Rio Gallegos

First of all, if your interested, I edited the last post to add a photo and some text about the road and the wind.
Today we made the short hop (about 320 km) to Rio Gallegos after a lazy start. I even had a third cup of coffee. First time in a long time. Tomorrow the plan is to do the double border crossing from Argentina to Chile and back into Argentina. This puts us on Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego at Rio Grande.
We actually saw a bit of wildlife along Ruta 5 today. There were lots of Rheas and guanacos. We tried stopping to get pictures but they're a little camera shy. Or gun shy depending on your point of view.
The best part was that it wasn't windy except for a few freak gusts.

Countryside southeast of El Calafate

Again!

Valley of the Rio Santa Cruz that runs out of Lago Argentino.

Guanaco bums at maximum telephoto.

The waterfront in Rio Gallegos on the Atlantic side of South America.

A monument to honour the war dead who perished when the British sunk the Argentine battleship General Belgrano during the Falklands (Malvinas) conflict.

And another to remember the pilots who died during the 1982 war. Interesting to see history from a different perspective.

Gotta go now. It's after 5 pm. Somewhere.
Chau.

More Ruta 40 and Patagonia

We left San Carlos de Bariloche after making a stop at the gomeria (tire shop) to drop of a small token of appreciation. The road continued south through Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi and P.N. Lago Puelo. It was very green and mountainous. That changed quickly though when we left the mountains south of El Maiten and rejoined Ruta 40 once again. We had to duck into Esquel to get gas and we crossed the tracks of The Old Patagonian Express. It's supposed to be the only long distance narrow gauge railway in existence and the southernmost railway in the world. I think it only runs as a tourist train now. Esquel, along with Trevelin were Welsh settlements and it looks like a really nice area.

Scenery in P.N. Nahuel Huapi

Leaving the mountains behind south of El Maiten

Back on Rt. 40

We saw lots of this along Rt. 40.

Near Esquel. Very pretty here.

Waiting for the Patagonian Express. It looks like the tracks for the train in Stanley Park.

We were going to stop in Gobernador Costa for the night but the gas station had a line-up and the girl at the hotel was really crabby. The place looked empty but she had no room at the inn for us. She kind of got mad at me for letting myself in. The sign said OPEN and the door wasn't locked. Go figure. So we kept on going. We ended up going to Rio Mayo for the night which set us up nicely for doing the next stretch of Rt. 40 the next day. While we were having dinner another biker showed up at the hotel. We invited him to sit with us at dinner and he gave us up to date info for our route the next day. He was from Santiago, Chile (actually Mendoza originally) and told us the road was very bad. However, he had made it from El Calafate to Rio Mayo in twelve hours. That's about 750 km. I thought he was a hero.

Along the highway south of Gobernador Costa with the mountains to the west. Most of this is range land for the estancias.

Most hotel owners are very accommodating towards motorcyclists and will arrange parking so someone can watch the bikes all night. We were joined later by another Beemer from Chile.

The next morning dawned clear and calm. We were worried mostly about wind as Patagonia is famous for high winds. The lenticular clouds over the mountains had me a little concerned about the wind coming up but hey, we're supposed to be having an adventure. Things went good for about two hours until my bike died and the back wheel locked up. Weird. It started okay but was resisting forward movement. Then there was a clunk and it was good. Somehow I think a rock got jammed somewhere in my rear wheel. So I started it up again and when I put the side-stand up the bike died again. A rock had also hit my side-stand switch and put it out of commission. It took us about 35 or 40 minutes to get everything sorted out and get on the road again. What are the chances of those two things happening at the same time? Good, I guess.
We made good progress but the wind was starting to come up. It was pretty cool to see a herd of Rheas run across the road. They're like an emu. We stopped for gas at Perito Moreno with another planned stop at Bajo Caracoles. At Bajo Caracoles they had no gas. That happens sometimes. We figured that with our extra 5 litres each we could make Tres Lagos, the next gas station. That would be a total of 460 km and I thought our range with the extra gas would be 500 km. Close but possible. When we got to the cross road to Gobernador Gregores we re-evaluated our fuel and decided against the 72 km detour each way to get gas there. We could make it. I was pretty sure. I probably figured it out in my head every five minutes for the next 5 hours.
Did I mention the wind? Holy moley it got windy. A few times it was all you could do to hold it in the rut in the loose gravel. Most of the time we were just riding in ruts in the gravel. Not too bad with no wind but we actually had to gear down in some of the gusts and really lean hard into the wind to keep the bike on the road. I found it pretty challenging. We also lucked out with the rain again. There was a lot of road construction and the detours were gross with mud. If it had rained we would have been camping. We ended up getting into Tres Lagos between about 6:30. I think Neil had under 20 km left in his tank and I had 40. Close enough. We had planned on staying the night at Tres Lagos but the gas station guy said it would be better to keep going. My guess is he wasn't the president of the local Chamber of Commerce. Anyway, we kept going towards El Calafate. Now the wind really started. If our helmets weren't strapped on good they would have been sucked right off our heads. Amazing gusts of wind. It was a bit of a workout. One thing that was kind of weird was riding downwind (with the wind) once we got on the pavement. It was like you were riding in a bubble because there was no wind noise or buffeting; just the sound of the engine. It gives you an idea of the wind speed as we were doing about 100 or 110 kph. The scenery was awesome though and we made it into El Calafate at 9:00 pm. It had taken us 13 hours to do the 735 km for the day. I just knew a beer was going to taste really good.

This was right after we fixed my bike. This was a good section but you get the idea with the ruts. On corners the ruts kind of all merged together and you had to get all sorted out back in a rut after you got through the corner. It got more interesting later with the wind. We still managed to do 60 or 70 kph most of the time.

The gas station at Bajo Caracoles. We weren't the only disappointed bikers. See those clouds in the sky? That's not usually good news if you're hoping for calm winds.

Some heavy showers across Lago Cardiel. Again we were lucky to avoid the rain. The last bit of road north of Tres Lagos would have been impassible for bikes in wet weather. Just after I took this picture an armadillo ran across the road. They can run pretty fast considering they aren't built much different than a turtle.

I didn't get many pictures for the day but this is a bit of scenery between Tres Lagos and El Calafate.

El Calafate is on the shore of Lago Argentino. It is a large glacier fed lake that backs onto the Andes in the west. The Glaciar Perito Moreno is quite famous and very accessible to tourists. We decided to spend an extra night here so we could go see it. It's very impressive.

Along the road into the Glaciar Perito Moreno from El Calafate.

We thought this looked pretty cool...

...until we saw this. You can see the crowds on the edge of the dark foreground.

It was well worth the visit.

Tomorrow, Sunday the 27th, we're off to Rio Gallegos on the Atlantic coast. This will set us up for crossing into Chile the next day. Talk to you then.
Chau.

Keep on keepin' on...

South on Ruta 40 from Malargue we strayed into the mountains again for more awesome scenery. There were lots of ranches, estancias I guess; and a lot of oil and gas activity. These pictures are all taken in the valley of the Rio Grande through Bardas Blancas, Barrancas and Chos Malal.

As you can see, we had a nice day to enjoy.

Bardas Blancas is barely visible at the base of this mountain.

Near Bardas Blancas

Along the Rio Grande south of Bardas Blancas

Also along the Rio Grande

Not sure but I think this is a huge ash flow. It looked like a glacier from a distance. I think it's from Volcan Domuyo near Chos Malal.

We made it to Zapala on Monday night after a pretty easy and uneventful day. Once again we dodged a huge thunderstorm but it caught up to us in Zapala. This storm had thunder and lightning going every few seconds for about an hour or more. Oh, and a bit of rain too.

The streets turn into rivers when it really rains. My fear is being caught on a muddy mountain road when a nasty storm  like this hits. I think we'll be camping if that happens.

On Tuesday morning we turned off Ruta 40 onto Ruta 234 (good one eh, Gibby?) to travel the Ruta de los 7 Lagos in Parque Nacional Lanin and P.N. Nahuel Huapi. This road quickly leaves the arid high desert and seems to bring us back to Beautiful British Columbia. The rivers, lakes and streams are clear mountain water with lots of lush green forests covering high mountains. There are also lots of tourists here to visit Junin de los Andes and San Martin de los Andes. Both of these are trendy and attractive tourist towns that reminded me of smaller versions of Whistler or Banff. It looked like there was lots to do here both summer and winter. There were also numerous campgrounds which was a change from what we had seen so far. It would have been cool to hang out here for a while. Maybe next time.

A distant view of Volcan Lanin (3768 m) from Ruta 40 before turning off on Rt 234

More interesting rocks.

San Martin de los Andes on Lago Lacar.

Along Rt 234

I think we should start charging for this.

I can't remember the name of the lake but this is taken standing in the campground.

We eventually ended up on the north shore of Lago Nahuel Huapi and followed it eastward to arrive at San Carlos de Bariloche. Another bustling tourist town, there was no problem finding affordable accommodation. We'll end up staying here two nights. We had been a little concerned about our tires lasting the trip but I had developed a bulge on my front tire which made the situation a little more urgent. We also needed the services of a travel agent in order to get tickets for the ferry from Puerto Natales to Puerto Montt in Chile. So that's what we did today. Neil got tickets and I found tires. We should be in Ushuaia in less than a week if all goes well.

Lago Nahuel Huapi

There's a distinct European influence here in Bariloche.

This is the awesome guy who changed our tires in his backyard shop. It's half the fun finding people to get stuff done.

He had obviously done lots of Beemers and was very efficient at it. We were out of there in no time.

So we'll keep headin' her south and I'll have more in a few days.
Chau.

On the road again...

It was nice to see my daughter in Jujuy and to see that she is having a great time with good families and friends. However, it's time to get back to the business at hand.
After saying a quick goodbye we left Jujuy on Wednesday morning in a drizzly rain. We planned to take Ruta 9 but we missed the turn-off so stayed on the main drag through Salta and south on Rt. 68 through Cafayate. The scenery along the highway northwest of Cafayate was spectacular with really cool rock formations and lots of colour. Cafayate looked like it would have been a fun place to hang out but it was still a little early in the day to quit so we settled for Santa Maria as a place to quit for the day. When I was getting a room two bikers on BMW's from Penticton, BC stopped to chat. They were just starting their trip and had started in Santiago, Chile. It's always interesting to talk to other motorcycle travelers to get their take on what they've seen.

We stopped to take a picture and these guys wanted some of their own with our bikes. It happens all the time.

 Lots of sightseers at Garganta del Diablo

Local wine sales at the roadside.

Northwest of Cafayate on Ruta 68

Picking a room in Santa Maria.

On Thursday morning we got up to sunny skies and fresh snow on the mountains. We had joined the famous Ruta 40 at Cafayate and planned to follow it all day to Chilecito or beyond. It's great riding but you just never know what your going to get as far as highway conditions. Even some of the primary routes can be washed out or covered in water. This was no exception and there were several good river crossings and spots where there was only a single lane due to washouts. We made good time to Chilecito so continued west to Villa Union for the night. More great riding here but we were lucky to sneak between two large thunder storms. If we had been caught in the rain on this section we would have had no fun. Much of the road bed was composed of this red mud that was nice when it was dry but would be hell in the rain.
Just before Villa Union we were watching what we thought was a rain storm just to the south of us. It turned out we were watching a dust storm developing and it passed just outside of town after we were in our room.

South of Santa Maria

Along Ruta 40 north of Belen

West of Chilecito and Nongasta. It's in a National Park but I can't remember the name of it.

The guy (on the left) had started his cycling trip in Alaska about a year and a half ago. His girl friend joined him in Lima, Peru last September. We met them west of Nonogasta, Argentina

In the park west of Nonogasta

This road was good going today

Clowning around a bit. Gotta have fun sometime.

On Friday we got up to the sound of fairly heavy rain on the roof. We took our time having breakfast then headed out for Mendoza. We got about 35 kilometers south of Villa Union along 40 when we were stopped by a river running across the highway. There were already a number of cars and trucks parked by the roadside and it was still raining. We joined the crowd hoping for the rain to stop and the water to go down. As far as we knew at the time this (Ruta 40) was the best route for us to take. There was a smaller rubber-tired front end loader working at cleaning out some of the other floodways and when he was done he came to help vehicles across the river. At first he led some of the transport trucks across. Then he would cross parallel and upstream of some of the smaller vehicles like four wheel drive pick-ups. Eventually the water got too high and nobody could make it across for a while. The loader operator even offered to carry our bikes across the river. We tried to load mine in but the loader bucket was an awkward size and the risk of damaging the bike was too high for my liking. The loader operator even offered to build us a loading ramp if we could get a truck to carry our bikes across. We waited around for about 5 or 6 hours but no luck. We headed back to town and got our room back. Then we went for drinks and appy's. What else are you supposed to do?

Bummer

The loader operator was a really good guy

More cool rocks on the way back to Villa Union

Not bad for $17 eh?

After our appetizer we went for dinner and then it really started raining. It wasn't looking good for the good guys. We had asked around though and determined there was an alternate route to Mendoza which we ended up taking on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, during the heavy rain in the night the sand had washed away under my double-stand and my bike fell against a wall. Not too bad but the fall broke my right hand mirror. That was a drag.
The road ended up being really good and after a few more hours of rain we had a nice ride into Mendoza. It's a very modern and attractive city with lots of trees and and green space. We also had our first glimpse of the true pampas of Argentina. This is a big place, Argentina.

One of the main streets in downtown Mendoza.

Argentina is a big country.

And also beautiful.

Tonight, Sunday, we're in Malargue and back on Ruta 40. Not sure where we're going tomorrow. That will be dictated by the weather I suppose. Some of these roads are horrendous in heavy rain.
Anyways, that's it for now.
Chau