Going The Distance

One of the biggest changes about how I am (versus how I was at the beginning) is my moods. I’m just not as happy as was earlier on in the journey. In those days, every day was a joy, I’d grab each day with the gusto of a puppy, talking to everyone and his uncle, hoping to find interview leads in every corner (and the only way we do get them is by talking).

Oh what a difference 7 months makes. I have lost a fair chunk of that bounce. And the worst for both me and Mike is my moods. They change on a dime. I’ve become a timebomb, a gorgon waiting to scratch at any moment. I can’t even navigate them – I’m usually fairly self- aware, and if I think I’m slipping into a fiery laguna of irrationality, I’ll warn him to stay away from him and that none of it is his fault. Not now. For example, this morning, we were doing our usual thing of fannying about for HOURS before leaving. We knew we needed to do some internetting: site needed updating, we’d been out of contact for 5 days which led to a pile of emails. So we were sitting in the hotel lobby merrily internetting. After about 4 hours of this, I suddenly, without warning, snap. “We have to go. We have to go now. I can’t handle this.”

Mike to his gleaming credit is inhumanely patient when his wife is replaced by a firebreathing sucubus of doom. “Ok” he replies calmly and swiftly starts to pack away. He’ll make gentle, unpatronising enquiries as to what may have precipitated his wife’s descent into Evil, but he also knows that communication is futile, and every word uttered is like a joust with the devil.

For my part, the rage suddenly erupts. I think a bit contributor is the lack of any kind of exercise in my life. Mike drives the bike which requires deep concentration but also a lot of upper body strength – this being a Ural with sidecar, you don’t lean into your turns like on a regular motorbike, you pull the entire weight of the bike with your arms. I, however, just sit and fester in the sidecar, eating and sleeping and hurling the occasional insult.

Like a kind of Miss Piggy meets Oscar the Grouch.

It’s really hot. Yesterday it got up to 39 degrees centigrade. That’s whopping. And sweaty.

So no chance of me doing any exercise till it cools down a bit, but I’m hoping that Little Miss Lardy Arse Toxic Chops might retreat into the shadows when I eventually do.

Anyway, there’s my Thought For The Day, folks: I’m just a little grumpy. My lesson to relationships out there – men, just back off. It’s not your fault, but it rapidly could be.

Driving at dusk is foolish. Night is on the way, and generally it makes sense to have found lodgings while there is still the light to do so.

But it can be breathtakingly magical. The driving in Northern Argentina has been some of the most beautiful that we have done: red chiselled rocks to lush green cascades of valleys – all paved and dreamlike, and it’s hard to stop just because the day is thinking about stopping.

It’s summer here, and the landscape and atmosphere are like the best of the south of France: the breeze blows warm, the twilight is alive with smells and sounds. As the sun sets, and I look out across miles and miles to the horizon, the sky is rippled with cloud formations that a London girl knows nothing of, accustomed usually to seeing small bursts of grey skies peeping out from between buildings.

Leaving Bolivia, above the distant horizon every night, we’d see moody dark swells of storm patches, lit dramatically by angry lightning bursts. Now here in Argentina, it’s the hot crespucular descent of summer evening to night. On a motorbike, I feel like we’re the only people in the world as the wind gushes up past the step of the sidecar and strong into my face. I love it. Moths throw themselves into the beams of the Russian, the faces of people light up in the darkness as they walk along the dusty sides of the roads. There’s a silhouette of trees along the horizon against the gunmetal blue of the sky, and the serenade of cicadas to accompany the confident growl of our trusty and beloved steed.

I don’t mean to meander into the realms of exaggeration, but Argentina really is perfection. It has surpassed all my high expectations, leaving me quite dumb as how to begin to describe how lovely it is.

After a day of driving with Ale, we crawl into Simoca, a small town, dusty road, kids play football in the bright lights of a municipal football ground. We crawl into bed, exhuasted. Tomorrow to Cordoba.

We spent last night in a campground in Argentina’s northern wine heaven, Cafayate. As I said, it’s the height of summer and the central plaza is alive with that wonderful relaxed air of summer holidays, of misty cold glasses of local wine, of warm tanned skin, of different ages finding their own fun. As a gorgeous resort town, it was heaving with people. Cafayate has three campgrounds, all heaving with people, tents cheek by jowl.

After a boozy night with others, including Ale’ who had recovered from a dodgy tum to be the “authentic caipirinha” making life of the party, we crash out. And I awake to find that I have been stung on the eye by a mozzie. Great look. Especially if you’re trying to convince people that your husband’s a wife-beater.

Cafayate is wine country. The Salta wine route is marked efficiently with signs, the roads flanked with uniform rows of cascading vines. It’s picturesque. Our challenge was to find a wine couple. There are tens of vineyards so we hoped it wouldn’t be too hard. And in the end, it proved to be third try lucky.

Just to the north of Cafayate is Animana’, also part of the luscious and fertile Cafayate valley. Every hundred yards of the main road, a winery beckons tasters. Past the major winery of Animana, at the side of the road, looking like a small village French deli with green wooden doors, is La Bodeguita. Painted on a large barrel outside the door is the proclamation that it was established in 1928, and that it makes vinos artesanales.

We walk in, hopeful. Behind the counter is an older lady, She stands in front of a wall covered in wooden shelving which houses a world of deliciousness: alongside the bottles of wine, olives, breads, cakes, jars of capers, anchovies.

After we have told her what we are up to, she says that she has been married for 50 years but her husband is not well. He suffered a heart attack 3 years ago, and today his lips are swollen as a result. (This is my weak Spanish, I’m afraid. She may have offered a reason, but I didn’t get it) Her son could do it, but he has been married only 2 years. Come back tomorrow?

But that’s not the wya GTD works. We always leave everything til the last minute, and we’d like to start on the great journey south to Cordoba this evening. Is there no way we can interview her and her husband today? No, he’s not well.

At this moment, by the kind of luck that we have felt blessed with all along the way, her husband shuffles out from the corridor leading from the back of the shop to their house. He is extremely affable and says he’d love to do the interview. And so it is that we meet Juan de la Cruz of La Bodeguita, and his wife, Rosario.

Juan’s father established the Bodega in 1928, and Juan grew up around the world of wine in a village down the road. He and Rosario met at a dance when she was 16 and he was 25. In the early days of their marriage, they were poor. Though Juan was working with his father at the vieyard, he had to take another job as a mechanic to support the family. They have two children, a boy and a girl, and their son Carlos is now taking over the place, making it a three generation affair, nuch to Juan’s pride. The family had to work hard to find the money to send him to viticulture school, but Rosario says, it’s been wonderful because now the vineyard is a mixture of Juan’s experience and Carlos’ theory.

The Bodeguita uses all traditional methods, the grapes are trampled by foot then pressed in the same presses that Juan’s father used. They make 5,000 bottles a year – a small amount, admits Juan, but he doesn’t want to compromise any of the techniques or the quality to make more. He’s fiercely proud of their product and the area, and I have to admit (as we taste the cabernet sauvignon), it’s delicious. (Though I confess I’m far from discerning)

Rosario explains that the fact that Juan is alive has defied everything that the doctors have told him. He should be dead and she considers it a gift from God that he is not. We laugh about Juan telling God that it’s not yet his time. Rosario has a very strong faith, and her eyes light up as she talks about the fact that Juan is still here. She puts it all down to God.

When we ask for advice from their 49 year bank of experience, Juan quickly says the most important thing is that a couple is that they distance themselves from their parents and parents-in-law. He says that if a couple has a problem, if they share it with the outside world, it will just get worse. Only a couple knows what’s going on within.

This is one of the pieces of advice that the experts have repeatedly given us. Only a few real people have given it, but those who have have been adamant about its importance. It’s one which is particularly interesting to me because my parents have been quite involved in this trip. Not only are they the only people to have come out to visit us en route, but my amazing father has also been helping us with researching and finding couples. My father and my husband are very different human beings (I’m in the lucky position of loving my dad enough not to need a father figure – I married my best friend really) and sometimes on this trip I have been pulled between to different life philosophies. Mike is pretty laidback, my father is more of an organisational whirlwind. Most of the time, the two can coexist without difficulty, but when the two are pulling in different directions, I feel the strain. There is of course, no malice on either side, but I have to pull away from my father and back towards my young foal of a marriage and the new life that I have chosen for myself. I find it interesting that this is a phenomenon that exists both for other couples that we have met along the way, but also that it is recognised by the experts.

We knew Salta was going to be good. After the hell of the Bolivian roads and the ballache of the border crossing, the first asado in La Quiaca suggested that Argentina was going to be lovely haven, but Salta really is the jewel. The drive from La Quiaca to Salta takes a day, and it was one of the most wonderful days driving we have had in months: the landscape takes on a European fell: majestic cyprus shoot up from the abundant green.

Our merry trio (of us and the wonderful Brazilian nutter, Ale’) gathered 4 additions: an Englishman, Mike, and his Thai girlfriend, Lidy (on the road for 2 months on a great rented Transalp) and two Canadians, Dave and John, both doing roughly the same as us. There’s a certain pomp to travelling in convoy with other bikers. 5 bikes speeding down the highways certainly turn heads, especially when the bike in the middle has a sidecar. I felt like we were in a cavalcade. We went through valleys with some of the tallest cacti in the world, we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn (Mike took the opportunity to mark the moment in his own special way). Lunch was a meat-heavy affair – the meat here is perfection. Steaks which offer blissful little resistance to the bite, melting perfectly.

We arrived in Salta at the end of a long but exquisite day, exhausted. The usual rigmarole of bed-finding (when there are many folk involved in the decision, it takes a while), then blissful sleep.

Wake at 8.30. Hope to be on the road by 10am. Is that so much to ask? Apparently yes: breakfast takes 45 minutes to arrive. Even though we’ve ordered toast, we’re in the very hostel we spent the night in, and we’re the only people at breakfast. Dude.

Mike decides to take the bike to a mechanic again to get the exhaust refitted. Apparently the road from here to the Argentian border is even worse that the road from Potosi. Frankly, none of the three of us is quite sure how that can be the case given the quality of the roads yesterday (Mike said it was the toughest riding he has done on this entire 7 month journey), but if Bolivians are saying it, jeez, it must be true.

When we get back to the mechanic to pick up the bike with high and secure exhaust (one of its two pipes), Mike notices that the sealing screw of the transmission oil is gone. Which means that the reservoir will be filled with all the dust of yesterday’s journey. Oh shit. So I’m now typing outside the third mechanic we have asked, Mike is with the mechanic, they have cleaned out the chamber, which apparently was filthy, replaced the oil. Mike is now going to take it round the block then they’ll replace the entire oil once more.

Then we’re going to go to the Promised Land of Argentina.

Later: oh my, oh my. Really nothing I can type can begin to capture the experience of travelling on the MAIN ROAD between Bolivia and Argentina. We knew that Tupisa was only 90km from the border. 90km really is chump change – on decent roads it’s less than an hour. It took us 3 and a half.

They are rebuilding the road from Tupisa to the border town of Villazon. Which means that the entire 90km is a mud/dirt track which weaves and winds, dips through rivers, over large stones. HELL. About half an hour into the journey, we were greeted with a large ford. The road dipped maybe a foot into a river red with mud. So as not to flood the exhaust, we went through at quite a lick. And got DRENCHED. The sidecar filled with muddy water, Mike was blinded by the surge. Oh God, we’re now going to be wet and muddy for the next 10 hours on the road. NOT COOL, BOLIVIA.

The road was miserable but we got there eventually. Then it was the turn of the border process. It took 4 hours to cross the border, and actually, it was the Argentinians’ fault. One man types slowly, with one finger, to register all details about all vehicles entering and leaving the country. Peculiarly, he works between two offices on either side of the entry road – half an hour in one, then half an hour in the other. So when you’re in the queue and he changes sides, you know you have at least another half hour to wait. We still have Ale’ the mad and wonderful Brazilian with us so at least the wait is filled with laughter.

When we are finally through, we head immediately to the best asado in town (I spent the hours doing my homework…) The restaurant is a striplit little place at the side of the main Ruta 9, but the owner smiles warmly as we enter (haven’t had that for months…), takes our order swiftly, and shortly afterwards the most delicious meat I have had on this entire trip arrives. We rejoice, involving the whole restaurant in our love for Argentina.

Things are on the up.

Sergio sets off early, leaving us with the wonderful chilled out and generally upbeat Ale’. After the usual fandango of breakfast (”no, we don’t have milk. No you can’t have juice.” and it arriving 45 minutes later), we hit the road.

The first half of the day is tarmacked road. It’s one of the most beautiful drives we have done in South America. We weave along windy roads overlooking vast stretches of altiplano, the colours change from greens and yellows to reds and browns then back again. Breathtaking. Llamas pepper the landscape, herded by bowler-hatted cholla women carrying babies on their backs. It’s the stuff of cinematographic legend.

Then the tarmac stops. Bear in mind this is the main road between Bolivia and Argentina, and the road is like a dirt track leading from a house to its outhouse. For 8 hours.

Dust clouds regularly enshroud us as massive trucks pass us. Every bone in our body is jolted with constant but irregular vibrations as our trusty and beloved Russian steed is thrown by small rocks and ripples in the road. The exhaust pipe falls off. We’re in the middle of nowhere, the sun is blazing down and the pipe itself is hotter than hell. We drive 20 minutes to the nearest cluster of houses. Mud houses, one of which is a llanteria (a tyre seller. He obviously knows that this road is going to drum up some good business). Llanterias are everywhere along the Latin part of the PanAmerican highway. They distinguish themselves with a large black tyre stood up at the side of the road with the word “llanteria” (llanta = tyre) painted large on them in white. I think there are more llanterias than restaurants, genuinely.

The shop is built of what appears to be wood and mud. It’s hard to tell because it, like us, is covered in dust. There is a woman sitting on a small block of wood outside the door to the place. She looks older than time, a face wisened with lines. One side of her mouth bulges with a bolus of coca. She chews sporadically, a thin trickle of dark liquid staining the right corner of her mouth. She squawks manically. She’s drunk, pointing and flailing, chewing all the while, spluttering at us.

The mechanic largely ignores her and gets to work, replacing the rubber holding the exhaust pipe in place. I decide to wander off for a wee. The ground is dusty and littered with dried thorn bushes. I tread as carefully as I can to try and find a suitable hiding place to derobe (there’s nothing elegant about a woman in a workman’s overall trying to do a wee). As I walk, I feel the thorns occasionally pierce through the rubber red Crocs which I so love. A powerful pain. Then comes the blood, erupting out of the sides of the Crocs, dripping on the thirsty dusty ground.

I sit down for the clean up operation. Local unctions are offered (Alexandre even endorses one of them) and I work my way through tissues to tidy up the copious blood (only to find the smallest, most rubbish little wound in the eye of all that blood). My coca-chewing heckler friend is going at me hammer and tongs by this point. I’m sitting near her and she is shrieking and pointing. It’s a little off-putting, if I’m completely honest, reader.

Back on the road. God, it’s long. Poor Mike and Ale have to navigate it. At least the view is good. Darkness starts to fall. The exhaust pipe falls off again. I lose a shoe. And the desire to be in Bolivia for any more time.

The final push into Tupisa is achingly slow. The road is terrible, dusty, hilly. It takes an hour to do 30km. We arrive in the town at 9.30pm in total darkness, having left Challapata at 8.30am, That’s one hell of a day. We’re absolutely covered in dust. It’s everywhere, on all our bags, in our hair, on our faces, in our teeth. Then a much-craved shower. Mike pretty much passes out with fatigue.

The bike is back. How we have missed it. Nothing compares to the freedom of your own transport: being able to move, to explore, to move on. We have missed the bike more than either of us could possibly have thought that we would. To be on a road trip and not able to cover ground caused us some of the lowest lows of the entire trip so far.

For my part, our month of killing time in Bolivia has expedited my desire to go home. I was chatting to another traveller who has been on the move for 10 months. She said that at 8 months, she just felt tired, and all the people she has spoken to agree that 8 months mark the critical threshold. For my part, it has been 6 months: we left the UK on June 21st 2009, and at around Christmas, I started to feel a strong desire for the routine of my life back in the UK. It’s not that life on the road doesn’t still hold moments which take my breath away, experiences which I will never replicate, views which I hope to burn into my mind so that I can recall them in my darker moments packed into an overcrowded London Underground tube train on the way to work – yes, all those elements are still part of the thrill of the journey – but now, I wake up tired. I sigh much more (not really a sigher in normal life). It takes a lot more to shake my soul out of its low-level travel coma.

I think one of the reasons this gets me down is that I am in no doubt about how lucky I am; how I’ll never have the chance to do this again; and how boring real life is. Why is the grass greener at this point, when the grass of the altiplano is some of the greenest I have ever seen? Reason versus emotion on this one. My rational head says, “wow, Bolivia!”, my soul says, “Are we there yet? I want to watch some telly in my flat and have drinks with my mates”. What an ungrateful fiend I am.

As you may have sensed through our combined ramblings on this blog, Bolivia has been really really hard. It’s a poor country – we had been warned of that, and to be honest, that’s far from being the issue. It’s the attitude. A “no can do” attitude permeates the entire country. People are ready to say no long before they consider saying yes. We have got “no”s from waiters, from gas station attendants, from hotel staff, from people at the side of the road… Don’t get me wrong, ‘no’ in itself is fine, I realise there are times where the restaurant serving breakfast is not going to have milk, or the petrol stations are not going to have any petrol (usual), but the blank and totally unapologetic faces across the entire country really chip away at one’s desire to be here after a while. Food always takes 45 minutes or more to arrive, no one can ever give directions, children never smile when we wave or say hello. It’s sucking my will to live. Sorry Bolivia but I’m craving Argentina. Not for the civilisation of the experience, but for the civilisation of the people.

That said we have met some exceptional people here in Bolivia, the hotel where we stayed in La Paz, the Hotel Osira, has been an amazingly positive experience. They went out of their way to help us to get the package, in a way which we really have rarely seen in this country. As we left, we hugged them goodbye, and headed up to El Alto, with me and all the luggage (”the weight”) in a taxi, and Mike easing the long-dormant bike out of hibernation and back onto the hills of La Paz. We made it to El Alto, the sprawling and poorer suburbs of La Paz (if you’re rich, you live low. La Paz is a bowl and El Alto sits on the lip of the bowl and beyond onto the Altiplano).

In El Alto, we met two bikers at one of the few petrol stations with petrol. Sergio, an Argentinian, and Alexandre, a Brazilian. Despite our warnings that we, with all our weight and our recently-out-of-retirement clutch, would not probably be going as fast as their regular motorbikes, they said they’d be happy to travel with us. So we set off towards Potosi, about an 8 hour drive away. It was 2pm so we knew we’d be unlikely to make it, but aim high and all that.

Annoyingly, we lose our tank bag, filled with biking (and life) necessaries like flourescent jackets, headtorches, survival candles, brand new bike goggles. Grrr. Fell off the back of the bike when we forgot to replace it after filling up the tank. That’s what happens when you forget the routines of life on the road and go soft on public transport for a month.

Our new friends proved to be great travelling companions. Great company and we kept up with them nicely. Gratifyingly too, we happily laughed away in Spanish, our one shared language, and both Mike and I had a real sense of how far our Spanish has come on this trip. This was friendship entirely uncompromised by language – smutty jokes, the usual biker banter, route planning – all without dumbing down. It was great.

We made it to Challapata – through rain and hail, and witnessing a storm on the horizon which was spectacular to watch -  it’s a small and very basic town on the main route south. More “no”s as we try to find a place to stay (”we only have a room with 5 beds and a room with 3 beds and you have to pay for every bed”), we finally settle back with beers under a basic striplight before bedding down in a very basic place with exposed electrics, brickwork and an unclosing communal loo door downstairs by all the cars and bikes.

As far as marketing goes, The Road of Death is a pretty clever name. Nothing like death to get the attention. I’m no thrill seeker, but everyone had said that when in La Paz, this is the thing to do: hire a mountain bike and cycle the length of one of the most perilous roads on the planet.

It’s a dirt road which runs from above La Paz down to a small town called Coroico, about 3,000m lower. The road is 64km in length in total, and is named The Road of Death for two reasons:
1. On one side, it plunges into the oblivion below. It’s carved into the foresty steep hills, has no safety barriers and the drop, in places, is sheer and up to 1,000m. You fall, you die.
2. It’s very thin. Wide enough for little more than a car. It’s name comes from the fact that it used to be two-way. I have NO idea how this could have been possible. There are few passing places, and even they are barely wide enough for two vehicles. It’s steep, and the thought of reversing to find a passing place gives me the shivers. Large trucks used to pass on the road, apparently letting wheels hang over the edge in order to pass. Many people lost their lives on the road.

It’s now pretty much only open for tourists. The idea is that you sign up for a day trip: you, and the countless other folk, are collected in rickety buses with the bikes on top and bussed up to the top of the road (which is now one way only: down). You’re then set free on the road for the 4 or so hours that it takes to ride it, then deposited at a nice hotel at the bottom for a cold beer and lunch, then bussed back to La Paz.

There was the usual TIB factor (”This Is Bolivia” – TIB is what we say when once again we are underwhelmed by the service culture here), but we eventually set off on the bus at around 9am. A low fog was hanging over La Paz, a city with some of the most temperamental weather systems on the planet. We headed up into the mist. Further and further up. Along a road which wound through imposing hills, like something out of the Lord of the Rings. We arrived at a point near a lake, snow capped peaks surround us. Roads very much asphalted at this point. We’re given our bikes (I’d made Mike let us get bikes with hydraulic brakes – at extra cost. Of course it appeared that they were no different from the others and in fact a rickety back wheel on mine meant we had to request a new one. But not before Mike melted my heart by giving me his bike to ride and him taking the dodgy one)

We were all given raingear. The fog was freezing cold and wet. Shortly it started to rain properly. I haven’t been that cold for years: as we cycled down, glasses were rendered useless by rain, fingers so cold that I could barely use the brakes. Still on the new road, trucks honked loudly as they passed us. I couldn’t see anything, I was sodden. I was not happy. Once again, I raged at the promise of Bolivia.

Buuuuuuuuuuut, I can confirm that it rapidly became one of the best experiences I have ever had in my life. As we dropped through the cloudy layer, the rain eased and it got warmer. We were in a group of 6 who, mercifully, moved at a speed which worked well for me – not too fast (large groups of flourescent blokey youth would shoot past at intervals). Mike and I weaved around each other, and I loved every single minute of it. It was exhilarating, but not so much that I was terrified (though any lapse in concentration would have had us plunging off the cliff). The terrain became more and more rainforesty – waterfalls cascaded across the road, the hyper green canopy draped down across our ride, the eerie fog layer prevented me from seeing right down into the valley below and from comprehending the full extent of the sheer plunge to our left.

After a month of being a bit tense, I finally relaxed and had more fun with my husband (who I generally have a lot of fun with, mind) than we have had for ages. It was such a rush, the scenery was so spectucular, not for nothing is this reputedly one of the most beautiful roads on the planet. I think it was amongst the most memorable days I have spent in my life. I loved every minute. The ride lasts a long time, we meandered down the hill, fast in parts, slower to suck up the views which greeted us on every side. Quite breathtaking. If you ever, ever find yourself in La Paz, this is an experience I would recommend with my whole being.

(Here are some fast facts I found about it online)

The worst year on record (1983) saw 320 people lose their lives in the gaping valley below, including the biggest single road accident in Bolivian history when more than 100 people were sent crashing over its near-vertical edge. The title of the ‘World’s Most Dangerous Road ’ was bestowed upon this transport route by the Inter-American Development Bank in 1995, based on the macabre ratio of deaths per mile. The ‘road’ itself is nothing more than a narrow sliver chiselled out of the mountainside – it’s unsealed, there are no barriers guarding you from the vertiginous drops and in places the rough, potholed track is only 3.2 metres wide. FAST FACTS Official name: Unduavi-Yolosa Highway Nickname: ‘World’s Most Dangerous Road ’ Location: La Cumbre – Coroico , Bolivia Length: 64km Altitude: 15,500 feet (start) to 3,700 feet (finish) Avg death toll: 100 people per year

Right. Clutch is in La Paz. Can’t be collected unti we ourselves go to the post office to get it. So you’d think we’d be on the next flight… well, not quite.

When we finished with the utterly gorgeous and entirely pneumatic Desiree Duran, former Miss Bolivia and Top 10 finalist in 2006 at Miss Universe, we headed out to catch a cab out to the Mennonite colony. Waiting for us at the gates of the studio was a man who greeted us. After we’d cleared up the fact that he wasn’t the taxi driver, he told us that he was called Jorge, and that he was a member of the Moto Club of Santa Cruz. He had seen us on TV just ten minutes earlier, and come straight down to the station to ask us to join the Moto Club for its fortnightly dinner the next night. The club is the only one in the city whose members all travel with their wives: it’s a motorbike club all about couples, and they’d love it if we could join them for dinner. 15 couples in total, 30 people. We agreed, delighted and astounded that anyone would bother to come down to the station to find us and make such an invite.

This was before we knew the clutch was in La Paz. When we found out, we phoned Jorge to ask if the dinner could be moved (not realising how many people were involved), he said no, but repeated that he’d love to have us there. So we decided to stay, instead of catching a flight back to La Paz early Wednesday morning, instead, we’d catch a flight back early Thursday morning.

Wednesday, despite initial laziness on our part and heavy rain, turned out to be a great day: we made an appearance on Bolivian national teenage children’s television, and the biker dinner was a blast, and for me, turned into my first ever baby shower (not, sadly, for me… I drank red wine to make up for it).

So, teenage TV. ‘Reel’ is a daily 2 hour programme for teenagers on PAT, one of Bolivia’s three big and slick national networks (the one we were on yesterday in the morning). They invited us back to do the adolescent show. The green suits were dusted off once more (arms were twisted at the Kawasaki showroom down the road) and the Kermit Twins were back in play.

Slick sets, slick (young) presenters, all pretty slick, as it happens. And we’re ten years older than anyone else involved in the production. One of the three presenters in 16. With pink highlights. The other girl has mezmeringly pert and massive boobs, making themselves known through the medium of a lowcut top. And the boy was a bouncy yet trendy walking ad for hair product. Then Granny and Grandpa Kermit show up. The make up artist’s first question to me is “can I make you look less tired?”. I’m not tired, I’m just already into my 4th decade on this earth.

We loiter at the back of the set, watching the three presenters flog various products as part of the show, then as a dance troupe of 15 year olds wows with breakdance-cum-lame-boyband-manoeuvres. Then us. The presenter has about as much clue as we do as to why we’re on the show, and tells the nation’s under 18s that we have driven to Bolivia from Australia. The film to explain our exploits doesn’t start so Hair Gel Hero plays for time while a decrepid hag (my good self) explains in ropey repetitive Spanish what we’re doing here. A sheep puppet with sunglasses on laughs at various points during my explanation. Wow.
Mike and I then head on to the biker dinner. It’s being held at a huge house, with waiter service and decorations on each of the 3 big tables. Immediately, it’s wonderful. Jorge, our guide to all of this, and his wife, Maria Renee, introduce us to everyone, as new people enter, they greet us charmingly, and soon there are 30 people aware of our mad story and talking to us about their own motorbiking adventures across this continent.

We interview three of the couples there. The first is the hosts, Luis and Marta. Luis has 13 motorbikes, which he introduces us too. He and Marta have been married for 36 years, and motorbiking has been a part throughout. Each bike has its own special merits, handles different terrain better than others. Marta is gorgeous, she looks about half her age, and loves being on the back of bikes with Luis. Her advice is to breathe in and savour the smells of the places you are driving through.

(more to come)

Facebook status, 11.01.10: All I want for my birthday is a new clutch and a mennonite. Is that too much to ask?

Apparently not.

Imagine “Good Morning” hosted by Kelly Brook – the most popular live national television show, that the entire country watches before going to work. Imagine being asked to speak, live, to millions of people in your (rusty) second language. Now imagine that you are asked to wear over-sized green kawasaki motocross racing clothes…

That’s the way my birthday started today. We had struggled last night to find a load of clips from our time in bolivia, and on the road, and after about 2 hours of searching, we left an editor to it to finish the job. We sat on the pleather sofas in front of millions of Bolivians. Once the interview was underway, all was well: Bolivian Kelly Brook was distractingly gorgeous, and having been promised hair and make-up to no avail, Alanna felt outshone by Kelly’s surreal TV beauty. She needn’t have worried though, as I think the Bolivian public were distracted more by our outsized lime green super-hero costumes. We got the standard questions – why are you doing this (one I often ask myself at 3 in the morning when I awake, worrying about the non-appearance of our vital clutch plates) who’s stupid idea was it anyway (one Alanna often asks me when we’ve broken down, or had a run in with a chicken bus). And what is love after all this (one I rarely ask myself, because when I awake a 3 in the morning, or have a run-in with a chicken bus, I look to my right, and the answer is right asleep in the bed, or in the side-car) But the TV answer of course is “you’ll have to wait for the book to come out” – or if they’re insisting, then you say something about giving, about working hard, or about respect. There’s much more to it than that, but again, you’ll have to wait. In the middle of the interview, a small bag was brought out and Kelly presented me with a birthday present. A bottle of aftershave. Lovely. Cue the jokes about how much I smell after a long day on the road. And a kiss (on the cheek sadly) from the radiant Kelly. Golly. I took the opportunity in the middle of the interview to implore the bolivian nation to help me find my package; for the Bolivian Postal Service to deliver it to the Hotel Osira today for my birthday. I’m not sure if there was someone with true postal power watching, but I like to think that my TV plea did not go unheard. Kelly’s final question was “and will you have kids when you get back?” Classic. And cue the classic response: “Alanna says this trip is my baby, and when we get back we’ll have hers.” And with that we were ushered off to remove our frog-suits, pose with some models outside the studio, and receive the attention of the public pounding down the studio gates. The public took the form of a fella called Jorje, who runs a suzuki garage round the corner, and he saw the start of the programme with his wife. and rushed to meet us at the studio. He also runs a biking club for couples, and thought it would be fun to have a dinner for us (and fifteen couples) tomorrow night, as guests of honour. And with that, we hopped into our awaiting car, and began driving to Colonia Chihuahua, a Mennonite Colony a couple of hours east of Santa Cruz, where I could find half of my birthday present.

And on the way there, as I type, I received a phone call, *the* phone call, from the Hotel Osira, La Paz, where the package is due to arrive. “It’s here” they say “You’ll have to pay a $50 importation duty – but it’s here” At this point the tax doesn’t bother me, and my birthday is very nearly complete, by 11am in the morning. Perfect, the mechanic can get the package today, spend tomorrow repairing the bike, have dinner with our new found biking couple friends, and we can be back on thursday in time to leave town before the end of the week.

However, the hotel manager calls back, to explain that, as is often the way in Bolivia, things aren’t as easy as they should be. The hotel is not a registered importation company, paperwork that will take them days to complete – and the only person who can collect the package from the post office, is myself, in person. She’s going back to the post office herself this afternoon, to try and bribe them. But I don’t have much hope. Customs here are notoriously difficult (just ask our other biking friends who spent 3 weeks waiting for their tires to arrive from Miami).

We arrive at the the Colonia just in time for lunch. Elmer’s parents (Ben & Agnes) were expecting us next door, and we sat with the whole family, including Ben’s other 2 daughters, about 25, and their youngest son, 12 years old. We passed small talk over the chicken and rice, and established that Ben had brought the family to bolivia about 6 months after the colony had begun in 1989. Before then, they had been in Belize, where Ben had found his faith. SOon after lunch the various members of the family dispersed to their duties, and I set up the camera ontop of a stool on the table (my tripod is with the bike in La Paz). Agnes spoke a smattering of English, no Spanish, all “Low German” – an early Germanic language which apparently bears little resemblance to modern German (though as a non german speaker, it was hard to tell). Ben spoke a solid English, after spending time with British soldiers in Belize. It was with those drunken representative3s of my country that his story begins, in the 1970’s. He was spending a lot of time with them, drinking, smoking and generally behaving like a squaddie, when his sister suggested that perhaps he spent some time with her, to see her Christian way of life. He laughed at her, but gave her lifestyle a go, and by 4pm that first afternoon, he said Jesus had shattered his heart of stone, and replaced it with flesh. From then on, he had his faith. He asked for guidance to find the right woman, and sure enough Agnes “came along”. One year later, they were married, and they had their first child, Milton. His advice to us was to let Jesus into our lives. He too is shocked by the statistics he’s reading about german marriages – that more fail than begin. That in a world without God, marriages fall apart. This is not something that can be argued with. The statistics do indicate that marriage based on a strong christian faith are ten times less likely to fail (something like 5% of serious religious unions fail, as opposed to the famous 50% of the rest of the population). So that was pretty sound advice. Love, according to Ben, takes three forms. Passionate love, between man and woman, “love” of things, and of doing things, and the love of God. And the love of God is the purest of all, and the love that can make a marriage work.

And with that, we filmed them outside, as we do with all of our couples, though in their case they didn’t want to kiss. He was clear that it wasn’t that he didn’t love his wife, nor that he didn’t want to kiss her in front of us – it’s just that a public kiss (on TV) spoils the love. So onto Ben and Agnes’s son, Elmer, and his wife Maria.

They had just moved into their house, so their furniture was sparse. But they had a couple of chairs to sit on, and usefully a table and a stool to put the camera on… Their 2 little girls, Silvia and Emmy, were beautiful – wearing light blue dresses, with pigtails in their blonde hair, and running about the feet their parents, smiling and laughing all the while.In a similar way to his dad, Elmer asked God to help him find a wife. It was then he noticed the girl working in the store, a girl who had noticed him long before, and it was then that he plucked up the courage to talk to her – to get to know her. They both liked each other – and so Elmer asked Maria’s parents. Maria’s parents had come to this colony from a old-style colony further south here in Bolivia. One of the colonies that still has the traditional dress (overalls for the men, and bonnets for the ladies), and the traditional horse drawn machinery, without tires. Maria’s family had seen the decline of their colony, that the youth had frequently deserted the group, and that such strict ways could not survive in this era. They heard of the successful colony, Chihuahua, moved there, and accepted a more relaxed way of life (headscarves instead of bonnets, tractors instead of horses – though still a formal Christian lifestyle). Maria’s parents agreed to Elmer’s proposal, and soon enough they were married, in the Chihuahua Church, in a very simple ceremony with their parents and close family. For Elmer (Maria didn’t speak that much) his advice was to make sure that we share everything, good and bad. He translated a nice saying for us, for Low German – to say “A problem shared is a problem halved, but a happiness shared is a happiness doubled” And love,  again involved God. God is Love, and he hopes that by sharing the teachings of the bible with us, that we can share these thoughts with many more, and that many marriages will be helped with our project. I hope so too, Elmer, I hope so too.