San Francisco -California

Golden Bridge

Alcatraz prison

Is not easy to be a tourist.We started looking for hotel and we met a Brazilian girl at the reception which convinced us to stay giving us a special price. Also we met two Brazilian couples from Florianopolis on Holiday, very friendly and invited us to come to their house in Brazil, free hotel. Haahhahahah.
We spent 3 days at the weekend, beautiful city. We were very tired and decided to stay at the hotel that Friday. The next day we started walking around very early, but just few minutes late me and Elenice was already half way dead. Is not easy to walk in a City with so many hills. On Sunday we decide to take the bike and ride around the city, it was much more comfortable.
We left San Francisco on Monday and leave toward Los Angeles for a road with beautiful scenery to take our breath away ,however dangerous and filled of closed curves we could not ride more than 30 or 40 miles. We had the intention to stay overnight in camping area by the beach, however we did not find any nice beaches. In our mind California was more or less a paradise but we were wrong.
We decided to change once again our rote and we headed California-Arizona through beautiful and lonely mountains and farms which seems made of gold because of the dry grass. We drove through oil field, we also crossed gorgeous mountains and finally we saw astonishing green valley that when we got close we saw that whole valley was irrigated farms in the middle of the desert. It was like a dream seeing some green area after hours and hours of driving. In an infernal heat I decided to open my jacket and tried to get behind the windscreen and get some cold wind I stand up and I had quickly to sit back because the wind was too hot. It was an infernal heat of 45 degrees.
We quickly started looking for a place to spend the night having a great air conditioning until the following day to prepare to cross the hottest of all that USA and known as Death Valley (Valley of Death) being the lowest point and hot throughout USA. We stayed and rest at Bakersfield. It was a beautiful city which looks very rich, all houses were mansions however the city was divided by poor and rich, we could see exactly where poor lived. Once Again we left not early as we planned because we are always lazy.
The next day we left the old route 66 in California that connects Los Angeles to Chicago across the entire country, now there are only small parts of it because of the new highway, quicker and safer.

Hot times- Direction San Francisco California

After a few miles with curved roads, we drove for many hours on flat land passing by small indigenous villages leaving behind all the bad weather and finding a blue sky and a lot of sunshine. By early morning we drove on way to the parks; most famous of all USA (Yellowstone National Park) seeing a very rich fauna, several animals, which many of them never seen by us.
There were several places where boiling water was coming out of the earth. We started riding to a higher area in the park in search of a camping area, fun enough we began to observe that the higher we got the cold it was; still we could see a lot of snow between the trees. We drove until we found a camp where we stopped and tried to stay however it was full like all others camping site inside the park. We did not had a choice, we had to ride for few more miles and stay in a camping outside of the park where it was full of mosquitoes and bears ,while Elenice went to check I could see how people was annoyed with the mosquitoes because was too many around .
The next day we left early towards Salt Lake City through beautiful roads. The more we went towards south the hotter it was getting. We arrived at Salt Lake City which reminded us the bad side of a big City; traffic jam, pollution and very noisy etc.
After few days travelling for only small towns we were again in a very big and hot City. When we entered the city center, we were crazy to leave as quickly as possible. I changed the route to San Francisco in California, to get out of Salt Lake by the route 6 and 50 considered the most solitary road of all USA. After driving for hours we passed by strong winds, sand storms and very solitary areas , sometimes staying for up to 40 minutes without passing by any car, only by some petrol station like old west style and some cities where had plenty casinos which was already in the state of Nevada where gambling is 100% unrestricted .
We drove through the desert of the states of Utah and Nevada and arrived at Sam Francisco California.

Bears land

We drove all day until near the border states of Yukon to British Columbia territory better known as the Bears land hehehehe . we stop at a cafe in the side of the road and find a couple of Dutch who also were doing the same route that we are and another biker from California who came from Alaska we stopped there and started chatting to more or less 1 hours. No one was in a hurry, you understand…………..

We decided to hit the road because we would spend hours and hours there talking hehehehe. As soon we were on the road we started seeing some animals to the roadside, Aussie, Bears etc…

We stopped at Jasper national park e in Alberta; we were required to pay $ 20 (Jasper National Park) if we cross. We kept stooping several times to take beautiful photos. Unforgettable place, we stayed for the rest days driving slowly and enjoying ourselves.

We stopped at Lake Louise. Where stayed for the night. I had the worst night so far. It was expensive and very cold, and too helps us was raining. We woke up early (4:00) and headed to Jasper national Park. After few miles we filled our tank and just after few miles we found a guy in a BMW adventure without petrol ,his thank was 33 litres , imagine running out with petrol with a thank of this size? We offered him to follow us until the next petrol station .Was about 4 miles and he was hoping to find his friends, he had lost them as I do not know hehehehehe.When we arrived he was very happy, even wanted to pay us, however I just asked for a picture, because the bike had a stickers saying LONG WAY UP. Was the nearly the same as Ewan McGregor and Charlie Bowman the long way down long way around.

We headed to Calgary 150 miles away. It rained for the rest of the day, we were soaked. We decided to take a rest in Calgary and on Monday we had to change our tires. We stayed all day in bed resting; it really helped us after a so difficult day.

On Monday as soon we organised our things we headed directly to a store that was BMW authorized. I expected it would be extremely difficult to change the tires however we had the luck of having the exact size of my tires for my bike. We spent more than $ 300 for Rear tire.

We follow straight to the border with USA; we drove for about 20 minutes to leave the city and started to rain for about 3 or 4 hours. When we got to the border another surprise we thought it would be a large border with many officers, when we arrived there only one official, by the way very nice, offered us some maps of the state from the next state which was Montana.

Fairbanks to White Horse Canada

Now we are going to Canada through 3 states Yukon, British Columbia and Alberta which are known by bear’s land where you see more bears than people, leaving only 201 miles to the border between Alaska and Canada. In the last 100 miles once again, I was on the road without petrol , seems that I haven’t learned the lesson ,if you ride 50 miles and see a petrol station, stop and fill it up because you never know when you will see another one. We passed by beautiful landscapes, rivers and finally we saw Alaska border: beautiful board (welcome to Alaska) while the other side of Canada a simple card saying Welcome to Canada.

During our trip pezao once again nearly run out with petrol. We stopped to fill the tank, however the petrol station was disable, the pumps was chained and all broken , it look like it that was closed ages ago. We drove few miles more, and finally we found a petrol station. Once it looked closed, however when I called a man appeared saying thanks to wake me up, its time to close, thanks God we were able to fill our tank.

Were drove a bit more and decided to stop for a camping, which was located by an immense a beautiful lake. During our whole trip I was afraid of bears, and when we spoke to the camping office the lady told us that we should becarefull with bears, because two bears were walking around and we should not cook or eat any food on our tend, smells attracts bears attentions. We had to keep our food inside the laundry. I went to have a shower and when he returned I Elenice was by the window inside the laundry saying that she saw a bear nearby.

During the night a couple came to our tent screaming, saying that their tent has been attacked by a bear heheheheh, but just at the end she said, the reason could be because they had eaten fish inside her tent. We carried on sleeping and on the middle of the night I (Elenice) woke up with some noise, Pezao was saying go, go, go, and I asked him what was going on. He said that he thought that a bear was around and that he heard some noise; I started laughing and asked him if this was the way to scare a bear. Afterwards he said the he has put his life in risk and the next time should be me because he is the person which knows how to drive, knows the route.

The next morning we followed to White Horse, one of the greatest cities in Canada, leaving behind the most beautiful mountains. We cannot express our feeling and the privilege of seeing so beautiful things on our trip.

We stopped at White Horse, after weeks missing KFC we stopped and finally had a proper food hehehehehe. In Dead Horse we met 2 biker also doing the same route with a BMW and another with an Africa Twin, the same as we have, the only difference is that they had bold tires. They told us that we should by buy pepper spray, because we will need in order to continue our trip. We bought the pepper spray and when I was trying to use, I pressed by mistake and the spray went straight to Elenice eyes. At least I know its works, because Elenice was shouting, coughing, crying and asking for water, she was complete blind. If works with bears it works with the thieves in South America. We decide not to stay at White Horse and we headed to Yellow Stone and then Calgary.

Back to Fairbank

During our trip back, Pezao parked the motorbike to take a picture, unfortunately he dropped the bike, thanks God he did not get hurt. One truck driver was passing and stopped to help us. We always read about when we have something fun we should take a picture; I was so afraid that he was hurt so I did not take any.

We stayed once again at Cold Foot, and only then we realized that Pezao,s legs was swollen. We still had 260 miles to get to Fairbanks. We stayed overnight and we left early on next day.

Because we did not know why his legs were swollen we decided to stay two days at Fairbanks. We met Paul from England which was doing the same journey; Alaska to Patagonia however was doing by Motobike.