Maria's Guest Appearance on the Slingshot!!!

So Clay and I (Maria) thought it was time for ya'll to see some pictures of the four of us, since we have been doing so much! Enjoy!

Here I am at the Cerro Santa Lucia Park, we climbed to the top and were able to see all of Santiago! It was pretty amazing. What also was pretty amazing was in every direction you saw cranes, building high-rises, I think I counted 12... no economic slow down here.

Another shot of Santiago.

This was the hostel we stayed at in Vina del Mar. Here we are packing up to get on the bus bound for Mendoza, Argentina.

On the bus driving through Chile. Beautiful country side.

Okay... so I'm probably not the best person to write this caption but this is part of the road through the Andes that our double-decker bus climbed. I remember 2 things from this... 1. praying that the crazy bus driver turned the corners and made it up safely. 2. Clay and Kyle talking the ENTIRE time about how they wish they were still on their motorcycles because the twists and turns would have been awesome to ride!!!!

A shot from the Andes. Taking the bus through this mountain range was pretty spectacular. I have never seen anything like it.

Kathryn and I (or should I say Mathryn) having lunch in the middle of the Andes, before crossing into Argentina. 

The double-decker bus we took from Chile to Argentina, an 8 hour ride.

Here is Kathryn and I in Mendoza, as the four of us ventured to the bus station to buy our tickets to Buenos Aires. It was quite the feat being on bikes around such crazy drivers, who don't stay in their lanes!

Clay, Kathryn, Kyle and I at the Plaza Independencia in Mendoza. This park is in the center of the city and we are actually standing on top on a modern art museum located in the park. A funny side note: The dog you see in the back ground has been following us around this city. It seems like where ever we go the dog (Kathryn named it Buddy) just shows up. We have been here 3 days and have seen it every where!

A fountain in the biggest park in Mendoza. It was amazing to ride around here, there was a man-made lake where we saw crewers rowing. Plus everyone was outside running or walking, so there was a real feel of local culture.

Here we are at dinner last night, it was a small wine bar where we had some tapas. Kyle loved this place... I think it reminded him of San Fran a bit. Also, this is the nicest the boys have dressed in the past 2 1/2 months! Pretty sharp!

So this shot of Fernet is for all of Kathryn's and Kyle's friends back in San Francisco. They said you all are obsessed with this stuff and there is TONS of it down here.

Mendoza is know for it's wine, so today we rented bikes and went on a wine tour. It was pretty fun, I think Kathryn and Kyle had a bit more fun because Clay ended up getting 2 flats, so we ended our day a bit earlier. 

Clay in the barrel room at the Wine Museum. 

Here we are on a tour of the Carinae Winery, it was started by a French couple in 2003. They produced their first bottle of Malbec in 2004.

This is an old school grape press dating back to 1910.

Thats all for now folks! Kyle and Kathryn are currently out at some bars and Clay and I are at the hostel. The two of us haven't been feeling well today... I think we picked up some bug. Tomorrow we are off on an 17 hour bus ride to Buenos Aires, which we are all pretty excited about! Until next time!! - Maria

TACA, Fedex, and the arrival of Mathryn (Maria and Kathryn)

I think we are definitely over due for a blog update. We have probably been a little too lazy lately in all respects and updating our blog is not an exception. The route of our laziness I think comes from the fact that we have not been on the road much lately. After spending 2 weeks at The Point Hostel in Lima we are pretty chilled out. We had a lot of fun in Lima, but I think what will stay with me are the people that we met there. I hope we are able to stay in touch with them. In fact we plan to meet Martjin in Buenos Aires, he knows of some good places to stay there.

On the 14^th of April after the bikes were all sold and the riding gear was shipped home to California our backpacking adventure began. Quickly let me say that Fedex kicks DHLs ass. The package arrived at Clay’s parents place on the 16^th!!! Fully intact. Just awesome service. Clay and I arrived at the international airport in Lima by taxi with backpacks in toe. The airport in Lima worked out great! The place was clean and well organized which I was totally was not expecting. But the airline we took from Lima to Santiago, Taca, was outstanding! It was one of the best flights I think I have ever had. While booking the ticket I was a little pissed that I was paying $400 USD for a 3 hour plane flight but it ended up being worth it. The plane was brand new and very clean. Each seat had a complementary blanket and pillow. A meal and movie were also included on the flight, even though the movie was some sucky romantic comedy I thought it was cool that they didn’t charge for the headphones like on the Virgin Atlantic flights to Las Vegas. The other thing that’s dumb about Virgin Atlantic is the purple mood lighting in the cabin, anyways I digress.

So we got into Santiago at like 3am on the 15^th and didn’t really have a plan on where we were going to sleep for the rest of the night. Which resulted in us getting the run around from this cab driver who kept taking us to hotels that were already full or way out of our price range. Anyways after about an hour of farting around and about 50 USD later we got to La Casa Roja were we stayed for the last several nights. We had a couple good nights in Santiago, several people we talked to before said there wasn’t much to see in Santiago and that it had a sort of commercial feeling to it, which I think is somewhat true but we had a great time there and there are some nice things to see in Santiago such as the city square, and the catherdral as well as this cool park that is set up on an enomous rock that looks over the city. Clay will post pictures of all this stuff soon.   –Kyle

Kyle did a great job of updating you on our travels, and I was just teasing him that he should become a “Business Critic” Writer for Business Week Magazine (with a great Editor of course), somewhat similar to a Food Critic.  Although you are now well informed as to Fedex’s and TACA’s outstanding business tactics, he left out the biggest part of the last 4 days:  Maria and Kathryn showed up!!!  Kyle and I got up the earliest we have the entire trip and met them at the Santiago airport Friday morning.  We had a great time on Friday exploring the City and then later we visited the Bella Vista neighborhood for drinks and dancing.   It’s been nice to have a little estrogen in the air to mix it up a little over the past few days.  So I’m gonna wrap this up but we’re now in Vina del Mar on the Chilean coast and tomorrow we leave on an 8 hour bus ride to Mendoza, Argentina.  We’ll post some pictures soon, but not from Maria’s camera, which got stolen from right under our noses today while we were at the beach.  Luckily she only had a few pictures on it and it was on the fritz anyways.  Til next time….    -Clay

Bikes are Sold, Backpacks are Bought...a Transitional Period in the Slingshot South

From Bikers to Backpackers....That´s my theme for tonight´s blogpost. It´s been a little while since we´ve posted anything here so I hope you haven´t lost total interest. We´ve been hanging out here in Lima both having a ton of fun and getting all the logistics out of the way with the bikes and gear. So we sold both of the bikes, sent all the rest of the gear home, bought some backpacks, and are ready for our flight down to Santiago, Chile to meet Maria and Kathryn tomorrow night. From there we´ll bus into Mendoza, Argentina´s wine country, and eventually over to Buenos Aires which we´re really looking forward to. I think Kyle might add some thoughts here so Ill stick to the captions below so Ill leave the rest to him....Clay.

Here´s Rafa, short for Rafael. Now that we´ve been at "The Point" Hostel in Lima for 8 days we´re kinda becoming regulars. Rafa here is one our new buddies. Rafa is Ecuadorian, and in addition to touring all of South America in his diesel Mercedes G-Wagon, he found time get his degree at a French Culinary school here in Lima. Rafa´s the man for sure. Not only is he a party animal, he makes the best Stuffed Chicken Marsala I´ve ever seen, because you know I´ve seen a lot of Chicken Marsala dishes in my day. Actually this was the first time I´ve had it but it was damn good.

We went to a big Futbol match between Lima´s team, El Universitario, and the Paraguayan National team. The people are so passionate about soccer here it´s crazy. Luckily the "U" won that night and we made it out safely, I wouldn´t want to see what happens when they lose...

Here´s the guy that bought Kyle´s bike, pretty happy camper.

Ok here´s the guy that actually bought the bike, he was really happy. They don´t have many proper sized bikes down here, mostly just little China Bikes. Doesn´t Kyle look like he wants to cry??? Can´t blame him, it was hard to see the bikes go but it definitely turned out to be the best thing for us. I almost sent mine in a flaming ball off the cliff until Janet M. reprimanded me ;) Just kidding Janet...you were right!!!

They threw an "80´s/Hippie/put on whatever stupid clothes you have and come spend money at our bar" party at our hostel. It was a lot of fun. In the middle is our rather tall new friend Martijn from the Netherlands. Martin is another one of our great new international friends we´ve made while traveling, prety cool guy.

Kyle´s birthday was last Sunday. The people at the hostel got him a cake, pretty cool. The workers at the hostel spelt his name wrong but judging how they can barely even pronounce our "funny American names" I´m impressed they even came close.

Man that´s hideous huh??? That stupid sirt was so tight I couldn´t breathe.

We went to a couple musems in Central Lima today. This one had all these crazy torture chambers where they used to tortured prisoners in all sorts of creative ways. Fun stuff

Town Sqare in Central Lima, the equivalent of our White House where the Peruvian President lives is directly behind the square.

This museum was an old Catholic Monastery that doubled as a burial groud underneath the Church. There are thousands of skulls and bones still there that have been excavated after being buried for all those years. Pretty creepy...

That´s all for now. Maybe we´ll have some guest posters on the blog soon as 2 turns to 4 in couple days for the Sling Shot South....

Possibly Putting the Bikes to Bed and Lima, Peru...

I just read that title of this post again and it is even more depressing than I originally thought, but we are at a moment of great decisions and compromises here in our trip. No matter how much you try and forget about time on a trip like this and pretend it doesn´t pertain to you, it always comes back to time. Lima may well be the end of the motorcycle portion of our trip and it´s a very sad thing for me because I have become pretty attached to the bike and have really been enjoying riding through all these great places.

The problem is that we eventually need to do 1 of 3 things with the bikes before we fly home: 1. Sell them 2. Ship them home 3. Light them on fire and ghost ride them off a huge cliff in a sacrificial fire ceremony to the bike gods, with pictures of course. For me (and Kyle is leaning this way as well) the best thing would be to sell them, even though the fire and cliff thing would be so freakin awesome. It would be nice to recoup some of the money we spent on the bikes and for the trip as well. Shipping them home looks like it will be pretty expensive, and we´ve been told that Lima is probably the only place that it will be possible to sell them between here and Santiago, Chile where we meet the girls on the 17th. So we are now here in Lima, the biggest city we´ve seen on our trip at 6.5 million people. In between several other mischivieous activities we´ve been looking into the possibility of selling the bikes. We´re still kinda toying with the idea though, we really don´t want to see these things go. One way I like to look at it is that we dont want to make it all the way on our first try anyways right? That way it leaves another goal to accomplish for Sling Shot South II, The Sequel. Who´s in??? Maybe we´ll do Slingshot East or North...who knows. So we´ll keep you updated but in the meantime enjoy the pictures below!!!

The landscape has changed drastically after entering Peru. It went from Lush green jungles to crazy desert terrain. We been staying along the coast on the Pan-American Highway for the most part since crossing from Ecuador. Riding through the desert is pretty cool, gives you a real sense of enormity of the world and the smallness of yourself...if that makes any sense at all.

Don´t try this at home. Here´s Kyle with the 5 fingered salute! You have to do something to keep yourself entertained when pounding out miles in the desert...

This was the sunset in the town of Huanchaco, Peru. Huanchaco was such a great little town. We stayed there for 2 nights and rented some surfboards and wetsuits the second day. Kyle took surfing lessons and got up on something like his second try. Pretty talented that guy...

The fisherman in Huanchaco use these crazy little boats called Caballitos, which is an ancient-style fishing boat made from bundles of tortora reeds.

Here´s me trying to be artistic with my photos. Actually I just want to be able to take cool pictures all the time like my sister, I even bought the same camera she has for my trip. She has an incredible eye for finding great shots and using black and white and all that fun stuff. What do you think Megan???

This is what you might call a Peruvian Mansion in the hills. Actually a pretty high poverty level in Peru, good amount of political turmoil in recent years. Hopefully it´s turning itself around.

That´s me taking a break in the desert.

And me again in Huanchaco with the fishing boats. I have to keep the girlfriend happy with some shots of mysef every once in a while...

More crazy coastal scenery, and of course the Green Machine.

This is the Pan-American Highway a few hours North of Lima, straight through the desert.

We´re staying at the Point Hostel in Lima in a great little section of town called Barranca. It´s actually the first time we´ve done the dorm-style sleeping at a hostel instead of a private room. Not too bad actually. We had the room to ourselves the first night but it pretty full now

A couple shots of us messin around with a little 125cc China bike. Some guy at the Hostel is actually riding this thing across the country or something crazy like that.


Here´s the bar at the Hostel, they were getting ready for the army themed party we attended last night. Pretty good set up they have going at the hostel.

Until next time.....Clay

I rode my motorcycle to Peru

It sounds ridiculous but it is true.
We also forgot to mention that we have been south of the equator since Quito, Ecuador. Today we made our way back to the ocean and are staying in a little surf town called Mancora. It´s a little touristy for our tastes but it will do for the night. Its pretty funny that Clay and I have become picky travelers. Any sight of too many other white people or a lot of english writing on the store fronts and we are turned off because we don´t think it´s authentic enough.... Pretty silly. Today was also the first time we got ripped off. We changed some money at the boarder with one of these money changer guys and apparently he gave us some fake bills. We´ve been using these types of guys the whole way down since Mexico and haven´t had any problems. We usually only have a small amount of cash on us by the time we get to the boarder anyways. We got taken for about 30 bucks not the end of the world, but it doesn´t leave you with a very nice feeling. The guy at the hotel said if we take the counterfeit notes to the national bank when we are in Lima they will change them out for us. We´ll see I´m not holding my breath. Seems like a lot of people would be getting free money if that was the case.
A general comment about the weather, in the afternoons we got rained on just about everyday while in Colombia and Ecuador. Now that we are closer to the cost in Peru I have a feeling that will stop. But it is really remarkable the effect that the weather has on you while riding a motorcycle. I mean Clay and I both have waterproof riding suits and we both stay, for the most part, dry while it is raining. Nonetheless riding in the rain is somewhat depressing and stressful. You are consistently wiping your face shield clean and trying not to breath too heavy so as not to fog the inside of the face shield. You have to watch your braking and lean angle because of the slippery surface and you are consistently worried about laying the thing down. All of this just makes you tired very quickly and makes you want to get off that damn bike (that said we have both become much better wet weather riders). But as soon as you ride out of the rain and the sun is shining and the pavement is dry, it does not matter how tired you were before you just feel completely energized and happy again and all the worries you had before are not even a memory. The sun has this amazing ability to make you feel wonderful. Like a good friend of mine says you need to get outside in that sunshie and recharge those solar panels.

Why you have to visit Colombia...plus some shots from Ecuador!

It wasn´t easy, but we finally had to depart Colombia to carry on with our trip. Colombia exceeded my expectations in every way possible, and it´s a place to which I will definitely return. My biggest fear entering this trip was what we would encounter in the Colombia. In our planning we even contemplated trying to divert ourselves around Colombia to avoid what everyone back home was telling us was an extremely dangerous place. Without sounding too much like a travel agency infomercial, I think anyone traveling to South America should make Colombia a definite stop on their itinerary....and here´s why:

1. The People: Kindest people as a group we´ve come across on our Slingshot South. More than anywhere else, it seemed that most people were happy to have us there as tourists. Kind of like, "Wait, you´ve come to visit Colombia? But hasn´t everyone back home told you how dangerous it is here? Well I´m glad you didn´t listen to it. Happy to have you here!" The women are beautiful if that´s what you´re into, and most of the men know how to dance a mean Salsa for you ladies out there. Everyone in Colombia also has more of a "can do" attitude and all seem to be busy with their own things, where as in other Central American countries we visited we were targeted much more by beggars, con-artists, etc.
2. The Cities: Cartagena, Medellin, and Cali were the 3 major cities we visited. They each have a completely different vibe and each is pretty amazing in it´s own right, not to mention the smaller towns in between we rode through were full of culture as well.
3. The Scenery: The entire country is loaded with crazy scenery, including mountains, rivers, lakes, beaches and whatever else you might be into. Colombia has the best motorcycle roads as a whole of anywhere I´ve ever seen. Everyday we rode in Colombia was the best day I´ve had riding. Plus there´s a huge motorcycle culture down here. My ideal trip through Colombia would probably be about 3-4 weeks long on a nice motorcycle to explore all the parts of the place.

Ok, enough of that. Now we´re in the town of Cuenca, Ecuador after spending a night in Quito 2 nights ago. I´m going to post some captions on all of the pictures below, but there´s a big footie game starting right now between Ecuador and Brazil and the town of Cuenca is going crazy. Gotta go find a good spot to watch it. I´ll finish this up tomorrow!!!

This shot was taken while we were still in Colombia on one of the epic roads winding through the country South of Cali. Of course I had to stick that big ugly retro green bike in the shot. I´m starting to become pretty attached to that thing, it´s taken me pretty far and all the while I´ve beaten it up pretty bad. Still going strong somehow...it´s a strange love affair we have going on, I beat the hell out of it and it keeps coming back for more.

This shot was taken while cruising through a huge street market in Cali, Colombia, on the way out of town. Not the most active part of the market, but you get the picture. Check out that huge rack of meat hanging in the background. They sell every last piece of the animal in these places, from the horses jaw to the pig´s tail. Not extremely appetizing, but also refreshing to see how non-wasteful these people are.

Another view shot from Colombia. I´ve got so many of these now, hard to pick one. The country is covered in pretty extreme mountainous terrain. They basically carve their highways into the sides of the cliffs, which makes for an incredible view coming around every turn.

This is what I was referring to in the roads throughout Colombia and their motorcycle prowess. Save a few straight highway sections, Colombia is covered in awesome twisties like this. Absolute motorcycle heaven...

Another reason to come to Colombia...cheap but delicious food. This entire meal, including mine and Kyle´s, and 2 refrescas cost us about $4 dollars US. Cant beat it...

Another scenery shot, I think you get the picture.

This is a pretty funny story, not for extreme animal lovers out there. I was riding behind Kyle when I saw something swoop in and collide with Kyle´s helmet. All I remember was a big puff of feathers and Kyle standing up to swat the bird out of his lap. About 2 hours later we pulled up to the border and realized it was still sitting there under his leg.

Colombia has gotten a ton safer in the past 10 years as the conservative based government has done a pretty great job in quelling much of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) activity. That´s not to say they´re not still out there. According to the Colombian government, as of 2008, FARC have an estimated 6,000-10,000 members, down from 16,000 in 2001, having lost about half their fighting force after President Alvaro Uribe took office in 2002. The FARC´s largest concentrations have been pushed back into the southeastern parts of Colombia's jungle and in the plains at the base of the Andean mountains. The sign in the photo above was posted at the border, offering huge rewards for turning in any of these bad muthas.

After an hour or so of riding after passing into Ecuador, we were greeted by one of many snow capped peaks. It got pretty cold shortly after crossing the border.

This was taken on the way out of the Quito, the capital of Ecuador. Huge sprawling city. We´ve traveled the whole way without GPS, solely good old fashioned maps. We´ve gotten into the habit of hailing a cab to lead us to our destination when we pull into some of these larger cities. So much better than driving around the city for hours on end trying to find our hostel or whatever.

These women are part of Ecuador´s native indigenous population. Many of these people hail from the Incan Civilzations of the 15th Century. Yesterday´s ride took us through the heart of countryside where many of these people live. It sounds a bit cliche but a resounding theme of the trip for me has been the realization of how truly lucky we are to be born and raised in the US. It really makes you take a step back and realize how much we take for granted in our lives back home. Tired of driving that SUV everyday to work with the heated leather seats and DVD player? Try a donkey with your child strapped to your back in 50 degree weather. So crazy...

The beautiful countryside of Ecuador. It rains a lot here, making these hills a gorgeous green year round. Notice the crazy farming land on the side of the hill. I would have trouble walking up there let alone farming it. Check out that beautiful sweeping right turn in the road, like I said...motorcycle heaven.

More shots of the local people and their everyday lives. No big deal...just moving a herd of sheep up the highway with child in tow.

Sections of the road from yesterday turned quickly to dirt, and were filled with potholes. More reasons Kyle and I are happy we chose the bulletproof KLR´s for trip.

Got pretty muddy on the road through the mountains in Ecuador. There were mudslides all over the place that we had to ride through. The bike and I needed a bath pretty bad afterwards.

Ecuador truly is the home of the straw hat. Many of the locals and natives where these super cool hats called the Ecuadorian "Panama Hat". The Panama Hat is the traditional brimmed hat of Ecuadorian origin that´s made from the leaves of the toquilla straw plant. The 49ers picked up these hats in Panama, and when Roosevelt visited the Panama Canal construction, he too picked up the trend, which increased its popularity. Truman also ordered a few hand made Panamanian hats from the area.

This is our hotel we stayed at last night in Cuenca, Ecuador. We were having a hell of a time finding a place that had secure parking for the bikes, but we finally found the Hostal Posada del Angel. They literally had us wheel the bikes into the restaraunt eating area. Once again we were hesitant but they insisted it wasn´t the first time and were more than happy park them there.

Here´s a shot from the Old Town square in Cuenca. The town square is a resounding theme in many of the Latin American cities we´ve been to. It´s a very safe bet that every town will have 3 things: a town square, and Catholic Church, and a soccer field.

That´s all for now. We are starting to run a little low on time for our over all trip, which unfortunately means we will have to fly through some of the areas which I would have otherwise loved to spend more time. Okay I´m bending the truth a little. The real reason I have start putting on the miles is that I´ve got a date with this hot chick in Chile in 3 weeks that I would be crazy to miss. The word is that Kyle´s got a visitor as well. Time to start riding....til next time.

Clay

Today in Medellin

I guess I feel more compelled to write a blog posting when something out of the ordinary happens to us. So as everyone knows I´ve been having some problemas with my motorbike ever since we got off that catamaran. Finally today after waiting through the weekend and the national holiday(no idea which one) I was able to leave my bike with the ¨best¨mechanic in Medellin. Clay towed me to the shop behind his bike with the tow strap. The mechanic and owner whose name is CoCo agreed to have a look and turn it around in the same day and agreed to the price up front. I quitely had doubts about his confidence. We left the shop 2 up on the back of Clay´s bike and we carried on down the road the roundabout way trying to relocate our hostel. Just about a block from our hostel as we had finally figured out where the heck we were going again we were pulled over by a police officer. Great!!! I think to myself. He asks for documents, we tell him they are at the hostel. He asks for a passport.... at the Hostel. Asks for ID... um do you accept VISA??? No? um sorry got nothing for you. So we suggest that we all walk over to the hostel to show him the documents. He is having none of it and prompty gets on his cell phone and radio to call in backup. Despite Clay trying to clam me down I tell the officer that the whole situation is crazy. 5 minutes later 2 pig bikes show up each riding 2 up. So now there are 5 Colombian cops and 2 police bikes on the corner of the square. Some broken Spanish and English is exchanged. I freak out again because I don´t understand why it takes 5 cops to look at some documents back at the hostel. Clay gets 2 of the cops to agree to lead us back to the hostel at which point we show them our vehicle import papers and copies of our passports. They chill out and everything is fine. Apprantely guys riding 2up in Colombia is a big No No, the reason they tell us is that many assassinations happen with 2 guys on a bike. I´m assuming a rider and a gunman. Apprantely tho its ok for a girl to ride on the back of a bike and for motorcycle taxis to carry passengers obviously. After the ordeal is over Clay explained to me that I should not freakout around pigs in Latin America because the men down here are really macho and they don´t care if crazy white tourists shout and scream. He maybe correct but I swear my contribution to the situation helped the cops agree to come look at the docs at our hostel :) Anyways it´s not every day your pulled over because your mistaken for potiental assassins. I guess when you think about it; 2 white guys on a modded KLR wearing matching white Arai helmets looks pretty sick and if I was a Colombia cop I would probably think those 2 badasses were assassins, fo sho.
Story telling aside. I picked up my bike this afternoon and it seems to run fine. CoCo gave the motorcycle a different dignosis. He changed the sparkplug, drained the fuel and cleaned the airfilter. Seems I had some contaminated gas. Probably water got into the tank from the boat ride. Seems logical. I will accept this explanation until the next time my bike decides not to cooperate.
A quick note on Medellin. COME HERE! this city is amazing. We have only nicked the surface but everything we have seen is amazing. The Zona Rosa is several square blocks of resturants, bars and night clubs near a park. The whole area buzzes with life after the sun goes down. There is also a great motorcycle culture here. There are little shops all over that sell bikes and do repairs and sell accessories. Really hip stuff. If there was snow here (I mean for skiing you sickos not the other kind of snow) I would move here in a hot second.
Cheers big ears.