This is the 18 week and 2 day report, 17295 miles travelled.
We arrived in Coyhaique, Chile this afternoon on a paved road, the
first one we've seen in several days and what a relief!
I last wrote from El Chalten on our rain day, which was the first
in the 4 months I've been travelling. It didn't rain the entire
day, but did pick up again that night before clearing off nicely in
the morning. More importantly, we could see the clouds travel
down the valley and it looked like it was raining on Ruta 40 also,
which is always a bad thing. Ruta 40 (and I like to think of
it in the Spanish being pronounced roo-tah kwa-ren-tah) is a high
desert road that sees very little rain, so when it does get wet the
mud is insanely bad. Of course from town we couldn't tell if
it was actually raining down there, or if the clouds were drying up
by the time they reached the desert zone, which would be fairly typical.
I woke up at 6 in the morning, barely any light coming from the east,
a testament to a wise use of time zones (this is summer, after all)
and Venus shining as bright as I've ever seen it in the northeast.
The moon was just rising in the east through a thin veil of leftover
clouds. Other than this things were looking pretty nice.
When I got up in the morning Mt. Fitz Roy was mostly visible through
some light, swirling clouds. The sun was drying up the rain
quickly and shining off the fresh snow that was on all the hills surrounding
the town. The snow line was not that high above us.
We started down from El Chalten marvelling at the views, and stopped
to take pictures of the soaring mountains with their fresh snow lording
over the little town. The ridge that follows the road was snow-capped
almost the entire way down to where it dropped to Route 40.
Route 40 was wet when we got to it, but this section is paved.
That lasted all of about 5 miles, and there was no more pavement until
today, a country away and about 700 miles travelled on several different
roads.
Getting back to Route 40 several days ago, it started off not too
bad. There were muddy patches, but it is a well maintained gravel
road and was mostly in good shape. Until the intersection.
I guess the more travelled road headed east, and 40 north. We
were of course taking the road less travelled. The conditions
deteriorated quickly as we headed out over the high steppe terrain.
There were a lot of long flat stretches where puddles had collected
on the road, and the underlying dirt had turned to goop. Slippery
greasy goop. I wasn't having much fun. Consider this;
in the first hour we were travelling on pavement at about 70 mph.
We rode for about 5 hours and covered about 125 miles total for the
day. How fast were we going on the dirt road? How about
that, didn't think you were going to get a high school math quiz in
the middle of this posting, did ya? It was slow going.
Then it got worse. I thought the flat spots were bad, the hills
were worse. We were coming up on Lake Cardiel and there were
several ravines to be crossed. The few cars and trucks that
had already used the road since the rain had torn the hills to shreds.
Deep ruts. And if you didn't ride the ruts just the virgin mud,
it was more slippery in some places than others, and which was what
was hard to discern. I think I made it down the first hill ok,
but the second one got me. A car stopped and told Dick the road
ahead got worse. He took off around the corner, and I started
along this stretch that was tilted pretty hard to the right.
The bike slipped out of the rut and gravity started to pull me towards
the ditch. I fought it and lost, the rear tire slipped out and
the bike went down in the goo, ewwww. After trying to get it
righted a couple times, I removed the trunk off the back and just
barely managed to get it back on its tires. A VW Jetta came
along "esta bien?" si, and then I made a motion of a bike
wiping out with my hand. They made O shapes with their mouths
then continued on. I spent at least 5 minutes going down the
rest of this hill and it was only a couple hundred more yards.
Then there was the next hill, Dick was at the bottom of it watching.
I made it, but very slowly, and told him about wiping out. There
just happened to be a comida and campground and hotel right there,
in the middle of nowhere. I decided I'd had enough for the day
and he was fine with that. Unfortunately their driveway was
another challenge all its own. Mud, of course, and I managed
to get by the really tricky part, and was quite proud of myself and
started to go down the final stretch, except, something was wrong.
The bike just didn't want to go, the back tire would spin, but it
didn't look that deep in the mud. I gave it a little more power
and it resisted and I lost my balance and suddenly the bike is on
it's side again, though this time the opposite side. I couldn't
lift it myself this time, but Dick got down there in a few minutes
and helped get it righted. So I try to make it go, slowly, and
he notices that the front wheel isn't spinning. Yup, that could
be a problem. For a dual sport bike, BMW put a pretty stupid
front fender on these bikes. There's a cross brace under the
fender that exascerbates the problem too, and that problem being that
it collects mud under the fender until the wheel can't spin!
We took the fender off and I made it the last 200 yards to the hospedaje.
It was called La Siberia. It had been snowing there at 8 in
the morning.
The kids at this place said there were 15 other motorcyclists coming
soon. 15? Did I understand them correctly? About
an hour later we hear buzzing noises, and look out to see a series
of motorcross bikes screaming up the hill across the little valley.
This hill was quite steep, it was really amazing to see. Then
they start coming into the parking lot. It was more like 8-10
motorcycles followed by 2 support trucks with another 5-7 people.
They all had matching suits on, which matched the support vehicles,
which waid they were Beta Racing. Who? So Beta Racing
is an Italian motorcycle company using Austrian KTM engines to power
their line of bikes. The bikes were pretty cool looking,
all identical, all 400's. When one of the team members was
going up the hill the guy running the hospedaje told me he was the
French national champion. A lot of them looked older.
There was a French reporter with a Parisian motocross magazine.
There was a mechanic, a manager and other people I couldn't figure
out what they were for. 10 days across Patagonia was the mission,
to advertise the capabilities of Beta Motos. They ate real well,
they got the 2 guanacoes roasting by an open fire on spits, we got
some rice and chicken. I guess this is what motocross champions
do when they retire.
They looked at our planned route and suggested a major modification.
We were going to head up Route 40 for maybe a couple hundred more
miles and then head to Chile, they suggested a route like the one
they were taking. Go up Route 40 to the town with the gas station,
take a left and go to Lago Posadas and stay the night there as the
next stretch will take 4 hours, and is muy bonita, very beautiful.
From Lago Posados head due north following the Chilean border, cross
the first pass road and when you get to Lake Buenos Aires, go left
and cross the border right there. We were told it wasn't too
difficult, trucks use it, and that it was well marked. We did
exactly this. We almost tried to do the whole stretch in one
day, as we were about out of pesos, but we ran back into them at the
gas station at 2:30 and they emphasized that we should not try it
that afternoon. We stayed in Lago Posados at a place that I
think translates as Hotel of the Hotels Hotel, and did the road the
next morning. It was a perfect morning, few clouds, crisp, fresh
snow on the high mountains all around. The road was well marked
for the first turn, and some trucks came down it. We went by
dry lake beds, red mesas, the snow-capped Andes on our left, and a
mountain with a spire covered with fresh snow ahead of us. The
road started branching, but there were no signs. The few
signs we foudn faced the other direction and were even more
confusing, one listed Los Antiguos, the town on Lake Buenos Aires
we were heading for as being the other direction, and ridiculously
far away. This route was only supposed to be 100 miles from
Lago Posados to Los Antiguos, and this sign said it was about 150
miles. We decided that this must be by going the long way around
using Route 40. Basic route finding skills were used.
The Andes run north-south, they are on our left, keep them there.
This worked. We eventually got onto the correct road, confirmed
this was a rancher, and next thing we know we were at the pass road
4km from the Chilean border. There was a rather amazing turquise
lake with tons of water fowl that cut right across the Andes crest
at this point. We continued north for another 60 miles and eventually
got spit out at Lake Buenos Aires. The road was more straightforward
on this stretch, but not in very good shape, there was lots of sand
and unbelievably rough washboard. 5 hours after departing Los
Posados we arrived at Lake Buenos Aires and the Chilean border.
This was the easiest border crossing yet. Unbelievable, took
like 20 minutes for both sides, even with the guy cutting me in line
with 5 passports in his hand. I get cut every single line I
get into. Today I thought I was going to make it through a grocery
store line when an old woman cut me, and I tried pretty hard to cut
her back but she squeezed up against the person in front of her and
kept me out. Anyway... I digress.
So when we cross the border into Chile, the name of the lake changes
too, now it's Lago General Carrera, generally abbreviated Lago Gral.
Carrera. Personally I think this is a hideous name for a lake
compared to Good Air, and so inappropriate for a lake so beautiful.
It is now officially my favorite lake in the world. We took
the road around it for hours, and the scenery was stunning.
That unique turquoise blue that means it is fed by glacial water,
and the high Andes peaks in the background with the Northern Ice Field
spilling over them to help feed the lake. The road sucked, shifty
gravel and jarring washboard. I'm going to check for more loose
bolts and screws tomorrow, I had to replace a few the day before when
2 of the 3 screws holding on my fan came out, it was running a bit
loud.
We made it to the Carreterra Austral just as the sun hit the hill
high above the road. In no time we were in a cool campground,
the only campers. Carreterra Austral season seems to officially
run from Dec-Feb, and it was the last day of February, everyone was
gone. The stars last night were over the top, I saw the Magellanic
Clouds for the first time, but I couldn't pick out Scorpio, I think
it is in the sun right now or comes up really late.
This morning we had our first real taste of the Carreterra Austral.
The scenery is as stunning as rumored. However the road
down by Lago Gral. Carrera (ick) has not had its end of the season
grading, and the washboard continued to be insanely bad. We
stopped for lunch at a town called Cerro Castillo, after the castle
shaped mountain looming over town, and everything after this was paved.
It felt so good. The first section was concrete and switchbacked
up a pass, this was fun riding. I'm not sure if the rest of
the road is going to be paved up until the ferry to Choele Island
or not, but I think I will enjoy it much more if it is, unless it
is non-washboarded dirt. Then the next issue will be the ferry
schedule, some of them only run Dec - Feb, and today is March 1.
Happy March!
