RTW 2009/2010

Oisin · Nov 14, 2009

Dansin · Nov 14, 2009

Fair play that looked mental. Keep it coming, looks like an interesting trip. Welcome to the forum. :thumb2

Oisin · Nov 14, 2009

Cartagena Part 2

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Cartagena is a city on the North West coast of Colombia. It was where the Spanish used to funnel the gold that they were taking out of South America back to Spain. For that reason it was regularly attacked by British pirates, including Sir Francis Drake.

As a result of all the attacks the Spanish commissioned the building of a massive fortress, the outline of which extends to almost 11km and it took 208 years to complete. Charles III is quoted as saying when he looked out his window with a spyglass from Madrid in Spain; “For the price were paying for those Castles we should be able to see them from here!”

The city is divided into the new and old regions, the old being the region contained within the fortifications and its renowned as being one of the most beautiful cities in all of Latin America.

As I was saying yesterday I was here a year ago and had a good time, the city was great if a little seedy but overall it was a positive experience and I would have been quick to recommend the place.

This time round; maybe on account of the world wide recession biting particularly hard in this region it was like Sodom and Gomorrah. As I drove round the city looking for accommodation I was threatened several times with a dousing from some foul concoction and as I said yesterday I was harangued by whores as I tried to unpack my bike..... if ten dollar blo jobs are what your after... look no further than this place.

Getting to Cartagena I'd at least ten incidents of people trying to stop you on the road to get money out of you, and when I went out in the city I'd at least another eight or nine mental experiences of gangs of teenagers running up to you with buckets of shit saying give us money or we'll throw the whole lot over you.

I was just about to go pack up the bike and get the **** out of dodge when I went through the walls of the city and literally walked out into a Carnival.... in ten minutes the world had gone from utterly shite...to "Party on!!!"

There was at least a two thousand dancers in a parade which extended off as far as the eye can see and the celebrations ran well into the night. I met 2 Aussies Tim and Triona who hadn't been inside the wall and couldn't believe how different things were "this side" of the wall. Aussies are great... they all drink beer....and all have easy names to pronounce. I'm sure my mother was doing LSD when she gave me the name Oisin... if she only knew how many times I've had to repeat how you say it ..... if I ever have a snapper I'll call him ..... Tim...every ****er knows how to pronounce it...or if its a girl.... Ann... easy!

Anyway we just sat around having a couple of drinks watching the parade go by... these people know how to party; it was spectacular to watch. Everyone then made their way to the main square where a salsa band was playing and the whole place just got sprayed with suds....the whole thing was really well marshaled. It was like they gave all the cops the morning off allowing the scum bags to run riot, and then in the evening moved everyone in and the scumbags went home... I couldn't believe the transformation.

Later on I headed back to where I was staying.... and got searched a couple of times for drugs... there's a serious crack down on in the city it appears (note ...not such a crack down on shit throwers!) ... one of the women police officers who searched me was a total bang.... sort of girl if you knew she was coming around the corner you'b be fixing your hair..... I'd a good laugh with her messing around about ....are you sure your finished searching blah blah blah.

I got back to the hotel and was eaten alive by Mosquitoes....and spent a good hour killing the ones I could see....when you consider a mosquito would probably die if you farted on it...it probably wasn't necessary to kill them by whacking them with a motorcycle boot... "Die...Die...Satan's spawn Die!"

Anyway...as it turned out...Cartagena had a silver lining...but it wasn't worth it...
I wont be back.

Over and out
Oisin

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<strong> Pictures I took today are uploaded here </Strong>
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<tr><td style="text-align:center;font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:11px"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/Oisin.m.Hughes/Colombia02?feat=embedwebsite" style="color:#4D4D4D;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none;">Colombia</a></td></tr>
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Oisin · Nov 14, 2009

AguaChica Colombia

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I left Cartagena before the sun came up purely to give myself a chance to get a hundred miles done before the bottom feeders would be up blocking the road. As you leave Cartagena and head north west towards Santa Marta you cross a land bridge over 30km long. On either side of the road people have built small shanty towns and make a living selling fish to the passing cars on trucks.

At Cienga I cut south, I had planned to go north west but had enough of the bullshit on the road and thought to myself if I cut south and use the mountains there wont be any hassle. By 10am I'd 200 trouble free miles done...so it was time to pull in and get some nose bag. While I was there I met 2 young fellas who had a pet Martika (what they called it) monkey, have a look at the picture...is that not the cutest little face you've ever seen. The guys reckoned they make great pets too.....

The road along the way was flat and the trees along vast stretches had created a canopy over the road so for long periods it felt like you were driving through a tunnel, if I had to characterize the roads which aren't in the mountains of Colombia, that will be my abiding memory of them.... green tunnels with white points of light all over the road...have a look at some of the pictures in the link below....maybe they'll give you a better idea.

From there I rode another 140 miles or so to AguaChica. In this town while they speak Spanish its the cockney version of it; or if you were in the states and you had a guy in Los Angeles talking...it would be as different as someone from the deep south, or in Ireland the difference between someone from out in the sticks in Donegal, speaking to someone from the boonies of Cork. .... laboring the point?

Ok...well it all means whatever smattering of Spanish I'd picked up.... I may as well be speaking Punjab... no one has a notion what I'm saying....and this is stuff which I've said a thousand times....and I'm not exactly reaching...eg.... Pepsi por favor.... always met with roars of good natured laughing. I went to a restaurant and thought I ordered chicken, rice and some spuds.... I got a feckin stew!..... WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!

From here I cut due south, then west into Venezuela....

The travel advice is bad...and the border is supposed to be in bad shape too...

Travel advice from Dept of foreign affairs:
We advise against all travel to within 80 kms (50 miles) of the Colombian border in the states of Zulia, Tachira and Apure. Terrorist and illegal armed groups are active in these states and there is a risk of kidnapping.

The incidence of street crime in Venezuela is high. Armed muggings and "express kidnappings" are a regular occurrence. You should exercise caution at all times, especially when arriving in, and travelling around, Venezuela.

Like I said many times.... unless they bring a couple of pounds of butter there's no way they'll squeeze me into the boot of a car! -)

Over and out
Oisin

<strong> Pictures I took today are uploaded here </Strong>
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<tr><td style="text-align:center;font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:11px"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/Oisin.m.Hughes/Colombia02?feat=embedwebsite" style="color:#4D4D4D;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none;">Colombia</a></td></tr>
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Oisin · Nov 14, 2009

Friday the 13th

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I woke up at 6 with every intention of shooting towards the Venezuelan border, plan was to stay in the town right beside it tonight. I was up only about 5 minutes when I hit my head off the frame of the door, they're all 6 foot door frames here...I'm 6ft 4...so If I dont duck.... I ran the chance of a good scalping.

Anyway whacked my head off it......just held the roar in....but inside I was cursing like a sailor at a prize fight. On the way out of the shower I slipped and went on my ear.... i was saying to myself imagine you'd knocked yourself out..... and the maid walked in!....you lying there in the nip.....

Anyway as I tried to pack up i kept dropping everything and I looked at my watch to see how much time I was losing arseing around the room....and noticed it was Friday the 13th...a bad day for the Hughes kid to be doing a Mr Magoo impression....so I said to my self...**** this for a game of soldiers...walked down to reception and booked myself in for another night..... then went back up the stairs and after stabbing my toe off the corner of the bed got back into the cot....afraid to look at my little toe...thinking it would be somewhere across the room.

After about 2 hours I got back up....had breakfast...again it wasn't what I ordered... I got stew again....but this time with eggs and yuka. (its a root vegetable, bit like a parsnip) I think they can't understand my accent...and just say to themselves...what does he look like he wants to eat...... hmmmmm.....yuka....that'll soften his cough.

After that I went up the town to see the sights which were limited enough...an old church and a town where almost all the traffic was motorbikes..... I went out to fill up with gas and got the rock star treatment again..... the best way to describe it is...imagine you were the only guy in the world...and you were walking down a street where there was nothing but women...and you were wearing nothing but a fluorescent pair of socks.....nothing but looks..... except none of it for me...all for the Beemer.

So that was it...for the rest of the day i scratched my mosquito bites and treated the bike to a much needed clean!...

Tomorrow I'm back in the mountains!
The big fella

<strong> Pictures I took today are uploaded here </Strong>
<table style="width:194px;">
<tr><td align="center" style="height:194px;background:url(http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/transparent_album_background.gif) no-repeat left"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/Oisin.m.Hughes/Colombia02?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_8x5h-fHHXiI/SvH70pR1WmE/AAAAAAABP3E/iWZ60lkmv2s/s160-c/Colombia02.jpg" width="160" height="160" style="margin:1px 0 0 4px;"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td style="text-align:center;font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:11px"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/Oisin.m.Hughes/Colombia02?feat=embedwebsite" style="color:#4D4D4D;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none;">Colombia</a></td></tr>
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Norrie · Nov 15, 2009

Hi Oisin

Some Great photo's in your RR, look forward to the next update :thumb2

Norrie

Oisin · Nov 15, 2009

San Gil, Colombia, Mountain roads

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First thing this morning I met 4 Colombian bikers who were headed the same direction and invited me along; they were a great bunch of guys and we spent the morning and afternoon riding through mountains and Canyons north of the town of San Gil; a couple of hours north of Bogota. The lads even bought me lunch! I've been waxing on about the Colombians and how friendly they are, if you ever make it down this way it''ll blow your mind.

The rest of the day was just a typical bunch of lads out on a weekend rideout, we rode the bikes, stopped to take pictures, stopped for gas and a soda, had a laugh...rode the bikes...stopped for some grub....anyone whose got a bike and went for ride at the weekend knows exactly what i'm talking about..... just a great day out.

I was supposed to head to Venezuela today but the border is just mental; have a read of the link below....I've 50 more days on my Colombian visa and insurance so I'll swing to southern Colombia for a while and see if it quietens down and then go back.....

The only other news is that I'm riddled with mosquito bites.... i have to ask is there anything more itchy than mosquito bites on the knuckles?....

http://colombiareports.com/opinion/...cal-row-disguises-an-escalating-drug-war.html

<strong> Pictures I took today are uploaded here </Strong>
<table style="width:194px;">
<tr><td align="center" style="height:194px;background:url(http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/transparent_album_background.gif) no-repeat left"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/Oisin.m.Hughes/Colombia02?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_8x5h-fHHXiI/SvH70pR1WmE/AAAAAAABP3E/iWZ60lkmv2s/s160-c/Colombia02.jpg" width="160" height="160" style="margin:1px 0 0 4px;"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td style="text-align:center;font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:11px"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/Oisin.m.Hughes/Colombia02?feat=embedwebsite" style="color:#4D4D4D;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none;">Colombia</a></td></tr>
</table>

Aidan1150 · Nov 15, 2009

Great stuff Oisin, keep it coming lad. :thumb2

Devon · Nov 15, 2009

Excellent write up of your big adventure Oisin :clap

Keep it coming and welcome to the forum :thumb2

Bengaz · Nov 15, 2009

This is great Oisin.

Can you explain a little about the background to your journey? How you got there, how you planned it etc.

Thanks.

PS, Ive been to Venezuela and it has some really rough areas!

Oisin · Nov 16, 2009

Colombia the half way mark...

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I woke up the morning knackered...there was a mangy hound (4 legged type) howling outside my window all night...and i knew there was mosquito's feasting on me so I was scratching like a dog with a dose of fleas all night. On top of that I've had a serious dose of the ringaskiddies (aka the Trotsky's, the cream buns, ring burn...) .... not kidding for 12 hours I didn't let the bog out of my site....I've been getting 6 seconds notice...sorry to labour the point.... but at one stage i thought i was going to take off and fly to Tokyo.

When I was certain my innards were a vacuum I left San Gil and headed towards La Dorada again, which completes about a 2000 mile loop of Colombia.... its a great place to jump off to many different locations in the country, and from here I start to head to the south..... the video above will give you an idea of what I'm talking about. I reckon I'll do another 2000 miles here before I leave.....like i said in an earlier blog...its the size of France, Germany and the UK combined so your going to clock up the miles touring here.

I had to go back north to head west if that makes sense and it took me back through the mountains passes again and with the early morning light it was like driving a completely different route.... absolutely gorgeous!. After getting lost in Bucaramanga for about 30 minutes I was heading south following the banks of the Rio Magdalena.

The weather was roasting all day and the going slow as its a bank holiday weekend in Colombia and the roads were choc a block with people travelling for the weekend.

I got to La Dorada and booked into the same place I stayed about 8 days ago and the woman and about half a dozen others came running out to me asking in Spanish...how was I ...where did I go...was I enjoying colombia....and even gave me a bottle of water to cure the throat. It didn't stop at the usual pleasantry's it went onto where was I going on the whole trip... where was I from... what's the political situation in Ireland... all in Spanish!...and this is to a guy whose spanish is so bad that only 2 nights ago he ordered chicken and rice and got a stew! They literally racked me with friendly questions for over an hour!...and didn't take the no entiende...they just kept rephrasing till I got it....... jesus i'd some throat on me after it....as I write I'm on my third Beer getting over it!

As it happens theres a girl walking around just in front of me with a thong bikini covered in a sash and she's walking up and down like someone waiting on a train.... I've nearly poured the beer into my ear about 3 times at this stage. On top of that theres a heap of women in the pool all singing... I cant get the story of the mermaids calling the ships onto the rocks with they're singing out of my head.... that's how I'm spinning it to myself anyway.... they're mermaids Oisin...as soon as you get in the pool they'll drown you and use your John Thomas for shark bait!

Over and out
Oisin

<strong> Pictures I took today are uploaded here </Strong>
<table style="width:194px;">
<tr><td align="center" style="height:194px;background:url(http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/transparent_album_background.gif) no-repeat left"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/Oisin.m.Hughes/Colombia02?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_8x5h-fHHXiI/SvH70pR1WmE/AAAAAAABP3E/iWZ60lkmv2s/s160-c/Colombia02.jpg" width="160" height="160" style="margin:1px 0 0 4px;"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td style="text-align:center;font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:11px"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/Oisin.m.Hughes/Colombia02?feat=embedwebsite" style="color:#4D4D4D;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none;">Colombia</a></td></tr>
</table>

Oisin · Nov 16, 2009

Hi....here you go!

Bengaz said:
This is great Oisin.

Can you explain a little about the background to your journey? How you got there, how you planned it etc.

Thanks.

PS, Ive been to Venezuela and it has some really rough areas!

Here is what I wrote about it over a year ago...

sorry its so long but I think you'll find it entertaining!

The why, the what and the where for! (Trip prep)

On a cold and wet Friday in September 2005 while out shopping I was lured to a DVD stand in HMV. The banner said “buy 3 DVD’s for 30 Euro’s”; I picked up two movies I really liked and because I couldn’t see another movie that caught my fancy I grabbed a DVD called the Long way Round. It was a documentary series with Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman detailing their trip around the world on two BMW motorcycles from London to New York heading east. I had seen ads for the series but never watched it and to be honest wasn’t even remotely interested in motorbikes or in the two lads heading off to foreign shores.

The relentlessly crappy Irish weather continued for the entire weekend and with Liverpool losing on the Saturday the weekend was turning into a complete washout. I picked up the Long way round DVD and stared at the black and white cover photo of Ewan and Charlie and their motorbikes and said “**** it, nothing else to do” so I threw on the DVD. To my complete surprise I watched it straight through, episode after episode, finishing up at around 2am. I was hooked. I wanted to do something like this. There was however a couple of minor obstacles to navigate like I didn’t own a motorcycle, nor was I even able to ride one.

At the time I was married, things weren’t going well primarily down to the fact that I was a bad husband, about as emotionally available as a tin of processed peas and I was spending far too much time in work. As the winter wore on my enthusiasm to do a trip started to wane, what with ongoing marital problems and being up to my tonsils in work I put it to the back of my mind.

Around November 2005 one of my best mates, Dave asked me along to the annual motorcycle show in the RDS arena in Dublin and as I was walking around the displays looking at all the bikes I came across a stand for Globebusters, a husband and wife motorcycle tour company in England who run overland trips, after exchanging a couple of pleasantries I walked away with one of their brochures.

I looked on the back page and there it was, the Pan-American motorcycle trip stretching from Anchorage in Alaska to Prudhoe Bay, the most northerly town in Alaska the whole way down to Ushuaia in Terra del Fuego the end of the world near Cape Horn in South America, and finally back to Buenos Aires in Argentina and then back home. Wow! I thought to myself, “this looks absolutely amazing”, I took the brochure and plonked it on my office desk to remind me on the bad days that there was an alternative to what I was doing now.

That Christmas my marriage came to an end and after about eight weeks of wallowing in self pity I made a decision to **** off to Australia for a month on a road trip. I made the decision to go on a Tuesday and flew out on the Thursday of the same week. I packed like a lunatic and headed off to the airport, next thing I knew I was in Australia. I hired out a Nissan X-trail and pretty much kept driving and driving and driving to try and work the post marital breakup demons out of my head.

On the journey I learned a couple of things about myself, one was that I was pretty ok with being by myself for long stretches, and secondly that I really liked long journeys where you didn’t really have a place to get to, it was ok to just drive until you get bored and then pull over, find a place to stay, go out and get some grub, have a pint and at the end of the day hit the scratcher.

I also started to get a little peeved about having your holiday decided for you. You know how it goes, you tell someone that you are going to Australia and right away their off telling you that you have to go here, then there and how if you don’t go to “this place” well then “you simply haven’t been to Australia”. So I just made up my mind that I was only going to go to places that I wanted to go to and not submit to any peer pressure about what I “simply must do” when travelling.

In Australia I set myself the goal of never driving over the same piece of tarmac twice, so that the road would always change for me, that every day would be an adventure because you didn’t have to retrace your steps on your way home. I carved a loop out in Australia and knocked out about 14,000km on the road in only a couple of weeks.

When I came back to Ireland I made up my mind that I was going to have to just buy a bike if I was ever going to consider taking on the Pan-American Highway. My thinking was that I might start with a small trip; I needed to figure out if motorcycling was something I’d like, if I just upped and went I could end up hating the whole thing. I had my doubts, motorcycling is dangerous, certainly more dangerous than a car and when combined with the fact that you’re out in the elements and in Ireland all it ever seems to do is piss rain I had enough reason to believe that the whole thing could turn out to be pure misery.

I went down to my friend Jason who has always been a keen biker and he had a couple of copies of motorcycle news which had lot of bikes for sale in the back pages. No sooner had I opened the page and there it was; a bumblebee 1150gs adventurer for sale. It came with panniers, crash bars, heated hand grips with some other goodies and the whole lot was on sale for 11,500 euro.
The bike had less than 10000km on the clock so was practically new. The chap who was selling it was based just about four miles from Jason’s house so off we went in the car to have a gawk at the beast. I’d never make a poker player and as soon as I saw the bike I just said I’ll take it and wrote him a cheque for the full amount he was looking for. My penalty for such
impulsiveness was that I had to listen to Jason for about the next six months giving me the “can’t believe you didn’t even try to haggle!” routine. I didn’t care I had my bike and I don’t think my pulse dropped below 100 the whole way home.

The first big problem was that I couldn’t drive the bike so I got Jason to drive it home for me and when we got to my place I got my first impromptu bike lesson. I was terrified when I jumped up on it, a key thing to bear in mind is that the BMW 1150 weighs over 250kg and if it starts to go to the left or right and gets past about 20 degrees from vertical you’ll never be able to hold it up and the whole thing will just crash to the ground. I was pretty sure that picking that weight up off the ground would be like shitting a pineapple.
Every time I tried to move forward on the bike I kept causing the engine to cut out and with the forward momentum my shins kept getting clubbed by the crash bars, a sore bastard I don’t mind telling you. I’ve always been very impulsive and tend to jump into things; the niggling feeling that this was going to be another in a long line of bad ideas was starting to grow in my mind.
So in keeping with a Hughes family trait, i.e. full duck or no dinner, I signed up for three full days of intensive rider training with a private motorcycle school. The course was run in March and the weather was absolutely woeful. At various times it was snowing, pissing rain, sleeting, or howling wind and just to throw some salt and vinegar into the mix; the traffic was mental. However there was a silver lining, I’ve always maintained that because I learned to ride in the rain I’m a much better rider in bad weather than most. Most people start the other way, they learn in the good weather and only tend to go out on their bikes when the weather is good, I never knew any different so having started the hard way I never looked back.

I was struggling to get the hang of the clutch and no doubt used to bennies like myself the instructor had a great analogy to help me through it. “Listen horse you need to think of the clutch like your birds left tit.... would you be grabbing it in and out like that? Eh? Would ya? No... I don’t ****in think so, she wouldn’t be long punching your lights out.... nice and smooth... got it?” and for the accelerator he said to treat it like a “budgies neck”. I think it was the bird’s knockers that did it for me; never being one to snatch and grab at a boob, at least not since I was in the cot.

When I told him that I was considering heading off on the Pan-American motorcycle trip he simply replied “Me hole”.

So now I had the bike and I could drive it now it was time to plan a road trip. I talked to my mate Dave about heading down to the Rock of Gibraltar; I said I’d chance the run even though I didn’t have a full license. So we started planning in earnest.

After a couple of weeks and with the excitement starting to build the phone Dave phoned me and his opening line was “You’ll never guess what”, to which I replied, having read into the tone in his voice “Claire’s up the duff”. Dave’s girlfriend was pregnant. I was delighted for him but knew it meant that the trip to the Rock of Gibraltar was over unless I wanted to go on my own, and not having a license to drive the bike it was just too risky. Some months after when Dave and I were out for a couple of pints I asked him.
“So how come Claire got pregnant? Did the Jonnie split?” (A pertinent question, Dave has a hammer on him like an oak tree, sort of thing you’d normally expect to see hanging out of an elephants face), Dave replied, “Nah sure I can never get one to fit”, which all credit to him he said with true humility.

Then I asked “So was Claire not on the pill?”Dave replied, “Nope”. Realising that he’d been bare backing and risking our trip if Claire got pregnant I said “So you were just pulling out! Ya ****er ya!.....Your some bollix, it’s not like the tadpoles would have far to swim, you practically were delivering them to the front door with that baseball bat of a Mickey you bollix!”

So that was it, there was no other opportunity on the horizon to go on a medium journey trip to see if travelling on a motorcycle for six months was something I would enjoy or even be capable of doing. I was left with the dilemma, if I’m going to go on this trip “Who in the name of **** was I going to go with”. The summer of 2008 was the time I was targeting and there were no organised tours running that year, and none of my friends could go and I was in no way capable of going by myself. The sort of things that would go through your head would be that you need to try and go with someone who’s good at fixing stuff. I’m the sort of guy who, if the house was falling down around me, I’d probably buy a tent for the back garden, I’m just not that good with my hands. Now that’s not to say that I don’t rub a good boob, I do, but with machinery I may as well be staring up a bull’s hole.

So onto the web I went in search of kindred spirits, I was convinced there must be a couple of heads out there with the same sort of thing in mind, I still had a year to plan it so it was plenty of time to meet some guys who might be into same thing. I got a lot of ribbing from the lads about the gay connotations of searching for bikers on the web. I found a website called Horizons unlimited and just pumped in the words, Pan-American July 2008 anyone interested? A lad living near Felixstowe in England replied and said that he was up for it. We talked on the phone and seemed to have quite a bit in common, we both said that if we were serious about this we’d have to meet and talk to hammer out what we both wanted to get out of the trip. So off I went to England and John picked me up at the airport.

On the phone John sounded a bit of a cockney but was gentle spoken, however when I met him I nearly fainted. He was about 5foot 5, a serious looking skin head with tattoos the whole way down his arms. “Oh my ****” I thought to myself. As it turned out he was an ex British soldier who served in Northern Ireland. Again I thought to myself “Oh my ****!....This guy is either after going online to reel in some “ass” or he’s logged onto the equivalent of “dial a sucker to murder and leave in your fridge for six months while you take out his head and torso and have sex with both at your leisure while watching coronation street reruns.com”.

We got to his house and headed off down the pub for some pints and grub, on the way we walked down the darkest lanes I’ve ever been in, for a good while I was certain he was going to knife me!. As it turned out I needn’t have worried, John was a sound skin and we got on like a house on fire. He worked on the docks and drove the exact same type of bike as me and was interested in doing the trip if he could get his house sold on time as well as get leave of absence from his job.

As all this was going on Ewan and Charlie decided to do the Long way down, which was a motorcycle trip from John of Groats in northern Scotland to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. All of this just helped to intensify my feelings of needing to go on this trip. I decided that whatever route I was going to take it had to add up to more miles than the long way round, and the long way down combined. Why? Just, that’s the why! Not a good enough answer? Well it’s a guy thing, if you did 10 press ups I’d have to try and do 11.

We talked a lot about the route. Flying a bike into the states since 9-11 is a nightmare so I decided to fly into Toronto, Canada. This also happened to be where my brother lived so would be a lot easier to get lifts out to the airport to collect the bike. From there the plan was to head west to Nova Scotia to Cape Breton, then track back west the whole way across Canada to Anchorage in Alaska. Once in Anchorage it would be north to Prudhoe Bay, the most northerly town in Alaska and then south, the whole way to Ushuaia and back up to Buenos Aires, a trip I “back of the enveloped” of some 30,000miles. The route had some big advantages, namely you didn’t need a carnet de passage in any of the countries, and also you would only need two languages, English and Spanish.

The if’s and the buts were driving me crazy so I made up my mind that I was going to leave on the 12th of July 2008 and in order to give myself a marker to work against I booked the flight for that date to Toronto. I also made up my mind that if I couldn’t get someone to go with me I would go alone, although I desperately hoped that I would find a riding partner. John had 2 kids who were in their 20’s and believe it or not no sooner had he decided to go on the trip they popped round to his house to tell him that they were getting married that year. John was torn and he said he was going to come over to Dublin to talk about the trip. I knew he was coming over to tell me that he wasn’t going to be able to go, and he was too nice a guy to tell me over the phone, he knew it was my dream and wanted to tell me face to face that he was letting me down.

A welsh guy popped on the horizons website around this time by the name of Geoff and said he was up for it also, I told him John was on his way over so why not plan to come over the same weekend. Geoff was in his mid to late 50’s and his wife had passed away less than a year previous. It was pretty obvious that he was on the run from his grief but he was a really nice guy, very friendly and if he wanted to come along “why not” I said.
As expected John pulled out, and I hadn’t heard anything from Geoff for over 2 months so I resigned myself to going alone. The real piece I was unbelievably nervous about was central America, “How in the name of Jesus am I going to get through those borders on my own!”, the icing on the cake being that I had about as much Spanish as is used in the average Speedy Gonzalez cartoon.

About a month before I was due to leave, I got a phone call from Geoff saying he was going, I was, believe it or not, a bit disappointed because I had kind of gotten used to the idea that I was a solo traveller, but when I thought about things like the Dalton highway in Alaska and dangerous countries that I’d be going through it would be better to not have to do it alone.
My nerves were at fever pitch and friends and family were after me to set up a blog so they’d know how I getting on. As the day approached the comments from people in work all centred around either “It’ll be a life changing experience” or “You must be ******* Crazy!” I set up a blog on Google called 30000mileson2wheels.blogspot.com and started doing some dummy entries to see how hard it would be to update and maintain, it was a doddle.

The date was set, and the only thing to do was ship the bike to Toronto. This part, while expensive was really easy, I just dropped the bike off at my local BMW dealer and they arranged with James Cargo the shipper to pick it up about ten days before I was due to fly out. I dropped the bike off with the panniers stuffed with camping gear and every manner of gadget that I could fit into the limited storage you have on a motorcycle.

I had the rough timelines for the trip worked out, mainly dictated by insurance limitations, and I wrote on the blog: “Plan is to take 59 days to complete the USA and Canada... 14 days through Mexico, another 14 through Central America and the rest in South America finishing hopefully in time for Christmas! I structured it this way because in my head I reckoned I could do North America again when I’m 55 if I wanted to, it’s easy going relatively speaking. The real challenge would be Central and South America so it’s better to allocate the majority of time there.

I nicknamed the bike “Molly”, which I later changed to Sam Gamgee (I was Frodo) and the week before I left completed the last mandatory task before undertaking any big trip; went out on the tear with the lads from work for my going away night. After about 15 pints and more “You’re gonna get raped by FARC rebels....You know that don’t ya!” type statements the last of the tasks before travelling were complete.

With my flight merely hours away I sat on a couch looking out the window in my house and asked myself am I ready? I’d completed less than 5000 miles on a bike total since I’d bought it with absolutely positively no off-road training done whatsoever. With the Dalton highway in Alaska a 515 mile gravel fest I told myself that I’d have nearly 10,000 miles done by that stage so I’ll be a lot more experienced and it will be ok. I’d almost no Spanish but reckoned that I could either hook up with some dudes who did when I’d cross the borders or I’d get some stuff loaded up onto my I-pod, again I figured I’d be grand. I was ok for money and had heaps of travel equipment, space on the bike was the only concern and also picking the bike up would be a massive problem if it ever fell over. The guy who I was going on the trip with I’d only met once and that was a worry, what if we didn’t get on? I also couldn’t fix a thing on the bike if it broke down; I had never even had to fix a puncture so if it happened I’d just have to deal with it. So for hours and hours it was worry worry worry, but I just told myself, there’s no going back now.

I flew out on Saturday the 12th of July exactly as planned nearly 9 months previous, leaving Dublin airport despite the best attempts of an air traffic controllers strike to halt my progress. As we taxied down the runway I just couldn’t believe it was about to start.

jc_bromley · Nov 16, 2009

Really enjoying your story Oisin, looking forward to the next installment!!

PS What headcam are you suing?

JC

Canuck · Nov 16, 2009

Yeah not so sure about the guy covered in blood... braver than you are!

Devon · Nov 16, 2009

Could a mod resize Oisin's last post? It's 5 times wider than my computer screen.

BeemerBaz · Nov 16, 2009

Wow, that beats your early morning run to the seaside. I must admit to having a idea of doing a long trip like that when I have retired.

Oisin · Nov 16, 2009

POV CAM

jc_bromley said:
Really enjoying your story Oisin, looking forward to the next installment!!

PS What headcam are you suing?

JC

here you go mate...
http://www.vio-pov.com/

its really good...

Bengaz · Nov 16, 2009

Devon said:
Could a mod resize Oisin's last post? It's 5 times wider than my computer screen.

Bottom right hand corner of browser, click on the "fit to width" icon.
(its very small)

jc_bromley · Nov 16, 2009

Must be, I can't see it!

Oisin · Nov 17, 2009

Back in the mountains.... Colombia

<table><tr><td><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_8x5h-fHHXiI/SwGyXiElWsI/AAAAAAABS0Q/GUBfmeY4Qqc/s640/IMG_6926.JPG"></tr></td><tr><td><img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_8x5h-fHHXiI/SwGyeN35xUI/AAAAAAABS7Q/SoERRS9U_Lg/s640/IMG_6931.JPG"></tr></td><tr><td><img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_8x5h-fHHXiI/SwGyfqZjiDI/AAAAAAABS7c/rul6gvgR6FM/s640/IMG_6932.JPG"></tr></td><tr><td><img src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_8x5h-fHHXiI/SwGykuoGMVI/AAAAAAABS8A/dzaqSZ77r2c/s640/IMG_6935.JPG"/></tr></td><tr><td><img src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_8x5h-fHHXiI/SwGyzMvYOjI/AAAAAAABS94/riwyS2X97iM/s640/IMG_6947.JPG"></td></tr><tr><td><img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_8x5h-fHHXiI/SwGy1fJssOI/AAAAAAABS-E/Z7fs3iWIWic/s640/IMG_6948.JPG"/></tr></td><td><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_8x5h-fHHXiI/SwGy25ccUAI/AAAAAAABS-Q/mKL7o6rXaOA/s640/IMG_6949.JPG"/></tr></td><td><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_8x5h-fHHXiI/SwGy76Ugp3I/AAAAAAABS_M/eR2QIBDDtF8/s640/IMG_6954.JPG"/></tr></td><td><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_8x5h-fHHXiI/SwGytnahomI/AAAAAAABS9I/v43SuGhf6Eg/s640/IMG_6943.JPG"/></tr>
</td><td><img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_8x5h-fHHXiI/SwGzAYjhGkI/AAAAAAABS_8/waI-9ISEpq4/s640/IMG_6958.JPG.JPG"/></tr></td><td><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_8x5h-fHHXiI/SwGzDUdCkEI/AAAAAAABTAU/3bQuSLjKOoY/s640/IMG_6960.JPG"/></tr></td></table>

I got up this morning in no real humor to go out on the bike, was starting to get a little road weary. One of the things you find out in a hurry on a trip like this is that in between all the really good places in the world, there's lots of really average, and even down right crap places so with no real draw in a town your always better to move on....hoping that the next place might have a bit more going for it.

More often than not its actually the road linking two places that holds the attraction for the motorcyclist and today that was certainly the case.

As I left La Dorada heading west in the direction of Manizales the road was like riding through a dream. It slowly twisted and turned its way up the mountainsides until you were way above the clouds and then brought you skirting through mountain villages which were built on mountain peaks. If you look at the pictures above i'm sure you'll agree, these roads are a bit special. Once above the clouds it was freezing...and I was delighted to feel cold again... after spending the last few days cooking away the sensation of cold hands was a great feeling...coming from Ireland its like your made for the cold....i am anyway. I wonder will I still be still saying that next July when I'm in Siberia!

There was many occasions where you had sheer drop to your right, one mistake and your off... all they'd find is the bike and the enduro suit.... the vultures here are savage and they'd have you picked the bone. Since Mexico they've been all round and as you drive along sometimes the smell of something dead wafts up under the helmet and theres a pack of vultures tearing something apart.....goes without saying... if you come off here and go down the side of the mountain they'll be doing the body ID by your choppers.

I stopped for grub in a mountaintop restaurant where the woman who served me had an arse the size of a mini cooper. She'd had a really hearty laugh and all i had to do was order food in a Dublin accent to set her off. One thing you'll get with just about every meal is a soup... it varies greatly in quality...but the common denominator is a bowl of broth with a heap of spuds...and normally a lump of mutton dropped in the middle of it... the stuff this morning was like something Stalin would have been serving in the Gulags....in fairness more often than not its very good.

There was an old lady sitting just outside the restaurant bumming change, so I told the girl that I'd buy her breakfast. She sat a couple of tables down from me... not kidding she nearly licked the pattern off the plates.

This is the main coffee growing region in Colombia...how does it taste? Well I'm a pretty big fan of coffee....but mostly the Colombians have a really sweet tooth so if you order a black coffee they'll throw about 2 pounds of sugar into it for you. If you order just a black coffee with no sugar or milk you'll get a cup that while very tasty will have your heart jumping out of your mouth with the amount of caffeine in it.

Lots of little things went wrong today, my helmet cam was about 15deg off so all the sexy mountaintop video turned out crap... i keep whacking my head off the door frames....as soon as you drop below Tucson your in the land of the smurfs!...and my cacks were sawing the bollix off me all day....dont know what it is...most days your fine...and then wearing more or less the same gear as every other day you end up getting a wedgie for the whole day...... going to take a day or two off the bike in Manizales....

Over and out
Oisin

<strong> Pictures I took today are uploaded here </Strong>
<table style="width:194px;">
<tr><td align="center" style="height:194px;background:url(http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/transparent_album_background.gif) no-repeat left"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/Oisin.m.Hughes/Colombia02?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_8x5h-fHHXiI/SvH70pR1WmE/AAAAAAABP3E/iWZ60lkmv2s/s160-c/Colombia02.jpg" width="160" height="160" style="margin:1px 0 0 4px;"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td style="text-align:center;font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:11px"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/Oisin.m.Hughes/Colombia02?feat=embedwebsite" style="color:#4D4D4D;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none;">Colombia</a></td></tr>
</table>

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Nice but unfortunate husband.

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