Deane's Motorcycle Trip In SOUTH AMERICA
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Deane's Motorcycle Trip In SOUTH AMERICA |
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May 6, 7 - Fly Home from South America And Wrap-up |
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HOME SWEET HOME -- Yes, I'm home, as of May 7th, after an overnight flight from Santiago, Chile, through Dallas - Fort Worth, to Albuquerque. It seems that all flights from the US fly south on one evening-overnight flight, arriving at about 7 AM, and then fly north that night, leaving about 9 PM. WRAP-UP of "HIGH ANDES EXPEDITION" This was quite an undertaking, both for the riders that went on the tour, and for the tour leaders from "MotoDiscovery" by "Pancho Villa Motorcycle Tours". The following information paints an overall view of the tour, as well as some statistics. Number of Riders on the tour - 11, with an added passenger for a portion of the tour. Number of Tour leaders - 3, with two riding their motorcycles, and one driving a support van, pulling a motorcycle trailer in case a motorcycle became disabled. (This happened several times, with most of those times having the motorcycle repaired before the next day.) Total number of days on Tour - 34 Actual days riding - 21 Total Miles ridden - 4,775 Of the days with no riding, two days were spent in getting the riders from their fly-in point of Santiago, Chile to the starting city of Vina del Mar, Chile, and getting the motorcycles through customs. Then two days at the end of the trip were spent to reverse the process. (So the number of days actually available for riding was actually 30.) Of those 30 days, 21 were spent riding, and 9 were spent in or around South American cities and historical or cultural attractions. The tour leaders for MotoDiscovery arranged wonderful bus, train and boat transportation to see these. This was accomplished by "MotoDiscovery" in a first-class fashion!! South American Cities Visited: Chile - 8, Argentina - 6, Bolivia - 3, Peru - 5 Cost of Gas - from about $4.00 per gallon to abut $4.50 per gallon, with Chile being generally the highest, and Bolivia being generally the lowest. Currency Exchange Rates - About the following: Chile Pesos - 525 per USDollar, Argentine Pesos - 3.05 per USD, Bolivian Bolivianos - 8.00 per USD, Peruvian Soles - 3.25 per USD. These exchange rates kept us on our toes to mentally calculate how much things cost. Bolivia was the poorest country, with extremely low costs for various items. Elevations of Andean cities and roads. La Paz, Bolivia was the highest elevation city, at just over 13,000 ft., Potosi', Bolivia being close behind at just under 13,000 ft. and Cuzco, Peru at almost 11,000ft. High passes we rode over were up to 16,000 ft. elevation, with several in the 13,000-15,000 ft. elevation. Types of what we would call "exotic" animals seen: - Llamas, Guanacos, Alpacas, Vicunas. That about wraps up the trip. For any questions or comments, email Deane at: dcrawforth@comcast.net |
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