On the way west 2013/ 2014
Our planned route
Back in Cartagena...
on our walk to the old town...
This girl we have seen before...:-)
The old plaza: meeting point of the locals and (backpacker) tourists...
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Small trekking tour in the surrounding mountains
We brought two bags of wild mangos from the mountain...the locals ignore them. Too small and fibrous, though so yummy...
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The Tayrona National Park is crap in my opinion. By far too expensive and more than 100 boats arrive daily with loads of tourists who seek a lonely (??) dream spot...
So, we continued the...
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Mixed vehicles on the road...
Reaching Taganga...formerly a fisher village
...but nowadays too touristy and dirty
These parakeets are so curious and "talkative"......
read more ... The first 400km went smooth despite a lot of trucks and buses and the breeding heat. The heat felt like someone points a hairdryer at you...and no escape.
Then the injector problem occurred again!...
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KTM completed the service on the same day and we prepared for leaving Medellin. While going out on the highway we saw (again) the poverty in harsh contradiction to the decadence in "El Poblado" one...
read more ... After two days in Darien we decided to leave and for bigger plans.
We had contact to a shipper who would take our bike in a container together with two other cars for 500USD to Panama. Condition was...
read more ... Greetings from Cartagena, Colombia!!!
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The first attempt to leave Quito ended after 8km. While driving I felt that the back tire got soft again. We had to return to Gerd and luckily we made it. On Sunday all shops are closed. Well,...
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The power came back at around 4am.
In the morning at breakfast we discovered that our hostal was full of new arrivals. The day before we were the only guests.
Reason enough to leave Mindo we...
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On the way from Canoa to Mompiche, another village on the beach approx. 120km north
Somewhere on the way north we crossed the Equator. Unspectacular because no sign, no hint. When I looked on...
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Early in the morning we left Quilotoa. Clear target for today: We wanted to reach the coast finally! :-)
And we did. The road winds thru the jungle, over a pass of 4.000m and thru fruit/ palm oil...
read more ... We are now in Atacames, Ecuador. All is well, but interent is a matter of luck. Where it functions we don't want to sit for longer.
Cheers!
read more ... We started early from Latacunga where we spent the night. Target for today was the "Quilotoa loop" via Saquisili, Sigchos and Chucchilan.
Because the normal road or better earth track was closed due...
read more ... From Tena we drove towards Quito and took a short cut via Sagolqui to the camino de los volcanes.
We drove up the Ruminawi but when the road got "to weird" we returned to the highway....
read more ... Tena in Ecuador is located in or at the border of the Amazon basin.
We enjoyed very much the visit of the Parque Amazonico en la Isla de Tena.
All the monkeys here on these pictures are...
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Hiking with views of Banos. Banos is located at the foothills of one of the most active volcanos in Ecuador, the Tungurahua.
On a more remote trail we went up to the...
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On the way to Cuenca
We took a bus an hopped off in the Cajas Nationalpark on a height of 4.000m. We followed a mountain trail to the village Patul...
read more ... Vilcabamba, famous for longevity. Rumours about people who got 120 years old are not confirmed, however many people over 80 shall live here.
And also lots of Americans, a community of over 800...
read more ... In the morning we left our nice hotel and headed north. The originally 45 min expanded to one and a half hour due to landslides, cleanup efforts and construction works on the road. Same mistakes like...
read more ... A step further towards the border to Ecuador is San Ignacio.
One should do border crossings - especially remote ones - in the morning in order to have reserve if things take longer than expected....
read more ... First about Pimentel:
Before heading for the choosen remote border crossing thru the jungle into Ecuador we wanted to spend another one or two days on the beach.
As we approached on the Panamerica...
read more ... Trujillo. We reached this town during the rush-hour when the car drivers were wild and pushy.
In the evening tranquilo..
The archeological site Chan Chan. Pre Inka, around 1.300 AD approx...
read more ... We followed the Cordillera Blance via Caraz up north and reached after approx. 70km the Canyon del Pato. Despite the Canyon is used for the generation of electricity, the road which they built is...
read more ... In the morning I opened the door of our nice hut in our hostal "Los Delfinos" and went backward in again. Such an offensive smell of fish in the air. Puuh.
There must be some fish industry here which...
read more ... We thought we could make it up to Huaraz in the Cordillera Blanca but it was already about 4pm when we reached Barranca, still at the coast.
We went into the city and tried to find the sea. When we...
read more ... We went directly for Miraflores in Lima, probably the best part of town for a stay. The Inkawasi Hostal is located close to the cliff line, a drop of approx. 80m down to the sea. In this part one...
read more ... After "our disco night" we dallied the following day to Paracas which is a couple of kilometers south of Pisco. Basically we stopped for lunch but then we decided to stay here in this small, quiet...
read more ... The next day we took our time...Still stoned from the horrible tour the day before we moved on the Panamerica towards the North slowly.
After months in the mountains we were now back in the desert...
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Well, I thought 680km good road from Cusco to Nasca couldn't be that bad and could be done within one day. We did it within one day but in between I thought we would never reach Nasca.
I don't...
read more ... Already at 6am we sneaked out of our hostal in Pueblo Machu Picchu and started our 12km walk back at the railway line to Hidroelectrica. Again no breakfast. The cool morning air was still pleasant...
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In the morning we got up at 4 o'clock and walked the 3 km on the gravel road to the park's first check point at the bridge down in the valley. It was pitch dark (we forget our headlamps at the...
read more ... The next day we made slowly our way up to Santa Theresa. Also some kind of "death road". One can find also some crosses here.
Single lane and luckily we "met" only 4 cars/ trucks
Later...
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From Cusco we drove north via Pisac towards Ollantaytambo in the river valley of the mighty Urubamba.
In Ollantaytambo we made a stop for lunch. In the back Inka terraces.
And guess what...we...
read more ... From the Mirador de los Condores we left at approx. 10am. The 40km gravel road back to Chivay went well except that I didn’t feel good at all because I caught bad cold two days before. My eyes burned...
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The Colca canyon with its terraces built over centuries
Most likely to see the condors in the morning between 7am and 9am when they use the thermal lift in order to get out of the...
read more ... Someone told us that someone told them that there is an all paved way via Manazo to Santa Theresa and that one could save 1.5 hours going this way. Right after Manazo the asphalt stopped...whether we...
read more ... We were warned by Dana and Felix who crossed the border 4 days ago. Some funny registration fees, trouble with the motorbike insurance...it took them 4 hours to cross the border.
We were so lucky...
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As mentioned we had an early start after a noisy night.
Last views on Illampu which hid from the Sorata side
Titicaca
A good lunch; we had no breakfast at all
Crossover...
read more ... The Death Road I described in the journal of the 20th of April
This time we passed La Paz over Pereferique and Alto La Paz which saved us at least 2 hours but it was still horrible. Everywhere these...
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Nice and relaxing ride, though some assholes on the road.
From La Paz to Coroico one crosses a pass of 4.400m...cold.
The reward on the other side of the pass: Trucha, still on 3.400m...
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Early in the morning we left Cochabamba. Well, all the way to La Paz is paved, except in some construction areas. In these areas we overtook left and right the "crawling" trucks and buses and the...
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The morning after - joined break-up
The first 40km hardcore in fog and drizzle and the earth track was like soap
We left Samaipata the next morning already. We wanted to move on. What...
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Just 15km outside of Villa Serrano...the decision left or right. Left was correct. :-)
Rain forest again
Ants breeding in cocoons...millions
Great landscape...passing small...
read more ... Not planned but coincidentally Dana and Felix left the same morning towards Villa Serrano or better La Higuera where Che Guevara found his peace.
Dana didn't feel good that day so we took it also...
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Here we stopped for taking some pics of the landscape. When the woman on the field approx. 80m away realized that we pointed our camera towards her she started some loud blabla.
I told...
read more ... Internet or better WiFi is a desaster here. We are now in Coroico, east of La Paz.
Cheers!
Holger
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First mining impressions on the way to Potosi. Actually in this village we were stopped by the protesting miners two days before.
Inside this restaurant their relatives were on...
read more ... Dear All,
we were not able to go online for at least a week. Also my hotmail account is closed temporarily. Yesterday late in the evening we arrived in Cochabamba after a tour on "la Routa del Che"...
read more ... - to be continued -
read more ... Early in the morning we crossed the border to Bolivia
Not much at the Bolivian fence :-)
Nobody stopped us with our extra gasoline, neither the border officials nor the customs...:-)
(in Chile...
read more ... The last days I thought it over and over again: If we should do the Laguna Verde, Laguna Colorado tour into Bolivia. I consulted many people and the answer was always the same. It is one of the...
read more ... Just to inform that we are well!
We arrived yesterday late in the evening in Uyuni/ Bolivia. While being in a restaurant the whole building started shaking for approximately 5 minutes. All ok.
Holger
read more ... At 8 am we were on the bike and left Antofagasta. In a small nest called Baquedano we left the highway to Calama and went east into the mountain range. We passed one mine after another until we...
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Antofagasta
The right side of the house is painted. Well done!
read more ... Within one day you ride from over 4.000m down to the sea. Just wow. And again desert but very different.
Some small talk with a mining truck driver. Mining is all in the desert. Everywhere they...
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An early wake up brought us quickly into the desert...Our target was the National Park Nevado Tres Cruces, close to the Argentinian border and very close to the Cerro Ojos de Salado, with 6.893m...
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KTM found the failure the same day: New injector and change of the gasoline filters. Maybe I have to believe now what so many people told me before: That the gasoline is of very bad quality in Chile...
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In the morning I wrote to Sony asking if we could pick the camera the same day. An hour later an e-mail came back with the info that based on the quotation included I should decide whether to do the...
read more ... - to be continued -
Now we have a mandatory break in Santiago. I tried to arrange the motorbike service beforehand but when we arrived at KTM Santiago we were told that they would need 7 days...
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A nice road with a lot of bends up and down over hilly terrain connects Pichilemu with the outskirts of San Antonio, another big harbor town just below Valparaiso. However the whole area is...
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In Pelluhue we found a nice and tranquilo hostal with friendly owners. Good for relaxing a couple of days.
New seaweed hairstyle :-)
Skyhigh eucalyptus trees (leaf length up to 75...
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After a relatively good night…relatively, because we slept in our motorbike clothes on the mat without the sleeping bags. We were just too lazy that evening before. Not that the coldness troubled us...
read more ... On the map we found a National Park close to the west coast. And I found a red star marking the Rio Bio Bio area as a highlight. Why not connecting both, driving thru the backdoor to the Rio Bio Bio...
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My stomach felt better but Ying got problems now. While packing our stuff in the morning I discovered that the luggage rack had two cracks. If I would have noticed before we could have fixed this in...
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I don't feel good since yesterday and have stomach pain. A forced break which is in that sense not too bad because I can work on my homepage and other stuff. Today the whole day we were busy in our...
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A bit on the escape of the party crowds we tried the west coast: Maicolpue, a Mapuche village.
In the late afternoon many people on the beach, ok.
Architecture is still ok! No concrete...
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In Puerto Montt we had lunch only. Too busy. So we went further up north.
Volcano Osorno on our way to Frutillar
We found a camp ground and thought of staying longer here. But in the...
read more ... After five and a half hours on the ferry we arrived around 7:30 pm in Castro. Crowds of backpackers on the bustling streets. We were lucky and found a Hostal with estacionamiento for the moto...
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Awful road construction work for about 100km. A lot of dust eating from all the construction works but also from the cars which drove towards us or from cars and trucks we had to take over.
In one...
read more ... Ying got a problem with one of her teeth and in Puyuhuapi is no dentist. The next village La Junta (what a name?!) should have one told us our friendly Hostal owner. En “La Posta del Salud” we...
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Even more beautiful is this section of rainforest with glaciers towering on top of the surrounding mountains. And we had sunshine all day…The 220km gravel road above Puerto Cisne were in some parts...
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Again 180km on gravel roads but this time through beautiful rainforest. The big trees in the impenetrable jungle are amazing and the Nalca with their supersize leaves, wow. We were so lucky to...
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7th of Feb: 8 hours trekking tour in the Tamango National Park.
Fuchsia everywhere
8th to 9th of Feb: Fiesta Costumbrie Cochrane
We were lucky to attend such a...
read more ... Paso Roballos was on the program for today, a border crossing into Chile over the Andes. Diana and Felix raved so much over this pass. When we turned left at the road crossing onto the gravel we had...
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With 7 Pesos (80 cents) in the pocket but with a full tank we started north. The 120km to Gobernador Gregores went well even though we had two big showers. A cleaner in the ATM room of the bank said...
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Early in the morning we left our Mary Bed & Breakfast (actually without breakfast :-) But we had our "own" house for 3 days. We were in the neighbor building and we had luck that nobody else...
read more ... While the motorbike was with Alejandro del Lago, the mechanic on la Calle Ona in Pta Arenas we made a walk out of town. Once up on the hills we didn't meet any people anymore...nice but windy up...
read more ... We will cross over the Magellan Straits to Pta Arenas in the hopes of getting a new back tire and fixing my clutch which leaks oil.
Still on the Porvenir side. This small park reminds of the lost...
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A look back from the moto :-) Here the wind was still ok. Closer to Porvenir it got strong and bumby again.
El gaucho in the abandoned streets of Porvenir...
read more ... Dana and Felix from Lüneburg were also there with their motorbikes. This couple frooze with us together on the Ushuaia camp ground. Tierra del Fuego must be small that me met here again accidentally...
read more ... Early in the morning we left our Hospedaje Noal with the friendly but business oriented grandma. On purpose I didn't ask the officers at the police control station on the road. Right after we took a...
read more ... It is so freezing cold down here. The last 14 days we camped just with an interruption of two nights in hostels when we were on the road towards the end of the world. During the nights we had minus...
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On the way to Ushuaia
The tent parade on the Ushuaia camp ground, 3km from the city center. After two and a half days without any people in the wilderness somehow a shock. So many tourists...
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In the morning we bought for 2-3 days food in Rio Grande for our adventure on the Atlantic coast. We wanted to drive as as possible down towards the Cape on the Atlantic side, off the beaten track...
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At the first border crossing to Chile we met two bikers from Oldenburg. On the ferry to Tierra del Fuego we met them again. And lost them again on the following 100km offroad. We overtook...
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Back in the Pampa and a last glimpse on Lago Argentino
Asking for a fish restaurant in Rio Gallegos
Storm on the streets
Nearly blown away :-)
The storm lashes over the...
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A look back on the road to El Chalten
The fuel-up experience. Bring half an hour to fill up your tank.
On the way to Calafate: First views of the Lago Argentino, the biggest lake in...
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View from our Bed & Breakfast "Patagonicus". Take the "Maestri" room.
The wind in the back :-)
A first glimpse on Fitz Roy
But on this...
read more ... Now we were really worried about the wind. Worried because I knew that today we would have to go 100km on gravel roads. With this wind one would be just pushed off the road because the tires wouldn’t...
read more ... Next day wind in the deserted streets of Rio Mayo. Coffee in the first class restaurant of the village (the food was really good the evening before), breakfast with some bought items from the local...
read more ... The 15 km out of the national park went smoothly, so did the 50 km to Esquel. Continuously the wind got stronger. Wow. Our first real experience with the wind in Patagonia. When I thought before that...
read more ... After taking a picture with this Argentinian and his son (he travelled already 1.800km with his son on his small Honda from San Rafael towards the south…father dreaming of a KTM like mine and son...
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San Carlos de Bariloche, THE tourist spot. We are on a camp ground 3km outside of the city center. The storm here ice-cold. In the night of the 3rd of January the temperature came down to 0°. We...
read more ... Yes, new snow and not far away from our heads. 6°C and all the way to Villa de la Angostura rain.
Rain and laugh! :-))
We took a hotel, even though expensive. But with all these...
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It gets colder and colder...
In continuous rainfall we make a small mountain tour thru a Mapuche community to our personal lookout, not the standard mirador. Interesting but we are all wet...
read more ... Approx. 20km from Junin de los Andes is the beautiful Lake Huechulafquen. At the parque gate we decided not to do the tourist track. For locals 25 pesos, for foreigners 65 pesos per person. Not with...
read more ... We fled from the heat of Mendoza in the early morning. We left a deserted Mendoza.
We were on a great highway until I saw three breaded motorbikers standing in the shadow of some trees. I didn't...
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We didn’t see the signs and we didn’t think. On the streets we didn’t see much about Christmas. Opposite to Chile where everywhere was the “Kitsch”.
Siesta 1pm to 4pm. Okay, we stayed in the hostel...
read more ... Early wake up, packing and leaving. While packing sorting out things which are too much or superfluous. We did this at home a couple of times and now again we have too many things?? Now we HAVE to...
read more ... Today it is like Christmas: Ying got her luggage late in the evening. Unbelievable, after one week of no information all of a sudden the luggage arrived. Ying all happiness, me worried because of all...
read more ... The time flies but Ying’s luggage didn’t fly with us. We moved to the Villa Kunterbunt in Valparaiso. It is really Kunterbunt here, chaotic but lovely people. Martina and Enzo provide a lot of...
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Arrival at around 9:40 am in Santiago de Chile, the flight as good as it can be with Iberia But most important is that we arrived safe here. Luggage , well not for Ying. After an hour running...
read more ... 14th of December 2013
The last two weeks we lived in chaos. Basically we packed all our clothes for the trip already before the 16th of November which was the closing date for the shipment of the...
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