Motorcycle Explorer December 2014 Issue 3 | Page 32

E
arly morning and I’m coughing and
wheezing like a good’un. There’s something
wrong with me; I just can’t get started. Heard
Mags talking about how we’re up some place
high, the Altiplano?
A
fter a month laid up in the diner of the
hotel, it was sure great to be reunited with
Mags. Teresa, the owner, looked after me
good, called by every few days, re-arranged
the blankets and what not but now me and the
other fella are back on the road, doing what we
were made for, explorin’ the world… Mags is
feeling better too; four week lay up with
plenty of exercise and fresh air soon had that
arm on the mend. Survival tactics have
evolved so we’re no longer seeking the bad
roads, although we’ve still had our fair share of
Desvios with Mags content to take it easy and
me no longer curious about digging my nose in
the dirt. Been content to ride roads that have
taken us through spectacular landscapes as we
zig-zagged north through Argentina.
"got a health condition
up in them high
regions"
;
I
t’s funny but they always seem to run
back to those big mountains, the Andes, and
the past few days we’ve been climbing higher
and higher until this morning… Thin air, cold
start; my engine mapping‘s done its sums and…
computer says ‘nah’. Other fella’s just as bad
and won’t fire either. Then some big hairy-
assed engineer and a bunch of hangers-on got
their hands all over my ass and pushed me up
the street; Mags dropped the clutch and bang;
off we go and before long we’re riding a desert
highway to the top of the world.
S
o there you have it; I got a health
condition up in them high regions; feel funny
and won’t start right. Happened nearly every
time, other fella too, once we were up in the
clouds. They picked up some funny inhaler – ‘E-
Z Start’; an ether-based morning pick-me-up. I
tell ya, a snort down the old air-intake works a
treat! the miles are rolling by and we’ve all
settled into some sort of rhythm of the road.
A
rgentina is now far behind, so is Chile
with some of the best roads of the trip to date
with awesome volcanoes all around. Then
Bolivia and the mad-cap canyon city of La Paz.
Some place after the past few wilderness
weeks with all the bright lights, $300 a night
hotels and trouble to match. Ever on into Peru
where I got dunked in a river, avoiding some
place called Ilave. Locals had gone mad at
their mayor, set up a blockade at the only
bridge for miles so we had to swim for it. Them
big-ass boxes came into their own I tell ya,
keeping me upright and dry for the most. It
was all high adventure ‘til we heard some folks
got killed in the town; we’d survived another
close shave.
T
he road from Cusco down to the coast
was a helter-skelter-belter of a ride, two days
of sheer slalom not to beaten anywhere on the
planet and most of it on hard stuff to boot. At
the end of day-two we did a bit of role
reversal, rescuing someone else for a change; a
dead Harley. Broke down in the middle of
nowhere, ridden by a little Japanese lass
across Russia, Europe and now up through the
Americas like us. They flagged down a potato
lorry, hoofed the Harley in the back and me’n
the other fella rode escort into Nazca, saw the
little lady right.