and i thought i was getting old

spent my birthday in a 10,000bc city.

( some say, others 1000ad... who knows)
Chan Chan doesn’t have the sex appeal of other ruin areas ive visited on the trip but it blows them away in terms of historical dating. Chan Chan is pre-Incan inhabited by Chimu people. who lived there for 11000 years until discovered by the Incans who then conquered. ruin area is huge covering miles of ground and very simplistic in its nature. located about 300 yards from the ocean…. pretty smart to have an irrigation system in the city way back thenchimu were water people…..evident in their architecture where the x designs represented fish nets and borders of fish, seals, and seabirds on almost every wall.

They are still excavating a lot of the grouds. site was discovered in 1890.

kept thinking star wars movie..... luke skywalker came walking down a corridor

Went to Huanchaco, a surf town about 10 minutes from Trujillo, Peru afterward for a few beers and some beach. popular tourist destination...lots of bikinis.
They have traditional chimuca boats that ae weaved out of straw grass... people still use to fish with, like a kayak but knee or stand on
Back to Trujillo, beautiful 1500 Spanish style city, second biggest in Peru and found an English style pub to finish off the day. Tomorrow back into the Andes....

something more important

By no means am i a professional philanthorpist (I can hardly take care of myself) but I do know an opportunity to help keep abandoned kids off the deadly streets in Cordoba, Mexico. While I was there I visited a a contact of stephanie gatica, a friend from Iowa.
Casa Hojar Peregrinos de la Palabra de Dios orphanage is privately run and supported by Chucho Melchor Torres and his family. They buy fruits and vegetables in the mountains and load them in his truck to sell in at city markets. In addition there is guy named Skip Spindler (949)-722-1194 who almost solely supports the orphanage sending 1500 a month with some help from his church in California. also the efforts of Stephanie who helps monetarily, medically and has set up volunteer trips to help out at the orhanage doing work etc. for a week or two at a time. the kids got a kick out of sitting on the bike One thing that sticks out from my visit was their adamancy about not opening the door to my room at night. “NO MATTER WHAT DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR TONIGHT, NO MATTER WHAT, FOR NOTHING”
Ok I got the message loud and clear but still asked, why? The sick reason was something no one wants to think about…people (scumbags) come to the orphanage sometimes at night to steal anything they can, like food, money, cows, chickens and most shockingly the kids. To either sell or use as a way to get money I suppose? At any rate the orphanage does have a nice chain linked fence but it doesn’t quite keep all the scum out. Thankfully no kids have gone missing, yet.

This ride isn’t something I do everyday like a trip to the grocery store so I am thinking I can use it to both see and experience all these different countries/ cultures along with great riding but also hopefully raise enough money and volunteers to buy and set-up a rod iron tall fence that would surround the premises of Casa Hogar orphanage. Which I think would take $15,000 for the fence itself and as many people as possible who want to help with the physical labor of setting it up, probably a week or two worth of work. Can anyone who reads this help with any of that? I hope so.

here is a view of the current fence which is good but can be gotten over or cut fairly easilythey have a guard dog on the roof that does a good job of making noise but not sure actual attacking. he did guard the food/supplies we bought at the store thoughChucho set up the orphanage in 1992 after spending years working at others and experiencing the taking advantage aspect while the government did support orphanages. Now they don’t and he and his family opened an orphanage and somehow were found by Skip from California who donated 5acres of land and built them a building in 2002 which houses up to 100 kids. They currently have 75 there. The kids are fed clothed disciplined, schooled and able to live as normal a life as possible without being forced to survive on their own in the streets, most importantly they feel some love and care. Imagine growing up without any. The ages range from 6 months to 18ish. They love Chucho and his family as showm by many kids who continue to visit once out as adults and its clearly evident that he loves them. Quite a thing to see in poverty stricken country with loads of corruption. keep grounds up nice and have area for activities, growing fruit/veggie, chickens, and cattle etc.view of girls dormbarred windows and big locks on all doorskitchen areawent to a park pickup/party day with kids from their school day in a jungle-ish area, cool interaction If you are anything like me you may be skeptical about charity and donating from watching guys on tv in front of huge crowds asking for money with flickering eyes wearing $50,000 watches in Armani suits. Has always bothered me to know they are living fat off of charity and tells me at least some, probably lot of big charity organization money is going in pocket and not to cause. This is not the case at all in this small chance to help, i guarantee everything that can come of this will be going directly to the orphanage and ultimately directly to the kids safety.

saying goodbye for time being but promised to be back later

As I am half way thru the trip now the idea I think that will work best is try to raise the money thru this blog and email me if you are interested in helping out in anyway(volunteer or donation, both?). My email is mhaley27@yahoo.com Everyday during and at the end of the trip I will tally up all that have emailed and said they will help out on the blog and then go from there on how to get the fence and set up a week or two to go there and build it. Sound good? If you have other suggestions on how to raise some $$ or charity type experience please let me know/ teach me how we might be able to work this in a different or better way.
One suggestion is donate per mile…Ive done around 9000 and have about 10000 left. again, I will continue to update daily as anyone contacts me willing to help out in anyway. I will also start out with my own personal pledge of $1000 toward the fence and my time to go there and build it, thus leaving $14,000 left. Will you help? time?? $1, 5, 10, 100, 1,000, 1,000,000,000 ...anything is something
Please tell anyone you know about this blog/ride/small project to keep some kids from living day to day in poverty stricken streets or stolen and god knows what done to.
They do have a bank account and you could donate if you want to that way but I’d like to keep it simple and get verbal commitments and add it up and combine to buy the fence and make sure every cent goes to it.
The information of Casa Hogar is as follows
Jesus “Chucho” Melchor Torres- Director
Santa Rojas Olmas- Director
Phone---01152127111095494
Address
Casa Hogar Peregrinos de la Palabra de Dios
Carretera Anaranjal
Congregacion 20 de Noviembre
Cordoba, VeraCruz, exico
94480

left for dead

Understandable why people go to the desert for spiritual journeys or to do halucigen drugs…….. the vast amount of nothingness leaves nowhere to do/go but inward. for the last couple days I’ve been riding across northern peru desert. At first a welcome change, easy flat riding at high speeds staring off into nothing thinking about everything from needing to cut my toenails, people I know, my childhood/adulthood to the harsh realities of the 2 and 3rd world countries I have been riding in that are impossible to harden up to. After awhile boring and depressing really. fun riding in the sand but not easy on this big of bike
vulchers munching dead roadside dog, jumped off when heard motor

try to keep the negative stuff off the blog but one harsh reality that gets me most is the amount of street kids everywhere. No mom, no dad living on the street to fend for themselves…. these societies just accept it…. not really, most locals shoo them off like rats…its painstaking to watch time and time again. you want to go up and crack em upside the head…what the fuck is wrong with someone that would a shooo a 4 yr old off like a pest!
since entering mexico and thru every country so far….. ive seen from as young 3 4,5 yr olds dirty, shoeless working streets begging, or selling chicklet pieces of gum and the like for a penny or 2 to survive the day and sleep on the streets near ??? Because the concrete is warmer from the plumbing. unlike many other unfortunate things that now sadly don’t even phase me this one always will.
Ok some others not so sadly like the insane driving and directions. if you ask a person literally standing in front of a bank, where a bank is they will tell you its quatro cadres y de la recha y dos mas calles de la racha…always finishing with todo delarecha todo! which if you listen to you will end up at shoestore. occasionally would come accross left for dead villages or homes

There are tons more annoyances, most are easy to harden up to, accept and deal plus i dont want to dwell on negative. but Kids on the street is impossible to ignore(if its not for anyone that reads this please get off this blog and don’t come back). Whats gonna happen to them, where are they gonna go. You can see in their eyes they turn 40 before reaching puberty and are probably unlikely to reach the age of 18. If they do with no education and a street only life you can guess their adulthood will be crime. Most governments dont help at all because some people have used “orphanges” just to get the money for themselves. So its private orphanages or left on the street curb. In Cartagena, Colombia there were thousands of kids living in the street doing whatever to survive including pick-pocket etc.…once tourism started picking up in the last few years they just disappeared….where?….all of them!
Ok enough rambling about it, there is an opportunity to at least DO a little something. (next post)

occassionally there were trash dumps in the desert with a few people living in them

If haven’t rode motorcycle in dessert and want to know what its like I’d suggest finding a big sand colored wall… put a high back kitchen type chair in front of it…. sit on it backward facing wall with arms holding onto back corners like handlebars….grab a 5 gallon bucket and cut out a 3x5 inch face space…cover it with saranwrap to act as a visor, put it over your head and shove a vacuum hose or hairdryer in there to create the loud wind tunnel sound….tilt chair over on two legs but keep your feet on ground to create the lean from constant 30mph wind, occasionally have friend or family member surprise come up and push you from any direction to represent random wind gusts. Sit there for 8 hours letting your thoughts go whereever they will…..youre ridin in the desert.

quite a few crashes on the ride but luckily no deaths. this truck rolled swerving from a blown tire just in front me. a few more feet and it would have been over the bridgelots of fishing towns just past the border, love the old wooden boats riding can be a family affair too.....look close... 4 of themmost suprising was coming across this very healthy corn field in the middle of the desert growing right out of the sand who ever idea it was to put this billboard in the middle of the desert is either a simple marketing genius or an asshole (probably both.) constantly thirsty and not a soda available for hundreds of miles

bizzaro world to chaos

last day in ecuador woke up and headed for the border....ive seen so many lanscapes in short periods here i should have been prepared. but road to the border was as bizarre as it gets...goes from rugged mountain to desert canyon to lush lush green to ocean in bout 20 miles. apparently its because the andes are so high they block off the moisture from the ocean on one side and keep it on the other.

got to the border late so decided to stay there. mistake.....didnt sleep much as the hostel turned out to be another skank love motel.....by the hour noise meant very little sleep...next morning up and out early got taken for $20 on fake money exchange at the border....good news is i found out you can upload videos...play below