Chile’s Atacama Desert, Artists At Work, And More Chicken

     Miles and miles of desert, the Atacama.  It is hard to believe that day after day we would ride and see nothing green growing.  Of course when we realized that it had not rained in 500 years, the rocks and sand made more sense, but it was such a stark contrast from the jungles of Peru it was almost unbelievable to see.


Greg says riding the Honda in the deep sand of the desert was like trying to stay on top of a greased pig.  Donna-Rae asked why Greg had ridden a greased pig.

As we were riding through Chile both were working on various projects.  Greg, a professional photographer and writer, is constantly gathering material for his assignments.


The fieldwork is not always pretty and some wonder how a photograph of an old car is interesting, unless you are an old car buff.

Donna-Rae has been working much of the time on her children’s book illustrations.  Her latest project is a book about a shy lion named Rocco, so named after a friend we stayed with in Quito, Ecuador named Ricardo Rocco Paz.


A watercolor painting of Rocco the lion, one of many Donna-Rae has done for her new book.  She has been carrying her paint supplies on the trip, often working early in the morning and late at night when her Parkinson’s medicine keeps her awake.

A new small digital camera has been Donna-Rae’s occupation during the day.  She takes photographs from the back of the motorcycle while moving.  Sometimes they are good enough to see what went whizzing by at 60 mph.  Her specialty seems to be the back of Greg’s helmet though, as there seem to be numerous shots of it and the back of his jacket.  She says they are art, but more likely they are from her fluttering fingers pressing the shutter button in her shaking hands.  By the time the ride around the world is over Donna-Rae will probably be able to claim a Guinness World Record for the most photographs taken of the back of a motorcycle helmet.

     One of the questions often asked is what about the food where we have been?  The answer is generally the food has been very good and not costly.  On the downside however is chicken is the main stay, like rice is in China.  Donna-Rae likes chicken so is quite happy to eat chicken nearly every day.  Greg is not so enamoured with the foul.  He says the cooking chicken smells like the burning bodies being cremated in India and Nepal.  He kept asking for a thick slab of beef but what he got was closer to the well worn insole of a biker’s boot.