We've spent the last week drifting across the country visiting friends and relatives , from Plymouth to Surrey and then Sheffield, before turning west across the Pennines.

Our last day involved a few detours, first we visited Vern ( Project VND ) near Chester, who had made the panniers that proved so tough and resilient. Then we thought it a good idea to visit Jean's mum for tea and scones before heading back across the Mersey and up to see Tony at Pitstop .

Pitstop have serviced our bikes for many years, helped us prep the Pegasos for this one, and even helped with technical issues while on the road as well.

Then it was a quick surprise visit to my mum, and finally home.

Final mileage 24536 (39257kms).

Oh, and I crashed again in France. These bikes are really tough.

Best statistic is punctures = 0.

While at our friends in Rawtenstall we were kidnapped and dragged back across the country to a bike rally near Peterborough (which we had ridden past the previous Monday). Our appearance at home was only to drop Jean's bike off, as the shock has gone again, then repack and use the one bike.

For years we have been visiting bike rallies up and down the country and failing to get any long distance awards, usually being beaten by people from Cornwall or people on holiday.

For once I believe I was unassailable, I listed my mileage as 24735.

The visiting Belgium bike club were a bit disappointed not to win it.

As Jean was pillion for this portion of the trip she was unable to claim the female long distance rider award.

Welcome home! Bruce and Jean arrived home on Thursday afternoon.

They dropped in on their way home for a cuppa and a chat.

They will only spend one night at home and are off camping on a NABD run! Hero's

Thats two continents down, at least one to go. No more bikes have fallen over recently.

It was a quiet week in Buenos Aires, especially with me limping everywhere.

We spent most of the week sleeping and socialising in the garage at Dakar Motors, who have a workshop with a 'hostel' attached.

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Basic, but functional, and shared with other bikers and travelers.

We managed to fill one night, along with about 40,000 others, at an Iron Maiden stadium concert.

The next few days were taken up with arranging to fly the bikes to Madrid and running around drawing large sums of money from all our bank accounts as the freight companies would only deal in cash.

This of course set alarm bells off at the bank and our cards got blocked.

We last saw the bikes on Monday, rumour has it we may get to see them this weekend in Madrid.

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We made the effort to put some weight back on by eating steak, a lot of it. And I can finally say that the best steak of the trip has been here, a whole side shared between four of us.

We finally flew into Madrid, and started the fun and games getting the bikes out of the warehouse, only 5 hours this time.

And finally we started the last leg home.... via southern Spain, and France. Looks like we will miss the open day at Pitstop (again)... sorry tony :-(

If anyone wants to see the full story, it is all written up at http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/tstories/porter/


The Americas by numbers
========================

Distance = 21571 miles/ 34800 kms
Countries visited = 16

Punctures = Zero / zilch / none / nada
Oil Changes = 4 per bike
Chains changed = None
Tyres = 2 rear / 1 front (Both bikes)
Extra tools bought/acquired = 1 large spanner, 1 electrical wire stripper/cutter, 1 electric tyre pump
Breakdowns due to electrical problems = 3 (Bruce)
Broken suspension = 1 (Jean), rear shock

Dropping/Crashing Bike = 5 (Bruce) , 3 Jean
Injuries, Bruce = 1, sprained ankle from most recent crash on roundabout.
Injuries, Jean = 1, dog bit leg in Bolivia.
Hospital treatment = 1 (Jean) in Peru, persistent intestinal infection.

Items of new clothing bought / acquired = 4 (Jean), 5 (Bruce)
Items of clothing thrown away = 4 (Jean), 4 (Bruce)
Most bulky yet rarely used item = Coleman petrol stove.

Penguins seen = 1000's

Down again .

But still not out. :-)

After all the bad roads we have crossed :- The gravel, the mud, the sand and the ripio.

The maniac drivers in Colombia.

The chicken buses in Central America.

It is on roundabout, on tarmac, in Argentina that is the scene of my worst spill so far.

Its not as if I was going fast, around 35mph.

We were going straight on, I entered the roundabout , looked to my right to see if any vehicles were approaching from the next exit and then .......

.... sky, road , roundabout, bike, spin.

The back end just broke away, the bike went down on its left, I completed at least one 360 degree spin (Jean thinks it may have been two) and then pushed myself away and span on my back like a turtle with the bike close behind.

I think Jean was relieved to see me sit up, I was relieved to see that Jean had not followed me.

The first two cars that followed just steered round me and carried on, the third stopped to help us pick the bike up.

Once again I am grateful to the panniers supplied by Vern at Project VND , because they prevented my leg from being caught under the bike as it slid and spun, and enabled me to slide clear.

I've sprained my ankle, my shoulders feel sore and have crashed tested the Kevlar in my jeans and the padding in my jacket. I can report that all works fine.


The bike has even more scratches and dints in the left pannier, the indicator needed more gaffa tape and the bars have bent. Also my nice muffs that keep the rain off needed refitting with cable ties.

A few straps that hold on kit have been torn, but we had extras.

We can only assume I hit a patch of oil, oh well 21500 miles done, we just had to do another 187 miles to Buenos Aries to catch our flight to Spain.

We are now in BA, at Dakar Motors drinking beer and arranging flights for the bikes.

Next stop Europe.

A broken Peg.
============

We finally arrived in Patagonia, via a 4 day cruise of the fjords seeing seals, whales, penguins and a glacier.

We decided to spend a few days camping in the Torres Del Paine NP.

<picture1>

The road in and out of the park is "ripio", hard packed gravel that is a step up from sand and soil.



Unfortunately a single road can be OK, or often they may be repairing sections of it, which means they pile a lot of soil up on the surface. And when you add rain it becomes what Jean now refers to as "Sh*tio"

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The ripio has taken its toll, it may look smooth but it is corrugated with many bumps and pot holes. As we returned to Puerto Natales Jean mentioned that it felt different on the speed bumps, so I looked at her bike and noticed the rear shock was not at the right angle.

<picture 3>

We managed to get the bike loaded  onto a truck and taken the 240kms to Punta Arenas where we had located a man who turns out to be a suspension expert (Gonzalo of Motoescar).

He stripped the shock off and diagnosed it as a missing "pin", and told us the good news it was repairable. Thus saving us a *lot* of money and time.

As the shock is (in his words) "A cheap one", he hs had to to drill a hole to release the gas so he could extract the shaft for repair.

<picture4>

Then he will add a gas bulb to the system.

We have been in Punta Arenas for 4 days now and have done every thing there is t see, including getting to the end of the paved road on the mainland.

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We both felt it was fitting that the bike that has given the most trouble, and that at one point I did not think would get out of Mexico was the one to make it.

North beckons, hopefully we will be on the road again tomorrow.

Uyuni, the worlds largest salt flat.

We had written it off the route, due to its possible inaccessibility during the wet season (dirt roads only), but Jean decided she would brave it.

So, we selected the straightest and flattest route, and hoped for no rain.

The tarmac turned to hard pack, the hard pack turned to muddy sand. And in the distance we saw rain.

At times the road disappeared due to being washed out and we had to re-orientate ourselves or ask other passing vehicles (they criss cross every where out here) for the correct track.

<picture 1>

Along the route we passed many small teams smoothing out the ruts, one team stopped us to ask if we had a pump to blow up the tyre on their wheel barrow. Time was our enemy but it would have been wrong to not help, they were intrigued when I connected the electric pump to the bike. And they all ran shy when the camera appeared, so no photo.

The mud and sand was ok, until we hit the wet stuff, our tyres are more on road than off road and the going got tricky.

I had just ridden along side Jean and complimented her on a good skid recovery, when my front end took a life of its own and to Jean in her mirror it looked like I was enacting the scene from "The Great Escape" as Steve McQueen tried to leap to freedom over a fence (but I had a wall of sand). Like Mr McQueen I handled the first obstacle, but lost it in a ditch.

<picture 5>

It was a soft, slow tumble, so nothing serious. Nice slide tracks though.

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Jean must have got a bit cocky, as a few minutes later it was my turn to help her pick the bike up.

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We pressed on, slower now, and finally made it to Uyuni just after 18:00, 160 kms (100 miles) of dirt later.

I am proud of all my girls - Jean (especially) and the bikes which are still in 1 piece after their good shake out.

As we are in the wet season, the salt flat is in fact a lake, so we did not take the bikes on to it but chose a day tour in a 4 by 4 instead.

<picture 2>

It is a surreal place, the horizon does not seem to exist. The sky and mountains (and the hoards of tourists) were all reflected in the water.

It is somewhere we will have to revisit in the dry season, one day, but first we need to plot our escape from here.

Taken directly from Bruce's last email:

Had a bit of an adventure :-)
==============================

Progress in Colombia continues at a snails pace.

We headed North for San Gil and then Santa Marta, on the Carribean coast, as everyone at our Bogota hostel said it was a good route to take to get to Cartagena.

What no one mentioned was the number of cars, buses and trucks crawling up and down the winding mountain roads to get north. We took 8 hours to do 330kms (120miles), and when we arrived at the hostel in San Gil we discovered the road north was 'temporarily' closed beyond the next major city (Bucaramanga) due to land slides.

We decided to stay in San Gil an extra night to see if would open.

Over night we saw pictures of the appalling damage to the road we originally wanted to take, and decided to give up the idea of getting to Cartagena, heading south to Medellin instead. We had another morning of heavy traffic over the mountains until we turned west, and it all diminished. At the next toll booth we got the answer, the road to Medellin was also closed. This explained the heavy traffic on the road we had been using, as the city of Bucaramanga, which is on the main route to Venezuela, was cut off from the north and west.

We questioned the police at the toll booth and they told us that it was passable by motorbikes only.

We didn't think the road looked too bad.

(Picture 1)

Until we at arrived at this.

(Picture 2)

Just as it started to rain.

These people were walking the 3 kms over the mud to get to buses and taxis to continue their trips.

A group of locals gathered round and started to tell us how bad it was and that we should go back, I got people to confirm that the only real route to Medellin was to return to Bogota.

Jean was looking at the steep rutted muddiness of the 1st slope and indicated to me that there was no way she was going to do it. After questioning the locals some more, trying to find out how far it was until passable tarmac again all I could get was "not far" but that I would 'need help'.

There was no way I wanted to spend another 2 days getting back to Bogota mixing it up with the trucks and mad drivers, and after all I could see people going past me on Honda CG125s, albeit being pushed by their pillions.

So, I decided to go for it and ride both bikes across the worst bits.

We employed 4 helpers with a supply of ropes and I set off down the 1st slope, where we had to wait while some new surface was laid down for me.

(Picture 3)

Once past the digger, it was up a 45% slope and onto the flat, it had been tiring keeping the bike under control, but not too bad, so I stopped and went back with my new expensive friends to get Jean's bike and repeated the process.

It was only once I had got Jean's bike with mine that I realised I had more of the same to do around the next corner.

I should have known how bad it was going to be when I saw the bridge.

(Picture 4)

As I looked around the scene of devastation I could see that a whole section of mountain side had slipped, multiple times, and would probably do so again if the rain became heavier.

Thankfully it went off.

As far as I was concerned we had reached a point of no turning back, so I pressed on, the surface getting worse and the slopes more extreme, all the time dodging people on foot. While I was doing this, Jean was helping push the bikes and stomping around through the thick, sticky mud looking for planks and chunks of tarmac to try to create a passable route through the deep ruts.

After each section I would have to walk back to collect the next bike and I could feel my strength leaving me. Between the heat, the altitude and lack of food ( It was mid afternoon and we had not eaten since 0800).

Without my helpers I would have dropped the bikes many times, as it happens I only dropped mine once. Either the bike would over heat, or I would, and we would have to wait while I recovered, at times I felt physically sick and just wanted to lay down and go to sleep.

Each time I took the second bike through a section, it would be worse, more water, more mud, deeper troughs.

(Picture 5)

The final slope with the final bike was a delight to see, it was also the steepest and slippiest as the underlying clay was exposed, and wet.

The road workers were just adding fresh soil as I approached, which at first seemed good, but when I hit it the bike just sank into the loose packed earth, in spite of the efforts of my helpers. Fortunately, at this point, Jean had managed to stagger up the hill again, threw her full weight in with the other four, and I just about got moving again, much to my joy (Jean would like it to be noted that she is now over 2 stone lighter than at the start of the trip!).

I just slumped over the bike until Jean could force some Gatorade down me.

I was soaked in sweat, made worse by the fact I was wearing my wet weather gear, but strangely very happy. I had just taken nearly 3 hours to cover 1 km of mud and clay. Twice. I may not have gone to the Darien Gap, but I had conquered the Bucaramanga Gap.

It was another 40kms before we found a gas station with water to rinse the bikes off, and that is when I realised the smell of burning plastic that I thought was my belly pan touching the engine was in fact a stone jammed in the mud guard pressing against the front tyre, gouging a groove out.

We pressed on and found a hotel before dark, ate whatever was on offer and went to sleep.

We have had our Colombian adventure, we can head to Ecuador now.

-- 
Bruce D Porter

Taken directly from Bruce's email:

Wow, was it Guatemala last time I emailed you ?

Now stretched out on a hammock in San Gil, Colombia waiting to see when the road to Cartagena opens again (another landslide last night), or if we should change plans and route.

So, summery. (sheds load more happened, but here are some bits)

Guatemala
==========
A weeks Spanish lessons in Quetzeltenango.
New tyres and oil/filter change in Guatemala City.

Guatemala is *beautiful* and I encourage everyone to visit,

El Salvador
===========
A few days of being beach bums at El Tunco, a surfers paradise.

Honduras
========
A border crossing that in theory should have been a nightmare.

In El Salvador we were "met" by some really pushy helpers at the gas station 3k from the border.

I kept telling them we didn't need their help, but they were persistent and followed us to the border in their truck.

When we got to the border we were surrounded by more and in a moment of weakness I selected the original one and followed him (my intention was just to give him $5 to keep the others at bay).

Jean thought he was dodgy and refused to follow so I had to back pedal the bike and tell the helper to forget it.

He started to ask me who wore the trousers, I said it was Jean.

He and his friends followed us around for an hour, wasting their own time as we dealt with all the paper work ourselves (after all we had done the same process since Mexico on our own). Our simple Spanish is now good enough to humour the officials, especially when the helpers started to tell us what forms the customs woman would give us, I told them in Spanish that "She has a mouth of her own".

The best moment was when a group of them followed us into a small cramped photocopy shop and pointed at the photocopier saying "photocopier... photocopier", Jean snapped, and giving up on the polite ''No gracias senors" which had no effect over the previous hour, finally turned round and told them to F*&K Off :-)

They then started to argue amongst them selves and Jean heard them calling us rubbish and other names in Spanish, so I rounded on them and let them know (in Spanish) we understood what they were saying, that finally got rid of them.

In all it only took us 2 hours to cross ( slightly over average).

We are glad we did not use them as we have met a few people since who have been totally tipped off.

It only costs $35 to get a bike into Honduras, we met 1 guy who had been fleeced for $140, and 2 who had paid them $100 each.

Now when we see any I just say "No" loudly and ride through them :-)

Nicaragua
=========
Volcano visit

Also stopped in a town, Estelli, just as they were starting a festival of horses. The town centre was shut down from 14:00 to allow the processions and partying. It was an unusual sight seeing cowboys getting their horses to dance to disco music.

Costa Rica
==========

A USA state in waiting, but we met some Canadians who insisted we stayed with them (December 23rd) at their holiday home in the jungle over looking the Pacific. That included a 5km muddy dirt track, which we are getting confident now) and being awoken at 0530 by junge noises and howler monkeys.

We then had an hours yoga lessons before heading to Panama for Xmas.

Panama
======

Another USA state in waiting, so much so that they use the dollar, however it does have the cheapest beer in Centro America at 50c (in the bars)! :-)

Xmas with Norman and Bubba the monkey, a great rest over the holiday period with an ex-pt who finds bikers and invites them to stay. Bubba, cute though he is, does poo and wee on you though.

We got stuck in Panama City, over New Year, waiting to fly the bikes to Colombia. The canal is interesting though.

Also lots of other bikes passing through, as the road ends here (well, ok, 250kms down the road in the Darien jungle.

Colombia
========

We arrived, the bikes didn't.

All sorted now, and after the hassle and cost of geting them we hit the road. Which is now shut due to land slides. And if the land slides don't get you, the drivers will. They are the worst we have come acrss so far.

It is common on the mountain roads to overtake on blind bends, and stay on the wrong side around the corner, a game of chicken often follows. They will also try and overtake you when in a line of traffic and "bully" you to move over, and I won't be bullied, so I find my self kicking out at the cars as I still have no horn.