/ dirt with marginally tricky bits once in a blue moon. If you ride/drive off the edge, death could possibly come to pass. If you don't, you're pretty much guaranteed to have no fatal mishaps.




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La Higuera lives its infamy large




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More largess




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Y mas. There were a couple of restaurants in the village. They refused to serve me as I was alone and they couldn't be ar$ed to cook for one solo punter. Ended up asking the lady in the grocery store nicely if she could fry me a couple of the eggs she was selling, along with some bread and cola I bought from her.




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3 of Che's disciples who were also killed at La Higuera




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Pleasant views



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Good memories



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¡Si!




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Vilagrande. Carrying a 10 litre container with which to walk into gas stations in order to buy gas at the locals' price, having parked the bike around the corner. It developed a hole near the bottom shortly after I bought it ;-) The cell phone coverage in Bolivia is better than in England




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Pretty big bridge




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Over this...



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I spent Christmas back with Mika and his mates in Samaipata, but lost most of the pictures from there as my phone didn't react so well to being dropped in the Atlantic Ocean off Brazil. Probably a good idea, as far too much alcohol was involved celebrating the birth of the Baby Jesus :)

I flew back to Sao Paulo and the Brazilian coast for New Year to meet with a dear friend, Simone. A pleasant way to see in 2016...
 
Chasing the 2016 Dakar Race: Intro and Overview

Here's a bit of info about what the first half of 2016 would hold for me. Firstly to follow the Dakar for a (long) ways, then take a cruise to Antarctica before the minor case of riding all the way from Ushuaia to Cartagena.

By way of an introduction, here's another screenshot from my gps tracklog

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This part of the route takes me from Santa Cruz de las Sierra in Bolivia to the Altiplano at Uyuni and then chasing the 2016 Dakar race via NE Argentina (the prettiest and least commercialised part of the country, in my opinion) to the finishers' podium at Rosario. A bl00dy long way in not a long time. So many hours at 55mph, half of it with a very badly mangled left knee. Thank God for the highway pegs and front saddle bags so that I couple ride with my leg laying straight out on top of it.

I'm going to divide this part of the report into multiple sections (pretty much by the day), as I have quite a few shiney pictures to show.


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The official 2016 Dakar map. The web link is at Route: Dakar


Please note this is the 2016 event won by Toby Price, not 2017, where Britain's Sam Sunderland showed the rest how it was done....

A few taster pictures:



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Drifting around a curve at the Salar de Uyuni



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Hanging with the Bolivian police



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Malle Moto, luxury style. Having tomorrow's road-book marked up for you, while you clean the airfilter. I had sneaked into the overnight bivouac at La Rioja




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The Top 3 bikes at the podium at Rosario. I also bullsh!tted my way into the VIP area at the podium in order to be in the right place to take this and many other pictures :D
 
As I've currently too much time on my hands, I downloaded some video editing software and cut together these 2.15 minutes from watching the '16 Dakar at the Salar de Uyuni, a place you can return to a thousand times, without it losing its mysticism. I'll post some still images tomorrow.

 
Images from the '16 Dakar Race at the Salar de Uyuni on the Bolivian Altiplano

Actually just a few pictures of me, Chlym, Nick and his bike on some salt

I hooked up with Nick from the UK via Facebook. He was on his own trans South Am journey, but with a slightly different itinerary (did I actually have an itinerary?!... Looking at my tracklogs, I don't think so!), so we only rode together for a couple of days. A fun time and we were able to meet up again down at the Fin del Mundo in Ushuaia.

As you saw in a previous post when I was at the Salar de Uyuni a month or 6 weeks before, there’s a big Dakar monument near the "original" Salt Hotel. The Bolivians and more to the point el Presidente Ivo Morales are utter bike and Dakar nuts. The Bolivians, and also the Argentines, are hugely enthusiastic about this event. And they have the security apparatus and strength of governance to prevent the shenanigans that caused the event to be moved from north and west Africa in the mid-2000s.

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Nick and I joining the locals for a photo.



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Many found Chlym to be more fun to sit on for a picture ;-) They have that appreciation for the Japanese utterly shagged-out look, carburetor and growling loud pipe! Fuel injected Austrian shiney high tech just doesn’t create the appropriate image on their Facebook, or when showing the pictures to granny back in La Paz, Sucre or Cochabamba.

Oh and the clouds looked ominous…




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After a night camping on the Salar…. Turned out nice again! Time to intercept the race




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Just one more portrait!



…Race action pictures to follow mañana, honest!
 
Finally some race pictures from day 6, the second of a 2 day marathon stage at the Salar de Uyuni, the huge salt lake on the Bolivian Altiplano

For information, there haven't been and won't be for the next chapters of this RR any BMW "Goaty" pictures and words because I never followed the race on said "Ex-wife" and in 2001 the Dakar race still finished in Senegal's capital city in West Africa.

I did watch a day of the 2005 edition in the dunes at Merzouga in Morocco though. I was there on a clapped out Honda Transalp rat bike. Morocco TBSdotCom A couple of '05 pictures, where they still rode 650cc size bikes include:


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Jean Azevedo of Brasil, my mate Geraldo Lima's rider (he of the spectacular crash picture in post 13). Every time I come to watch him race, he's a DNF! Maybe I should be paid to stay away!



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Tragically Andy Caldicott of Australia was killed a couple of days later :-(



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Francisco Pallas of Venezuela, 53rd




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Marc Coma of Spain, Winner



Back to 2016...

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Amand Monleon of Spain, 10th in Rosario at the Podium




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Laia Sanz of Spain, first woman finisher at Rosario




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Ivan Cervantes of Spain, 16th




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Paolo Ceci (ITA), towing his boss Joan Barreda of Spain, whose engine had expired. Honda, to put it politely, suffered from major "reliability issues" in 2016. This was the year Honda "had to win". Factory teams including HRC, Honda South America, Honda Brasil and Honda Portugal started. A lot didn't finish.

And again, KTM got the top 3 finishers (3rd was a rebadged KTM = Husqvarna)




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Adrien Metge of France, 11th




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Patricio Cabrera of Chile dnf. Woohoo, the only Kawasaki in the race!!




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Pedro Bianchi of Portugal 69th, failed to keep up with his girlfriend (Laia Sanz)... I like his style: MX boots are old and scuffed, rather than the shiney gear most of the riders were wearing.



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Cristian Espana of Andorra, DNF. Those Suzukis! Hope the DNF wasn't because his bash plate eventually fell off!




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Mr Scott Bright of the USA, 53rd. No relation! You can tell; he know how to ride properly! :)



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The local competitors got a particular welcome. Walter Nosiglia on the 6th quad home. He owns a Honda bike shop in La Paz and is a bit of a celebrity in Bolivia. Goaty did an oil change in his shop in 2001




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David Wijnhoven of the Netherlands, 54th. Briefly chatted to him in Rosario. Great bloke




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Chris Cork from the UK, DNF on day 10. On the night he was forced to sleep out in the desert, I had sneaked into the bivouac at La Rioja and his mechanic told me he was expected "later on". It was already 10.30pm! Good luck for your next attempt at the Dakar!




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Another Suzuki, belonging to Sebastian Cavallero of Peru, an eventual DNF. They should really bolt those bash plates on properly! He'd clearly had a crash and the front of his bike was all messed up. I'd like to say my cable ties and Nick's piece of webbing got him to the finish of the stage. :) We saw him again the next day at Turpiza where his bike had been fixed more proficiently!
 
Amazing RR Chris. Every page makes me more and more envious :beerjug:
 
Day 7 of the '16 Dakar, night of the 8th and morning of 9th January 2016, near Turpiza, Bolivia

When following the Dakar, it’s important to find out about road closures occurring the night before the next stage. Often the access-road to the viewing point is also part of tomorrow's race track, so you have to arrive there the night before and in plenty of time too.

Nick and I rode back across the Salar towards Uyuni town and the next viewing point, maybe 80km (?, I really can’t remember) beyond Uyuni town, near Turpiza. A (4x4) car full of (drunk) Bolivians from Santa Cruz (the ones in the green/white flags in my last video) asked if they could follow us back across the mostly flat and featureless salt lake. Local knowledge and all :)

In Uyuni we ride along a bit of the trail from the stage finishing line towards the bivouac and got overtaken by some race cars.

The police were already out on the way to Turpiza, ready to close tomorrow’s racetrack and we made it to the next view point just before dark. The question: Where to camp, especially as we’ll have to leave a lot of stuff and the bikes unattended tomorrow? Why not befriend the local police and pitch our tents next to theirs?

An attempt to shoehorn another Goaty picture into this bit off the RR. In 2001 I did once sleep at a police station in NE Peru when I couldn’t find any accommodation in that particular hamlet. Just asked nicely…

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Anyway…

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Letting the local police have a sit on the bikes. Nick carefully holding on to make sure the guy doesn't drop his 690.




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Hangin' with t'lads




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It's cold, so we'll just torch a few bushes in the desert, thought the policeman. Hope my tent doesn't burn down, thought Chris....




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Possible Biblical connotations ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_bush ) , or just keeping warm? The temperature drops dramatically at night at 3500m above sea level...
 
Turpiza race bike pictures and video

A quick fast and dirty video, not made with love, but still… Why am I panting. No air at 3500m...





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Just a little experiment with making an animated gif. Sorry, I’m bored at home at the moment. Even flash animations have been superseded because they won’t run on Apple devices and were good for getting viruses onto your machine. Here is the top lady Laia Sanz, again.





Now loads of race bike pictures. Taken in the order I took them. I struggle to edit the number down any further. And this thread is pretty much a personal and public diary anyway, so why not? ;-)


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Toby Price, Australia, winner



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Kevin Benavides, Argentina, 4th



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Xavier de Soultrait, FRA, dnf



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Olivier Pain, France, 22nd



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Armand Monleon, Spain, 10th



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Ivan Cervantes, Spain, 16th



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Fabricio Fuentes Bolivia, 38th, getting some air!



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Jun Mitsuhashi, Japan 56th. Japan’s only m/c competitor. On a KTM!



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Sjors van Heertum, Netherlands, 51st



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Julio Quiroga, Argentina 66th bike and Alexis Hernández, Peru 8th quad



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Enric Martí, Spain, 77th



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Jose Garcia, Spain dnf on the only BMW in the race. More about him a subsequent chapter. Here he still looks happy….



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Sylvain Espinasse, France on a 125cc 2 Stroke Husqvarna! And he reached the podium in Rosario!!! Serious respect!



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Yesterday’s Suzuki Man… Gone are the gaffer tape, cable ties and webbing. And the bash plate is bolted on properly…



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Chris Cork, UK, dnf
 
Turpiza to the Bolivia/Argentina border: Must ride far and fast to keep up with the race!

Very tragically today one of the race buggies hit and killed a young Bolivian boy. What a crying shame!

It was time to break camp and say my goodbyes to Nick. His route was different to mine. We met again at the Fin del Mundo in Ushuaia.

He went west back to Uyuni town. I headed east towards the main road and then south to the border with Argentina. As a Dakar chaser there are many miles to cover every day.

The following video is self-explanatory… :)


https://youtu.be/Jt7lOf8zJe0


After dropping down from the mountains it became dryer and warmer.



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Interesting rock formation



Upon arriving at the main (paved) road there’s a traffic jam. I ride to the front. The road is closed until 10pm as it’s currently being used as a liaison stretch for all the race vehicles and their backup teams heading to Salta in Argentina for a rest day. Bollox! It’s 5pm now and gets dark at 8 or so. Ok, sob story = marginal BS story…. "As I’m on a bike I need to ride only in daylight as it’s dangerous to ride in the dark". The policeman believes me! And I’m through! It must be that cute innocent face I have :)


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No difficulty in working out what this guy does for a living!



I was overtaken by several race trucks, with friendly toots from them. Also overtook one truck that sounded severely sick. If they could get to Salta they would have a day to fix it. Hope they did. Coming into Villazon, the border town to Argentina, I can’t say how many spectators thought I was a racer… In my dreams!
 
Salta to Belen

After a good night’s sleep at Villazon, I slept in too. Should be an easy day as the Race was having a rest day at Salta in North West Argentina, where I had already visited in November. Oh no… I can’t calculated in the 5 or 6 hours to cross the border into Argentina. It hadn’t occurred to anyone in the Bolivian immigration service that as they hadn’t let anyone apart from racers pass the day before, there might be more people today… And all those people following the race too. And from 1 til 3pm, let’s only have 1 person stamping passports as there rest are out to lunch. All part of the fun, I suppose.

So I crossed the border at about 5pm. The 5 hours I planned on taking to Cachi situated on the Ruta 40 to intercept the race took 9 hours! I had to eat, find fuel and riding mountain dirt tracks in the dark isn’t possible at 55mph! I slowed it right down. Best to arrive alive! I got to where the road was closed pre-race at 2am. Lots of Argentines still partying!

In the morning, I met a couple of Dutch people supporting one of the race teams. In a rented 4x4. In the back a brand new ktm450 engine amongst other spares. Should any of their team have a problem, a car would get to them much quicker than the big lumbering support truck. They gave me a cap and some water to drink as my supplies were dry.


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Another map someone showed me



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Despite the slog down the highway, it’s always possible to stop for a quick picture



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Up early after 3 hours sleep



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Antoine Meo, France, 7th



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Paulo Goncalves, Portugal, one of the favourites, dnf



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Gerard Farres, Spain 8th



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Helder Rodrigues, Portugal, 5th on the first Yamaha home



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Emanuel Gyenes, Romania, 14th



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Milan Stanovnik, Slovenia, 79th riding Malle Moto. That means you ride all day and then maintain your own bike at night! The ultimate respect! A bit of the fairing missing from the bike.



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You can always tell when one of the famous names is going to pass. There’s a helicopter above. In this case Stephane Peterhansel



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7 times winner on a bike and this year his sixth win in a car. I give you Mr Dakar…



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Erik van Loon, The Netherlands 13th car



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Carlos Sainz, Spain, dnf this year. I was in the bivouac at La Rioja when he was towed in. A 2010 winner and 29 stage victories
 
Belen, Argentina, Day 9 of the 2016 Dakar Race. Just about staying on schedule

Before leaving the viewing position at Cachi, I jumped off a 5 foot wall and twisted my left knee, again. Ouch! I don't have a left cruciate ligament anymore from a previous motorcycling mishap. My party trick is being able to hyper extend it, kind of like Monty Python's Ministry of Funny Walks, except it puts me in excruciating agony. Not nice. It again, became really swollen. Bollox.

I managed to hobble around to pack up my tent and set off. I wear full technical knee braces when riding from the previous knee event, so doped up on pain killers and anti inflammatory tablets, I could still ride.

The Ruta 40 that was now really carved up, in particular because the race cars and trucks had left the dirt road badly rutted. I overtook most of the cars and motorcycle spectators who had set off ahead of me too :) At Cafayatte the pavement started again, which was a relief as I was able to stretch my leg horizontally forward on the front saddle bag that held my wet weather gear.

I intended reaching Belen, which would have involved a couple of hours of night riding. Shortly after passing a small town and with the sun having just set, I was welcomed with the sight of a wicked electric storm in the distance. Upon getting closer I entered a “100% humidity job” ( = a wall of rain). Stuff that for a game of soldiers; I'll return back to the last town, even if I have to shelter the night in someone's doorway, I thought.

I asked a couple of people walking up the street if there was somewhere I could stay. They really had never met a British person before! Would have stayed to chat, but had to pop some more ibuprofen first and I really was hungry too! One of the things with being marginally proficient with a gps unit is that if everything goes to plan, I don’t really talk to many people as there’s no need to ask directions. Now, with this change of plan, I actually had to speak with someone! Heaven forbid! Very different to 2001, pre-gps and digital maps/ mapping file sharing websites.

There was a small hospetaje in the town that welcomed me and the bike was even allowed in the owner's garage. The people were so trusting, I could have ridden off at dawn the next morning without paying, but that wouldn't have been right. So I just left the agreed rent on my room table and still hobbling, wheeled the bike out.

The ride to Belen was clear and fresh and things warmed up nicely. I ended up at the bridge over a dried out river bed at Belen in the late morning. People everywhere. Wow! I parked up the bike on the pavement (American = sidewalk… In England we drive on the road and walk on the pavement) and immediately got chatting to a couple of Harley Davidson riders from Scandinavia (Per from Sweden and Antti from Finland) on their own Trans Americas trip.

The following pictures are pretty much in the order they were taken. There were a lot of comings and goings under the bridge (racing) and over the bridge (to/from the bivouac) of race cars, quads, buggies, bikes and race trucks. I really lost any overview of what was going on.

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A Toyota race car getting close and personal to the spectators



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Alain Duclos from France on a Sherco who was 42nd overall



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Robbie Gordon giving a photographer reason to jump out the way!



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Laia Sanz being chased down



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Chlym offering shade to a weary spectator



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Me and Per getting interviewed by a local TV station!



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5th truck, driven by Ton van Genugten from the Netherlands



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Number 132, Spain’s José García Domínguez's bike and only BMW in the race, strung out below a helicopter heading back to the bivouac. Usually this sight makes your stomach churn because it means an injured (or worse) rider. Jose was fine and just got lost, so he pushed his emergency button. For him, zee race voz over!



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An interesting view from above, of a racer’s cockpit. At a pub meeting in England of a certain brand of motorcycle many years ago, I asked the owner of a very large displacement bike if he knew what all the buttons on his dash and bars did, and if he pressed them all at once, would the bike explode ;) No chance of such disrespect when you’re confronted with someone who is the real deal!



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Little and large? A 125 2 smoke from France and a 450 4 stroke from Peru. I think it must be the angle the bikes are standing as both riders (according to their profiles on the official Dakar website) are of similar size/weight. Both reached the podium at Rosario



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The bikes may not have been too reliable, but the Honda ladies were the prettiest!



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Giving Chris Cork from the UK a wave on the way back to the bivouac. He seemed distracted.



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Per and Antti and their HDs on the local campsite. Top lads



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Not sure what this can-can is supposed to achieve, but you can see I’m not weight bearing my left leg! On the right of the picture is Joshua from the United States who was cruising around on a BMW (800GS?) if I recall correctly. The guy on the left: I can’t remember for the life of me where he's from or who he is. In the background there's a 950/990 KTM, so I assume that was his bike. Muy bad!

We ate well that night. There was a fruit and veg salesman on the main road who also sold fresh meat. Joshua’s superior Spanish persuaded him to cook us an asado. A great night over beers and chat!
 


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