We´re definatley getting closer to the jungle, so far we´ve seen road kill of three dead anacondas, on dead alagator, three dead sloths and a bunch of dead monkeys and stuff. haha 10000+ kms down, 2000 more and were in manaus in the Amazon... 20,000 more and we´re??
TRANSAMAZÔNICA
We´re definatley getting closer to the jungle, so far we´ve seen road kill of three dead anacondas, on dead alagator, three dead sloths and a bunch of dead monkeys and stuff. haha 10000+ kms down, 2000 more and were in manaus in the Amazon... 20,000 more and we´re??
Leaving Pipa With Sad Faces
LOOK WHO WE FOUND! Daves Back!
This whole trip we have been surrounded by amazing people! We have been to some of the most beautiful places on earth, but many of the things that will most be ingrained in my mind is how amazing the people we met are! It seems like everywhere we stop there's somebody there waiting to take super good care of us! Pipa hasn't been an exception by any means. We've had so much fun here!
Liam, (the Fourth Wolf) Showing some Brazilians how soccer is to be played
Super Relaxing and more than we could have hoped to have had for one of our last beach visits on the Atlantic Coast. These last 6 days we have slept great, gone to the gym, ate better than we have on the whole trip and for cheaper, surfed a bunch, swam with the dolphins, and made friends that we will remember forever! Our accommodations consisted of a room with 4 beds in an open loft overlooking the dirt road right in front of the best beach in town. Being completely open it gets us up at like 5 am everyday but its so awesome! Just down from our place there is a 150 foot cliff over the beach, you can hike about half way down and watch the most amazing sunrise ever!Our last day in Pipa was nothing short of amazing! We woke up early and set out for a nice trail ride on our bikes. Somehow a short trail ride took us 50 kms up the beach and I found myself out of gas Again! ha We took care of it and continued the ride. We found another giant dead turtle, we all hit vultures on our bikes, haha, Dave got hit by a wave and found himself up to his seat in ocean water, and we all got some good sun. On our way home Dave crept up on the side of me at like 4 mphs right as i was going to turn. I turned, saw him, and bailed off to avoid us both getting wasted. Lucky we were going so slow, I landed on my feet and stopped and Dave didnt even wreck. Scratched my brake lever a little, thats it.
As soon as we arrived back at the place, Neto yelled for us to get to the Madeiro beach, NOW! There was a nest of baby giant sea turtles hatching right then. So we dropped everything, grabbed a couple people each, and headed to the beach! As i was running out Neto told me, youre crazy! The cops are gonna bust you for riding three with no helmets. So i grabbed helmets for the two girls riding with me and we headed out after the others. We were almost there as I rolled over a hill.. COPS! I slammed on my brakes, turned around, went back over the hill, dropped off one girl, and went right back past the cops. Nian and the others were all stopped, No helmets, riding 3, and in flipflops. haha for some reason i had my shoes on as well. anyway i dropped the one girl off, grapped the other one, got helmets for the others and we got em all to the beach.
We ran down to the beach were there was a group of 50 or so people gathered waiting for the nest to hatch. Turns out it had already hatched and there were only three turtles in the nest. So the guy went to the next nest and it was hatching at the exact same time! The dude opened the nest and it had over 100 baby turtles in it! it was pretty awesome watching them struggle their way down to the beach to the water. Truly and act of God.
Opening the Nest
100+ baby turtles making a mad dash for the water
This guy won the race
After we finished saving the baby sea turtles we went back to the place, showered, and we all went out to eat for our last night out. All you can eat pizza was a bad choice on such a warm day and so late at night. Needless to say we didnt end up leaving like we thought we would. Sunday morning we hit the road once more. A couple short hours and we were in Natal. We searched for a bit and managed to find a church. We got our weekly meetings in there and got right back on the saddle. We road forever through rain and wind and finally around 9pm we pulled into Fortaleza, wet and tired. We grabbed a cheap hotel and got some sleep.
The Wolf Pack Back together! Including Liam, The 4th Wolf!
The Next day we spent the whole day fixing the bikes, My time had arrived for a new set of tires, I guess thats what you do after 8500 kms. Knowing that we're going to be doing thousands of miles on dirt roads from here on out i got the biggest meanest knobby tires I could find. We got another room in Fortaleza as the shop was still finishing up a few small repairs on the bikes.Our plan from here is to ride a little way up the coast, go to Jericoicoara, which is supposed to be an amazing beach town, and then head inland towards the AMAZON! To tell you the truth i've seen enough beach and i'm ready to get into the jungle! These next few days we're going to put down almost 3000 kms so PRAY FOR US! haha
Livin the life in PIPA!!
Look at That Water!
When we woke up we ate a killer good breakfast for like $2 and thats when Nian and I discovered what we were dealing with. We were staying in a hostel with only Girls.. haha We just looked at each other and laughed! They were actually pretty cool for once as well. After breakfast the girls took us down and showed us were the dolphin beach was.
Swimmin with the Dolphins (they were farther out that we thought)
Sooo.. .We went and swam with the Dolphins. Not a big deal if you ask me. It sounds so much cooler than I thought it was. Never the less... Scratch that off our list! Swim with Dolphins... CHECK! We spent most of the day on the beach and then went back to the place, worried about dave and his whereabouts, and got some good needed rest.
We woke up from our naps to some noise down stairs, a couple had shown up while we were sleeping. Liam and Colette from scotland. These two have been on the road for 18 months! theyve gone all the way around the world, got engaged in machu pichu, and have some pretty awesome stories! We chilled with the whole crew at the hostel (which consisted of Me, Nian, Liam, Colette, Neto (which is the guy that owns the place), and 9 other girls. Pretty soon dinner turned into them drinking a lot. Which turned into a speaker coming out which resulted into an instant dance party!
Part of our Crew at the Hosel
Pipa Beach
In case you cant tell thats Nian Flying over a bridge make out of two 1" X 8" pieces of wood nailed to a rickety framework! This thing was supppperrrr sketchey! all busted up and stuff. The sketchiest part.... The water is basically a huge river of POO!!! one wrong move and its a long night trying to get our bike /gear out of a poo river. nian just about put it in the river!!
After Nian about gave us a smelly night i went like an inch a minute and made it across safely. the other side didn't provide the best access to our main highway either. Just a kanppy ghetto. we took some dirt trail like 5 miles into a field, found the main road, and couldnt get on it. we followed a bulldozer trail like 300 yards though jungle and found a little bike trial up to our highway. Another hour and a half and we arrived at pipa beach at like 2 am. After driving the whole city we finally found a decent place to camp. I licked my finger, put it in the air, and told Nian that it was going to rain. He said, "No Way!" I politely guaranteed him that it would rain and made an executive decision that we were going to find a place to stay and camp at Praia do Amor ( beach of love) I wasnt really comfortable camping with nian on lover beach either. I tipped over in a huge bush, got way mad,! and road back off the beach. right on the corner there was a cool looking hostel so I went in and yelled for someone to attend us. Nobody came for like 20 mins. Then some old lady said she was working there but she going out to meet some friends. ( what 60 year old lady goes out to meet friends at 3:30 in the morning to meet friends?) After some good haggling we talked her into letting us sleep under the front patio for free. We hung our hammocks and PAssed OUT!
Oh and by the way, not more than an hour after i predicted rain... Torrential Down Pour! When we were in Morro de Sao Paulo some british dude asked a group of us if we thought it was going to rain. Someone said, "Ask the American. They know eeevveryyythininggggg!" I confidently told him, I guarantee it rains tomorrow, probably around 3pm." I saw the guy two days later. He came straight over to me and congratulated me for predicting a massive rain storm which started at 3:30 pm the day i had said. It was funny.. Anyway, big day of swimming with the dolphins and doing nothing tomorrow! Peace....
Sadness on the Trip... When the Wolf Pack Split Ways
Loading Dave's Bike in the Truck
Just Go Dave... Just Go
Bye Dave! Good Luck Fixing Your Bike!
Nian and I hit the road towards Acaraju.We road maybe an hour and the road turned in to cobblestone and then... a river. I guess we had to take a couple ferries that i didnt know about. As the ferry arrived Nian and I dug though all we had and scrounged up R$ 3.50. We had spent/given dave all the money we had and now we didnt have enough to cross the river. I somehow managed to get us on the boat and the lady on the boat was cool enough to let us get off. We raced the 45kms across this island (with a minor pit to pump up my flattening front tire) to catch the ferry on the other side back to the mainland before dark. We made it there with seconds to spare and the lady let us cross for our 3.50 but wasnt happy about it. We rode up the coast to Acaraju where we got money and kicked it for a bit. After some deep convincing I talked Nian into keeping on the track towards Natal. Well somehow I took a wrong turn and which put us into some really ghetto small beach town. It was actually kinda creepy and we didnt have dave there to scare everyone off by riding around shirtless with the chain around his neck. As we looked for the road out of town my tire blew completely. I asked like 30 people and finally found someone that changed/fixed tires in his garage. We were there for a good two hours shooting the breeze and changing tires... As we were leaving, the mother of the whole group piped up and said that we should check out the beach Lagoa Redonda. I guess it had been on t and stuff? So Nian and I once again rolled out and were quickly side tracked when i saw the Lagoa Redonda sign about 30 miles outta town. We took the road to it which quickly became dirt and then lead us aimlessly like 50 kms to nowhere. at the very end of the road there was a small river and a small lunch shack with was strangely open at midnight. The lady said that if we crossed the river we would be able to ride straight down to the beach and there we would find a campsite easily. She assured us that the river bottom was hard but Nian still make me go first to find out.
Plunging into and unknown dark river
After we both make it through safe and sound we road sand dunes though some palm groves (which almost blew up our bikes as the dont do so well in the sand). The end of the dunes put us right on the beach. I took off to the north along the water looking for some palms close to the water where we could hand up our hammocks. Well needless to say after like 45 mins of going as fast as we could on hard packed sand and running over crabs (which Nian Loved) we were both almost completely out of gas. We had gone almost 30 kms up the beach, were running on fumes, and were pretty lost so we found our Closest Palm trees, hung our hammocks up, and had another Terrific nights rest in Gods great outdoors.
Our Beach Camp.. Miles from everywhere
This Deadly swarm of bees was in the Palm Tree Directly over my head When I woke up in the Morning... Awesome haha
We woke up aound 4:45 a.m. (cause thats when it starts getting light here) and HIT the road QUICK! When i got out of my hammock this morning i saw a with post buried right next to my bike that said Tamar Project site number 336. or something like that. Turns out we had been joyriding and camping all night in a Giant sea turtle nature preserve!! We both felt it was best to get a move on so we found a trail which lead to a soccer field and then to another endless dirt road. By this time we're super close to bone dry outta gas! After what seemed like forever we puttered into another super small, really ghetto, river/beach fishing town. I asked around for like 20 mins for a gas station but everyone's directions were bad because we could not find this place! Finally, we had a kid walk us over there. It was some dude selling gas out of his living room! He had a bunch of 2 liter bottles filled up and stacked in his house
This Guy's gasing up Nians Bike
After getting gas we asked around to get ourselves out of town and everyone said that we had to get another ferry across the river to get to Maceo. We seriously drove circles forever until we found the port. these people speak a portugese that I have a hard time understanding or something. Anyway, at the port I found out that the ferry only comes and goes a couple times a day unless you want to special request for it which is kind of expensive. I'll let the pictures explain what happened next
BIKES IN CANOES!
Instead of paying like 30 bucks for a chartered ferry we gave these fellas $4 to risk their lives and our bikes!
This Was easily one of my top 5 most intense boat rides of my life! we may have only gone 30 mins with a 3 horsepower outboard motor, but my super heavy butt and super heavy bike had this little canoe pushed to the limits! every little wave we hit i thought we were going to the bottom! Way Nuts!
Nian, Calm as a summers day
Would anyone care for some baby shark head?
Now Nian's going to harmonize you with his words..... JIM
Well after our awesome journey across the river our day only got more exciting. So jim says to me; “nian lets cruise the beach again.” And I wasn´t too pumped because I wanted to find some food and plus I knew the crabs wouldn´t be out for us to run over again so it wouldn´t be as much fun. But due to jims convincing moves I was pressured into doing it. So we start flying down this beautiful beach as fast as we can go (Jim broke 100 kph haha) when all the sudden jim finds a huge dead sea turtle.
We checked it out and it was still kinda fresh with bugs eatin it and stuff. Jim was really disappointed that he couldn´t keep the shell and become one of the newest members of the ninja turtles. But his frown soon turned upside down when he found a huge awesome turtle skull right next to the shell.
Soon after he found another smaller turtle skull and that’s when i decided the name of our biker crew. THE TURTLE SKULLS!!!
All we needed was one more skull for dave. We´d be the tuffest guys around with turtle skulls tied to the front of our handle bars.
Needless to say the big skull fell off my bag somewhere along the way so now we´re down to one skull. I think jim is going to make a neckless out of it. But for now just call us the turtle skulls.
After beach cruising and turtle hunting jim and I hit the road hard to Macieo. Jim Hated Macieo Cause his bike fell over right when we got there, and after more convincing he talked me into continuing another 250kms to Recife. Arriving in recife jim came up with another genius idea to stay at the holiest hostel in town.
The temple! Yep, the church has hotel thing built right behind the temple for members to stay at when they are in town going to sessions. one of the cleanest places yet and super cheap. Costed us like 5 bucks each. The only bummer was they kicked us out today since the temple is closed for Sunday. But it was nice to wake up and look at the beautiful temple right out side the window. Jim was really lucky and got to do a session.
Well I guess we're going to spend the night here in Recife, Get in a good church sesh, (turns out the guy that works at our new hostel served a mission in Sao Paulo so hes helping us find church) and hit the road for Joao Pessoa or Natal tomorrow. WE were going to stay here and wait for dave as staying at the temple is super awesome and cheap. Needless to say, now were in this hostel where we talked em into letting us sleep on the ground for $10. Not the greatest but it will do. We really want to get some surfing in but cant because There are these huge signs everywhere along the beach!
Or.. Maybe we'll stay and surf with the sharks? who knows? Tonight we decided it was time to splurge again so we went out to the most amazing Tucanos type churrasco restaurant for cheap and ate until we were sick! Filet Mignon anyone?haha
Miss you Dave... COME BACK SOON!Next Update on our nonstop 24 hr 1500 km ride haha
One of the most amazing sunsets I have EVER SEEN!!
``wheres dave`` I finally found him 10 kms back coasting along. ANOTHER BLOWN MOTOR!!! Were soo pissed! So i roped him up and started towing him to the next town. Soon after it got dark the sirens came blaring. Cop pulls us over and gets up in our grill all kinds of nervous. So were trying to calm him down while at the same time cussing him in english. That was the last thing we needed was some power trip hwy patrol giving us guff... turns out it was a blessing in disguise. The next city was 130 kms, We would have all run out of gas and been farther away from a moto shop. So we ditched daves bike at the roadside police station and road double back to the small town of Conde. After 30 mins of searching I bought some cake bread and the baker told me where we could hang up our hammocks. THE BEACH!You cant tell but my hammock is like 6inches over the edge! haha
We pulled up to the beach, Nian wrecked in the sand with dave on the back, hahahaha, and dave came across this work of wonder. I think Angels were made this knowing that we needed a place to stay. Morning Dave
We slept like kings once again, woke up, worked out, took a shower which was right here as well, and Got to work fixing daves bike. The bikes not so good in the sand but it nailed The Two Pack Wheelie!
Update on our 24hr 1500 km ride
According to my bike odomotor weve done just about 7000 kms. That leaves around 7000 more til Machu Pichu. pretty sure im starting to walk bow legged
Morro De São Paulo
So we´re on the road to Salvador soakin up some heavy rain. Weve got our rain gear on (except for dave who ripped his somehow? and broke his helmet visor). were all three drenched even with our gear on. Daves gettin worked over with no gear on. I had my gear and it seriously felt like i was getting sand blasted! We pushed on til i looked back and they were gone. I went back and found them in a gas station hiding from the rain. we gased up and I struck up converstion with a trucker for some reason. Somewhere along this chat he mentioned That we should stop by the Island Morro De Sao Paulo on our way to Salvador. He said it was amazing and it would save us 150 kms so we took his advice and headed out.
To get to the island you have to get a boat at like 7 am so we spent the night in a Roach infested dive in some city called valença. Woke up in the morning, put our bikes under a shelter and headed to paradise.
Now close your eyes and imagine this. Your laying in your hammock, tied up between two palm trees on the point of an exotic island, sun shining, blue sky, and your just basking in the shade of the palm trees. you get up and walk into the caribbean blue ocean, perfect temperature, little fish swimming through your legs, walk up the white sandy beach, get yourself a big bowl of açaí wih bannanas and strawberries and head back to your hammock. You look down and you are wearing nothing but a cut off jesus t shirt and a pair of swim trunks and then you realize, hey, i´m Dave Kiley and i´m living the dream!! hahahaha!
This island was sweet, three days of paradise, sunny beaches, tropical storms in the afternoons, beautiful women, and crazy techno dance parties everynight from midnight to sunrise! needless to say we didn´t get much sleep there, if any. Except one of us who couldnt hack the party the last night.... hmmm i just can´t seem to remember who that was, can you remember Nian? Everymorning walking home in the twilight, sometimes carrying drunk argentinans home, and sometimes dodging the islands lone prostitute. Then going for a quick run on the beach and putting up the hammocks for another round. Got our hair did, somebody got their mack on with a brazillian chick, also can´t quite remember who, Nian, can you remember? and if we weren´t only half way we would have loved to have stayed with the great people of morro and partied for a few more days, but we really need to start covering some ground or else we won´t be home till 2011! which i guess wouldn´t be so bad, maybe we´ll go back and put in some job applications!!
sunrise on the beach after a night of partying! karate kid....
2 liter bottle of VOLCANO!!!! the greatest energy drink of all time! Lets just say there was an eruption but it wasn´t one of energy!! haha
Party #2, good times
jim, trying to figure out the blossoming romance in front of him between nian and this brazillian princess
walking our friend ernesto back home. Dropping off Fabiana and Renata on the way. Well.... Nian took Renata home.........
Marina Doing up our braids
hair did and looking beleza! riding the ferry boat to salvador
Saying our goodbyes on the way out
adeus Morro
Said our good byes to the great people of Morro de São Paulo, cried a little, got back on the boat and headed to salvador.
We took a short cut to Salvador by getting a ferry that cut about 300 kilometers off of our trip. We found a place and crashed hard! All of us fell asleep, didn´t go out to eat, didn´t go hang out with the pretty chillean girls we met, nada! (sorry girls, we´ll have to make a trip down to chile! send us the pics of the toca party and we´ll put them on the blog and you´ll be famous!!! we´re talking to you marcella and carolina)
Woke up, all rested up, getting our bikes tuned up right now cuz we´re about to pull a 24 hour straight stretch!!! its gonna be intense. Throttle pinned, 24 hours straight, flying up the coast at a cool 55 miles a hour!
and Rich we saw your mug playing on a Nitro movie right on that T.V. Here in this motorcycle shop in the suburbs of Salvador. Your Famous!!!
Special thanks to the boys at Moto Racing who just pimped our rides, now its time to get back on the road!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)