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California’s Pacific Coast Highway is one of the best motorcycle roads on the planet, and I never miss an opportunity to travel it. One of my favorite destinations on the Pacific Coast Highway is Hearst Castle. We’ve written about it previously here on ExNotes.
As the title of this blog implies, base camp was in Cayucos, California, instead of Cambria (more on that below). And from a photography perspective, instead of lugging around my boat-anchor, full-frame Nikon D810, I took the smaller and lighter Nikon D3300 with a “walking around” 18-55mm lens and a Rokinon 8mm (a super wide angle). I’ve been using that combination more and more lately.
The Rokinon 8mm super wide angle lens. Manual everything, it’s fun to use and it does a surprisingly good job.There’s not much in San Simeon, so people who visit Hearst Castle usually stay in Cambria. We stayed a stone’s throw away from Cambria in Cayucos, which is just north of Morro Bay.
Most folks who visit Hearst Castle stay in Cambria, a touristy, kitschy spot just down the road from San Simeon (the Hearst Castle location). This time we tried Cayucos, a tiny town that’s a bit further south down the Pacific Coast Highway. It’s friendlier, less expensive, and for my money, a lot nicer and more enjoyable than Cambria. Sue and I stayed in the Sunset Inn, a bed and breakfast in Cayucos. If you’re in Cayucos, the Ludano restaurant is the place for dinner (William Randolph Hearst was a regular here while building Hearst Castle). For a more casual Cayucos dining experience, Duckie’s (near the Cayucos Pier) is an awesome walkup seafood restaurant (try the fish and chips; they were great).
Hearst Castle, as seen through the Rokinon 8mm super wide.The Neptune swimming pool at Hearst Castle.One of the Hearst Castle’s guest bedrooms.The Hearst Castle dining room.Hearst Castle’s indoor swimming pool.
The Rokinon lens is strictly a manual affair. It doesn’t autofocus and it doesn’t work with the camera’s automatic metering features. It’s manual everything…focus, f stop, ISO, and shutter speed. The focus part was easy…I simply cranked the focus ring all the way over to infinity (with a wide-angle lens, that works). For ISO, shutter speed, and f stop, I used the camera’s histogram. Shoot, check the histogram, adjust, shoot again, check the histogram, adjust, and keep going until things are just right. Too dark, and I adjusted the shutter speed, the f stop, and the ISO until the histogram showed everything between the histogram upper and lower limits. Too light, and I made adjustments in the opposite direction. For the money, the Rokinon lens is a lot of fun, and I like the effects I get with a wide -angle lens. Some folks don’t. That’s okay. It’s my gear and these are my photos.
As mentioned earlier, I also used the Nikon 18-55mm lens on this trip. It’s not the sharpest lens but that’s okay. I’m not the sharpest matzoh in the box, either, and a matching lens fits me well. When I shoot in RAW (the camera’s capture everything, sort-it-out-later-in-Photoshop mode), the 18-55mm lens works surprisingly well, like in the photo at the top of this blog. It’s a shot of the Cayucos Pier, in which I did a little bit of post-processing to darken the sky and the water. I’m pleased with the results.
While we walked the pier, we talked to folks who were fishing from it. The fishing was good: Halibut, perch, and one fellow had landed a 4-foot shark earlier in the day (I wish I had been there when that happened; that would have been a hell of a picture).
The Nikon D3300 digital single lens reflex camera and the 18-55mm zoom lens that comes with the camera. It’s not a super sharp lens, but it’s not super expensive, either.
I took the photo below with the 18-55mm lens just a few miles up the Pacific Coast Highway. These are elephant seals and I liked how this photo turned out, too.
One of several elephant seal vista points along California’s magnificent Pacific Coast Highway. The two in the water was grunting loudly at each other in a domination contest. These seals can weigh up to 5,000 pounds.
You know, the discussions about lenses, cameras, and photography can go on endlessly. Sometimes all you need is a cell phone. I was blown away by the photos Joe Gresh grabbed when he recently visited Laguna Seca after riding his Kawasaki ZRX from New Mexico. Joe shot all of those with his iPhone, which is a much easier way to go on a motorcycle. When I travel with a digital single lens reflex camera on a motorcycle, the camera and a couple of lenses steal a lot of saddlebag space. There’s advantages and disadvantages to everything, I guess.
Old Creek Road out of Cayucos is a fun ride.
Riding the Pacific Coast Highway is a bucket list ride, and if you get an opportunity to do so, you should grab it. The area I’m describing in this blog is roughly halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The Pacific Coast Highway is currently closed around Gordo (well north of San Simeon), but that still leaves a lot of nice riding on the table. One of the best rides is Old Creek Road northeast out of Cayucos. It’s a lightly traveled and grand road, full of twisties, and it cuts through the California wine country to link up with State Route 46 (another fine road through the wine country). A few miles further east, 46 intersects Highway 41, and that’s where James Dean lost his life in a car accident (there’s a sign marking the spot). There are a lot of interesting things and a lot of interesting roads in California.
Peru is most famously known for one of the 7 Wonders of the World. What’s frustrating is that like national parks in the United States, whoever declares things a “Wonder of the World” keeps adding more to the list, or in this case with the 7 Wonders, they change them. Absolutely one of my life’s objectives is to hit all 7 Wonders. Machu Picchu is and should always remain in that highly respected list of these magnificent artifacts of humanity’s past.
Getting to Machu Picchu isn’t easy even if you are living in Peru. I feel the best way is to hike the Inca Trail over three or four days to arrive at this city deep in the Andes. One of the biggest issues with my whimsical lifestyle is it is difficult to plan too far in advance. To reserve a spot to hike the Inca Trail (at the time in 2012) was about four months. In Huber travel years that is equal to about two years, so that option was out. The more touristy way to arrive is via a train with a glass roof. Compared to my past bus rides, it was heaven (there were no showings of Fireproof on this ride).
The train pulled into Aquas Calientes, which is the small town nestled deep in the Andes at the base of Machu Picchu. Almost instantly I was filled with energy. I don’t know if it was energy from the ancient civilization that once resided here or that I was at a lower elevation of 7,000 feet as compared to the 12,000 feet where I had been living.
The following day I was up early to catch the first bus up to Machu Picchu. The bus ride was filled with hairpin turns with quick glimpses of one of the 7 Wonders. I had my face pressed into the cold bus window awaiting each new view around every corner. Upon arrival, I stopped at the kiosk just outside the park entrance to load up on water since a full day of hiking was on the itinerary.
Once entering the ruins and taking some time to… yes, hang out with the llamas…the realization hit me that I had two full days in this mesmerizing ancient city! I noticed people would unload from busses do a quick photo in that iconic spot we all have seen in every travel magazine, have an hour or so to explore the ruins, and then they were off. What’s funny is that angle is not even of Mt. Machu Picchu, but of Huayna Picchu. Having two full days here would allow me the opportunity to summit both mountains and enjoy the area to its fullest.
The first day I decided I would climb the higher and much less visited of the two summits. Mt. Machu Pichu towers approximately 1800 feet above the Inca city below. This should have been a more strenuous hike but between being 4,000 feet lower in elevation, the energy from these powerful ruins, and a solid reserve of coca leaves, the mountain was a fairly easy climb. With so few people along the trail (I was one of the first in the park and many were just there for the photo ops) the trail was pretty much mine for the morning.
After the hike and with the coca leaves leaving my system, it was time for a siesta. I wandered throughout the ruins until I found a hidden room and climbed atop the walls in the sun and snoozed for a bit until I was awoken by some new friends. Marmots. The little guys were scampering throughout the ruins and occasionally would knock off rocks loud enough to jostle me awake. The day couldn’t have been more perfect.
Day Two in the ruins was a similar routine with me catching the first shuttle of the morning. Plans for this day were to summit Huayna Picchu and then hike down behind the mountain to almost the same elevation as my base of Aquas Caliente, but on the other side of the mountain. This area had no one in it. It was a steep trail. In one hike it left the Andes Mountains and descended into a rain forest that felt like no one had visited in centuries. It wasn’t nearly as large as the main city on top of the mountain, but it had a few structures overrun with jungle growth. The difference in climate in this short and steep hike was amazing. After returning it was time for another nap and a few more short hikes along portions of the Inca Trail before returning to the shuttle to bring me back to Aquas Caliente.
With life always seeming so busy and the pressure to constantly move and go it was more than nice to be able to allocate so much time here and fully embrace every part of this city. Few people have this opportunity and the ones that do tend to rush through it so quickly that they don’t allow themselves to feel the mystical energy that emits from this city in the clouds of Peru called Machu Picchu.
Feeling sad departing Ecuador as it was quickly becoming a home for me where I was very comfortable, I boarded a flight to Lima, Peru to take in a new corner of the world. Peru has always felt like the pinnacle of South America, and even though I had never been there and knew very little about it, there was a calling for me to embrace this country. In fact, this resonated so strongly with me that I had purposely cut a lot out of Ecuador just to conserve my vacation for Peru.
After only two days in Lima, I quickly learned this wasn’t the Peru I was looking for. It was just a large city, and cities weren’t where I would find the culture and experiences that would help me grow. Knowing this, I booked a 12-hour bus ride to Cusco. Surprisingly, I clearly hadn’t learned my lesson from the Nicaragua to Panama bus ride, but I figured the chances of a repeat performance of Fireproof being played nonstop were pretty slim.
Falling asleep on the overnight bus ride while gazing out the window at the ocean and expansive desert of Lima, and then awakening to the massive vistas of the Andes Mountain range wasn’t a bad way to travel. I did however have a killer headache upon arrival in Cusco. Wasting no time, I found a cab to drive me to my AirBnB where I could relax for a bit. The host noticed I wasn’t looking too well and made me some tea. Within an hour I felt great. Turns out the elevation of approximately 12,000 feet, along with some minor dehydration, was the cause of my headache. The tea she gave me had coca leaves in it. These leaves not only are the cure for the altitude sickness, but soon became a replacement for my morning coffee.
As with Ecuador, it didn’t take long for me to get into a productive work and exercise routine. My lunchtime became a break from technology which was replaced by runs through the city of Cusco. It was beyond magical. This place was a perfect balance of culture and history with some color mixed in. During my runs I noticed there were always girls dressed in full Peruvian dresses walking around with what looked like baby llamas. It turns out you can hold and pet a baby llama for like 3 sole (about $1 USD). I like baby llamas. I mean, who doesn’t? So, every night during my evening strolls I ensured I had a few soles to give them and looking back I probably spent more on pictures with the baby llamas than I did for dinners.
Obtaining Peruvian soles for currency was as simple as going to an ATM. One problem that seemed to constantly arise was if the money was not in pristine condition the stores would refuse to take it. This refusal was often after a long huddle of the store’s employees and management to confirm the currency was too badly damaged to accept. After a few frustrating days of this I happened to visit Paddy’s Pub. It is the world’s highest Irish pub. I noticed they took my currency no matter what condition it was in. Perfect! Adding Paddy’s Pub to my daily itinerary to launder money for baby llama petting was an outstanding solution. The world was coming together quite nicely for Paddy’s, the llamas, and me.
It took no time for me to fall in love with Cusco. The people were wonderful, every weekend there was some type of event in the square, it was easy to jump on any random bus and end up in hidden ruins, AND there were baby llamas everywhere to hang out with. My work performance was improving even more than in Ecuador. At this time no one knew I was anywhere but Boston and would occasionally ask “How’s the weather up there Boston”, which I would quickly google it and reply “Meh, 60s cloudy, it’s Boston, ya know?” I never lied to them on where I was, they just never thought to ask, and even if I had told them they never would have believed me.
With my morale greatly improved and in a productive routine I was convinced Cusco would be home for the foreseeable future. Even better, my AirBnB host’s son was a travel agent. Perfect. We met for dinner, and he helped me set up plans to travel to different parts of the country every weekend, and many became 4-day weekend trips allowing me not to rush and really absorb the beauty and culture in remote areas that many would never see or experience. These trips included Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca (like I would miss out on going to not only the highest alpine lake on Earth, but endless jokes based on the name, “Lake Titicaca”). After three weeks of adapting to Cusco it was time to get out and really take a bite out of the surrounding areas that would yield some of my greatest memories and travel experiences to date. That’s coming up.
After riding through the stifling heat of Utah, Nevada and central California the cold, foggy mists of the Monterey Peninsula penetrated my mesh jacket and I shivered. It was wonderful to be cold and it was wonderful to be at Laguna Seca’s Weather Tech Raceway. This wasn’t my first visit to Laguna Seca but it was my first time inside the track. Years ago I rode up from San Diego back when Laguna Seca was a date on the world championship calendar. Today, Austin’s COTA circuit has usurped that role in America but Laguna Seca is still way prettier.
Two strokes ruled Moto GP racing in that era and when I pulled up to the entrance gate the $50 ticket price almost gave me a stroke. I was earning $3.50 an hour working on boats and $50 was a ton of money. I figured the hell with it and went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium instead. Oddly enough, the entry fee for AHRMA’s Motofest vintage racing was still 50 dollars some 40 years on. This time I paid for a ticket because riding from La Luz, New Mexico is a long way to go for nothing.
Motels around Monterey are sort of expensive. Your best deal is the 4-day camping pass at the track. I bought a reserved campsite because I wasn’t sure how things worked inside. Turns out there were plenty of campsites available for this event. I had site 110A, which gave me a view of turn 5 in one direction and a view of the bikes going up Rahal hill to the Corkscrew in the other direction.
Site A-110: it’s a good place to spend the weekend.
Plenty of portable toilets were sprinkled around the venue and hot showers were available in the more substantial structures. All the faucets were marked non-potable so bring plenty of water. I had to buy those little bottled waters in the paddock at $3 a bottle. The ground at my site was pretty hard so I never got my flimsy aluminum tent pegs to penetrate. Luckily my site had an old steel spike that someone left behind. I drove the spike into the hard ground on the windward side, tied the tent to the spike and used my gear to hold the other three corners down. The hydraulic jack came in handy as a hammer.
I say the ground was hard but apparently the hundreds of ground squirrels had no problem burrowing holes every 15 feet. The squirrels are all over the place at Weather Tech. I’m surprised that an aged vintage motorcycle racer hasn’t fallen in a squirrel hole and broken a leg. I’ve heard that when they get up in years it’s best to shoot them rather than let them suffer.
Me and Milich, he’s tall with a lot of drag but still wins. You can visit Milich’s websites at http://guzzipower.com/ and https://www.ducpower.com/.Thad Wolf’s Suzuki. I never did find Wolff, he must have known I was looking for him.
Thursday was practice all day. The bikes were sent out in groups with staggered starts. There are a lot of classes in AHRMA, like dozens, to keep track of but I mostly just listened for two-strokes. AHRMA’s Motofest had a sort of mini Motorcyclist magazine reunion vibe. The Kevin Hipp racing family was there along with Thad Wolff and Ed Milich. Go-Go Gulbransen, whose name the announcer never tired of uttering was there also. Go-Go was the guy who tested the upper limits of new sport bikes for Motorcyclist magazine. All these guys live and breathe motorcycles and it’s the passion you can’t fake that made them such good journalists.
This might be a real S2 Kawasaki production racer. Very few were built. You had to know somebody.
Vintage racing today looks a bit different from when the motorcycles were current models. Hondas seem to dominate. The 160cc slopers, 175 twins and 350 twins were much faster than I remember them. In fact, I don’t remember them racing at all. I assume it’s due to better oils and electronic ignition systems, because in the old days the small bore grids were mostly Yamahas with a few Suzukis and Kawasakis. If there was a Honda racing it was usually sputtering at the tail end of the pack and the rider was wearing construction boots and welding leathers. Of course, things were different at the GP/factory level where Honda did all right for itself considering the handicap it was working under. It helps to have Mike Hailwood and Freddie Spenser on your team.
A brace of H2s these sounded good when they pulled in.Jewel-like T500cc twin Suzuki. This was a revolutionary bike when it came out. Some people thought you couldn’t go this big without heating problems. Another bike I want to own one day.Zoomie RD 350 with DG sunburst heads. Going for that squish band action.A pile of Ossas. These are Stilettos; I want a Pioneer.Thames van. I imagine it’s British.Stretched Honda Mini Trail with custom Grom-based block. 350cc, tops out around 100 miles per hour. I asked the kid if it was dangerous. He said he lived in Oakland, so it was the least dangerous thing he did.
After setting up camp I walked all over Laguna Seca: I needed the exercise after sitting on the ZRX1100 for five long days. To get to Monterey I took the long way around, up through Colorado to Grand Junction then across Utah and Nevada to California. I tried to ride Highway 120 through Yosemite Park but the road was closed. I detoured north from Lee Vining to Highway 108 and was rewarded with one of the world’s great motorcycle roads. Anyway, from my campsite to the paddock was only a 15-minute walk. Less if you didn’t tangle with a ground squirrel.
Vintage racing is all about the paddock. The racing, while serious, is almost secondary to checking out the old race bikes. The paddock is where the food is, where the beer is and where the old motorcycles are. Most of the spectators hang out in the paddock area. I wandered around for hours looking at motorcycles. I ate a turkey sandwich and drank a beer that was like 28 dollars but we need to support the moneymaking aspect of Laguna Seca or it’ll become luxury housing.
Turn 4 action.Yamaha RD400 scooting right along.
Saturday and Sunday were race days. I hung out with Motorcyclist Magazine alumni Ed Milich for a bit. Ed has an admirable cost per win philosophy in that he expends just enough effort to get first place and no more. His bikes look like hell but they run great. Paint don’t win races, says Ed. On the track he never seems to be trying hard, the gap between him and second place grew larger as if by magic. Ed won every race he entered (four) I did some math and determined that Ed spends around $4.37 per win. Hipp won his races also. Hipp’s bikes are those fast Honda 350s and they look like show bikes. Hipp’s wins probably cost more than Milich’s, but they still count.
Montessssa on the trials course.
Sunday morning I went over to the trials section. Set in gullies and on the sides of hills, trials riding never looks too hard until you try it. Trials events at the level Laguna Seca puts on have the advantage of being relatively safe as the speeds are very low and you can’t fall very far. This isn’t the crazy stadium trials you watch on YouTube but it suits the old motorcycles participating. I might try the trials on Godzilla next time I go to Laguna.
The legend Dave Roper. I think he’s still the only American to win at the Isle of Man races.Walt Fulton fetteling his XR750.
With such wildly different motorcycles it’s hard to compare rider skill. Except when it comes to Dave Roper: Roper, who resembles a stick of beef jerky with a cotton ball stuck on one end, was smooth and fast on any bike he rode. Roper and Walt Fulton, with a combined 300 years of racing experience, put on quite a show with their matching H-D branded, Aermacchi Sprints. There was a vintage motocross at Laguna Seca but it ran concurrent with some other races so I missed it. You really need to be two people to see all the action at AHRMA’s Vintage Motofest.
Nice, tank shift flattie. This bike sounded good on the track, very low rpm drone.
It was nice to have the campsite for Sunday night; I didn’t have to rush to pack and head out into the unforgiving freeways of California in the late afternoon. Wherever I ride the ZRX1100 it attracts attention. I’ve had people take selfie photographs standing next to the bike, I get asked what year it is almost every ride. The thing is bone stock. Laguna Seca was no different, the bike garnered a steady stream of complements from my camp neighbors. I must look hard up because the guy camping across from me handed me 40 dollars and said I had dropped it. I think he was trying to be nice to a vagabond. Normally I would have taken it but I’m trying to become a better person and told the guy it wasn’t mine.
Californians and Ex-Californians like to bitch about their state, but the damn place is beautiful. California has it all from the beaches to the mountains to the desert and all types of terrain in between. With straight roads crowded by farm equipment, the central valley (also known as The Breadbasket of America) was like the Tail of the Dragon for my nose. Sweet manure, grassy hay, dust and soil, the smells kept swapping back and forth giving my nasal passages whiplash. If it wasn’t so expensive, I’d live in California again but my total running costs at Tinfiny Ranch are less than the annual taxes on any house I could afford there. The Californians I met were universally friendly and interesting to talk to, we would start up a conversation like we had known each other for years and had just spoken last Thursday.
I’ll go to AHRMA’s Monterey bash again. It’s closer than Daytona for me and with the camping, about the same cost. I give the event high marks for value. You really get your 50 dollars worth with AHRMA.
Feeling confident that Quito, Ecuador would work out for the foreseeable future I wanted to begin absorbing the culture as I did in Nicaragua. One of the best ways of doing this was to begin taking Spanish lessons. A great thing I learned about Ecuador almost instantly is they spoke Spanish much slower than in Central America, where I was frequently lost by the lightning speed with which they spoke. This would be the perfect place to take lessons where I could retain and practice speaking Spanish constantly as I went about my daily routines. Fortunately, there was an excellent Spanish school just two blocks from my aparthotel, so I could attend classes during lunch. It felt great taking steps towards integrating into this incredible culture.
I adjusted to a routine of work and Spanish lessons during the weekdays and on weekends I would explore local hikes and rainforests. I was almost at the base of Cotopaxi, which technically is the highest mountain in the world as it is on the equator and bulges out more than Mt. Everest (if you’re one of those rare people that believe the Earth is round).
With my weekday schedule and routine defined by Spanish classes and runs to increase my tolerance at the high elevation, I returned to being successful at my day job as a project manager. Doing the best to conserve my vacation days for the next country (an upcoming blog will get into that adventure), weekends were the only time to explore the surrounding areas of Quito in more depth. This, of course, had to include a trip to the equator.
The equator was just a short train ride from Quito. I fully understood it would be a total tourist trap but where else would I have this opportunity to jump on both sides of the line like an idiot? It felt almost mandatory to do so. When preparing to leave I saw an indigenous tour that brought you into the Andes mountains and included a 4-mile round trip hike. As I boarded the bus figuring I would be solo on this trip, three Germans jumped into the bus reeking of BO with nothing but a tiny backpack they each held. As we were dropped off and began the hike into the Andes I began a conversation with one of them who didn’t have shoes. It seems someone stole his shoes in Chile while playing soccer with some kids and he decided not to purchase another pair. It was also interesting that the only items in his backpack were a machete, a journal book, and his passport. I was instantly intrigued. These guys were minimalists to another level. Coming from me that is quite an extreme statement.
As we reached the summit of our hike there was an overlook that peered down into a small village in the valley of the Andes. It was abundantly clear that time hadn’t touched or changed this hidden village. As the guide ushered us in a half circle for him to sing and give thanks to all the beauty around us, the German I had befriended was fidgeting around and produced a marijuana joint and sparked it up while the guide was deep into his singing. Although some would see this as very disrespectful the guide seemed to relish in the smoke that emitted from the joint. This German represented full freedom to me. He was probably the most carefree person I have ever met in my life, and most of the people I surround myself with are pretty carefree, so this guy now has another title to add to minimalist in my eyes.
As my Quito adventure continued, I settled into a routine. One of my better work habits is writing a to-do list over the weekend for work tasks with dates. This has helped me in not only my organization, but also in the prioritization of tasks to stay ahead of any deadlines my team or myself are responsible for. Normally I write this list on a Friday afternoon when I am in good spirits and tend to over commit yet hold myself accountable for these deadlines. With hiking most weekends in Quito and exploring I found myself not having written out my list and it was Sunday afternoon with no plans.
I chose to go to a dark Irish bar in the heart of Quito to write my list. As I ordered a cold beer and began outlining my objectives for the week, I didn’t notice the bar became less and less crowded. It was now about 4:30 PM and I was alone in the bar with three beautiful Ecuadorian females. The bartender began pulling the shades down and locking the doors. With no idea where this was going, I thought I would order another beer before the bartender asked me to go home. It seems in Quito if you are IN the bar when they close you can stay. It didn’t take long for the Ecuadorians to invite me over and I quickly decided my task list was completed for the day. I was in love with Quito, Ecuador!
As the weeks flew by my time was filled with hiking, work, and immersing myself in the culture of this beautiful country I now called home. My frustration with work problems melted away as soon as I left the aparthotel every afternoon to meet new friends and partake in all the activities throughout the city of Quito.
Entering Week 4 in Quito I began to feel in the groove enough to venture forward. Although Ecuador has endless activities and places to explore, I was saving my vacation for the next country that I wanted to become even more immersed in. There would be no coin toss for this next stop as my soul has yearned to visit this country for years. Peru!
That big photo above? That’s my old HJC carbon fiber helmet at an elevation of 13,576 feet, and the gunk you see on it is ash. As in volcanic ash. We’ve written about Colombia’s Volcan Nevado del Ruiz before here on ExNotes. I’m writing about my ride there again because it seems the old girl has awakened again.
The view from afar. I would be a several hour ride and a monstrous elevation climb (but on amazing roads) to get to the Volcan Nevado del Ruiz.
Volcan Nevado del Ruiz is an active Colombian volcano 80 miles west of Bogotá. Starting in April of this year, it started acting up again. I say “again” because in 1985, Nevado del Ruiz erupted and killed 25,000 Colombians. That event was not only Colombia’s deadliest eruption…it was all of South America’s.
The National Park entrance. They turned us around a half hour after we arrived when the volcano started spewing ash.
I’ve been to the Volcan Nevado del Ruiz. I rode to the top on a motorcycle with good buddies Juan and Carlos. We were there in 2015, and a short while after we entered the Colombia’s Brisas National Park at the 4,138-meter summit, the park rangers told us we had to leave because the volcano was active. It had started spewing ash. It was snowing at that elevation, too. It made for a fine mess and exciting riding.
The ride up to the top of the Volcan Nevado del Ruiz was awesome. The roads were typical Andes Mountains Colombian switchbacks and we were in rare form. The day was beautiful at the lower elevations, but that was about to change as we continued our Andean ascent.
Ah, the Andes. The riding in Colombia is amazing.
On that ride, we were mounted on AKT Motos RS3 motorcycles. That’s the Colombian equivalent of CSC’s RX3, but with carburetors instead of fuel injectors. The fuel is a bit more flaky in Colombia, so AKT opted for carbs instead of injectors. People have asked if the carbs were problematic or if the bikes were slower than the US RX3. I couldn’t tell the difference.
Volcanic ash on my beautiful black AKT motorcycle.
Colombia has a pretty good deal for AKT making Zongshen motorcycles over there. If AKT brings in assembled bikes, they would have to pay a 30% import duty on them. If they components from Zongshen and then buy 15% of the bikes’ content in Colombia (thus encouraging Colombian manufacturing), AKT pays only a 2% import duty. Ah, if only our politicians were that smart.
Carlos and I at the park entrance. It was cold, wet, and gritty with the airborne volcanic ash mixing with the snow. This wasn’t a beer and burger run to Cook’s Corner!My Olympia motorcycle jacket, spotted with ash and my CSC pilot wings.
After running to the top of Volcan Nevado del Ruiz, we descended along dirt roads to a magnificent Colombian hotel just a few miles down the road, the Termales Del Ruiz. My buddy Juan knows how to organize a great ride, and I sure had an awesome time. The Termales Del Ruiz is at the end of that dirt road somewhere in the fog, and it’s at 3,500 meters above sea level (still pretty high). It has a thermal pool fed by water (heated by the volcano, I guess) and that water was hot! The air was bitter cold, but the water was nice. It was one of the best nights in Colombia, and that’s saying something. Every night was awesome.
So, back to the Volcan Nevado del Ruiz going live again: It’s really happening, and it wasn’t that many years ago that this same volcano killed 25,000 people in Colombia. Here’s a recent news story on what’s happening now:
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You might be wondering if we are switching to an x-rated site. We are not. I just happened to be out and about with my camera when the above photo op emerged and I grabbed it. I think it is probably one of the best nature shots I ever grabbed, although I have similar one with a couple of raccoons but that’s a photo for another Phavorite Photos blog.
We were out servicing a water treatment site in California’s Yucca Valley. In those days I was lugging around a real tank of a camera: The Nikon F5. It was Nikon’s top of the line film camera when film still ruled. The camera was huge and it weighed a ton, and I compounded the felony by mounting a 180mm Sigma macro lens on it. I had ridden my Suzuki TL 1000S there (I could fit the camera and it’s lens into my tail bag). The best thing about that job was that I could combine a lot of extra-curricular into my work, like motorcycle rides and photography.
Back to the Odanata story. Odonata is the entomological classification for three groups of insects. One of those groups includes dragonflies, and the dragonflies were out in force that fine California day. And I was lucky to have brought that 180mm Sigma macro lens with me. It was perfect for the photo ops that presented themselves that day. I tried pictures in flight, but I had no luck. When the painted ladies stopped on a twig or a weed or a branch, though, I was in Fat City. I dropped the film off at our local Costco (they still sold and processed film in those days), I did a little shopping (I love Costco), and an hour later, they were ready. The photo guy told me it was very unusual to see photos this “perfect.” I took the compliment. The pictures looked good on the 4×6 prints; they looked even better on my computer.
Both the F5 and the 180mm Sigma lens have gone down the road. Digital took over from film, I went full bore into the digital world, and I found the 180mm Sigma macro lens wasn’t good for much else besides fornicating dragonflies. Today I use a Sigma 50mm macro for all my closeup work (it’s about as perfect a lens as I’ve ever used for macrophotography), and my cameras are either Nikon’s D810, the D3300, or my cell phone.
Earlier Phavorite Photos? You bet! Click on each to get their story.
The 4th of July is a perfect time to tell my riding story from this weekend spending two days riding a British motorcycle. This was a 180 from my usual chant this time of year of “Screw the British,” but my BMW GS1200 happened to be in the shop for another week waiting parts from Germany so getting on any bike for a weekend was just what my soul needed. My girlfriend allowed me the honor of taking her 2023 Triumph Tiger 900 GT Pro out to tear up 200 miles of Route 299 through northern California. Along this stretch of highway, it is more important than ever to be alert as it is Sasquatch Country.
I was excited to ride this portion of northern California but didn’t expect to be that impressed with the Triumph. Previously having test rode several Triumphs I was familiar with them. They are wonderful machines but they never really spoke to me or my riding style, so I steered towards Ducati or BMW. However, one of my favorite guitar players, Billy Duffy (from the band The Cult) is a HUGE Triumph rider. I had the pleasure of meeting him last November and being semi star struck. All I could mutter was “I am sorry I ride a BMW GS, but my girlfriend rides a Triumph, and oh yeah…you’re an incredible guitarist.” I guess there have been worse encounters with celebrities than that. He high fived me, we shook hands, and we had a laugh over my awkwardness (more him than myself I am sure). Anyway, back to the Triumph Tiger and Sasquatch hunting along Route 299.
This bike is fast. It doesn’t hesitate to go once you twist that throttle, and the acceleration is smooth. Coming from a background where torque is king it was almost a relief to not have to worry about your front wheel leaving the earth every time you go to pass someone, although I have always felt wheelieing by cars as you pass them is just…. Well, it’s cool.
The Tiger is 60 pounds lighter than my BMW GS1200, and the weight is distributed much lower. This makes it extremely easy to just throw into turns, which I did numerous times along Route 299. There are no longer chicken strips on the tires. The Tiger is also much easier to maneuver due to this, which is helpful in sand, difficult terrain, or having to move it 8 feet into a different parking spot.
Changing modes on the BMW when switching from on road to offroad modes you simply hit the button and shift gears. With the Tiger you need to stop the bike, place it in neutral and switch modes. This is a minor complaint I understand, but I was in the heart of sasquatch country and any delay could result in serious injury or death by being mauled by one of these magnificent beasts.
For some reason Triumph didn’t add a steering damper, or weights on the handlebars ends. This can at times cause a wobble at high speeds and it is not a wind friendly design. When bringing this up to the Triumph dealer they stated it wasn’t supposed to go over 85 MPH with a full load and he asked how fast I was riding it. Without divulging the answer in this write up I will say he raised his hands and walked away at my answer (this happens frequently with me when I am too honest).
Overall, I am much more impressed with this motorcycle now than I was previously. It was a breathtaking 200-mile ride in northern California as the road snaked along the Trinity River and in Six Rivers National Forest. The twisties were a blast and by simply clicking down two gears I was able to rocket past slower vehicles with no problem and put any threats far in my rearview mirror (to include Sasquatch). Speaking of which, we didn’t see any Sasquatch along this route. I swore I could smell them as I dropped into Humboldt County but I suppose that could have just been the marijuana cultivation.
Disclaimer- I moved the Triumph to the other side of the Starbucks parking lot as soon as I saw several GS riders pull up.
After only two days in Lima, I quickly learned this wasn’t the Peru I was looking for. It was just a large city, and cities weren’t where I would find the culture and experiences that would help me grow. Knowing this, I booked a 12-hour bus ride to Cusco. Surprisingly, I clearly hadn’t learned my lesson from the Nicaragua to Panama bus ride, but I figured the chances of a repeat performance of Fireproof being played nonstop were pretty slim.
I adjusted to a routine of work and Spanish lessons during the weekdays and on weekends I would explore local hikes and rainforests. I was almost at the base of Cotopaxi, which technically is the highest mountain in the world as it is on the equator and bulges out more than Mt. Everest (if you’re one of those rare people that believe the Earth is round).
I was excited to ride this portion of northern California but didn’t expect to be that impressed with the Triumph. Previously having test rode several Triumphs I was familiar with them. They are wonderful machines but they never really spoke to me or my riding style, so I steered towards Ducati or BMW. However, one of my favorite guitar players, Billy Duffy (from the band The Cult) is a HUGE Triumph rider. I had the pleasure of meeting him last November and being semi star struck. All I could mutter was “I am sorry I ride a BMW GS, but my girlfriend rides a Triumph, and oh yeah…you’re an incredible guitarist.” I guess there have been worse encounters with celebrities than that. He high fived me, we shook hands, and we had a laugh over my awkwardness (more him than myself I am sure). Anyway, back to the Triumph Tiger and Sasquatch hunting along Route 299.
