SETTING SAIL!! Cartagena de Indias, COLOMBIA

Our new home for the next 4 days

The next morning we woke up and realized that we had slept right on the side of a major highway. I think we got a good three hours sleep. We headed into town where we were pleased to find that it was an old pirate town, full of castles, fortresses, and old rusty cannons.


Upon arriving in Cartagena we discovered that we only have a couple options to get to Panama.1. ride 200 kms through death jungle where only 1 man has succesfuly past with a two wheel drive rocon motorcycle. 2. try and get on smugglers boats and ferrys from near Gurilla Colombia, or..... Take a sailboat to the San Blas Islands and get dumped off right in the middle if Panama! hhhhmmm?? We got an amazing american style breakfast and started looking for a sailboat that would let us hitch a ride to Panama.  After sifting through all the harbors and ports some fisherman sent us over to find Pedro. We found em and after hours of haggling we had ourselfs a boat. Even if it did cost us Over a Million Pesos.

 Dave counting MILLIONS

haha not really that much for, a four day sailboat ride to The San Blas Islands and Panama, All the food you can eat, fishing, sailing lessons, getting the bikes across, a nice bed to sleep in, Basically everything I´ve ever dreamed of!

Part of the old Castle built to keep the Pirates out

Captain Pedro showed us the ropes around the ship and we headed into town. Only after we dropped off our sacks of all our filthy clothes of course! Cartagena is super awesome! Lots of the streets in the main old town are only wide enough for one car. I would assume that it looks alot like spain or france would. We just rode around for a few hours and saw the town for most of the night. After hours of good exploring we took er back to the ship and called it a night!ª

Downtown Cartagena

We spent the next day and a half getting ready to set sail. Turns out our boat was abandondened so we did quite a bit of repairs as well.  Night one we Loaded the bikes on the ship! Turns out its not exactly legal so we had to load em in the middle of the night. We pushed em out the dock, tied ropes aroud the front and back, Hooked the ropes to the mast, and then linched them out over the water and up into the boat! It was so Awesome! We tied em and tarped em to ensure their saftey during the 4 day boat ride. After all our hard work we all fell asleep on the deck. haha

The next morning we went out with captain Pedro and bought food for the 8 of us going over. Captain Pedro thinks alot like we do and we ended up spending over a Million Pesos on Food!! We were just throwing everything we wanted in the cart! It was a great time. We also bought a 50 gallon burlap sack full of Pineapples, another full of Mangos, and others full of other delicious fruits! I´m so Pumped for this! Our outting to buy food got me all excited for powell again. We finished up a few final repairs and right now we´re about to set sail! 50 hours from now we´re going to be in San Blas Islands. Monday morning we´ll be in Panama ready to get back on the road!

Wish us Luck!

The Pirates

VENEZUELA, COLOMBIA and some other pics

 Amazon Sunset by the Ecuator

Spotted Leapords

 This Guy really wanted to know what i tasted like

Another Sunset

And Another

Crossing the Equator

We would have spent some time here but as soon as we stopped a whole bus full of circus transvestites pulled up and unloaded. We saw the ....chickdudes walking over and we got a fist full of throttle and got outta there!!

Worlds biggest Moth. I checked

Right before getting detained at the Venezulan border for almost two days

The Venezulan High Grasslands... Amazing!

Waterfall in the middle of Venezuela.. There are thousands of these all along the way. Including Angel falls which is the higest in the world. Didnt have time to go there though.... 

Dave... feet up ridng off into a smokey venezulan sunset

Some of the biker gang that saved my bacon while i was almost broke down by myself in venezuela. I stayed at Vitaminas house. (Far Right) He`s so awesome! Worked with me all day to get me back up and running, Fed me, shelted me, and showed me a great time! 

Thanks again Vitamina!

As of the other day I was camped out sunday night at Vitaminas house. The next day vitamina and i worked hard to find all my parts and get the tornado up and running again. Not gonna lie i felt a little wierd riding around on the back of his cruiser bike. ha after several trips to the store, waiting for siesta to get done, and some rain the bike was up and running hot! dave called and we planned to meet at the columbian border at 7 or 8 am the next day. I tried leaving but they wouldnt let me due to rain, pot holes in the road, thugs, and of course rain. So i chilled at vitaminas place til 4 am and i rolled out as fast as i could! I made super good time due to more rain and some traffic. I rode as fast as i could stopping only for gas. I saw a dead person again. I hate that. Puts me in the dumps for the rest of the day. The last 100 kms to the Columbian boarder were super ghetto and 9 out of 10 cars are huge 70s rusty old cheys! so funny. At about noon at 5 kms from the boarder I caught up to Dave and Nian right before they were about to cross into Colombia. We got held up at the boarder again, interviewed, and 4 hours later we were on our way!

Welcome to Colombia!!

Once in Colombia  we road as fast as we could to the north east while it was still light. It got dark quick. We left the desert and the roads turned from horrrible to awesome so we kept on going. At around 2 am and 990kms into my day, we stopped about 30 mins outside of Cartagena, Colombia. I looked out in the field and beheld millions of fireflys lighting up the landscape. No moon, few stars, and fireflys tracing every tree, field, and hill side.  Truely a sight that flim cant capture. I wish everyone could have been there to share it with us. One of the most amazing acts of Gods great nature i've ever seen! It was so awesome that we road around til we found some nice trees, set up our hammocks, and got a couple hours rest. 

MUCHO LOCO!!

Ok this is going to be have to be a super readers digest version. no time to kill right now. bad spelling and everythig. so manaus was awesome! we spent like four nights at Edivaldo and Martas house. they are the best people ever. they treated us like kings! amazing people. everyone we met in manaus was so awesome! we went to the zoo  there which was super cool. it was raining of course so we were the only ones there. including the workers which were army guards as it is on a military base. we had more unsupervised fun with animals than we should have. i got the black panther to bite down on the cage and i touched his tooth! haha so awesome! we hit the road for boa vista (one of nians other areas) in the worst rain storm ive ever driven in. it hurt so bad. even when we were going slow. we road like 600 kms in the rain and found an empty tire shop to tie our hammocks up in. we camped the night, got up at 4:30 and road hard all the way to boa vista. the ride was awesome! we crossed the equator, a bus full of trannys showed up so we bailed quick). the rest of the ride was socool. lots of hugee parrots, dead gators, and other crazy animals all over the road.we came out of the jungle and into some savana looking planes. at boa vista we fixed my breaks, ate and decided to head north. 4 hours later we were at the venezulan border in another rain storm. By night fall we were in Venezula. we all ran out of gas, got gas, got our passports stampd, and road north into Veneezula. its so much different than brazil. GAS HERE IS SOOOO CHEAP!!!! I filled my tank for like 25 cents.. gas is 9cents a gallon!! pretty much free. everyone here drives huge trucks, jeeps, and classic chevy cars haha. we road like 100 kms into venezula where we were stopped by the military police. They were not kind. after a long dispute and process we headded back to the border to get more paper work done. we spent the night at the border and  went to the border the next morning. They detained us and we spent the whole next day working on meaningless paperwork!.... we were all kind of depressed. Finally at 5:55 pm they let us go after some hero brazillian guy from the highway patrol named Vladimir made us some papers that said we were legal with brazil. We were once again all out of gas and it turns out the gas stations close at 6. we didnt make it in time so we headed to the ghetto side of town and started anyone if theyd sell us some gas. we got led to three or four houses that usually sell black market gas and noone had any. Upon asking one house a young girl overheard us asking in broken spanish and lead us to her grandpas house. He had us kill our motors, turn off our lights, and push our bikes in his back yard. he turned out all his lights and filled our bikes up from some big 5 gallon cans he had. i guess its super illegal to sell black market gas. we were having a good laugh after gassing up and dave  mentioned we were from utah. a lady from inside then asked, "mormons?" haha well  yes... turns out shes a less active member! soon we were eating a feast with them and she drew out a map for us to get around in venezuela as my new gps only has basic roads on it. The family let us crash on their floor as its not a good idea to night ride in venezula. once again we saw the hand of God in our trip. what are the odds of getting lead to a lessactives house after all we went trough at the border. great experience. the next morning we were on the road by 5 am. we got rolled by some more military police after like 4 hrs of riding. they were going to haul us in and keep the bikes because we didnt have "internatioal drivers licences". after talking for like an hour we were all laughing and having a good time. they finally let us go and we hit the road once more.  The venezulan countryside is amazing. we went from green grassy planes, to jungle, to savanna, to desert. everything you can think of. we road like 10 hours, dave lost his wallet so we spent some time fixing that. 6 more good riding hrs and it was dark. we got lost in cidade guyana looking for a bridge. we stopped for some food and everyone was like.. get the HELL outta here! its so dangerious!! needless to say.. we dropped everything and split! haha forget getting jammed up by robbers.. three hours later we gased up and got more food. as we were eating a guy comes in with a knife and tells dave something. we didnt understand him well but he either said im going to steal your bikes or someones going steal your bikes. we dropped our food, jumped on our bikes and headed out of town. Once again the cops grabbed us on the way outta the city. I was actually glad this time becaue im 100 percent sure someone was following us. I'll admit, i was gettting a little nervous. The cops wanted money and were upset when they found out we didnt have any. Dave speaks pretty good spanish so he does most of the talking.. i understand well but speak just a little so everytime they ask me for money i just smile an say... Si.. and laugh a little. Then i laugh more cause its funny to see them get confued. The cops told us we were going the wrong way which i know saved our bacon. I honestly felt , and know, that someone was waiting to ambush us after we left the police checkpoint. We bunched up and road into the night on the right road. around 3 am i felt my  bike getting a little shakey. we stopped and turns out, my sprockets and chain are all the way worn out again. My chain was tightened all the way and slipping bad so nian and i took some links out with my leatherman and a huge rock while dave slept on the sidewalk. This took like an hour and a half. i tightened by chain up all the way and limped down the road. i couldnt go over 70 kms/hr or my chain would slip again. nian and dave were way behind me for some reason. It got light and i stopped at the police station. I waited there for like and hour and i figured they stopped to sleep. I wasnt tired so i limped on stopping at each city to see if they had a mormon  chruch or bike shop that was open. At like 10:30 am i came across  city with a church and i caught the last 45 mins of sacrament meeting. It was pretty awesome. No bike shop in the city so i  wrote dave on facebook, tightened my chain again, and kept going. I rode til like 5pm. with no bike shops open on sunday i was starting  to get nervous that i wouldnt make it to Maricaibo which is the bigger city that would for sure have my parts.  My chain was slipping bad again so i pulled off on some grass to snug it up. Two bikers rode past me and a lady on the back of one of them invited me to join them. I told them my story and they told me to follow them. Turns out they are in a biker gang. They took me to their mechanics house. They call him vitimina. Pretty soon i was all showered up and at a biker gang pool party/ bbq haha. Remind you i havent slept since 5 am the day before... 40 hrs no sleep! I passed out on a couch by the pool and woke up to an  angry man yelling  at me! We ate the bbq, they took me to a bar, they got wasted and i slammed coke after coke trying to stay awake! we left the bar at midnight and road the town! Once again, theyre wasted riding doubles, im deathly tired riding with sprockes grinding! ha They bought me some bomb venezulan steak sandwhich at like 1 am and they took me back to vitiminas house. around 2 am i finally went to bed. 45 hrs straight! Tomorrow vitamina and i are going to get me back on the road so i can meet up with nian and dave down the road!

Pray for me! hahaa

PEACE!!

Mid-Trip Cruise

So we may have gone on the most interesting cruise ship of all time! After finishing our death ride through the middle of the trail we caught River boat in Santarem and headed up the mighty Amazon. This wasnt your averege cruise ship though. We made friends with the captain and boared the ship a day early. Instead of having rooms this cruise had thousads of hooks and one big open floor. there we´re 10 or so hammocks hung up on the second floor so we followed suit and placed our hammocks three feet apart and spread all our muddy packs, rain gear, tarps, and dirty clothes over our ten foot territory. We slept great the first night in the port. We woke up early to go see the city which was supposed to have "the most amazing fresh water beach in the world." As we were on our way we stopped for some breakfast and to wash our bikes. Lo and behold, here came our arch nemisis from this whole trip, Rain!!! And how it rained. Seriously, the roads became rivers in the matter of 5 mins. We waited out the rain for like an hour, grabbed our now clean bikes, Nian and I bought some food, and headed for the boat to meet Dave with our tickets.

Upon arriving at the boat we were greeted by 4 policemen that were very unhappy with Nian and his broken licence plate. They started giving us some serious guff which was not good because our boat was to leave shortly. I soon learned that three of them were in an english class and we were soon laughing and having a good time talking about guns. Needless to say we made our boat. We lifed our bikes onto the bottom level of the boat and then hoisted them down into the gallows for the two day ride.

As we boarded we discovered that a few more people had joined us for our two day river trip. By a few people I mean like 350 more people! We pushed our way through a colorful rainbow spiderweb of hammocks and people and finally found our stuff. Nian´s and my hammocks were now a foot apart, and a family of 7 had squeezed in between Dave and I. The lady right next to me was way bigger than I am and her 90 year old feeble mother was right next to her. Our stuff was all over the place getting trampled. We all looked at each other and thought to ourselves...."awesome".... Here we were ready for a confortable boat ride up the amazon and suddenly it felt like it was packed inside a crowed city bus. We all laid down in our hammocks and sort of settled in for a long ride.

Nian and I fell asleep. We woke up with people jammed up touching us on both sides of us. I was honestly shocked with the situation. It was like 7 pm and everyone was hustling around for dinner. The three of us went up to the top deck and enjoyed our dinner of cookies and guaraná.

After a while I found out that somepeople could go down to water level and sleep around the cargo so I jumped right on it. Down on the cargo level the whole back was full of crates of Mangos (which we were free to eat i guess) (and were DELICIOUS), bananas, mamão, lemons, many other fruits and vegis, chickens, and a dog. The front of the boat was open and quite fresh. I hung my hammock so I could lay there and watch the Amazonian jungle pass by. We spent almost the whole first two days searcing for sloths and jaguars but we mostly saw cows, chickens, and river people. Still very interesting. The river is almost overflowing so the shorelines are full of trees falling in the river and the effects of erosion were everywhere.

At most times along the two day trip we were surrounded by fresh water dolphins that ranged in color from black, to grey, to blue, to pink. We also saw some pretty amazing sunsets, sunrises, moonsets, and moonrises. All of which occured over the river. Night one I dont think any of us slept at all. Turns out I had hung my hammock under a night light. Dave and Nian both got up to go to the bathroom and were confronted by an unfriendly scene. The guy with his hammock right next to the bathroom door had thrown up chuncks of dinner and rice all over the place. The guys found out that it was throw up by walking though it. The worst part is.... Dave was barefoot. I still think Nian was grossed out more. The whole next day we spent sleeping, playing cards, and watching the jungle pass by. Night number 2 was a lot more relaxing. We arose the next morning and soon we were pulling into the port. A few mins before desembarking our friend rain showed up in full force and made things complacated again. We rigged a pully and hoisted our bikes out of the gallows of the boat. Lifting them out of the boat was a lot eaiser that we had expected.

Upon arrival in Manaus we got some lunch and took care of some bike repairs that were nessary after the Shortcut trail ride. Once repaired, we road an hour or two to the other side of the city and found one of Nians old mission areas. We visited a couple familys and the second one we visited invited us to sleep there.

We all took bucket showers in front of their house, laid down on mattresses and were soon fast asleep. After almost two weeks of only sleeping in hammocks it was great to sleep on a mattress! We are all completely out of clothes, we all have a rancid plastic sack of wet, muddy, sweaty, dirty clothes! Tomorrows tasks... 1. Wash clothes, 2. Find some Jungle to explore! 3. Relax for a bit..... We´ll be in touch..

i´ll put up some more pics later

Love you all

THE GUYS

Mid TRANS AMAZON Highway

 Transamazonican Sunset... Absolutely Amazing

Sorry its been so long since the last update. There aren´t to many wireless internet places in the middle of the JUNGLE! Last time I wrote it seems like we were leaving the last little strip of asphalt of our super long trip. We got me some a new chain and sprocket set. Somehow I burned though a set after 2 weeks of hard riding.? After getting the bikes tuned up a little, we hit the road once more. It was pretty much dark so we did our best to put some distance behind us. We road a few hundred Kms down the Transamazonica dirt road highway when all the sudden, we started to get the feeling that it was about to open up and pour rain! Around 10 pm we found the nearest bar/restaurant/truck stop. Soon we had made friends with the owner who kindly invited us to hang our hammocks up under his balcony where his pool tables were. He let us shower, we ate there, and surely enough, it poured rain!

One of our Camps Along the Transamazon Highway

The Whole 3000 Kms was riddled with these rickety wood bridges

Walking on Water... I just want to be like JESUS

We Slept great in our hammocks and waited til almost 9am for the rain to slow down some. The downpour became a drizzle so We finally decided that it wasn't about to stop all together. So, we wrapped everything we owned in plastic and hit the trail. Everything was awesome except for one minor mishap. My rain gear was nowhere to be found!   I put on this bright purple poncho that our friend Liam had given us and we road out. After like an hour of riding hard down the muddiest roads ever! I was super soaked and muddy! We came across a small town where I set out looking for some rain gear. It was Sunday so everywhere that sold raingear was closed. I was set on finding some gear and after like an hour of searching I found a moto store with the back door open. I bought the only thing they had, found a gas station, showered the mud off, and we were in business back on the road!

 One of the Nicer Stretches of Road (we're barely muddy it got so much worse!)

Who needs a bus? Not these 30 People!! haha

We Made friends with some River People.. I guess they didn't realize Dave and Nian are almost double their size.. The Canoe was about 3/4 of an inch out of the water!! ha

We road way hard through mud and rain all day on Sunday. These roads were nuts! If there wasn't pure jungle on both sides i would have guessed that I was on top of the mountains above Fillmore. The roads are identical. Every time we would stop for gas or food people would tell us that we were out of our minds. ``you're crazy! what if you break down out here? there´s no stores to fix your bikes! you dont ride at night do you?`` ``yes`` ``NO WAY You're crazyyy!!! You're going to get robbed!``  Every time someone says this we look at each other and smile. We road through Jungle, rivers, Fog, mud, broke down some, fixed our bikes and finally Sunday night we made it to Araju. We rolled into town, found another gas station/ restaurant  that let us hang our hammocks up inside. We took a shower at the gas station, and set up camp. We went into town and it was pure craziness! We rode down main street along with like 500 of the towns youth on our bikes. Everyone goes to the main road every night and just does laps up and down main. It was crazy. I felt like I was in a Motocross race. After taking some mains and getting some food, we took it back to camp and got some rest for our big day tomorrow.

Rain Forrest Farm.. Amazing

The next morning we spent getting ourselves ready for ``THE SHORTCUT!!`` We got Dave a new chain and sprocket set, got some food, relaxed for a min, and headed down The Shortcut.

Look how small Dave and I are next to these trees.. They're HUGE

The Shortcut is a 200 km dirt road without stores or homes that goes Right Through the Middle of the JUNGLE!! Taking the shortcut was going to save us almost 200 kms to the river so we took it of course! People in town said that it was a rough road but we´d fly right across it with our bikes. We had no Idea what we had signed up for! We busted out the first 100 kms no problem! A few big puddles, a few trees across the trail, and a few slick spots but we had made pretty good time. We took a break to oil our chains and rest our butts. When we turned our bikes off we were surround by howler monkeys. They were screaming like gorrillas all around us! Pretty nuts! and really creepy

This Tree Was so big they just piled dirt over it instead of moving it!

Full Throttle to not Sink in the QUICKSAND

Rowdyest Ride of my LIFE!

Then we set out of the second part of the Shortcut. The next 20 kms took us over 4 hours to cross! The road was 40 yards wide and pure mud and quick sand! Some of the puddles were over 5 feet deep! There were trees across the trail that were over 6 feet in diameter across the trail! It took all three of us to help each other creep, lift, push, pull, and drag our bikes across this swamp! It was so bad we all just put on our swimsuits and drove right though the middle of it! After 7 hours we finally made it to the other side of the Jungle and to Santarem where we were to get the riverboat down the amazon to manaus.

 

Mud So deep We had to push each other through it!

Muddy ol Dave

From my house in Orem to our farm in Fillmore is almost exactly the same distance as The Short cut! I have never even thought of riding my motorbike from Orem to Fillmore. It seems so far once i think about it. I guess after riding over 12,000 kms (almost 8000 miles) we´ve lost any feeling for distances.

About 150 Kms Down the Shortcut

Another Sketchy Bridge

Nian was so Pumped to See Asphalt

As we got to Sanatrem we searched out the river boat. We worked our way onto the boat where we made friends with the captain. He said we could crash on the boat that night as it didn't leave til the next afternoon. We hung up our hammocks, showered the mud off for like 30  mins each, and crashed out! We´ve logged over 3000 kms this last week and have defiantly felt it! Now were going to take a 2 day boat ride up the amazon to manaus. It will be nice to rest up for a bit!

MOTO TEAM... OUT

TRANSAMAZÔNICA

Sorry its been a few days and this is going to be short. To much has happened in the last three days. We´ll have to fill in the full stories later. To keep it short, we left pipa headed for Jericoacoaba. Somewere we lost nian along the way. Dave and I ended up in the middle of some sand dunes in the middle of nowhere! We´re stopped in the middle of a dirt road and some old dude runs out of his house at almost 2am. He tells us theres a 15 km trial through mud sand dunes and beach to the city. another old man walks up with a 2 foot knife. He kind of asked us for a ride and we bailed outta there! haha anyway we found nian the next morning, waited a few hours for rain to pass, and hit the road. we made it like 200 kms where some gas station attendent made us a bunch of food and talked us into spending the night in another truck stop. i woke up at like 3am to three guys all around daves bike and stuff. I jumped up ready to throw down! Turns out they were trying to kill a rat! haha I thought it was finally time for the three of us to Kick some serious trash! We woke up at like 5 and hit the road. we made it another 100 kms before daves bike started leaking serious oil. 3hrs later and we were back on the road. We made it to teresina by night fall were dave got lost. We told him were to meet us and he drove 75 kms past where we were down a dirt road til he found a pay phone. my cell ran out so we guessed where he was and drove that way. The 150 km part of highway that was straight dirt was pretty interesting. We found dave in some shanty lunch place. We were going to hang up hammocks and sleep there after they closed but some kid came by and said,  hey, why dont you come sleep at my house, nobodys there and weve got hammocks already hung up. we all decided we could punk this kid if he tries anything. we get to his house and it has three bedrooms and one door. thats it. it remineded me of a grain barn on our farm. inside were four hammocks so we gathered our things by candlelight and got ready for some sleep. Dave and i showered. By showered i mean filled up three buckest from the well 50 meters from the house, twisted a bulb for some light, and poured buckets over our now muddy bodies. It only got wierd when the kids mom came out of the other house thinking i was stealing water at midnight and there i stand, Naked! haha kinda wierd. Especially when she was super nice at breakfast. which was one egg, some cus-cus, and one little cup of milk. When we laid down to go to sleep it was so awesome. four hammocks swinging, crickets swinging, candles burning, and three amigos smiling while falling asleep! Daves hammock broke at like 5 am so we rose early. he had adquired a flat over the night so we fixed that and hit the road. not more than 20 kms into our day i lost the GPS nnoooooo!!! Our guiding light is gone. Now its up to us i guess haha That hurt a little.

We´re definatley getting closer to the jungle, so far we´ve seen road kill of three dead anacondas, on dead alagator, three dead sloths and a bunch of dead monkeys and stuff. haha 10000+ kms down, 2000 more and were in manaus in the Amazon... 20,000 more and we´re??

Leaving Pipa With Sad Faces

 LOOK WHO WE FOUND! Daves Back!

This whole trip we have been surrounded by amazing people! We have been to some of the most beautiful places on earth, but many of the things that will most be ingrained in my mind is how amazing the people we met are! It seems like everywhere we stop there's somebody there waiting to take super good care of us! Pipa hasn't been an exception by any means. We've had so much fun here!

 Liam, (the Fourth Wolf) Showing some Brazilians how soccer is to be played

Super Relaxing and more than we could have hoped to have had for one of our last beach visits on the Atlantic Coast. These last 6 days we have slept great, gone to the gym, ate better than we have on the whole trip and for cheaper, surfed a bunch, swam with the dolphins, and made friends that we will remember forever! Our accommodations consisted of a room with 4 beds in an open loft overlooking the dirt road right in front of the best beach in town. Being completely open it gets us up at like 5 am everyday but its so awesome! Just down from our place there is a 150 foot cliff over the beach, you can hike about half way down and watch the most amazing sunrise ever!

Our last day in Pipa was nothing short of amazing! We woke up early and set out for a nice trail ride on our bikes. Somehow a short trail ride took us 50 kms up the beach and I found myself out of gas Again! ha We took care of it and continued the ride. We found another giant dead turtle, we all hit vultures on our bikes, haha, Dave got hit by a wave and found himself up to his seat in ocean water, and we all got some good sun. On our way home Dave crept up on the side of me at like 4 mphs right as i was going to turn. I turned, saw him, and bailed off to avoid us both getting wasted. Lucky we were going so slow, I landed on my feet and stopped and Dave didnt even wreck. Scratched my brake lever a little, thats it.

As soon as we arrived back at the place, Neto yelled for us to get to the Madeiro beach, NOW! There was a nest of baby giant sea turtles hatching right then. So we dropped everything, grabbed a couple people each, and headed to the beach! As i was running out Neto told me, youre crazy! The cops are gonna bust you for riding three with no helmets. So i grabbed helmets for the two girls riding with me and we headed out after the others. We were almost there as I rolled over a hill.. COPS! I slammed on my brakes, turned around, went back over the hill, dropped off one girl, and went right back past the cops. Nian and the others were all stopped, No helmets, riding 3, and in flipflops. haha for some reason i had my shoes on as well. anyway i dropped the one girl off, grapped the other one, got helmets for the others and we got em all to the beach.

We ran down to the beach were there was a group of 50 or so people gathered waiting for the nest to hatch. Turns out it had already hatched and there were only three turtles in the nest. So the guy went to the next nest and it was hatching at the exact same time! The dude opened the nest and it had over 100 baby turtles in it! it was pretty awesome watching them struggle their way down to the beach to the water. Truly and act of God.

Opening the Nest

100+ baby turtles making a mad dash for the water

This guy won the race

 After we finished saving the baby sea turtles we went back to the place, showered, and we all went out to eat for our last night out. All you can eat pizza was a bad choice on such a warm day and so late at night. Needless to say we didnt end up leaving like we thought we would. Sunday morning we hit the road once more. A couple short hours and we were in Natal. We searched for a bit and managed to find a church. We got our weekly meetings in there and got right back on the saddle. We road forever through rain and wind and finally around 9pm we pulled into Fortaleza, wet and tired. We grabbed a cheap hotel and got some sleep.

The Wolf Pack Back together! Including Liam, The 4th Wolf!

The Next day we spent the whole day fixing the bikes, My time had arrived for a new set of tires, I guess thats what you do after 8500 kms. Knowing that we're going to be doing thousands of miles on dirt roads from here on out i got the biggest meanest knobby tires I could find. We got another room in Fortaleza as the shop was still finishing up a few small repairs on the bikes.

Our plan from here is to ride a little way up the coast, go to Jericoicoara, which is supposed to be an amazing beach town, and then head inland towards the AMAZON! To tell you the truth i've seen enough beach and i'm ready to get into the jungle! These next few days we're going to put down almost 3000 kms so PRAY FOR US! haha

Livin the life in PIPA!!

Our first Day in Pipa was much needed!

 Look at That Water!

When we woke up we ate a killer good breakfast for like $2 and thats when Nian and I discovered what we were dealing with. We were staying in a hostel with only Girls.. haha We just looked at each other and laughed! They were actually pretty cool for once as well. After breakfast the girls took us down and showed us were the dolphin beach was.

 Swimmin with the Dolphins (they were farther out that we thought)

Sooo.. .We went and swam with the Dolphins. Not a big deal if you ask me. It sounds so much cooler than I thought it was. Never the less... Scratch that off our list! Swim with Dolphins... CHECK!  We spent most of the day on the beach and then went back to the place, worried about dave and his whereabouts, and got some good needed rest.

We woke up from our naps to some noise down stairs, a couple had shown up while we were sleeping. Liam and Colette from scotland. These two have been on the road for 18 months! theyve gone all the way around the world, got engaged in machu pichu, and have some pretty awesome stories! We chilled with the whole crew at the hostel (which consisted of Me, Nian, Liam, Colette, Neto (which is the guy that owns the place), and 9 other girls. Pretty soon dinner turned into them drinking a lot. Which turned into a speaker coming out which resulted into an instant dance party!

Part of our Crew at the Hosel

Which somehow lasted til 2am when the cops were about to be called. Then, turns out Nain and I became Designated Driver/Moto Taxi drivers, riding triples to town for more "fun" and Dancing haha What a funny Night! The place we're staying at is only like $10 a night, its right on the best beach,  its super rustic and open, and the owner has a dog named lelo that loves us! ha We're still waiting to hear from dave to find out his plan is! Last we heard he got his bike fixed and was on his way. Our brazillian phone service is super unreliable. I keep getting stacks of texts from him all at once. I told him where we were but this place is super hard to find. I Had a hard enough time finding it with the GPS. Hopefully, when he gets here we can all kick back and relax for a few days! Knowing Dave he probably made some friends, got a good paying job, and doesn't know how to break it to us...

Pipa Beach

Well nian and I made an easy decision on sunday. We got kicked out of the temple Dorms due to sunday closures. So we found a cheap hostel near the church. They were super full so they put two cushions on the floor in their laundry room and said we could sleep there for like $10. We were cool with it until we were both laying on the same mattress at 3am trying to kill each other for the fan. So hot! We woke up soaked with sweat, ate showered and headed to church. We walked into church and it was a million degrees inside, We walked into priesthood and the good Lord blessed us with ice box temperatures in the rooms. Best three hours of church in a long time ha. After church we put our feet up and relaxed for a few hours. There was supposed to be a CES fireside at the church so we decided we would stick around for that and then hit the road and see how far we could make it. We were going to stay in the heat box hostel again but we got a super gay vibe which facilitated our decision to leave. After like an hour of searching, going to 5 churches that were all dark, getting lost in a ghetto and doing a sweet ghetto hill climb on our bikes, nian running out of gas, both us blowing the plumbing out of a gas station, and me losing nian. We decided we'd hit the road.   As soon as we rolled out we drove past the chapel with the fireside and.... it had just got over. Bad Luck! haha guess we weren't supposed to go ha Anyway we saddled our horses and rode like 2 hours to Joao Pessoa. I wasnt paying attention, took a wrong turn, which lead us here thanks to our trusty GPS.

In case you cant tell thats Nian Flying over a bridge make out of two 1" X 8" pieces of wood nailed to a rickety framework! This thing was supppperrrr sketchey! all busted up and stuff. The sketchiest  part.... The water is basically a huge river of POO!!! one wrong move and its a long night trying to get our bike /gear out of a poo river. nian just about put it in the river!! 

  After Nian about gave us a smelly night i went like an inch a minute and made it across safely. the other side didn't provide the best access to our main highway either. Just a kanppy ghetto. we took some dirt trail like 5 miles into a field, found the main road, and couldnt get on it. we followed a bulldozer trail like 300 yards though jungle and found a little bike trial up to our highway. Another hour and a half and we arrived at pipa beach at like 2 am. After driving the whole city we finally found a decent place to camp. I licked my finger, put it in the air, and told Nian that it was going to rain. He said, "No Way!" I politely guaranteed him that it would rain and made an executive decision that we were going to find a place to stay and camp at Praia do Amor ( beach of love) I wasnt really comfortable camping with nian on lover beach either. I tipped over in a huge bush, got way mad,! and road back off the beach. right on the corner there was a cool looking hostel so I went in and yelled for someone to attend us. Nobody came for like 20 mins. Then some old lady said she was working there but she going out to meet some friends. ( what 60 year old lady goes out to meet friends at 3:30 in the morning to meet friends?) After some good haggling we talked her into letting us sleep under the front patio for free. We hung our hammocks and PAssed OUT! 

Oh and by the way, not more than an hour after i predicted rain... Torrential Down Pour! When we were in Morro de Sao Paulo some british dude asked a group of us if we thought it was going to rain. Someone said, "Ask the American. They know eeevveryyythininggggg!"  I confidently told him, I guarantee it rains tomorrow, probably around 3pm." I saw the guy two days later. He came straight over to me and congratulated me for predicting a massive rain storm which started at 3:30 pm the day i had said. It was funny.. Anyway, big day of swimming with the dolphins and doing nothing tomorrow! Peace....

Sadness on the Trip... When the Wolf Pack Split Ways

So..  You've probably seen on discovery channel where a pack of wolves splits up to corner whatever it may be chasing and than make an easier attack and kill... WEll that may have just happened!.  There we were... 200 miles from anywhere.. our options are limited. Daves motor is jammed up for the 3rd time. What do we do?? We try and push it 100 kms to the next small town, pay $R200 for a tow truck, or dave can hitchhike a ride for him and his bike with a truck driver back to where we got it fixed before and they can fix it for free! So we grabbed some grub and flagged down the rustiest slowest truck we could find. The dude was cool and even helped us lift daves dinosaur in the back of his truck. Now comes the sad part. Dave jumped in the cab and says, "well... if this guy takes advantage of me... i love you guys." Then they pulled away. Slowly... Very Slowly.  Nian and I looked at each other, Nian cried, and realized what we had done. haha Daves been doing lots of pushups and crunches lately so we figured he could take some truck driver.

 Loading Dave's Bike in the Truck

Just Go Dave... Just Go

Bye Dave! Good Luck Fixing Your Bike!

Nian and I hit the road towards Acaraju.We road maybe an hour and the road turned in to cobblestone and then... a river. I guess we had to take a couple  ferries that i didnt know about. As the ferry arrived Nian and I dug though all we had and scrounged up R$ 3.50. We had spent/given dave all the money we had and now we didnt have enough to cross the river. I somehow managed to get us on the boat and the lady on the boat was cool enough to let us get off. We raced the 45kms across this island (with a minor pit to pump up my flattening front tire) to catch the ferry on the other side back to the mainland before dark. We made it there with seconds to spare and the lady let us cross for our 3.50 but wasnt happy about it. We rode up the coast to Acaraju where we got money and kicked it for a bit. After some deep convincing I talked Nian into keeping on the track towards Natal. Well somehow I took a wrong turn and which put us into some really ghetto small beach town. It was actually kinda creepy and we didnt have dave there to scare everyone off by riding around shirtless with the chain around his neck. As we looked for the road out of town my tire blew completely. I asked like 30 people and finally found someone that changed/fixed tires in his garage. We were there for a good two hours shooting the breeze and changing tires... As we were leaving, the mother of the whole group piped up and said that we should check out the beach Lagoa Redonda. I guess it had been on t and stuff? So Nian and  I once again rolled out and were quickly side tracked when i saw the Lagoa Redonda sign about 30 miles outta town. We took the road to it which quickly became dirt and then lead us aimlessly like 50 kms to nowhere. at the very end of the road there was a small river and a small lunch shack with was strangely open at midnight. The lady said that if we crossed the river we would be able to ride straight down to the beach and there we would find a campsite easily. She assured us that the river bottom was hard but Nian still make me go first to find out.

Plunging into and unknown dark river

After we both make it through safe and sound we road sand dunes though some palm groves (which almost blew up our bikes as the dont do so well in the sand). The end of the dunes put us right on the beach. I took off to the north along the water looking for some palms close to the water where we could hand up our hammocks. Well needless to say after like 45 mins of going as fast as we could on hard packed sand and running over crabs (which Nian Loved) we were both almost completely out of gas. We had gone almost 30 kms up the beach, were running on fumes, and were pretty lost so we found our Closest Palm trees, hung our hammocks up, and had another Terrific nights rest in Gods great outdoors. 

Our Beach Camp.. Miles from everywhere

This Deadly swarm of bees was in the Palm Tree Directly over my head When I woke up in the Morning... Awesome haha

We woke up aound 4:45 a.m. (cause thats when it starts getting light here) and HIT the road QUICK! When i got out of my hammock this morning i saw a with post buried right next to my bike that said Tamar Project site number 336. or something like that. Turns out we had been joyriding and camping all night in a Giant sea turtle nature preserve!! We both felt it was best to get a move on so we found a trail which lead to a soccer field and then to another endless dirt road. By this time we're super close to bone dry outta gas! After what seemed like forever we puttered into another super small, really ghetto, river/beach fishing town. I asked around for like 20 mins for a gas station but everyone's directions were bad because we could not find this place! Finally, we had a kid walk us over there. It was some dude selling gas out of his living room! He had a bunch of 2 liter bottles filled up and stacked in his house

This Guy's gasing up Nians Bike

After getting gas we asked around to get ourselves out of town and everyone said that we had to get another ferry across the river to get to Maceo. We seriously drove circles forever until we found the port. these people speak a portugese that I have a hard time understanding or something. Anyway, at the port I found out that the ferry only comes and goes a couple times a day unless you want to special request for it which is kind of expensive. I'll let the pictures explain what happened next

BIKES IN CANOES!

Instead of paying like 30 bucks for a chartered ferry we gave these fellas $4 to risk their lives and our bikes! 

This Was easily one of my top 5 most intense boat rides of my life! we may have only gone 30 mins with a 3 horsepower outboard motor, but my super heavy butt and super heavy bike had this little canoe pushed to the limits! every little wave we hit i thought we were going to the bottom! Way Nuts!

Nian, Calm as a summers day

Would anyone care for some baby shark head?

Well after 30 mins of pure stress and sweat we finally made it over to the other side! Oh and Dave, The words "I wish Dave were here!" were spoken prob every twenty seconds since you left so hurry up and get back in the wolf pack!!!

Now Nian's going to harmonize you with his words..... JIM

Well after our awesome journey across the river our day only got more exciting. So jim says to me; “nian lets cruise the beach again.” And I wasn´t too pumped because I wanted to find some food and plus I knew the crabs wouldn´t be out for us to run over again so it wouldn´t be as much fun. But due to jims convincing moves I was pressured into doing it. So we start flying down this beautiful beach as fast as we can go (Jim broke 100 kph haha) when all the sudden jim finds a huge dead sea turtle.

We checked it out and it was still kinda fresh with bugs eatin it and stuff. Jim was really disappointed that he couldn´t keep the shell and become one of the newest members of the ninja turtles. But his frown soon turned upside down when he found a huge awesome turtle skull right next to the shell.

Soon after he found another smaller turtle skull and that’s when i decided the name of our biker crew. THE TURTLE SKULLS!!!

All we needed was one more skull for dave. We´d be the tuffest guys around with turtle skulls tied to the front of our handle bars.

Needless to say the big skull fell off my bag somewhere along the way so now we´re down to one skull. I think jim is going to make a neckless out of it. But for now just call us the turtle skulls.

After beach cruising and turtle hunting jim and I hit the road hard to Macieo. Jim Hated Macieo Cause his bike fell over right when we got there, and after more convincing he talked me into continuing another 250kms to Recife.  Arriving in recife jim came up with another genius idea to stay at the holiest hostel in town.

The temple! Yep, the church has hotel thing built right behind the temple for members to stay at when they are in town going to sessions. one of the cleanest places yet and super cheap. Costed us like 5 bucks each. The only bummer was they kicked us out today since the temple is closed for Sunday. But it was nice to wake up and look at the beautiful temple right out side the window. Jim was really lucky and got to do a session.

Well I guess we're going to spend the night here in Recife, Get in a good church sesh, (turns out the guy that works at our new hostel served a mission in Sao Paulo so hes helping us find church) and hit the road for Joao Pessoa or Natal tomorrow. WE were going to stay here and wait for dave as staying at the temple is super awesome and cheap.  Needless to say, now were in this hostel where we talked em into letting us sleep on the ground for $10. Not the greatest but it will do.  We really want to get some surfing in but cant because  There are these huge signs everywhere along the beach! 

Or.. Maybe we'll stay and surf with the sharks? who knows?  Tonight we decided it was time to splurge again so we went out to the most amazing Tucanos type churrasco restaurant for cheap and ate until we were sick! Filet Mignon anyone?haha

Miss you Dave... COME BACK SOON!