Ruta 40

When I last left you I think I was stuck in the rain in Chile after Marty dumped the bike. Things did not get much better. We headed down the road and found it was impassable. In fact. impassable would be an improvement. The bridges were out. The water in the towns along the way had been turnd off because of floooding, and people were stuck for three days before they could even turn around.

So we headed for Pto Ibanez and waited a day for a ferry to Chile Chico, Chile where we were able to cross the border to Argentina. It was dry and clear.

Ruta 40 is the main north- south road in Argentina along the front slope of the Andes. But it is not paved, for the most part. This fact combined with the wind makes it a difficult ride. We rode for eight hours without any town, and spent the night at an Estancia named La Siberia. Estancias are ranchesand some offer lodging. Some are just operating ranches. But La Siberia has real accomodations. Marty and I basically slept in the bunk house. On the first day down ruta 40 we metabout 10 people, eight of which were Germans. At he Estancia we met another German couple who had lived in California for a while anda n Argentine couple and there 3 kids on a fishing vacation. So I ended up speaking more German than Spanish in this remote region.

The high point of the trip down Ruta 40 happened just south of Tres Lagoa on the asphalt. There is a short asphalt section that connects some east-west roads. Some Argentine police on their day off had set up an impromptu check point consisting of 2 orange cones and a private Ford F150 pickup. Our rule every where is we stop at real checkpoints where there is a building, flag, scale and such. But othersise we wave and keep going. So I waved. Marty was not as lucky and as he approached about 15 seconds behind me a cop stepped in front of him and got him pulled over. I pulled up about 500 meteres down the road and waited. When Marty did not come , I went back. Marty was talking with the cop and had given him copies of his license and registration, which did not please the guy. He was kind of surprised when I came back and pulled in behind him. The cop wanted original papers and wanted to search Marty´s top bag. Marty told him “ sure – at the municipal office. I don´t open anything on the road”. The stop was obviosly not legitimate because the cops did not want to go to town with 2 foreigners. So Marty is now 1 for 1 with the cops. Those guys were so perplexed when we refused to give original documents. It gives them nothing to hold on to. And we never refused to comply, we just say “ we will do it at the station”. Out attitude with cops trying to shake us down now is that we have all the time in the world. They don´t.

Then it was on to Perito Moreno glacier and the great town of El Calafate. I need to write a separate blog on Perito Moreno and the next stop Torres del Paine in Chile. But I have attached some photos in the mean time. Today we are on Tierra Del Fuego and have arrived in Ushuaia. So I have a lot of blog updates to give.

Fritz

Patagonia

Marty has become unbalanced on this part of the trip. Yesterday while on day 2 of our trip down the Carreterra Austral Marty hit a soft spot and dumped the bike. He was unhurt, but he shredded one of his panniers. It took us a couple of hours to put things back together, but we got underway and are now in Coyhuique.

Chilean Patagonia must be seen to be appreciated. It is wet, cool, sunny, pine forests, glaciers, fiords, rutted roads, mud, and spectacular beauty. Saturday we arrived in Chaiten by ferry. Chaiten was partly destroyed by a volcano last year and has few inhabitants left. But that´s where the ferry left us, so that´s where we started. We made it to Puyuhaipi Saturday night and collapsed.

Sunday we started late and had the mishap. Then it started to rain, then ice in the higher elevations. But we are loving this.

We head for the border with Argentina tomorrow.

Fritz

The End Of The Road - Almost

We have reached the end of the road. The Pan American ends about a km south of Quellon Chile. Chile’s Ruta 5, which we have followed off and on for the past two weeks, just ends on the island of Chiloe. So tomorrow we take a ferry back to the mainland to continue the trip south on the Carraterra Austral.

Southern Chile is green, warm, and filled with Chileans on summer vacation. Chileans enjoy a security that does not exist in any other country we have visited, the USA included. We have seen thousands of teenage and 20 something Chileans hitchhiking their way south. There is no fear of harm. They have their backpacks, sleeping gear, and get rides from everyone. Remember real family vacations? They still have them here. We see the whole family packed in the Subaru station wagon or the SUV packed full with bikes on the back, and a roof rack stacked high. Everyone heads to the cabins on the lake, just like Minnesota used to be, and spend two or three weeks together.

Another thing that we love, and did not take too much getting used to, is the system of budget hostels where you get a room, share the bathroom ( just like Minnesota used to be) , and get a breakfast with the room. We meet so many interesting and great people. One of the families we met was Sergio and Maria Soledad Letelier and their two daughters. Picture attached. Sergio is a food distributor in Santiago. He saw an ad in the paper and bought a 600 acre parcel on the island of Chiloe two years ago. Now he is trying to build a fishing lodge and summer resort. He is a successful businessman, but we met him and his family at the hostel in Castro, where they had a room and shared the three bathrooms the the other 25 of us. He was using his vacation time and the hostel as headquarters to work out his development plans with the local indigenous leadership. My point is that the Chileans really enjoy being with each other and being in a more communal vacation atmosphere. And social status and money are not the determinative factor.

When we got to the hostel in Pucon they announced that there was rafting a 2pm, and would we like to go. Absolutely. So we dumped our gear, got some food, and proceeded to raft some class 4 and 5 rapids. Picture attached. People are so layed back here. Remember what I said about a sense of security. It is so pronounced that there was no sign up sheet, no liablity , and they said pay us tomorrow when you get some cash. Try that in Jackson Hole.Well we did pay them, had a wonderful time, met some Germans and Peruvians on the raft trip, and slept great.

We are now on the ferry route again. We had to take a ferry to get on the island of Chiloe, and we will take one to get off too. There is something about a ferry ride with the motorcycles that spells adventure.

So as I look out the window of my room on the port of Quellon on a dreary Thursday night, I am looking forward to the trip to Chaiten tomorrow to continue the last leg of the trip to Ushuia Argentina and Tierra Del Fuego.

Fritz

ATACAMA

Marty and I have traveled more than 12,000 miles. We have arrived in Santiago, Chile and are spending a few days getting service and repairs for the bikes.

It has been some time since we last posted. After we got shaken down by the cop in Barrancas Peru we headed south through Lima and then on to Nasca, the home of the famous Nasca lines. We spend the night and then headed for Cuzco. As I reported the road was great, except where it wasn’t. What I did not tell you was how cold and desolate it is in the Andes. We encountered hail at 15,000 feet on two occasions. It was a two day trip to Cuzco. We stayed at the Hotel Santa Maria, which is owned by nuns. They let us park the bikes in their lobby. There was another motorcyclist there named Martin, from England. So the 3 bikes parked in the lobby gave the hotel the look of the adventure motorcycle center of Cuzco.

We received some great advice from Martin. When we were talking about our tires and going to La Paz for new ones Martin asked if we had checked the weather. We figured that it is summer south of the equator and therefore dry travel season. It turned out that Bolivia experiences its winter and greatest rainfall in January and February. He had been to Bolivia on prior travels and informed us that there is no paved road to Argentina through Bolivia, something I found unbelievable until I examined the map again. So since our tires were shot, the roads were mud, and we were not yet through the border we decided to change the itinerary and cross the Atacama Desert in Chile instead.

Martin had the greatest story about being taken by Peruvian police. When he crossed the border he changed $100 for 300 Peruvian Sols. Turned out all three bills were counterfeit. There is an enormous amount of counterfeit in Peru, so everyone is watching for it, and Martin could not use the bills. So he decided to keep them and try to pass them when he could. He was pulled over by a cop outside of Lima and accused of speeding. The cop just saw the opportunity to shake Martin down. So Martin negotiated the “fine” to 200 Sols, and duly paid the cop with two counterfeit bills.

Marty and I went to Machu Pichu last week. It is a pretty grueling all day trip with a nine hour train ride. So the day starts at 6 am and ends at 9:30 pm. But Machu Pichu is worth it, and we now understand why it is important. It would be a great place to spend a couple of days climbing around. There is a great one week hiking trip up the Inca trail that ends in Machu Pichu.

Last Tuesday we went to Lake Titicaca, just to see it. It was on the way to Bolivia, but not too far out of the way to Chile. But to get to Chile we had to cross the Andes, again. This time the pass was dry, but very very cold at 4550 meters. So we had Alpaca stew for lunch.

Once out of the high Andes we hit desert again. But our tires were really showing wear. By the time we hit the border with Chile we could see the wear bars and had real misgivings about crossing the Atacama Desert with poor tires. It is a dangerous and unforgiving place, so we started searching for tires in Chile, and found some 200 km south of the Peruvian border in Iquique. It was a great decision. The Atacama is cold and absolutely barren. I mean no cactus, no scrub, not a blade of grass for 800 miles. In some places it looks like Mars. In others it looks like the moon. We were warned to leave by 7 am on our third day crossing from Antofogasta. There is no fuel or food for the first 300 km or so. So we brought extra gas as a precaution. I figured we had crossed the worst when I could see tiny cactus and scrub. That lasted another 400 km.

Iquique is a pretty cool place on the Pacific. It is surrounded by the Atacama, but is a major port and has everything. We stayed at the Backpacker Hostel. Hostels are good places to stay because people talk with each other. Marty met a lot of people and went out at 1:30 am. I slept. But I got him up fairly early and we made out way through the desert along the coastal highway. So on the left was this lifeless desert and on the right was the Pacific Ocean and all the water in the world for 700 km.

We arrived in Santiago on Tuesday Feb 3 and have been relaxing at the home of Eugene Valenzuela, his wife Lida, and 7 kids. Gene lived with my family in 1966 and 1967 and went to Creighton Prep high school with me. We have kept in touch and Marty lived with Gene and his family in 1999 and 2000. So it has been good to renew the old friendship.

We are taking no more tire chances and have bought 2 new sets of tires to haul with us. I do not think they will fit very elegantly on the bikes. But we know there will be no more tires for at least 4000 miles until Buenos Aires. Moreover, at least 1500 miles of that is on dirt or gravel roads.

We leave for the Chilean lake country and Carraterra Austral on Saturday.

Fritz