Jungle Gearhead

Previously on The Adventures on Jeff and Kate, we were explaining that in Iquitos nearly everyone seems to travel by mototaxi or motorcycle. If you were very poor (no, poorer than that) and needed a vehicle to get you around, what would you buy? A small simple motorcycle like a Honda XR100 seems like the perfect choice. It’s cheap to buy, very cheap to run, and nearly indestructible (I and many of my friends have tried, to no avail). It seemed like about half of the motorcycles in town were 125cc Honda air cooled 4-strokes, some looked new, but most don’t look much different than the ‘82 XR80 I have sitting in my garage. Besides the venerable Hondas, there were many similar Yamaha, Lifan, and Zongshen motorcycles, the last two are blatant Chinese rip-offs of the Hondas. I saw about 3 motorcycles with larger engines, and one KTM (also a 150cc air cooled 4 stroke).  Kate mentioned to our guide, Billy, that I rode my motorcycle to Honduras a few years ago, he was instantly intrigued. He asked how big of an engine my motorcycle had. He was amazed when I said it was a 650. He asked all kinds of questions about it, and Harley Davidsons.  I didn’t have the heart to break it to him that I had since sold the 650 because it was too slow and now have a 400 and a 929. Billy is 21 and saving up for a motorcycle. He explained that it’s a 30 minute bus ride from work to his house, or a 5 minute mototaxi/motorcycle ride. He also works as a waiter and often gets off work at midnight and takes the bus home because a 6 Soles mototaxi ride was out of his budget (the Peruvian Nuevo Sole is worth about US$0.36) I saw the local busses and I’m not quite adventurous enough to get on one. He definitely needs a motorcycle. He pointed out the Yamaha FZ 150 he was saving up for. It’s like a super-budget version of my dad’s FZ1. I kinda want one too.

The mot otaxis weren’t much different. The moto part of it fit the same description as above, ~125cc 4-stroke of varying vintage, some new and modern, some old and beat but still running. Hondas. The rear of the mototaxi was almost more interesting, almost all of them are identical. I can’t decide if I think they were made in China or locally, but definitely not in Japan. Wheels were rarely round, chassis often showed signs of repair, and you’d see them carrying everything from tourists to bananas to chickens. The mototaxis definitely got used. They had a jackshaft around where the rear wheel would be if it were still a motorcycle, and a second chain running to the left rear wheel. Only the left rear wheel was driven, but both rear wheels had drum brakes. I can only  imagine the kind of trouble my friends would get into if we had a few of these back home.

While I’m on a bit of a gearhead tangent, let me tell you about the outboard motors around here. Most of the slow tourist boats had a pretty standard ~40 hp Japanese outboard on them. These wooden boats were about 30 feet long and sat 20+ people, so 40 hp doesn’t move very fast, I’d guess 10-15mph. The “speedboats” were typically aluminum hulled boats with aircraft style seating and 1 or more large outboard on the back. I saw one with three 300hp Yamahas, I’d imagine it was quite a ride. Our boats were not that fast. What I found more interesting were the outboards the locals used on their canoes. It was a ~5 hp Briggs and Stratton style engine like you would find on a rototiller with a hand made prop shaft attached to it. While it was primitive, and loud, I’m sure it was cheap and reliable. I’m pretty impressed with their ingenuity.