Hi all,
We are still in Vina, packing up our stuff to leave tomorrow. I´ll pick up where I left off in the last email....
Over the bridge from Neuquen province, entering the Mendoza province, Ruta 40 reverts back to Patagonia-like quality instantaneously. It was paved at one point but the province is not keeping it up at all. The road looks abandoned and not much traffic on it as a result. But really, the road was quite fun on the bikes and a few cloud bursts made the road even more fun. A road that is hard for a bike is often easier for a car and vice-versa and it was no problem for us to cross the streams flowing over the road and avoid the gigantic potholes but it would not be so great in a car. We arrived that evening in a town called Malargue, and while driving all over town trying to find a non-festering place to stay, we met a family of 4 from Gibsons travelling for 2 months in a rented car. Lucky kids! They had seen us on the road that day and we compared notes about places we had all been. They suggested that we detour through the Atuel Canyon the next day on our way to San Rafeal and beyond. Great suggestion!
The river flowing through the Atuel canyon was dammed in the 50´s sometime and the company who built the dam put a dirt road in through the canyon that passes all the hydroelectric plants and the deep canyon is very scenic and pretty. It is kind of hard to imagine how the area was before the dam, but it is quite beautiful in most places now. We popped out in San Rafeal and made a dash for Mendoza. Unfortunately, just 50 km outside of Mendoza, after a sunny clear and hot day, the sky all of a sudden turned purple and rained as hard as it could so we had to turn around and go back to another “off the boat” town of Tunuyan where we magically found a great room for a good price right off the bat and they even let us park the bikes in the lobby. This actually worked out well because we then arrived in Mendoza early enough the next day to get a room in a cute Spanish-style hosteria where we chilled out for a couple of days before heading back to Chile. Reading the paper later, it turns out that the freak storm dumped one third of the average annual rainfall in 20 minutes and caused several accidents and a town outside of Mendoza had to be evacuated. They are known to have kind of wierd weather in Mendoza- it is one of the worst places in the world for hail- big hail that is exceptionally hard on grape crops, cars and peoples heads. 70% of the country´s wine is produced in the Mendoza region so they spend millions each year having an American company come in and do “weather modification” for them- seeding hail storm clouds so more little hail falls instead of the big golf-ball size ones that are so destructive. There are also hail shelters along the highway, although some people have stolen the covers off of some of them, which is pretty brilliant.....
The ride to Chile was pretty nice. The road to the border followed a pretty tame river the color of chocolate milk that people were rafting on and I had to laugh because of how amazing the Futaleufu rafting we did was, especially compared to this. The pass between the countries is at a pretty high altitude, something like 3000 m or so-the scenery is great but you would not believe the road!! The very top is a 4 km long tunnel (yikes-scarey) that starts in Argentina and ends in Chile and looking back once you get to the other side, you can look back and see the suicide road that this fairly recent tunnel bypasses. This is the busiest border crossing between Chile and Argentina and for once, they had both country´s migration and customs in the same location and everything was drive through. This actually confused us more than streamline the process but eventually we figured it out and began the incredible road down the other side. I had seen a picture of this road before but thought that it was trick photography so I couldn´t believe when I looked down and saw the road looking pretty much as it did in the pic we saw on John Welburns website, which I have attached for your viewing pleasure (I promise we will have our own digital camera for the next trip).
We arrived that night in Vina and checked back into the place we stayed at when we were here at Christmas. Next day we met up with the Motodiscovery Tour group (at their much more expensive hotel), washed bikes, changed oil and made arrangements to hook up with them again the next day to load the bikes into the container. We had a good time talking with the guys who took the tour. They were on a 1 month tour which cost them as much as we had spent in 3 months, but their bikes were delayed by 5 days so the itinerary changed.
A couple of the guys didn´t like the new route (which skipped Ruta 40) and took off on their own. Several (expensive) bikes were tipped over inside the container because they had apparently been loaded and tied down by customs people in the US who obviously knew nothing about tying bikes. The container had also been broken into during transit and one guys riding gear was stolen and he had to ride in jeans the whole trip (hard to find replacement gear like that here on short notice). The only woman on the trip crashed 100 km into the trip at 140 km/hr while passing a semi- she walked away only by grace of God. Another guy lost his passport. Really, they had a lot of problems for such a short period of time. It made Scott and I really happy to have done things the way we did. We just hope they won´t have as many problems with shipping home. To be safe, we all tied down our own bikes inside the container while customs checked them and the paperwork out and we removed everything that could be stolen- what else can you do??
So now we are just chilling in Vina. The weather is nowhere near as nice as it was at Christmas so we haven´t been to the beach, just scurrying around getting the bikes ready and packing our bike luggage into bags that can go on the airplane and arranging a bus ride to the airport - thank goodness we didn´t have to take the bus all over the past 3 months- it requires a lot more organization and punctuality. I had originally booked our flight home to give us a weekend at the beach to relax before we left and it is too bad that didn´t really work out that way, but not too bad since my dad and stepmom invited Scott and I to join them for a week in Hawaii a couple of days after we arrive home. Since we can´t get into Scotts apartment until March and since we don´t have jobs and since Scott has never been to Hawaii and since I missed Christmas at home, we decided to go, even though we don´t deserve it and can´t really afford it. Ah well, whats another week after 3 months on the road?
Cheers all, and thanks for listening to our travel tales. Scott is currently compiling the trip stats as we speak- kms, what we broke, what bad habits we have developed. We´ll post those at www.zodomatica.com/ontheroad/ shortly. See you all soon!
Scott and Pam
Hi all,
Another big week, so I´ll probably split this into 2 emails again. We are back in Vina del Mar at present and should be making contact with the group we are shipping the bikes home with sometime today.
We last left you in Bariloche and we decided that the most scenic way to travel North was to hop back and forth over the Andes as many times as possible. So, we left Bariloche for a pass that Martin (Swiss guy on BMW from earlier in trip) and the Dutch scooter guys had raved about. We pretended we were on tall sportbikes. The pass did not disappoint-beautiful scenery and a fantastic twisty, newly-paved road that allowed us to finally scrub the chicken strips off our new tires (non-bikers: chicken strips are the part of the tread on the outside edge of a motorcycle tire that hasn´t seen the pavement yet. If you travel only in a straight line, or go around corners really slowly, then you have big chicken strips and little respect among other bikers). The mountains and lakes in this area were also fantastic and we had a super sunny and gorgeous day. Per usual, the Argentina border crossing was much easier than the Chilean one. There is a noticeable difference between these 2 countries in terms of how friendly everyone, including the border officials, are. Chile almost always makes you fill out all your own forms, and if you miss entering some info in a section (such as the name of the border crossing you are at), they give it back to you to complete, they will rarely help you by filling in this missing information for you. At this border crossing, the customs guy who gave us the forms spoke to us in extrememly rapid Spanish and refused to speak more slowly/clearly when I explained that my Spanish wasn´t so good. To boot, we were asked to fill out our own paperwork, per usual, but there weren´t any pens and the guy said he didn´t have another. This is now our 5th passage into Chile and I guess I was in a feisty mood that day and although we have a pen or two in our bags, I was like- hey man, we want to come into your country and spend money and if you don´t have a pen for me to fill out this form with, and you don´t want to fill it out for me with Chile´s only pen, then I guess we´ll spend that money in Argentina instead. Of course, my Spanish isn´t as eloquent as that but I guess the point was made because a pen magically appeared.
Once in Chile, we were treated to crummy ashphalt, but still beautifull views of the many volcanos in the area. Our destination that night was Valdivia, a town we missed on our way down through Chile when opted to take that great ride on the trail between the 2 volcanos on New Years day. However, Valdivia is the home of our favourite Chilean cerveza- Kunstmann- so we were disappointed to have missed seeing the factory on the way down. Apparently, there are quite a few Germans in Chile and they started brewing their own beer here, probably in response to all the other nondescript Chilean brands that get consumed here. That night, we had dinner at the huge German beer garden-type brew pub they have attached to the factory. Dinner was basically a bowl of assorted sausages and smoked pork ribs and 4 liters of beer, 2.5 of which arrived in a “columna”, a one-meter tall glass cylinder of beautiful beer with its own tap. I love beer. Don´t worry, we weren´t riding our bikes that night. Of course, in our inebriated state, we bought a few souvenirs at the gift shop.
Next day, we awoke late, but with relatively clear heads (surprisingly) and had breakfast in town- Valdivia is quite a nice town where 3 rivers meet. We had breakfast across from the mercado fluvial- a market on the shore of a river where there were several rowing shells out. I was surprised to see that they had pretty good technique and modern equipment (hatchets and no wooden boats in sight). Who knew. The riverside market is half fish and lots of it and half fruit. Hilarious vendors trying their best. One suggested I could sit on the comfortable bundle of kelp he would sell me when I explained that we were travelling on motorcycles and had no room to carry it (I often give this excuse to vendors trying to sell us stuff but never had someone be so creative in suggesting how we might get around it).
We drove back to the Argentina border through Villarica and Pucon, the place where we spent New Years. It seems kind of wierd to be coming back to these places that we were at a month and a half ago. The road to the border was dirt and the views were sort of hidden by the forest but we emerged near the top of the pass to find a huge volcano right next to the road and a forest of monkey puzzle trees. Really neat! This border crossing went smoothly and we had wonderful views coming back on the Argentine side. At places in the mountains here, you look out and see layer upon layer of mountains and your point of view on the the mountains closest to you changes more quickly than the mountains further away so the result is that the view changes in front of your eyes as you ride along. It was sort of later in the day too so the setting sun was hitting the mountains and the colours were amazing.
We arrived in Junin de Los Andes right in the middle of some week-long festival. There were tons of fully-dressed-up Gauchos (Argentine cowboys) all over the place and the square was filled with vendors selling Gaucho gear and tack. We found a super bueno hosteria and went out to have a bite and take in the festive atmosphere. Argentinos are so friendly and nice. We really had fun checking out the gear, window-shopping and chatting with the friendly vendors until well past midnight. We were sorry that we didn´t really have time to stick around for 2 more days to see the rodeo (or whatever a Gaucho rodeo is called) coming up on the weekend.
We weren´t quite sure where the next town was that would have good facilities for tourists- by now, we are back on Ruta 40, the same Ruta 40 that we took through howling Patagonia. Ruta 40 is known for being in questionable shape all the way along and we had heard it deteriorates somewhat past Junin. As a result, not as many people visit this area and the guidebook doesn´t cover many towns in this stretch. Scott calls this “getting off the boat”- when you go somewhere that you know nothing about. Some towns on the map have great tourism facilities and others have 3 houses and a gas station and you never really know what you are going to get until you get there. Neuquen province treated us well- they are really working on developing their tourism and as a result, we were stopped twice by the cops at checkpoints- usually motorbikes get waved on through these checkpoints that are often at the entrance to bigger towns. I was actually a bit concerned at the second one when they asked Scott to stop several feet behind me (usually we go into them together) and then asked to see our passports. I thought for a split second about giving him my old one, in case he tried to bribe us to get them back. Luckily, they seem to just be checking in on tourists for research purposes -there were a couple of Neuquen Tourism people on hand to give us directions to the local tourism office. We figure they are just trying to gather info about tourists in the area, to see where they are from and where they are going. That said, I did notice when we crossed the border several days later that there was a record in the computer of us checking in with this cop. Ruta 40 in Mendoza province deteriorated as promised, but I´ll have to finish the story later as we need to get some work done on the bikes to prepare them for shipping.
Cheers all,
Scott and Pam
Hi all,
After a late start, we headed out of Trelew for Esquel, clear across the other side of Argentina. One of our biggest travel days yet (because there really isn’t anywhere to stop for over 600 km) and we didn’t find ourselves leaving town until 2 pm. Ah well, we are hard-core dual-sport riders by now. The drive across was extremely interesting compared to the hundreds upon hundreds of kilometres we did up Ruta 3 through the pampa- the flatlands gave away to hills and river, then some spectacular bad-lands-type geography and finally the Andes foothills that we loved so much when we were going south through Chile. We arrived late, but still just in time for a typical Argentine dinner at a steakhouse (aren’t all Argentine restaurants steakhouses??) at 11pm- right during the dinner rush. The next day, we checked out this famous narrow-gauge steam train, La Trochita (http://www.latrochita.org.ar). We happened to stroll into the station just an hour before the next scheduled trip (which runs only 4 days a week), so we took a ride on the “tourist loop”- you don’t go fast, but I think that 3 hours return to go to a whistle stop 20km away is all you need to get the gist of it. Very neat- my dad totally loves trains and he would have loved this and the scenery going by (slowly) was very beautiful to boot. And that evening, we travelled back over the Chilean border to Futaleufu- a town with a renowned river running through it- the Futaleufu. The town is just off of the Carretera Austral that we travelled south on, but when we passed by a month ago, the weather was quite cold and rainy so we put it off, knowing we would likely be back in the area again.
We passed over the Futaleufu in Argentina, just before crossing into Chile, where the Argentinos call it the Rio Grande. It is wide and green and crystal-clear, you can count every rock in the riverbed. A very beautiful river and somewhat endangered at this point in time, both by some proposed hydroelectric dam projects in Chile, but more imminently by a gold mine (that would employ cyanide-leaching) proposed on the other side of the border, in Argentina. Anyways, I had heard this river was great, endangered and one of the worlds best white-water rafting destinations, so we signed up with Futaleufu Explore for the next day and camped by one of the Futa tributaries for the night. As it turned out, we totally lucked out and got in the boat with 4 other semi-athletic people and the head guide, a wild-haired American dude with some 22 yrs experience rafting the Futaleufu. At the end of the regular trip, we all got out for lunch and our guide pulled the people from our boat aside (but not the other boat they had out that day) and asked us if we wanted to continue down the rest of the river after lunch- uh, yeah!! Check out http://www.futaleufuexplore.com/rafting.htm#01. A very awesome trip on a very awesome river. I wonder if I should be more afraid of rivers, given the reason for us heading out on this trip in the first place, but the day was perfect, the river happy and the company we chose had fantastic safety program– a safety kayak and “catamaraft” accompany each rafting boat and we had the Futaleufu´s best guide taking us down to boot. A very great day.
The next day we crossed back into Argentina and were met with some surprise rain and our ride up to Bariloche ended up being was very, very soggy! We had planned to spend some time in El Bolson on the way to Bariloche, but it had been raining cats and dogs there since 5am and the clouds socked the town in and filled the roads around the square with enormous puddles. I think we also missed out on some pretty cool scenery on this stretch of the road, but we really had to get to Bariloche and do laundry! Especially after the soaking.
Bariloche is okay. Very touristy downtown but beautiful views of the lake and mountains surrounding it. We had to sit down this morning and figure out how to best spend the remaining few days we have before we have to get the bikes back to Vina del Mar- we are now down to single digits as the bikes need to be in Vina on the 16th. But we figure we still have a bit of time to take a few more passes over the Andes- these are the best roads and the altitude isn’t enormous in this area so the passes aren’t as monumental as, say, the pass to Cusco was.
Okay, must run, laudromat closes in 15 minutes and we want an early start tomorrow (yeah right).
Cheers all,
Scott and Pam
Hi all,
Whooosh! 19 days down and 4 days back up..... It was really kinda cold down there....
In Ushuaia, we decided that we had had enough cold- glaciars and mountains are great, but this is a trip south and hey, sounds like there are plenty of icebergs floating down the Fraser waiting for us at home in BC- what is with the weather there this winter?
So, from Ushuaia, we headed North as fast as possible. On the second night, we stopped in Puerto San Julian to sleep and while pulled over on the main drag, looking at the guidebook, a guy on a scooter pulled up and asked us in English if we needed a place to stay. The locals frequently do this and Scott hates being approached in this way (we’re Canadians, the high pressure pitch doesn’t work), but this guy isn’t a local- I look over at his scooter and ask – are you touring on that ??? Anyways, we end up sharing a cabana with Dirk and Sander and Marco. Dirk and Sander are travelling from Alaska to Ushuaia on Honda 50cc mopeds, retrofitted with 100cc engines. Marco is also Dutch and riding a huge BMW, having met up with the scoots in Chile. You can check our Dirk and Sander’s very funny weblog and photos at www.honda50.cc.
Next day, we headed into San Julian to try to find a tour company that was recommended to us by some Argentinos we met while camping near the Perito Moreno glaciar. The tour doesn’t go until 3 in the pm, so we find a trail around the beach and catch some beautiful sights around the harbour before getting on the boat for the tour. The tour is in a 20-person Zodiac and we go to a Cormorant refuge area (smelly!!) on one side of the harbour and then to a beach filled with penguins on the other side where they let us out with the instructions “no molestar el penguinos”. It was really neat to be able to see them so close, but some of the idiots on the tour, one father in particular, is encouraging his kids to get in real close for a picture and his son in busy trying to pet a penguin, walking in amongst their nests. It was really frustrating because we felt fortunate to have the opportunity to see them so close, but this jerk made us realise why this shouldn’t be allowed for anyone. On the way back, in the harbour, the boat driver hops into the water with a wetsuit on and starts splashing around and after a while (after I run out of film), there are several black and white Commersons dolphins swimming and jumping around him and when we take off again in the Zodiac, a bunch come with us and are playing in the wake at the bow of the boat, just a few feet from where we are hanging over the side. Very cool. We get back to the beach at around 5 pm and gas up and hit the roasd at 6pm. Kinda late start, but it stays dark until 10:30, right? Wrong! We forgot about the fact that we have blasted some 1200 km north and the fact that these means the days aren’t as long anymore... Night falls on us only a few km from the town we are trying to reach though, so no big deal.
We keep pushing north, Ruta 3 is incredibly boring inland. Seeing sheep break up the horizon becomes a treat. We begin to wonder if the word “Patagonia” doesn’t mean “Cold, Flat & Windy” in Tehuelche. But we are pleasantly surprised to wake up one morning and put all our warm clothes per usual and go outside to find everyone wearing shorts! The days got shorter but warmer, which is good because we have been chilled. We spent the last couple of days at Penisula Valdes Nature Reserve. We arrive at the small village on the penisula to find it is a total beach town- diving shops and everyone in bathing suits. 2 days ago I was wearing all the warm clothes I had, and some of Scotts too! A bit of a shock. We spent a day going out to the north end of the penisula, to see a sea lion ‘loberia’ with some 300 sea lions hanging out sunning themselves! Big fat sea lions all over the beach- enormous males, lots of females and many babies, all born in Jan, some big and some tiny, depending on whether they were born at the beginning of the month or the end- they grow 300% in their first month and then they are on their own. Apparently the Orcas in the area also know about this hang-out and come by every couple of days or so for a snack, but not while we were there. We also saw armadillos scurrying around near the parking lot- they look like cute little pigs wearing armour.
Today, we are spending our last night on the east coast, in Trelew. We picked up a couple of new rear tires for the right price at the local motorcycle shop this am and then they quoted us $4 each to mount the tires- this is a $50 job at the bike shops back home. The tires are Metzeler, a good brand, but made in Brazil, so all bets are off as to how long they might last. But our old rear tires, after 12,500 km, are really worn out and getting thin. When they take Scotts tire off, we find that a small bit of wood has gone through his tire and the inner tube, but was still plugging the hole in the tube so the tire hadn’t gone flat yet.... At least these new tires will mean we don´t have to worry about slivers of wood giving us flats-that is pretty bad! And they only have to carry us back to Vina del Mar and then they won’t owe us anything.
Tomorrow we will go west to Esquel, heading for the Argentinian lake district. And now we must go cinch up our droopy chains for the ride...
Cheers all,
Scott and Pam
PS Thanks to everyone who sent emails to congratulate us on reaching Ushuaia!!!