Someone I once had to work alongside casually inquired where I took my main summer holiday one year. After outlining a fortnight’s touring the north west coast of Scotland on two wheels: with a bunch of male biking friends, living out of two panniers and a roll bag, wild camping most nights and covering around […]
Upon registering Pearl’s mileage clock 10,000 miles, without conscious volition I stopped seeing our trip as an extended holiday. This had now become a way of life for us. The honeymoon period wasn’t altogether over, it was simply the start of a new chapter having learnt the basic ropes of two wheeled travel. Namely journeying […]
The beauty of having your own wheels means we executed our own sorties each day while using San Pedro de Atacama as a base. Our first self-facilitated foray into the desert took us to Valle de la Luna, Chile’s equivalent of Valley of the moon. I’d clocked the coaches carting around the day-trippers but thankfully the […]
Our lives six months after saying our heartfelt goodbyes in old Blighty – no longer concerned themselves with mainstream matters on which the average Brit might dwell: work, bills, making some imaginative weekend play before the cycle’s put on repeat. Our affairs now involved: getting from A to which B faring through foreign lands in […]
Santa Cruz, Copacabana, San Jose and Londres (also known as London) – what do they all have in common? They’re all the names given to friendly little towns of dusty dwellings, doing their individual Argentinian ‘thing’, a world apart from their counterparts elsewhere on earth. Most boasted tree lined central plazas bearing ripe oranges and […]
Barreal’s playground on the crazy paving dried mud lake had been a hoot. We continued on ruta 149 but de toured eastwards for a pit stop in San Juan; Jason’s bike was screaming out for sprockets and a new chain. He was carrying a set from Santiago; it was just a case of replacing old […]
Our seven-day sojourn in Chile’s capital was protracted because of having to stay put for parts to be replaced and spares to be shipped. Three weeks of languidly waiting around had come to an end. If there had been any quiet little moment of peace to savour about the late night drum beating, World Cup […]
Sharing stories at breakfast, learning local knowledge over lunch and regaling one another with tales over tea made our stay in Toto’s utopian setting Posada Olivar that much more idyllic. We took full advantage of taking time out to sink into our surroundings, aided by the selflessness of Juan Pablo, our newfound friend via a […]
We’d enjoyed and endured about as much snow as we could take in eight days – white sheets had fallen in a fierce Patagonian wind for a week. We’d also been scarred as much as the bleating goat had been scared out of its skin upon our Caviahue departure. The bikes were calling and it was […]
San Martin de los Andes was where the Ruta de los Siete Lagos (Seven Lakes Road) ended. As beautiful as this resort in the rain was, a joint visit with Jason to a friendly barber’s shop departing as two satisfied customers from the experience, coupled with our hostel room’s pre-installed ‘bum gun’ were the concluding […]