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Day40-Repair & Regroup, Sat, Feb 5, 2011

Start & Stop: Salinas de Garci-Mendoza, Bolivia

Mileage: 0 miles

Hotel:  Zuk’ arani, on a hillside overlooking town and the Salar, $6/person

Fuel: Peru: Best grade 95 = S/16.69 Sol/Gal ($2.33 USD/gal)

Currency Exchange: $1 USD = 7.01 Boliviano

Toll Roads:  No charge for motocicletas!

Lisa: Woke up to more rain and then took a hard look at the bikes.  Yep, we did some damage to them yesterday NOT riding the Uyuni road and we decided to take today to sort that out.

Lisa is very happy to find metric nuts & bolts at Casa Ignacio!

Lisa fits right in as a native Bolivian!


I needed level ground to trouble shoot my headlights. I ended up in the town square.

Down the street comes the festival parade.

All the men were carrying plastic jugs with some kind of adult beverage and little cup that they passed out to anyone who would accept.

I want to fit right in so I put on a paper visor that was handed me.

And I found the headlight problem - a blown main fuse. :)

Lisa and the children of the mechanic. Little shop in a side yard. I had complete access to big hammer, anvil and vice! My Jesse saddlebags and frame were pounded back into shape in 2 hours.

The road from the hotel down to Salinas.

I lost some important hardware and Dean had a few bent things.  Rode down to the local gas station and we were directed to Casa Ignacio, a very small place on a side road in town.  Ignacio is run by a no-nonsense woman who knows her stuff. In and out in about 7 minutes with most of the bolts we needed, including the time she and I spent swapping hats and taking photos. Cool.

Dean: Yesterday’s ride was the most punishment I have ever put on a bike in a day’s ride.  Major washboarding, and vibration and pothole shock/jolts to the entire bike.  My eyeballs and teeth continued to rattle all night!!  Then my V-Strom went to sleep in some sand.  Now I had bent my Jesse saddlebags & racks again!  I needed a mechanic with very large hammer, anvil and large vice.

At the gas station I found out that there was a mechanic in town.  We rode back into town and found his home/shop. Two large motos in front of your house and everyone comes out to gawk at the strange foreigners dressed in space suits. At first they were closed.  Four kids come out and Lisa brings out the stickers for the kids and things opened up.  I showed my bent rack and pantomime hitting the support with a hammer. Then I asked to borrow a sledge hammer and began disassembling the fuel cell and the real damage appeared.  I had broke the sub-frame that holds the fuel cell onto the bike.  Once the fuel cell is off, I disassemble the Jesse rack and indicate what I wanted.

The mechanic gets it.  And becomes involved.  As soon as I remove one of the mount braces, he grabs it and goes into his shop and starts hammering.  I continue to remove the entre Jesse bracket and he come back with the brace nowhere near the desired reshape.  I follow him into the yard and pick up the sledge hamper and whack the heck out of the brace reshaping it back to semi-normal.  After 2 hours of whacking the Jesse bracket is back in workable form.

All this time Lisa is playing with the kids, asking them questions and letting them sit on her Wee-Strom.

Now for the sub-frame.   We ask if there was a welder in town.  No.  But turns out there is a traveling welder who goes from town to town.  He is coming tomorrow.

We make an appointment to be back at 7AM, tomorrow.

Lisa: We went back into the plaza to see if we could move to the hotel in town but no dice. Still lots of revelers and, parked right in the square, we became merged into the festivities more than once as they circle the town. It seemed that each time there was a different group. I have no idea where these people come from in this little town but the celebration was hysterical.  Funny stuff.

Dean: Our hotel did not have a level place to park the bikes so I elected to trouble shoot my dead headlights there. After a whole bunch of stuff that didn’t need doing, I found I’d blown a main fuse. Easy fix.

Lisa: So back we went, up the hill to ‘our’ hotel.  From that vantage point we could see not one but two storms rolling in, from opposite directions.  How does that happen?  So we quickly changed clothes and walked back to the square, hoping to eat something as it had been more than 24 hours since we’d had more than an apple and some nuts.  Grabbed a quick dinner but while we were eating the skies opened and the most montrous thunderstorm ensued.  We sat there for a loooong time before heading out into it and back up the hill.

The torrential downpour we could hear on the tin roof of the hotel didn’t bode well for our planned exit the following day.  It rained most of the night and all we could do was sit and wait.

14 comments to Day40-Repair & Regroup, Sat, Feb 5, 2011

  • Bob K

    Dean, I’m glad you were able to fix the problems. What would you do without Lisa!? Guess those little stickers she took with her came in handy! Stay dry!

  • Brian R.

    Keep reminding yourselves that this is why they call it “Adventure” touring. I’ve always said that the rear subframe on the Vstrom is one of the weaknesses of the bike (weak backbone). One of the reasons why I have such a small aux tank and soft luggage (I’ve seen first hand how mangled that frame can get when all the stress put into hard luggage gets transferred into it in a fall).

    OH well, good to hear that Lisa is her old self – you can take the blondee out of the country but you can’t take the mother out of the blondee. Boy, you kids better get busy with some grandkids before Lisa gives up and just brings home a bambino, lured with stickers.

    Here’s hoping for clear skies and paved roads.

  • Chuck Hickey

    Just what ARE those stickers? Bearer bonds? Dollar bills???

  • V Twins

    For some bizarre reason, this seems like the best part of the trip insofar as memories. We mean, would you rather be cruising into Fort Wayne on a super slab or slugging it out? We are becoming increasingly envious!
    RIDE ON!
    V Twins

  • Bounce

    After all these “themes of the day” comments I starting to read into this that they whole trips theme should be “don’t set hard scheduled timelines”.

  • Bounce

    GACK was that full of typos!

  • Nancy O

    Oh cool! You did make it over to Arica! I really liked that town when we were there in 97, the people were soooo friendly. Enjoy!

  • V Twins

    Dean
    As you know, we like Lisa are supporters of President Obama and his efforts to reduce the budget deficit. As such, we applaud you for your contribution to this effort by denying your rights to Social Security and Medicare on this your 65th birthday. You are truly a great American supporter of liberalism.
    HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAN
    Hugs & Kisses from Sylvie and Congratulations from Bob
    V Twins

  • Bob K

    Have a great and fun birthday, Dean!

  • Brother Tom

    Did you guys feel the 6.8 earthquake today? Bro Tom

    • Lisa

      Someone else wrote me and asked if it had been caused by Dean and me dropping our bikes at the same time. While that HAS happened, it wasn’t yesterday. To answer your question, no, we did not feel it and haven’t heard anything about it here in Vina del Mar.

    • Dean

      No! Guess we better check the news!

  • H Marc Lewis

    That “adult beverage” in the gallon plastic jugs might have been Chicha, a South American fermented beverage, usually kinda straw colored, with a slight sour aftertaste. I drank some in an Andean village in Colombia. They used to ferment it by chewing maize (or fruit or whatever) and spitting it into a container where it would ferment. I drank it anyway. It wasn’t that bad, but then I prefer hard cider to beer…

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