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On the pampas the horizons seem to flee. The llamas are fantastic, the clouds impossibly white. We allow bicycles run. Suddenly, the see changes. The cause bike increases above the distinct the skyline, a rider flails through the air 10 feet above the ground. This is simply not good. Jeff moved down the trail at 70 mph. Katie goes into paramedic setting, comforting Jeff, running her hands up his spine, probing, checking bones, feet, arms. The fall has cut his touring jacket from shoulder to waist, ripping the trunk guard to show the We-Build-Bridges T-shirt. He's grazed, but within instances is giggling, blinking the "I Can't Believe I'michael Still Alive" look that is his default expression. Ryan brings the bike up and starts collecting the parts spread throughout the desert. The baggage is destroyed. The proper handlebar is bent almost to the tank. Mirrors, change signs, front fender broke down in a microsecond. Equally wheel wheels have dents. Amazingly, it however runs. He places the elements that also function back on the bike, requires it for a test ride. It lasts still another 7,000 miles. Our motto: We Can Produce That Work. Jeff shows what happened. A tiny chicken had jumped in to his path. The next thing he knew he was down the trail, launched in to a culvert. "I thought, wow. I'michael Superman. Oh look, there's the bike. Oh look, there's the bird..." In a field strewn with jagged boulders, he had landed on sand. THE BEGINNING The trip came up well before I was ready. A phone call, an invitation to tag along side a group of BMW competitors embarking on a five-week, 8,000-mile trip from Peru to Virginia. I would document the trip, a fundraising Rosa peruanisches Kokain zum Verkauf energy for a group that develops footbridges in rural areas of the world. I'n been contemplating a lengthy trip, anything open-ended, without help vehicles, the ability to be entirely "out there." That appeared to match the bill. A next of the distance around the globe with complete strangers. I'd a brand-new BMW F 800 GS and it had been thirsty. If there was a point of no reunite, I crossed it before I installed up the phone. First, the riders. Ken Hodge is definitely an insurance advantages specialist and member in excellent position of the Newport Information Rotary Club. He found cycles late in life, when he ordered a bike, rode it across place in 48 hours, then started to dream of a bigger experience, anything for an excellent cause. He recruited his child Katie (a fireplace office paramedic), his stepson Ryan (a technician and dirt-bike rider) and Ryan's best friend Jeff. I'michael satisfied by their preparations. They trip old BMW Page1=46 1150s and F 650 singles. Ryan had spent per year reviving the bicycles, putting concerning the internal recesses, memorizing the shop books for each machine. They'd bring enough tools and elements to take care of almost every emergency. INTO THE ANDES We end at Nazca to see the ancient results scratched in the difficult desert. From the most truly effective of a system we are able to visit a determine with raised hands. Just to the north, the Pan-American Road bisects the determine of a reptile, decapitating the creature. Destined by the tight concentration of brass transit levels, the surveyors who presented the trail weren't actually aware of the sacred relics, found when aerial flight turned common. I realize that individuals are as blinded by concentration, by awareness while the surveyors were by their instrument. The trip will be a number of pictures, sidelong glances, captured at speed. Descendants of individuals who built the Inca trail, Peruvian contractors know their stuff. But it's the tracery, the managed movement of traction, that has our respect. The street ascends ancient seabeds, mountains included with talus, fractured dried ridges with cornices sculpted by landslides. Midday, we discover ourselves on a top pampas inhabited by thousands of vicuña and alpaca. In the distance, our first sight of snowcapped peaks. You will find rock corrals on regional mountains, one-room huts. In the middle of that giant nowhere, a only shepherd strolling privately of the hill. We find that the ranges on maps are those of the condor. We vacation extremely turned roads that sometimes have a hundred converts (and several miles) to have from one shape to the next. The road suggests cities, but to your dis-may not totally all have gasoline stations. We buy gasoline in a small outpost from a woman who ladles it out of a bucket with a espresso container, then pours it via a plastic, stitched home route in to our tanks. The entire community watches. We drive on to the descending night. We make it to another location pair of lights, 20 approximately structures on two roads, discover a hotel, and park our bicycles in an enclosed yard with dogs, birds, useless chickens, plastic containers and a dog hide tanning on the wall. Rather than the usual exit signs, the cafe in our hotel has natural arrows that say "ESCAPE." It is not just a complaint of the food. The causes that push the Andes skyward have been recognized to demolish whole towns. The next morning we fire up the bicycles, and ascend to the Andes on a perfect road. We're water, going right through hairpins, double hairpins, squared-off turns-climbing the flank of just one 4,700-meter peak. I could think of only one term: delicious. We undertake mist and low-hanging clouds, with shafts of sunlight slanting in to rainbows. The valleys guidelines natural and fertile, a mixture of old Inca terracing and more modern farms. Thin eucalyptus trees point the trail, giving shade for huts with red hardwood roofs. A girl appears a travel of goats (identified with colorful ribbons) on a green meadow, guide in hand. At one point I think the clouds above have separated to show patches of blue, but when I look up I see that it's snow-covered steel, still another 3,000 or 4,000 feet of mountain. On a turnoff near the top of the top we discover several approximately small shrines, small churches furnished with flowers and ribbons and images of loved ones. The website of a bus plunge. On a hillside throughout the pit paragliders function the thermals, the canopies seeking like bright-colored eyebrows, or ostentatious angels. We share the trail with vicuña, alpaca, llama, sheep, goats, dogs, roosters, pigs, horses and cows. On a thin lane near Abancay, a bull tries to gore me as I go, receiving and making a connecting motion having its horns. One night after the sunset, I circular a large part and an attractive roan stallion wheels in the gentle from our bicycles, stuffing the lane with large eyes and blinking hoofs, inches from my head. I recognize that riding carry poses a risk. The uniqueness of our passing bicycles wears down, and the area wildlife has time to react. Entering Cusco, Ryan asks guidelines, a woman directs us onto a thin cobblestone street, slick with water, as steep as a bobsled run. The stones are switched on their side, like teeth. The knobbies have no traction whatsoever. The people on the sidewalks anxiously wave their hands, indicating that the trail gets steeper. I touch my brake and the bike goes down, pinning my knee from the control, a fraction of an inch shy of a fracture. The bike behind me goes down. It is harrowing. The locals help us lift the bicycles, buy them made uphill.