Welcome home! Here's some flu.

We've been home for two weekends and the interposing week. The old routine has settle in relatively easily, like the winter jacket you've had for years after a summer in short sleeves.

Heading down the ramp from the warehouse at the airport, free and clear at home in Kansas City!

The Monday after we got back, the bikes arrived, and on the way up to the airport to pick them up, I noticed a tickle in the back of my throat. By Tuesday, my whole back locked up with muscle aches and my breathing narrowed over the next day to the point that I elected to take Dayquil just to properly enjoy juggling club Wednesday evening. I'm not much of a medicine take, particularly when it comes to creature comfort, so that's saying something. There was plenty to catch up with at work, so I struggled through the foggy brain, striving not to breath on anyone or anything. Lots of extra naps this week, and Friday morning the fever finally broke, though respiration was still thick and heavy, clearing slowly over the weekend.

Back to about 90% this morning, I'd say, and happy to be on the road to recovery.

Nick has begun work on a presentation about the trip, particularly targeting our KCJC camp-out, Schmest, which will take place next weekend. Sarah and Nadine did a marvelous job setting it up and keeping it a secret from us until revealing it through a treasure hunt this past Friday evening. I was still pretty groggy with malady, but it was fun to celebrate our journey with them. In addition to the presentation, I'm looking forward to getting back to organizing photos and videos from the trip, and reflecting on the past 3-4 months as I do.

The array of souvenirs at home. Not much space on the bikes, so souvenir shopping was very limited.

From Peru to Bolivia, then Chile to Argentina!

Once we were moving again we were really moving!

Still in Ariquipa.  We hit a lot of national holidays while on the road and here was no different.  This is actually the days leading up to the holiday but we got to see some traditional singing and dancing.

Museo del Pisco, featuring 100 different piscos!  The drinks were fancy and delicious.

"To pay the Earth." A bit odd, maybe, but it seemed like the perfect gift.  I smuggled this guy across 4 borders!

Bikes are finally ready to hit the road again.  It was such a frustratingly long time for them to get the part in and they did not communicate well at all.  It was like being on the Stahlratte again.  We would swing by in the morning, talk to somebody who would tell us to come back in the afternoon, then we would come by in the afternoon and they would tell us to come back the next day. 

Coca tea is common in Peru and Bolivia.  I had to try it since it's illegal at home!  We stayed in Puno for two nights... because we got turned around at the Bolivian border for not having our visa prearranged.  When we got turned around they said we had to go all the way back to the consulate in Puno.  We, of course, arrived on Friday afternoon on the eve of a long holiday weekend.  The secretary gave us a list of things we had to acquire before they closed.  We did our best and got there a few minutes late, but she stayed late to process us.  Phew!

Lake Titicaca!  The world's highest altitude navigable lake and our first stop on the Bolivian side.  

La Paz... Is just nutty.  We found ourselves on an absolutely terrifyingly steep road.  It was so steep that our brakes couldn't keep is from rolling backwards, and it was twisty too!  This photo was taken while we were coming down from our adrenaline high.

Death road is out there!  We went from the desert of Peru up to the lush mountains of Bolivia.  Our hotel was just shy of the city of Croico.  By the time we got in it was cold, raining and dark.  I told Ryan we had to stop at the first hotel that had a hot tub and a restaurant.  Of course, that was the first place we checked and we stayed in the most expensive hotel of the trip that night.

Not gonna lie, even though death road is a tourist attraction now, it's still a hell of a road.  It's not so deadly now because most of the traffic is on two wheels.  I could not imagine what it would be like driving trucks on this road.  Or with two way traffic.  It would be absolutely horrific.

Even though it was winter in South America we rarely ended up in super cold weather.  The worst parts were the mountain passes.  But they were so beautiful and interesting that they were worth it every time.  We had to go through this pass both to and from Croico.  The first time we had dense fog, snow and rain all at the same time.  The way back was sunny but super cold.

Uyuni has a railroad graveyard.  It felt very "Latin America" to have a big pile of railroad cars but it was odd to find them all in one place.

Uyuni is home to the Bolivian salt flats and is also home to several hotels made of salt.  They have "no lick" policies but it was important to me to know for sure.

The one we actually stayed in was flooded in the streets all around.  In the morning all of this was ice... And it was the second day in a row we had to push my bike into the sun before it would start.  I eventually got my oil changed in Chile.

The Uyuni salt flats hold a bit of water in the rainy
Season and it creates an amazing mirror effect.

That's Ryan back there... picking up his bike.  You never want to go down, but look at this place.  It's the middle of nowhere!  Thank god Ryan was uninjured.

My first impression of Chile was not a good one.  We had to buy gas from a store that sells them from plastic bottles that didn't open until "sometime around 5:30," and when they did finally open it took about half an hour of bartering to figure out how much gas we were going to get and how we were going to pay for it.  It was the most "Latin American" place we had seen yet.  Things looked up quite a bit when we moved on.

Chile was full of interesting surprises.  The cities were very far apart and there wasn't much in between them.  We found this abandoned ruin city just off of the highway.

Another surprise!  It wasn't on our radar as we were driving south but all of the sudden we cane upon the Tropic of Capricorn!

First actual equipment failure of the trip.  My electric glove malfunctioned and burned me!  Fortunately I only needed the glove one or two more times before the end of the trip.

We were so worried about coming up this road we looked into changing our border crossing.  This is the pass between Santiago and Mendoza and is often closed due to weather throughout the year.  Sometimes they require snow chains, sometimes it's closed for several days.  Looking into it, the other borders were even worse so we had to give it a shot.  The roads were clean and dry and wide and swooping.  Turned out to be an easy run!

Our 15th border!

Mendoza!  Malbec!  This was a fun night.  By the time we made it to the hotel we had to just have dinner there too but we very much lucked out.  They have a private chef that comes every night to cook for the guests and it was delicious.  And we drank a lot of wine...

The end of the trip was pretty rushed.  We made it to Buenos Aires and the next morning we had to pack the bikes for air freight.  It was a really neat process but it felt like we were giving up a part of us.

Finally made it to Ushuaia.  It was, of course, disappointing to not make it on the bikes but it meant a lot to be there.  We celebrated with a king crab caught locally.

End of the world!

Ushuaia

These cigars made the entire journey with us.  It was often a challenge to keep them safe but it was a lot of fun to smoke them at the bottom.

The Last Little Bit

Looks like my last update was way back at the Bolivia-Chile border. From there, we were back into fast-forward mode right up through the return flight. I'm currently sitting in the airport in Atlanta, awaiting the final flight to KC. It is really good to be back in the US: easy communication, easy lines (we're no longer in the long, "foreigner" lines), easy to drink water...

So, since the last post, we enjoyed the quality highways of Chile and Argentina...

...crossed the high-but-not-as-scary-as-reputed Los Libertadores pass into Argentina...

...returned to that crossing the next day for our TVIPs (temporary vehicle importation permits)...

...savored Malbec in M
Mendoza...

...packed and shipped the motorcycles...

...flew to the End of the World...

...and ceased being southbounders.

There are a lot of mixed emotions during this homecoming. Having been out of the country for 3.5 months (with the exception of about a week in Alaska and 3 days in the conterminous US), it's great to be home. I find that my mind is still in "Spanish mode" when interacting with officials, store personnel, random people around me, etc. I also find myself still in travel mode.

This trip was such a blazing fast trip: each day, we were packing, thinking about a destination and accommodation for that night and/or the next day, driving, unpacking, and prepping to do it all over again. Again, with just a few exceptions, we were on the move daily. And during those exceptions, we were working on how to get unstuck and back on the move. It was a pretty grueling schedule for 100 days. And, as Nick pointed out in Ushuaia, the ending is bittersweet. Very glad to get to Ushuaia, but sad that the bikes didn't join us there. Even so, it was clearly the best decision when the time came.

Many thanks to those who've followed along. Considering the haste of our journey, it was really difficult to keep up with the blog. With that in mind, I expect to keep going with blog entries as I re-hash, explore, and unpack memories in the weeks to come .Would love to continue to get your feedback!

Adventure on!

What. A. Day.

Time	Where and What
06:00	Our alarms begin going off. (Photo from the previous evening...before the ice crust formed on the large (and in some places deep) pool of water surrounding the hotel.)
06:30	We're fully roused and packing. Nick heads down to check on the Super Tenere, which had objected to the cold weather the previous morning in El Tholar (~30˚F). It's even colder here in Uyuni this morning.
07:30	Indeed, the Super Tenere is still unhappy about the cold, so we push it through a ice-crusted pool of water to the sidewalk on the other side of the street, where it can sit and warm in the sun. Ryan heads to breakfast (Nick has already eaten).
09:15	Too many attempts to start; battery weak. Back-up battery unhappy about the cold. We nose the V-Strom up to the Super Tenere and connect the jumper cables.
09:45	Success! Both bikes are purring curbside, we're checked out and ready to look for some salt flats: Salar de Uyuni.
10:15	Salar de Uyuni is a bizarre sight to behold. Worth the 30-min backtrack through Colchani. We watch a few tourist guides drive their trucks out into the white plain, though don't take the time to follow. Parts of the salar are solid; parts are more akin to quicksand.
11:00	Heading south again: gassing up in Uyuni for the ride to the Chilean border.
11:15	So much for tarmac. The road out of Uyuni is as fine a road as hard-pack can be, but it isn't asphalt. Still, we're able to make decent time along this road. I just have to stash my phone in the handle of my tank bag since too many bumps make it jump out of its cradle.
12:00	Sometime just prior to noon, we pause road-side for a mictatory and masticatory break. My legs have dried from sloshing around at the salar. Only salt remains. Sometime after the break, we passed through some fun rock formations and saw another tolvanera!
14:00	After a long and rocky detour around where they were working on the road (similar to Dalton Highway work: drench with water, then grade), we took another roadside break. The ecotourist restaurant/hospedaje was not open, but the scenery was great!
14:45	A bath in the powder. As noted above, this is a fine road as far as hard-packed dirt is concerned. But just before the Chilean border, there was a cloud of dust after Nick went over a rise. Knowing it indicated a soft surface, I slowed, but next thing I new, I was on my head, sliding down the road. Slid for several feet before picking myself up and attempting to dust myself off. This stuff is like talcum powder: once it gets ahold of you, it doesn't want to let go. Radioed to let Nick know I was down, but okay. Picked the bike up and moved it off to the side of the road. For me: slight bruising of the right hip and maybe a small bruise on my shoulder. Very glad for the riding suit and helmet! For the bike: the right pannier is bent out of shape (again), and various damage along the right side: broken blinker, bent brake pedal, broken hand guard, bent crash bar, scratches on the plastic and on the mirror. For the gear: scratches on the helmet. Took about 30 minutes to gather myself, check things over (body and bike), and ensure that the right pannier was secure (a couple spare lengths of rope), then we were underway again. Pretty extensive scratches on the helmet. Very glad that wasn't my scalp. Tiny bruise above my right hip at the end of my middle finger. It gets pretty stiff after I've been still for a bit, but isn't much bother after I get moving. Tiny bruise atop the right shoulder. I pretty much only notice it if I poke and prod at it.
15:15	Arrival at the border. On the Bolivian side, the migración official tried to extort 15 bolivianos out of us. Having read that this was a practice, but that there was no such fee, I politely refused, citing what we'd learned from other travelers via iOverlander. After a bit of back-and-forth, he found an excuse to back down: "Oh, you have US passports...no fee." Aduana was super fast on the Bolivian side, and we were on our way. The road changed abruptly from packed dirt to asphalt at the border. On the Chilean side, the migración official ignored us for 5 min. When I knocked on the window, he held up his hand impatiently, indicating that we should wait. A few minutes later, he opened the window and bruskly asked for my passport. Despite his one-word responses, the process was simple enough. Aduana wanted to look through our bags. They confiscated an orange from Nick, but we were on our way by 1615.
16:20	We see a sign with an image of a gas pump, and underneath: "Calama 200 km". We're not going to make it 200 km on the gas in our tanks, so we turn around to see if there is gas to be found in Ollagüe. A couple quick conversations inform us that there are no gas stations, but the guy at the hospedaje sells some gas and the minimarket around the corner sells some gas but isn't open until 5:30. We try the hospedaje, but can't get an answer at the door after several attempts. We head to the minimarket to wait and I work on straightening out the bike a bit more after our bath in the powder. No fuel for the 200 km from Ollagüe to Calama, but it sure is a lovely drive!
18:00	Minimarket employee finally shows up. She tries our credit cards to no avail. We offer USD, but she'll only accept a $100 bill, not the $20 bills we're carrying. We scrape together a total of 420 bolivianos, for which she sells us 15 liters of gas. Not as much as we were hoping for, but it should do the trick. I interrupted Nick just as he was about to take a photo of our fueling situation in Ollagüe; thus: no photo. It was about like this, though, from our previous trip to Rayones, Nuevo Leon, Mexico: a "pre-"enactment, if you will. Just picture fewer trees and a much less adequate funnel.
18:30	We're finally underway from the border town. Unfortunately, dusk has set in, with the sun falling behind the mountains, and we still have 2.5 hours between us and the AirBnB in Calama. It's chilly, but the heated gear helps. The silhouetted mountains are gorgeous, as are the salt flats fading in the last light of the day, and the road is smoothly paved.
20:15	A road-side pause, not only for micturation, but also for marveling at the open sky. Constellations are all different down here, but I think I can pick out the Southern Cross, and that may have been Mars that we saw during the drive. At one point, there was even a blazing shooting star! Photo from http://earthsky.org/tonight/signpost-of-southern-skies
21:15	Made it to the AirBnB: located in a large apartment building on the sixth floor. It's nice to be able to rinse off the powder and settle in. We head out for a bite to eat and a stop at the nearby ATM to get Chilean pesos. Then: sleep comes quite readily after a long day of traveling. The view from this AirBnB is pretty nice!