Hurray! Greetings from Ushuaia, 54.8° S 68.3°W.
15,003 miles from Oakland. 16 weeks and 2 days getting here,
which was yesterday.
From where did I give the last full report, was it Mendoza?
Seems so long ago even though it was only a week. However it
was a week in which we travelled 2500 miles or so. But let me
stop here and briefly explain 2 things. We travelled very fast
in the last week, but we have to backtrack all the way to Santiago,
just across the mountains from Mendoza to ship the bikes, so we are
not really "missing" anything. In fact we took a slow
day through the Lakes District of Patagonia to check out the amazing
lakes, which are on the opposite side of the Andes from the Carreterra
Austral which we want to take on the way back north. And what
was the other thing I was so intent on explaining, gee I only had
2 beers with lunch...
We'll get back to Important Point Number 2.
So. From Mendoza we headed south on our newly installed tires.
They looked so sweet for a day or two. Then it became obvious
how fast my new Vee Rubber back tire is going to wear. On that
first day we covered at least 300 miles and ended up in a little town
called Barrancas, which was just across a river with a sign that said
something like "you are now entering Patagonia." The
terrain looked much like California's Eastern Sierra region down by
Mammoth. There were lots of volcanoes, lava flows miles long,
wide valleys with a small handful of trees right next to the rivers
and signs for Las Leñas ski resort, which I'd love to check
out in the winter if it also bares a resemblance to Mammoth and the
Eastern Sierra.
The following day we went maybe another 300 miles to San Martin de
los Andes. Trees at last! The Andes seems to have a distinct
lack of trees. So did the Pacific Coast. We saw a handful
of pine trees in Ecuador on a high ridge, and tropical rainforest
near Machu Picchu in Peru, but other than trees planted in cities,
almost no others. What a refreshing change. We rode up
into the glacial valleys of the Lakes District, and there were trees
up both side of the valleys, with lakes in all shades of blue in the
middle. A lot of these tree looked like they had been planted
in the past 20 years but other areas looked more natural. We
stayed in San Martin de los Andes, which is a bit touristy, and it
being a summer Friday night, lodging was somewhat difficult to aquire.
I found my Internet, beer, chocolate and ice cream, but skipped the
ice cream as it might not have gone so well with the delicious local
beers. Oh yes, earlier in the day I heard a noise from the bike
twice while coasting to a stop. Couldn't quite place it, but
I eliminated the brakes as the culprit. And another aside, this
was the first cloudless day since probably Mexico. Even the
day we left Mendoza was very threatening looking in the morning, then
we rode straight out of it into pure sunshine.
The following morning dawned clear, but some high clouds moved in
fairly rapidly. Nothing too ominous but it ruined the light
for photography, so I only took one picture of one of the lakes.
Might just have to go back there someday! We rode around several
of the lakes until we came back out onto the main highway Ruta 40
near Barriloche. Saw an F650 with Colorado plates while riding
through Bariloche.
About half way between Barriloche and El Bosón, out in the
middle of a long decent down a river canyon, I suddenly lost power.
The engine was running, I could feel the click of the gears shifting,
but no power seemed to reach the wheel. The clutch? No,
I can feel it shifting. Hmmm.... coasted to a good pulloff and
decided to pull of the front sprocket cover, cause I thought the noise
I'd heard was coming from that direction. Ayuh, the nut holding
the sprocket on was just plain gone. Doh!
Dick noticed I was missing when I didn't show up at the next police
check point and came back up the hill. He gave me some duct
tape and I duct taped that sprocket back on. Sure, that'll last.
Then rode slowly and stopped frequently to check the work. The
Colorado F650 caught up to us, and we met Miah from Colorado, who
is on a similar journey but taking at least twice as long to do it.
The 3 of us roade in a pack down to El Bosón, where an auto
repair shop was able to come up with a nut and washer in about 15
minutes, at 5pm on a Saturday evening!
Dick saw several signs on the way into town for a Cervezaria and Campground.
Like, a brewery? AND a campground? Sounded too good to
be true, maybe it's just a campground that *sells* beer. It
was true, they made beer. About 7 different kinds. And
it was a campground, and a fairly cool one for a private campground.
We stayed there and sampled most of their beers.}
There's a picture on the next terminal of penguins with Ushuaia in
the background, I think I need to find this place tomorrow, that and
the Parque Nacional de Tierra del Fuego...
We only made about 200 miles on Saturday, but it worked out pretty
well with the discovery of the brewery/campground. On Sunday
we cruised, and made 500 miles to Comodore Rivadavia. The scenery
was decreasingly interesting the whole way. The road veered
further and further from the mountains, and eventually headed over
rolling scrub plains for the coast. There were quite a few oil
wells over the last 100 miles, which help explain the remarkably inexpensive
gas here in Argentina. Dick had to adjust his chain twice that
day alone. It was stretching so much that it was becoming obvious
that it was time for a new chain. Miah had told us we would
not find any motorcycle parts in southern Argentina, so we were thinking
about shipping options.
Riding into Comodore Rivadavia we saw a Honda shop, followed by two
signs for hotels. While checking out one of the hotels a guy
hanging out on the sidewalk told Dick where to find 2 more motorcycle
shops, one was about a 3 minute walk from the hotel. On Monday
morning when the shop opened, Dick found a fine DID 520V chain, and
had it installed before noon. We were on the road again and
made about 350 miles or more, ending up at a campground in a town
with the rather cumbersome name of Comandante Luis Pedrebuena, near
the provincial capital of Santa Cruz. I thought I'd seen Santa
Cruz on the news lately with tales of rioting, so we stayed in this
little town in the outskirts. It was very peaceful.
The following morning we made another huge push for Punta Arenas,
which involved a border crossing into Chile. You can't get from
Argentina into Argentinian Tierra del Fuego, you have to cross into
Chile, which is a pain in the ass because of all the paperwork.
On this day we encountered some of the strongest winds yet.
The winds of Patagonia are infamous, but I thought maybe we could
luck out and miss them like we had the rains. No way.
The winds rarely stop. They are all west to east, and we were
travelling north to south, so we had huge cross winds the entire way.
They are insanely strong. When I was parked at the Chilean border
station they blew my bike over, just as I got to the front of a long
line to start the paperwork. My front right directional is toast.
It was just hanging by the wire. I tried duct taping it but
the duct tape can't handle the wind. I already checked, should
only by $24 to replace back in the states. We fought the wind
the rest of the day to Punta Arenas, and stayed there for the night
to investigate ferry information. On the way in I could see
Tierra del Fuego brooding in the distance across the Straight of Magellan.
I could picture the lone sailing ship making it´s trip into
the unknown up that stormy straight 500 years ago.
The deal was we had to catch the 9am ferry, and had to be there by
8am to buy a ticket. They said motorcycles were almost guaranteed
a space since they could squeeze them in next to the cars. It
was no problem and we roped them in to survive and waves, of which
there were very few. I really wasn't expecting much. The
southern 500 miles of Argentina were so boring I though Tierra del
Fuego may well be boring too. And well, as we came up on it
across the Straight of Magellan it mostly looked like low rolling
scrub plains, much like I expected. Except, some little mountain
peaks were poking up over the horizon to the south where Ushuaia was
rumored to be. And I had seen on a map that these mountains
were the last gasp of the Andes before they were swallowed up by the
sea.
The first couple of hours were nice for their view of the bay that
stretches well into the island. I've seen every shade of blue
imaginable over the last few days. We were heading east and
got a nice tailwind. I figured it to be about 45 mph.
We crossed back into Argentina at a ridiculously slow border station,
and then south. It rained for 30 seconds and looked threatening.
The cross wind returned. There was road construction.
But, then there were trees, and turquoise lakes, and more trees, wild
trees. And those little mountains, well they weren't so little,
and they were rugged, and the road went up through them over a pass
called Garibaldi. And there were more lakes, and then hanging
glaciers on the mountains, and some ski resorts. And all of the sudden
we descended into Ushuaia and it is in just the most beautiful location.
A bay with fishing ships, research ships and there was one cruise
ship that left in the morning, and these pyramid shaped mountains
with their hanging glaciers surrounding us. And this picture
of penguins - must find the penguins!!
Today was bike day, which is never too exciting. I changed my
oil, checked my battery which I was worred about but it was fine.
And checked the brakes, and the spokes and bought a big wrench for
keeping my front sprocket tight. I need to get a new washer
for it too, the one they put on isn´t really the right size,
but will hopefully get me home if it needs to. There is still
quite a bit left to today, it is 4:21 right now, and the sun doesn't
go down until 9:04 this evening, a 14H 35M day. Since
the sun goes down at such an angle the length of light today, as listed
by wunderground.com is 15H 55M.
Oh yes, Important Point Number 2. The trip is not over!
We may have reached our destination, but the nearest major point from
which to ship the bikes is Santiago, Chile which is something like
2500 miles to the north. So on the agenda is return to Punta
Arenas and then head north to Puerto Nagales, visit Parque Nacionale
Torres del Paine and maybe do a little backpacking, visit Moreno Glacier,
Mount Fitz Roy, and then ride the Carretera Austral to Puerto Montt,
and then finally head in to Santiago and see about getting space in
a container that is shipping to Port of Oakland. This should
take a good 3 weeks. Then I can head home, broke, and get back
to work. I'd much rather go snowboarding. However I think
Uncle Sam would prefer I work and pay him taxes on what I earned last
year. Ick, must stop thinking icky thoughts. Back to the
"real" world of southern exploration!
PS: This added a little later. I can't believe I forgot to incorporate
it in the first place. Dick heard from Eric. Not sure
if he did the World's Most Dangerous Road, but he did go to Uyuni
and tried to do the road to Tupazi. The road that we carefully
researched and decided it was a bad idea to try. Well, I guess
he made it through, but he crashed on a railroad track and hurt his
foot so bad that he got x rays. It was not broken. He
sold his bike. Apparently he may still travel down to this area
to do some trekking in the Southern Andes. There ends the mystery.
