The Americas 2013

Today was a rest day in El Calafate. We decided to take a ride which ended up being a round trip of some 160km to the Perito Moreno Glacier and back which was amazing to see.

The Glacier taken with a panoramic view.

We spent last night and tonight in the Posada da Los Alamos which is supposedly a 5 star hotel!? Hotel looks great from the exterior, service is good but the place is dated and in need of some TLC in order to be able to call itself 5 stars.

El Calafate is a great and scenic little tourism town with plenty of restaurants and hotels to cater for the masses that pass through here to see the surrounds.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing, eating and sleeping as we have been pushing waaayyy too hard and averaging about 600km per day. Unfortunately Enrico and I seem to share the same goal orientated attitude which is working to our detriment as the only thing that can be achieved with this is that we will get to Santiago ahead of schedule which is pointless.

Tomorrow we tackle Ruta 40and the intention is to stop midway to Los Antiguos and stay at an Estancia in the middle of nowhere which should be fun.

En route back from the Glacier

We left Lago Grey at about 8:30am to make our way to El Calafate where we are spending 2 nights. El Calafate is famous for the Perito Moreno Glacier that is near there and we are wanting to see it and get some well deserved rest too as we have ridden everyday bar 1 when we were in Ushuaia.

The ride out of the Torre Del Paine national park from the hotel to Cerro Castillo is an amazing dirt road that travels along incredible scenery for about 75km. The views in this part of the world are more dramatic every time you take a corner. Today however, was for riding so we made minimal stops as our ride included yet ANOTHER border crossing from Chile back into Argentina and all of the bureaucracy, tour buses that got there 2 minutes before us and queuing that accompanies the exercise. We also got our first taste of the infamous Ruta 40 that everybody that has ridden this road talks about in books and blogs….its dirt, its long, has tough patches but for the most part, this section of it anyway, we managed to maintain pretty good speeds and enjoyed the ride.

On the ride out of the Torre Del Paine, I came across this lake that was huge. I have never seen such a large body of water that was SO still without a single ripple anywhere. I sat there and stared at it for what felt like forever….

We weren’t able to fill up with fuel when we left the hotel this morning so 5km before we got to El Calafate, my trusty supermodel and her meagre 28L of fuel and 430km of some pretty hard charging, unfortunately ran out and we had to bear the shame of being towed into El Calafate by Lil Fatty!

Our ride for the day..

I am faced with a difficult upcoming decision that is going to start up the old BMW versus KTM debate in the world of bikers, and that is, which bike do I keep after Enrico goes home when we reach Santiago? As mentioned at the outset, both bikes are mine and the intention was always to send one back once we got to Santiago.The time to make this call is now fast approaching and so the bike I keep in South America will be the bike that completes the trip with me to New York. After the way I have gone on about my beautiful supermodel, one would think the decision is a simple one, Perhaps, but even in life, when longevity is the question, a marriage to a supermodel (think Kate Moss) can make you miserable just because of the nature of the beast versus marriage to someone with sturdier attributes (think your Grandmother) and so this is fast becoming the source of much loss of sleep!

The KTM has NEVER let me down. Not one single iota or mishap from Cape Town to Cairo in 2010 or Malawi in 2011. I cannot say a single bad word. The KTM downside versus the BMW however is:

• The 28L versus Fatties 33L when fuel is scarce,
• The chain that needs maintenance daily,versus fatties Shaft, 
• The tube tyres versus Fatties tubeless, that makes punctures easier to repair.

The BMW downside versus the KTM is:

• She’s Fat and heavy and riding her on dirt is a nightmare,
• In the event of a tyre slash, no tube becomes a problem versus the heavy duty tubes in the KTM that will enable you to keep riding.
• If the BMW shaft fails, and they have been known to, a repair isn’t possible on the side of the road, whereas a chain replacement is simple.
• Did I mention she is fat?

The ride onwards from Santiago has limited dirt versus the huge amounts we have and will be riding in Patagonia on route to Santiago. In addition I will have a passenger with me on the bike. The BMW riders are now all nodding that its the natural choice, but not necessarily. There is still dirt to do albeit in limited quantities relative to what we have/are doing and then there is the Dalton in Alaska and a fair amount of dirt in British Columbia, both of which I would want my KTM for rather than Lil Fatty.

My take on owning both is fairly simple. The KTM is better on the road than the BMW is on the dirt. That makes the KTM the better all round machine. The BMW however has attributes that make it a better long distance touring machine not to mention a more comfy seat for a passenger.

So convenience wise, and assuming no mechanical mishaps, the BMW is probably the right choice. If however, there are problems whilst riding, the repairability on the go of the KTM is probably simpler, not to mention that the ride is AWESOME and she is super hot to look at and so now I am going to do something I will probably regret and open up the question to the biking fraternity to weigh in with unbiased opinions that assist my decision making and not based on the fact that you ride a KTM/BMW and therefore that’s what you punt. If you are an experienced biker (Richard Clark, you don’t qualify), please post your comments as your views will be much appreciated with helping me out with my decision.

We woke up to an amazing morning and vista in Puerto Natales. Because we got in quite late yesterday we didn’t have an opportunity to appreciate just how spectacular this place truly is!! The hotel we stayed in was also fantastic and would certainly go back if I return to Puerto Natales.

Morning vista in Puerto Natales. Like I said yesterday,this is ocean and not a lake we are looking at!!

After breakfast we decided to go and walk around the town as we only had a short hop of 100km to the Torre del Paine national park, our destination for tonight. Puerto Natales can only be described as cute and quaint and can see why people rave about this little place.

Quirky and quaint!

We left Puerto Natales at about 12:30. Everybody that we had spoken to said that Torre del Paine was one of the most spectacular places they had ever seen, and based on the ride in, they weren’t wrong. It is special!

Each corner we came around was just another picture perfect scenery, it really is an explorers dream place.

We are spending this evening at a hotel called Lago Grey (Lake Grey). The setting is fantastic on the shores of the lake and the rooms are great but the service is super shyte! Needless to say,one of the reasons that we chose this place above the many accommodation options in the park was because of setting. Lake Grey exists because at its head lies the Grey Glacier whose melting over the millennia is what primarily feeds the lake. The lake is scattered with electric blue icebergs that have broken off this ancient glacier and bob around for months until they melt and we felt that this was a must see whilst in the area.

We decided to take a boat out at about 6pm to get closer to the glacier which was an incredible experience.

Grey Glacier from a distance. It is about 4km wide, 70km long and approx 500m deep so the photo does this scale no justice.

…and a slightly closer up view…!!

One of the bobbing icebergs…This is about the size of a house.

And my favourite pic of the day!!

Today we left Ushuaia. Our original ride was supposed to be up to Porvenir in Chile where we would catch a ferry to Punta Arenas and then dependant on how we were feeling, would perhaps continue up to Puerto Natales, all in a 730km day. When discussing this route with the old bullet, he complained that with a border crossing, a ferry crossing and 150km of dirt, that it would make the day too long…remember these words as I will come back to this later!!

So anyway, we depart at 8am and it was Frigging cold! The first 150km to Tolhuin through the Garibaldi pass was amazing again and then the rest of the ride to the Argentine/Chile border post at San Sebastian was uneventful. We have now done the Argentine/Chile (or other way round) crossing 3 times in the last 5 days and will have to do it several times more on our route up to Santiago and beyond. The crossing can take anything from 10 minutes to an hour dependant on the queues and today’s crossing was an hour although the system is efficient.

And so we are back in Chile!!

The 150km of dirt ranged from beautiful, hard pack to very soft sand to hectic roadwork’s and it took us about an hour, forty to get to Porvenir. Upon arrival, we realised that we had missed the ferry to Punta Arenas because I had mistakenly assumed that it was a ferry that ran back and forth like the one at Bahia Azul! It wasn’t! Its a once a day Ferry that now meant that the ride to Porvenir was a waste. We debated the various options of staying in Porvenir for the night and catching the next days Ferry at 2pm or leaving Porvenir in the morning and heading up to Bahia Azul and going the long way around to Torres Del Paine or leaving Porvenir right then and making our way up to Puerto Natales making it a 900km day. Ironically, the same old bullet that was whinging earlier about the day being “too long” was now the advocate of the 900km day! Go figure!!

Our 900km day…

And so we headed off along the north part of the peninsula to the 24h Bahia Azul ferry and then down and around to Puerto Natales where we arrived at 10pm after a 13 hour day of borders, dirt, ferries and long roads.

Barren Patagonian cemetery..

Our Ferry at Bahia Azul taken at about 6:30pm.

Puerto Natales is however beautiful and the ride into this place is magnificent. We are spending the night at a beautiful hotel called Hotel Australis Patagonia which is right on the waterfront and where we had a great dinner followed by a huge beer to cap the day!

Puerto Natales view over the water (this is actually ocean and not a lake) from our hotel.

And a great way to cap a long day…BMW Riders!! They’re all the same!

Tomorrow we have a short hop into the Torres del Paine National park where we are spending two nights.

As advised, today was a rest day. We slept, ate, did some exercise, tinkered on the bikes and explored a little of Ushuaia.

The town is essentially a launch base for the cruise ships that leave for the Antarctic and hence the touristic nature of the town. That said, in winter it apparently turns into quite a ski resort and one can see why with such beautiful surrounds.The town survives primarily off tourism and its properly geared for that. The hotels cater for all budgetary requirements and the service industry is pretty good. I would come back.

The tall one. Our hotel Alto Andino.

Because we are so far south and its summer, the sun rises just after 5am and sets at 10pm although there is light in the sky until 11pm so it makes for looonngg days which is great for riding particularly if you’re running late and don’t want to ride in the dark!

The blue dot represents Ushuaia. You get a sense from this pic of its latitude, approx 2500km south of Cape Town.

We ended the day with dinner at an awesome restaurant called Lolas where we both ate the local speciality, king crab!!

This shot was taken at 10pm from where we were having dinner.

Today was a rest day although because we could only find accommodation yesterday for 1 night we had to pack up and move again. This was not a bad thing because it motivated us to get our riding gear on and head out to Bahia Lapataia which is THE end of the road in South America for that iconic picture.

This is as far south as the road goes!!! And in the enigmatic words of Bono…”…I still haven’t found what I’m looking for…”

It never fails to amaze just how much attention we/the bikes attract. It seems that regardless of where we stop, the bikes, the gear and the riders kitted to the hilt draw a crowd with hundreds of questions about where we’re from, where we’re going, the kind of bikes etc etc etc. It makes me realise that so many people aspire to live this dream, any dream for that matter, and to see somebody else doing it is obviously inspirational for them based on the number of comments and good wishes we receive from total strangers every day. We are truly blessed to be able to be on this journey!

After Bahia Lapataia we headed up to see the Martial Glacier but when we arrived there and realised that it required a1 hour trek up the mountain, we decided that our Alpine Star riding boots with steel toe caps were probably not the best climbing boots, so we opted instead for a civilised cappuccino and a chat with two great German fellows we met.

Beautiful Terra Del Fuego

We have managed to find accommodation for the next two nights at an AWESOME hotel in Ushuaia that I would highly recommend called Alto Andino. The staff service has been superb (well done Freddy) and the rooms and location amazing.

The town of Ushuaia..

Tomorrow we rest and give the bikes some TLC.

My gorgeous gorgeous supermodel that I love more every day!!! Could there be a more complete AND beautiful machine?

Today has been a much anticipated day for many reasons. Firstly, Ushuaia is a milestone, not only for this particular journey but for any traveller to get to, secondly, it being the southern most city in the World, it represents the outer southerly Arc of my journey and lastly, its been a city that has been spoken about so many times in the planning of this trip.

The ride down from Cerro Sombrero where we stayed last night was interesting. The GPS took us down a dirt road which we thought would go for a few kilometres and then join the tar….it didn’t! It kept going for about 150km and at first I was a bit miffed about the dirt versus tar choice but then it occurred to me that I was on a magnificent dirt road, in a part of the world where I probably wont get a chance to ride again and lastly, the surroundings were incredible and found myself loving every moment thereafter. When we got to the Chile/Argentina border, we found out that their was in fact no tar road and soon after Cerro Sombrero, it all became dirt regardless of the route although I think ours was perhaps the more scenic and less trafficked.

Our ride today.

My gripes about the boringness of the east coast of Argentina are over. The magnificence started after Rio Grande in the Terra Del Fuego. Barren flatlands gave way to an Alpine type scenery…Massive lakes, snow capped mountains, flowered meadows, forests and a road that only occurs in a motorcyclists dreams!

I have travelled much of the world but can say with hand on heart that nothing has taken my breath away like the road travelled between Tolhuin and Ushuaia and I don’t believe that even the pics posted in this entry do it justice.

Enrico showing off…

We arrived in Ushuaia around 4pm and then ran into problems with finding accommodation because it is peak season and we didn’t book ahead. Who knew that Ushuaia was such a popular tourist city? It has a high of some 12 to 14C in mid summer and the sun barely peeks through. That said, the surrounds are UN-B-E-L-I-E-V-A-B-L-E!!

We are planning on staying here for 3 nights as the town is cute with a fair amount of activity and to give us enough time to rest up before we start our northern trek to Santiago.

Our total ride thus far

We were in a hurry to leave San Julian.The night was noisy because it seems that the only past time in this town is to supe up your clapped out car with the loudest backfiring exhaust you can buy, pour the left over whisky into your petrol tank and see who can drag race their rust bucket to greater than 60km/h making the greatest noise possible until 3am!

Our ride today was a 525km stretch to Cerro Sombrero on the Chilean side of the border. For those that don’t know the geography of the area, to get to Ushuaia which is on Argentine territory, you have to do the border crossing into Chile including the whole customs process for the bikes, catch a ferry across the straits of Magellan, ride about 150km, and then do the border fandangle again back into Argentina because Chile owns a stretch of the Tierra Del Fuego which disconnects the southern, Argentine owned part of this land mass from the main land of Argentina.

Today was our first experience with the whole border crossing process so it took us about an hour to understand the mechanics but its pretty simple. Whereas in most countries where you are doing a road border crossing, at the exit of country A is a building where you have your passport stamped and then go to the customs counter to get your carnet stamped by customs and you’re out. Country B is the same except its an entry versus an exit. In Argentina and Chile, there is one building for both countries with 3 counters. Counter 1 is the immigration counter and it has 4 people sitting at it with the signs “Paso 1” and “Paso 2”. Paso 1 is for the Argentine exit stamp on your passport.Paso 2 is the Chilean entry stamp. Counter 2 is customs for vehicles and its the same Paso 1, 2 etc and counter 3 is customs but for anything other than vehicles. Simple but not common although tomorrows crossing back into Argentina will be much quicker now that we understand.

Crossing the Chilean border..

The entry onto the ferry to cross the Straits of Magellan as caught by Enrico’s helmet Cam.

The ride today has started to become quite cold because we are at a latitude of approximately 2500km south of Cape Town so although its the middle of summer we can definitely feel the Antarctic chill. The terrain has started to become a little less flat although no less barren as the climate here is HARSH!

We are spending the night at quite a nice little place in a town like what I have described seems to be common coming down the east coast of Argentina. Its ALL function and business and not about aesthetic.

The once upon a time local movie hotspot in Cerro Sombrero..

Looks like an old mining town….because that’s what it is.

Tomorrow we reach the most Southerly point of our ride, Ushuaia, where we WILL be spending at least 2 nights.

We left Trelew at 08h00 for what was supposed to be a 400km run to Caleta Olivia. By lunchtime however, when we got there and realised that the place wasn’t worth staying at and that we were both still feeling fresh, we decided to push onto Puerto San Julian and it turned out to be an 800km day!! So much for not wanting to do the long stretches!!

Our 800km ride for the day

The ride down the east coast of Argentina is Boring! Its hot to start with, flat and mostly barren. The southerly half is the same except its cold but peppered with the occasional tourist spot and beautiful natural sight!  The towns are primarily functional (read industrial) and mining or fishing in nature and not really worth visiting. That said, I have always maintained that you can only really feel the pulse of a country by riding it on 2 wheels and without seeing the plain and boring, you cant have a proper appreciation for the beautiful and the magnificent and therefore I am not unhappy that we have done this stretch even though its been somewhat monotonous.

Some of the occasionally beautiful sights

A lot of the ride today reminded me of riding through the Karroo. Anybody that has done this drive will tell you that’s its beautiful, but after about 3000km of this stuff, its just now enough already and one of the reasons that we have been pushing through quite fast and have averaged 600km per day since leaving BA last week Wednesday.

Similar to the Karroo..no?

One of the things that I do love about travelling like this is the comaraderieship of travellers on the road and particularly between motorcyclists who ALWAYS wave and hoot regardless of where in the world you are riding.

We bumped into 3 Brazilian guys riding around South America in their 1958 Mercedes.

The night we are spending in San Julian has not disappointed in that it is exactly the same as the towns I described above except for the discovery that us South Africans, are slowly taking over the world, one small industrial Argentine town at a time…

Tomorrow we cross into Chile.

Our stay at the hotel Faro de Punta Delgada was ultimately fantastic and I would recommend it to anybody. The accommodation is basic, but warm and clean and the food and service is brilliant. Its the kind of place you go to, to reconnect with nature and rest and I will certainly go back. We left the hotel at 07h30 to go north to Caleta Valdez in the hope of seeing some Orcas during the high tide but alas, all we saw was a bunch of seals lazing about on the beach.

The tactic that the local orcas have learnt is quite unlike anything else seen in the world in that they do the counter instinctive thing and purposefully beach themselves to catch seals and sea lions when they are at their most vulnerable on land. They then wriggle back into the water to savour their prey. The following photo is a pic I found on Google and is not one of mine but it gives you an idea of what these smart guys have learnt to do.

You can almost feel that poor seal crapping itself at what is about to happen!!

The Beautiful Peninsula Valdez which is certainly worth a visit.

The 120km dirt ride back to Punta Piramide where we had to fuel became quite treacherous with long stretches of very soft sand. To add to the problem, there was a heavy wind blowing from the west that kept pushing me onto the verge and one big gust actually was enough to get me into the really soft stuff and caused a spectacular “evil Knievel” worthy moment. To add to the drama, my GoPro helmet cam for some reason went off just at that moment so I am even able to share it for a laugh! No bodily or mechanical harm though because the fall was into a big bank of talcum powder type sand!!

Oh man what a laugh!!! Yes! That’s my foot coming over my head!!

…and this is me trying to regain some dignity after!!

The rest of the ride to Trelew was uneventful and the reason we decided on a short run today is because the auxiliary tank tube on the KTM split at the head and was leaking a little fuel so we needed to attend to the repair which we did this afternoon.

Our short 280km ride today.

We have covered about 2000km since leaving BA on Wednesday and tomorrow we head for Comodoro Rivadavia about 400km from here.