Conquering S.A. on Little Blue Motos

Here in Arica, northern Chile, we have reached the first milestone of our journey. Within 48hours of arriving in the city we have sold our little blue motos. There have been mixed feelings associated with this as we have had a love hate relationship with our motos – mostly due to the fact that we have pushed them to their limits and had very high expectations of them. Here is a run down of the pros and cons of motorbike traveling, according to Jono and me, including some of the highlights and disasters.

• Constant minor mechanical problems, including altitude sickness (fixed temporarily with the removal of the air filters), flat batteries, flooded engines, loose wire connections.
• Being extremely aware of the environment around you, altitude, undulations, climbs, descents, curves, road surface, traffic, animals, people, markets, weather.
• Instigating conversations with locals and tourists, sparking curiosity.
• Camaraderie with other motorbike riders.
• The chance to divert off the main roads and see countryside and villages that are not on the bus routes.
• Complicated and time consuming bureaucracy associated with buying and selling bikes in Chile.
• The trial and error of packing the bags on the bikes, beginning with some disasters such as water bottles, fuel tanks and other items falling off our bikes in the middle of the road.
• The heat and the cold being more extreme on the motorbikes, at times sweltering in all our protective gear, and at times freezing with every possible layer on.
• Independence to travel when and where and how far you want in a day.
• Trying to drive the bike through loose gravel and dropping it on my leg, pinning myself to the ground.
• Having dogs bite at your ankles when you ride down the street.
• Riding nearly 6000 km on the little blue motos over two months. You get to know them pretty well!

Overall we have had an amazing journey with our little blue motos. Motorbike travel gives you an insight into a country and its terrain like no other type of travel, and it gave us a connection to the people along the way that we would not have experienced had we been on buses the whole time. It’s definitely time to move on, but we were very sad to see our little blue motos driving off into the sunset without us. Hasta luego little blue motos! xx