April 21, 2003 - Touchdown and home.....
Odometer: 32,021, 23,050 miles in 6 months, two
weeks!
We arrived in Iguazu and I just happened to take a
look down at my rear sprocket and was shocked to see
that the roller valleys between the teeth were worn so
badly that the sprocket teeth themselves were
beginning to resemble needles! And here we are on the
western border of Brazil.
I am so stupid. The five days we waited for Hughs
bike to be repaired it never occurred to me to take
the opportunity to replace the sprocket. No, strike
that. I thought they would make it home. There was
no way I was going to make it back to the coast on
this worn out (less then 8000 miles!) Sunstar
sprocket. Junk! I'll never buy another one.
Like in almost all the big towns/cities of Brazil, we
were approached by a local that wanted to help us find
accommodations. They help you, you tip them. Not
really a bad arrangement if you don't want to go
wondering around. And I needed a shop to help me out,
so I had the the guy that approached us take me to the
nearest shop that might help. It was a Yamaha shop
that suggested we go to the local Suzuki shop. I have
a Kawasaki. For some reason Kawasaki is not very well
represented in Brazil.
In any case, the shop owner said he could adapt a
Suzuki rear sprocket for me. After disassembly we
discovered that the inner bearing had somehow broken
loose from its seat and was destructively tumbling
around inside the hub coupling, wearing the living
crap out of the seat.
This is where I left off the last time. The shop
owner (Doug, Dougs Suzuki) assured me that they could
deal with this problem since I had the foresight to
carry the OEM bearing along with me on the trip. They
didn't have a bearing.
Well, my hat's off to those guys at Dougs. They did a
great job with fitting a new sprocket and (I later
discovered) with machining and fitting a race into the
hub to act as a new seat for the bearing! They even
cleaned my bike to the point of non-recognition! I
mean, at first glance, it looked brand new!
Later, as we rode away from Foz do Iguazu, I noted a
serious oil leak from the drain bolt. Yes, they
changed the oil but I failed to offer a new crush
washer and suspected the possibility that the threads
got stripped by over-torquing. I put a 1/8 turn on
the bolt and felt very little resistance, nearly
confirming my fears 100%. From this point on in the
trip I decided against removing the bolt for
inspection or oil changes, I would simply keep adding
oil. So for the last 2000+ miles I went through about
4 quarts of fresh oil.
But the good news is, there were no more mechanical or
maintenance issues for the rest of the trip. Woohoo!
While we were in the town of Falls de Iguazu, we of
course visited the falls. They are huge and
spectacular and someday I will revitalize my web-site
to show you the pictures I took. But here is a taste
for you in the meantime:
http://gosouthamerica.about.com/library/blIguazupix.htm
Hugh and I walked the path (Brazilian side) from the
visitors drop off down to the water and falls
themselves. But before this, we paid for a little
jungle tour and Zodiak boat excursion up-river and
directly into/under the falls. That was cool! The
Zodiak seated around 16 people and was propelled by
two large (I'm guessing 350cc or greater) outboard
motors.
Very fast!
The trip up consisted of navigating against a very
fast river current through deeper channels to avoid
rocks, and therefore lots of cool and sudden turns of
the boat. The captain got us to a relatively calm
point and idled the boat for us all to enjoy a picture
opportunity. After that, we placed our valuables in
plastic bags and headed straight for the falls. Whoa!
Of course we got drenched, but the first thing you
realize is that there is a LOT of water spray before
you reach the falls making it downright impossible to
keep your eyes opened. Goggles would have worked. It
was like an amusement park ride from then on as the
captain dunked first the front end of the boat and
swung around to get the rear end wet next. He kept
doing this over and over. Excellent! From all the
screaming and yelling, it was obvious everyone was
having a great time. And every time he'd pull away
for us all to catch our breath he'd ask, "you want to
go again"? "YEAH!".
Great fun!
We also visited nearby, the Itaipu hydroelectric dam,
a joint development of Brazil and Paraguay. The
structure is amazing. It went online in early 1984
and supplies Paraguay with over 80% of its power
needs, while supplying Brazil with over 25% of its
needs.
It's a fairly locked down facility, but the tour is
free with busses shuttling visitors to observation
areas and past the twenty or so massive turbine water
shoots. Here is a link to more info about the dam.
Go to the bottom of the page for pictures.
http://www.dams.org/kbase/submissions/showsub.php?rec=ins237
We also visited a bird sanctuary just across from the
entrance to the falls park. Of course, we got a lot
of pictures of some very colorful birds, and they are
just what you'd expect for tropical birds. Very
colorful and odd.
The night before we left for Asuncion, Paraguay I
ordered in for pizza (a food the latin americans just
can't get right). This turned out very badly for me,
as I got as sick as the proverbial dog the next day.
It was just a bad feeling in my stomach at first, but
after around 200 miles of travel into this very third
world country I couldn't take it anymore and pulled
off to find a bathroom. Food poisoning. Diarrhea and
throwing up with a fever is no way to travel by
motorcycle.
By the time we got to the outskirts of Asuncion, I
just wanted a room. Again, a guy on a motorcycle
approached us and escorted us into town finding us a
hotel with secure parking. I pretty much stayed in my
room for the three days we were there, keeping
hydrated as much as possible.
I had really bad cravings for ice-cream or milk for
some reason and on the second day I ventured out to
find some. I also reasoned in my own limited thought
process where self medication is concerned, that I
needed fruit and yogurt. No ice-cream, but I got
milk, yogurt and fruit.
This combination just exacerbated the problems as the
yogurt combined with the sugary fruit caused serious
and very uncomfortable gas. Evil pain for another
day.
I finally broke free of the grip and did enjoy one
evening out with Hugh at a local food place. Suffice
it to say that I was a little apprehensive to eat.
My memories of Paraguay are then, not justifiably, not
good. Maybe another time.
We headed back to Brazil, on our way to Rio de Janeiro
and at the border crossing once again were informed we
did not need any paperwork to travel with our bikes.
You got a title? Good enough.
OK.
As we crossed the southern part of the country we were
treated to some very pretty vistas of fertile rolling
farmland and at one point twisting mountain roads.
Finally, a place to use some of that expensive side
rubber on our tires that had been neglected for so
long.
As we descended out of the mountains and approached
Sao Paulo it was obvious the riding party was over.
So much traffic mixed with bad roads made the trip
north fairly obnoxious. We decided to head for the
coast and spend some time on the beach, once again,
before entering Rio so we headed to Sao Sebastiao.
The ride out of Sao Paulo, off the main route to Rio,
to Sao Sebastiao was fun. And the final approach to
the beach town was fantastic with gorgeous views of
the town below and a twisty descending road for fun.
Unfortunately, it rained almost the entire time we
were in town (three days), but it was still nice.
From Sao Sebastiao we took the coastal road northeast
towards Rio de Janeiro. Excellent! I swear the
cloudy sky and occasional rain only made the scenery
(very jungle) only slightly less exciting then it
could be. Sunlight would have been perfection and
would have offered much better photo opportunities.
It's hard to capture the colors of the flowering trees
and broad green leaves under clouds. If you go to
this area, ride this road!
We had planned to finish the day in Itagua, but when
we arrived we found it to be not so accommodating.
Very dirty and besides, we didn't see one hotel. So
we decided to just keep going right into Rio de
Janeiro.
Not a bad decision as it turned out since we got there
with daylight to spare. Of course, Rio de Janeiro is
a huge city and we immediately got lost. Not really
though. We intended to stay in Copacabana and were
following the signs when we came to a police enforced
detour that took us into the heart of municipality.
Hmm-mm.
We found out later that on Sundays, the main roads are
redirected for pedestrian and bicycle traffic.
Breaking out the travel books and trying to determine
our whereabouts with reference to the central city
took a little while but we finally figured it out and
found Copacabana. We intended to visit the tourist
information office to help us find cheap
accommodations but, when we found it, it was closed.
Sunday, 7pm but the book said it was opened 7 days a
week until 8pm.
Oh well, plenty of hotels to choose from here. We
chose an expensive room for a couple of nights until
we could find less expensive rooms the next day.
Copacabana is a district of Rio de Janeiro situated
south of the central part of the city and in close
proximity to Ipanema. On hindsight, I think we
probably would have preferred to station in Ipanema
because the beaches are a bit nicer and there seemed
to be a few more things to do. It really didn't
matter in the long run though as the two districts are
so close together.
Prior to arriving in Rio I had been in contact with
Lew Waterman
(
http://www.angelfire.com/mo/motormark/Punky_n_Lew.html)
who had been advised that Varig was the carrier to use
for transport back to the states. The price seemed
right at $575 but due to the Iraq war, carriers were
drying up. So imagine my shock when I called them and
was quoted the price of $2,300 per motorcycle, without
a crate! And without passage!
So, while we were trying to enjoy our stay in Rio, we
were also trying to find cheaper freight. And we
finally found Air Global who contracted with Azteca
shippers who would end up costing us $1,580 per bike,
crated, but still without passage. We did find
round-trip tickets for a reasonable price, but that
was a forced issue since we needed to have the tickets
in hand before Brazilian customs would release the
bikes.
Not to go into too much detail about the shipping
episode with Azteca, but essentially their service
ended up costing us a weeks delay in Rio (boohoohoo,
right?) and another weeks worth of unnecessary hotel
costs in Miami. And part of the reason was the fault
of the Brazilian customs authority.
Note that we crossed the border from Uruguay and
insisted on temporary titlement and were told we
didn't need it. The next day we went back and asked
again and told the same thing. Crossing from Paraguay
we asked for the paperwork and again were told we
didn't need it. However, Brazilian customs at the
cargo shippers wanted it! Jack asses!
We finally convinced customs that we had passage out
of the country and proved ownership of the bikes with
our titles. And they, to their credit, admitted that
the border aduana was at fault. So, lesson here is
insist until you get the correct paperwork if you plan
to ship your bike home from Brazil, or anywhere for
that matter. Also, unless you have to, try not to use
Azteca. The guy we worked with was nice enough but
the service really sucked.
Anyway, when we weren't running down errands and
taking care to get our bikes cleared, we did get to
see some of the cooler sights (the very pretty women
included) offered in Rio de Janeiro. We visited
Christ the Redeemer monument in Corcavado, world
famous statue of Jesus Christ with his arms
outstretched. Excellent viewing location and a pretty
cool construction feat. We also rode the sky-lifts up
onto Sugarloaf, which was a bit unnerving. Cable cars
swing in the breeze, know what I mean?
I visited the Fort of Copacabana which is a gun
battery encased in 12 feet of concrete with two
predominate 315mm guns. Firepower baby! The friggin
shell casings came up to my armpits!
We also got to hook up with Lew and meet his dog Punky
and his new bride Achi. I've got to admit, Lews
adventure for the past year eclipses my own if for
nothing else then the problems he encountered with his
KLR650. And, the guy got married on the way!
Incredible. Lew and Achi, like most every other
adventure tourers we met, are great people with great
attitudes about life.
We finally, finally, touched down in Miami on April
9th and began the 1 week wait for our bikes. Not all
bad except that we really weren't prepared for the
expense, nor the re-acclimation to American pricing.
When a six-pack of beer costs more than twice what I
was paying for three liters and a dinner costs nearly
as much as an entire days worth of meals, something is
wrong. Gasoline prices are much better in America
though, as well as the quality of the product. Hmm-m.
When we finally got word our bikes arrived, we were
very excited. After doing the US Customs dance and
extracting the bikes from the crates, we thought we
might have just enough gasoline to get to the nearest
station to fill up. We really wanted to be on the
road by no later than 1pm but, having to deal with
customs again and getting the gasoline we needed put
us back to around 3:30pm.
I remembered from the KLR list that there is always a
little bit of gasoline in the right drape of the gas
tank that never gets used because the petcock is on
the left hand side. So, I thought, lay the bike over
on the left and see if that would be enough to get me
to the gas station. What happened is the float got
hung up, leaving the float needle opened and
subsequently poring gasoline into the cylinder.
Yee...ha
So, I ended up spending way too much time getting a
new plug in and getting the puddle of gas out of the
cylinder. A couple of taps on the float bowl remedied
the situation, loosening the float. And after finally
buttoning everything up, we got gasoline (taxi ride)
and were on our way...right into rush hour.
After getting past Fort Lauderdale, through a nice
little downpour we pulled off. We were close to the
Florida Turnpike, which I intended to take. Hugh
wanted to bolt right for home so, we separated for the
last time here and said goodbye. I was in no great
hurry and wanted to ride up through the Appalachians
on my way home.
I finally considered myself home when I arrived at my
brothers house in Front Royal, VA for Easter dinner.
Ahhh, free room and board.
What a ride. Exhausting in the end but now that I'm
home and have rested for awhile, I want to be back out
there.
Todd Peer
1992 - KLR650(aka - Ugly)
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