Good concerns for sure. However I should mention that literally hundreds of people have done this trip. The spring junket in April had 30 people who all survived, the summer one coming up in a month will have closer to 40 going, and our rally group will have probably more like 50, if the signups are any indication. The Adventurists have been doing these in South America since 2009, and the route was just changed to be only in Peru--they used to go from Ascuncion to Cusco and back--that is traveling through Paraguay AND Bolivia plus Peru. No body bags yet, but one guy broke his collarbone and another pair lost their moto off a cliff but jumped to safety.
We hope to travel in caravan with some of the other motos, when possible, to help each other with repairs and so forth. We'll have a comprehensive medical kit, spare parts, and a Spanish (good call on having it in Quecha, too, Michael) explanation of what we are doing to show people.
Maybe it is all that time on the sailboat, but we really don't freak out about being stranded somewhere. I mean, if I'd had a heart attack when we were living aboard and cruising through the Bahamas, I'd surely have died before the paramedics got there. Too bad, but I got to see the incredible color of the water after a summer storm passes over the Caribbean. Fair trade for the risk.
I'm taking the risks seriously, but I've followed the prior teams progress very closely, emailed for advice from them upon their returns, and will take what we can for provisions. After that, Providence will have to take us where she will.
We aren't machete-ing our way through the jungle with cannibals, but we are taking a ill-suited small unreliable vehicle through very inhospitable territory that includes the mountains and desert coastal roads. If our parents knew what we were doing, they'd be just as alarmed as y'all.
Michael, I am very grateful for your counsel and take it very seriously. But in the end, I can't populate those towns with people or with mechanics, nor can I predict the heart attack that Alan saw on his hike. So we either stay home and wish one day that we'd had the cojones to try it, or we go for it. We'll either have some hella good stories or those nice new wills we signed will get a workout.
And thanks--I already bought our travel toilet paper! Never be without that again, after Mongolia's "natural toilets"!