Working Hard or Hardly Working?

Bright eyed, bushy tailed, and clean shaven

We didn't crack our eyelids until noon. Marcelo was supposed to be showing up soon to pick us up for lunch and then a trip to the local motorcross circuit. We would be meeting quite a few others there for some fun around the track. While waiting for Marcelo we sat on the sofa with Blanca, Carmens oma (grandma in German) and talked about how her family came to Bolivia from Italy of all places. Blanca and Alex (whose first language is Italian) yapped about their beloved country of old.

All the talking and waiting made us hungry so when Marcelo showed up at the relatively late hour of 4:00 p.m., we bailed on the motocross idea and went to eat.

After at least a dozen aborted attempts to find a restaurant open on New Year's Day, we settled in at the Grill Palace. Marcelo tried to round up some of the bikers to join us, but everyone was at home recuperating from the soiree the night before. So Marcelo, Sandy, Erica, and the three of us wolfed down enough meat to feed a small Andean village. David began his search here for papas a la huancaynas, a Bolivian dish of potatoes covered with a spicy peanut sauce. Yolanda had told him for years that he must try it. It wasn't on the Grill Palace menu, but Marcelo promised to take us somewhere that had it another day.

You look skinny, have a potato.

We returned to Carmen's house, only to be greeted by Miriam with more food. Already we had learned something about Bolivians. They are a country of Jewish and Italian grandmothers - eat, eat, eat! Putting her off for at least a short while to clear some room in our stomachs (the natural way), we dined again on sopa, chuno (a dehydrated potato from the altiplano) and choclo.

David, Alex, and Carmen went out to see a movie; Gary stayed in to get some rest. Our hosts insisted all the American movies are in English with Spanish subtitles but didn't realize movies geared more for kids were the exception to the rule. So "101 Dalmations" was "Ciento y uno Dalmatas." Of course for Alex this wasn't a problem, and David took it as a learning experience. At the theatre, the group bumped into Erica, Marcelo's sister in law. Again, in a city of 2 million people where we know hardly twenty, we run into someone we'd already met.

One thing was for certain, the Riding to the Moon karma was alive and well in 1997.

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We began the day with a trip to the Brazilian embassy to get our visas. While waiting amongst the dozens of others travellers, most of them Israelis, for whom Bolivia seems such a popular destination, we decided to split up and get more accomplished. David headed off to Walter Mur's office, a motorcyclist we'd met who offered us his e-mail connection. The visa application process asked for more than we were prepared to give, so we left to round up the missing stuff - copies of our yellow fever vaccination, passport photos, and receipt from the Bank of Brasil for $20 for each visa. Everything passed muster except David's homemade passport photo, so we held onto his paperwork to turn in later. We also asked the Brazilian embassy for yet another letter of introduction to customs and others on our behalf. The letter and the visas would be ready on Tuesday.

E-mailing went well, though Walter had let his subscription lapse over the holidays, so first he had to resubscribe, pay the fees, and wait a few hours to be reconnected. We got several holiday e-mail greetings (thanks, everyone, we love you all too), heard from Jim and Jay who were in Santiago, and received encouraging news from Jeff about our tires, which were currently in Miami awaiting a cargo flight via Lloyd Aero Bolivia over the weekend.

We took a cab back to the Kawi shop mid-afternoon, a journey completely across town that takes 20 minutes but only costs 10 bolivianos or $2. With cabs so cheap, no wonder there were so few private cars. Top Shop may not sell KLR's, but they had the microfiche on file and we put together a list of parts for Hector back in the states to send down. Although Kawi had supplied us with some parts before we left, we were all down quite a few bolts and nuts, had no extra rear brake pads, only front, and had better learned over the last 8500 miles what to have on hand just in case, such as mirror mounts and tubes and even more bolts. We faxed the list to Hector, who didn't balk at anything (whew). He said the parts should arrive to us by early next week.

We also called Leica Camera in the United States to report a problem with one of the cameras. Due to the extremely harsh conditions on our trek through the Andes, the automatic lens didn't want to open or close as it was supposed to. The intense temperature and altitude changes over the last few weeks had not only effected the Leica but the Ricoh camera, the NEC laptop screen, and our own ability (and our bike's) to breath. Without a moment's hesitation, Cindy Hahn at Leica asked for an address in Bolivia to send a new camera by Tuesday. She even tracked us down via Marcelo's cel phone after we'd left the store to change the arrival date to Wednesday, and she wanted to make sure we'd still be here to receive it. Now that is customer support. Despite the problem, we had lost no faith in the product whatsoever, and we commend Leica's high quality and sturdy construction which had brought the Minilux camera through many thousands of miles of rough conditions and dozens of rolls of film.

With all of the work out of the way, it was time to go play. Up above the neighborhoods of La Paz we climbed, Marcelo leading the way on his Kawasaki KDX 220. At the top of the hill lay the motorcross circuit - 1.8 kilometers of bumps and jumps, turns and berms, puddles and ruts. Gary wasn't feeling up to snuff yet for this kind of riding, but Alex and David leapt aboard Marcelo's bike eagerly, testing their motorcross mettle with true Riding to the Moon enthusiasm.

Carlos showed up with his Kawi KX 250, one of the toughest off-road bikes in the entire world of motorcycling and wowed us with double and triple jumps, tire-snapping turns, and high-speed dances atop the whoop-de-doos. David and Alex managed a dozen laps each alternating between the KDX and KX before the incredible physical effort and lack of oxygen being at this altitude (La Paz is around 12,000 feet remember) took them ruefully off the track for the day. We instantly began bugging Marcelo to bring us back as soon as possible, including Gary, who wouldn't let another chance slip by to have this much fun.

Wilter Ocampa, a Bolivian biker we met back at Top Shop who had lived in Reno, Nevada for many years with his wife, had an internet connection at home and invited us over to upload some journal entries. The old phone lines kept us from uploading everything we had ready to go, disconnecting the computer when the load got too great. But Lucia, Wilter's wife, told us to come by the American Embassy downtown the next day. As luck would have it, she oversees the computer systems there, and they have a blazingly fast satellite connection to the internet which should work with no problems. We thanked them for letting us track mud into their beautiful new home (it was like being in suburban America) and bid them a very late good night.

The $2 cab ride all the way back to Miraflores had us shaking our heads in disbelief about how enjoyable it was to be in La Paz. We counted our blessings at having found such wonderful people, so eager to befriend us and help us out.

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David went to the American embassy, spending several uninterrupted hours uploading the remainder of the journals and all the pictures for the past several weeks. The heavy computer and telephone usage on the single satellite line slowed the connection a bit, but within a few hours, everything was up. Lucia even sent out a general posting to the other US embassies on our route, asking them to help out if we came knocking.

While at the Embassy David was able to get hold of Yolanda by telephone just before she went to work (La Paz is 4 hours ahead of California). Two months away from home and David was very homesick. He wondered if it was the right decision to go on such an adventure at the risk of losing the most important adventure of his life thus far... his relationship with his girlfriend of six years. Hang in there, Yoli!

Since the spare parts were several days away, we spent the day doing light work on the bikes - replaced the front brake pads, changed the oil, cleaned the air filters, tightened bolts, etc. Walter, Marcelo's partner and also the main mechanic at the shop, was out of town and had been since we'd arrived. In his place, the mechanics Pablo and Pajaro worked alongside us, diving excitedly into these big dual-sports which they'd only read about. Our helmets are off in special recognition of Pablo, whose right arm is disfigured from a congenital condition. At first we found the idea of a one-armed mechanic fixing the big beefers a little humorous, but his skill and diligence quickly made us forget about his handicap, which turns out to be no handicap at all. Maybe we are the ones with the handicap for having viewed him this way at all.

Making good on his promise, Marcelo, Sandy and Erica took us for dinner to a pleasant little restaurant named KomAqui (a twist on Come Aqui or Eat Here in Spanish) for papas a la huancaynas. Although it wasn't on their menu either, Marcelo had called ahead to ask them to prepare it special for David. What a guy! Everyone else opted for the traditional Bolivian dish of silpancho, a lightly breaded then fried thin steak over a bed of rice and potatoes and topped with two fried eggs. No one walked away dissatisfied. It was so much food, in fact, we're lucky we walked away at all.

Marcelo and Sandy

After dinner, we went downtown to see another movie, "Space Jam," which once again was dubbed instead of subtitled. Oh well, at least it was fun learning a few classic cartoon lines in Spanish: Bugs Bunny's signature line was "Que hay de nuevo, viejo?" and Foghorn Leghorn kept saying
'Digo, digo, digo hijo."

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