I have made it to La Paz already but last night at the bar in Puno I met another motorcycle guy. He just came over to my table and started chatting about travel and we both had a lot of similarities, despite age. He told me that he was in Patagonia in May and some of the roads were already closing because of weather. July is supposed to be the worst month down there so that throws off my plans quite a bit.

Now I guess I'll have to do Northern Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. Neil (the motorcycle guy), says I should leave from Mendoza at the end of August or early Sept. This might actually work out well because I don't need to be in Brazil until October but then I might need to ship my bike from Chile in December.

We chatted for a few hours at least - smoking cigs and drinking beer (once in a while he would sneak a sip from his flask). We exchanged stories and information. I told him some stories about my friend Geoff who I rode with in Panama. Apparently he had heard of some of these stores, which I found amusing.

Neil is riding a loaded down 400 Japanese bike. He's a professor in Utah and looks to be in 50's. He's the fifth person so far who's told me not to go down to Patagonia this time of year and gave me lots of alternate routs to bide my time.

Like I said, I'm in La Paz now. I woke up early in Puno and didn't have any trouble finding my way out of the city to the main road. I did, actually, pack my SLR in the tank bag and took a few shots along the way.

At the border it was a bit of a pain to ‘checkout' of Peru. They did not like the copies I made in advance so I had to make other ones. In Bolivia it wasn't well marked where I should have ‘checked in' so I just kept going without getting a stamp or papers. I got stopped 10 miles down the road by the army. I put on a big grin and shook hands. Five guys surrounded me. One asked for my passport while another asked me to open up one of the panniers. Apparently satisfied he handed back the passport. A third man asked for my papers. I was already in the process of putting on my helmet and I smiled and said, "Si, si, mi passaporte!", while he looked highly confused. They thought I didn't speak a word of Spanish so they just let me go.

Hopefully next time I'm as lucky. It's an hour later in Bolivia but I still made good time to La Paz; around 3:30pm or 4pm. The road into La Paz has an elevated view of the entire city - it's beautiful. When I first saw it my response was, "fucking hell, cool".

Neil recommended a hotel to me near the center - he said he stored his bike in the hallway - But not me. They told me to find a garage. I found one 2 blocks away and it's not 24 hours - none are. It's very exposed and I'm concerned about the safety of it. I may find another hotel tomorrow. I had the first shower in 5 days (or so). It felt absolutely fucking amazing - hot water too! For ten bucks a night it's a deal.

My bike gear is soaked in oil because the oil cap came lose while I was riding today. So I may get laundry done tomorrow. Luckily I had more oil.

Well, it's Saturday night (well 6:30pm right now at this LP recommended Pizzeria) so I'll be going out later. This is a real city so I expect to find a cool club or two.

The above was copied directly out of my hand-written journal