Aidan1150’s Andes & Altiplano tour
- Thread starter Aidan1150
- Start date
That looks like having been a great trip.
South America is one of the few places I never got to through work, and it’s one I’d love to visit.
You’ve got me plotting a potential tour myself. Thanks for the report and photos!
South America is one of the few places I never got to through work, and it’s one I’d love to visit.
You’ve got me plotting a potential tour myself. Thanks for the report and photos!
Have a look in the circus....
Thanks for the tour Aiden. It brought back memories. One of which was spending an entire week in Santiago airport doing photography for the ACI magazine (Airport Council International), the new Terminal 3 was being opened - they wated snow capped Andes in the background. The fog/smog was so thick that from the hotel you couldn't see the taxi 20 feet away! Eventually it cleared a bit and I got as much as 200 yards visibility, but with the sun streaming through. It was a trial, sounds exciting when you say you're going to Chile for the week, but in reality I never saw the outside of the airport. Plenty of maintenance photographs for Flight International's library and other 'infrastructure'. So your pictures of the countryside gave me an insight into what was the other side of the fogbank!
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I am home just over a week now and thought I'd share my thoughts on aspects of the trip with you.
There were six of us in tour group, a Canadian lady, an English-Canadian lady, an English couple, a German guy and myself. The best thing I can say about the Canadian lady is that she'd make a fuckin great American. Loud, obnoxious, patronising and generally a pain in the hoop. She said she had toured in 28 countries and seeing her riding "skills" I was surprised she made it safely out of four. The English-Canadian lady was easy going, a pretty good rider and easy to get on with. The English couple were from West Yorkshire, almost into their seventies and were easy going folk, but always last on the bike in the mornings which had to be addressed by Geert on a couple of occasions. Then there was a German guy from Hamburg, a tech geek and a sound fella altogether.
Ordinarily if I'm riding in a group it is just a couple of bikes, for example, two years ago four of us went to the Balkans for three weeks and that was fine. Most days it is two or maybe three of us, all of whom know each other very well which makes it very easy. On this trip there was the tour guide Geert and five bikes following him. In some of his tours there can be as many as twenty bikes which sounds like a feckin nightmare to me.
The Canadian was riding an F750GS, the English couple were on a very new Suzuki V-Strom 1050DE which was a fine looking machine. Sven the German was on a 1250GS whilst the English-Canadian was, like me, on a Honda NX500. Geert was riding a CF Moto 800 MT-X. I decided against a bike upgrade in favour of going for a single room each night of the trip, a decision which I would take again without hesitation.
After the first couple of days, and for the rest of the trip Sven and I would lie away back from the group and ride together. It was not at all enjoyable riding in a group of mixed abilities and variable speed. We'd let them get away ahead then "leap-frog" each other as we'd be stopping for photos so effectively I'd mostly be riding solo which suited me just fine. We'd catch up with the group at lunch then lie back afterwards to ride our own pace again in the afternoon. The support truck was always tagging along behind, but he soon caught on that we were happier doing our own thing and we'd always overtake him after any short photo stops.
Leaving the group riding and personalities aside the rest of the trip was absolutely fantastic. Pretty much everything was included in the cost. All hotels were on a B&B basis, fuel was covered, lunch on each riding day too. Everyone's luggage was carried in the support truck which made life easier especially for us on the little 500s. At the start of the trip we each paid $50 into a kitty to cover soft drinks etc at lunch or an afternoon ice-cream which worked very well. Evening meals, drinks etc were to your own account as well as lunch on any non-riding day. The hotels were all of a very decent standard, clean and comfortable. The food was universally good and the local Peruvian people were warm and friendly folk.
My daughter asked me if I thought I had missed out by not getting to Bolivia. I was bitterly disappointed that it was not possible to go to Bolivia, but in no way do I think that I missed out at all. The whole trip was beset with difficulties for Geert as he had to reschedule hotels, routes etc whilst having to work around the immovable bookings for Machu Picchu but the experience was none the less for all of that for us. Indeed we had a bonus of a night in the rainforest as a consequence of all of that. His knowledge of Peru, his experience and contacts gathered across 22 years of doing this delivered an unforgettable trip for us.
I'm not sure if I would do another group tour. It would depend on the number of riders, what was included etc. It may well suit me better to hire a bike and do a self-guided trip. I have a few more places I'd like to ride at some point. I would though have no hesitation in recommending Peru Motors if you are thinking of riding in South America.
Peru is incredible and this trip will stay with me for the rest of my life. I am lucky enough to have ridden coast to coast in the US, as far east as Georgia and Armenia then down into the Balkans but the sheer scale of the Andes and the variety of landscapes in Peru are completely indescribable. It truly was the trip of a lifetime. Hopefully I have conveyed a little bit of that in this report.
There were six of us in tour group, a Canadian lady, an English-Canadian lady, an English couple, a German guy and myself. The best thing I can say about the Canadian lady is that she'd make a fuckin great American. Loud, obnoxious, patronising and generally a pain in the hoop. She said she had toured in 28 countries and seeing her riding "skills" I was surprised she made it safely out of four. The English-Canadian lady was easy going, a pretty good rider and easy to get on with. The English couple were from West Yorkshire, almost into their seventies and were easy going folk, but always last on the bike in the mornings which had to be addressed by Geert on a couple of occasions. Then there was a German guy from Hamburg, a tech geek and a sound fella altogether.
Ordinarily if I'm riding in a group it is just a couple of bikes, for example, two years ago four of us went to the Balkans for three weeks and that was fine. Most days it is two or maybe three of us, all of whom know each other very well which makes it very easy. On this trip there was the tour guide Geert and five bikes following him. In some of his tours there can be as many as twenty bikes which sounds like a feckin nightmare to me.
The Canadian was riding an F750GS, the English couple were on a very new Suzuki V-Strom 1050DE which was a fine looking machine. Sven the German was on a 1250GS whilst the English-Canadian was, like me, on a Honda NX500. Geert was riding a CF Moto 800 MT-X. I decided against a bike upgrade in favour of going for a single room each night of the trip, a decision which I would take again without hesitation.
After the first couple of days, and for the rest of the trip Sven and I would lie away back from the group and ride together. It was not at all enjoyable riding in a group of mixed abilities and variable speed. We'd let them get away ahead then "leap-frog" each other as we'd be stopping for photos so effectively I'd mostly be riding solo which suited me just fine. We'd catch up with the group at lunch then lie back afterwards to ride our own pace again in the afternoon. The support truck was always tagging along behind, but he soon caught on that we were happier doing our own thing and we'd always overtake him after any short photo stops.
Leaving the group riding and personalities aside the rest of the trip was absolutely fantastic. Pretty much everything was included in the cost. All hotels were on a B&B basis, fuel was covered, lunch on each riding day too. Everyone's luggage was carried in the support truck which made life easier especially for us on the little 500s. At the start of the trip we each paid $50 into a kitty to cover soft drinks etc at lunch or an afternoon ice-cream which worked very well. Evening meals, drinks etc were to your own account as well as lunch on any non-riding day. The hotels were all of a very decent standard, clean and comfortable. The food was universally good and the local Peruvian people were warm and friendly folk.
My daughter asked me if I thought I had missed out by not getting to Bolivia. I was bitterly disappointed that it was not possible to go to Bolivia, but in no way do I think that I missed out at all. The whole trip was beset with difficulties for Geert as he had to reschedule hotels, routes etc whilst having to work around the immovable bookings for Machu Picchu but the experience was none the less for all of that for us. Indeed we had a bonus of a night in the rainforest as a consequence of all of that. His knowledge of Peru, his experience and contacts gathered across 22 years of doing this delivered an unforgettable trip for us.
I'm not sure if I would do another group tour. It would depend on the number of riders, what was included etc. It may well suit me better to hire a bike and do a self-guided trip. I have a few more places I'd like to ride at some point. I would though have no hesitation in recommending Peru Motors if you are thinking of riding in South America.
Peru is incredible and this trip will stay with me for the rest of my life. I am lucky enough to have ridden coast to coast in the US, as far east as Georgia and Armenia then down into the Balkans but the sheer scale of the Andes and the variety of landscapes in Peru are completely indescribable. It truly was the trip of a lifetime. Hopefully I have conveyed a little bit of that in this report.
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