Author: Clif & Susan
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Nazca – drawing a line in the sand
800 lines and 300 giant figures etched into the desert 2,000 years ago by the Nazca culture — not, as theories once claimed, for aliens, but as rituals pleading with the gods for water.
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Susan Says Pan American Highway
A hidden firework buried under a pile of salt on Clif’s plate pops mid-meal, pelting him with salt and turning dinner into a war zone — while everyone else just laughs at the ‘big baby’.
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The Woeful Traveller ‘n Whales
A border clerk’s typo on the bike’s registration nearly derails everything — but a sunrise speedboat trip chasing humpback whales off the Peruvian coast makes the two hours of insurance paperwork worth it.
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So You Fancy A Good Sound Thrashing?
A market visit in Cuenca turns into an unexpected spectator sport: a traditional Andean cleansing ritual involving a full herb-bunch thrashing and an egg rub-down to drive out bad energy — the same ‘limpia’ Hollywood celebrities pay a fortune for.
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The Mountainous Fraud
Everest isn’t actually the highest point on Earth — measured from the planet’s center, Ecuador’s Chimborazo, right beside their hacienda that night, beats it by over 2,000 metres thanks to the equatorial bulge.
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Coffee and Chicas
A police checkpoint searches two panniers for drugs and guns but skips the third — the one holding Susan’s stashed bag of white powder, which is actually just coffee creamer. It goes straight in the bin afterward.
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Comuna 13
Once the most violent district on Earth, torn apart by cartels and a brutal 2002 military operation, Comuna 13 has rebuilt itself around hip-hop, street art and outdoor escalators — visited, fittingly, on Clif and Susan’s wedding anniversary.
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Medellin Mayhem
A gigantic truck rear-ends the bike in gridlocked toll-station traffic on the chaotic run into Medellin — no time to stop and assess, just keep moving through nearly nine hours of lawless, six-lanes-become-twelve mayhem.