Deane's Motorcycle Trip In SOUTH AMERICA
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Deane's Motorcycle Trip In SOUTH AMERICA |
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Getting Ready |
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Deane joined the riding group put together by "MotoDiscovery", a highly competent motorcycle tour company owned by Skip and Nancy Mascorro. Skip has been arranging motorcycle tours of Mexico for over 25 years, and tours of South America for about 8 years. Nancy is his office mate who keeps everything on track. This tour will cover parts of Chile, Argentina, Bolivia and Peru, for a sampling of the countries and cultures of South America. Tour guides familiar with these countries lead the group through interesting roads and cities or towns. The overall trip is said to be about 5,000 miles, in 33 days, with about 2,000 miles being on "Un-Paved" roads - quite a challenge!! Add to this the fact that the group will ride along and through the high Andes Mountains, up to about 13,000 ft. elevation, and you have quite large order for motorcycling. The participating riders are encouraged to ride their own "dual-sport" motorcycles, by shipping them to South America, although there are rental motorcycles available from MotoDiscovery, and several riders on this tour took advantage of that. Deane is taking his Suzuki "V-Strom", which Suzuki classifies as an "Adventure Touring" motorcycle, capable of riding on un-paved roads as well as paved roads.
To ride with this group, the motorcycles of the members are gathered at Houston, put in a container, and shipped to Chile by a container ship. The motorcycles arrive near Santiago, Chile, and the riders arrange to fly to Santiago to start the tour. After a couple of tour possibilities didn't pan out, Deane talked to Skip about this tour getting ready to go to South America, and on that Monday, Skip said: "We're almost ready to go on the tour called the "High Andes Expedition". - If you can have your Suzuki in San Antonio, Texas (about 6oo miles from Albuquerque) by Friday, you can go with us!!" So Deane rushed to put new tires on the V-Strom, had the oil changed, packed the appropriate riding suit and equipment, and got it ready in a day and a half. Then Deane and Diane tied the bike in our pickup, drove to San Antonio in a day and a half, and just made the cutoff!! Now it is time to fly to Santiago - the start of an Adventure!! |
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