Watch the Up the Andes Documentary. This time Jo, Gareth and their mates transverse the Andes from North to South and from top to bottom. Taking the back roads, they discover the unique and wonderful land that is South America.
Archive | Up the Andes
Up the Andes
Riding the World’s most dangerous road
Riders: Gareth Morgan, Jo Morgan, Dave Wallance, Tony Armstrong,Brendan Keogh, Chris Stephens
Motorcycles: BMW F800GS
Distance: 16,856km
Countries: Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil
Trip description: A ride from the Alto Plano of Bolivia and Peru to the frozen tip of Patagonia; on the world’s most dangerous road, where the stakes are high, on to Argentina’s fabled Ruta 40, where the steaks are large and cheap.
Across salt pans, into mud holes, up the Andes and down again; past the ruins of the ruins of Macchu Pichu, and finding themselves on the edge of the epicentre of the Chilean earthquak
Blogs from the trip
… and Bye from Jo too
I knew this leg of the world ride was over when I disconnected the battery and had a glass of bubbles yesterday. So many wonderful people helped make this a memorable and successful adventure. Thanks for the emails, and many suggestions of places to go. We did just over 3 months, 21,000 km and I […]
Another Roadtrip Over
We’ve finished, parked the bikes up and are getting ready to return to NZ. 21,000 kms of South America completed, great taste of the Andes and then followed by Uruguay, Paraguay and half of Brazil. All good, no worries with bikes – they’ve been serviced, stored and await our return in a few months when […]
Road kill
The state of the wild animal life in a country is judged by the road kill as far as I am concerned. America lots of animals and lots of diverse road-kill, Russia no animals on the roads, dead or alive. South America the dogs are winner , or really the losers, of the “dead by […]
Road tales and tails
The haul back across Paraguay was made more memorable by the rain that bucketed down turning all but the one strip of tar into a red bog and then a close encounter of a truck passing head on into Gareth’s path causing him to divert into the verge wasn’t particular unusual but a huge “Jesus” […]
Poverty, red mud and burgers.
Our day in Asuncion with the UNICEF staff again made us think of the poor and vulnerable, lack of education and poor health often means the adults can’t care for the children as well as they would like to. The much loved little ones are carried everywhere and given lots of love but there are […]
UNICEF Day – Asuncion, Paraguay
Always a highlight of these rides is spending time with UNICEF folk on the ground and looking and learning about the work they’re doing. Today we spent in the capital of Paraguay visiting projects that are focused on getting kids off the streets, lifting their hygene standards and in short making their life better. Life […]
Iguazu Falls
They are great to visit and certainbly deserve thei ranking as amongst the world’s most spectacular (and largest). I remember them mainly from the movie The Mission and those scenes where Jeremy Irons as the Jesuit priest was leading the Guarani to land above the Falls, climbing the cliffs beside them and being pursued by […]
Itaipu, Paraguay – The World’s Largest Dam
The world’s largest hydroelectric power station at Itaipu. What do you say about these types of projects – over our lifetimes we’ve seen heaps of them – starting with the dam at Arapuni, then the big one at Arrrateatea near Taupo (got a tour of that at primary school in 1965) and then stepped up […]
Postcard from Paraguay (nearly)
It is about dinner time in NZ but I am sitting in a lobby looking out at the skateboarders and staggering happy drunks, it is around 3am. Gareth sat in the lobby and did his computer work earlier as it is the only place the WiFi works here and then I woke when he came […]
