As I arrive at the start of summer, here in the northern hemisphere, graders are smoothing the dirt and gravel roads. The sun is high in a bright blue sky and will not be near the horizon for several weeks. To the few world bikers who make it to the town of Prudhoe (or more correctly Deadhorse), with its migrant population of 12 000 oil workers – adjacent as it is to the largest oilfield in the USA – this small town is the northern terminus of the Pan American Highway. It’s also the most northerly point accessible by road in North America.

I am attempting to ride the length of the Americas from here to Ushuaia, a city half a world away at the southernmost tip of South America. Then I’ll turn around and immediately ride back again. I want to do this as fast as I can.

The interior of the hotel is carpeted and warm – comfortable even – and once in the room I unpack. I have four cameras and a computer, assorted wires, cables and plugs, a toothbrush, vehicle and personal documents and little else. What keeps me warm I am wearing.

The lack of darkness at night is disturbing, and I’m excited by what lies ahead: The isolated roads, the mountain ranges and deserts, the alto plano and the high plains, cities brimming with smells reminiscent of the Orient and Asia, the Caribbean; residual scents from a hotchpotch of houses made of dried earth baked in the hot sun. My mind is racing: Too much energy, I can’t relax; then suddenly I’m at peace, my eyes close and I drift off to sleep.

Yamaha’s Super Tenere seems capable of dealing with every conceivable motoring environment and nothing troubles it. If the R1’s character was one of incorrigible naughtiness, the Super Tenere is insolent by comparison. It handles a far greater range of surfaces than I am capable of travelling across with equal ability and no loss of comfort. Surely something should have snapped or come loose by now, I worry. Yet all remains secure, and there are no fluid leaks, no stains on the road after being parked up. But we still have a very long way to go.

The next day I prepare to set off. There is no ceremony for my start, no acknowledgment of what I am about to attempt; no one here to see me off or wish me luck at the start of what I fervently hope will be an unprecedented achievement.

There is nothing more than a subdued level of interest. To be honest I kind of like it that way. Though present, I was in a sense invisible; too absorbed in my anticipation of the task ahead to be noticed. The hotel receptionist and the chef sign my witness book, a written document signifying I do actually exist and am indeed where I say I am. “Goodbye,” I murmur, “see you when I get back.” The receptionist waves, not understanding the significance of my statement.

The sea is frozen and outside of the town there is no sound. Like the sea, the wind is still. I am suddenly overwhelmed by the freedom of being alone. There is a responsibility in having to deal with self-governance: Everything is under your control; every change of gear, every hour on the bike, and with every breath, a heart that beats too heavily that you feel really, truly alive – but sometimes it’s too much.

Imagine colours too vibrant, blue so bright it hurts your eyes; the unrelenting throb of the engine pressing to take you faster than you want to go, until, gently restraining, you pull back on the reins.

Most of the road to the first settlement of Coldfoot is unsurfaced, but the Super Tenere dispatches piste and paved road with equanimity. En route, straddling the North Slope Haul Road on the Dalton, the famous Brookes Range is bisected by the Atigun Pass, a steep-sided treeless valley. This is spectacular country – wild, spacious, raw, and inaccessible to most travellers for most of the year. I am on the route along which the Ice Road Truckers travel all year long – down Ice Cut, up and down Chicken Run, engine braking down Oil Spill Hill, dust clouds blowing up Beaver Slide. It is minus seventy degrees in the winter, a little over freezing in the summer. Now, although the lakes are still frozen, it is warming up, but very soon it will begin to cool again. The window for being able to ride a motorcycle here is truly that short.

The journey will be tough, I know it, but so what? I do still wonder about the relevance of it, but what else would I do with these few weeks of my life? The preparation has taken far longer than that. I have had this route in my mind for years, and the double run – riding south and then returning north – has been a dream for a long time. Young moose gallop across the melting permafrost and into shallow standing water, cold spray splashing over their summer pelts, alternately slowing then sprinting, assessing if they can get back onto the track I’ve usurped them from, and for several miles we share this joke.

I ride hard and fast. You feel strong at the start of a project because possibly you don’t know what you have to face. Then, I contradict myself because this is not strictly true. I know exactly what lies ahead, I just prefer not to acknowledge it. If I thought too much about riding the length of the Americas three times in succession I probably wouldn’t even attempt it. Instead I manage the project in my head, dealing with it in small sections instead of exposing myself to the full picture. To ride the      23,500 kilometre length of the Americas in nine weeks as a training run is quick; to then ride it twice more in succession in around 40 days is something else entirely.

The Dalton is a quiet route, but further south, on denser stretches of the Pan American Highway, there are a myriad vehicles of all shapes and sizes all competing for space. If you are prone to paranoia, there could also be malcontents waiting for a chance to pounce. It isn’t a theatre of war, more a pantomime stage on which you stand, but completely exposed.

Right now the road surface is dry dirt. The hard packed earth sometimes changes to dark red, with various shades of brown and gravel added to turn it grey in places. The road has been graded recently, levelling out the corrugations and creating a surface of both hard and loose sections, all bound by mud, wind-dried and baked by the sun.

It’s worth remembering that I am not on the Alaskan Highway but north of it, on one of the most isolated stretches of road in the world. Everywhere there are trees. Tall black spruce and aspen stand next to slender willow and birch whilst mountain ash pops up in clusters. Bald eagles compete with bears for trout, often circling around water sources and creeks. Specks of cloud hang in a stark blue sky. Alternating stretches of pavement and hard packed dirt, the Dalton Highway is lined with berry bushes; blueberries, little red cranberries and salmonberries that look like raspberries. I come across occasional small black bears in the road; they beat a hasty retreat at my approach. More worrying are the moose, appearing unexpectedly from the dense brush, often in pairs.

In 1996 I attempted this record and failed, recording 30 days from Ushuaia to Fairbanks. I got bored, disgusted with my poor showing, and went home. In 2010 I tried once more, again on a 21-day schedule. I had to abandon the ride near Santiago de Chile, three days from Ushuaia. My lack of heated clothing whilst riding in the south gave my exhausted body no time to recover. My paperwork and a camera were stolen, and ultimately my incentive to complete the attempt was simply eroded.

This time I am ready for battle. The bike feels solid. The Super Tenere is growing on me. It is truly a remarkable machine. The R1 is a very hard act to follow though – when I sit on the sports machine it makes me feel special; when I sit on the Super Tenere, I feel confident that something special is about to happen.

For days at a time I am isolated from any kind of news, and as I cross bridges and pass buffalo grazing beside the road, I construct a myopic existence where it’s easier to imagine the world is as I see it rather than as it really is. Before leaving the north I had imagined how riding across frozen lakes might concentrate the mind; the reality had been even worse. It had been very cold and the rain stung my face; the road was slippery with no other traffic so I had been alone. But already this arctic landscape was only a memory; the lakes that were still and the unmoving leaves of the tundra I would not forget, but what had cemented my knowledge of being far from anywhere was the silence. On the road my head is full of the noise of the bike and the white noise of my thoughts – the schedules and plans, the seriousness of my resolve, the fear of failure. During the rare times I stopped and switched off the engine those quiet moments unnerved me, my cacophony of internal sound evaporating in the face of the vast nothingness of true silence. I finish my coffee and leave, checking the straps on my panniers before getting back onto the bike.

Everything is as it should be. It’s raining, so I select the lowest of the Super Tenere’s throttle control settings and engage the traction control system. The bike’s throttle is controlled by a fly-by- wire system similar to that employed on my last R1 on which I rode the Americas in 2010. Using wheel speed readings from the front and rear ABS sensors to determine when the rear wheel is spinning, the bike’s ECU manipulates the ignition timing and fuel mapping to maximise traction. Personally I like the traction control off, but it does have its advantages in really slippery conditions. I exit Fairbanks in the rain on the Steese Highway and ride towards Beaver Creek, the United States border post where you cross into Canada. It is cold and the incessant rain has caused rivulets to form where the road meets the bush. I am shivering with cold. Just before the frontier I find a public funded information centre. There is an ablution block and the door is open. I park my bike on the grass behind the building and close the door behind me. The story of my life is littered with exhausted possibilities, and as I lie on the floor I know that more lie ahead in a long queue, just waiting to happen. Outside wolves howl and on the skylight above me the rain pelts down. I decide to sleep on the floor for two hours. Fully dressed I lie down, my eyelids close heavily and I drift off immediately into a deep sleep.

Focusing on his latest trip, the Incredible Ride, where Nick rode his Yamaha XT1200Z Super Ténéré 51,000 miles up and down the Americas three times – the last two laps in 46 days – it is an evening where visitors can immerse themselves in the mind-set of an adventurer who can ride 1000 miles in one day! Crazy? Yes!

Tickets are free (but limited at each event) and everyone who attends gets a free DVD from Nick. Those that are interested in what makes him tick can either call their local respective dealer to reserves a place or email Nick at nick@nicksanders.com.

Full location details and contacts are available on www.nicksanders.com

“It was too hard, way too hard, much more so than I imagined and not just the riding but the complete lack of time off,” he said. “When you go around the world on say a Guinness Record, the clock actually stops while you put the bike on the plane as cargo between continents, so it gives you breathing space, but not this time. There’s only one flight leg from Bogota in Colombia to Panama City and the rules state that this is included.”

Nick did not have a single day off unless you include arriving in Ushuaia, the southern tip of Argentina at the bottom of the second leg at 1.30 am; “it had been snowing because it was mid-winter down there and it took me 5 hours to do the last 50kms. I kept binning the bike head first in the side of the road but I crawled into the end of the leg recording 21 days 19 hours. To give you an idea of how quick that was, I think the Guinness Record for something similar is around 34 or 35 days, then I went and did it again going north in 23 days!”

Because a strap got caught around the final drive, Nick blew an ‘o’ ring so he got a mechanic to sort it out and put on metal studded snow tyres for the journey back: “Wow, what a difference, I mean these guys race on ice so what they fitted turned a 5 hour ride into 2 so I just tore into the snow heading north.”

Nick is riding Yamaha’s new machine the Super Tenere, designed to go head to head with other dual purpose adventure bikes, was it up to scratch? “It’s difficult sounding totally credible when I’m sponsored by Yamaha, but hand on heart, mothers life and all that, this is a phenomenal bike,” he said. “It has done 50,000 miles in the hardest conditions on the planet, and fast with ordinary servicing, nothing special and nothing has gone wrong.

“I love my R1′s but for reliability and for what it can do, the Super Tenere has blown me away. This bike is world class.” It looks like three times up and down the longest and toughest road in the world says it all.

“I’ve tried and tested Touratechs new Campanero double suit and it has been warm and cool just as I wanted it, basically an unusual concept that is definitely working. My Conti Trail Attack tyres won’t wear out and I’ve had brilliant support from everyone, first and foremost Carole Nash alongside my Held boots which have done 70,000 miles and Alf England over at Bedworth. You know, I just can’t do this without them so a big thanks guys to you all!!! Let’s get the final bit done.”

Nick will be home in two weeks time if all goes to plan and right now enduring heavy rain in Managua, Nicaragua. He’ll be through Honduras in the morning then El Salvador by early afternoon followed by Guatemala and just maybe into Mexico. The next three days will take him across Mexico before the final assault of North America and four and a half days to Deadhorse, Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.

On my permit allowing me to transit El Salvador, the Honduran officials pointed out how my guide directed my exit at El Salvador and not Honduras. Normally such a mistake would cost me $200, a month’s salary for people, for something I didn’t do. However all is sweet this morning and it needs to be if I am to get the bike on tomorrow mornings flight. A man with a dapper moustache wearing spectacles that were almost suitable for a woman read through the succession of stamps indicating the previous progress of my permissions. Men like him sit in a state of control, not just in dealing with me, but himself. His laughs are curt and curl the corners of his lips rather than permit a smile. For me, this is a freakish inhibition which must seep through every aspect of his life and as I think this of him I wonder what he thinks of me?

I am beginning to realise that my social life is based almost solely on such meetings at the junctions where countries meet.

Because of the stop start nature of passing through so many countries so quickly, momentum is lost and exhaustion quickly sets in. I always enjoy riding across this small country and while it has hidden blacknesses in what looks like a cheery make-up, for me it is one big highway that winds through a jungle. I meet with David and his friend Tony, two passionate bikers who found me on Facebook and want to help. We ride to Somotillo and turn left onto the Pan American Highway and grab an ice cream. David tells me about the San Salvadorian gang culture and gives me hints about what to avoid. He tells me about big cars that drive up close behind and passengers that take to close an interest in what I am doing. This sort of advice has been prevalent across the region. On the outskirts of the capital city San Jose they leave me and the last hour across Salvador is now dark and there are many trucks heaving up hills blocking the highway.

Because I am crossing Central America using a system called ‘transito’ the authorities are charging me a great deal more than what I paid journeying north a few weeks ago. The 90 day rule, of which I knew nothing, disallows you from re-entering one of the CA 4 pact countries – Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador – until this time has elapsed. It has left me no option to comply, but fortunately there is a remedy. By purchasing a transit permit allowing me 12 hours to cross each of these countries I am able to continue. Entering Honduras cost $186 plus tips to the guides and now, Louis my fixer here in Nicaragua, asks for $90 to pay for the main document called a manifest, $62 for insurance, $22 for a tourist visa and $40 for road tax. It’ll be $400 for these two countries, which, looking at the rust buckets arriving at cockroach infested cafes such as the one in which I am eating, must surely be a sizeable contribution to the Honduran GNP. Coupled with my waking bad attitude, my view of Honduras dropped a few points to which the Hondurans, I am sure, don’t care.

Nicaragua however is a very sweet country with the politest people. They are not up to speed yet with the needs progress inspires, and that is maybe why my spirits rise the instant I cross the border. The first gas station attendant is intelligent and able to share a joke and people stop to ask if I need help if they see me on the side of the road reading my map. Equally surprising is that the traffic is light and forgiving.

By midday I am on the quiet and almost cute peripherique that by passes Nicaragua’s capital, Managua. It is raining hard and it is cold and I have two hours ride to the frontier post of Pena Blancas. All too soon I exit Nicaragua and enter Costa Rica and as it is still not dark on the border, there are more miles to be done.

Used tyres carried as spares are not allowed by the Ministry of Health. Paperwork completed, I head off in day light which deserts me before I reach the southern route from Punta Arenas. Costa Rica’s famed resorts line this corridor of pleasantness. At midnight I am still riding and pull up to one of the few gas stations open and ask permission to sleep beside the forecourt for an hour. One of the attendants, who wears an Erryl Flynn moustache and a kind smile, beckons me to take my time and rest well. And that is where I rest.

Here is his first blog:

Just arrived at the Prudhoe Bay Hotel, again. It’s getting familiar. I cannot believe how I recognise where to get gas, the start of the Dalton Highway and the hotel in such an obscure place.

To world bikers, Prudhoe (or more correctly, Deadhorse) is known as the northern start of the Pan Americas, the most northerly point accessible by road in North America. I nearly started the journey from Salt Lake City, ride north to Prudhoe then south to Ushuaia and finish in Salt Lake – same distance, same double and yet, not quite. The purists would say that not starting the journey at the top or the bottom is not acceptable. It’s as broad as it is long, but I don’t want anyone poking any holes into the credibility of this record ride.

I slept reasonably but the lack of darkness at night is disturbing. I’m brimming with too much energy and don’t know how to switch off. I get my witness book signed at the reception desk. I’m determined that Guinness recognises this ride, on behalf of bikers, so that they might have a go and break this record if I get it.

I set off. It’s blue skies and sunny but cold. The sea has frozen. I like Prudhoe because tourists don’t really get here, only travellers. Here we go.

The ride to Coldfoot and over the Atigun Pass is spectacular. Wild, spacious, raw, and inaccessible to most travellers for most of the year. The Ice Road Truckers truck all year, down Ice Cut, up and down Chicken Run, down Oil Spill Hill, up and down Chicken Run, up Beaver Slide. It is minus seventy degrees in the winter and a little over freezing in the summer. The lakes are still frozen and we are in the warming up period.

The journey is going to be hard, I know it. I still struggle with the relevance of it and so far wonder what else I would do with 38 days of my life. Of course, it’s longer than that. I have been thinking of this route for years and the double has been in my head for many months. Hundreds of hours of planning in my head: Sponsors, family, partners, friends, children become the recipient of myself centeredness. I am like Truman Burbank in the Jim Carry film ‘The Trueman Show’. I have created my own world and then invite a few people to share in it.

My day includes blowing my horn at young moose as they ran alongside me. I ride at just the speed they dare not cross in front of me but not too fast to overtake and in this way I corralled them along the tundra. They gallop across the melting permafrost and into the shallow standing water, me blowing my horn when they dare veer off and for a mile or more we share this. It’s a moose joke.

The receptionist at the hotel, she’s called Berty. She was friendly, helpful and utterly not impressed with my adventure. ‘They all come up here’, she tells me, ‘all the nutters on the motorbikes’. She’s right, and going both ways is just twice the insanity. She hands me a key and go change.

The food in the hotel was free and you can eat all that you want. It’s a nice twist of hospitality having travelled so far on a bike that has now clocked up 16,665 miles. What a bike! This Super Tenere seems capable of taking everything I throw at it. I cannot make it meek. The R1 had that naughty streak and whilst not that, this bike is cheeky with its movements. It handles every range of surface imaginable and without any loss of comfort. Surely something should have snapped or come loose by now, but nothing, not a washer. We still have a very long way to go.

I ride hard and quite well actually. Feel strong because the project has started. Stop at Yukon Services by the river and meet a charming couple who sell me a bear tooth as a keep sake. They live up the river a way, all year and boy are they delightful and eccentric. I promise to visit them on the way back.

Now I am in Fairbanks, in Starbucks using their free wifi to write and send this blog. 300 miles more to go to reach 800 miles, let’s see.

Jim Wolfe, the support driver for the 19-strong crew, was later returned unharmed the following day. None of the crew was harmed during the attack, which occurred in the Michoacan region of Mexico.

Sanders, one of the world’s most experienced adventure riders, told MCN: “We were held up at gunpoint. We lost the pick-up, we lost two bikes and our money, obviously. Both of the bikes belonged to clients, luckily one was fully insured while the other was broken, so there was no real loss.

“Our driver, Jim Wolfe, was literally held at gunpoint and taken away at high speed. We got him back the next night unharmed. He’s since gone to the embassy in Mexico City and been repatriated. I’ve spoken to him and he’s fine. He’s a hero.”

Sanders was forced to take a ten hour taxi ride to retrieve Jim, who was badly shaken but completely unharmed following the ordeal.

The crew is embarking on a 16,000 mile journey across America, starting in Argentina and riding to north to Alaska but despite the experience, Sanders has vowed that the journey will continue, adding: “We’ll absolutely continue our journey as planned and we’re all fine.”

The Super Tenere on the other hand is taking this journey in its stride. I never had reservations about its ‘Yamaha’ reliability, but simply whether I would adapt to the type of bike it is – touring verses my R1 track riding position. So far so brilliant.

I am once again crossing the Andes and this bike has not missed a beat. More than speed, more than handling, more than anything associated with a good bike I need one that not just doesn’t break down, but never breaks down. Is this too much to ask of any bike? Will this bike last a total of 52 000 miles?

That night the riders decided to take a campsite 30 kilometres out of Abancay, disregarding my instructions to go a further 130 kilometres. As it was getting dark, I was considering booking a hotel for some of the riders but Jim said we should go on so he could drive at night while it remained cool.

So we set off, and by some act of sharp sightedness, Erik saw the rear lights of Andy’s bike and chased me to turn us all around. Jim would certainly have gone on to the pre-arranged campsite. Whilst we had stopped early, he would be concerned he’d missed us and presume us to be in trouble, or he would be broken down with an overheated engine. It was a small catastrophe in the making, administered by a series of stupid errors that easily happen under stressful conditions.

I turned my attention away from the major problems and looked through the window of the campsite manager’s room to see how he lived. It was scruffy and unkempt, but in the lamplight it looked almost cosy. A little girl lay in her bed, and a hollow cheeked man old enough to be her grandfather sat nearby watching television. He seemed oblivious to us, and when he looked out as we looked in, he didn’t register that he’d seen us. There was no wave or acknowledgement to indicate we were there. On a journey it is often like this. People see you yet don’t see you. So far are you from fitting in to their familiar habits or associations that this lack of context lends you a cloak of invisibility. Of course you are obvious as you ride by their dusty shacks on a wind torn alto-plano, but the reality is fleeting to the people who watch curiously from their doorways for a moment, before turning their attention back to more important matters.

At daybreak I saw where we had pitched our tents. Surrounded by vertical crags, covered in mosses and patches of trees, it was in a most beautiful location. The toilets, however, were not beautiful, and the swimming pool was empty. A loose sheep in the meadow started licking around the leatherwork of some of the men’s crotches and it was debatable who secretly disliked it least.

After the customary briefing when everyone pretended to listen to me, we lined up at the exit and set off. Jim would surely be 100 kilometres up the road worrying where we were. When we caught up with the support vehicle Jim was filling the radiator with water. He was to do this every 30 kilometres to cross the Andes. He enjoyed challenges like this, did Jim. Erik would ride ahead with a bucket and find running water or a pond and report back to Jim with it full. In some ways it gave Erik an additional reason to be here.

I stopped the group by a large open area advertising itself as a restaurant. From Northern Chile to here, such places are built with a single layer of whitewashed breezeblock and mere pretence of toilets that never work. Each toilet bowl in the adjacent ‘Banos’ area was full of the products of the dirty end of passing truck drivers. Layer upon layer of discombobulated food had begun to assume the consistency of something unspeakably solid. Frankly I would rather **** in a puddle than use a Peruvian toilet. And so, another few days pass.

Across the way in the restaurant we sat on hard chairs whilst the waitress wiped down wooden tables so we could enjoy egg and bread. All of this was washed down by warm cups of odd tasting coffee laced with condensed milk. At one level it was a breakfast of such mediocrity you wonder why you stopped to eat, until you looked up at the faces serving you, which were utterly charming.

Further up the road we met Jim, still pouring water into the radiator. It was touch and go as to whether the engine would last until Nazca. It took four fill-ups to climb the few kilometres onto the alto-plano, so by extrapolating the number of fill-ups multiplied by the distance we still needed to travel that day, I figured that Jim would need to send Erik out for 420 buckets of water.

It was a harsh landscape of rock and stubby vegetation. A cool wind was blowing and rain threatened. Jim was still filling the radiator when I left, and Erik was somewhere down the hillside with his bucket and a plastic bottle, looking for a stream.

The ride to Cusco was uneventful enough. The city of Puno was industrial and in a way, wretched. To my eyes it evaded any description of beauty. The traffic was constantly busy and the main trunk road to Juliaca presented only two narrow lanes, making driving difficult. Scenically it was scratchy with poorly levelled terraces looking unkempt. Goats and cows wondered untethered, lonely and desolate, as if owned by no one.

Behind me a train sounded it’s deep horn and two large diesel tenders marked Perurail pulled a street length of wagons containing hazardous materials. As I drove towards Cusco, the road continued to climb until once again we were at 14,000 ft when with a force I had never before experienced, a hailstorm started to fall and I had to stop and wait. Underfoot a thick layer quickly formed of small frozen balls, and the sky was black. My pillion – our lady doctor – unbraced a small umbrella and looked sanguine. Here was a remarkable woman who took such things in her stride. My pillion was the ultimate motorcycle passenger, fearless and uncomplaining in the manner of a modern day Freya Stark.

By evening we had ridden into Cusco. Without doubt one of the most beautiful small cities in the world, it is the historical capital of Peru as well as being the site of the historic capital of the Inca Empire. Sitting at an altitude of around 3,400 metres, it lords it over the Urubamba Valley, nestled as it is in the Andes. In 1983, UNESCO designated it a World Heritage Site, a place of outstanding international historical and architectural importance.

Being the whistle-stop expedition this journey obviously is, that morning we left Cusco. Brian the Aussie and Craig Dale were in the support vehicle. Brian nursing his damaged eye and Craig strapped up still with a broken collarbone. Their bikes were on the trailer making friends with Alan Clunnies Super Tenere. We were now no longer able to support anyone else should their bikes fail or should an accident befall a rider. Technically we could get a fourth bike on the tailgate of the truck, but already Jim was towing a ton weight and as a project we were stretched.

The ride over the lower section of the Andes was proving to be extraordinary. The road climbed and then swooped around corners so tight it removed any memory of a road considered straight. Horses with ribs showing through dirty skin stood hobbled by ropes around skinny ankles, behind which were views so deep and dynamic as to be unbelievable.

For several hours we rode around corners, switch backing all afternoon until we dropped the final 30 kilometres into Abancay. As we fuelled at the first gas station, a text came through from Jim that the head gasket of the support vehicle he was driving had blown. The engine temperature had gone into the red as he left Cusco and for 70 kilometres he had nursed the vehicle like an ill patient. The group had now dissipated into town for food and only by receiving short sporadic texts with Jim did we ascertain that he would be with us in a couple of hours.

Because we were carrying Aussie Brian and his bike along with Craig and his Triumph and Alan’s old 750cc Super Tenere, the support team were pulling a weight in the mountains at altitude that the engine could not tolerate. We ate, we waited. I slept, my head on my arms, hoping that this would all get better when I woke.

When Jim arrived he said we might need a new engine and that the cylinder head might be broken and warped. Jim had a head fine tuned for drama and often used this ability for effect, but deep down I knew that if anyone could diagnose the problem correctly, and solve it, it was Jim. Here we were, at 4000 metres in the Peruvian Andes hundreds of miles from anyone who could help us. Jim said that we would need a machine shop to skim the cylinder head but where would we track down a gasket? Nasca would not have the parts and Lima would be closed for the Easter holidays. I had 22 riders and 3 pillions to care for and a vehicle that could implode at any minute. It would take a driver with consummate skill to pull us through this particular part of the adventure.

“He had a mid-third fracture of the clavicle with marked displacement. The proximal portion pointing dangerously to the apex of his lung.”

Protests in Bolivia

What an unbelievable end to what started out as an ordinary day (if you can call riding in Bolivia ordinary?) It started with breakfast in the pretty mountain town of Putres. Still in Chile and climbing across the eastern flank of the Atacama we were soon high in the Andes once again. The geo-morphology was made up of layers of sedimentary rock being squashed under pressure, only to be manipulated almost with ease into contortions of extraordinary complexity. Colours of copper and zinc sparkled in a warm sunlight whilst white sulphates leached through the reds and greens to paint a picture of sublime beauty.

For us, it was an easy ride here, in the Andes. I was nearly last man, as usual and behind me the support vehicle followed, of course, driven by Jim. As we climbed higher to the alto-plano, what small stubby vegetation existed became smaller. Tufts of grasses like transplanted hair became more sporadic and base layers of broken rock were scattered between the fauna. On the top, the cone-shaped volcano Cotahue sat splendidly, her head covered in snow, her peak dormant. The road climbed to 3,600 metres and the surface alternated between broken tarmac and piste.

We exited Chile and crossed into Bolivia without fuss whereby the road to La Paz was surfaced well, weaving and undulating across the short tundra. Here, on the alto-plano life takes on a distant turn. Hunched women carry loads on their backs to homes you simply cannot see. To us it is an invisible life, one not touched by our Dallas-like cosmetic culture, and to them we ride past and I am sure these carriers of firewood and children have no idea where we are from.

At the Pachamama turn you can go right into the small dirty town or left for La Paz. The Plurinational State of Bolivia, conquered by the Spanish in the 16^th century was known as Upper Peru and is one of South America’s poorest countries with pockets of enormous affluence in the Amazon basin. Most of us were together, riding easily in the sparse traffic. Run down farms dotted the undulating landscape and women and children washed their colourful cottons in sweet looking streams. The air was cool and caught our lungs but the sun was warm. Such moments incite you to feel comfortably in control, as if all the buttons have been pressed in the right order. There are times when all the components of an expedition like this begin to sing and hum, when suddenly a queue of vehicles started to line up. We started to skirt down the opposite lane up which there was no movement of traffic. Truckers and motorists waved us to stop but we carried on. Police patrols signalled that we could continue but soon bricks and rocks started to appear, strewn orderly with the intention of bringing all traffic to a halt, when at the head of the queue a violent demonstration of people brought us to a standstill. From opposing embankments, rocks were thrown at riot police, each supporting different sides of the government. President Evo Morales was no longer unanimously supported by the indigenous Indian population who originally voted him into office. His reforms had not brought the benefits they had hoped for. A rock narrowly missed my head and a chap with a bolas and stone came forward menacingly when a series of individuals told us to leave immediately. That did seem like a good idea. So I turned round to the chaps and lady pillions and suggested we make a getaway.

The road was covered in rubble making the heaving of heavy bikes difficult but soon we rode back fifty metres the way we’d come. Paul Truelove shouted he’d spotted a bus being driven across a field and indicated that was our only chance, so without a moments breath we turned off-road, all 22 of us. In a storm of dust we rode gracelessly but effectively across patches of turnips and potatoes. I caught a carrot bounce off my windscreen whilst the leaves of a yucca plant were kicked up by Paul’s back wheel. The protestors didn’t pursue us; in fact, a new group applauded us when we popped out through a field of alfalfa and onto the road leading to La Paz.

At nearly 12,000 ft La Paz is the highest capital city in the world and sits in a bowl surrounded by the mountains of the alto-plano and the towering triple-peaked Illimani. Under the shadow of this mighty mountain, the autopista led down to the city centre, which was emptied of traffic. The strikers had prevented anyone driving into La Paz unless they were capable of motoring over poor peoples allotments and to rub salt into the wound, 40 police armed with CS gas canisters riding 650 singles, escorted us into town. The journey continues.