Not quite so Long Way Up...

Miracles do happen it seems! Des has arrived, fresh from his little holiday in Miami. Chose to go it alone with the whole customs/shipping/merry go round rather than take up Dakarmotors’ expensive offer of help. As it happens it only took six hours and the officials were most helpful. A fairly short ride back to my prison cell at Dakarmotos and a day of final bike preparations mean that finally we’re all set the off. So now with two weeks of my ten already gone before I’ve even got going and my request for assistance with some shift swaps at work seemingly going down like diarrhoea in a swimming pool it leaves no option but to re route. With weather reports coming in of snow across Patagonia and a lack of time the planned new route is now to head north to and through Brazil (via Rio de Janeiro) to Belem, take a four day boat up the Amazon river and somehow try to get into and through Venezuela, Columbia and Panama to rejoin our original route from there. How possible this is I have no idea, neither I suspect, do I have enough Malarone pills for the jungle ahead but I’ll just have to work it out. This is what we do...