Fun ride and horror hotel
Nasca and Arequipa
As the road continues altitude gets lower and temperatures rise again. In Nasca I have delicious fried squid at one of the little street restaurants. The contrast with the rubbish they served me in Puquio couldn’t have been bigger. I quickly go take a look at the famous Nasca lines from a mirador along the road, but I am not overwhelmed to be honest. The pictures taken from a plane definately look better but I am running out of time so I cannot stay any longer. After fuelling up, I am heading south again.
Due to the lower altitude, fuel consumption is a lot higher than before and I am more than surprised to find out I am only getting a mere 350 kms out of a full tank. In the Andes 30 liters would still give me a 600 km range. Somewhere just before Atico I manage to score some overpriced 85 oct fuel but as I fuel up I notice that the rear blinker behind my exhaust has melted away. Now that isn’t really as it should be. Maybe something with the tuning of the engine? Dunno…
A little further, just before the night falls, another tyre puncture makes me pull over again. I am lucky to be just near a somewhat more modern petrol station where I can fix it, but when I start to take the front wheel out I am shocked to pull out three spokes just like that. Holy crap, and a fourth spoke is already missing. The spokes were just torn out of their nipples and another 5 spokes are also loose. And the great thing about these BMW spoke wheels is that by tightening one of the spokes, you’ll probably loosen at least two other ones. 45 minutes of cursing later I finally have a wheel where more or less everything is rattle free, albeit with 4 spokes less. I remember having taken a speedbump at 130 km/h on the road to Puquio and the front wheel has taken a beating there, so that must have been the cause of the damaged wheel.
The remainder of the road is ridden in the dark and I wouldn’t really care about that if it weren’t for these crazy truck drivers not being used to anything small and vulnerable on the road. Up to three times huge trucks are passing from the opposite direction without even paying any form of attention to me and almost killing me. It is clear to me that they don’t realise a motorbike like mine nears just as fast as a normal car. It makes me conclude the road to Arequipa is just perilous at night and again, way longer than I thought. I’m starting to get used to it I guess…
Arequipa and the Colca valley
85 octane my arse! Smog, smog, smog!
Back on the main road I stop for petrol at the first station. I fill up and then hit the starter button to suddenly hear that ominous engine sound: humpahumpahumparoaroaroarbompbompbomp… Hoho, this sounds far from normal. My engine sounds like a heavy smoker at 7 in the morning. As I ask the guy from the petrol station if this is really 85 octane petrol, I get a firm « Si si senor ». Well,I don’t have the time nor the means to empty the tank so I continue my ride. But as I take a closer look at the bike in Arequipa I notice an alarmingly low oil level. I pour in a full liter and still there is no signof oil behind the oil glass. A second liter goes in, still fully synthetic and off it goes to Arica, the border with Chile. But the oil problem is persistent and the exhaust is greasy. The engine starts to burn more and more oil and again two liters go in. I hope I’ll make it to Iquique, another 400km further.
Border formalities with Chile are easy and it only takes an hour to get me through, despite the long waiting queues. My panniers are checked « pro forma » because aart fro lifting the lid, I don’t even have to take out anything. Just a little oil fill up and then to Iquique in the dark. I(ll get that petrol further down the road, so I though… NOT! There is absolutely nothing, nada! Just sand, but definately no petrol. I kind of panic because it has gotten colder again. I just failed to respect one of the main basic rules of adventure travelling: if you pass a petrol station, fill up, no matter what! And it isn’t just dark around here. It’s bloody plain black! Except an impressive sky full of stars, I just don’t see anything when I switch off my headlight. Until I see a faint light in the distance (now where have we heard that before). It appears to be a truck stop restaurant in the middle of nowhere but the only thing they are able to tell me is that somewhere 50 kms down the road there might possibly be petrol for sale near the customs office. I finally make it to what appears to be probably the oldest petrol seller of the southern hemisphere. He sells me a few liters from glas bottles, which finally takes me to Iquique.
Trucks and porn
20 tons of slt, a 1150 GS Adventure, myself and Fernando the porn omver. Thanwas the jolly bunch that finally worked its way down to Santiago. Fernando was a unique species: 56 years old, very amusing but a just tad sex obsessed. The main question remained which girls were best in bed: the Dutch, French, German, English, Belgian… ones? And he was all too dissapointed that I didn’t manage to fix his portable DVD player so he could watch his illegal copy of some dirty movie. But we laughed a whole lot during that 48 hours ride and more importantly, we made progress.
Back to mama
At last the bike arrived pretty late in Valparaiso and I was told it was actually too late to get it on the boat. But after some negotiation and with the help of Enzo, I crated the bloody thing in no time to get the shipping approval 15 minutes before closing time. I smelled like a pig, was nerve wrecked and tired. I had to dissapoint Suzanna from my first day in Chile that we didn’t have time to meet up in Santiago as I promised her, but in stead Ricardo joined me for dinner and I went to bed early.
I hopped on the bus in the morning, took the plane in Santiago and flew back home. What an experience! South America, Ill be back…