I’m sitting here in an Airport once again, this time awaiting a flight to Cusco so I can go and see Machu Picchu. The computer unit for my bike is in the post thanks to Steve in BMW cork. It should be here next Sunday and installed next Monday. I fly back to Lima on Wed next and hopefully everything will be fixed allowing me to be on the road that day or the next. Steve buddy, thanks very much you’re help, without you I fear I could be here for a month and in that case there would be little point in going on. I really owe you one.

 
To get this unit and have it installed is going to cost me around 1400$ all up. I raced through Ecuador and Northern Peru to see the Dakar rally only to be let down 200km from the finish by this useless part that has no place in a bike as far as I’m concerned. My bike is two months out of warranty as well but I’m hoping BMW will come up with a good will warranty and help with the costs. This incident has set me back two weeks now so I might have to miss out on a lot of what I wanted to see because making it to the bottom of the Continent before March is extremely important as it will be too cold there after February to enjoy. I bought a BMW for this trip because they are supposed to be hassle free but I’m really discovering the opposite.

 
Patagonia and beyond is what I’ve been looking forward to since leaving Alaska. I much prefer the people free wild open spaces than the cities, I’d prefer complete isolation to anywhere populate any day. I suppose it’s just as well the bike’s computer has let me down here rather than in the middle of nowhere like Patagonia but I’m still not happy about it. It should not have let me down at all. It’s supposed to be there to help not hinder.
Anyway I’ve decided to fly down and check out Machu Picchu while I wait for my bike to be repaired. I’m meeting up with some friends there, Mark, Andre, Kerman, Nick, Ivanka and the guy who calls me Fred. I’m going to hire a bike and ride a dirt track to Machu Picchu for 4 days. It will take a few days to explore so that will keep me busy and out of the city. I will have to return this way when I get back on the road because I want to see lake Titicaca if I have time, but at least I will have seen Cusco and when I return and won’t have to stop for more than one night.

 
When I was booking the flight on the net the offer of a return flight from Lima to Cusco was $137. When I went to pay I found out it’s only for Peruvians. I had to pay $400+ to get on the same plane. When I looked into getting train tickets for the journey from Cusco to Machu Picchu I discovered, for locals it’s about $10 and for foreigners its $100+. I’m not complaining rather just thinking aloud, what sad state the world is in when one person can afford to pay up to 10 times more than someone else for the same thing. They are right to charge foreigners more so that they can share in the world’s wealth. If one person can afford to pay up to ten times more than someone else just because they were born in a different geographical area the world is truly screwed up.
It makes me so sad to see the contrast between the rich and the poor here as well as anywhere else. This world is full of so many great people and holds so much beauty on one hand while on the other it’s full of greed and ugliness. While people continue to measure wealth on the basis of having more than the next person we will never be equal and without equality I fear the world will never be happy or at peace. There is an old Maori saying “Wealth should be measured by how much you give away not by how much you have” and how true it is.

I have a great fear of reincarnation because of the fact that there are more horrible places in this world than good which narrows your chances of coming back to a better life. Buddhists believe we keep coming back until we figure it all out. Hindu’s have a belief that the better you are in this life the better your next life will be. These theories both terrify me. I don’t ever want to come back to a world where people use and abuse other people more than they love and help each other.

 
There are people living in hell holes around the world working 18 hours a day for pittance because they know no better and everyone else just turns a blind eye and profits from it. Slavery was never abolished it was just replaced with a monetary system that keeps people in their place. Are we to blame just because we are born in a better place or are we to blame because we turn a blind eye to the affairs of the world. Each day the likes of CNN and Sky news feed us complete bullshit to keep us blindfolded to what’s really going on. (One time when I was in Lahore Pakistan watching BBC I was surprised to discover I was in the middle of a war zone,Pakistan was officially in a state of emergency. Luckily they told me because I didn’t know). Governments start wars on false pretences and only a handful of people object. Innocent people are slaughtered like live stock but because they are far away and no one cares. We need the oil and gas and we need it cheap. And we need this because electric cars are kept off the market to keep us feeding shareholders of the oil companies. Just like the unprofitable pharmaceuticals are never manufactured and plants that grow in the ground are made illegal. And worst of all governments start wars so their economies and their buddy’s companies can profit from all this.   I know there is a hell and it’s right here on earth for many people but maybe all the poor and hungry people were  oil-profiting-world-destroying-bastards in their last lives. Maybe there is equality….

Oh what a wonderful world.
Rant over.