The Best and Worst Awards

Best Adventure Road - Peru: Shorey to Cabana.

Best Scenic Road - Chile: Ruta 7 with mountains, glaciers, rivers, lakes, this road has it all.

Best Paved Road - Peru: Cabana to Chuquicara. A close runner-up is Nazca to Cusco also in Peru. This route lost because of the increased presence of crazy drivers.

Worst Adventure Road - Ruta 40, Anywhere in Argentina it’s not paved. The road surface is terrible and demands 100% concentration so that even if there were beautiful landscapes to admire, you can’t take your eyes of the road to enjoy them.

Worst Scenic Road - Chile: Santiago to Temuco. Apart from the odd winery there was pretty much nothing to see from this straight divided highway.

Worst Paved Road - Peru: Caraz to Huaraz. Truly the worst experience one can have on two wheels. Potholes, dust, cars swerving erratically to avoid the potholes. Painful. A close second is Espinazo del Diablo, Mexico. People spoke praises of this road for its curvy-ness. It’s hard to appreciate any semblance of curvy-ness though due to potholes and trucks that can’t stay in their lane. Knowing what I know now, I would have given it a miss.

Best Route - Anywhere in the Peruvian Sierra, so that the coast can be avoided.

Worst Route - Peru: Panamerican Highway 250km north of Lima until the south exit of Lima. having a major highway go through the capital of Peru is simply madness. And though we didn’t drive it (we avoided it on purpose) I imagine the Honduras section of the Panamericana would come a close second.

Country with the Best Food - Peru: The most variety coupled with the best flavours. There isn’t even a close second.

Country with the Worst Food - Mexico: Compared to all the other countries we didn’t enjoy Mexican food as much. Perhaps we had bad luck with the places we went out for food? As a side note Naomi really loved the fresh Guacamole.

Best Meal/Dish - Naomi: Palta a la Reina, Peru; Alberto: Lomo Saltado, Peru.

Worst Meal - Street food taquitos in Barra de Navidad, Mexico. Too much random parts: cow’s brain, eyes, tongue, ear, lips, stomach, etc... not enough of what I define as meat.

Favourite Country Overall - Naomi: Colombia. I like the energy of the places we visited. The people were really friendly, and the scenery was nice.

Alberto: Guatemala. I enjoyed the lakes, volcanoes, history. People were friendly and stuff was cheap. Also I ate the best stake of the entire trip in Huehuetenango.

Friendliest People - excluding Canadians we found Ticos (Costa Ricans) to be the most friendly.... Pura Vida!

Unfriendliest People - Northern Chileans with Coastal Peruvians as runners-up Not just on one occasion did we have negative encounters but several encounters. In particular in Calama, Chile. Coastal Peruvians as a whole were sneaky, and always trying to take advantage. DISCLAIMER - This is a blatant generalization.

Best Police - Naomi: Chile. Very professional; Alberto: Colombia. Very friendly and even stopped us to give us directions and warn us of road conditions.

Worst Police - Not even a contest: PERU!

Best Border Crossing - Colombia to Ecuador. Very professional with clearly marked buildings.

Worst Border Crossing - Anything involving Nicaragua. Honduras to Nicaragua and Nicaragua to Costa Rica.

Best Biking Culture - Colombia. Even though a lot of bikes were smaller cc, there was a wide range of riders. Also people wore helmets and riding gear.

Best Waterfall - El Chiflon, Chiapas, Mexico.
       
Best Mountain - Mt. Fitz Roy, Argentina.

Best Lake - Lago General Carrera, Chile.

Best Beach - West Bay, Isla Roatan, Honduras.

Hottest Girls - Costa Rica.

Best Kit Item - Naomi: Gore-tex socks ;Alberto: Airhawk Seat.

Worst Kit Item - Naomi: BMW Summer base-layers; Alberto: Collett Communication System.

Best Gadget -SPOT 2.

Worst Gadget - Collett Communication System it’s just that bad.

Best Aftermarket Bike Farkle - Gear-it-technology Crash Bars.
Worst Aftermarket Bike Farkle - Alberto’s Cheap but cool-looking Mirrors.

Best Camping Spot - EcoVenao in Playa Venao, Panama.

Worst Camping Spot - St John RV Park in St John New Mexico, USA.

Best Hotel - Hotel Oasis in Caborca, Mexico. Best bang for your buck.

Worst Hotel - Motel Viga Nueva in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

Best Day - Day #126 it had everything a GS could ask for: dirt, pavement, scenery. Peruvian Northern Highlands.

Worst Day - Day #182 because of having to deal with the police.