COOKING AND BRAAAAPING AROUND THE WORLD: HEADED FOR SUCRE!!!

DAY-232-234

6/21-23/2012

        We met up at 9:30am for breakfast and decided that we would meet up at my hostel at 11:30am to leave La Paz once and for all. As I got back to the hostel there is a kid from England who has been riding a 125cc Honda from Chile heading to Colombia. He was having his chain pop off and getting wedged between his tire and the sprocket. I pointed him toward the Motorcycle area of La Paz (San Pedro) his chain was stretched out and twisted bad. He also wanted to look at the map and wanted me to point out the quickest way to Lima, because he needed to be there by Sunday and it was Thursday and his bike was messed up. He was not going to make it, he was bummed but still determined to make it. Due to helping him out I was running a little late so I started to run. I got my bike packed up and setup with my new luggage; I am now running strictly Wolfman Luggage Made In good ol’ COLORADO!!!!

        We headed out of La Paz just before 12pm, my bad boys. We gassed up and headed for Oruro, it was a pretty straight forward ride. The whole way was paved and straight defiantly nice to ride with others on straight paved roads. I was leading and came up on a toll booth and in Bolivia you can ride around if you’re on a motorcycle. As I was heading toward it this one was different there were police stopping a few cars. As I came into the booth a cop walked out waving me to pull into a dirt parking lot, just like Peru I waved and kept on riding through he was not stoked but oh well. I went a little ways to wait, the cop stayed in the way and made Ian and Nick stop. He just checked their stuff and before they could give them crap they had strategically stopped in the way of the traffic so they couldn’t take their time and sent them on their way. We made our way quickly to Oruro without trouble and found a cheap place to stay for the night with safe parking.

        We had been planning on taking Hwy six Nick and I was hoping for lots of dirt but unfortunately for us Nick had read a road update about the highway on the HUB that it was completely paved as of March of this year. With that news Ian was in, he is kind of over riding dirt he just wanted pavement.

        So we headed off in the morning to get to Sucre we had estimated that it would take about 6-7hrs, we even checked with locals they said it was paved and would take 4-5hrs. The first 100km was paved, we came into a small mining town got turned around and ended up at the mining area. The guard stopped us and pointed us to the road but said we had to go back the way we came and go around. We pointed to a bridge and he finally let us go through as we started to cross the bridge which was a train track and a small walking area which was flimsy metal. Nick went first and as he got to the end he had to stop for people, although when he did the metal started to bend a lot and I thought he was going through. When it was my turn I went across the flimsy last part fast and it felt like riding on a trampoline bouncy bouncy bouncy. We made our way on pavement for a little bit longer until it turned into dirt.

        There was tons of construction on the road, the parts without construction was fast hard packed dirt. Although the long stretches of construction was a mix of weaving through trucks, small detours and a lot of sand. Nick and I are at about the same riding level dirt or asphalt. Unfortunately Ian did not want to ride on dirt and since he was informed it was all asphalt he was not stoked at all and was taking his time not a big deal, Nick and I would ride ahead until a good picture stop and wait for a bit for Ian to catch up and so on. We made it to a road block that we found out was closed at 1:30pm until 6pm it was 1:30 and Ian showed up at 1:40pm so we had to decide to wait it out or take this quick detour that we were told about by the worker. We decided detour that was not 17km as he said but 60-70km and it was AWESOME!!!!! It was a fun road narrow, no traffic, rocky, sandy, crazy foot deep dust, nice drop off into a valley/river below, and just a lot of exhausting fun. Well there was nowhere to grab lunch so we were working with breakfast which consisted of one piece of bread and coffee and of course snacks. Ian was not a fan of this road at all, like I stated before he wasn’t looking for dirt. Up until today I had not full on wrecked, yes I have dropped my bike a few times but no body to ground action. I was whipping right behind Nick as we took a left hand turn, crap all sand and rocks my front tire slipped out going down left. I saved it but within in a split second it caught and slammed me to the right and down I went sliding. Nick didn’t see it and was gone, I lifted the heavy beast back up checked her out and my Wolfman bags looked brand new still. I chased after Nick and was wonder what the hell happened then realized you dumbass Nick is running a knobby front and back tire and your running a bald back and a dual purpose front haha idiot…hahaha

        Ian was worked and we knew we were very far from Sucre and was going to either find a place to sleep or camp. We kept pushing Ian a little farther and a little farther until we finally hit a small town and realized we were only half way through the detour back to the main road. I needed water and supplies, the town was shut down like a ghost town. As soon as we pulled in we had a crowd of people coming out of the wood work to see who and what we were. I knocked on a closed shop and a little girl of maybe 7 came to the door and let us in, they had neither real food nor water so we grabbed lots of junk food for pennies. Ian wanted to stay in the town so we asked about a place to sleep all they had was one bed in a tiny no window room/ school. We decided to push on and find some camping. We rode another 15km or so out of town and found an awesome flattish camp spot right near the road with an incredible view. We setup camp and had some dinner, while we ate a guy on a motorcycle came up curious and talked with us for 5 minutes then Nick gave him a thing of cookies and he left. I was sound asleep when I had a dream in Spanish but then I woke and realized somebody was walking around our camp talking in Spanish, it was 11:30pm. I found out it was two people who drove up in a car and was just curious, luckily Nick heard them and talked with them for a minute till they left. My gas rack had snapped off while riding so I will have to come up with something to get me to Sucre.

        We woke up and slowly got our gear packed up, Ian took off quickly to get a head start knowing we would catch up. We caught him at the first of many water crossings of the day; we splashed through and headed up out of the River basin via a gnarly boulder filled road. We made it back to the main road and back tracked a 1km to a main town so I could grab gas and we could grab breakfast. The gas was in a room filled with 10liter bottles of gas and propane bottles. Cheap so I was happy. We cruised on the main road for quite some time hard packed and fast, until turned into construction zone. Nick and I came to a fork that supposedly was another detour not realizing Nick asked me which way I wanted to go I Just gave him thumbs up due to having my music going. We stayed on the main road and weaved in and out of construction, wet asphalt, sand, and then was stopped by a rockslide. We turned around and headed back never seeing Ian we took the detour and was told by a bus to be careful very dangerous they said. Right away the whole road was covered in 6-10inches of sand/ dust. We came around a turn to find Ian with his bike on its side and he was exhausted. The bus came up and saw us standing next Ian’s bike with oil on the ground, asked what happened we told them he fell. They then told Ian to be careful very dangerous. I thought Ian was going to kill the driver but instead he just walked away...hahaha. We pushed on and finally arrived in Sucre with no problems at 6pm two full days it took of riding to get here with two long detours. We found a place thanks to the Hub with safe parking, Nick and I jumped up the three stair entry way. They did not have any wood for Ian and he only has 4inch’s of clearance, so he smashed his way in exhausted and chipped their already chipped up stairs, they were not impressed. Although the next day he bought them wood so they were happy.