Iain Beauchamp has been to: Andorra, Afghanistan, Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Switzerland, Chile, People's Republic of China, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Ecuador, Spain, Fiji, France, United Kingdom, Guernsey, Greece, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Ireland, India, Iran, Italy, Jersey, Japan, Kenya, Cambodia, Luxembourg, Morocco, Monaco, Mongolia, Macao, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Paraguay, Russia, Sweden, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey, United States, Vatican, Vietnam, South Africa.
Get your own travel map from Matador Network.
Drop down header
Thursday, 26 November 2015
+1 Colombia
Thursday, 22 October 2015
The power of a (or the) good book
It could be that after this long on the road, despite the blond hair and blue eyes, I now pass as a local - however I doubt that. Instead I think it's the fact that in Sao Paulo I bought a copy of Anna Karenina. Let me explain... I bought it for a few reasons - I have enjoyed the Tolstoy I've read before[1], it's a book I've been meaning to read for a long time, it's long (and so should keep me entertained for a while[2]) and most importantly - the edition I was looking at, although hardback, was compact, meaning I could actually fit it in my bags. It also had a handy ribbon place-marker (books should really have these more often) and very attractive gilt edging. A combination of the size and the gilt edging meant that someone working at the hostel said that if she hadn't seen the cover she'd have thought it was a copy of the bible. I'm pretty sure that carrying this around (I like reading over lunch/supper and in the park afterwards with a cat in my lap) has protected me from the advances in Miraflores (an understandable response from the money changers and I suppose there's a mixed track record between the Bible and restaurant owners and prostitutes). Now all I need to do is wear my black jacket and white shirt[2] and I'll have people fleeing away from me...
Notes:
1. Seriously. War and Peace is epic, and is written in bite size chapters so ideal for commuting.
2. Not sure this is working. Less than a week after purchase and I'm about a third of my way through.
3. I had these on a coat-hanger in Rio de Janeiro and a Brazilian lady asked me if I was a Mormon. I think I need to grow the beard back.
Catching up
I'll post the backward looking posts with the dates that I did them - which will make the timeline on the blog make sense but won't necessarily mean they come out in the order I did them - if that makes any sense!
Saturday, 29 August 2015
+1 Ecuador
Iain Beauchamp has been to: Andorra, Afghanistan, Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Switzerland, Chile, People's Republic of China, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Ecuador, Spain, Fiji, France, United Kingdom, Guernsey, Greece, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Ireland, India, Iran, Italy, Jersey, Japan, Kenya, Cambodia, Luxembourg, Morocco, Monaco, Mongolia, Macao, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Paraguay, Russia, Sweden, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey, United States, Vatican, Vietnam, South Africa.
Get your own travel map from Matador Network.
Friday, 19 June 2015
+1 Peru
Iain Beauchamp has been to: Andorra, Afghanistan, Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Switzerland, Chile, People's Republic of China, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Fiji, France, United Kingdom, Guernsey, Greece, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Ireland, India, Iran, Italy, Jersey, Japan, Kenya, Cambodia, Luxembourg, Morocco, Monaco, Mongolia, Macao, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Paraguay, Russia, Sweden, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey, United States, Vatican, Vietnam, South Africa.
Get your own travel map from Matador Network.
Saturday, 4 April 2015
A trip in a day
- Wake up at 5am after a pretty bad nights sleep [1] as a result of some very persistent mosquitos.
- Oversleep.
- Just make breakfast.
- Load the bike (unusually don't immediately turn around and find something I've not packed).
- Leave, wave at some small boys who look at the bike (not gender stereotyping bit is always small boys who wave).
- Bike decides to stop working, on second time it doesn't restart, push it uphill to a layby, strip off all the luggage and get the Haines manual out.
- Bike starts working, but I'm pretty sure it had nothing to do with me.
- Stop for fuel at a petrol station with three vehicles parked outside it. Find out it's (permanently) closed. Still not sure what the other vehicles were doing there.
- Ride on along beautiful roads with amazing views but don't stop as I'm worried I might not be able to start the bike again.
- Tarmac gives way to dirt roads and I'm still 70km away from my destination (according to one map anyway). Wasn't expecting that.
- GPS map roads start tracking 100m or more off my actual position, suggesting the maps for this area aren't particularly accurate.
- Plan to stop for some food and a cold drink at a place about 1/3 to 1/2 way there. Get there and it's pretty dead so push on.
- Not happy worth the route the GPS is taking (no mention of São Tome on any signs), but have plenty of fuel.
- Rejoin GPS road. Hurray!
- Follow it to a padlocked gate - boo!
- Turn around, summon the assistance of Google. Ride on.
- Sun's going down and the temptation to race it home is enormous (riding after dark is a lot slower) but keep it steady.
- Ride past a campsite where I could have stayed but push on the last 2km to town, up a horrible dirt road with undulations similar to riding up a mogul field uphill.
- Arrive at in town just after sun down.
- Pull over to look at a map and am approached by a biker. Short chat, photo taken with him and get given a sticker. Smile for the photo and try and make coherent conversation even though I'm tired and my focus is on getting somewhere for Lena and I to spend then night.
- Go to the place I want to stay, get the last room, more expensive than anticipated but I'm tired...
- Park bike.
- Have a look at the room and check in.
- Unload bits off the bike.
- Unpack. Find shampoo bottle has leaked / exploded.
- Shower, washing shampoo of all my kit before I get a clean - apart from my hair as there is no shampoo left in the bottle...
- Go for food and beer (or two), then a short wander around town before deciding to get an early night.
- Repeat, this time with added rain! "Highlights" of the following day being:
- A pub in town has a band playing live music, loudly, until about 5am.
- Loading the bike, then setting off and dropping the bike within 3 feet because I hadn't taken the disc lock off (d'oh) while being watched by the lady who worked at the hostel and wanted to lock the garage behind me. On the bright side I was able to lift the bike without unloading anything - embarrassment being almost as effective as adrenaline.
- 35 of the last 50km being on wet dirt roads, uphill, in the dark, through cloud / fog (it was above 1,500m altitude) and distinctly off my GPS mapping.
Tuesday, 24 March 2015
Gold and God: church, state and slaves in Ouro Preto
A child-sized hole, for (slave) child miner |
Notes:
1. The Portuguese court had relocated to Brasil in 1807 after the Napoleonic Wars meant that Portugal had become the set for Wellington (with some help from Sharpe and the Royal Green Jackets) to beat the French during the Peninsula campaign.
Miner's food
Wednesday, 11 March 2015
Brazil!
UPDATE: I did eventually get it done, after my second trip to the airport (the foreigners bit is only open until 2pm) and proving that I had the funds to get out of the country if I needed to. I now have about 5 weeks to get out - the clock is ticking...
Monday, 9 March 2015
Bike surgery
I'd told them I was worried, they reassured me it would be fine, but it was still with my heart in my mouth that the guy I'd met about an hour earlier, and didn't work at the workshop, cut into the frame with an angle grinder.
After visiting two different Yamaha dealerships to work out why my new panniers didn't fit (and an email exchange with the dealers I bought Lena from in Woking!) I had a clearer idea that the problem was with the brackets/frame but still didn't know how to solve it. I went back to the welders that had done some work on the front of the bike back in January. Helped by someone (who happened to be a mechanic but was also waiting to get some work done) we dismantling much of the back of the bike. At which point it became evident that the whole frame at the back was bent down slightly - although I'm not sure whether this happened as a result of dropping the bike or riding with broken panniers for the best part of three months. It did explain why I had a similar problem on both sides of the bike though.
So they suggested making a V cut on the top of the frame on both sides, bending it up and welding it together again. This should also strengthen the frame which would have been weakened when it was bent.
So, first the frame was cut, then bent until the panniers fit. After that it was welded, painted and everything reassembled. Simple...
The welder came highly recommended and seemed confident of the quality of the work he'd done. To the extent that he said if I crashed the bike and the frame broke, it wouldn't break at the weld. Fingers crossed his confidence is well-founded... fingers also crossed I don't end up testing it...
First "strap-less" panniers since Bolivia!! |
Not leaving Rio
"A poor farmer had all of his meagre wealth in one magnificent stallion, but one stormy night the horse escaped from its corral. The next day, all the neighbours came around to commiserate with the farmer’s terrible misfortune.“Let’s wait and see,” is all he said.
Two days later, the stallion returned with four heathy mares in tow. Now the neighbours were loud in their rejoicing. “Let’s wait and see,” said the farmer.
The next day, the farmer’s adolescent son was trying to ride one of the new horses, and he fell and broke his leg. The neighbours were desolate, but again the farmer said, “Let’s wait and see.”
And the following day, the army came through the village to draft all the young men to fight in a vicious war, but the farmer’s son was spared because of his leg."
In some respects the last few months have followed a similar pattern.
- My flight was delayed, but this meant that I was able to have a last pint in the UK and do some shopping at the airport.
- I just made my flight's connection in Lisbon, but I think the tightness of the time between flights may well have been a contributory factor in the fact that my pannier was damaged en route.
- The airline took nine weeks to admit responsibility and agree to pay for it, but it meant that I was in Rio for Carnaval.
- The delay in my pannier arriving meant that I was able to spend a last weekend in Rio and go to the first concert of the year at the Teatro Municipal, but the same delay also resulted in some of my cooking stuff being "liberated" from my bag in the kitchen.
- Then taking longer to post a package home meant that I ended up staying in Rio a few days longer than expected, but this was enough time for me to be reunited with the most important bits that I'd lost from my cooking kit.
Last Friday I managed to break my oil filler cap and am now having problems fitting my new panniers to the bike. Is this necessarily a bad thing? I don't know. I think I'll take the advice of the farmer and wait and see.
Tuesday, 3 March 2015
Loving (and leaving) Rio
Carnaval: my first Carnaval and hopefully not my last. I'm still astonished by how that many people can get drink so much, for so long, in such crowds, and yet I saw no trouble or violence whatsoever. Well done Brasil.
Wednesday, 25 February 2015
Rocinha - the largest favela in Brasil
The remains of 14 buildings that collapsed in a domino effect |