The Americas 2013

Although we were planning on spending another night in Bariloche to rest, we decided, after looking at the maps and the routes, that we still had too much distance to cover to get to Santiago and that we should push on today.

Our days ride…

The route we chose took us along the famous “Ruta dos 7 lagos” (7 lakes route) and it was beautiful and an awesome road to ride. We have ridden to a town in Chile called Pucon which sits in the shadow of the Villarrica Volcano and are spending the evening at a great little place called Hotel Malalhue that even makes its own Artisanal beer called “Khuba”.

So much Volcano Ash around these parts…Mountain tops and surrounds are covered in this grey stuff.

Today was the last of the Argentine/Chile border crossing for Leg 1 and I wont have to tackle this again until the 18th of Feb when we start leg 2. Since the 9th of January we have crossed the Argentine/Chile border a total of 11 times and we are now pretty efficient at getting in and out of there and even have the whole Spanish lingo down pat to shoot the breeze with the officials..”Ola, Buenos dias Senhor, estos son los documentos que necesita! Hazlo rápido, estamos en un apuro!”.

The Villarica Volcano in the distance…

Tomorrow we need to find a rear tyre for the KTM. It has done 8500km since new and anybody that rides KTM’s will tell you that this is an incredible feat for this tyre shredder. We only ever intended for leg 1 to be a total of 8500km but the little run around of 1000km to find a new tyre for the fat girl has left the KTM with thin rubber at the rear. Finding the right tyre size for her is proving difficult. Not even the KTM dealer in Puerto Montt where I found the tyre for the BMW could help me out on the spot so hoping that somewhere between Temuco and Chillan where we are staying tomorrow night will have something.

Rest day in Bariloche. Blog, emails, admin, food and SLLEEEPPPPPP!!

Had a great dinner and walked around the town for a couple of hours. That’s it for the day!!

The Bariloche Cathedral, built in 1942.

Woke up at 06h30 exhausted! After nearly a week of long days, hard riding and tough roads I am beginning to feel the fatigue. I left Esquel at 07h30 as I had to tackle a border crossing and 125km of twisty dirt roads through the mountains back to Villa Saint Lucia to get back to Enrico so that we could repair the tyre.

The days ride from Esquel to Villa Saint Lucia and back to Bariloche.740km in total.

The fat girl in her natural habitat!!!

The vistas along the ride continues to be beautiful and this statement is probably beginning to sound boring and monotonous, but not so if you are the one witnessing it. Got to Enrico at 10h30, we sorted the tyre and left St Lucia at about 12 to head up to Bariloche, 450km away where we are going to spend 2 or 3 nights recuperating.

Amazing vistas that just don’t stop opening up…and boats..again!!

On the dirt road back to the Chilean border, it was the KTM’s turn to experience a problem (it seemed to good to be true after the roughness of the roads that we have been travelling that nothing had gone wrong). It turned out to be a minor problem that was easily resolved but not before we had spent 2 hours in the blazing sun and had gone way overboard in trying to understand and fix the problem which was technical in nature so I wont bore you with the details. For the KTM riders out there…magnet/kickstand/safety start!

Me. The dirt roads in Chile/Argentina…adventure riders paradise..!!

After that, we crossed the border and started the long albeit tar ride up to Bariloche. Enrico wanted to go to Cholila (where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid spent there last days) which required a100km dirt road and I opted to get to Bariloche and some much needed sleep.

For those tackling this part of the world…this is a common road sign. The wind NEVER stops coming at you!!! Not sure what the little dog in the sign means????

We are going to spend the next 2 or 3 nights here as the town is beautiful, the surroundings are too, and the hotel is a comfortable haven. We are now only 1500km away from Santiago and the end of Leg 1 of the Americas trip.

I got a comment from Afrika Tikkun, (the charity I am supporting) on my blog yesterday which had an incredible video to help me out with my bike dilemma. So beautifully made I thought I had to share it with you…THANK YOU SO MUCH GUYS!!!!

So today was all about finding that tyre for the fat one. I mean how hard could this be, right? Back home, most towns would have a place where you could buy a bike tyre or at worst, wait a day to get one. I had to travel 300km to get here and the return leg is 750km and 2 border crossings because the ferries don’t run every day.

The days ride to Esquel..

Anyway, managed to find a tyre for the BMW at a KTM dealer in Puerto Montt and then started the LONG shlep back. On the upside, the ride around this part of the world continues to be magnificent although because I was trying to make distance I made few stops for photos and as it turned out I didn’t make it back to Enrico.

How ironic that the KTM and a KTM dealer should be the place to rescue the fat one!!

One of the interesting areas I rode through was of another more recent volcanic eruption which happened in 2011. The area is still covered in ash, so much so, that it actually looks like snow.

According to the Buenos Aires Herald of June 4 2011, “The entire city of San Carlos de Bariloche turned dark and became isolated as ash spewed by the nearby Chilean volcano Puyehue began falling all over town. The volcano, which had remained dormant for decades, began belching ash over 10 km into the sky and prompting the Chilean government to evacuate several thousand residents, authorities said. The eruption in the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcanic chain, about 920 km south of the capital, Santiago, also prompted Chilean authorities to shut a heavily travelled border crossing into Argentina. It was not immediately clear which of the chain’s four volcanoes had erupted because of ash cover and weather conditions. The chain last saw a major eruption in 1960. The Cordon Caulle volcanic range has entered an eruptive process, with an explosion resulting in a 10-kilometre-high gas column and It was the latest in a series of volcanic eruptions in Chile in recent years. Chile’s chain of about 2,000 volcanoes is the world’s second largest after Indonesia. Some 50 to 60 are on record as having erupted, and 500 are potentially active.”

Looks like a winter wonderland…

By the time I hit Esquel with 150km to still go, I was exhausted, found a hotel, ate a cow and collapsed!

Left Chaiten for an early ride to catch the ferry to Puerto Montt that I understood left at 9am. It doesn’t, it leaves at 14h00! Anyway, the ride on the Austral from Chaiten to Caleta Gonzalos through the Pumalin National Park which is at the foot of the volcano that erupted in 2008 gives one a real sense of the extent of the damage. The trees are all dead, the rivers still run grey with veins of a blood red earth that comes down from the mountains. The road itself is a mess too of volcanic pummel stones and rocks. It will take decades, if not centuries for this place to recover fully.

Pumalin National Park

The hours waiting for ferries and sailing on ferries was spent reading, writing and snoozing. The upside of this little detour to find tyres is I get to complete the Austral which is a great feat and I am glad that I have got to do so. The ride into Puerto Montt is a beautiful coastal road and Puerto Montt is an up and coming town/city that offers first world facilities for the first time since Buenos Aires.

Waiting for the ferry at Caleta Gonzalos…I was early!!!

My ride including ferries today..

Tomorrow the hunt for tyres begins but right now, I am exhausted as hell!

And the beautiful vistas just don’t stop along this stretch… People are going to start to wonder if I have a thing for boats because they are in so many of the great shots..!!

“Tomorrow we continue with the Carretera Austral up to Futaleufu for the night.”…or that was the plan anyway!

The view from where we spent the night in Coyhaique

The Austral from Coyhaique started alright, although it continues with magnificent views, but soon deteriorated into a mess of roadwork’s, rocks, loose pebbles and the occasional well hard packed stretch. The manner with which we ride is I go in front and Enrico rides about 1 km behind because of dust. I can always see his light and when I cant, I stop for a short period until I can so there should never be more than a few kilometres between us, except on this occasion he didnt appear. This naturally causes a little bit of panic so went rushing back about 5km to find Enrico on the side of the road with the Fat one on its centre stand…the tyre had given up its ghost about 80km from our destination for the night and near the “hamlet” (not sure this is a small enough description) of Villa Saint Lucia!

A multitude of beautiful and amazing vistas along the Austral. It really is a once in a lifetime privilege to ride this road.

Some old guys on the side of the road assured us that we would find new tyres at Chaiten, 100km north along the Austral from where we were. Our original plan had been to get off the Austral at Villa Saint Lucia and make our way up to Esquel and Bariloche in Argentina and we never intended to ride the length of this famous road but it seems that fate through a new twist my way.

Fortunately we found some Cabanas in Villa Saint Lucia where Enrico checked into and I rode on to Chaiten a further 100km along the Austral. When I got to Chaiten, there was nothing but a couple of houses and shops. No tyre or bike shops as we had been assured so this had turned out to be a pointless exercise. What’s more, the accommodation in Chaiten was limited and what was available was super basic although warm and comfortable enough.

What should have been our ride (in blue)…what ended up being my ride (in red).

Chaiten is an interesting place though because “the town was evacuated in May 2008 when the Chaiten Volcano erupted for the first time in more than 9,000 years. The eruption, which commenced May 2, became more violent on May 5 throwing up a high plume of ash and sulphurous steam that rose to 31 km, from which ashfall drifted across Patagonia, and over the Atlantic Ocean. The town was completely flooded on May 12, 2008 after a mudflow caused the banks of the Blanco River to overflow about 200 m on each side. Over the subsequent weeks, the river excavated a new course through Chaitén, completely destroying a significant part of it by July 2008.  The future of the town has become a matter of political controversy in Chile.”

Chaiten during the eruption of the nearby volcano…

I have spent much of the evening looking at alternatives of where to find tyres for the BMW and it seems that the most probable location is Puerto Montt, which happens to also be the end/start point of the Austral! It requires 3 ferries and about 200km of dirt riding but the next best option is Bariloche (maybe) some 600km from Chaiten so tomorrow I head for Puerto Montt!

Happy 22nd Birthday my BonBon.

So today we tackled “THE” road and it turned out to be everything we had hoped for, and more. The trek across the border was the usual hour long exercise to complete both sides including temporary importation permits for the bikes etc because the Chilean nor the Argentines recognise Carnets!

again…We have now crossed the Chilean/Argentine border 6 times in 2 weeks.

The road leaving Chile Chico is at the outset quite promising in that although it is gravel, it is hardpacked and easy to ride. This lasted for about 10km of the 400km we had to do today! Thereafter, it was heavily corrugated, potholed, rocky and lots of loose stones and gravel on roads that wind their way round and round the mountain and lake edge for 300 of the 400km we had to do to get to Coyhaique today. To add to this, the wind was howling for the first 100km which proved to be quite harrowing as their was sheer drop offs to the side of the road with no barriers and lots of oncoming traffic on narrow mountain roads. This made the outside lane, when we had it, scary as hell.

What adds a major challenge to this road is the scenery. It is so consistently jaw droppingly beautiful that you cant help but want to look at it as you drive by. This is a problem because the moment you take your concentration off the road, any number of challenges can quickly develop with possible fatal consequences. Needles to say, the trip of today took us along the edge of Lake Buenos Aires (as it is called on the Argentine side) and Lake General Carrera (as it is called on the Chilean side) and I have never seen a lake so blue. It is fed by numerous glaciers and it makes for an incredible electric blue turquoise colour that makes everything pop out.

Our ride for the day. The 400km took us 7 hours including an hour lunch stop in Puerto Rio Tranquilo which was fantastic but we are both now exhausted,

We are spending the night at a great place on the outskirts of town called Patagonia house. The environment looks over the Andes, we were given a great dinner and we have our own little house which is great.

Tomorrow we continue with the Carretera Austral up to Futaleufu for the night.

And Happy 71st Birthday dad.

As mentioned yesterday, we were meant to start our ride north on the Carretera Austral today however, we woke up to foul weather and winds and decided that because this road was a highlight of the trip it would be pointless to ride it in this weather just because today was the day that we had planned to do so. We opted instead to hang around in Los Antiguos at Hotel Mora for another night as the weather forecast for tomorrow is sunny all the way to Coyhaique where we will spend the night.

Fortunately for us, it also turned out to be Carla (Hotel Mora’s manageress) day off and she volunteered to show us around the area so we got to see some of the sights in neighbouring Chile Chico on the Chilean side of the border and to sample some authentic Chilean Pisco sours.

Enrico and Carla

All in all a relaxing day before we tackle the road tomorrow.

HAPPY 60TH BIRTHDAY ENRICO!!

Today has been a purposeful rest day. We are at a great location in Los Antiguos, Argentina on the Chile border and thought it would be cool to just relax, enjoy the old bullets birthday, catch up with admin and emails and wash and tinker with the bikes that are covered in a layer of dirt so thick that the KTM is beginning to resemble a BMW!!

Hotel Mora

Sparkly Clean                                                             Clean, but still just a fatty in a laundered skirt.

The day was capped off with a great dinner to celebrate the birthday.

Tomorrow we start to tackle the Carretera Austral. “One of the World’s Biking Paradises is the Carretera Austral that runs more than 1350 kms linking Villa O’Higgins to Puerto Montt, in the Chilean Patagonia. There are about 1000km of gravelled road (locally called ripio) and a little bit less than 300km of tarred road, the rest is done by ferries. There is an incredible variety of mountains, lakes, glaciers and woods along the entire route that make this road one of the World’s wonders.”

We decided that we should leave El Calafate by around 7am because Ruta 40 is infamous not only for its condition, but for the constant winds coming from the west that have been known to reach speeds of 160km/h. The winds however don’t start blowing until about 11:00 and any motorcyclist will tell you that this can be harrowing, and doubly so, if you are riding dirt roads with narrow tracks and tall “middle mannetjies” (what’s the English word for “middle mannetijie” other than a direct translation?)

Ruta 40 is in the process of being tarred, the 630km stretch between El Calafate and Perito Moreno anyway and probably about half of it is now done. The thing is, the stretches of the original Ruta 40 that we rode were actually quite good and we were able to get to speeds of up to 120km/h. The deviations around where the roadwork’s are being done however are the dangerous parts and what slows you right down. The fact that this road is being tarred is partially a shame. Although the commercial benefits for the residents of the towns on this road must take precedence, the road has obtained something of a mythical status due to its toughness and remoteness and the tarring thereof will simply just make it another ordinary road through nowhereland.

Our 750km ride for the day..

Needless to say, we loved it. The good and the bad. What added to the challenge was lack of fuel at a petrol station that we were counting on to refuel. This resulted in a 120km detour because although Lil Fatty had the stores for the distance to the next fuel Station, slimline supermodel didn’t, and added an hour and a half to our days ride as a result…hhhmmmm???!!!

When we joined Ruta 40 again, the detour had put us about 50km north of the Estancia that we were planning to stop at for the night and neither of us felt like going back so we pressed on to Perito Moreno for the night. This was crazy because it resulted in a 750km day that was exhausting and to add to the problem, when we got there we couldn’t find accommodation so we pushed on to Los Antiguos some 60km further along our route.

This turned into a blessing of sorts because although the day was long and exhausting, we found an AWESOME hotel on the waterfront of Lake Buenos Aires in Los Antiguos called Hotel Mora. The location is brilliant, the service is 6 stars, the rooms are clean, neat, modern and spacious and the food at their restaurant that is open 16 hours a day is phenomenal! We have stayed at 5 star hotels throughout Argentina that could learn a few lessons from this establishment and its management.  So good we booked in for 2 nights so that we can rest and celebrate Enrico’s 60th birthday tomorrow in style.

Sleep, admin and bike maintenance is the order of the day for tomorrow!!!