San pedro - Lago Colorado - Troy

The next morning we packed and prepared to leave. I tried to fire up the Dingo but she wouldn't take. "Oh no" I thought "this is where the problems start again!" I then spent half an hour checking everything, I presumed that the altitude, the cold, and maybe the ignition system was buggered, I prepared myself to strip the bike and check the spark plug etc. I was about to give up when finally she sparked up. I breathed a sigh of relief, though I felt that something wasn't right, but it would have to wait for later.

We headed off through the desert until we reached our first dry lake. I can't describe the amazing thrill adequately of plowing your way over a dead flat salt lake at high speed. Following no road, just a spot on the horizon, at well over 4000 metres surrounded by giant snow capped mountains!!! Its an image I had been dreaming of since well before I began the trip, and it was well worth it. That was until I felt the bike lurch and heard a great crashing noise on my right hand side.

I pulled the bike up and was confused for a moment until I realised that there was no pannier on the right side, I looked back and sure enough there it was, alone and dejected in the middle of the lake bed. The welding job I had done back in Oruru wasn't done well enough to take the crazy bumps and vibrations. It was thus lucky I had not done the trip alone and had the 4wd as back up, our driver happily strapped my panniers to the already overloaded roof of the 4wd and we continued on.

This was actually a godsend because coming up was the first really hard section of road, and it would have been a lot harder with the added weight of the panniers. When the lake ended we rode onto a very soft sand track, Tim will tell you (from his mongolian adventure) that sand is probably the hardest terrain to ride in. The very fact that its soft and gives no traction makes it very easy to lose the front wheel and if that happens you're going down, also you have to ride fast because it's like ice in that unlike on the road where the tyres grip, in sand you're pretty much skating. Then there is the fact that the easiest path to follow is the tyre tracks of other cars, since they create a fairly solid base to ride on, though these tracks don't all go straight as one car diverts from anothers tracks quite often, so as a rider you are constantly scanning the road ahead and having to determine which track to follow and when to switch.

The hard part is when you get caught between wheel indents, cos the front wheel gets confused and can easily throw you, and this is what eventually happened to me. I was doing about 40 or 50kmh when the tyres track I was in crossed over and I didn't get out in time and got lost in soft sand. It's funny cos as a rider you often know you are gonna crash seconds before it happens, so I had time to think "oh shit that was a bad move" before the front wheel locked and threw me over the handlebars. Luckily or instinctively I threw the bike to the side so avoided crashing through the windscreen and having the bike roll over me, and also thanks to my many years of competitive barefoot water skiing as a kid (which is skiing without skis at 70kmh on water which when you fall feels like concrete thus you become very adept at tucking and rolling), so I tucked and rolled off to the side in some thankfully soft sand.

The 4wd was right behind me and apparently there were horrified gasps from all on board, I think they were in shock cos it actually took them a few minutes before anyone got out of the car. I pretty much rolled came to a stop, stood straight up and was back picking up my bike and starting it up before the first person had their door open. I rode on immediately, if you fall off the horse...

The sand finally ended at a graveled road and I could relax for a moment, though only a moment. I saw some trucks in the distance and they were kicking up blinding clouds of dust, when the first passed I tucked behind the screen to avoid kicked up rocks and waited an eon before the dust settled and I could see the road again, this made me cautious and saved my life cos when the next truck passed I slowed right down and pulled right over to the my side of the road so when the dust began to settle I had 2 seconds to see the 3rd truck fully on my side of the road coming straight at me! I presume he was either overtaking or dislexic about road sides. I probably gave him more of a shock that for me cos I was kind of prepared for it and casually pulled off the road as he violently swerved back into his lane. It's all good fun in the end...

My next 2 falls happened shortly after where we had pulled off the road to check out the amazing brain like like formations of ??? As we were heading back to the road we had to ride a 1km path of super fine 2 foot thick sand, it was impossible to get speed up or control the front wheel so I fell twice though at low speed, by the time I made it back to the road I was physically exhausted, it was a process of ride 1 or 2 meters lose control put a foot down to hold the bike up then do it again.

The next challenging part was the scariest though most fun for me. From the graveled road we detoured off into a track of boulders, some like gravel, others like basketballs, some smooth some pointed like skewers. The 4wd could only move at a snails pace through this, the track lurched so much it looked like the car would tip over sometimes. For a bike though it is impossible to ride slowly, luckily I had ridden a creek bed in Santorini in Mexico that was similar with Tim and Cory, and had crashed the bike 3 or so times from being too timid, so once again I had Tim's voice in my head "speed up, power through it". the only way I can describe this section is through that game where you have a really bendy piece of wire that you must attempt to run a circled piece over, and it the wires touch a buzzer goes off and you lose. After having fallen 3 times I was charged on adrenaline and thinking another fall couldn't hurt, so I treated his like a game and powered through. Now I think back on it I was a little insane, cos a fall could have easily killed, especially with the sharp rocks and long drop on both sides of the road.

The reward for this insanity was the next few valleys of insanely beautiful mountains and the salt lakes. I was exhausted, and slightly crazy from the constant fear, yet the vistas were the most dangerous since I constantly felt drawn to take my attention off the road, as around each corner the views became increasingly like Salvador Dali dreamscapes. We finally stopped for lunch at one Salar and I collapsed on a saltbush, feeling like I had at some stage fallen off the planet.

After lunch our driver told me to go on ahead, he had done this with riders before and they could never keep up, so he said to keep following the roads cos I couldn't get lost. I took off wondering what next? The landscape opened out to seemingly endless red desert hilly rises surrounded by enormous mountain ranges. The road was a mix of sand and nothingness, and pretty soon I was confronted with 10 20 30 different paths leading off in different directions yet all steering in the same direction. I realised why other riders may take this easy cos the tracks were corrugated like a tin shed roof. I wanted to keep my fillings so I decided to ride as fast as possible, I was doing 100 kmh and could thereby glide over them... somewhat... some sections were so bumpy the bike would lose traction, the wheels spending more time in the air than on the ground.

I began to overtake other 4wd tours, much to their shock, I had the Dakar race in my head, I thought I was racing, I took every overtake as an achievement. I was slightly aware that to fall would definately hurt, yet the idea of getting through it quickly, and my adrenaline and exhaustion fuelled insanity drove me forward. Eventually I reached a turn of that led into a gorge which had been chiseled from the desert. It was amazing to go from desert plains into a long gorge, with a trickle of water, where I was surrounded by 20 to 30 foot high desert rock. This path twisted and turned like a ghost train ride at a carnival. I was in awe, splashing in and out of the creek, sliding up sides, jumping rocks, I truly felt like and adventure rider.

That fun was short lived when I emerged out into an endless expanse of more sand and corrugate road. This section wasn't fun, I almost fell at least once every 10 minutes, my feet were aching on the pegs, my back was screaming at me stop jiggling, I was laughing hysterically at times about how insane it was, I was singing at the top of my lungs to ignore the terror of the next little deviation in the "road" which would take me down. I knew I should stop but to stop means starting again and that would be worse, so I kept the throttle down and my mind focused on the next 5 meters of road, with an occasional glance up to take in the spellbinding landscape.

Eventually I made it to the "tree rock", a bizarre eruption of time eroded rocks in the middle of the desert. I saw my first sign of life for ages, there were about 10 4wd tours with tiny ant like tourists crawling all over it, some holding strange box like contraptions in front of their faces while others stood in front of them staring back at the box like contraptions. I guess I had been riding at that stage for 2 or 3 hours with few breaks, and they seemed so alien to me that I stopped a kilometer away from this display and watched for about 15 minutes until I felt I could deal with other humans again. I eventually rode in, pulled up my bike, lay back on the seat... and fell asleep.

I awoke, I'm not sure how much later, to see my 4wd group pulled up before me all looking at me like I was a freak. Apparently I was meant to have stopped and waited for them at various "completely unmarked" photo spots, or at least they should have caught up to me...

The others went off to crawl over the rocks with their face boxes and I began to inspect my bike, with my good mate the driver. He nudged me and motioned in the engine bay where the bolts hold the engine to frame, I was shocked, the main bolt which holds the engine into frame from the front was gone. Luckily I had given Tutu the bolt which had held my pannier on and sheared earlier that day, so I got this from her and though it was slightly smaller diameter, I pushed it through then wound a heap of gaffer tape around the sheared end to hold it in place. That should do until I reached San Pedro de Atacama; hopefully keep the engine from falling out!!!

I asked my now especially good mate the driver how long until we get to Lago Colorado, just around the bend he said, ie and hour. I was glad cos I had no more riding in me, we rode to the spectacular "red lake" and despite it's beauty, I refused an offer to walk around it with the others. I lay down on the bank and fell asleep watching the amazing flamingoes forage for planctum in the shallow waters.

I awoke with a lone flamingo not 3m from me when the sun had descended and rode to the group down the lake, who were all wondering what I had been doing (not much). We then travelled the short distance to the tiny town near the lake and were welcomed into a modest hotel, where I collapsed, like in Uyuni, only this time from pure exhaustion. I had ridden from 7 am until 5 pm almost not stop, on the pegs and from start to finish and in the hardest conditions (apart from when Tim and I did Huarez) of the journey thus far...

I was amazed that I hadn't crashed badly, I had ridden in one day what other sensible riders would do in 2 or 3, yet I must thank my good mate and riding buddy Tim for the many stories and good advice that he has given me on our journey together. "Power on, ride through it, no hesitation, no brakes, momentum will keep the bike up..."