Reported by Marick Payton

Heading Home

I think Cuzco and Machu Picchu were the highest of many high points on this trip for most of us. But, it was also the turning point, the point at which we pointed our bikes south for the ride home. So, on the 21st day, we headed for the little, very remote town of Chivay, a rough and challenging ride of 282 miles. It was on this day that I lost my riding virginity (for this trip, anyway) and crashed. It was a minor get off, thankfully, as I hugged the inside of a sharp, downhill right turn too tightly and lost the front in the deep “bull dust.” This talcum powder like stuff had replaced the sand of the lower Altiplano as we climbed above 10,000 feet and offered even less traction. It seemed to gather, like iron filings to a magnet, in every corner of the steep, narrow, sharp corners of the mountain roads, covering and lubricating the golf-ball sized pebbles which were the substrate of these roads.

My tumble did no more than crack the lens of my right turn signal and leave me with a sore thumb. Unfortunately, my roommate Bill had a more serious crash, with his little Suzuki landing on his knee, just 15 miles from our destination. He got a lift in to town from the local constabulary but this was to be the end of his ride. The bike had ruptured some sac of knee lubricant, as well has breaking a couple of small bones in his hand. So, while the rest of the gang spent the day in Chivay riding out to Colca Canyon to observe the flight of the condors, Alberto and I spent our day arranging for an ambulance of sorts to haul Bill to Arequipa, at which he could get medical attention and a flight back to South Carolina. This was an interesting adventure, in its own right. The only phone in town which could make calls beyond the town boundaries was in tiny little store hidden away a block or so off the main square. Even though Spanish is Alberto’s native tongue, it took us an hour or so of repeatedly asking directions to find it. Once we did, that evening, and were able to make contact with Bill’s travelers’ insurance company, things started moving. Still, it took half of the next day, with various calls back and forth, to get things organized. Bill was wonderfully sanguine about it all, taking considerable comfort in having made it to our major destination, Machu Piccho. His greatest concern was that this would set back his new career as a competitive tennis player for a couple of months.

While we were sitting around our hotel in Chivay a magnificent, huge truck pulled up, offloading a dozen or so British adventurers and their backpacks. Their sober faces perplexed us until we learned that the truck had only a few miles back run over and killed a young boy who had apparently swerved his bicycle in front of it.

The road to Chivay wasn’t the last really challenging ride of the trip. From there we headed for Arequipa on a road with lots of sand traps. I nearly “lost it” three times. We crossed the highest pass of our trip (16,200 feet) on this day. Arequipa is truly a magnificent little city. We stayed in a posh hotel on the square. Shortly after we arrived a grand parade began around the square. It was pleasant to imagine it our welcoming party, but we soon learned that it takes place every Sunday. On our day in Arequipa a number of us took a city tour, highlights of which were the formerly cloistered nunnery of Santa Catalina and a little zoo housing not only the by now familiar alpacas and llamas, but also their relatively rare and hard to domesticate cousins, the guanacos and vicunas. The nunnery was both huge and beautiful, but we were all quite happy not to have lived there and been subject to its highly repressive rules. Mostly second daughters were sent to Santa Catalina, we were told. By the end of this long tour several members of the group were becoming pretty grumpy, showing signs of being generally toured-out, I thought.

From Arequipa it was all downhill, both literally and figuratively. The next stop was Arica, Chile. The only really exciting aspect of this 280 mile ride was going past a very large military reservation in the Atacama desert, which we had entered almost as soon as we left Arequipa. The signs implied that if we so much as slowed down we might be mowed down from the machine gun turrets along the road. Not too likely, I thought, as they seemed to be unmanned. Nonetheless, prudence suggested one stay on the throttle and I did. The only thing noteworthy about Arica, for me, was the little mini zoo of monkey, parrots and other creatures at our hotel. Some others enjoyed the casino, Ron winning $40. The others were more circumspect about the outcomes of their gambling. Chile, itself, was a dramatic change, however, looking so prosperous and first-world, so much like home, actually. The roads hosted mostly newer cars from the United States, Germany and Japan, rather than well worn (and often quite beyond that) vehicles, mostly from Korea, with a few old French Renaults for variety.

The Atacama itself was fascinating, with its large and seemingly endless sand mountains, bereft of any visible life. We rode in it for the next several days, landing each night in either a coastal town or an inland oasis. The next stop was Iquique, on the coast. Two routes were offered, one mostly along the coast and the other directly back into the Atacama. Having had quite enough of the desert by this time, I opted for the coastal route and was rewarded with some beautiful scenery, which often reminded me of our own northern California coastline.

Our next destination was the inland city of Calama. Aside from the discovery of a quite good coffee and ice cream shop, the highlight of the stop in Calama was a tour of the world’s largest copper mine just north of town. From Calama we rode on south to Antofagasta, the largest city in northern Chile. Our hotel here was quite grand and I was rather embarrassed to drag my deeply dirty saddlebags through its doors. The natty, red coated porters seemed not to notice, however, as they grabbed them up and headed for my room. I was reminded, again, of the great hospitality with which we had been greeted everywhere in South America. The cathedral on the square was remarkably different than any I had seem elsewhere, being very plainly rectangular. Quite Calvinist, I thought.

Leaving Antofagasta we stopped some 20 miles or so out of town to take group pictures at the famous “Mano del Desierto” sculpture in the desert. This giant upthrust hand is the perfect photo backdrop. Then on to Copiapo, our longest ride of the Expedition so far at 343 easy riding asphalt miles. The grand adventure was clearly winding down, with only two days riding left. Feelings were mixed among the group. Most seemed happy to be reaching the end. I was feeling very melancholy, however, that this amazing trip would soon be over. I kept thinking that, with a change of tires and oil, I could just continue south to Tierra del Fuego. It wasn’t likely I would be this way again, and it seemed a great opportunity lost to head back home. Still, along with everyone else, I journeyed on to La Serena and then the final 360 mile run back to Vina del Mar. Finally out of the Atacama for good, these two days took us through gorgeous country, often reminding me of the prettiest of the northern California coast and coastal valleys. Indeed, there were even California poppies dotting the roadsides and meadows as we approached Vina.

Back in Vina, we busied ourselves with cleaning up our motos to please the US customs men, repacking our luggage for shipping, getting the bikes loaded back into the shipping container and saying our farewells to the good friends we had made. The final dinner at the Yacht Club was an intense mix of fond recollections and sad goodbyes. And, then, there was just the long ride back to the airport.

Postscript: There were a lot of crashes and a number of injuries on the 1999 Inca Expedition, raising the questions of whether it was worth it and what could have been done to make it less dangerous. For me, it was absolutely worth the risks involved to see and experience all the things we did in these four countries. I would have happily set off again the day we got back. There are several things which I believe could be done to reduce the likelihood of injuries. A key one, in my mind, is for the riders to resist the urge to go too fast for the conditions. Helge seems to be able to go like hell on these roads without crashing but those of us who don’t have 10 years of full-time experience doing so cannot. Second, I believe it’s much easier to stay up on a light weight 650 single than the big BMW’s, particularly the monstrous R1100 GS. Third, I believe that in the really gnarly conditions it is prudent to off-load any passengers to the chase vehicle. Or course PVMT could reorient the tour toward more paved roads, but I feel any major change in this direction would have lessened our opportunity to see and, in at least a limited way, to experience the heartlands of the fascinating countries through which we traveled.