Martin: We follow an unlit dirt road and pass by some army check points until we finally reach a bilboard stating that we are in Paraguay. It´s already after 10 pm and besides two lit huts of the customs department of Bolivia and Paraguay  it´s completely dark.  After we finish the Bolivian customs, the officer takes us back to the residence of the Paraguayan colleague, waking him up with  „Manolo, get up,  I´ve got here some Austrian bikers for you“.  The situation is somewhat funny for us, everything is very informal, the Bolivian and Paraguayan Customs Officers live door by door, run around in Bermuda shorts and Flip Flops and one feels that they get along very well…and all this at a State Border 🙂 If all neighbours were getting along like this there would be no wars. As this border crossing has a customs office only, we have to go to immigration in the next town… 300km away. This is also the closest option of finding accommodation. After a short break and another very friendly military check point we head off on a pothole covered mix of tarmac, sand and gravel direction Mariscal Estigarribia, where we arrive completely exhausted after a 14 hour drive at 3 in the morning. Of course without a cent of Guanari, the local currency, and no cash machine in the city. …

Sebastian: So, we arrive at the border between Chile and Bolivia and our minds are overloaded – too nice was what we were allowed to see during the last 10 days. This time the border crossing takes some time: first we are waiting at the wrong place and then the guy who should give us the last stamp has to go to the toilet… either the toilet was really far away or the guy had a bad stomach – it takes around 20 minutes for him to return. But, no problems, the border opens its doors for us and we enter Bolivia! The road and the fascinating views do not change at first. We are driving on a wide sand/dirt road and the wind is almost blowing us off the bikes… Feeling a bit too save I almost loose control at one moment where I drive with around 80-90km/h into a slope of deep sand, wobbling around for around 50 meters waiting to crash any moment…

Hi everybody!

The world is eastbounded and after a bit more than a year we are back in good old Vienna! Reason enough for a biiiig party andcelebrate with you 🙂 ! Everybody is welcome, so grab your friends and tag along! Looking forward to see you there!

Greetings,

Martin & Sebastian.

Sebastian: So, from O”Higgins we drove back north to take a perfect road over the Roballo pass to reach Argentina, which is necessary to visit El Chaiten, Calafate (both in Argentina) and the world famous Torres del Paine national park in Chile. The weather is perfect as we float over the gravel road where fascination rises as we see yet again lamas but also for the first time in my life ostriches, flamingos and wild gooses (anybody remembers Niels Holgerson 🙂 ?) running and flying around freely! It is just a fairy tale… After an uncomplicated boarder crossing we continue the ride on the argentinian side of the pass where a huge condor decides to fly in circles 15 meters over my head… I just can”t believe how “National Geographic” like our life is at the moment! The whole day warms our hearts with a breathtaking landscape wherever we look.

Martin: So after an incredible „bang“ I run to the road and see Sebas sitting next to his bike which he smashed into a rock face. Luckily, he’s fine and also no one else was hurt… but Escargot doesn’t look too well. What happened? Well, overexcited he tried a wheelie… as a dozen of times before it worked out fine, this time it didn’t, leading to Escargot throwing him off and her going straight into the rock face. Sebas apologizes, afraid he busted our trip, and maybe a bit paralyzed me, I just think what happened happened, there’s no crying over spilt milk, lets see how the story continues 🙂 First step getting the bike away off the road turns out fairly easy. A very nice family from a town nearby has also stopped at the view point and the father with his two young sons are right away with us. Not only they help us get Escargot to the parking place, they also organize a pick up, that takes us to their place in Panguipulli where they also run cabanas for tourists, where we can stay in one of their bungalows for a fairly reasonable price…

Sebastian: We leave Santa Marta after the spectacular trip to the Lost City to head to Barranquilla where the second biggest carnival of South-America takes place. As always we didn”t plan anything. At the bus station direction Barranquilla the queue is around 50 meters long and we expect the worst but in the end everything works out quite fast and after only around 30 minutes we sit in the bus. The ride is quite short and when we arrive we jump off the bus as Eugénie tells us “here is the place, here is the place!” In the end this is not at all “the place” but she seemed to have misunderstood the guy she sat next to on the bus. We dont mind and ask a taxi driver where the party does actually begin and learn that it is at the other side of town… of course :). As we check out the closest hotel they tell us that they do not have any rooms left, as expected. But nevertheless they help us to find a place where we can leave our luggage for little money.

Martin: The day has come! More than two weeks have passed, now Sebas joins me again. After waiting in the hostel all day long because I didn’t know what time he arrives, we fall with tears into our arms as he finally shows up after midnight. Well, almost 🙂 Eva and I are super tired from walking around in the city and after waiting until 10 we decide to go to sleep and meet Sebas the next day for breakfast. Me not being a morning person at all, our first encounter is a sleepy ‘hey, great to see you` on my way to the coffee machine. Which is actually quite impressive; the two weeks had absolutely no effect on us, it’s as if we had never been separated… 🙂

Sebastian: So, finally it happens that we are seperated for the first time in many months: Martin took his flight early in the morning after a night without sleeping and I am sitting in the plain to Bali. At the arrival everything works out without problems, with my last Dollars I buy the visa and after yeeears I meet Muscho, a high-school mate, again. On the way to his place he asks me if I am hungry and as always I am :). Expecting to go to a local Indonesian restaurant a few moments later I find myself with a grilled sausage, sauerkraut and potatoes – the most typical AUSTRIAN food you could find… in fact Muscho brought me to his favorite place which happens to be a Swiss restaurant. In the end, having a good old „like at home“ bite is not that bad at all :).

Sebastian: So, after a great month in Thailand we arrive at the Malaysian border. The procedure doesn’t take longer than one hour total and the police men once again are of great help telling us which places we definitely have to visit and letting us drive through without any insurance (after we promised that we will not drive fast :)…). After this very positive start we are eager to learn more about this country!

Martin: After this looong night we leave Bangkok at 6pm… thanks to Flo guiding us out of the city, otherwise we would still be trying to find our Way out. The reason we decided to leave was that we booked a 4-day diving safari starting the next day in the morning and didn’t want to postpone it on short notice. We estimate the 850km ride to take us max. 8 hours, so enough time to take a nap before our first dive. Well, as usual, so we thought… -:)