Up the Andes: Jo & Gareth Morgan Traverse the Andes from North to South and Top to Bottom
Through a land of contrasts - mountains and lowlands, deserts and glaciers, wealth and poverty, speakers of Spanish and us with our phrasebooks, tourist traps and lands that time forgot. Join Gareth and Joanne Morgan and their motorcycling companions as they travel to South America on the latest leg of their quest to ride the world by bike.
A ride from the Alto Plano of Bolivia and Peru to the frozen tip of Patagonia; on the wor+B10ld's most dangerous road, where the stakes are high, on to Argentina's fabled Ruta 40, where the steaks are large and cheap. Across salt pans, into mud holes, up the Andes and down again; past the ruins of the ruins of Macchu Pichu, and on the edge of the epicentre of the Chilean earthquake. Through a land of contrasts - mountains and lowlands, deserts and glaciers, wealth and poverty, speakers of Spanish and us with our phrasebooks, tourist traps and lands that time forgot. Join Gareth and Joanne Morgan and their motorcycling companions as they travel to South America on the latest leg of their quest to ride the world by bike. Thrills, spills, mishaps and misadventures, near misses and close shaves, punctures and breakdowns, injury and insult, frictions and frustrations - the rigours of expedition riding in this far-flung corner of the world promised it all, and has delivered with refried beans. But with the risks, there were rewards - the breathtaking scenery and the enriching exchange that occurs when cultures meet across the saddle of a dusty bike on its kickstand.
Author Biography: Gareth Morgan is CEO of Gareth Morgan Investments, portfolio manager, and chairman of and a consultant to economics consultancy Infometrics Ltd that he founded in 1982. He is also a well-known columnist, philanthropist and author. Gareth is a bit of a veteran now of these offshore bike trips and remains in a hurry to cover the world before his body says it won't. When not biking or working, Gareth can be found around the Cook Strait somewhere, desperately seeking the ultimate fishing high. Jo Morgan has been on bikes before she was legal. But her penchant for two wheel vehicles tells less than half of the love affair with engines. Buses and trucks play a big part in Jo's driving life back in Wellington too. Also a veteran of offshore bike riding Jo is medical officer on this trip or, as the rest of us fear, the "witch doctor". Jo's other activities include teaching, welding and raising 4 children, and nowadays an extensive portfolio of social and community work that would have the rest of us tired just reading it.
