Up Tupiza Creek without a Rear Shock Absorber

Half of the way to being a good off road rider is being able to pick the right route. The other half is being able to get yourself out of trouble when you pick the wrong route. It helps to be lucky too.

After just two hours in Bolivia, I had picked the wrong route. I had reached the small town of Tupiza – one of the last known hideouts of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – and was keen to push on to Uyuni, home of the world´s largest and highest salt flats. But as I rode northwest on what I assumed was the only road out of town I quickly began to realise that I was on the wrong side of the river, at least according to my map.


I was following a dirt track along the west bank while the main road (if it can be called that) was drawn on the other side. Nevermind I thought, this was the route that Butch and Sundance would have taken (following the railway), and besides my map showed that the railway and the main road crossed each other in about 60 miles. All I had to do was stick by the railway and everything would be fine.

So I pushed on - riding through the beautiful canyonlands with the sun on my back and the river next to me. Well, I say river. It was more a collection of streams that meandered their way through a very wide river bed.

But after an hour on the Sundance route I had only covered 15 miles. And, given that I still had a few hundred to go before reaching Uyuni, I figured it would be better if I made my way back onto the main road. Obviously backtracking all the way to the bridge at Tupiza was out of the question, so I decided to have a go at fording the river instead. Surprisingly, the going wasn´t too bad. Most of the small streams were only a few inches deep, so it was relatively easy to ride the bike through. The only trouble was the muddy edges that bookended each crossing. To get through without getting the bike bogged I had to gun the engine, get up a decent amount of speed, and splash my way across. This worked several times, but after getting three quarters of the way to the east bank, I unexpectedly hit a long patch of mud in between fordings. I used the throttle technique to try to get out of trouble, but only succeeded in sending the rear wheel sliding out to the side, and my front wheel over a berm. With the front wheel caught and the rear still sliding, the inevitable result was a sticky muddy drop. Number five of the trip (I think).



After tending to the obligatory post-drop tasks – reattaching my panniers, and tightening the crash bars – I trekked on ahead to find a way up the other side. Before starting my river crossing I had seen what I thought was a path, but it turned out to be a dried up tributary leading down from the mountains. It was rocky but rideable so I hiked up to see if it lead to the road. Unfortuantely it was a dead end, leading into thick bushes and up the side of a canyon. Bugger. I had to cross back onto the Sundance route and push on.

Thirty miles from Tupiza the going got extremely steep and rocky. I spied a large caterpillar clad earthmover up ahead, abandoned in the track. It was blocking the way, but I managed to edge past only to find a dead end a few hundred yards up ahead. The road had completely run out. Obviously the beastly machine was there to finish the job.

Pondering what to do, I hiked up to the top of the canyon to get a better view of the way ahead. The going looked tricky with only two riding options – either along the railway tracks, or on the riverbed. Concerned, I asked an onlooking goat herder (and his dog) if this was the way to Uyuni, and he assured me that it was. Fine I thought, time to make Butch and Sundance proud.

The smoother of the two options seemed to be the railway track. But just as the dirt road had ended the railway had crossed the river via a high bridge. As foolhardy as I am, dropping the bike over the side of a railway bridge didn’t really appeal so I decided to ford my way across the river and meet up with the track on the other side.

Having travelled several miles upstream from my previous crossing, the river was now deeper, faster flowing and with big rocks in the middle. This was going to be tricky, and potentially wet. Nervously, I stood up on the pegs, revved the engine and bumped my way across. Phew.

Now on the other side, I discovered that my seemingly dramatic river crossing was actually only the beggining of my river adventures as I had only succeeded in getting the bike to a rocky outcrop with no rideable way up to the train tracks. The only way up there was via two more river crossings.

The second of these proved particularly tricky with the river now twenty feet across and with both banks covered in grapefruit sized rocks. I spotted what looked like a relatively smooth patch of ground on the opposite bank and headed for it. But as I hit the smooth bank my front wheel plunged down into a hidden muddy hole. The bike was stuck and started tilting ominously over into the water. Jumping off just in time, I plunged my boots into the knee deep river and just caught the bike in time to stop it toppling over. Heaving on the bike while gunning the throttle I splashed mud everywhere but just about managed to get out of trouble. Double phew.


It had taken me well over an hour to travel just 300 yards upstream, but I had finally made my way up to the train tracks. Surely the going got smoother from here? It did. For 500 glorious yards I rode alongside the railway without worrying about falling in a river or bouncing the bike over a boulder. Then I came across this:


Another railway bridge with wheel sized holes in between the sleepers. This was getting ridiculous. I could see another route across the river via yet another fording, but this time I wanted to be sure that I wasn´t heading for another dead end. So I climbed off the bike and walked for a couple of miles on the tracks. Other than a tunnel, the going seemed fine. So I trotted back to my bike and began the tricky task of turning it around.

One of the things you learn when riding on big trips is how to turn your bike around in a very small space. The trick is to pull the weight of the bike onto the side stand and then pivot it around. That’s how I’ve got myself out of tight spots before at any rate. But with the bike balanced precariously on the narrow ledge beside the railway, this maneuveure was going to be much trickier, particularly with the tracks getting in the way.


After five minutes of jostling I had managed to get the bike spun 150 degrees, but now the back wheel was stuck in between the tracks. To get it out I needed to pull the bike even more onto the side stand and lift the wheel across. Just as I was tipping the bike towards me, the ground underneath gave way and the bike toppled over. I leapt out of the way as it barrel rolled down the side of the steep ditch. It took me another hour to get it out again.


With the light fading, I had barely travelled a kilometre upstream in three hours. As if to illustrate my slow progress, the friendly goat herder who I’d met earlier, strolled past me at a leisurely pace while I was in the river. I had to hand it to the Phoenix though. She had been subjected to so much abuse yet was still going strong. I on the other hand was completely exhausted, wet, battered and bruised.


Miles from anywhere, I decided to camp in a picturesque clearing that night. I made a fire to dry my wet clothes and sleapt deeply under a starry sky. It had been the hardest few hours of the trip. Little did I realise what was in store the following day.




Up at the crack of dawn I quickly made my way through the railway tunnel and was making good progress alongside the tracks. It´s slightly odd riding on the rails – you have the bizarre experience of checking in your mirrors for a big locomotive bearing down on you. But the going was good and I only saw two trains. Occassionally, I´d come across a bridge, which I couldn´t ride across, but there always seemed to be a route around either via a path or by riding through the river.



But after 10 miles, the railway started winding its way up into the mountains. Several high bridges forced endless backtracks, until the only option left was to ride in the river bed. In five hours of utterly draining riding: I got the bike beached on a berm and had to dig it out with my bare hands; dropped it so many times I lost count (I think it was ten); and crossed the river so much that eventually I was riding exclusively in it.



Having come just fifty miles from Tupiza in ten hours the river became so littered with sharp edged boulders (some as big as a St Bernard) that even riding in it was impossible. I parked the bike and hiked on for another few miles in search of the road or the train track, but there was nothing. Just endless canyons and numerous dead ends. I had to turn back. This was as far as I could get.


Despite the disappointing result, the ride wasn´t a complete loss. Two days in Bolivia had delivered a fantastic adventure that trumped all others on the trip. As an added bonus my off-road riding skills had improved significantly and I rode the fifty miles back to Tupiza at Dakar pace, splashing through the river at speed, and undoing the previous 10 hours of riding in under three.

Again, I was dead chuffed with the Phoenix. She had been through a tortuous couple of days - bouncing over huge boulders, being dropped in the river, being made to jump off river banks, and being barrel-rolled down a hill. Yet she seemed to have escaped unscathed. At least I thought she did. But when I woke up the following morning I realised she was sick, very sick. She was lying extremely low to the ground. So low in fact that I could easily touch the ground with both my feet (something that’s normally unheard of). It didn’t take me long to discover the source of the problem. A golf ball sized hole in the side of the rear shock absorber caused by the gas exploding out. Clearly, the rocky river bed was just too much for the old girl.




There are many things that can be fixed on the side of the road with duct tape and a hammer (as well as the other tools I carry). But a rear shock absorber isn’t one of those things. And, with the roads in Bolivia only getting worse I was forced to turn back and head for the smooth tarmac roads of Argentina in search of repairs. Along the way, the Phoenix became increasingly sick –snapping her clutch cable, burning through her rear brake pads, developing a slow puncture, nearly losing her exhuast because of loosened bolts, and suffering from a batch of very bad petrol. I fixed as much as I could with the tools and spares I had, but with the bike coughing we only just managed to limp back to Salta.


Now she´s with the doctor – an experienced mechanic who is on the case, getting new suspension trucked in from Buenos Aires, and dealing with the countless other little niggles as well. It will take several days for the Phoenix to recover (at least), but I´m hopeful she will. After all, it helps to be lucky doesn´t it.

New Age nightriding and more

Since leaving Buenos Aires 23 days ago, I have covered just over 6000 miles and am now in the small frontier town of La Quaica, on the Argentine-Bolivian border. In the past week I´ve discovered the perils and promise of night riding, visited a ´new age´ centre in the mountains, crossed the Andes twice, been transported back in time three years, and felt a bit foolish on April 1st.

The perils and promise of night riding
As my riding colleagues will attest, riding at night (particularly in foreign countries on bad roads) is rarely a good idea. Despite that, and despite the obvious risks, I´ve found myself on the road after dusk three times this past week.

The first occasion was shortly after leaving Bariloche. I had taken it easy the day before, getting an expensive new rear tyre fitted to the bike. So to make up for lost ground I set myself a target of 500 miles for the day. I´d managed about 400 of those by the time the sun began to slip behind the mountains. The sunset sparked a debate in my head - should I push on to Malargue and try to make the remaining miles, or bush camp here and enjoy the scenery? I dawdled with my decision and it soon became too dark to identify a suitable camping spot, leaving me with only one option.

With the daylight fading there was only my headlight to guide the way. And, as Tyson and Jerry will both confirm, the light on the KLR is woefully inadequate - it barely reaches fifty feet in front of the bike, and that´s on high beam. So to keep on the right side of safe, I trimmed my cruising speed from sixty to forty and pushed on. If I can maintain this pace, I thought, then I´ll be in Malargue in about two hours. Not bad, not bad at all.

But, as is often the way with these things, the dastardly god´s of motorbiking conspired with Ruta 40 to make the riding more difficult as the night drew in. First they threw in a few unexpected twisty curves. Then they took away the pavement and replaced it with dirt. Then they added a few heavy trucks to throw the dirt in my face. And finally, they chucked in a few hidden potholes. After two hours I was knackered, riding at barely 20mph and still an hour away from Malargue. But, just as I thought all hope was lost, the riding god´s took pity on me, they returned the pavement and turned the dirt swilling trucks into a guiding line of brake lights leading all the way to Malargue. Maybe this nightriding isn´t so bad after all.

The following day I headed into the Andes towards the border with Chile. But before crossing over I wanted to visit the small town of Villavicentio just north of Mendoza. I had heard of a road of a thousand curves that winds its way up into the clouds. Such a road sounded like the thing of adventure rider dreams, but it exists - I have ridden it.


The downside of taking such a splendid route though, is that it takes a surprisingly long time to navigate. And so, for the second night in a row, darkness began closing in around me just as the Andean scenery was turning spectacular.

I stayed in a deserted border hostel that night and woke up in the midst of the Andes, just a short walk from the imposing mass of Mount Aconcagua. At 6962m above sea level it is the tallest mountain in the world outside the Himalayas.




Back on the road, I soon found myself heading north in Chile along the surprisingly cool Pacific coastal road. Catching the first glimpse of the ocean is always a splendid moment - reminiscent of all those seaside holidays as a child. But the dull Chilean motorway only offered a few brief ocean vistas before turning inland.

The going was dull and expensive - Chilean motorways charge a five pound toll every 100 miles. I was keen for a change of scenery and even more keen to stop the deluge of cash flowing from my wallet, so I turned off the main road and headed into the mountains toward the Elqui Valley. According to my guidebook, the clear skies of the Elqui Valley offer some of the best stargazing on the planet.

Glancing at my GPS I only had 50 miles to go before reaching Vicuna - centre of the valley. Perfect I thought. But, my previously faultless GPS, which indicated it would only take an hour to get there, was being far too optimistic. Contrary to what it thought, the Ruta Antakari from Ovalle to Vicuna is not a long straight tarmac road that can be ridden at 60mph. Instead it is a much more interesting rough road that winds its way up through countless tight turns into the mountains. Needless to say, it didn´t take me an hour.


As the sun was setting I snapped a quick shot of the surrounding scenery, then pushed on up the mountain. For two hours I barely got above 20mph, riding only in first and second gear. By dusk I had reached the top of the pass and I was back nightriding again.


With two successful nights already under my belt I was riding confidently and enjoying the steep descent. Then, a bright light glinted in my mirror. Surely no one else is driving around up here at this time, I thought. Glancing behind me, I saw a dazzling full moon creeping above the mountains. The air was so clear that all the luna mare and many of the larger craters were visible.

Distracted by the celestial sideshow, I turned back to find a fork in the road right in front of me. Since I was only able to see 50 feet ahead, I couldn´t tell which was the right way, so I skidded to a halt to take a closer look. But, such was the steep incline and the loose surface that my front brake couldn´t hold the bike and the wheel slipped sideways down the hill, sending the bike down for the second drop of the trip. Happily there was no damage (to the bike at least), but the steep slope made it difficult to get her back upright again. After ten minutes of dragging and heaving I had done it, but managed to wrench my back in the process. That´ll teach me for riding at night.

A New Age
The following morning, after a pleasant stay in the Valle Hermosa Hostal in Vicuna(Beautiful Valley B&B), I wanted to get something done about my back. Fortunately, as well as being a stargazing mecca, the Elqui Valley is also known as a ´high energy centre´. It is home to several hippie settlements with many practioners of ´new age´ therapies and the like. I´m not sure if there was any difference in the ´energy´ of the place but it certainly was beautiful.



Curious about the new age aspect, I figured it couldn´t hurt to find a hippy and see what they recommended as a fix for my back. I found just such a chap along with a large St Bernard in the small picturesque town of Pisco Elqui.



The hippie and his wife, both of whom had ´qualifications´ in new age therapy suggested I get a massage. Based on unsatisfactory past experiences of Thai, Swedish and sports massages, I was sceptical of the ´metamorphic´massage that was on offer. But I went along with it anyway, and somewhat surprisingly did find myself feeling better.

With my back back in order, I decided to head to the border and cross the Andes again. But by the time I arrived at the Chilean frontier it had already closed for the day. Miles from anywhere, I didn´t fancy backtracking to a town, nor sleeping at the border post. Instead, I found myself a side track and rode up 2800m into the mountains to camp for the night. This was the view from my tent. Splendid. Just splendid.





Crossing the Andes (again)
The following morning, with the Chilean border formalities quickly dispensed with, I found myself in-between countries. The Argentinian border was a full 120 miles away over the Agua Negra Pass. I spent three hours riding my bike in no-man´s land between countries with scenery out of this world. Steep mountains of all colours - lunar greys, martian reds, and even some pinks and purples.



At the summit of the pass I was 4800m above sea level - by far the highest I´ve been with my bike. The air was thin and cold and the side of the road was lined with otherworldly ice sculptures.




An April Fool
Having crossed back into Argentina for the fifth time I awoke the following day to the sound of a demented rooster clucking away at 4am. It being April 1st, I considered this a poor attempt at an ornithological April fool. I think the rooster was either mad or confused by the bright light from the full moon. Either way I wasn´t best pleased.

I was on the road at a staggeringly early hour that morning and was feeling drowsy. So drowsy that it felt like my common sense glands had been temporarily removed. At least that´s the only explanation I can offer for why I followed my (now fallible) GPS off the main highway directly into a dried river bed full of choppy sand. My reactions weren´t what they should have been and after the obligatory 50 metres of fishtailing I went down for the third time of this trip. Again no damage, but damn foolish.

But that was only the tip of the iceberg. An hour later, back on the tarmac I felt a sudden sharp stinging pain on my inner thigh. Startled by the shock and how close to home it was, I looked down to see what kind of bug was on my trousers. But then I remembered - no bug could pierce through my kevlar armoured riding trousers unless... unless they were inside my trousers. With that terrifying thought rushing through my mind I slammed on the brakes, leapt off the bike and yanked down my trousers in broad daylight in the middle of the road. Expecting to see a scorpion, spider, or at least a bumble bee I could see nothing. Unfortunately the same couldn´t be said for the bus full of locals that sailed by smiling and waving as they caught sight of my union jack underpants. I offered a blushing British salute back and feeling utterly ridiculous pulled up my trousers. I never did find out what bit me, but it certainly had a sense of humour.

Back in time
Fortunately, April Fool´s are only allowed to be played before midday, and that afternoon with the humour out of the way I approached Cafayate in northwest Argentina. This is wine lovers country with pallatial wine bodegas all over the place.


Maybe in a few years time when my taste buds have matured I´ll come back and do the Ruta del Vino. But for now, I was more than happy with Ruta 68, which connects Cafayate with Salta. It is home to some of the best riding in the world, with perfect twisty roads winding their way through a sandstone canyon. The scenery reminded me of Monument Valley in Utah - one of the sights of the first team Canuk adventure three years ago. For a moment I was transported back in time - on the same bike, in the same scenery, with the same feeling of wonder. Absolutely unforgettable.





And now, with Bolivia just a stone´s throw away, it´s time to leave the hospitable lands of Argentina and Chile and enter wilderness country. With any luck I´ll be back this way in just over a month´s time. But for now, there´s some serious adventure riding to be done.

Ruta 40 - the spectacular road north

Since leaving Ushuaia a week ago I´ve been blow off the road, slept rough in the cold winderness and almost lost my rear suspension. I´ve now travelled over 4000 miles in South America and am currently in the lakeside town of San Carlos de Bariloche.

For the past week I have been criss-crossing between Argentina and Chile, mainly riding on Ruta 40 which tracks the Andes north. Far from the dull monotony of Ruta 3 (the long straight paved road that carried me south down the Atlantic coast to Ushuaia), Ruta 40 is infamous among bikers. A mix of smooth tarmac and rough (sometimes very rough) gravel road, it is synonymous with gusting winds, challenging riding, and spectacular scenery.

After leaving Tierra del Fuego the first breathtaking sight that greeted me was the towering granite spires of Torres del Paine National Park, Chile. Surrounded by crystal blue mountain lakes the national park has some of the best trekking in the world.


Loathed to miss it, I consulted my guidebook and looked for a suitably challenging but quick trek that I could do before sunset. The most appropriate seemed to be the "Las Torres" route - a 9km hike up 1500m to see the granite towers. The only problem was that my guidebook told me to allow 9 hours to get up there and back - I had two and a half before the sun went down. Looking at the spires, which appeared so close, I reckoned I could do it quicker than that. Surely it´ll only take half an hour to get to the top?


Setting off at a run, I stormed past the groups of English speaking tourists (all of whom were carrying heavy camping gear) and two hours later I heaved myself to the summit, panting like Boddingtons and completely exhausted. The view that greeted me was a cold barren lake and "glacier". Not quite the sunlit panorama I had imagined, but not bad. It took me another two and a half hours to stumble back down under a starlit sky.


Crossing back into Argentina I soon found myself in El Calafate - a pleasant tourist town that exists mainly to cater for the hoardes of tourists that visit the Perrito Moreno glacier every year. I cant imagine taking a tourist bus to get to the glacier though. The 50 miles of newly paved road are some of the best I have ridden. With tight hairpins, swooping corners and the spectacular vista of Lago Argentina, the road is up there with Highway 1 in California.


The glacier itself was nothing short of captivating. I have seen several so-called glaciers on the tops of mountains, but they often resemble little more than sheets of dirty ice. In contrast, the Perrito Moreno glacier is far more in keeping with the term, with shards of ice standing sixty metres tall cutting a path through the mountains. It reminded me of Superman´s ice palace and I watched it for over an hour, listening to the cracking ice like distant gunfire and watching the occasional piece crumble off into the lake below. Without a doubt, one of the best sights I have seen.



But following a few days of fairly touristy sightseeing it was time to get back on the road and begin the difficult stretch of Ruta 40 from Tres Lagos to Los Antiguos across Patagonia - 400 miles of rough gravel.

Normally, gravel is one of my favourite off-road surfaces - reasonably predictable and fun for sliding the bike around. But what I wasn´t expecting was the wind, which has a huge impact on the bike´s speed and handling. Normally I cruise at about 50mph off road, but with the wind behind me I was comfortably doing 60. For most of the time though the wind wasn´t behind and I was either riding into it (at barely 40mph), or it was coming at me from the side. The side winds are the worst. They catch the bike´s panniers and blow you off course. On tarmac you can correct the wobbles, but on gravel where there are deep rutts only a foot wide, it is much more difficult. On one stretch I cruised around a corner in what I thought was a sheltered nook only to be blasted with a hefty gust from the side. The wind was so strong it blew me out of the central rutt I was riding in and onto the loose gravel. After fifty metres of wild fishtailing I had just about brought the bike under control, now in the righthand rutt of the road. But as I was pulling up another gust hit me, blowing me completely off the road and down the steep bank on the side. Fortunately, I was only doing about 10mph so the impact was light and there was no damage. But it took me over half an hour to drag the bike upright again in the dusty sand with my gear blowing all over the place. Put that down as drop one of the South American tour.



Owing to the drop and poor state of the road, I didn´t make it to Los Antiguos that night and instead camped out in the blustery cold of the Patagonian plains. Even with all my gear on and a sleeping bag, it was still bloody freezing and I woke up with a cold. Bugger.

The following day I finally hit the tarmac again and road for a relaxing hour or two on the smooth surface, taking in the scenery around the sealike shore of South America´s second biggest lake - known as Lago Buenos Aires if you´re in Argentina and Lago General Carrera if you´re in Chile.


After stopping for a delicious salmon lunch I crossed the border and decided to continue around the lake on the rough stuff again. My guidebook promised me some of the best scenery in Southern Chile, and I wasn´t disappointed. Mystical canyonlands and lakeside stretches with a road that clung impossibly to the sides of the steep mountains.



My guidebook also promised me one of the best climates in southern Chile with 300 days of sunshine a year. But being British, I brought the bad weather with me. Not only was it overcast, but by the early evening it was raining too. Loathed to camp for a fourth chilly night in a row, I sort alternative accommodation. Hotels and B&Bs were pretty sparse in the area, as the relatively new gravel road had only just opened the area to tourism. Instead, I found myself in the tiny hamlet of Bahia Murta with little sign of life anywhere. After knocking on a few doors I eventually managed to find myself a cabana for the night - a log cabin if I´m being generous, a wooden shack if not.


The cabana was basic to say the least. No central heating, no warm water, and obvious gaps in the woodwork and windows, which let the wind in. But there was a roof over my head, and I had the expansive cabin all to myself - complete with three bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. Most importantly of all though, it had a wood burning stove, which I got going after a few attempts (doubtless Ted "Macgyver" Macher would have done it first time).


Soon I had got the kitchen warmed up and my wet clothes dried, but the question was how to transfer that heat to the bedroom across the hall. Then in a Macgyver-esk stroke of genius it hit me - I boiled some water and used one of my water bags to improvise a hot water bottle. I woke up the following morning feeling refreshed and toasty warm. Marvellous.

Back on the rough road I soon noticed that the bike was handling oddly and not riding the bumps well at all. I pulled up to have a quick check and noticed two significant problems. First, a part of my notoriously rubbish Caribou luggage rack had completely disintegrated and fallen off the bike. Second, the bolt that supports my rear suspension spring had nearly dropped out - rendering the rear shock almost completely useless. Both problems were beyond my roadside repair skills, so I cautiously climbed back on the bike and rode as gently as I could along the sixty mile stretch to the nearest town - Coyhaique. Riding at 20mph was painful, not just because I´m impatient, but because I couldn´t get to enjoy this spectacular stretch of hairpins on the way.


Eventually though I made it to Coyhaique and managed to organise the local bike mechanic to help me out with repairs.


By the following morning the suspension was repaired, Juan the mechanic had constructed an entirely new part for my luggage rack, and I even had a chance to change the oil and clean the filter. The Phoenix was back in full working order and I spent the following day traversing glorious volcanic scenery with mountains and lakes galore.




Since crossing the border back into Argentina I´ve been motoring north on good roads. The weather has improved considerably and for the first time in almost a fortnight it has been warm enough to take off my thermal layers. Needless to say, since leaving Ushuaia the adventure has really begun. And with Bolivia only a week away, it should continue.