Jan Weitner riding his XT from Terra del Fuego to Vancouver

Angels in Mexico

2007-04-19T07:07:00+01:00

24.221 kms
In Central America I was really heating up. Standing still is almost impossible. The heat rising up from the engine takes away all your breath. Taking a drink on the road was rewarded with a boiling hot saddle afterwards. You can not hide from the sun. Hardly and trees to take cover. After crossing the Mexican border at the San Christobal crossing the road is going up to an altitude of around 3000 meters making me feel more at ease. It gave me a good feeling crossing the last Central American border. I got tired of the border crossings. They consume lots of time, you get crazy of the people on the border offering you 'services' to get the paperwork done, the custom people love forms, copies, decontamination charges, pesos and dollars. After seeing all these borders you know how it works. Try to be slower than the custom officers and they will do their best to get you rapidly on the road again. Some chit chat here and there really helps!An American biker who I met before entering Mexico advised me on where to stay and where to eat in San Christobal de las Casas. I ended up in the cheapest hotel and had dinner in the most expensive restaurant.... these americans..... With an temperature around 20 degrees it was a perfect city. I decided to stay for a while before leaving for the west coast. In Christobal they have a sort of 'blauwe theehuis' making me feel at home. From Christobal the road continued to the South coast where I landed in Puerto Angel along the '200' road. Everybody told me about the beaches so I wanted to find a deserted beach. I found Playa Ventura not completely deserted: one hotel and something you could call a restaurant.

After a full day of driving I reached Acapulco staying in Hotel California. You can check in, but you can't check out... A pretty bizar and cool place. Some interesting people were staying there. One was a retired bomb dismantler his speciality was the WWII 500 pound bombs in Europe. His stories were breath taking. Here I prepared La Moto for the last 6000 km in North America. The owner of California liked motorcyles a lot and helpt me doing my maintenance. In the mean time I hung out at the Zocalo for a bite and a drink. Drinking is required here. One liter of water each two hours. Keeping your clothes dry here is impossible due to the humidity of to much %. Acapulco is one big museum for VW beetles. Driving at night in an old beetle with the wind blowing through the tiny windows is really great.

Back to the 200! That road is the most beautiful road of Mexico right along the west coast. Going up to 150 meters going down to sealevel with endless views on the coast passing villages like Puerto Escondido, Acapulco and many many beaches. Although the landscape is extremely nice, there are hardly any tourists, nor people, nor hotels. I found my first hotel in Manzanillo around 01.30 AM. Breaking again my rule of no driving in the night.

The crash
From Manzanillo I continued to Puerto Vallarte, Mazatlan and Guaymas. It looked like I was going to reach the US pretty soon. The highway from Mazatlan had seperated lanes for going North and South. You see hardly any traffic there and I was thinking I almost made it! One more day from Tuscon, Arizona....
Suddenly a car with dark windows enters the highway from the left. I was a bit pissed about this as the highway was empty and they just pulled into the highway before me. They were hardly accelatering and I was cautious passing on the right side as the car was acting a bit odd. After 30 seconds I got sick of it, horned and passed on the right. Right when I was passing they changed lanes rapidly and hit my front wheel. Braking did not help anymore. These &^#$&#!^* idiots hit me on purpose. I was ready to shoot these dickheads. Maybe it was fortunate that I did not have a gun.

I was kissing the high way for quite some meters. Damn. Some people stopped shortly afterwards, one even saw the accident and said he was going to chase the car as it ran off. People asked if everything was fine and everything felt fine all body parts were still there. They helped me pull my bike on the side of the road and said suerte and ADIOS! This is not my day.... Some cops stopped after the crash and helpt me fix the bike. They said it was impossible to find the car that crashed me. They did not even try... but I appreciated their help.

I continued driving to Hermosillo which was 140 kms from the accident but things start to hurt while driving. The handling of the clutch was becoming incredibly painfull. I got in 5th gear and kept on driving to Hermosillo. At the border of the city. I parked the bike at an 24h open shop. They would take care of it. I took a taxi to a hotel and checked what the dammage was. Coincedently a private clinic was located next to the hotel. The next day I found out my left hand was broken. It explained a lot. They put a cast on it and wished me luck.

Together with some other (I thought) minor injuries I went back to the hotel. What to do now? I rested for 5 days in the hotel hoping things would get better and find a solution on how to continue. Then a miracle happened.... I got into contact with the Moto Guzzi Club USA and they started an incredible rescue plan coordinated by Patrick Hayes. Things started to move. They asked me to drive to the US border, take the Nogales crossing and continue to Tuscon to stay at the first Guzzi hero named MIKE. Driving was ok with one hand but getting it in 5th gear was not my favourite activity. Due to the cast I could not wear my jacket anymore, luckily the temperature was friendly. At the toll stations and US border everybody was looking a bit strange at my arm. Is it broken? Yes..... mmmmhhhhh..... From Tuscon I drove to Yuma were the second Guzzi hero PIERRE put my bike on a pick up truck and we continued together to San Diego. The two days in San Diego with Pierre were great. The second day my hero from San Francisco PATRICK HAYES came over to drive me up all the way to San Francisco! I couldn't believe it!!!!!! And now I know it... these 3 guys have reached GUZZI ANGEL status for me and I am going to buy a GUZZI!

The road to Mexico

2007-04-05T10:40:00+01:00

20.351 kms
How to cross the Darien gap? It took me some effort to do it. In the Colombia - Cartagena area it was too hard to find a boat to Panama - Colon for me and la moto. There are smuggler boats but reliability is not their middle name. I decided to go back to Bogota and ship the bike as air cargo via a company called Girag. Carolina guided me through the process and took good care of my shipment and paperwork on the Colombian side.One of the steps in the process was the visit of narcotica police. These guys take their job serious. US customs can learn something from them. They examine luggage like you have never seen before. They taste the liquids and soaps you are carrying, every inch of your clothes is inspected with great care. I started to get nervous seeing all my clothes and stuff on the ground. I was wondering if everything was going to fit again. When they finished their investigation they started to re-pack my luggage the way it was packed. Polite gentlemen!

There we were in Panama, again I had to say goodbye to my friends in Bogota. The moment I left Colombia I started to miss it. The temperature in Panama was sky high lucky the road up North passes some cold mountains where you need hot chocolate to warm up. In Panama City I noticed that La Moto had difficulties standing up when parked. Did Girag do something strange with her or was she just tired of the flight? During shipping Girag unfortunately damaged my side kick.

To take some rest we continued to Nicaragua - Granada via Costa Rica. I met a Dutch couple who settled down in Granada. They showed me a beautiful vulcanic laguna called Lago de Apoyo. You don�t need to be afraid for speeding tickets in this area by the way.

I crossed Honduras in one day, stayed a few days in El Salvador before I reached the Guatemala border. From there I drove straight to Guatemala City. This city is highly poluted I had to run away to Antigua and operate from there. The chain and sprockets of la moto needed replacement after 19.000 km. In Guatemala City I found a Yamaha dealer. After negotiating a price for the work (25% discount on the retail price, every price is negotiable even here) we agreed to do the work after the weekend what allowed me to do some more Antigua touring and see parts of the procession where different groups compete. Normally one person is enough to replace a chain. In Latin America they need frequently more people to do a certain job which sometimes start to worry me if that is combined with odd questions that make you wonder if you are really at the Yamaha dealer. Antigua is a great little town that make you forget you are in Central America. You are surrounded by tourist and restaurants serve real food what I didn't mind.

From Guatemala City we continued to drive the road from Mixco to Solola, (with the most robberies in the world, passing the vulcanic lake of Lago de Atitlan. Slowely we reached the Mexican border after a visit in Quezaltenango.

Colombia is the best!

2007-02-19T01:43:00+01:00

It is a mystery to me why everybody is saying that Colombia is so unsafe. The last 3 years this country changed a lot. The main roads are all safe during daytime. Militaires, Transito police and Elite commandos... they wave, shake hands, they all want to see my roadmap and discuss the roads and cities I saw. Without checking my vehicle documents they often let me go.

They are nice guys, all you need to talk about is your motor velocity and engine capacity. This will create a lot of sounds like 'oofffuh'... They also want to have the confirmation that the most beautiful women of the country live in their region and they want to hear that Colombia is the best country of South America!! We are dealing with very proud people here! After that everything is �listo�! No questions remain, all officers salute, guns go out of the way and the highest ranking commander comes out of his chair to tell you Suerte!I am now almost one month in Colombia. The majority of my time I spend in Bogota. It is hard to leave this city because they changed the numbering of the streets some time ago. If you want to go somewhere you need to know the old or the new address and some kind of direction otherwise you are in trouble. Sara is my little angel in Bogota she helpt me going everywhere in this lifely, chaotic city of avenues and streets.

Bogota has an old city heart surrounded by some sort of European-look-alike new areas. The gold museum was the best. They show gold juwelry, objects and instruments manufactured over the last 3000 years that were found in Colombia: a great place.

Food in Colombia is awesome Sara knows where to eat. Lunch and dinners with her friends. They all made me feel very much at home. La moto made a new friend! Sara�s mother wanted to jump every day on La moto and start cruising through Bogota! She showed me also a lot of new delicious fruits, like Guanabana. Juego de Guanabana.... mmmmhhh why don�t we have that in Holland?

From Bogota I travelled 100 kms North to Villa de Leiva. An old colonial city where they are now recording the new Zorro-movie! Oh yeahh... Zorro and La Moto. Good mates. When la moto and I returned to Bogota some unexpected free maintenance occured, which La moto liked very much... - Manuel - owner of 100% BIKES (and double gold Colombian National champion motorcross) offered free maintenance to my bike! La moto took the day off and met some motorcross mates. Hope she didn't get into any trouble there...

In good shape we moved on to Medellin! With some new brakes that we did not use because the advise was: you do not stop in small villages and drive as fast as you can! The road from Bogota to Medellin does not have the best reputation but to be honest it is safe! The last part is very quiet and the road is also not in the best shape. But who cares? We made it to Medellin and stayed in Hostal Medellin a superb place where Claudia creates a good time for everyone. I did not visit the cemetery where Pablo Escobar is burried instead I visited the bar downtown where he took his coffee and ran the business with his mates. With Claudia, Thomas and Juan I visited the top of Guatape an area that is under water due to a hydroplant nearby. Whole villages were sacraficed only a church tower rising from the water remembers them.

La moto wants to have a good time too, so we visited the mechanic of Medellin again: Moto Angel. The idea was to go there just for a coffee, but the mechanics always find something. The engine needed some new o-rings, gaskets, oil and filters. Hector and Carlos did their thing. For the next 12 hours La Moto was treated with great care and attention. These people love motors and travellers. They have a wall showing all Pan american motor travellers who visited their place. When they heard I was leaving on Sunday for El Carmen de Bolivar they told me that they would accompany me from Medellin until Causcacia (250 kms). With Carlos and Juan Diego we left 06.00 AM from Medellin and ran fast through the mountains and small villages. People are very friendly in Medellin, it was hard to say goodbye.

But we like the road so we continue.... to CARTAGENA. This good old doggy town where cocaine is offered on every corner. 3 grams for 5 dollars.... I saw so many americans who lost the �way�. I know my way and that is Panama. I looked for a sailboat in the harbour but nobody wants to take La moto. Mmmhhh.... I contacted all captains in the region, but without success. I continued with plan B chartering a small plane in Cartagena or Baranquilla but also that did not work out - they refused as well. There used to be ferry from Cartagena to Colon in Panama but it was stopped. I guess forced to stop by the USA to stop drug transports, without taking into account the (moto) travellers. Well, we continue now with plan C: Returning to Bogota and charter a plane there (Bogota - Panama City). Hopefully La moto is going to fly as well. We will find out pretty soon!

If you like hot weather like 38 degrees and maximum humidity Cartagena is the place to be. I decided to move to Taganga a little fishing village 20 kms East of Santa Marta with some beautiful beaches from here I am coordinating the Panama crossing with a Kelly Juego in my hand. To be continued...

From Peru to Colombia

2007-02-15T01:52:00+01:00

I can hardly believe it but I made it to Bogota. I'm staying safely at Sara's house, 13.000 kms from Buenos Aires. I arrived yesterday after a 450 kms ride from Manizales through the high mountains and hot valley�s. Manizales is in the 'cafe' region. An excellent place to visit coffee farms and learn something about the coffee you are drinking every day. From Salento (near Pereira) I visited the coffee farm of Don Elios and his smiling family.The mountains are known to be dangerous here, they are full of heavy armed militia, I even saw a tank on the side of the road. Getting into Colombia was actually not that easy. In Equador it took me 5 hours before they let me leave the country. In the queue people started to warn me I should hurry up going to Pasto.... The road is not so safe you know.... jajajaj... But the police and militaries are amigo�s here. They wave, smile, salute and tell you which road to take and which not. In Manizales the cops invited me for a tour through the town on the policemotors with their unit. Lucky these people are not often visiting Peru otherwise they would get other ideas, like ripping off tourists instead of taking them on tours.

After Pasto I continued on another nice but very dangerous road to Popayan. Quiet, hardly any traffic and very beautiful - you can hardly imagine something could go wrong there. From Popayan I moved to Cali to stay for the night. City of salsa they call that place. My hotel was surrounded by Salsa bars and clubs. At the hotel they even offered salsa lessons.

In Quito I was already thinking about taking Salsa lessons but my friend Paul had a different agenda! No time for Salsa we have to save Maria! Paul cares for Maria but she is married to a sort of Holleeder. Not an ideal situation.

With Paul I made a trip to Ambato to visit the Chimborazo vulcano and a bikers event. In Equador they are crazy about vulcano�s but not about riding motorcycles. Paul�s guzzi and La Moto together have made more kms than all the bikes in Equador we found out during the short time we were on the bikers event.
Climbing the Chimbo was easy when we discussed it during an evening drinking beer, but a few hours later we ran into problems. The Chimbo has an impressive landscape but not ideal for a late afternoon ride. The guzzi and la moto had to relax once in a while to be able to deal with it. The Chimbo is with 6310 meters the highest (picture from Paul) vulcano in the world. Paul went crazy when he saw a bright Cotopaxi on the way back to Quito! When vulcano�s look at each other they are probably all jealous of the Cotopaxi. It has the ideal vulcano shapes.

From Ambato it was a nice ride in the direction of the jungle (Banos - Puyo) and found a new danger: tunnels! It's incredible, but it rains in the tunnels, there is no light, no reflection, no escape and they are LONG! I wanted to take a picture in the tunnel but I was too eager to get out of it.

Before reaching Ambato I took a peek in Cuenca the hometown of Fausto. He showed me around with his buddies and their fancy machines. My machine deserved a beauty treatment and took a day rest in the clinic of Cuenca. After 10.000 kms I removed the off the road tires and put some new fast road Pirelli�s. The bike loves them!

In Peru I drove along the coast from Nasca to Lima, Trujillo and Mancora. The coast is hot and the North is mainly desert with asparagus fields in the middle. Pretty strange. Mancora is a surfers hangout. Nasca is known for Inca lines expressing figures that are only visible from the air in a remote area. Beautiful..

The road from Cusco - Aboncay - Nasca was a little nightmare. On the top of a mountain my throttle cable broke just before reaching Abancoy. Without engine I ran down the mountain to look for a good place to make an emergency repair. Due to the extra hours for this little delay I arrived after sunset in the mountains where a nasty storm, thunder and lightning show started. With chickenskin and my tail between my legs I drove slowly to Challuanca. The lightning was lighting up the whole mountain and scared the hell out of me. The roads were covered with small and big rocks (as a medium basket) and medium sized mudstreams (my favourite). I was so glad when I reached Challuanca. Fausto arrived there hours before me as usual.

Don Juan on the ROAD!

2007-02-07T04:11:00+01:00

WANTED - Corrupt Peruian police officers

2007-01-26T21:38:00+01:00

Wednesday January 24 I was heaving lunch with two Peruian police officers named Jorge Gopierrs Paredes and Peres Chang Alexander in the city of Paramanga not far from Barranca at the pacific coast, 130 kms North of Lima. I was not having lunch with these people because I liked them so much. We were having lunch because I crossed the centerline of a bridge where nobody was driving and people were painting the righthand side of the bridge (so it makes sense to drive on the left side of the bridge). The police stopped me when I exited the bridge.The penalty was defined right away: 340 $! What?! Man I am in hurry go out of my way. I only speak Dutch and no entiendo!

They start showing me pictures in a book with similar situations of two cars. But a car is not a Moto you know... We can not compare these situations I explained them, different rules apply for motorcycles! They accepted more or less and the penalty went down to 100 $.

To create some understanding I invited them to have dinner in Holland when they would come (please write down your names I asked them). This was appreciated by them and they lowered the fine to 50 $. In the mean time they showed business cards of other tourists who I assume said similar things because these guys were �welcome� everywhere.

Still 50 $ left.... I told them I didn�t have any money in my pocket... and the cashmachine was really far away.... this whole process took two hours. I proposed to invite them for a beer but we should really forget about the penalty. They changed it into a lunch. My own lunch would be part of the to be paid penalty and lunch is not so expensive here. So I accepted having lunch with two corrupt peruian police officers on my expense. Total cost: 15 $.

When I paid the bill I could hardly look at this scum, these incredible lowlifes. Two other police officers walked into the restaurant during our lunch. One of them looked like he was ashamed of the situation but he did not do a thing. Another two lowlifes. I invited them for a picture of them, me, la moto and the oh so beautiful police car. They were so smart to say it was forbidden to take pictures of police officers... jajajajajajaa.... but they took one of me with the two vehicles not showing their licence plate.

People in Peru do not laugh when I tell them this story. They say now you see how we must survive.

Winter in Cusco (Peru)

2007-01-19T06:01:00+01:00

07681 kms

It is an incredible summer in South America. Last few days the temperature has been around 5 to 10 degrees and I had my first hail and snow experience in Cusco. Hail as large as big bullets. Irresponsible to go out on the street, everybody was running for cover. I am surprised by the amount of tourists here. Too many shoe polishers running after you. I am still in doubt if I should hit Machu Picchu. My timeschedule is calling me. The rain was terrible today so it will probably be a swimming pool overthere or did the Inca�s take care of a high tech shower system?

We�ll find out tomorrow.Days in Peru are good. Food is excellent compared to Bolivia where I could hardly eat last week. No nice terrace for a coffee. That country is hard for it�s people. Low temperatures, high humidity, many products unavailable, leaded petrol with unknown octane numbers, and people doing their toilet things in the main streets. Just lift your skirt and do your thing...

Together with Fausto I spend some time in Potosi and Copacabana at the Titicaca lake. This lake at an altitude of 3800 meter and it's one of the highest in the world and the highest in South America. It has some small beaches, but hardly any tourism. This lake is waiting for an investor. Not me I am leaving Bolivia. Taking a drink in the harbour of Copacabana was great. Fausto was fighting his altitude diseases with hardly legal herbs and coca tea and it worked!

To reach Copacabana you need to take a boat from one side to the other. 10 boats are waiting to take the vehicles. They all look like they are going to sink but surprisingly they even take buses and other heavy traffic. Driving across the lake gave me a good feeling and made me forgot the misery I saw in Bolivia. I even met my friends from Argentina again.

Peru started with a negotiation. Long live corruption. The police at the border started asking for facilitating money. Just to be sure the local police could always call the border police in case of a problem, so a contribution was a good idea according to them. A shame I don�t have pictures of these guys. They ask the money in USD and you give the same number in the local currency and they are happy. I send them into the bush with some Bolivianos. They accepted with a smile.

The first city you see after the border crossing is Puno from there it is 350 kms through the mountains crossing at an altitude of 4400 meters to Cusco. Again a great ride. Passing some fields with delicious flowers, realizing the bad scent in Bolivia. Driving behind a bus or truck in Bolivia takes months of your life, that is how it feels. Some trucks have a sort of big blue light in the back, but it is just an enormous cloud of exhaust fumes.

The roof of my hotel could not stand the hail and has a lot of holes in it now. My floor and bed are soaking wet. I need to check what is going on.

After all my complaining I got to say that the music is great in South America. In Argentina, Boliva and now again Peru, everywhere music on the streets, in the shops and the internet cafe. Fantastic.

South America is awesome I must conclude after 7500 kms. The next 7500 will contain more sunshine and I can�t wait to hit it.

Roadtax in Bolivia

2007-01-13T02:07:00+01:00

Paying toll is even normal in Bolivia only there are a lot of things that go for free with it: mudstreams, river crossings, wild animals passing, burning sun and freezing cold. Together with a guy from Equador I beat the 500 kms between the Argentina / Bolivian border and Potosi. Everybody has something to say about it. It�s from asfalt no problem, only 8 hours no problem, only a few rivers no problem. The whole thing was one big problem.The first 200 kms took me together 10 hours driving. Trucks and busses pass like crazy and it looks like they get points for killing motorcyclists. Once in a while I need to run and hide on the side until everybody is gone. What is wrong with these people?

At the border I stayed in Yavi a quiet town where you can escape from the ugly Quiaca. The border crossing was fairly easy. A customs guy picked me out from the queue out of 100 Bolivians and guided me through the customs process which is more complicated if you have a foreign vehicle. The guy from Equador had the same treatment apparantly somebody overthere has a good hart for motorcyclists. From Villacon to Tupiza is 100 km and was a good Bolivian introduction. No Gas, No drinks, No people, Only a guy to get the roadtax. They do register who is entering the road by name and type of vehicle so you can check if other motorcyclist are on the way.

All this driving takes place on the altitude between 3000 and 4000 meters. As this height the mixture of fuel and air is not ideally for La Moto. People heard me complaining and said all the cars put 1/2 of an onion in the carberator to have more oxygen so for you it must be 1/4 of an onion. Jajajajajaja.... I thought the onion problems was the only problem I had but while looking for gas I found out they are still using leaded Gas in Bolivia. Nobody knows what the octane number is of petrol. Diesel, Nafta, gasolia I am getting confused here. Some stations sell all fuels under one name. No no this is really good fuel for you. Trust me.... jajajajajaja........

Potosi is known for mining but I don�t dare to go in. I saw the entrance and will leave it for the other tourist. Maybe some more coca tea and I will change my mind.

Tomorrow I will be heading for the west of Bolivia (Oruro) if the rain will permit us.