Felix and Justin…somewhere

A good riding day leaving Pipa, traffic, sun, rain, sun, late afternoon arrival to a great place called

crooked canoe, Quanoa Quebrada, to stay at the Hotel California, such a lovely place. This will be my

second stay at a hotel California, once before in Mexico, that they say was the original one, where they

have pink champagne on ice…

they say this one looks like an airplane

Short ride day into Ubajara. I think that’s where the song comes from… Ubajara, Uba Uba Ubajara, I’m hooked on a feeling…I could be wrong.

It’s in the national park where they have some very mysterious rock formations. Are they natural or build by someone? Also, plenty of rock paintings.

The small hospital that fixed Bob up, lickedy split

Bob waiting to take a relaxing ride in the support vehicle

We set up to go look at our ancient rocks formations. It is a short ride into the national park, but it had some sandy sections, and with two up, Bob got caught in a slippery sandy bit and fell. Donna was ok, for it was a slow fall, but unfortunately Bob was not as lucky. By trying to keep the bike upright had strained his ankle and cracked the whatchamacallit bone.

Now he has two weeks of healing and needs to stay off the leg until a second check up and x ray can be done in Manaus. Then another two to three weeks of final healing and taking it easy on that leg. Bob is in great spirits though, and when asked how he feels, “This sucks!” with a smile. Definitely not a fun time.

Justin finds the mother load! Schin beer!

Long kilometers into Bom Jardin, fairly straightforward into a 3 horse town, as Clara so perfectly put it.

short pit stop under a shady tree happened to be beside a school

the children came in busloads for the start of school

they loved us gringos around with the big bikes

From Bom Jardin to Belem, a long km day again. Definitely doing some major endurance riding on some of these days. Although I’m sure that the Iron Butt guys have a good laugh at these short distances. Then two days off to prepare for the boat to Manaus.

Time to load the bikes for the five night, six day boat journey up the amazing Amazon.

The Van leaves on its own barge. Looks fairly happy though. Only it and the cases of beer going up the

river.

Boat ride, five nights and six days to Manaus, city in the middle of the Jungle.

Due to the dangers and troubles in Venezuela, we he had to drastically change our itinerary, which was a huge logistical operation, from the head office in Melbourne, our people in Brazil and Peru, and all the local helpers in each city and port, along with the crew, a plan came together.

Plan B, or was it C, no D, is for the group to split up. Felix and the group are continuing and heading into Columbia and Ecuador, and I’m going up the entire Amazon with all the bikes and Van, and then north into Peru, where we will all reconnect again in Piura, Peru.

From there we will head south again as the complete group on the scheduled itinerary. We will be separated for almost one month.

I’ll take the spot tracker with me, just in case of pirates! Right Donna 🙂

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0StFaCt2DKzYIq49nLQo7guM7rM2WAOgC

More to come.