Today we had two cyclists arrive that are from Salida, CO. They are doing a bike tour of Chile and were super nice. One of them actually used to own a hostel in Salida but had recently sold it to her business partner. They both work at a small restaurant/brewery. Shortly before they arrived a guy named Andrew from the UK showed up with a big motorcycle. He is doing his own little tour of South America (was stuck up in Lima for two months waiting for his motorbike to arrive from England, which was a huge debacle and ended up costing him a lot more money that he thought). He is traveling alongside a group of 30 cyclists doing a 4 month trip in South America. The owners of the company that is hosting the cyclists is a friend of Andrew. They have a truck that drives along behind the riders that carries their camping equipment and also houses the equipment to cook their food (they have a chef travel with them, as well as a mechanic and paramedic). The people who cycle pay a lot of money for the trip and the company makes a ton of money. I guess it's mostly paying for the peace of mind of safety? Hmm... Anyway, Andrew was a funny guy with lots of personality and a lot of stories. He used to drive trucks for tourist companies in West Africa.
He was driving a BMW motorcycle and had recently crashed it from hitting a huge pothole and one of his metal saddlebags was badly crunched. He took it into Coyhaique to see if a guy could fix it and it came back like new! Goes to show what a little ingenuity can do! He also was in need of a mechanical part for his bike but it was going to cost his a boatload to get it, so he decided to just cross his fingers and milk it as much as he could. While he was stuck in Lima waiting for his bike to get shipped to him he decided to start programming a website called "Arrgh Dictionary", a dictionary for the spelling challenged. Haha. After he learned I went to school for graphic design he asked me if I would be willing to try to design 42 small graphic icons for him. The site was still in development and he was having trouble finding a designer while on the road. I sketched up a few things that he liked so I will send them him the finished icons via his email and he will try to send me some money for my work. I hope he made it safely down south with his bike. He is planning on maybe traveling to Asia next to be with his long term long-distance girlfriend... Asia is on the maybe "next travel destination" list so I might end up having a contact there! I like this job a lot..... :)