There are two ways to visit Galapagos Islands. Do a tour or do day trips. I am doing four days of each and want to ascertain whether you need to do a boat tour to enjoy the islands. So I did my first day tour to Floreana. The land turtles were [...]

Second time lucky. Got a flight to the Galapagos. It is cold here. Or at least not warm. I understand it being cold at the higher altitudes near the equator but the equator line runs right through the Galapagos which is obviously at sea level. But apparently a cool current [...]

Well it turns that I am not going to the Galapagos Islands today. I got to the airport to find out that my flight was two hours earlier than scheduled even though the airline issued my ticket after the change.
So I went to the hostel where the travel agent is and decided to go [...]

I spent all Monday trying to decide whether to go to the Galapagos Islands or not. It is pretty expensive but I don’t know if fate will bring me this way again. So I spent the day going around travel agents in Quito and managed to find a fairly cheap lastminute deal. [...]

Alexander the dutch rider (his website) is also in Quito so we decided to met up and ride to the middle of the earth (equator). Turns out there is two places. One with a monument and the other with a museum and we went to the wrong one. Then we went up [...]

On Sunday on of the local riders Luigi and his wife Karine invited me out to do some back roads to one of the Ecuador volcanoes. I realised in El Salvador that I wasn’t able to off road ride but I haven’t done much off tarmac riding so I was looking forward to testing [...]

Congratulations to my sister Rhonda who just had her fourth child Hawaiki Ngahuia Moetu Hemo Taituha and her husband Ngatikawa who delivered the child. I am looking forward to going back to New Zealand after the trip to see my family.

My border crossing into Ecuador didn’t go so well. The old guy who had to do the paper work for my bike obviously was ticked off with my poor Spanish and served everyone else while I was waiting until one of the guys that came after me finally said he should do my paperwork [...]

I have loved Colombia. The people have been incredibly friendly. Every traffic light I pull up to someone wants to have a chat. And when you are traveling in a foreign country you can feel like it is a have but in Colombia it feels really genuine. So I took a [...]

The ride down from Popayan to Pasto was really weird. One moment you were in dry valleys and the next minute in the more typical green Colombian countryside.

When I got back to Cali I got my chain and sprockets changed as I have just finished 20,000 miles. The bike is running a lot better. But note to oneself: when you ask for the price before the job make sure they tell you, otherwise it may be a lot different than [...]

The next morning I got my astronomy certificate and said a sad goodbye to my new friends. I wish all the best to Tomas, Jeimy, Oscar and Scott. I also finally found the Suzuki bike group I had wanted to join but as they speed pass me on the flats I knew I [...]

Today I was salsa dancing by a children’s pool at an astronomy conference in the Desierto de la Tatacoa.
In the morning we missed the bus tour around the desert and instead were invited to join a Bogotá school astronomical club bus. We went to a site set up for UFOs and walked around the [...]

I thought that I would be let down by the desert and that what I saw wouldn’t be as good as the pictures. But it was beautiful. A little miniature desert as you could see the mountains and bad weather in the distance. When I got there I couldn’t find the Suzuki riders [...]

In the morning I realised that my new fuel filter was leaking as they hadn’t put clamps around the hose pipe and my chain was really lose again after being tightened in Cali which really worried me.
After spending a bunch of time trying to buy a phone to get a hold of Mike in Cali [...]