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| Story and photos: Laerte Mazza Filho |
Based on last year’s nice experience, I decided to once again follow the route of the Rally dos Sertoes aboard my KTM 950 LC8 Adventure. But the morning I left home in Rio de Janeiro riding my bike, I would never guess the kind of wild motorcycle adventure I was about to live over the next few days.
Along with my friend Tony, also riding his orange LC8, we headed North to Goiania, 1.300km away, and the departing city of the 13th Rally dos Sertoes, this year one of the stages of the World Cross Country Rally Championship. Always avoiding the main highways, we rode the first 700km to Sao Roque de Minas, at the border of the Parque Nacional da Serra da Canastra, one of the most beautiful national parks in Brazil. We spent the next morning exploring the park, taking a long trek to the upper part of one of Brazil’s highests waterfalls, and visiting the site where the Sao Francisco River begins its journey through five Brazilian States to end at the Atlantic Ocean 5.500km farther Northeast. After a 110km off-road ride inside the park, we ended the long day in Goiania, where the Rally action begun the next day.
There, we met three more friends that would join us in our journey, all aboard KTM 950 LC8s. We changed our OEM tires for knobbies, watched the prologue of the competition, and met our friends and other pilots making the last adjustments for the 11 days race about to begin.
The 600km of the next day were a mix of tarmac and dirt roads, where we had a lot of fun riding hard on the off-road sections. The route led us to Aruana (same as last year’s first stage), where we still had time to rent small power boats for navigating along the river Araguaia and watch one of the nicest sunsets we have ever seen.
The following stage of the Rally would head North, parallel to the river, across the state of Mato Grosso, a region of huge soybean and kettle farms, with few roads to travel across. Studying the map, there was only one road to follow to reach the next city, Sao Felix do Araguaia. All vehicles were oriented to follow this route, motorbikes, quads, cars, trucks, support vehicles, etc.
Looking closer to the road maps, I noticed a small unpaved road on the other side of the river (East), going North and then West to Sao Felix. There was a small note indicating that this route was only good for traveling from July to October, in the dry season, when it is possible to cross the many rivers along the way. It also said that this road crossed the Indian Territory, and a special authorization was required to cross their land. I called the number indicated in the map, the person on the other side identified himself as the local Funai (Federal Government Agency that deals with the Indians matters) officer, who told me that the pass was not necessary anymore, but we would have to negotiate with the Indians the toll. He also said that no one had crossed that road this year that he had known of.
The road crossed the Ilha do Bananal, the biggest river island in the world, measuring 20.000.000ha. The whole extension of the island is a National Park, and half of it is Indian Territory. Part of it was occupied by white men for live cattle farming, but in the 90s Brazilian Government relocated the white men’s families away from the island, giving it back to its original inhabitants, the Karajas, Javaes and Xambioas Indians. There are nowadays 14 different tribes living there, and they keep many of their original culture habits and their language is still used. Women Indians have a different dialect from men’s, which cannot understand what they say. Two thirds of the island is inundated during the rain season. The fauna is very rich, jaguars, capybara, tapir, wolves, deers, otter, aligator, rhea and a lot more. Some of the rivers are filled with the cannibal piranha fish.
I told my friends what I had just heard, and asked if they wanted to follow this unknown route. All of us agreed, I believe that last phrase (“no one had made the road this year”) had to do with this decision… Big mistake?! We will see soon…
And so we went. Before getting to the Island, there was a 350km transfer, mostly on paved roads. When we got to the last city before entering the unpaved road, we stopped for gas and lunch. As we were eating our sandwiches at a bakery, the owner of the place asked what we were doing there, and we revealed our plans to him. He said that he knew someone who lived nearby that had made the trip by motorcycle recently, and called the guy, who invited us to his office twos blocks away where he would give us a map with the waypoints to cross the island. He told us he had made the crossing a few weeks before with some friends, and that he did not go through the road, but through a 110km trail that crossed the island northwest. We asked him if we could follow the trail with our big bikes, he said the only problem would be the rivers crossings. He said it took him five hours to cross the island. It was almost 2:00PM, so we were not worried about time. We programmed our GPSs with the five main waypoints and left.
After the first 40kms of dirt road, we met Rio Javaes, the oriental split of the Araguaia River that forms the island. It was 150m large, and we stopped the bikes to cross the river by foot, to see how deep it was. After walking to the middle of the river, I decided it was shallow enough to ride the bike to the other bank. Everything was going well, until the rear wheel suddenly dropped in what seemed to be a hole in the floor of the river, and the bike got almost completely drowned in the water. With the help of my friends, we pushed the bike to the other side of the river, and then pushed the other bikes with the engine turned off, one at a time.
My bike’s situation was not very promising; even thou I cut the engine before drowning the bike, there was a big risk the water could have damaged the connecting rods of the engine. With the help of my friends Dener and Waldyr, we started to disassemble the motorcycle to evaluate the situation. First we took off the spark plug of the rear cylinder, it was full of water. We opened the exhaust screws and a lot of water was released. After we took the front cylinder spark plug off, we were able to turn the rear wheel, and the stroke of the engine expelled the water out of the chambers. At this time, we realized the engine was fine (thaks God!!!!), and after some time I could hear the sweet sound of the Akrapovics again! What a pleasant music! If it was not for the mechanical expertise of Dener, this story might have had another end. Thank you again, my friend!
It took us more than two hours to start riding again. It was now 4:30PM and we were at the starting point. As we begun to ride, the soil was very difficult to ride, because of the constant inundation and cattle farming, there was not a clear trail to follow. Trying to reach the first waypoint, we tried to go in the direction that the GPS arrow pointed, there were many different trails to follow, but none of them in that direction. There were no visual references too, looking 360o all we could see was pastures and green vegetation at the height of the waist. We decided to skip the first waypoint and head for the second, but again there were no visible trails to follow. We decided to go across the pasture following the indicated bearing, but many times we encountered mudholes, roots, forests and other obstacles that we had to get through or find a detour in order to follow the right direction.
After some time, we finally were at the second waypoint. The sunset was beginning, and many different colors painted the sky. Our Camelbacks were dry and we were tired, the ride was rough. The terrain changed from kettle single tracks to white deep sand to rain forest, where even during daylight the trees were so high and so thick that it was dark inside. Many of us have fallen sometimes. We headed then to the third waypoint, and, as before, there was no way to get there following any track.
The night has arrived. I have never seen anything like it. The sky was so dark and so clear that we could see million and billions of stars, the most wonderful sight. We lost precious time and fuel looking for marked trails. The reserve lights of some bikes were already flashing, so we decided to point the GPS to the other side of the island, our final destination, and follow the arrow. Sometimes the path led us to savanna-like environments, and we had to get back because there was no way out. Other times we got inside those woods forests and had to choose between different tight trails, many of them were dead-ends. It was no-men’s land, it was hours since we saw the last human being.
We crossed some abandoned farms in ruins, and at these places there were even more trails to confuse us at night. One of the worst moments came when we arrived at one of these empty farms, it was the end of road. Afterwards, just one large river, no way out. We turned the engines off, and, attracted by the bike’s lights, zillions of insects started to hit us, getting inside our sweat clothes and helmets, it was complete despair. We had to get back trying to find another way to escape from that place.
After some time looking for the path, I thought I saw a small light far away. I asked my friends if someone saw it, no one did. Was I having hallucinations? Anyway, as it was in the direction of Sao Felix, I decided to go for it. As we got closer, it was in fact a small candle light, in a small house that did not look abandoned as the others we have seen before. Illuminated by the lights of the motorcycle, there was a silhouette of what looked like a man seated in a wooden bench outside the house, but it was completely unmoving. We cut our engines and started to shout at him, but no response. One of us walked in his direction, and when he was a few steps away the man (it was a man) suddenly stood up screaming, like we were aliens that came to abduct him! After he calmed down, we explained what we were doing there. His name was Francisco, he has lived there for all his life, his wife has died a few months before, and he was planning to move from the island because he was not allowed to create his cows anymore. He offered us some fresh water and a place to sleep (it was 11:30), but we decided to go on. He gave us some hints about the route –when we said we were going to Sao Felix he said it was a two days journey – and so we went. The GPS indicated 50km to the ferryboat that crossed the Araguaia River, at the end of the unpaved road we were supposed to go first.
Like Mr. Francisco said, after a few kilometers after his house we encountered a river. To avoid more problems, we spent some time looking for the best place to go through. Each bike was pushed by four people not to risk more drowning. At the other bank I saw some motorcycle tires and horseshoes marks, what assured we were finally on the right track. After some more difficult terrain we found another river, this one deeper and muddier than the other. Again, a lot of effort to pass the bikes. Waldyr said he saw red alligator’s eyes shinning in the night while we were in the river.
As we approached the other side of the island, the trail became a little bit more clear, but many times we lost the main track; sometimes we took parallel paths that re-encountered the main, sometimes we had to get back trying to find the right way. We passed thru some farms where people still lived, and one guy with a battery light heard the bikes during the night and came to our help, showing the way. We even hit the fourth waypoint.
When we were 4km away from the ferry station, one of the bikes ran out of fuel. It was 2:00AM. We could see, far away, the lights of Sao Felix across the big river. Waldyr, Dener and Bob stayed there, while I and Tony went on, trying to get to the city and get some gas. We rode the final 4kms of trails, and when we arrived at what should be the ferry station, a big deception: we saw the ramp leading to the river, an abandoned house, and a ferryboat layed on its side on the dry! In a moment, all the exhaustion of the difficult day hit me: all my body hurt, I was hungry, thirsty, needed to rest… It was obvious: if no one used that road, why would there be a ferryboat service there?
As our bikes had no fuel too, we decide to go on to see if we met someone or something ahead. After one kilometer or so, we saw a small house with a lamp outside. Hearing the motorcycles, from the house came someone, speaking with a different accent. As he came close, I realized he was an Indian. He was very nice to us, offered food and his house for us to sleep. We explained the situation, and he said he too had a motorcycle, and he would be happy to help us, taking fuel off his bike to ours. I saw his body fully painted with his tribe’s motifs, as he told us. We took a liter to each bike, plus a two-liter bottle to my backpack, and back to our friends. They couldn’t believe how fast we returned, we put a little bit of gas in each bike and got back to Uiraru’s house. He told us he was the chief of his tribe, that in the past the chief was chosen for family laces, but nowadays there are elections to determine the chief. He was descendant from ancient chiefs but was also elected; he had his house in the tribe and also that house where we were. Thanks for everything, my friend Uiraru!
It was now 3:30AM, we were already starting to take our clothes off to sleep at Uiraru’s, when he said he was listening to the noise of the ferryboat, that in fact was half kilometer ahead of his house. We hurried there, the operator said that the ferry closes at 10:00PM, but he was hired to pick someone up at the other side. We later found out that it was Geraldo Lima, Jean Azevedo’s (the winner of the race) mechanic, which also decided to go the same way as us (thru the road). He got stuck in a river with his van and was helped by other Indians, and used a satellite phone to contact the race’s staff.
We negotiated with the ferryboat operator to take us to the other side, he charged us a lot (R$ 100, 00), but in that moment it was the bargain of the year! The trip took almost forty minutes; we all fell asleep in a few minutes. Before closing my eyes, lying on the floor of that boat, in the middle of that wide and wild river, looking to that marvelous sky, I was wondering how so many things happened in the last hours, and how happy I was to be there at that time.
But the long night was far from ending…Arriving at the other bank, we finally reached Sao Felix do Araguaia, but on the 1 km stretch that led to the gas station, three bikes ran out of fuel. We were helped by a Rally staff member, a guy with a long pony tail. He was already leaving to the next stage, but took one of us to the station and back to the motorcycles spread around the main street with gas. The sun was rising; we realized we had no place to sleep. Our pony tail friend once more helped us; he took us to the place where he had slept, a family house with some rooms to rent. His colleagues were departing, he told us to lie on their “hot” beds for a few hours and then negotiate with the owner before leaving.
The place was terrible, dirty, and full of holes in the walls and ceiling. Those people certainly did not know the meaning of the word hygiene. Anyway, considering our situation, having a place to lie down after all we have gone through, the sensation was of a five stars hotel…
We woke up at 11:00AM, our bodies complaining about the last day and night’s efforts. The next stop was a town 700km apart; we followed the main (dirt) road and got there by 11:00 PM. One more 700km long day and this year adventure was over. We abandoned the Rally caravan, loaded our bikes in a truck, and flew back to Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.
Once again, the 950 LC8 Adventure proved itself as the true adventure bike. Another 3.600km of real hard riding on our bike’s odometers, and lots of new experiences and stories to tell…
Can’t wait till next year!!! |
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