The air, leaden with its usual heavy humidity was also laced with thick vegetation and alive with the noisy chirps of crickets. As well as the deep bulging calls of howler monkeys, affording us a quick glance as they were beckoned into the black heart of the forest. It provided a melodic background to the […]
Sure, Costa Rica knows how to charge for her unapologetic beauty but there are a myriad of workarounds in order to keep on budget while indulging the ‘rich coast’. For us, it was time to step up our camping game—iOverlander, S&M Boiler Works, Nomadic Matt, A Dull Roar and Horizons Unlimited are excellent sources of cost-saving accommodation […]
Rather than hack our way through a 99-mile swath of malarial, guerilla-infested, roadless swampland separating South America from Central America—with a machete in one hand, throttle in the other—we took the cowardly route and boarded the Ferry Express instead. Actually, Jason towed Pearl and me up the ramp onto the vessel. After gaining 22 grand […]
“Where the plantain are we gonna park the bikes for the night?” I barked down the helmet’s intercom at Jason, as we cruised into Caucasia around dusk. Scruffy buildings with washing strewn all over them dominated the municipality. Daylight was rapidly receding. Some Scots cruised up on their 1200ccs, the three amigos whom we’d missed out […]
Reluctantly extricating ourselves from the Ecuadorian jungle, we found ourselves in a non-lulling state of head-loll as the bus buckarooed its way back to the concrete jungle, Quito. Seated near to a pair of young males, I overheard a similarly aged girl sat adjacent pipe up: “Sorry, I’ve got to ask: why’ve you got a […]
In Luis’ back garden one bright morning, he randomly brought out a couple of snakes he’d caught for identification and study purposes, before releasing them back to where he’d scooped them up. For God’s sake, let me take hold of one. Had I been body-snatched? On the brink of flinging it away from me in […]
The morning greeted us to the near-imperceptible flap of a long nosed bat and gentle flurry of notes from Luis’ panpipes, our breakfast call. The previous evening’s brown scorpion—stuck to our shower curtain like a brooch—had scuttled off. Into a small wooden canoe we climbed, clasped a paddle and off the three of us went […]
Do you ever let your mind wander to a place just out of reach? Have you seen the fossils of extinct creatures in museums and wondered what they were really like? Have you been teased by thoughts of what our human ancestors might have seen when they first came to South America—creatures now gone from […]
Background information Terrain Much of Amazonia is surprisingly easy to traverse. The rivers are your highways, and most of the land is flat or has a gently rolling topography. Low hills rise in some places, but these are climbable. Ravines along the intermittent streams are more of a challenge; most are spanned by slippery, narrow […]
In order to rebegin our earth-bound way northward, gin-ger-ly is the way in which I rode Pearl all 230 miles southbound to Lima. Pearl was sporting a newly welded, temporarily repaired rear suspension linkage—albeit with no dampening in place but despite having cause for complaint, held up beautifully on the Pan American highway’s asphalt. Getting me […]