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Day 73 - Chimbote to just north of Lima Peru
Up and out without breakfast again, a quick stop for Gasohol before heading back into the desert.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5251/...875614b263.jpg Company Uniform Around lunch time we were going around a roundabout when I spotted a restaurant with wooden chairs and a nicely lettered menu of the day, and a little voice inside me said "eat there!" so I listened to it, and passed on the word. We pulled in, I intentionally hopped off the wrong side of the bike, and slowly pulled it down after me. *Kathunk* I stared at it for a moment. Laughed, once again, at my idiocy, and Dachary and I lifted it back up. In we went, and had one of the best lunches we've had in a while. Dachary had some roast beef, potatoes, and rice. I had chicken, potatoes and rice. Both plates were delicious and there was a wonderfully curry-like spice on the potatoes that left your lips numb without burning you. Mmmm Back on the Panamerican the word of the day ended up being "Wooowwwww" because we just kept saying it over and aver. We've never seen landscapes like these, and we both felt so amazingly grateful for the opportunity to experience them. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5098/...0cbe4ca467.jpg Dachary in the Desert http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5134/...a461673865.jpg Dachary in the Desert http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5297/...ce65a48480.jpg Dachary in the Desert http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5053/...3e5c5b5a9f.jpg Dachary in the Desert http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5258/...1606e0d13c.jpg Peruvian Desert http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5060/...2a981ed70b.jpg Peruvian Desert http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5298/...9559bf0f10.jpg Peruvian Desert http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5017/...66bf503872.jpg Peruvian Desert http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5217/...3f5cede78c.jpg Peruvian Desert Another stop at a Gasohol station to fill up on "fuel" that was guaranteed to void the warranties we didn't have. We pulled over to put a smudge more air in my tires and on the way to the bathroom I noticed the bins of frozen treats… "hmm. standing around for five minutes eating a frozen treat wouldn't be bad." Dachary wasn't opposed to the idea, so 7 soles later we were enjoying a nice little break by the bikes. We'd been riding hard all day, and rarely take little breaks like that. It was nice. Back on the bikes, and we encountered the two police checkpoints where Naomi warned us about corrupt cops trying to extract bribes. Sure enough, at the first one the cops lied and tried to tell us we were going faster than we were after exiting a toll booth, you know, where you're supposed to be accelerating? The next one was after cresting a hill, there were four cop cars at the bottom of it, and I thought, with that many cops it'll be less likely that they're trying to get bribes from people, but sure enough, we were waved over by a cop standing on the side of the road with no radar gun or any other means of detecting speed. Having been warned about these guys in advance I played extra stupid gringo with zero Spanish skills. At the first stop the guy was speaking so fast that I didn't even have to pretend I didn't have a clue what he was saying. He went to get his partner whom he thought spoke some English. He came over, attempted the same thing, and failed utterly at my dazed looks and "Sorry?" and "I don't understand." I didn't even answer the question of "where are you from?" because that would have implied some Spanish understanding. I did give my fake license though because "licencia" is pretty close, and I don't give a shit if he has it. After a minute or two of utterly failed communication attempts he waved me off with a frustrated expression. The second stop was much like the first, except I actually understood the first guy, who went off to get someone else to attempt to communicate with me, and he wrote down "$150 Infractione" on the back of a ticket. "Ok." I said in the "I have no clue what you're on about, but please continue speaking." sort of voice. He told me I'd been going very fast. I told him I didn't understand a thing he was saying. He asked for my documents but used other words. I told him I didn't understand. Eventually he said "documents para la moto" which was close enough, and I showed him my documents. He pointed to the "$150 infraction" on the paper again. I said "Yes?" He blathered on for a few moments, and then gave up and waved me on. As a note, whenever we've seen prices in Peru it has been "S./ some_number" and never dollar signs, so I'm pretty sure he meant US Dollars. Soon, we entered the outskirts of Lima and started looking for a hotel, having previously decided it would be better to grab a hotel and attempt to find the dealer tomorrow since we'd never make it there before they closed. Dachary spotted one on the left but I mistook her hail for the one I'd spotted on the right with balconies, faux marble, and more all done up in a heavily european style. It stuck out like a sore thumb along the side of this busy road with crappy little single color one-story buildings. (Dachary's note: while Kay was enquiring about the hotel, I was standing with the bikes, as per usual, and a guy pulled up in a pick-up truck and seemed really excited to see the bikes. He came over and started asking me questions, and my Spanish isn't as good as Kay's, but eventually I was able to tell him the capacity of the bike, where we were from, where we were going, etc. He asked if he could take a picture of the bikes, and we told him it was fine (Kay had come out at that point and was standing with me) and he seemed really happy and excited about us and the bikes. He shook our hands and then made to drove off, and as he was going by, he pulled the pick-up next to us and offered us some toffee. Apparently he made it himself. He opened a little plastic baggy and handed us each one, and then he handed Kay the full baggy, which had contained a total of 5 toffees. Normally I'd be skeptical of eating food some random stranger gave us, but he was so genuinely happy that we took them - I felt it would be insulting to refuse. We each had one after dinner, and ZOMG! They were amazingly good! I'm not even really a toffee fan, but these things were SO tasty. I had two, and Kay had one, and we still have two left. We're saving them. Yay for random encounters with generous strangers who make good toffee!) - End Dachary's Note Turns out they're not done with the building, but they're really trying hard, and have done a good job. It's also got real Jacuzzi tubs, although, it's lacking enough hot water to fill them. When we asked about food around here the lady at the desk (on the second floor) said she could order us something. So, **** it, we took it. Better than hunting around for more, and getting closer to Lima and higher prices. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5015/...8c45f44974.jpg Unfinished bust http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5131/...2f7e64b9bc.jpg Ionic column in the making... http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5011/...8ce8d4d5a6.jpg Romeo, Romeo... http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5094/...b4ca367c13.jpg Bike Molester http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5178/...4163b6bda6.jpg Bike Molester We paid for the room, asked about food again, and she wanted as much for the food as for the room. We were quite confused because it was an outrageous price for food in Peru, and told her we'd go find food out there. Then, magically, the price halved itself. Dachary told me later that the lady was originally offering us some sort of mixed platter with chorizo, chicken and a bunch of other stuff, which Dachary has seen elsewhere for quite a high price, so it turns out that the price wasn't implausible. For half the price, it was still a bit much but within the realm of sanity and we didn't feel like debating it any more so we said ok and went to the room. What we ended up with was tasty fried chicken on a bed of lamely done french-fries which she probably marked up 100%. I hope she at least tipped the delivery-guy we saw bringing it via the balcony. We set up the iPad on the balcony, grabbed the headphones, and enjoyed an episode of Top Gear whilst we munched our meal. Afterwards, we remembered we were going to check Dachary's air filter because she's been having some performance problems, but it was dark, some disagreements ensued and in the end, the idea was abandoned. I'm not sure what this means for tomorrow because I'm not comfortable with her heading into Bolivia and beyond with the bike acting as it is (sometimes she has the throttle pegged and we're barely doing more than 60mph). It may be something more, as the bike is due for it's 12,000 mile check-up, but it may just be that the desert has filled her filter, although if that were the case I'd suspect that my bike would be experiencing similar problems, but Horse is doing good, even with the crap I've been feeding him. Side note: Gasohol in Peru is running us nearly $7 US a gallon and is continuing to give us shit mileage (45 mpg when we're used to getting 65-75). We buy 95 or better whenever we can, but sometimes we get stuck with 90 because there won't be any more stations for a while and there's nothing better. Still don't know what the numbers mean. Maybe it's octane, but we've no clue what percentage of what we're buying is alcohol. We are not happy. Side note 2: Checking the air filter requires removal of six torx screws, the seat, the blinker, two long phillps screws (one of which is in a deep tunnel), and the snorkel. Once you get it out you have to do a lot of shoving and finger crossing to get it back in because it doesn't really fit in the space provided. We love our bikes but hate everything to do with getting those body panels off. You need to remove them to access the battery, the air filter, the fuel filter, and to change the oil. Well, the oil also requires removing the filter and it's cover down near the chain, as well as the sump plug under the bike. Actually you're supposed to remove the oil tank thing near the top too but we never do since you can drain almost all of it just by having the bike tilted on the kickstand. Some of the design decisions on this bike are just ****ing moronic. … There are far things in the world worse than corrupt cops. The cops in Colombia and Mexico were great, but so far Peruvian cops on the Panamerican are as bad as their Honduran counterparts. Peru is beautiful, when the natives haven't covered it in trash and / or foul scents, but bad cops can sour the whole experience of a country for overlanders and that really sucks. |
Day 74 - Just north of Lima to Lima, Peru
The plan for this morning was to find the BMW dealer in Lima to get a new tire for Kay's bike, and maybe ask about the problems I've been having with my bike. I honestly didn't expect they'd be able to get the bike in and serviced quickly, and I didn't want to spend days in Lima waiting for it at this point, given the tightness of our schedule now, so I figured we'd just get a tire for Kay and move on.
Got up and out of the hotel shortly after 9AM (I had a ton of trouble sleeping again last night because the hotel fronts the Pan American and we heard a non-stop litany of large trucks and honking all night… loudly. And the room was too hot, so you had to open the door to the balcony to get any cool air, but that let in more noise. I tried sleeping on the floor near the door, which was cooler, but uncomfortable on hard tile without my sleeping bag or sleeping mat, which were down on the bike… and I tried sleeping with my ear plugs and buff on to block out the noise, but I woke up around 3AM and didn't get back to sleep until after 6AM. So I slept until 8 and then we got up, packed the bikes and hit the road.) Neither of us was looking forward to driving into Lima, because we ALWAYS get lost in the big cities. And we didn't have a map of Lima, and we didn't have internet at the hotel to look at a map - so we had what Kay saw two nights ago, and an address written down in his book. He thought we took the Pan Americana through Lima until we found the road that the dealer is on, and then just get off the Pan Americana at a roundabout and follow the road. But it's never that simple, and we had no idea where the Pan American would cross the road we needed… Turns out it was that simple. After a poorly-marked roundabout took us a little over 1k off the Pan American (but asking directions from a guy selling stuff at a stop light got us turned around quickly) we took the Pan Americana through Lima… and eventually saw the sign for the road we needed. Which indicated which exit we needed. We got off at the exit, stopped at a gas station to ask some cops, who seemed quite happy to help Kay - they shook his hand, waved and smiled at me, and got out a map to answer his question - and told us we were on the right road and just needed to head 10 blocks that way. We did, and we saw the BMW rondel (on the opposite side of a divided road) so we went down to the next left turn, popped a U, and made it back to the BMW dealer with zero hassle. It was seriously the easiest thing we've ever had to find in a big city. It went ridiculously smoothly. Still, driving through Lima takes time, and it was around 10:30AM when we pulled up outside the dealer. The guard saw that we were riding BMW motorcycles, and when we made to pull up in front of the dealer, he waved us through into the back. "Oh, you're riding a BMW - you don't need to park out there. Come on in!" I seriously love that about riding this bike. The service we've gotten at dealers on the road has been absolutely stellar. Into the back, and the guy who greets us says he speaks a "little English." We try explaining what we need in pidgin Spanish/English with our limited vocabulary, and he follows us for a bit, but wants to confirm that he understands what's going on with my bike when we try explaining the problem, so he goes to get a guy who speaks English. Turns out that's Eduardo, whose card says he is a "Jefe de Soporte Tecnico" but who we thought was a director until we just now looked at his card. He was certainly striding around being helpful like he owned the place, and maybe he does and I'm totally misunderstanding the title. Anyway, we explain what we need to Eduardo, who consults with Caesar who apparently organizes service (we think - we don't have his card) and they say they can take a look at my bike immediately to diagnose the problem. Great! Eduardo also says that a tire for Kay's bike is no problem. So we go inside and hang out reading our books (mine on my teeny iPhone, and Kay's on his iPad, since we've run out of paper books a long time ago - thank god for Kindle on the iPhone/iPad on a trip like this). A bit later, Eduardo comes out and says there's nothing wrong with my bike, but they're still checking it out. I'm a bit confused as "nothing wrong" implies to me that they're already done checking, but we wait more. No big deal. We're just grateful they were able to take a look at it so quickly, so we don't complain. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5212/...9e4ab52892.jpg That's not supposed to have oil in it A bit later again (around noon) Eduardo comes back and shows us the air filter, which is absolutely filthy. He mentions checking the fuel filter and that they might want to change the… oh, he can't remember the English word for the thing they might want to change. So I hand him my iPhone and motion for him to type the Spanish word into the dictionary app I have (Ultralingua, which Eric recommended to me when we hung out with him, Sabrina and Stephen in San Cristobal what feels like forever ago!) and it turns out the thing they might want to replace is the spark plug. No problem! I have spark plugs! I go out to get them (he's a little confused that I hand him two, but I explain that my bike, the '07, is a two-spark model - Kay's older F series is a one-spark) and he sits them on the bike for the technician, who has gone to lunch, but who will get back to working on my bike when he returns. Which reminds us - we haven't had breakfast yet and can he recommend a spot for lunch? Eduardo tells us about a place down the street a little and around the corner, inside another building. He can't remember the English words for them but I figure we can look around and find it, so we head that way. Turns out he was sending us to a supermarket that had ready-made food offerings on the second floor, and also a hot food place that served chicken and french fries, but Kay and I are getting god-awful tired of chicken and french fries (seems like we have it for every other meal here in Peru) so we opt for some wraps and empanadas from the ready-made food case. Conveniently, I've been needing new contact solution and the store has a pharmacy section! Armed only with my iPhone and Ultralingua, we inquire about contact lens solution. (I don't know why I haven't mentioned it before, because we use it practically daily to look up specific vocabulary we don't know, like "contact lenses". It doesn't require a 'net connection and it's fantastic. It'll conjugate for you and everything. We super duper love it and I am very grateful to Eric for recommending it to me. If you don't speak Spanish and plan to travel Central/South America and have an iPhone, I highly, highly recommend it.) With the aid of Ultralingua, I'm able to ask for "water for contact lenses" and point to my eye, which the woman at the pharmacy understands the very first time. Yay! And they have some! Yay! She brings me two options and I pick one at random because I don't know the difference. So now I have new contact solution! Bonus! Also, while we're here, I ponder snacks. Being a girl, there's a certain time of the month that I simply CRAVE chocolate. (And being a big girl, I like my treats in general.) But good chocolate treats are so hard to find in Latin America. I prefer baked things, like brownies, which we never ever see. We do occasionally run into a panaderia when we have time to stop, which usually has bread and occasionally pastry products, and I've tried a wide variety of Latin American pastries, but none of them really satisfies my desire for baked goodies. And in Peru, we've noticed a dearth of panaderias or even bodegas or stores that have much in the way of tasty treats. So I decide to look at Oreos, and end up picking up some bite-sized Snickers that aren't going to last long in my tank bag in the Peruvian desert (pity about chocolate melting, and all that) and end up buying the Oreos and Snickers. So I have treats for the evening, even if we don't run into a place to buy them at the end of the day. I'd normally eschew pre-processed baked goodies in the US, because it's so easy to find really good baked goodies (or make them) back home, but abroad, Oreos are something I know and come close to fitting my requirements. So I broke down and got them. Turns out our trip out for lunch was quite productive! It takes longer than we expect and we get back to the BMW dealer around 1:40PM. Eduardo had told us to expect my bike to be done at 2PM, so I figure we have just a few minutes of sitting around. As we're reading on our respective devices, a lady walks by and asks if we need Internet access. Sure, if you're offering! So she tells us which network to use (they've got a guest network set up) and gives us the password, and we log on from our iPhone and iPad and check ADV and my email and poke the Web for a bit. Which always takes longer than we expect. At around 2:45, we decide we should give up and watch a show until they're done with my bike, so I go out to where we've piled our stuff to get the headphones for the iPad. And as I'm out there, I see that they're buttoning up my bike. Yay! I go back inside and tell Kay to nix the TV idea, and he's walking toward me with a piece of paper that has a total written on it (roughly $64 for labor, since we didn't need any parts) and says we're probably about ready to go. Yay! So Eduardo comes back a few minutes later and explains that they're done with my bike, and they need my passport and the bike paperwork to fill out an invoice. No problem. We ask about a tire for Kay's bike again, and he seems to think we want them to mount it. No, no, we just want a tire we can bring with us. So he goes to ask a guy about it. He and the guy come back a few minutes later, look at the tire and write down the specs. They go back and forth a bit, and eventually Eduardo tells us that they can get a Metzler Tourance tire for the rear, but it won't be here until tomorrow. Bummer. I wish they'd have told us that at the beginning because that's the whole reason we stopped there - not to have my bike serviced. But it's getting late in the day at this point - it's after 3PM - and we probably wouldn't get very far, so we ask if he can recommend a hotel where we can stay in Lima and we'll pick up the tire and hit the road in the AM. He can, and he has the guy "order" the tire (I think they have to request it from a warehouse or something, and they'll have it tomorrow AM) and a tube. There's a bit more confusion because he still thinks we want them to mount it for us in the AM, but we don't. I think Kay wants to get to Bolivia before we mount it - his tire still has a little tread left and it's largely pavement between here and there. So we wait, assuming that he's getting the info about the hotel for us. He says we can leave the bikes there for the night, and the hotel is just down the street - walking distance - next to a gas station. So we pull what we want from the bikes, and he says he'll be back in 20 minutes and wanders off. What ensues next is an hour of sitting around wondering what the heck we're supposed to be doing. We go back inside and wait. We play a game on the iPad. Time passes. Eventually Kay suggests watching a TV show again since it's clear Eduardo isn't going to be back in 20 minutes, so we go outside to the stuff and look for headphones. But while we're out there, we get the idea of checking Kay's air filter because mine was FILTHY, so his probably needs cleaning, too. So we take all the crap off his bike, take off the seat, undo all the screws and pull the air filter. Yep. It's filthy. Unfortunately, the F650 FAQ says to clean the air filter with filter cleaner / gasoline / detergent and a burnish (which we don't have), so we ponder asking the guys to clean it for us in the AM and we'll just put the bike back together ourselves. That can't take long. While we're poking Kay's bike, we notice he's got oil in his airbox, too. Crap. He hadn't been noticing the performance issues I had, but we both remember that my bike had oil all over the place and needed a bit of cleaning up, so we decide that Kay's probably needs the same, based on what we've seen. So we want to ask if they can do the same service on his bike, but Kay is annoyed that we waited till the end of the day to discover this, since we've essentially been just sitting around since 11AM. As we're standing around outside, Eduardo comes dashing by and says something like "Had to come back to the office!" by which I understand he didn't mean to return, and I realize he thinks we were done a while ago. We confer and then flag Eduardo down, and ask again about the hotel, etc. And we ask about whether they can get Kay's bike in for the same service. Eduardo indicates that it's no problem and that they'll do Kay's bike early in the AM so it should be ready before the tire is there, so we should still be able to get on the road at a decent time tomorrow AM. So we ask him to do that, and then ask about a hotel again. Could they maybe call us a cab to the hotel? Eduardo had indicated that it was in walking distance, but I'm bringing my panniers, and Kay has some stuff from his, and we don't want to walk kilometers to a hotel with all that crap even if it is "within walking distance." Eduardo says sure and wanders off, and a few minutes later, the same woman who gave us the internet passwords earlier in the day walks over and says she'll drive us to the hotel. Yay! We pick up our stuff and follow her out front, and she leads us to a BMW Mini Cooper S, which has the extra storage space in the back, and opens the back doors, asking for my panniers. I tell her that they're heavy - I'd rather put them in myself but the way the car is parked and the doors are extended, I can't get to it. She takes them, realizes they really ARE heavy, and gets dirt all over her nice slack suit trying to manhandle them into the back of the BMW. Yikes! I feel so bad for my filthy stuff getting all over her nice suit! One of the guys takes mercy and comes over to load the stuff into the back, and it requires a surprising amount of manhandling. Then we're off to the hotel. Which, it turns out, is a little over a block away - it really is close by. But as soon as we pull up, the guy is shaking his head at us. While Kay gets out of the mini, the valet goes inside and comes back out to say they have no vacancies. "What? I thought this was arranged?" the woman who is driving us asks. We had no idea. We didn't even know the name of the hotel - it was just the place that Eduardo recommended to us. So she calls Eduardo, who apparently says that Caesar recommended it but they haven't called ahead to make any arrangements, so now here she is with a car full of gringo and our stuff and no hotel. "No problem," she says - her English is quite good - she learned it in Germany - "I know another hotel. Let's go check it out." I'm sitting in the front seat with her so I make small talk - turns out her father is Peruvian but her mother is German - she was born in Dublin, Ireland - raised in Peru until she was 18 - lived in Germany until she was 28 - and then returned to Peru to be near her family. While we're chatting, she tells us there was a big accident at a football stadium nearby, which is why we keep seeing all of the ambulances flying by. She heard on the radio that like 100 people, many of them children, were injured. I think maybe a bleacher collapsed - I'm not quite sure what the problem was but it sounded bad. We chatted about Peru, which she says she didn't miss because all of the earthquakes, and before we know it, we're at a hotel not far from the supermarket where we had lunch. Kay goes in to ask about a room, and it's more than we would normally spend, but we don't feel like we can ask this lady to drive us around further like some sort of borrowed taxi service. She already seemed annoyed (although not at us) that the first hotel hadn't been arranged beforehand, so Kay and I agree to suck up the price just so she can get back to her hijacked day. It turns out, this is the first hotel where we've stayed in Peru that has AIR CONDITIONING! YAY! Thank God! And it has hot water, and internet, and it's quiet, even though it's on a main street. I should be able to actually SLEEP here. ZOMG almost worth the cost. (A couple of cool woman police officers on a moto in Lima! Girl power!) http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5138/...baa27a96a5.jpg Biker Chick Traffic Cops in Lima. So we haul our stuff in, take the ELEVATOR up (I know, right? What luxury!) and get into the surprisingly roomy room. Crank up the a/c, hop in the shower, and then out for dinner. We wander around the corner where I had seen a restaurant sign earlier, but the place doesn't seem open, so we wander a bit further and find what appears to be a convention center, and then an upscale mini-mall. What luxury! We wander around the mini-mall just to see what they have, and Kay spots a bubble tea place. Kay LOVES bubble tea, and hasn't had any since probably a month before we left, so he goes inside and asks if they have "black tea with milk and bubbles." The guy indicates that it's no problem and asks us to sit down. Sure! We sit and he makes the bubble tea, and brings Kay what looks like a glass of milk with bubbles in. Kay says there's "technically" tea in it, but it's basically milk with tapioca balls, and the tapioca is old … so we look for a place to throw it away. It was a nice idea, but didn't quite work out. Kay's note: the tapioca "bubbles" have to be remade multiple times a day as they start getting hard within hours. If you ever get ones that are too stiff it means the people who work there aren't doing their job. But the bubble tea makes me realize how friggin thirsty I am (SO THIRSTY!) and I really want juice. Except juice may or may not have local water in it, which isn't safe for me, and I've had enough trouble with my tummy as it is. Eventually we settle on what looks like a chain place for dinner, but has stir-fry type food, so it's a change from the usual chicken and french fries and rice. And they advertise milkshakes! Kay spots a glass with ice in it on another table, which seems to be industrial mass-produced ice, which we've been told is safe to drink because it's made with treated water. So I decide to risk it and ask for a strawberry milkshake. What I actually end up getting is some sort of purple frozen juice of the day. It's definitely not strawberry, nor do I sense any milk anywhere near it. I drink about half of it down anyway because I'm SO thirsty, and I just hope I don't pay the ultimate price for it later. Dinner was surprisingly tasty, and I'm in good spirits because the menu advertises "brownie con helado" - which is brownie with ice cream. And this restaurant seems large enough that it probably actually *has* brownie with ice cream. But, alas, as has been proven true at EVERY SINGLE RESTAURANT - brownie con helado is just a myth. It doesn't exist. We've seen it on a ton of menus and no-one ever has it. So sad. But I was smart enough to get the snacky goodies when we had lunch, so I have Oreos or Snickers to look forward to back in our AIR CONDITIONED hotel room. While neither of us would have planned to spend another day in Lima - especially with our schedules getting so tight on making it down to Ushuaia before the weather is too bad - it's probably just as well that we're getting the bikes serviced. We're getting into no-man's land for BMW dealers, so any problems we encounter now could make or break the rest of the trip, depending on how we handle it. The day was not unpleasant, and while the hotel is more than we'd normally want to pay, it does have some nice luxuries. We should be well-rested and ready to hit the road hard tomorrow, if the bikes are ready early in the AM! The hope for tomorrow is to get as far as Nazca, where we'll check out the Nazca lines and then head inland for Cusco. Although at this point I'm seriously considering scrapping Machu Picchu for our schedule, because the Salar de Uyuni is going to take up some serious time and I don't want to miss our window to get to Ushuaia. It's getting tight now. Time to start making some tough decisions. Kay's Note: at this point I don't even consider the cost of labor at the BMW dealers. It's just so damn cheap. After The Fan Of Insanity I'm freaked about parts prices, but paying them to look at the stuff involved with Dachary's bike today didn't concern me in the least. $65 US to dig out the fuel filter (almost literally), clean the carb and the air box of oil spew, and change the plugs? Sure, we could do it, but honestly we never have the time at the end of the day, and when we do want to **** with the bikes the hotel never has an appropriate space to do so (someone's kitchen, a parking lot we can't access on our own, etc). $65 is totally worth it if you ask me, and that's still the most expensive labor we've encountered. |
Sleeping
I wonder if you two have become a little "precious" with your sleeping arrangements?
Check out "Äustralian Story" on line at the ABC, (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 14th Feb 2011. (You are both internet people, you'll find it) This story was about an 85 year old rider, Doug Sunderland, who lost his wife through cancer, has cancer himself and was dissuaded from suicide by his doctor who said "Get on your bike and ride!" He has just finished his second circumnavigation of Australia and is planning his next long ride. At 85. Reason I mention this this because his sleeping arrangements are to stop at the side of the road, remove his helmet - only- wrap himself in a two buck tarp and go to sleep. I've ridden that road and could argue with where he does this! But I truly salute a hard-core minimalist. Like Dave Barr, he is happy to subsist on cold canned food at the side of the road. Doug, 85 and Dave, is younger, but has no legs. Hard men of the never ending highway: gentlemen, I salute you both. May we meet on the road sometime. Rob Hall |
Day 75 - Lima to Ica Peru
One bright side of the hotel? It had breakfast. We went down and ordered some eggs (complementary breakfast was toast, juice and coffee/tea) and reveled in a tasty breakfast, which has been far and few between in Peru. No-one here seems to do breakfast. Whilst we were there, a woman at the next table was having trouble understanding what the waiter was saying, so I told her what he meant, and then she asked me to translate for her.
We ended up chatting, and discovered that she was a Welsh housewife in Lima because her son had fallen in love with a Peruvian woman, and wanted to ask her to marry him. Her mother insisted that his mother MUST come with him if he wanted to ask for her hand, so she flew to Lima with him (it was apparently his second visit but the first time for her and she was very much out of her element) and was very uncomfortable here. She didn't speak any Spanish, although we think she has an excuse - she didn't want to be here anyway - and she was pretty much stuck in the hotel until her son came to take her around with his girl. It was an interesting chat, and an unexpected viewpoint into the differences in culture. Hopefully the parents grant permission and he gets to marry the girl! After breakfast, we ventured out of our hotel to the supermarket just down the street to get some large jugs of water and hit the ATM we'd seen there. Along we way we ended up walking through the grass instead of on the sidewalk and Dachary twisted her ankle in an unseen hole, and in the end going to the supermarket and back took at least half an hour even though we could see it from the hotel. Back to BMW Lima around 10:30 AM, crossing our fingers that the bike would be done, but no. It was in pieces on the stand. I went up to check on it and the mechanic said he needed a spark plug. Yesterday Dachary had just handed them her spares. I figured, why hand over my spares for such a cheap part. Turns out, they didn't have any. Not a huge vote of confidence… http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5056/...4378408807.jpg The old Plug http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5251/...bb0dd9f7cc.jpg Gutless Bikes Naomi and Alberto's bikes, sans engines. They both look like gutted bugs without their engines, but Alberto's especially so. You look down and you see valves sitting there that should never be exposed. Whip out the iPad, watch some Torchwood in their "waiting area". Really, just a high table with squishy stools, then they start cleaning the bike. I would have rather just taken off with it dirty and saved the time but it was already in there and wet so… We finally escaped just after 1pm, but the bikes… OMG the bikes are SO happy. They feel like brand new with their new plugs and clean filters (and carbs). I don't know if my carb had dried oil in it like Dachary's but it's happy now even though it wasn't notably off. Drive drive drive…. there's a magic number approaching… How close is it? Are we there yet? How much further? Almost? YES!!!! 10,000 miles baby. We're in the middle of the Peruvian desert, 168 kilometers south of Lima and 10,000 miles from Boston. We get off the bikes and celebrate. We film a video for you. We take pictures. We don't care in the least that it's taking time from the schedule because we're at 10,000 miles baby! We made a quick video on the spot. Sorry, we can't figure out how to embed video on the HUBB. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5013/...d55c2ca199.jpg 10,000 miles baby (Dachay) http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5217/...b14e406b66.jpg 10,000 miles baby (Kay) http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5295/...713224072e.jpg 10,000 miles On we go, until we see a couple big BMW's heading our way. We wave. They wave. We pull over. They pull over. We start chatting. Another bike pulls over. Then another. It's a group of four guys (one pair father and son) on brand new BMW's who look like they raided the dealership and made a break for it. They're all wearing BMW gear, BMW tank bags, and the bikes are spotless, with a bunch of Touratech farkles. The only odd man out was a guy wearing a spotless Rallye Pro 2 suit. Maybe they ran out of 3s? Turns out, they left Venezuela about twenty days ago and they were just doing a loop around parts of South America before heading home. I think they had just one month to do it so they didn't go all the way to Ushuaia. Also, they went to Bolivia but skipped the Salar de Uyuni. How odd. They gave us lots of info, like telling us that the main road from the Panamerican to Cuzco is "perfecto" and "mui bonito". They also gave us the card of a Hotel in Huacachina, which is the town just west of Ica which has these huge sand dunes surrounding an almost stereotypical oasis. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5137/...52776924cb.jpg Venezuelan Adventure Riders http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5094/...bb85de4cab.jpg Venezuelan Adventure Riders (the dad) http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5216/...e4d383f688.jpg Venezuelan Adventure Riders More chatting, picture taking, shaking of hands, and pointing at maps, and then we went our separate ways, buoyed by the encounter. It took a bit longer than expected to get to Ica. We had GPS coordinates from Fred for the hotel where he'd stayed the night before and as we came into town we thought we saw it on the side of the road, but decided to go with the suggestion of the biker guys in Huacachina and light faded out just before we pulled into town. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that the town's sole purpose in life is to accommodate tourists. Not only that, it was a Saturday night. The place the guys recommended looked money. I walked in and saw that it was s./ 155 (about $60 us) and walked back out. We went to another place down the road that might have had parking. They were full, and about the same price. They suggested the place we came from (too pricey), and the place next door might have parking but noted that it was the weekend, the neighbor hotel had a huge pile of people in and had a discoteque, so even if they did have a room it was unlikely we'd actually be able to sleep. However, if we wanted to drink and dance, it would probably be a good choice. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5059/...829fd9e949.jpg IMG_2261 We didn't. Dachary really didn't want to drive in the dark since there was zero light in the sky now, so we went back to the money place. Oh, whoops. They're full. ****. Turn around, ready to head back to Fred's suggestion when we see one more that might just… Sure, s./ 60, and yeah you can bring you're bikes in through the restaurant. Only problem? Three steep narrow stairs up to the restaurant. Three or four long stairs out the back of the restaurant, and gravel behind that with tables we'd probably smash into. The town was filled with college age kids, and places to drink and the idea of leaving the bikes on the main street didn't appeal to me. However, I wasn't fully confident I could navigate the bikes up the first set of stairs, or the stair + gravel + tables combo without ****ing something up, and there was no way to fit with panniers. Debate Debate. Ponder Ponder, while Dachary's getting annoyed. **** it. We'll go back into town. Sorry Dachary, more night driving. We do. Oh, whoops. That place we thought was the hotel wasn't. It was a restaurant with a name that looked like "Real" when driving down the road trying not to hit things. But wait, there's another actual hotel… Oh, hmm. No, they're full too. Do you know the Hotel Real? "Oh yes… go this way, about a block and a half. It's on the left. " Hrm… No, DOn't see it. Go farther. No. Turn around…. no… **** it. "Hey cabbie. Where's the Hotel Real?" Follow the instructions, and then another cab that happens to be going in that direction. Oh THERE it is… Go in. Nope. They're full too. ****ing A. "Who would you recommend with parking for two bikes?" Ok… I head out to the bikes and Dachary's chatting with another cabbie. I mention the hotel. He confirms the directions and says for s./ 4 he'll lead us there. The directions are really clear, but I figure, it's late, I'm sick of hunting for hotels, and there's a decent chance that when we get there they'll be full and we'll need to hunt down another one. For $1.50 (US) I'll pay for the security of finding the place and having a guy to follow to the next place which is almost guaranteed to be harder to find. Directions were good, but I still would have driven past it. In we go. My normal questioning is thrown out the window. "Do you have a room for two people?" Yes?!?! Holy shit. "Do you have one with a two person bed?" Yes?!?! Holy crap. "How much?" Now, I ask this, not because it actually matters how much it is at this point, but just so that I'll know how much to pay. s/. 110 Beggers can't be choosers. "Ok." I start to walk out to tell Dachary, then poke my head back "wireless internet?" Yes?!?!? Holy shit. We pay the cabbie, pull in. Pay for the room. Unload, and go to the restaurant. "What's the WiFi password?" We'll test it with Dachary's phone while we wait for food. Hmm, that password worked for one network, but not for the network we see in the room. Go back and double check. Yup, those are the numbers she has. It's the typical 0123456789 password you see so often at hotels. Hard to **** up. But no. It still doesn't work. Hmm… poke poke… AHHh… I figure out the password to the other network, go back to the office and let them know what it is so that they can give the next guests the right info. Turns out we can't actually use the net from the room. We can barely see it but it just times out when we try to use it from there. So close, and yet so far. The room is pricey, again, but the place is really well done with an old time southwestern feel and the room is sooo quiet, with a comfy bed and a big-ass ceiling fan that is actually so blowey we turn it down a notch. We know we should write today's post but it's nearly 9pm and neither of us feel like it. So we celebrate the 10,000 miles by testing out the bed-springs, then relax with an episode of Torchwood and fall asleep. I only wish someone would have let us know that Ica/Huacachina was a some sort of Peruvian tourist destination and that it should definitely be avoided on the weekends. |
Day 76 - Ica to Lomas
Today got off to a good start, as the hotel served breakfast. I had a nice coffee, eggs and bread, and Kay dug out a tea bag we've been carrying around since the US and had a nice cup of tea. He says that on the next trip, he's bringing some good tea with us. I should probably do the same with coffee. It's amazing what a comforting, tasty warm drink can do for morale.
Packed up our stuff and brought it out to the bikes… only to discover that my rear tire had gone flat overnight. Damn. I was concerned about what might have caused it to go flat, but Kay suggested filling it with air, checking the valve core (as his loosened once and caused a slow leak overnight) and seeing if it would hold air. So we dug out the Cycle Pump and filled it up. I left the cap off, we did some packing, took our time, etc… and more than 10 minutes later, the air was still fine. So we opted to drive down the street to get gas, and check the air pressure then. 5-10 minutes later, we pulled into a gas station, the air pressure was slightly higher (as it should have been, since the tire had gotten hot and the air would have expanded) and it seemed to be holding air fine. So we set off across the desert toward Nazca. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5091/...481ccc33d7.jpg Dachary Waves http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5299/...560dba2641.jpg IMG_2306 I've gotta say, for someone who has never seen desert before, riding through a desert is really spectacular. I've seen pictures, of course, but pictures can't capture the utter emptiness of the desert. The landscapes are otherworldly and beautiful. And there's something almost… purging? Some sort of powerful spiritual sense endowed by the emptiness of riding through a desert. I wouldn't want to live in one, but traveling through it has been a real treat and a gift. At one point, I pull ahead of Kay because he wants to get some pictures of me riding in front of him. And I stay that way until we come into a little town about 50km before Nazca. At this point, we've been riding for an hour to an hour and a half from Ica, where we started this morning. Kay says over the headset "I think you should pull into that gas station because I want to take a look at your rear tire." Yep. It was flat again. We couldn't tell by looking at it if it was just low or completely flat, so I pulled out the air pressure gauge and got something like 10 PSI. So it wasn't completely flat, but it may as well have been. I'm so glad Kay spotted it before I had ridden too long like that. So we asked the gas station attendants if we could work on the bike, and they motioned us to move it a bit out of the way into the corner. Off come my panniers, onto the center stand, and we inspect the tire for any visual signs of damage. We see one point where air seems to have come out around the bead, but nothing like the massive tube blowout of the last rear flat. We can't see any damage to the tire itself, so we set about pulling it off, breaking the bead and pulling out the tube. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5176/...17fced4764.jpg Fixing our Third Flat On the bright side, we're getting faster at removing the rear tire and pulling the tube. This is the third rear tire flat I've had on the trip now (one our first day in Mexico, and two now in the Peruvian desert) so we've got the tire removal process down and we're getting much faster. Get the bead broken with very little trouble - we assemble the Bead Breaker and break the bead with it at one point, but Kay finds that the tire was so warm (everything is piping hot from the heat of the desert, and riding on low pressure - like hot to the touch to the point that Kay tried pouring water over some of it to cool it just so we could handle it) that after the initial squeeze with the BeadBreakr, which required almost no effort, he can just break the bead by stepping on it. This is completely atypical of the F650GS tires - they're well-known even among F enthusiasts to be a PITA to break the bead. So we were both a bit worried. Pull the tube without too much trouble, and thankfully the tube is intact. Kay bends the tire out enough to see inside and it looks like there's no damage to the carcass. Thankfully I hadn't ridden long enough/it hadn't gotten flat enough to ruin the tire again. We inspect the tube visually for signs of damage and can't see anything obvious. Kay thinks we should fill it with air since we've got everything out and check for leaks just so we can figure out where the problem is. So we do, and he holds the tube up to his ear and listens while squeezing it… and it doesn't take long to find a couple of pin-hole size punctures that are steadily spewing air. We make note of where they are on the tube and then pack it away - we'll patch it later to use it for a spare, but since we still have two brand new rear tubes (since we keep replacing the rear tubes that get ruined) we opt to just put a new tube in so we don't have to worry about patching it right now. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5096/...e1e0660b16.jpg Finding the Leak Amusingly, we started this trip with two rear tubes and two front tubes. At this point, we've blown out two rear tubes catastrophically enough that they couldn't be patched. Luckily, I've insisted on buying new tubes when we visit the BMW dealers, so we still have two spare tubes. We've now replaced our third tube (all for my rear tire, crikey!) and we have one new rear tube and the one that we can patch to use as spares. I'm getting kinda sick of rear flats, personally. We get the new tube in and I work on starting to re-seat the tire while Kay walks down the street with my axle looking for grease because it's far too dry. That's the one thing we didn't bring with us on this trip, and we've regretted it a couple of times (mostly because we keep wanting to grease my rear axle). Kay found a workshop down the street where he was able to get them to put some oil on the axle, which he reckons is better than nothing, but it's still not grease. Alas. If I could pick one bike-related thing I didn't bring but wish I had, it would be grease. When Kay gets back with the axle, we get the rear tire re-seated on the rim (with the well-meaning but slightly interfering help of a local moto rider, who stopped to watch the proceedings) surprisingly easy. It's frighteningly easy to work with the tire because it's so hot. At this point, I've rolled the tire into some shade, and have put our tools in the shade under my bike, because everything is painfully hot to the touch. How hot is the sun in the desert with no breeze? Well, the highest my thermometer will read is 106 degrees, and the heat today broke it. In the shade. It was maxed out and all of the LCDs were lit. So it was effing hot. Got the tire re-mounted and did the fiddling to get the tire positioned properly, chain have the right amount of play, etc. Took a bit longer than usual for that fiddling this time. We're getting quite efficient at the whole dismounting/dealing with the tube/tire, etc. part, but the re-mounting process will probably always take as long as it takes because there's no way to rush through getting everything squared away properly. When all was said and done, we had replaced the tube and gotten everything packed away in a little over an hour and a half. We cut a half hour off of last time. By the time we were done, we were so hot that we had to move my bike into the shade for the fiddling with chain/tire positioning, etc. and I still felt on the verge of heatstroke. Kay's jacket, which had been in the sun, was painful to the touch, so he soaked it down with water before setting off. Changing a flat tire once in the Peruvian desert was kind of a lark. Changing a flat tire the second time in a gas station with no breeze at Peruvian high noon was just hot and mildly annoying. We were both ready to get going and get some airflow, as we were literally drenched in sweat - water was running down both of us in rivulets before we were halfway done with the tire. It was… gross. And wet. Our bodies lost a lot of fluid. Air flowing through the vents never felt so good. I was a bit paranoid about my tire so I rode in front of Kay leaving the city and kept asking "how does my tire look?" Off into the desert again, toward Nazca. Turns out that we were closer than I thought to the Nazca lines… about 15-20 minutes of riding and we saw the tower that everyone talks about where you can view some of the lines. We pulled over and climbed up the tower, in spite of the fact that I'd said just a few minutes ago that I was too overheated to deal with it… I didn't feel like going into Nazca and then coming back again for the lines after lunch. So we stopped and looked. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5098/...f41dbb6028.jpg Nazca Lines http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5218/...107958aefb.jpg IMG_2301 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5136/...0471ff419d.jpg IMG_6295 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5173/...3e65209aa7.jpg The road to Nazca http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5219/...f4aa514cc2.jpg Bikes at Nazca lines The Nazca lines were… mildly disappointing. I could only see two figures from the tower, and I couldn't quite tell what they were supposed to be. It might have been more impressive if we'd stopped at all of the viewpoints (there are multiple points where you can stop and look - mounds you can climb, etc.) or even got the airplane tour, but after getting overheated changing my tire, neither of us really felt like spending a lot of time on the Nazca lines. So on we went, into Nazca itself, where we looked for a place to grab lunch. We were both feeling a little ill from the heat exposure and neither of us felt like eating, but I knew we should sit in the shade with some cold drinks for a bit and maybe our appetites would return. So we pulled over at a "hotel/restaurant" that looked decent, and had a lot of cars outside. Walked up and there was a pool that a ton of people were playing in, and a restaurant where several groups of people were enjoying what looked like tasty food. Ordered cold drinks and food, because when we got off the bikes, I felt weak and knew I had to eat before I could keep going. The cold drinks came right away, and we sat and enjoyed them for a while. Sadly, shortly after we arrived, someone cranked the music WAY up… to the point that it was too loud and getting to Kay. After a few minutes, he put his ear plugs in… and shortly thereafter, laid his head down on his arms and fell asleep. I sat reading on my iPhone. Waited a while… and no food. Wasn't sure exactly what time we stopped, except that it was after 2pm, so eventually I looked at the time and saw that it was 3:02PM. Kay woke up a few minutes later, realized that we'd been sitting there for quite a while with no food. We make significant eye contact with the waitress and suddenly utensils and napkins appear. "Oh, it must be coming soon we think." but no…. Eventually Kay hunts down the waitress. The order had become "lost" despite the fact that she only had six tables. 10 minutes, she said. Five minutes later Kay gets something that involves the same raw ingredients he ordered, although probably not what he ordered. Kay starts eating, and I snag a french fry or three. We wait. And wait. And wait. And my food still doesn't put in an appearance. After we've been sitting there an hour and a half (and 40 minutes after she said "10 minutes") Kay goes to look for my food. He's done with his by now. Just as he walks up, she comes out with my plate. Thank god! I eat quickly, try to use the bathrooms, a woman is holding the door shut from the inside so I go back to the table and say "Let's just go." The noise is getting to both of us, and it's 2 hours after we've arrived (it's 4 o clock by now and we've hardly gotten anywhere from Ica) and we just want to be moving on. It doesn't sound as bad writing it up, but this was the single worst dining experience we've had on this trip. Waiting 1 hour and 40 minutes for food that I could have made at home in 20 minutes, starting from scratch, chopping everything up myself, etc. And sitting for two hours with music that was too loud, after being overheated and exhausted by the tire… neither of us was happy when we left the restaurant. So off into the desert again. Kay's note: under normal circumstances we would have said "**** it" and left a while before then, just paying for the drinks. But Dachary had been beaten by the heat and just was not up to gearing back up, hunting down another restaurant, and waiting more. She needed food before we left. Fortunately, we got to ride through more beautiful Peruvian landscape. The desert truly is spectacular, and will remain one of the highlights of my trip. I couldn't help but feel good about riding through the desert, even after the flat tire eating up time, even after the annoying lunch experience eating up time… here we are, on this trip, riding through Peru. In the desert. So far from home, and so awesome. Around 5:15PM, we approach a town called Lomas on the coast. I have no idea if it's big enough to have a place for us to stay, but I propose it as a stopping point to Kay anyway. At best, we have just over an hour of light left, and I don't know if that's long enough to get us to the next town. And neither of us wants to be riding around after dark, or hunting a place to stay after dark, like last night, and we're both atypically tired from the heat this afternoon still. So we decide to ride out to Lomas to see. There's a huge beach along the road to the town, but the town itself looks like it can't possibly support a hotel. Tons and tons of people are lining the beach under canopies and on chairs, towels, and blankets. Many cars are leaving town, as it's getting late in the day. And people are walking through the town. I think that with this many people enjoying the beach, surely the town must have at least one hotel. We ride into town, which doesn't have any obvious looking hotels in site, and ask some girls if they know where we can find a hotel. The first one doesn't seem to understand Kay's question, but the other girls chime in and point us down the street, giggling and laughing. They send us on our way with "bye!" and a cascade of teenage girl laughter that is the same in any language. Down the road we go, and Kay stops to inquire at the restaurant where they directed us, and the lady at the restaurant points us down the street. So we ride down that street, see a hospedaje that looks… sad… and ask someone else. He points us around the corner, and then walks to the corner, points us up the street, and then motions us to turn left when we reach a cross-street. Oh! There's a decent-looking building with tile on the front, and a big hospedaje banner in the barred window. We stop, and Kay walks up and knocks on the door to inquire. A lady comes out and tells him they have a room available, and shows him a twin room, which isn't our preference, but he comes back and tells me it's clean and seems decent. Sadly, it's pricey. She wants 70 soles, and we've paid that much (or less) for much nicer rooms in major cities. Kay decides to go back and try to bargain her down to 50, but she won't take it, and tells him there's a place down the street that will take 50. So Kay comes back out to report, and we decide he should go check out the other place just for the sake of seeing. Unfortunately, it's right on the town square and there's no parking for the bikes, and we don't want to leave them out in the middle of the street, and if the inside is anything like the outside… so he comes back and reports and we decide to take the expensive room. She gets it ready and we unload the bikes into the lobby. Because we're parking on a street (although this hospedaje is on a side street) we unload everything from the bikes. It makes an impressive, dirty pile in her immaculate lobby, and I feel bad. She shows us our room a few minutes later - she had one with a "matrimonial" bed, after all (a size around a double in the US) and it has another bed on the side. She's quite emphatic that we ONLY use the "matrimonial" bed - don't use the other bed at all. Don't put anything on it. Don't touch it. The other bed doesn't exist. So we pile our stuff around the one bed we can use, and she seems dismayed to see the size of the pile (and perhaps its dustiness) when she comes back in to give us a second towel a few minutes later. Kay's note: We spend the rest of the night imitating her saying "No" and replicating her hand motions to anything that requires a "no" answer. We change into street clothes and walk out into the town. It's a port and we find some lovely scenery just a few blocks down from our hospedaje. We walk around looking for cold Coke we can bring back to the room, since neither of us actually feels like eating a meal at this point. We eventually find a place that has cold drinks of several varieties (a Coke to share, and a Poweraid for Kay and a fruit juice drink for me), some cookie snacky things, and an ice cream bar. Kay comments that we're choosing our food like 13-year-olds tonight. Walk back out and think about heading back to the hospedaje but we see this beautiful sunset and have to go investigate. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5058/...277271b04c.jpg bringing in the net http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5096/...4a05ed46e0.jpg Boats at sunset http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5171/...3e689503ec.jpg Rowing with friends http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5098/...2ab937d5be.jpg Pelican Mid-flight http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5260/...18b622497b.jpg Sea birds http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5178/...7da4bd3c4d.jpg Puerto de Lomas sunset http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5016/...ffbed28c9d.jpg Puerto de Lomas sunset http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5214/...3db558cc6e.jpg Puerto de Lomas sunset Lomas is an interesting town. It claims to be a port, but it's not big enough for anything commercial. Just a bunch of local fisherman who have their own boats and probably sell their haul to the local "restaurants". There's hardly any infrastructure, and there are a fair number of run-down buildings and shacks. We can't figure out how this town makes its money or why it's not better developed, since we saw so many tons of people on the beach… but it's a nice, out-of-the-way spot, and we think at least it should be quiet. Hopefully we'll have a restful night, and make better progress tomorrow. Kay's note: Around 10pm we get a knock on the door. There have been many knocks on other doors earlier in the night so we figure it's just a mistaken knock, but we say "Hola?" just in case. Nothing… A minute later another knock. "Hola?" Nothing…. Another knock a minute later… WTF?! I put on clothes. I open the door. There's a crowd of people there including the owner lady. One of them is speaking English. The owner thinks we should bring the bikes into the front room for security. I'm down with that… since I'm already dressed. So I quickly go out, unlock the bikes, back one up so that it's facing the… steps… ****. There is no way I can get it up those steps, with maybe eight feet of run, squeezing between two parked cars, and not take out the glass and wood things to each side of the door. Not gonna happen. One guy comes to help, but once again, they just don't grasp that these aren't teeny local motos even though it's right in front of them. I explain to them that they weigh nearly 250 kilos (could be totally wrong there) and that there's no way we can pick it up or that I can ride it up without a serious risk of breaking something. In the end they have us squeeze them between the two parked cars (good thing i'm skinny) because they'll be safer there in front of the door. I don't see how, but it's not worth arguing over. So I do, and I thank them for the concern, and head back to the room. |
Day 77 - Lomas to La Joya
Woke up in Lomas with no real desire to dawdle. A rooster started crowing around 3:30AM and I was awake (I thought incontrovertibly) by 5AM, but I managed to get back to sleep until the alarm went off. Packed quickly and had our stuff loaded on the bikes by around 8:20AM… but the woman who owned the hospedaje was nowhere in sight. And she had Kay's passport, which she was holding as security against the room. Another family was leaving at the same time as we were getting ready, and the woman knew where the owner of the hospedaje was (apparently she owns a shop, too, a couple of blocks away) and showed Kay where to go find her. A few minutes later, Kay comes back and says "she's coming," and a few minutes after that, she shows up, grabs Kay's passport from somewhere inside and waits for us to ride off. It's around 8:40 when we hit the road, and just before 9AM when we return to the Pan Americana.
We were both hoping to make some good progress today. We've had so many delays lately, and I was paranoid about my tire (which had deflated to around 26 PSI when we checked it before we left this morning - had to add more air) so I just wanted to push on. We were hoping to get as far as Ariquipa, and then make for Bolivia tomorrow. Rode hard in the AM on the long, flat, straight desert roads, but after an hour or so, the road changed. There were hills, and then mountain spurs, coming right out to the coast. It was back to riding up, down and sideways on twisty mountain roads. Granted, the landscape was still spectacular - desert mountains on our left and the South Pacific (yes, we're far enough south that it's the South Pacific now!) on our right. The road surface took a turn for the worse, with bumpy, holey tread - almost like they'd stripped the top of the road surface off and we were riding on the part that's under the smooth asphalt. It was wreaking havoc on my mental state, as the tires felt weird on this road surface, and I was still paranoid about my rear tire. The last thing I wanted was to change the tube and deal with a flat yet again. Whilst I was busy focusing on my tire, Kay led the way and hit a bump that caused the spare tire he's carrying to shift *just* so, and bounce off the top of his taillight cover. Hard enough to knock it off, and cause it to shatter in the roadway. I heard a "I need to pull over" and panicked a bit, because Kay never needs to pull over… and he explained what happened. The light was still intact, but the red plastic cover over the light was lying in the roadway in far too many pieces to do us any good. So now we had to find a new taillight cover for Kay, or possibly swap out his taillight assembly. Not too long after this, we rolled into a town with me in the lead again (as I had asked Kay to keep an eye on my rear tire while I was riding) and I spotted a shop that had what looked like moto lights, turn signals, etc. I had my fingers crossed that they'd have a taillight, and told Kay we should turn around and check it out. We did, but unfortunately the only taillight cover they had looked like it was designed for a scooter - it was smaller and there was no way to make it fit on Kay's taillight assembly. So on we rode. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5213/...f06752030d.jpg Twisty seaside road http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5254/...82d2d729d4.jpg Dachary views the sea http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5293/...06957d6386.jpg Nargo waits Stopped for lunch at a restaurant/hostel, and had a meal that was barely edible. Kay ended up with breaded, fried chicken, pounded thin, but the breading was QUITE salty and Kay could only eat about half of the chicken. I had carne that was also breaded, which always sounds good but rarely turns out good in practice. I managed to eat all of mine, but only because we'd had no breakfast and no dinner last night, and I knew I needed something to eat. Then we popped next door to buy some bottled water, as we've both been having trouble with our intestines and we thought maybe we should give the filter a break and buy water today. I was extra happy that it was cold water - tastes real good in the hot Peruvian desert. Back into the desert. We rode along the coast through more amazing landscape, following the sea and the mountainy bits, and roll into Camana shortly after 3PM. I figure that Camana is probably 3 hours from Arequipa, and as long as we're fast, we can make it before dark. But Camana is a bigger town, although nowhere near as big as Arequipa, so I suggest we should look here for a new taillight cover for Kay. Arequipa is virtually guaranteed to have something, but it looks quite big on my map, and I don't fancy riding around a big city looking for a moto shop hoping to get lucky. So we stop and ask a cop in Camana if she can recommend a moto repair shop, and she tells us to take a left, ride two blocks, and take a right. We do, and we end up at a repair shop that is currently servicing a couple of moto taxis. Kay asks about a taillight, and the guy immediately dismisses him. "No, we don't have that. You'll have to go to Lima for that." He clearly didn't realize that we were no longer running the stock BMW taillight (I think the one they put into the bike in Colombia was a Yamaha assembly, although it might have been even more generic than that) but Kay explained that it doesn't have to be BMW, that it doesn't have to look pretty - he's just looking for a new taillight assembly. The guy goes back into the shop, and comes out a minute later with one of the small taillight covers we'd seen at the moto shop earlier today. It's not big enough to fit into the assembly properly, but he indicates that shouldn't be a problem. All we need is a couple of long screws and we can rig something up. So he sends Kay off to a ferreteria (hardware store/shop which is also occasionally a workshop) and a kid who has been hanging out nearby on a bicycle offers to ride over and show Kay how to get there. So I stay with the bikes and chat with the locals in my very poor Spanish, and Kay walks off after the kid on the bicycle in search of a screw. Sadly, Kay returns a few minutes later after having visited about five hardware stalls, sans screws. No luck. The guy sends Kay off to another ferreteria, and the kid on the bike leads the way - and four places later, still no screws that will work. Eventually, the guy hops in one of the moto-taxis that he's repairing, motions for Kay to get in the back, and they ride off in search of screws. This time they find them, and return a few minutes later. The guy wanted long, pointy screws that he could use to "drill" new holes in the taillight assembly to hold on the smaller taillight cover. A few more minutes of work, and viola! Slightly smaller, but still functional, taillight cover. Kay is psyched because it's small enough that it doesn't protrude out far enough for the tire to hit anymore, so there's no way the tire can take this taillight cover out, too. Hopefully. Cost? 5 soles, or not quite $2 US, even with all the running around to find screws. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5135/...8de959f665.jpg Our Fixit men Back on the road, and it's 4:30 - definitely no time to get all the way to Arequipa. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5251/...52dc04b523.jpg Clouds? in the Desert?! http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5296/...d8a4b5a5c5.jpg Dachary Waves One of the locals I was chatting with said it was 2.5 hours to Arequipa, so if we pushed it, we *might* roll in at 7… but sunset was scheduled for 6:18PM, so even with the best case scenario, we wouldn't make it into Arequipa without riding after dark. So we discuss our options while we ride along, and discover something. Kay mentions camping. Camping is always an option in the back of my mind if we get stranded somewhere between towns, and I actually enjoy camping - there are times when I'd much rather have been in our tent than in some of the annoying hotels where we've stayed. But camping here would involve riding out across the desert itself to get far enough off the road to camp safely (without drawing attention) and the sand is deep. I have ZERO desire to ride through deep sand to find a camping spot, particularly if I'm not stranded for some reason. I'd deal if I had to, but if it's not essential, I'd rather not ride in sand. I just don't have the skill to deal with it. This starts a massive argument, and we both get unhappy. Kay suggests that we strike out on one of the roads that is crossing the sand, if I'm not willing to ride on the sand itself - but I look at the roads we're passing and I think they're all covered in sand. I haven't seen a decent road heading off the Pan Americana since the road we took to Lomas. I try to explain that I have no problem with dirt, but the dirt roads we're likely to encounter out here in the middle of the desert are probably covered in sand. Hell, even the paved road is covered in sand in stretches. So I'm not willing to take that chance unless I have to. Kay is disappointed, and we go back and forth over what I would find acceptable. I can tell he believes we'll never camp on this trip, and I'd be disappointed if that were true, but I'm not willing to ride beyond my skill level just to accommodate him. And he's upset that he thinks we'll never camp, because when we left, we'd planned to camp all the time. So more arguing ensues, and we're both unhappy, and it's getting later. I point out that I'm not willing to forego dinner tonight - I didn't eat dinner last night, nor breakfast this morning, and I need food. Camping would involve skipping dinner, because we'd have to camp in the middle of the desert to do it safely. No restaurants there. Kay says we could stop to get food first, but it's already well after 5PM, and I don't believe there's time to stop and have dinner, and then look for light. I point out that if we want to camp, we have to lose more daylight - we'd have to stop and get dinner by 4:45PM in order to have any remote chance of camping, so we'd lose an hour to an hour and a half of riding time every night if we camped. And I'm feeling very crunched about the schedule, so this doesn't make me happy. In the end, nothing is resolved and we're both unhappy. Just at sunset, we roll into a tiny town that isn't even on my map - La Joya. We see a single hospedaje sign, and we stop to check it out. Kay goes in to look at it, and comes back to tell me that none of the rooms have toilet seats and am I willing to deal with that? I ask if we have a choice, and we have another argument - about what I'd rather do - ride in the dark to Arequipa and look for a place that would have toilet seats, or stay here and deal with the no toilet seats. More arguing. I say that at least we should check out the rest of the town to see if there's a second hospedaje that might have better rooms. So we ride down the road, but there's nothing. Except I see a block of lights a bit further down the road, so we ride there. Nothing. But at this point, I recognize something on my map and see another block of lights down the road, so ask if we can ride there. We do, and there's nothing. At this point, the town that had the hospedaje is probably 10-15 minutes behind us and it's full dark. Kay asks if I want to go back and stay in the place with no toilet seats, or ride in the dark to Arequipa. It seems like a no brainer to me. I ask again "Do we have a choice?" thinking it's obvious that we should go back and stay in the hospedaje. But Kay and I are arguing in circles, and neither of us is communicating well with the other, so we end up sitting on the side of the road in the dark, yelling at each other in the headsets, unable to agree on a decision because we're both unhappy and the answers I give Kay aren't sufficient for him. Eventually I just start saying "Whatever you want to do" and refuse to participate in the conversation any further. Frustrated, Kay decides to turn around and head back to the hospedaje, which I thought was the obvious choice all along. We're both still unhappy. Kay's note: definitely communications issues, but I think a lot of the problems towards the end of the day weren't so much a failure to agree on a decision, as much as me trying to figure out which option was least disagreeable to her but failing to get an answer. We still disagree about the details of how and what was actually going down. At the core of this is a recurring communication problem we've got to get resolved. Back to the hospedaje, and they have secure parking for the bikes, so we ride around through the alley and pull into the building. The only thing I bother to bring up to the room from the bikes is my bag of cords for charging stuff, because we need to charge the headsets. Normally, I bring up my tank bag and both panniers, but I don't feel like dealing with anything after our arguments. After taking one look at the room, I resign myself to a miserable night and don't bother to bring my toiletries, or my laptop, or clean clothes - any of the stuff I usually bring. Kay asks about it but I tell him I just don't feel like dealing, which is true. Up the hotel room, and I take off my motorcycle gear and lay in bed. Kay asks if I'm not coming out for food, and I confirm, because again I don't feel like dealing with anything. I'm still upset from our arguments and not happy about the poor quality of the hospedaje (a bed in the room and a single chair, dead bugs on the floor, no toilet seat in the bathroom, no shower curtain, funny smell, etc.) So Kay goes out to find food, and brings back food for both of us. I feel bad for arguing with him, and am grateful he takes care of me even when I'm being difficult. I am very lucky to be traveling with this man, and I want to spend the rest of my life with him. So a night that could have been miserable took a slight turn for the better. Kay watched Law and Order SVU on the TV (English, with Spanish subtitles) and I read. Eventually we snuggled and talked about the arguments and what started it in the first place - the whole camping thing. Still nothing is resolved, but at least we have a conversation instead of an argument. I still don't like the hospedaje, but we'll be moving on in the morning so I don't have to like it. I just need sleep. Tomorrow is a fresh start. |
Quote:
I suspect that this response was triggered by the picture of dachary at the faux-marble balcony. Honestly we didn't think it'd be even close to our price range. We only stopped there because most everything along the road looked crappy with no hope of safe parking and that looked not-crappy with a good hope of it. Neither of us is capable of getting a good night's sleep on the side of the road on most all of the roads we've been on, and if we set up the tent we want to do it where we're not going to have to deal with curious people passing by talking loudly and ****ing with the bikes. We want a decent chance at a decent night's rest so that we'll have a good next day. There were some questions about hotels and how we end up with the ones we do on ADVRider and Dachary and I both responded. You can see the details on this page, but really, we're not that picky. We want somewhere that doesn't look like it'll have roaches crawling out of the walls, with secure parking for the bikes, and some food within walking distance. |
Day 78 - La Joya to Puno Peru
Pulled out of the hotel and around the corner to the restaurant where I got the food last night. Only problem? Unlike last night, this morning there were freaking flies everywhere. Didn't realize this until we were sat and ordered though… so we endured. Fortunately we'd stumbled across the name of a breakfast meal that involves eggs: a cubana. Dachary ordered it at lunch one day thinking it was going to be a Cuban (the sandwich) but it's two fried eggs over rice, with fried plantains. This morning the plantains were probably actually bananas, and they were just warm, not really fried, so it turned out Dachary didn't mind them. Unfortunately, she didn't have much appetite, and the flies weren't helping. We both kind-of regretted stopping, but my tummy did not.
I've been fighting off diarrhea with occasional painful stomach twangs, and I think the rice helped a little. (Dachary's note: after like an hour of riding, we make it into Arequipa. Turns out it's a good thing we didn't make it here last night, as this town is FREAKING HUGE. It's the biggest town I've seen in Peru outside of Lima. We would not have enjoyed navigating it in the dark last night trying to find a hotel or hostel with parking for the bikes. We do stop and get gas when we find a gas station that has 95 octane, and we both use the bathroom - we're both having tummy troubles with diarrhea. So we take some immodium and set off again. A few wrong turns, stop to ask a cop for directions, spot a sign pointing to the town we want, and we end up on a road that's not on Kay's GPS. But my map indicates that it's the main paved route between Arequipa and Puno. Along the way, we spot a couple of adventure riders heading in the opposite direction, but we're riding uphill in heavy traffic going like 10KPH which requires heavy concentration with endless clutch/brake, so we can't even wave, let alone stop and try to talk to them. Bummer.) On we go, up into the mountains. It's starting to get chilly. There's a drip here and there. Doesn't seem like it's actually going to rain but neither of us will mind the extra warmth of having the rain liners in, or the pee break. There's a big bush we could stand behind and put rain liners in our pants too but I figure it's probably overkill. I think Dachary felt the same. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5019/...6974f34302.jpg Putting on the rain liners Up, up, up, over four thousand meters up into the clouds. Literally. We've been rained on, and now we can't see jack shit. The fog/cloud cover is so thick that we can barely see each other or the road. Soon, there's a break in the rain, and we're both really chilled. We find a big pull-off on the right, decide that by the time anyone is close enough to see anything they'll be gone into the mist three seconds later, so it's about as good as it's going to get for privacy to take off our pants and put on those rain liners too. While we're there the cloud blows away and we find ourselves in a gorgeous plain. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5212/...77a76ed282.jpg In the middle of a cloud http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5091/...49b85e59c3.jpg In the middle of a cloud We decide to take the altitude sickness pills, because Dachary is feeling dizzy and extremely short of breath just from putting in the pants liners. She was wobbling on the way back to the bike from coming up a small embankment from a pee. We grab the pills and, oh lets see… dizziness, drowsiness, queeziness… wonderful. These pills have the potential to give us all the symptoms we're taking them to avoid. Thinking it a bad idea to roll those dice just before getting onto the bikes we put them away to try in the evening. While i'm digging in that pannier I decide to swap to my Held Warm-n-Dry gloves, because even with the heated grips my fingertips have been cold. The second my hand slides into them I feel 100 times better. So nice… Dachary's not doing so well though. We're being careful to make sure she takes it really easy, but she lost a lot of body heat and energy whilst standing in a cloud putting in the pants liners. I lost some energy, but I definitely gained heat. She requests that we stop at the next decent looking restaurant. It's lunch time anyways and I can't agree more. I'm hoping for some soup, which they try and give us every meal, and we so rarely want in the heat. But first. Hail! Vicious little high-velocity hail stones. We were both yelling "ow!… ow!" over the headsets. It was hurting me enough that I was convinced if they were any bigger than the bb's they were I would have been covered in bruises, and the BMW fabric is about twice as thick as the Rev'It so Dachary was feeling it even more. When it swaps to heavy rain Dachary comments "I never thought getting rained on would be such a relief." Soon the rain passes too and we find a restaurant and pull in. The waitress is wearing about four layers, including a winter coat. We get soup. It's awesome. We get fish. It's not. We weren't quite sure what we were getting for the main course. She never mentioned "pescado" and used lots of new words to us. We just asked her to give us whichever option she recommended. It actually wasn't bad, but Dachary's not fish fan, and neither of us were in the mood for it. Plus the rice was weird. But, it was warming. Dachary didn't eat her fish or rice, just the soup. So that makes two meals today she didn't finish (she didn't finish breakfast) and that's probable contributing to her chill and dizziness/weakness. Heading back out from lunch, we grabbed our electrics. We're at 4,500 meters at this point and even though it's technically summer it is cold. Her Gerbing is still acting up, but my Aerostitch is still working, and the fleece side is doing double duty and keeping me warmer even when it's off. Still don't like it, but even if it did break it'd be useful. Only a smidge more rain, and I'm practically falling asleep on the bike. Whenever I pull my left hand off the handlebars I feel pins and needles all up and down the arm. It's not from pinched blood supply. As far as I can tell, it's the altitude. It's not affecting me nearly as much as Dachary, but it's definitely having an effect and I'm noticing that things are taking more effort whenever we're off the bike. When I ride I'm focusing on filling my lungs with deep constant breaths. At one point Dachary says "Are those snow capped mountains behind us?" to which I respond "Holy shit!" http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5219/...f0e111386f.jpg The Andes http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5013/...44bbe96cca.jpg Llama herder Dachary's getting chilled, but we're closing in on Puno. Before we get there though we go through Juliaca and discover that they only seem to have 84 Gasohol. We should be able to make it to Puno…. We do! We head for downtown looking for a place to stay and find one, but nowhere to put the bikes. I didn't think he'd have one but i went in mostly to get directions to somewhere else that would. He directs me around the corner. It's a nice looking place, but there's a padlock on the door. The man from the first place shows up whilst I'm pondering why a hotel would be padlocked. He directs me to it's sister hotel. I thank him, put on my helmet, and while I'm making a U-turn a guy walks up and starts removing the padlock. "o…k…" I go talk to him. He tells me yes, go to the one down the street a few blocks. That we should follow him. Then he puts the padlock back on. So confused… We follow. We get to a street with hotels but he's disappeared. Did he mean one of these? Where did he go? He's jogged like 5 blocks leading us here so we want to give his hotel a shot. He deserves it. But he's gone. Just as we're about to check out one of the ones here he figures out how we got confused by his directions, finds us, and leads us to his hotel. Not bad, very secure parking. Typical price for a big city, and, unexpectedly, internet! There are claims of hot water… there were claims last night too…. Dachary is freezing. Undresses, and hops under the covers until she's warm. I start the photos uploading. She warms up a bit and we wander out for food. Find a place called Pizza and Pasta just off the town square. They have a wood fired stove. It's made the front room sooooooo warm and cozy. I get a medium pizza (small). Dachary gets Lasagna. They put tomato sauce on the pizza! Jackpot! Food comes. We both decide that it has the appropriate component parts, and isn't how we'd make it, but we don't mind it either. By the end we've both decided that there's something odd about the flavor and while it was a nice reminder of home, we don't want to finish either of our dishes. But we've enjoyed sitting in a warm room, and eating familiar food, so we're happy when we head back to the hotel. So, if you're in Puno, and craving a warm room, in a nice restaurant, with decent food. Go to the square and look down the side streets for a wooden sign with gold lettering that says "Pizza & Pasta". If nothing else, you'll be warm. ;) Don't order the chocolate cake though. It's very dry. |
Passport???
In Lomas, Peru, the hotel gorgon kept your PASSPORT as security?
How common is that? I would have regarded the confistcation of a guest's passport second only to armed holdup. Surely this is exceptional? Rob Hall |
Rob, they do that all over the world mate.
|
Day 79 - Puno Peru to La Paz Bolivia
kay:
(as per usual all conversations are in spanish) There was a piece of paper on the front desk last night promising breakfast from 6-9. I asked the lady about it and she said it was on the second floor. So, we headed out of our rooms in the morning, wandered the corridors until we found a totally abandoned set of tables and chairs. I went down to the desk and asked if the restaurant was open. "Yes, but there are no employees." … They must have a different definition of "open" than I do. So, we go out the front door and one of the guys points to the restaurant across the street saying that they do breakfast. Inside we find a white guy with a motorcycle helmet in the chair beside him. A few minutes later I lean over and say "desculpe senor. Usted habla Ingles?" "Yes" Turns out he flew to Bolivia, bought a 250cc Honda trail bike, mounted some kind of tackle box looking thing to the back of it, and got himself the largest backpack I've seen that wasn't for hiking. It was nearly three feet square by one foot deep and he was on his way up to the US. Only two problems: 1) when he left Bolivia they told him he'd have to have the bike back in like 30 days (maybe it was 90) since it was registered there. 2) he didn't actually have a motorcycle license in the US. I don't think this will cause any problems in the countries before the border, but he's just going to have to cross his fingers and hope the US border guys don't notice. Also, he's from western Massachusetts, about two hours from Boston and two towns over from one of the places I used to live. Small world. We gave him a brain-dump on Central America and using Girag to cross the Darian Gap. Somehow he'd manage to totally miss that option. He kept checking his watch while we talked. He was obviously interested in the conversation but had to go. I'm not sure if he was meeting up with some other riders or what but I kept thinking… "Man, you gotta loose that thing." ;) I also kept thinking about how much his back is going to be hurting carrying that pack around every day. I hope he finds another solution soon. When we'd woken up earlier Dachary's head was killing her. The altitude sickness has been hitting her hard and it's always worse in the night because your breathing slows down. So, we took it very easy and made sure Dachary didn't push herself at all, which meant getting to breakfast and out of the room a bit slow. When I went to put my pannier on my bike i leaned it in towards the bike, as per usual, to get the top pucks in place, but didn't realize that my bike was atypically vertical, so as I'm pushing, the bike slowly goes up… and over. I'm standing there holding the pannier so i don't crush my toes watching it heading over and *bam* into Dachary's, which proceeds to fall over too. My helmet was on the mirror stalk which whacked into the ground and as per BMW design the thing broke off (****ers). Dachary's left pannier has a nice long gouge down it now too. So, we pick them up, which is ****ing exhausting at this altitude, and I take each of them out over the bumpy muddy parking area to the street where we pull out our second spare mirror stalk mount and replace it. We now have no spares. Dachary suggested that we should have grabbed some at BMW Lima, which would have been a good idea, but as they didn't even have the spark plugs for our bikes I'm doubtful they'd have that. Breathing heavy, practically sweating even though the days high is only supposed to be 50 F we make our way out of the city stopping to get 84 Gasohol with a liberal dose of octane booster. There was nothing better in town, or in the town before it. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5135/...44b76d08f3.jpg Sticker? What Sticker http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5256/...8a6c6c3850.jpg Lake Titicaca As we ride we debate which border crossing to take. We were planning on taking the road straight down into Bolivia, but I'd heard that that border might not have an Aduana (not sure if this is correct or not) and this morning Adrian mentioned that he'd crossed by Copacabana and that they had full services, but that it also meant a ferry ride. So, better safe than sorry, and wanting to be able to claim that we'd been to Copacabana (still not sure if it's THE Copacabana) we went that way, and crossed our fingers that the ferry ride wouldn't be a big deal. Suddenly, there was a chain across the road and … wtf?! Is this the border? We're not to Copacabana yet… Yup. The border. Take your passport and the little piece of paper they gave you when you came into the country and go to the Policia Judicial. They'll take the paper and stamp something (not sure if it was in the passport or not). Then go to Migrations, and they stamp you out. Then go to customs, "hey, there's a bunch of stickers on the bookshelf here…" "I have a sticker too. Is it OK if I put it here?" "yes yes" I run out, and return to do just that while he's finishing paperwork. I think we're done, and a couple of adventure riders show up. We later learn that they're Emrah and Sheknees (probably totally misspelled that). A couple of Turkish DJ's who've been living in Canada and are DJ'ing their way across the Americas. I'm just about to greet them when the guy from the Policia National waves me over to his office. No clue what this is about… They ask for license (they seem to prefer the international one for some reason) then ask to see my insurance. Not thinking I say. "I don't have any insurance." Much talking, some of which I get. Some I don't. Apparently this is a problem. "But they told me at the border that it wasn't necessary" more talking, apparently this is an infraction. "What if you had of gotten in an accident?" "Ok. Where is the insurance person. I'll go buy some." "No you can't buy it here." Eventually, he pulls out a ticket pad and points to the infraction saying that it's s/. 150. Pulls out some official looking booklet at points to something that I don't bother to attempt to understand because even if it is true there's nothing I can do at this point, and if it isn't my Spanish isn't good enough to read it in a timely manner or pick out the subtleties to know that it's not right. Infraction infraction. They said I don't need it. Infraction infraction. "See I put your plate number here, and your name here, and…" he's pointing to all the little spaces on the infraction. "Ok. Infraction. If infraction I pay infraction." "No no." "No?" See, I make the infraction pad go away… No more infraction. I know exactly where this is headed at this point. He does me a favor and I do him a favor. No infraction needed. See? Yeah, **** that. I do not pay bribes unless absolutely necessary, and at this point. It isn't. I go from mildly dumb gringo to extremely dumb gringo. "Ok. No infraction. I go?" "No. Infraction…" many words, eventually the magic "monies" is uttered. "Ok. I pay infraction." Kind of a pause, that's kind-of what they wan't but not quite. "You give me infraction. I pay infraction." "No no. No Infraction." "I'm sorry I don't understand." Repeat. Repeat… One of them tries calling his english speaking friend, who appears to have no interest in playing translator…. "Are those your friends?" one of them asks, pointing to the adventure riders who'd just come up. "No. I don't know them." No Way I want to get any other adventure riders in this pile of crap. One guy who's wearing no uniform, but has been there attempting to help (the cop) this whole time goes out and pulls in one of them. They talk, and the guy turns to me and says "ok. They wan't your insurance, but you're going to have to lie because we don't have any ether. " He turns to helper guy and confirms "insurance right?" then back to me, "Just act like you understand and go get something from your home insurance company in English tell them it's international" "Oh yes! Of course. THAT! I'll go get it…" Nods of understanding and bright ideas and I get up and go out to do just that. It's a good idea. I start digging for the US insurance coverage sheet, which has been put away for months, send Dachary looking for hers… dig dig. Dig dig. Eventually the cop gets bored of waiting and motions me to come back. I do. I bring along the SURA insurance from Colombia. I tell him that I didn't get SURA in Peru because they told me I didn't need it, but I have this… He looks at it. Decides it's no good for Peru. "Yes." I say, "It's good for everywhere." I intentionally avoid saying "international" in spanish and say "everywhere" with wide sweeping hand motions, to emphasize what a stupidly confused gringo I am. "No no. Not for Peru" Confused look on my face… "What? No…" I start scrutinizing my form. "Yes, is international. It doesn't say it's just for the US anywhere on here." Repeat, repeat. I'm not paying enough attention and I start getting a little frustrated. Stop myself, make a prayer hand motion and say "I'm really sorry. It's international, but if it's an infraction I'll pay the infraction." Back to square one. Cop is not happy. This bribe is taking way too long and is far too frustrating. Another cop steps in taps on his watch and the cop's all "in a minute…." He tries again. I maintain the loop of stupidity. Someone calls in the other adventure rider. She's been briefed by her husband and me when we were each out there. She comes in, asks me if the insurance paper is for just my bike. I say it is. She tells the guy that yes, this is international insurance for his bike. He caves. I don't think he necessarily believed her. I think he was just sick of dealing. But that's just my bike. I go back out. Dachary doesn't have a coverage sheet like i do but she has the insurance card from Progressive. So, I take that back and the "helper" guy is at the door, looks at it, ponders it… I tell him it's different insurance companies, pointing to the logo's… so hers is different. I think he's gotten the message to say ****-it, and we're free. I go back to the bikes, start shoving things back in panniers, and another rider shows up, but this one from the Bolivia side of things. Emrah and I walk up to the guy and he's pissed. Turns out the Bolivian customs guy has been ****ing with him for days now. He bought his bike somewhere in Peru (I think) and when he comes to Bolivia they tell him the paper's missing a Notarization of some sort and he needs to get it in La Paz (Bolivia) before they'll let the bike in. But it's a Saturday and all the Notaries are closed, so he stays in La Paz until Monday (without the bike being legal), gets the notarization, comes back, and "Oh, you need to get it notarized in Peru too…" so he checks out of Bolivian Imigration, in to Peru, gets the notarization, checks out of Peru, goes back to Bolivia, and now the guy is bitching that he was in bolivia for three days illegally. It's not clear to me if he did the immigration into Bolivia, but not the bike, or he did neither, but one assumes he wasn't so stupid as to not do the immigration. Anyways, the guy won't let him in and the biker has become his own worst enemy by getting pissy with the customs man for jerking him around like this. There's no doubt he has a right to be pissy, but you absolutely do not get pissy with customs or immigration people. They are, for all suits and purposes, gods. He rides off back into Peru in a huff, hoping that the other border crossing will let him through. Honestly I don't know why he didn't try that days ago, and while I hate bribes, there are times when it's simply the best way to deal with the situation, and had he been able to keep his temper he could have said to the guy "Is there some sort of fine I can pay?" wink wink…. After that the DJs offer for us to have lunch with them. "Under normal circumstances we totally would, but we want to get out of here before something goes wrong. We'll see you in Bolivia." Cards are exchanged, and we're gone. In Bolivia Dachary handles the border crossing stuff and I make nice with a local cop standing nearby and try and determine if insurance is required or not. I fail, and later we fail again with the customs guy. They all try to assure us that we really should have it, but that we have to go to La Paz to get it. Logically if it's obligatory we can't drive to La Paz, but logic and borders are frequently not good bedfellows. Inside it's pretty typical border stuff, except that US Citizens need to pay $135 US each for a Visa which is good for five years, regardless of how many days they give you to stay in the current visit. The guy there tried to get $1 per visa application form from Dachary, but she didn't have any $1 bills and somehow the requirement disappeared. We suspect he just wanted a couple bucks for his pocket. When it came time to pay for the visa itself he inspected every bill and rejected any that had tiny rips or other signs of wear. So, make sure you've got crisp bills fresh from the ATM. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5175/...f957d75061.jpg Sheknees jumps Sheknees and I end up chatting away while Dachary and Emrah are handling the paperwork. But time is moving, and as they inform us, we've just lost an hour. Damn… http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5131/...5e1f699e48.jpg Smiling at the border I suspect that THE Copacabana is the one in Brazil but just in case… http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5059/...d0c956c7e3.jpg Copacabana http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5251/...4741cdece9.jpg Copacabana We say our goodbyes, pack the papers away, and ride. This morning was chilly. The border was warm. Now it's back to chilly, and for some reason it appears that we're riding through Italian wine country. We've just got rain liners in but it's not too bad. Oh look it's the town with the ferry "I wonder what we… oh." Lined up along the shore are three "ferries" which are large flat boats with one open end, a bunch of loose planks, none of which are nailed down, with lots of holes to stick your foot through, and an outboard motor. 20 Bob per bike (about $3 US) and two minutes and one Jeepish thing later and we're headed for the far shore. Backing off was interesting. One of us would guide the other while they tried to keep the bike on planks and not step in holes. On the ferry we found out that the guy in the Jeepish thing had been to Ushuaia, and we chatted about that, the weather down there, police corruption, insurance, and things like that. It was nice, and we were happy to have been able to communicate as much as we did. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5058/...8754f944cd.jpg Waiting to go http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5171/...56f782b964.jpg Chatting on the ferry http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5099/...e25bd51e33.jpg Just off the boat http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5013/...2f82874697.jpg Tired, just off the boat http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5136/...e0cdb5a7a6.jpg A smudge of rain Once again, we're off… Ride ride, pass some hotels thinking "nah, we should make it to La Paz before dark." Massive, ****ing storm on the horizon. Huge, black, lightning and part of it is between us and La Paz. ****. Warm gear. Quick roadside pee. And on we ride. The storm is amazing. More lightning strikes than I think either of us have ever seen in a storm. We'd both like to stop and take pictures before we're actually under it, but it's getting darker, from the storm and the setting sun…. It's dark. It's raining, we're on the outskirts of La Paz and all we can ****ing find is Dentists, Pharmacies, and Welders. I swear to god. We ride. We get behind slow things, and ONCE attempt to pass, but almost get squshed owing to an oncoming driver with no lights…. hmm… slow works. Yeah… Slow is good. More oncoming cars without lights confirm this. We can't see for crap because of the dark and the rain on our visors. People don't use lights, driving is somewhat crazy in Bolivia, and we don't want to die. Eventually, we see a hotel sign. We pull over. 200 Bob? Sure. I have no idea what that works out to be but I know it's not too bad (it's about $30 US). I'll take it. Oh look nice room too. But damn. Third floor? I go out to tell Dachary and…hey! The DJs are pulling in. I walk up, tell them the price and that they have secure parking. They decide to attempt to talk them down because that's more than they want to pay. Much loading of gear up stairs (the elevator is broken). Totally exhausted and panting hard by the process. I go back down, and we wait for the other guys to finish so we can all be lead to the parking. Dachary informs me that she's started coughing (another serious symptom of altitude sickness), is feeling dizzy, and would i mind terribly taking care of her bike. Of course not. I tell her how to find the room. Eventually the security guard decides I don't have to wait for them and leads me around the block to the place. I pull one bike in, then the other. On the way back he starts asking some stuff I don't get then utters another magic word "tip" or, the spanish equivalent which I'm blanking on at the moment. "Oh. Tip! I have no money. My girlfriend has it all." "Back at the hotel then." I make no response because, oh look, it's Sheknees coming around to park her bike. Sorry dude, you're going to have to go unlock the door for her…. He asked for a tip from them too it turns out. When they asked him where they could find food (i'd already pointed out to them what he'd told me earlier) he told them he'd tell them if they paid his tip. We're all agreement. We don't mind tipping for someone who actually does something. But when you don't do jack shit besides walk around a corner and unlock a door, and you're already being paid to do that… no. No tip. They start bringing up their stuff and ask us if we'd like to go get food with them. We say we'd love to but Dachary is feeling ill so I'm just going to bring some food back. I run off, come back with food, and they're about to head out. Noting the loveseats in the area between rooms we say "Hey, we were thinking about maybe eating out here if you'd like to join us." So, they run off, come back, and we all eat out there, until about 10:30 exchanging stories of low speed drops and other travel anecdotes. Somewhere along the way we discover that they met Joe and Vern in Peru! We had a great time chatting with them, and are now proudly sporting their stickers on our panniers. The food, and sitting still, seemed to help Dachary a little, but I'm still pretty concerned. The altitude is hitting her way harder than I'm comfortable with and it's getting worse not better. |
Day 80 - La Paz to Villa Loza-Tolar Bolivia
We're both exhausted, but wake up a bit before the alarm and Dachary has a *splitting* headache. The kind where you have to tell people to talk more quietly because it hurts too much to hear them at normal volumes.
When she does get up to go to the bathroom it's both exhausting and dizzymaking and the cough is making an appearance. She doesn't have a cold. It's the altitude. The plan was to go to to Potosi and then to the Salar de Uyuni, but Potosi is at least another 300 meters higher, and that's enough to require more acclimatization, when she's obviously not made any progress on acclimatizing to 3,800 meters even though we've been at this altitude for two days now. She wants to go though. She knows that the thing I've most been looking forward to on this trip is riding around the dirt roads of Bolivia near the Salar. When people asked me what I was looking forward to seeing, I'd say The Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia. But, to do that with Dachary in this state would not only be stupid, and dangerous for her, I would feel horrible about having put her through it. The idea of trying to ride a bumpy dirt road, with a headache that bad… nevermind the volume of the bikes or the bouncing of your head with the extra weight of the helmet. That would be agony. Add in the fact that she keeps getting dizzy from walking across the room. No. No, this is not right. I try and convince her that we need to just head for lower altitudes via the most direct means possible. She feels horrible. She doesn't want me to miss the one thing I've most been looking forward to. I tell her she's far more important and I won't regret skipping it for a moment. Plus, the Salar I've dreamed of, and the surrounding landscape, was during the dry season. I'd do it in the wet because I'm here, and how often do you get the chance, but I'm not a big fan of riding in mud, and I suspect that the roads are going to be half mud, half wet sand, half who knows what… A lot of work, for two people who are getting exhausted by minimal amounts of effort, who are ready for bed half-way through the day… Just imagine, you're weaker to begin with (best case scenario), and then you go on muddy roads. You're pretty much guaranteed to drop the bike in the sloppy bits, then you pick it up and you just want to stand there for ten minutes from the exertion, then repeat… Except, for Dachary, throw in the dizziness, occasional coughing, and a headache somewhere between bad and splitting. Eventually she agrees, and we head south. But, before we can do that, we have to address the fact that the lock on one of her Trax cases has decided it won't unlock. This particular lock has always hated me, and I could never get it open. When Dachary tried to use my key last night but it broke off in the lock, fortunately leaving a stub that we extracted with the Leatherman. This morning, it doesn't want to work with hers either and we don't have another spare, and this key also undoes the locks that attach it to the bike so we're kinda concerned. I vote for giving it a careful attempt, and then removing the lock (easy to do when it's open). We could pry it open but it'd surely **** something up. Eventually she does get it open, removing the lock works, but makes it unable to lock (obviously). So she sets about trying to fix the lock, and realizes it's the tab that the lock turns into a hole, not the locking mechanism itself. She bends the tab the right way and voilla. Fixed lock. We say goodbye to the DJ's outside of the hotel, and while we do I notice that I have mild pins-and-needles in both arms from just standing there. Altitude's not happy with me. Forty minutes later we've made it through two miles of traffic and, with the help of a local, one blue string lane divider (don't ask), and dodged three oncoming busses in our lane. We decide that even though there are a couple things we'd like to pick up in a town the size of La Paz the traffic is insane, the drivers swap lanes relentlessly, and we want to get out of here as fast as possible. Side note: no-one in La Paz appears to own a car. Instead there are Nissan Caravan's filled with seats that ride around, with a person whose job it is to yell the destinations out the window to anyone within hearing range, or just in the off chance that there will be someone in hearing range. If someone likes the destination they run up, and the yeller handles the door and the luggage. There are approximately four of these vehicles for every human in La Paz. They constantly block the right lane and foul the left as they pull in and out of it. After a while you build up a few rules for dealing with cities with no signage. If everyone is suddenly going right. You go right too. If you suddenly cross a major road heading in the right general direction, you take it. If it crosses a road that's even more major you might want to take that too unless it's going in the opposite direction you need. Things like that. Somehow we end up on the right road heading south out of La Paz. We make it like 70 kilometers from La Paz and stop for lunch at the first place we see, which is notable in that it took like three small towns before we found somewhere to eat. There was nothing. It was weird. Anyway. We don't think this is even a town. It's just a place with two hotels that both have restaurants in them. We go in, and get a delicious lunch of roast beef ribs preceded by corn soup, and followed by bananas in a little yogurt. It's the "menu de dia" and it was all delicious and exactly what we needed. Turns out the guy speaks a little English, and we ask him if he knows of any towns along our way that might also have hotels. "No. None" he says. He used to travel that road a bunch and doesn't remember any hotels along the way. The problem here is that we could probably find something at the border (he agrees) but the border is on top of a mountain, and we want to go up in altitude for the least possible time, and definitely don't want to spend a night there. Especially since we're guessing it might be close to 5,000 meters. We don't want to camp in Bolivia because it's quite chilly at this altitude. How chilly? We drove through an area with clumps of snow still clinging to the shadow side of little grass tufts. Nights would be damp and very uncomfortable. Our gear doesn't do sub-freezing temperatures well. So, Dachary suggest we call it a day early so that she can do some work that's almost late for one of her clients, I can change my tire, and we can rest. It's a good idea, and much as I really want to not stop so early, it's the logical decision. Especially in light of the timings for the ride that the guy has given us (Riding down the mountains in the dark is bad). So we go across the street to the other hotel. Room is 100 Bob (about $15) but mediocre at best. Come back, ask the guy about a room at this hotel. Turns out he's not just the waiter, he's the receptionist for the hotel, but he's full up. When Dachary goes to pay later he tells her that if the place across the street doesn't have any rooms to come back and he'll see if they can "fix up" a room for us. We don't think it was anything funky, we think he was just being helpful and probably had a room that wasn't currently in a state for people. So, across the street, pull the bikes in to an inner brick courtyard and set to changing my rear tire. It really was a good idea, because we almost never stop early. But I fear how tired this'll make me. It goes pretty well though. We're getting fairly good at it, and the tire has about 12,000 miles on it, so one good squeeze with the BeadBreaker on each side, plus some squeezing with the hands is all it needs to loosen it up, but when we pull out the tube we both think… "oh shit" http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5175/...78b9b53885.jpg Kay's tireless bike http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5294/...ca2d59d2de.jpg Finally putting on a new rear http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5097/...3dd4fb1ee3.jpg Inner tube weirdness All those little bits? We feared they were bits of the tube, but no, they're bits of the tire's carcass. We're not sure where exactly they came from, but I suspect it had something to do with the day a couple months ago when I unknowingly rode with the pressure at 25(ish) instead of the normal 33. Probably heat build up and such… But the little pieces flake off the tube with a little pressure, so Dachary sets to giving the tube a manicure while I start putting the new tire on. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5218/...253335d2e0.jpg Tired from the change Tire on, tube cleaned, tube in, a bunch of pulling with the tire irons, hook up the CyclePump, add a little goop to the side that's going to need to come up the farthest to set the bead and….. holy shit. We've done this four times now and have never had the bead set so perfectly. Maybe it's that this time it's a Metzler Tourance tire and the other tires were Michellin Anakees. Usually it takes a lot of time and sometimes a bit of luck to get it the same distance from the rim the whole way around, but this time it slides into place perfectly, and we barely needed to over-inflate the tube to do it. (Note: three days later and the tube's still doing fine) http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5095/...09663b9531.jpg New vs. old. I must say the BeadBreakr and CyclePump are two of the best purchases we made for this trip. I can't recommend them highly enough. We get the tire back on and just as we're checking the chain tension the rain that has been threatening starts up. Light drops at first, but we know the real stuff is not far behind. Adjust Adjust! Tweak tweak! Wrench Wrench! Pack Pack! As we're pulling our panniers up the stairs and into the rooms the real rain starts in. Back in the room Dachary avoids work, and we read for a bit. Then down to dinner, a little more avoidance, and eventually I coerce her into doing it by withholding sex. Seriously. But, you can't blame her. Would you want to write newsletters about house buying and mortgages while you were on a trip like this? Ugh. It is so sad that she's had to carry around a book about home buying this whole time. It should be noted, that Dachary is not-so-secretly hoping that one more evening at altitude will be enough to acclimatize her so that we can go do the Salar. She really doesn't want to let me down. I don't believe for a minute that her symptoms will have subsided by then to the point where she's up for that, but she's a stubborn one. And, I love her. |
Day 81 - Villa Loza-Tolar, Bolivia to Arica, Chile
Dachary didn't wake up with a splitting headache, which was good, but she was completely winded by walking across the street to get breakfast, which was bad. Went back to the room and the double whammy of street crossing and food digestion made Dachary need to lie down for a few minutes. I know, this sounds totally freaking pathetic, but you just can't get your head around the effects of oxygen deprivation until you've experienced it.
Advice to anyone wanting to do the Salar de Uyuni: unless you've been at "very high" altitude you can't know if you'll be ****ed (like Dachary) or merely exhausted (like me). Get up to 3,800 meters a minimum of three day before you hit the dirt. My recommendation is five in case you have trouble with it. Remember that if you get headaches from altitude sickness pills won't help. You'll just have to suffer, or drop altitude. The problem is, that there's no quick way down from Bolivia. There's plenty more details about dealing with altitude sickness on Wikipedia. Anyway, we hit the road, and it was beautiful. One of my favorite rides of the trip. It reminded me a lot of the western United States, and about how the more I experience on this trip, the more it makes me appreciate what we have back home. So many times I've thought, "We've got this in the US!" But riding the US can be so hit or miss. You can really have a lame trip with all our fast but boring highways, and our overpopulated back roads. I'm thinking of doing the Trans-Eastern and Trans-American trail someday, maybe with some diversions through Monument National Park and the Grand Canyon…. ANYWAY… must stop getting sidetracked… http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5137/...2241724467.jpg Looking back at Dach http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5138/...a3d22aff4e.jpg Mirror Dachary http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5096/...88221320da.jpg What do they store in these? http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5019/...7088a6efe6.jpg Bolivian River http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5298/...b5f578d809.jpg Bolivian Alto Plano http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5053/...14d9e108c0.jpg Bolivian Alto Plano http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5295/...ffc0be7d3d.jpg Bolivian Alto Plano http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5252/...dc7e18387a.jpg Bolivian Alto Plano http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5252/...8c92c90533.jpg Bolivian Alto Plano http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5012/...d5c6112d3d.jpg Bolivian Alto Plano http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5213/...2e0da2ef5d.jpg Bolivian Alto Plano http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5133/...1990df7f71.jpg Bolivian Alto Plano http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5012/...d5c6112d3d.jpg free-range Llamas http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5213/...2e0da2ef5d.jpg Bolivian Alto Plano http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5133/...1990df7f71.jpg Bolivian Alto Plano http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5096/...d3dbf320fb.jpg Bolivian Alto Plano Sorry to bombard you with photos, but it was just so amazing. Especially when the snow-capped peaks started sliding into view one after the other. The riding was beautiful all the way to the border, well… the first border. There are two you see, and they've set them up for maximum confusion. Heading west, when you get the Bolivian border you need to ride past the staffed Aduana (customs) shack and the empty Migrations (immigrations) buildings. Then ride past the big building where the huge line of trucks ends. That building holds the other Bolivian Migrations (immigrations only) and Chilean Aduana (exit only). I have no idea where the Chilean exit immigrations is. You then leave Bolivia having gotten nothing stamped out of the country, enter Chile illegally, drive about a mile or so into the country until you find the other border. Go to the Blue Bolivian Migrations building across from the brick Chilean building (with the bathrooms). Then go back to the yellow / green buildings for the Bolovian Aduana (with the paper they gave you at immigrations) then back to the Chilean brick building to Immigrations, fill out the form, give it back, then to the Aduana (same building) where they will check your VIN and start filling out paperwork while you go next door to the SAP (or something like that) where they will have you fill out another form, then have you open up your panniers to make sure you're not brining in contraband cheese, food, or ancient artifacts (not kidding, it was on the sign), then back to waiting for the Aduana. We found this out by going to the Bolivian Aduana and being told to go away and drive fifteen minutes up the road. That sounded **** up so we asked and got confirmation, but shortly before fifteen minutes we found the Chilean border and figured they were smoking crack because we need to check out of Bolivia before we enter Chile. Turned around, went to the Big building in Bolivia asked a guy with official garb if the Bolivian Aduana was in there, was told yes (duplicate office I figured) went in… no, it's not there. Man's an idiot. Went back to the little building I was at first, told her I really needed to stamp out. She said **** it, stamped me out, then sent me to make a photocopy of it (1 Bob for 2 copies) kept the original and sent me away. I went back to the big building four Migrations only to find that it's immigration only and that I should **** off and go to Chile. There was a Chilean Aduana in the building but I figured it a really bad idea to attempt to check into Chile before leaving Bolivia. So, we went to Chile and everything there was a pretty straightforward even if it did involve a bunch of back and forth, and me watching the bike fall over… it was tired. Side note: Happy-Trails panniers are holding up spectacularly. Other Side note: not a single money changer in sight. The Bolivian border is next to a huge snow capped Volcano that shoots up another 2,000 meters or so above the border. Gorgeous. The Chilean one has a Volcano just around the corner. It also had rain… damn rain. Up, up, more up… Oh hey, this is pretty. It looks like the rain's done… pretty dirt… a Customs checkpoint… Is that for us? I'm sure it's for the Truckers pulling over there, but us too?? We sit in sight of the customs guys for a while hoping to get a nod to come in or go on… they never look up. We say **** it and very slowly drive off. No yelling…. The road is sometimes paved and sometimes dirt. We're around 4,500 meters now and really hoping it'll stop dropping, but it kept going up for a while. As soon as it does start dropping we are reminded of what happens at tall mountain ranges: the clouds come from one side and train-wreck into it while the other side has blue skies. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5213/...68a97e9915.jpg Chilean Dirt http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5260/...1b934c50ea.jpg The edge of the cloud There was an area at 4,398 meters where we got a break in the clouds and stopped to pee in this idyllic little valley with a small river on one side and llamas chomping whatever llamas chomp on the hill opposite it. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5214/...6b2d0d4ca6.jpg A break in the clouds http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5294/...9617c414e6.jpg Llamas being llamas http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5014/...5e97971570.jpg Noble Steed http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5051/...f22771db23.jpg A river runs through it... But then we entered the full-on train-wreck. Visibility was technically about twenty feet, but at that distance you couldn't really tell what it was you are looking it, as evidenced by me riding over a llama. At least, I think it was a llama. There was a dark splotch in the middle of the road. I thought it was just going to be a pothole, but then, instead of going down into it, I went up over it, with a vibratey feeling over something slick. I swear I saw a few milliseconds of ribs before, or as, my front tire hit it. I'm pretty sure it was baby llama roadkill. We rode on at about 50kph until we got stuck behind a semi going about 20kph and were not nearly suicidal enough to attempt to pass it. Far too many times we'd be watching to the side of it and all of a sudden there were headlights from an oncoming semi RIGHT THERE! The visibility was so bad in the fog, and the road was so twisty, that there simply was no chance to pass. I was very thankful for two things: 1) my Aerostitch Kanetsu kept me warm 2) my Denali headlights meant that oncoming vehicles had a much better chance of seeing me. They don't do jack for cutting through fog, but they make you much more confident about your chances of not becoming a pancake. Dachary didn't need the latter since she was in back, although I'm know she would have liked a pair of her own, but she really did need a heated jacket, because it was freaking cold at that altitude and the train-wreck of clouds we were riding through meant we were soaked and had what little heat we had get sucked out of us as quickly as possible. Alas, with no functional Gerbing, she suffered through the cold, feeling worse and worse and eventually catching the shivers. I would have taken pictures, there was even a picture taking pulloff with a camera icon on a sign, to which Dachary commented "What are we supposed to take a picture of?" because there was only one thing to be seen: cloud guts. So yeah, I didn't feel like soaking my camera to give you a picture of solid gray. We drove down, and down, and down, and down…. at about 1,500 meters it started getting warm (yeah, that's over two vertical miles down) but Dachary was still shivering. I felt terrible, but there was nothing we could do. Stopping earlier would have only made the cold last longer. We just had to keep going until we made our way back to the warm embrace of a Sea Level desert. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5216/...5cce7bd6e8.jpg Back to the desert http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5211/...d5f51cf4a1.jpg Back to the desert At one point we were riding along the edge of a valley with a dried river bed, but the river obviously returned because they had taken pains to make sure the road dipped down to the level of the river bed when it was forced to cross to the other side. The idea being that the river would just run over the road at that point instead of having to build a bridge that would withstand being pummeled by all the boulders the river was obviously keen to throw around. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5177/...8f2fe3fe16.jpg A dip in the road http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5297/...134b27f999.jpg Abandoned truck http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5098/...6a1b6d0d89.jpg Chilean Desert http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5092/...28e097886f.jpg Chilean Desert http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5172/...aea57e10b8.jpg Ready to go When we got there we had to remove our heated gear (well, mine was), Dachary's thermal leggins, and switch back to summer gloves. It was weird. Suddenly we felt so much lighter and freer. We left in the rain liners though. We may have dropped down into the desert, but deserts aren't always particularly warm. It ways probably 65 F when we got there, and Dachary said she still felt cold. We continued on, past tasty looking restaurants we really wanted to stop at, and into Arica, past gas stations we really wanted to fill up, and on into the guts of the city because we had Zero Chilean Pesos, although I've still got peso coins from every other Peso using country we've been through. I've still got coins from every country actually. No-one wants them. Soon we're just driving around asking people, until we ask a guy who says "right around that corner." Excellent! Oh, wait. No left turning during every useful hour of the day. **** it. It's safe. Turn. Pull over. Totally miss the ATM but see a money changer… Damn we can't park here "Watch me!" says Dachary. "Um, there's a cop walking towards us." I say. "Let's see what he does"… He comes up, and I ask him where we should go to park. He tells me I made an illegal turn. I act confused. He tells me to watch where I'm going. That he could write me a ticket for that. "Sorry" I say. He gives me stern looks and Stern finger pointing. Then, when I ask again, tells me where to park, confirms I have to take three lefts to get there, and lets me go. I take three lefts, and pull up behind a car about to abandon its spot. Dachary goes to find the ATM, and the Money Changer whilst I take the Leatherman to my GPS mount which has been all floppy today. "How much was I supposed to get out?", she comes back and asks. 150,000 ($300 US) since we're going to be here for a while. "Ooops…" she goes back to the ATM. We then proceed to drive around in circles (literally) trying to find a hotel. Get bad directions twice. Never find any hotel we tried to. Then stumble across another hotel. Go in, ask about parking (the hardest thing to get in Arica). Yes! Internet too?! Holy shit. "How do I get to the parking?" It's just on the back side of the hotel on the other side of the block. Easy. Down.. right… no, wait, that's one way… right… right…left…right…. right er… **** the road is one way up to us not down… ok right, right, up up up… er no ****… left left… can't left… can't left… can't left…. can't left…. ****ing A… left… left… and we're back where we were the last time… It's been at least ten minutes. We're sure the girl who's supposed to be waiting to open the gate for us is gone, We can SEE the gate, we just can't…. "Oh **** this. I'm overheating. I'm ****ing tired. It's been black out for an hour. " ILLEGAL RIGHT TURN. The girl is a saint, and is still there. The gate opens, and we unload our shit through the back door almost directly into the room on the ground floor… oh what a sweet and rare joy… a ground floor room. Dachary falls onto the bed. I'll let her describe her state. (Dachary's note: between being cold for days with no heated gear (the highs in Bolivia were in the high 40s, low 50s, with lows… colder. And riding at speed.) and the altitude sickness, I was absolutely knackered when we hit the hotel in Arica. The ceiling was crawling. The drapes were waving. I was dizzy and felt sort of out-of-body. I tried getting up at one point to go to the bathroom, and was considering going outside with Kay at that point, but it was quickly evident that the only place I should go was right back to bed. I do not recommend altitude sickness in conjunction with being too cold for days. Also? No heat in hotels anywhere in Latin America. Even the expensive ones. Maybe in resorts, I dunno? So those cold Bolivian nights, the only choice was to bundle up under blankets and never get really warm again. I seriously recommend having fully functional heated gear when going to altitude, or at least good thermal gear, which I lack. I left the Rev'It Sand thermal layer at home because I was using the heated gear… and now I really wish I had it, since my heated jacket isn't working. I am dreading Ushuaia with no heated gear and no thermal layer. I simply have to figure something out before then.) I go out to find food since she's incapable of moving from the bed. Oh look, a pizza / taco / empanada place next door. I go back in. "Hey, there's a place RIGHT there with pizzas, tacos, empanadas… I could grab a pizza or we could go together. It couldn't be closer" She stands up, decides it was a bad idea, and sends me off. I go in. "I need food to go." "Oh… food TO GO" she says significantly to the cook and then gives me some not entirely negative but not positive response either. I try another tact…. "What food do you have to go?" she lists things, including pizza. "How big is the big pizza?" "It's not. It's a personal pizza." **** that noise. We've seen "personal" pizzas in Latin America. "Ok. How about tacos?" "Yes." "Ok. I'd like tacos for two." "Ok. Go wait upstairs." "O…k…" I go up. I take up one of the few tables in the nice seating area up there. A waitress shows up and hands me a menu. "Not necessary. I spoke downstairs and ordered food to go." Somewhat confused she retreats. I sit for a few minutes. A nice man from a couple tables over makes sure I wasn't eating there. "No. Thank-you." The waitress returns. "Tacos?" "Yes, to go." She disappears. She comes back and starts speaking foreign words to me. I don't understand. Eventually she switches to English that's slightly better than my Spanish. "You come downstairs?" "Sure" We go down. We go to the lady I gave my order to. The waitress talks to her. The waitress is annoyed. The woman says "oh, to go". as in "Oh, I didn't realize they wanted the food to go." I really, really, wish my Spanish was good enough to give her a verbal "WTF?!", but it isn't. So I confirm what I think the situation is. "Ok, you have NO food to go." The waitress shakes her head apologetically and says no. The woman I gave the order to sits there like an idiot. I walk out… I walk about five blocks to the McDonalds I saw. I know they will still be open (it's late). I know what to order. I know what it'll taste like, and I know it'll be fast. I'm right on all but one. The fast. Holy ****ing shit. Slowest McDonalds on the planet. I take the food back. It's ****ING DELICIOUS. It's not like it tastes any different than any other McDonalds, but it's just so deliriously good. A wonderful taste of home. And, the fries… we've had so many crap fries. It's just so nice to have good McDonalds fries. Note: if you need a hotel in Arica with secure parking we used the Hotel Plaza Colon, which I would recommend, and they charged me less than the rate sheet on the wall, but it was still a typical big-city price. In the parking area behind the hotel the GPS said S 18 28.743 W 070 19.205 Which should be right between two streets. |
Day 82 - Arica to Quillagua Chile
Did I mention we lost another hour when we came into Chile? That's two hours lost in less than 48. We woke up at 9 Chilean time. 7 our time, which is when we normally have the alarm set. Breakfast was included with the room, but we thought we were too late to get it. McDonalds. McDonalds works. Not the most spectacular breakfast offerings but not bad either. I head out and discover that Chileans have no appreciation for breakfast, if McDonalds is any indication.
Main menu item? Two small croissants (cold) and a cup of coffee. Alternately there is a ham and cheese sandwich (with coffee), and, of course, a small hamburger (with coffee). This was not good. I ordered four ham and cheese sandwich meals with orange juice because, judging by the picture and the croissants, they weren't going to be big. Then, in case they sucked, I ordered two yogurts, which I discovered has a weird pronunciation that I'm still having trouble getting my mouth around. Back to the hotel room I inform Dachary of the sadness that is Chilean McDonalds breakfast and we open the sandwiches. They've taken hamburger buns (the cheap ones) turned them inside out and toasted them. Then inserted a cold piece of ham and cheese. It was the most pathetic excuse for a sandwich I've ever seen. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5297/...1e1774795a.jpg They call this "breakfast" The yogurt parfait thing was exactly the same as in the US (way too sweet) but better than the sandwiches. Also, no hash-browns! And, still the worlds slowest McDonalds even though there was only one other customer. Side note: the tables all have a metal loop under them with a caribener attached so that you can easily clip your bag to the table while you eat. I guess at some point in the past they've had trouble with people snatching bags from tables and running off while the owners are somewhat trapped trying to get their legs out from under the table. Dachary finishes off some of her work and I get a post uploaded. We were too exhausted to do much of anything last night. Then just before the noon check-out we manage to get all our shit together and out the door. Not bad considering we woke up at 9, had breakfast and Dachary had work to do. In the parking lot we discover Dachary's bike needs a bit more air in the tires since our altitude has changed so dramatically, address that with the CyclePump (so loving that thing) and head out. Before going back into the desert we stop by a massive hardware store we saw (Think Home Depot) for new padlocks. I've lost one somewhere along the way and the other one is getting a bit ornery. I could fix the latter with some WD-40, which we have, but I still need another lock for the other pannier, because the built-in locks on the Happy-Trails panniers are as bad as the built-in ones on the Trax cases. Only one is working for reasons I can't explain, and they get obstructed by the contents of the cases. Anyway, in ask for padlocks, see only one choice… that can't be right.. get an employee who leads me to a locked case of padlocks. Right… I buy a four pack, which is more expensive than two two packs back gives me one key for everything. Then it's back to the desert, via a road that circumnavigates it from the north which Dachary found on Google maps. One wrong turn later and we're free of it's grip. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5174/...58561debab.jpg Dachary's curves http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5171/...955e3c2ef9.jpg Ride on kemosabe http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5132/...c175ca7bf0.jpg Ride on kemosabe Desert. Desert. More desert. New rule: in Chile, you get gas when you see it, because the distances between stations can be pretty big and many of the towns on the map don't have gas. Some towns, on the other hand consist entirely of one gas station as far as we can tell. We stop for lunch at a sandwich shop by a customs checkpoint that doesn't seem to apply to us. Where we notice a couple adventure bikes that appear to be from Brazil, the riders probably off in one of the restaurants and sandwich shops. I voted for the one with the nice, shaded chairs in the breeze where we we're served a spectacular steak and cheese sandwich. So far the sandwiches have been crap, but this was just a simple baguette-like bread, with some cheese, and some sliced beef. It was great. Eventually the riders come out from a restaurant across the street and I walk up to the first one as he approaches the bike sitting in front of us. I ask him where he's from, "Brazil" he says and puts on a glove. "And where are you going?" "Brazil" he says and puts on the other glove. "We rode down from Boston." he nods and gives me the distinct impression he doesn't give a shit… right then. "Adios" I say as he's starting to mount his bike. His companion has just walked by and shown zero interest even though there are two fully loaded adventure bikes next to his. I walk back to Dachary and notice something. He and his friend may have been riding BMW R1150's but his jacket said "HOG (Harley Owners Group)", and while I hate to generalize, Harley folk and adventure riders rarely seem to see eye to eye in the US. There are exceptions of course, but... We ride on, until around six clock we pull over at a gas station and decide that we should get rid of the shite Peruvian gasohol we've got in our cans and replace it with real gas. The logic being that real gas gets us more mileage, and when you've run out you want as much extra mileage as you can get. Unfortunately neither of us can figure out the God Damn Mother ****ing Piece Of Shit Safety Valve on the cans. The icon says to turn it around the neck in one direction to unlock it. You do, but it has no effect. You turn farther and it just breaks some spring. There's only a teeny hole in the spout which looks like a breather hole, and I've no clue how any real amount of gas is supposed fit through it. **** it. I've spent twenty minutes in the past ****ing with this thing and I don't give a shit any more. I take out the leatherman and attack it with the blade, drilling a hole through the neck of the spout where there should have been a hole in the first place. I finally get this working, and Dachary, who has been holding off from attacking hers in case mine no longer closes properly, discovers the secret to making it work. You have to push down, hard, on the turney piece in addition to turning, but there's zero indication of that anywhere on the thing. If I have pulled the neck out and put the damn thing back in in the pour position I WANT gas to escape. I don't need a ****ing safety feature to protect me from gas escaping. That's the whole point of putting the spout on pointing that way. ****ers. At least it's not one of those stupid ones with the Mushroom end for California's rules. Those things leak constantly and the end is obnoxious. We end up getting in a tiff over what to do next. Eat and stay (at the decent looking hotel), eat and ride, ride and cross fingers. Dachary doesn't want to be the one responsible for us staying even though neither of us want to skip eating, and she doesn't want to eat and then ride since we'd not ride for long. She gets upset and decides we're going to skip eating and ride…. unfortunately this means we may end up with no food tonight because it's a crap shoot if any of the towns will have a restaurant, and even more of a crap shoot if they'll have a hotel. I'm fine with just camping, but I'm concerned about missing dinner and she's not talking much. We ride for nearly two hours and sunset's coming soon. We come to a customs building where everyone has to stop, not just busses and trucks. We sit around trying to figure out if we're really required to stop, but then normal cars are stopping and doing shit so we grab our customs papers, and with the help of an employee figure to take them to the window, get them stamped and ride out to the gate where they check that we've got something to show we've been inspected (they checked other people's trucks but ignored us) and ask if that thing over there is a restaurant. It is. We go. It says open. We get off the bikes. It isn't. There's another one next door. It actually is open. We order and while waiting for food I wander off in search of a hidey-camp spot because the sun will have set and it may be full dark by the time we are done eating. One abandoned complex with a concrete wall we can drive through and a no-entry sign. Across the street is a mud-brick building with two and a half walls left. It's off the main road about 200 feet and we could probably set up camp behind it. Then, there's a road behind the concrete no-entry wall…. hmm… it curves around back, down a hill, past an obstruction that'd stop a car but not a moto, and into a big open field with trees and a river. Yeah baby. Hills on two sides and only visible by the back of some shacks at the top of the hill. Coming down here is not doable in a car, which no-one has, and no-one seems to have motos here either, so it's actual work on foot, and not a wander over out of curiosity thing. I inform Dachary of the choices. Neither of us like the abandoned concrete structure, and there are dogs who keep running in there and being all barky and guardy. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5296/...0c650c6847.jpg We camped! We eat our delicious pork quickly, and pull out, and down the hill. It's nigh-perfect. We set up camp and dig a hole for… "waste" as full dark comes in. The stars are incredible. Neither of us is Bad-ass Boy-Scout enough to dig a depression in the sandy ground for our hips so it's a little hard but… We leave the tent-fly off for a while and make love under the stars, then watch an episode of Torchwood before falling asleep. Well, Dachary falls asleep. I lay awake for a while, not yet in the mindset of being comfortable hidey-camping and worrying about annoying someone by being here, just enough to keep me awake, but not enough to actually consider taking action. Side note for those of you who say don't bring camping gear, here's exactly why you should. Sometimes there's no hotel, and you don't want to ride hours in the dark to the next "town" that probably won't have one anyway. Chile, by the way is as full of excellent camping spots as Peru was. In Chile especially there are lots of hard packed dirt roads leading off of Route 5 that seem to go nowhere. Just pull off on one of those, drive a half a mile, or more, from the road, and set up your tent. Sometimes they curve around behind mounds that'd hide you too, but mostly your tent would be visible but not worth the effort. That's actually our plan for nights when we don't specifically need a hotel for some reason like getting posts up to you guys, or doing laundry, or things like that. |
Day 83 - Quillagua to Chanaral
We still haven't gotten the hang of Chile time. Set the alarm for 7am, which is when we've been waking up, and it was barely light - sunrise apparently isn't until 7:33AM. We hit snooze once and then the need to pee drove me out of the tent to our hole. My intestines seemed unhappy and threatened to make me use the hole for something else, but apparently I haven't degenerated to a complete savage yet as I found myself unable to poo squatting over a hole in broad view in full daylight.
Packing up the tent was slow, as it's been a while since we camped and we were both dragging. Also, my body was still under the impression that it was 5AM, and I'm a poor early riser, so I was grumping at poor Kay. I feel bad about it but I couldn't seem to stop myself. Got the bikes loaded up, and I was grumpy and tummy achy and asked Kay to take my bike up the hill past the metal blockade thingy for me. I drove it to the bottom, but then I walked up the hill - I didn't want to deal with the tightness of the space and the sandy bit right where we had to plant our wheels. Kay apparently enjoyed it, though, as he said it was a nice little diversion to start the day. Because my tummy was unhappy, we skipped breakfast and hit the road. It was around 8:40AM when we pulled out from our hidey-camp spot, which is better than most of the hotels but slow for us for camping. About 45 minutes later, Kay announces that the abandoned city he wanted to check out was just 68KM ahead. We'd be there shortly if we wanted to stop. One of the sort of compromises we'd made since we skipped the Salar de Uyuni and were a bit earlier than planned heading south that we'd stop and see a couple of other things he'd wanted to check out but didn't think we had time for. The abandoned town was on the list, and it sounded cool to me, too, so we agreed to look for it. From Route 5, we took the exit for Maria Elena, because we *really* needed gas by then. The city sign said we'd find gas and food there, and I was thinking breakfast might not go amiss, now, too, since I'd been awake and riding for a while. So we headed to Maria Elena, found a gas station upon immediately arriving on the edge of town, and then turned around and headed south down B-180 toward Pedro de Valdivia - an abandoned mining town Kay read about in another ride report. We were under the impression that there were two towns - one that had been abandoned, and one that was currently serving the mine from a new location a few kilometers down. Down the road toward a sign for Mina Pedro, but that wasn't the right turn off - it's the actual working mine. There's a gate across the road and a guy in a shack coming out to see why two motos are coming up. So back to the road and then south some more, around some twists in the road, past a random tree in the desert (huge effing tree - we had no idea how or why it was there) and then along side a town that looked fully functional from afar. As we got closer, we could see that the roofs were missing from many of the buildings, and we didn't see any people moving around the town, although it looked fine otherwise. The road ran along the side of the town, although all of the access roads were blocked by a 3-4 foot high pile of dirt. In fact, the entire perimeter was blocked off by this tall pile of unpacked dirt. The road led to the entrance of another working mine, which also had a gate across the road and a guy in a shack coming out to see why the two motos were pulling up. So we turned around again, and ended up behind a mining truck that was heading out of the mine, which drove slowly with us behind them - I assume they were waiting to see what we would do. We took the right that heads back toward Route 5 (and past the town on that side) and waited for the mining truck to pull out of site. Then, to the problem of getting inside the place. But look! Next to that gate blocking the road (and declaring it a national monument) there's a bit of a gap. Maybe our motos can go through there! Kay goes to investigate, as he's the wider of us (and more willing to cram his bike in sticky spots) and is able to make it through, so I follow. And down the main road of the abandoned town we ride. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5014/...c236a67d5d.jpg You didn't see this either It's completely surreal to ride around this place. Aside from the fact that the road is dirt, and the doors and windows to many of the houses are hanging wide open, the place doesn't seem abandoned. You expect to see people walking out of the buildings or going around the town any minute. Maybe they're all at an important town meeting and will be returning shortly. It's like they've just stepped out, except for the minor details that tell a different tale. A random boot lying in the street. Missing roofs. A fine coating of dust and dirt over everything. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5060/...56f5eae3a1.jpg Open door http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5133/...cf07212093.jpg Ghost street http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5252/...f1c91577ec.jpg Boot http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5175/...19049e1b5d.jpg Street corner Kay has seen pictures from the school and he wants to find that, so we peer down all of the cross-streets that we pass looking for large buildings. Tons of houses, a few shops, what looks like a big church up on the hill… and forward, what's that? A building that might be a school! We ride past and see a playground, and then turn right and look for a place off the main cross-streets to park our bikes in case someone is patrolling here. We take a right by a pretty peach building, and discover that it's the town theater. There, we park, turn off our bikes and take off our helmets. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5019/...9e32cc1506.jpg Town square http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4128/...280cdd622b.jpg Town Sqare http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5132/...2ec48400be.jpg Steering wheel As soon as we pull our earplugs, we hear something - a radio. Not far away, from what appears to be a gazebo sitting in a park across from the empty theater, is the sound of a radio. It alternates between local talk radio and random music, but it's clearly a modern station - not some sort of canned noise. "Are you sure this place is abandoned?" I ask Kay, who shakes his head - it's supposed to be, but neither of us can explain the radio. I wonder if some vagrants have taken up here and are hanging out in the gazebo with a radio. If that's the case, they probably aren't in a position to complain about us being there, but we are trespassing and I'm spooked by the sound. Kay wanders around and takes some pictures of the main square, and I follow but my interest is half-hearted because now I'm worried about getting caught here. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5139/...dc73f8946d.jpg Is there someone over there?! We check out the town square, and then a building that I take to be a school because it's in a fenced compound that contains a playground. It may be *a* school, but it's not the one that Kay saw pictures from that has him really interested. Next, we explore the theater. Kay wants to get inside of it, and I think I remember seeing an open door on the side we passed when we rode in. We walk around the building, trying a few doors, and eventually we find one that opens into a darkened, well-preserved theater. The seats were wooden and folded upright, and covered in a thick layer of dirt or dust. The stage, too - everything was covered in the stuff. It was floating in the air. There were tracks on the floor; mud or dirt had come in and someone had been there since it happened. It was an odd combination of well-preserved with just enough decay to be creepy and surreal. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5213/...828fb2353e.jpg Abandoned theatre Then I noticed an odd detail. "When was this place abandoned?" I ask Kay. He doesn't know. I ask if he's looked at the banner behind him, as he's currently on the stage taking pictures out toward the auditorium… and he turns around to see the banner on the stage, which has dates reading from 1996 to 2010. We look at each other. 2010? Last year? Surely this place can't have been abandoned just last year. The layer of dirt is far too thick for just a year. And the air of emptiness surrounding the place is far too pervasive for months or even a year of silence. It's a mystery. I've since done some research and can't find a decisive date for when Pedro de Valdivia was abandoned. Apparently Chile ran it "until recently" and was perhaps operating it as a national monument for a while. The best I can piece it together, the mine may have been run as a mine by Chile until 1995-ish, at which point it was abandoned and turned into a national monument site. Which might have been active until 2010? I'm not sure about the banner that read "1996 to 2010." And it's driving me crazy that I can't find the details. Inquiring minds want to know! Anyway, we wandered around the empty town for a while. We poked into houses and found legacies and scraps from the people who lived there. Kay found an auditorium and checked it out, while I wandered off alone and checked out a few more of the houses and a shop. Eventually we met up again at the main square and headed out of town after like an hour and a half of exploring. Kay agreed at that point that the psychological effect of the radio playing was creeping him out a bit, too, and we headed off. There was plenty more to see, but we were ready to move on. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5054/...55496796b7.jpg The people who lived here http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4139/...6a150a719d.jpg Abandoned cloth http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4109/...f583dc3ce0.jpg Is it stone or wood? http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4093/...a89e97538d.jpg You didn't see this http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4130/...bbd73b4c13.jpg Vroom! More photos in our Chile set on Flickr. Kay's note: apparently back in July the radio wasn't playing. Dachary and I agreed that it was the best deterrent they could have put in place. You know you're there without permission, but there's this sound of voices and music that keeps you on your toes. It might obscure the sound of some guard coming to check on the place. We both thought that we could sleep there if it wasn't for the radio, but there's no way we could do it with it on. Also, we never did find the school things I was looking for, but judging by Panomoto's pictures from the town there was way more to explore. Back on the road, and it was lunch time and I still hadn't had breakfast. Hunter needs food badly! (Or rider, as the case may be.) Unfortunately, out here in the middle of the desert, towns are few and far between. 70km later, we stumbled across a gas station in Carmen Alto, and I decided we should stop and get gas. Whilst there, we asked the gas station guy if the restaurant next door was open (it was) and if it was good (it was). So off to the restaurant. When we sat down, I was looking at the map trying to think about how far we might get today when I realized… I had a blind spot. I couldn't read any of the town names properly. When I looked right at them, I could only see some of the letters - others were obscured by the "blind spot" in my eye. I tried closing one eye, and then the other, and thought I determined that it was the left eye that was having trouble. I mentioned it to Kay and waited for it to pass, we ordered food, and I stared at the map some more. Eventually I realized that it wasn't passing - it was getting worse. Kay commented that since I had trouble putting the left contact in this morning (it burned in my left eye painfully, in spite of repeatedly removing it and dousing it liberally in contact solution, until eventually it calmed down) it might be a problem with the contact. He said that if it were him, he'd remove it immediately. I didn't see how that could be possible as they were a fresh pair of contacts that I just put in yesterday, but it was really freaking me out at that point that I had a big blind spot that seemed to be getting worse. We were literally in the middle of the desert. The nearest sizable town was 100km away, and I was riding a moto. I needed to be able to see. So I took the contacts out, hoping it would subside. It didn't. It continued to get worse. I tried closing one eye, and then the other, to see if I could figure out which eye was having trouble… and then I got really freaked out. Because either eye seemed to function fine when it was just the one eye. But when I tried using both eyes at the same time (you know, like a normal two-eyed person) I got a massive blind spot. So I interpreted this to mean it was a neurological problem - somewhere between my eyes and my brain, the signal was getting messed up. It wasn't the eyes. Here I was in a strange country and I was having a neurological problem. Oh crap. I decided that there was nothing I could do about it at the moment, and to just chill and see if it was any better after lunch. Right around then, food came. I stopped paying attention to it and started eating. Lunch was surprisingly tasty, and I realized halfway through eating it that I could see! Like normally! I waited a few minutes more to be sure, looked around some more, closed various eyes and generally tested things, and then I told Kay "I can see again." It was a huge relief to both of us, as I think neither of us had a clue what to do if it didn't fix itself. We agreed that I should wear my glasses for the rest of the day, since we didn't know what caused the problem in the first place and didn't want to set it off again. I hate wearing them in the helmet, as they don't fit perfectly and I have to keep pushing them up my nose. Also, I hate wearing them on warm days because the pads of the glasses make my nose sweat. Alas, riding through the desert counts as a "warm" day and I had to deal because I was so relieved to see properly again that the other concerns seemed far more minor than usual. http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4088/...6838e5b82f.jpg Smiling Dach with GLASSES After the oddly dramatic lunch, back to the gas station for the bathroom and then on the road again! http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4139/...6d6be49c65.jpg I think there's a dog under that http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5140/...5f6c777799.jpg quiet dog http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5256/...ec133b3ca0.jpg Cement Factory Some point along the way, we cross the Tropic of Capricorn. Kay goes back to take a picture because now that we know what it means (thanks to our educational lesson at the Equator!) it seems cooler and Kay wants a shot of it. http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4124/...3438cec71c.jpg Tropic of Capricorn We passed Antofagasta, and Kay commented that another thing he wanted to see was down the road past the city. Apparently there's a giant hand sticking out of the desert - some artist sculpted it in the middle of nowhere off of Route 5. Since we'd be passing it anyway, Kay wanted to stop and get pictures, and I had no particular place to be, so when we saw the sign for it, we stopped. It's not obvious where you're meant to drive out to the hand. There are several paths across the desert leading to it, and none of them seem particularly official. Then there are a few side paths between the main paths from the road where cars have apparently made their own routes. We rode up one of them, with just one car ahead of us, thinking we'd be able to snap our photos and be on our way. No. The car in front of us was a black Tracker. There were something like 5 or 6 adults, and one baby. And apparently EVERYONE had to be in a picture with the baby in front of the hand. When we pulled up, they'd just moved their vehicle - they'd been taking pictures of their Tracker in front of the hand while they were driving up. Then they moved it, and started taking pictures of themselves. Four or five pictures of a person with the baby. Then the person changed places with someone else, handing the baby off like some twisted mascot, and got their own pictures. Oh, wait, lets get two people in here. Oh, no, two other people. Oh, wait, you wanted a picture with the baby, too? Then for some reason the first two wanted to go back and get *more* pictures with the baby. It was a total cluster****. Every time we thought they were done, they changed positions and took more pictures. We must have been waiting for ten or fifteen minutes when I started getting annoyed, started my bike and drove around behind the hand so I could position myself to swoop in for the shot. Two other people in a silver car had been there before us, and while the Tracker people were packing up, they walked over quickly and took their pictures. They were done in under 2 minutes. Kay ran over and took a picture of them together, which they appreciated, and they were walking off before the Tracker people were all piled into their car and ready to go. In the meantime, two more cars full of people had pulled up, and we were determined that they wouldn't steal our spot in the queue. As soon as the Tracker was started up, even before the people from the silver car got back in to leave, I started pulling forward to park my bike in front of the statue. At the same time, one of the women from the new carloads started walking up to the statue. **** that, I thought - I've been here forever and you just got here - you didn't have to deal with the stupid Tracker people at all - so I kept pulling my bike up. Kay was pulling his up, too. And the stupid woman didn't even blink to see us pulling up - she just continued walking over to get her shot in front of the hand. http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4101/...c51da648b1.jpg She couldn't wait her turn We got off the bikes and waited while her car of people took pictures of her with our bikes in front of the hand. And then we swooped in before other people could get into the shot, because we wanted to get in and out. We were sick of waiting for pictures of us in front of this stupid statue, already. So Kay snaps a few quick pictures of me, we swap spots and I snap a few pics of him, and then the car of people offers to snap a pic of us together. Yay! So it's done. http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4120/...2c8bbe4118.jpg Kay at the hand http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5018/...2dbdaa7141.jpg Dachary at the Hand http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5258/...ca23797ce9.jpg Us at the hand I go back to my bike and start to pull off, and both cars full of people are walking toward the hand (apparently they're together) and asking Kay to take a picture of them. "Just a minute," he says in Spanish "we'll move the bikes." "No, it's no problem," they say and take pictures of them in front of our bikes in front of the hand statue. So weird. Then I go move my bike, and Kay follows, and we see them taking more pictures behind us, without the bikes. I have no idea what that was about, but it was weird. It's been over a half hour since we pulled off to get a quick picture of the hand. That took way too long! Kay's note: I really wanted to get some better pics, but after waiting that long for the stupid baby people I couldn't justify being a disrespectful ass myself and spending the time to compose some better shots. Back on the road for more riding, riding, riding. The plus side of the change in time here in Chile is that there's far more usable daylight. Sunset is after 8PM, so we can ride forever. Normally we'd stop at 6pm - on the flat, straight Chilean roads, we can cover 200km between 6pm and 8pm. I decide we should push for a town 200km down the road - Chanaral. It'll be pushing it, but if we don't run into any trouble, we should get there around 7:30 or 8. Hopefully we can find a hotel to park the bikes before it gets too dark, grab some food and crash. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5292/...ced6aeecb5.jpg Chilean Desert The final push to Chanaral is harder than I expected. Shortly after 6pm, it starts getting *cool* in the desert, even though there are still more hours of sun. At highway speeds, the cool is cool. I zip up my vents, and my arms are still cold. I wonder if I'm getting sick, or if the altitude sickness was masking a cold from being cold and wet so much in Bolivia. By the time we pull into Chanaral at 7:30pm, I'm ready to crash. Kay's note: Dachary desperately needed to do laundry and we needed net to try and communicate with the folks at Revzilla to arrange to get a replacement for her electrics. Crossing the Andes Again would suck without them and Joe commented that both times he's been to Usuaia before the mountain at the bottom has been covered in snow, plus there's a freaking glacier north of it so… cold is in the cards and the electrics are a requirement. We ride down the road until we see a sign for a hosteria, so we turn off and head over to it. From a distance, it looked industrial and lame, but up front, it actually looked quite nice. We parked and Kay went inside to check out the prices, and I was examining my bike. We'd smelled something burning a couple of times when we stopped for gas today, but I can't remember when we noticed it was my bike. But when we stopped for the night, I got down and looked at my bash plate and saw that it was covered in oil and gunk. Kay's wasn't. When he came back out to tell me the prices, I mentioned it to him and he got down and looked. Everything along the underside of my bike was covered in oil, from my side stand to my rear shock. We assumed that BMW Lima had failed to tighten the sump plug properly, and decided to deal with it when we'd parked the bikes. We briefly discussed the room price (it was way expensive, but apparently Kay was ready to drop - his shoulder had been bothering him for a while as we'd been fighting the wind for the last slog to Chanaral, and as I discovered when I checked our mileage, we did 400 miles today even with the long stop at the abandoned town, the hand of the desert, lunch panicking, etc.) and decided to stay here in spite of the price. I wasn't feeling good, either, and they had a restaurant, and internet, and breakfast was included, so we went with it. So we unload our stuff and park the bikes, and Kay brings out the tools and we grab the spare oil. He tries to tighten my sump plug, but it won't budge. It's tight tight. Kay thinks maybe BMW Lima over-tightened it, now, while I worry that it's the gasket. Either way, there's nothing we can do about it here. So I check my oil, which is low, and add some oil. It takes around 200ml. We've been debating about whether or not to go to BMW in Santiago, as we need to change our oil, but we could do that ourselves and don't really need the dealer for that. But now, with my bike leaking oil, it's decided for us - we're heading to Santiago. Wrap that up, back to the room and then to the restaurant for dinner. Dinner is surprisingly tasty, albeit expensive, but we discover that the internet we've been promised doesn't work. Even though this is a damned expensive place, the wi-fi connects but the internet doesn't do anything. They tell us we can use the computer at a second desk in the side room, but we can't update the blog or do anything significant from there. It's just enough to let me check my email, as I've sent off a note to the guys at RevZilla to find out if they can help me get a new Gerbing controller for my jacket before we hit Ushuaia. I've got a reply from Anthony at RevZilla, and I do a few work things before we head back to the room. Where I tackle a PILE of laundry. Every article of clothing that I'm carrying is dirty except for one single shirt that I don't like and usually keep as a spare, my thermal underwear, and a single pair of thin liner socks that I don't like very much. All of my underwear, socks, and shirts are dirty. I normally try to wash frequently so I don't have to do as much, because bending over the sink for laundry hurts my back after a while, but it's been so cold and wet that I haven't done laundry since Peru. There's just no chance it would have dried in Puno or Bolivia. Too cold and wet. So I wash everything I own, with a couple of breaks, which takes FAR too long and then I'm completely pooped. Completely. Painfully. Kay works on writing up a day while I wash, as we've fallen behind, and then he squeezes my laundry for me, which he does far better than I am. We'd talked about watching an episode of something before bed, but it's almost midnight and I'm utterly pooped. So with no real downtime, we pass out. |
Day 84 - Chanaral to Vallenar
One of the nice things about the expensive hostel where we stayed was that breakfast was included. So we went out shortly after 8AM to grab breakfast, and sat down in the restaurant. The server from the night before poked his head out, said "Desayuno?" and when we indicated yes, gabbled some Spanish at us. We assumed he was getting a menu… so we sat and waited and read our books on our various devices. (I'm reading on my iPhone and Kay is reading on his iPad, because we ran out of paper books a long time ago.)
And waited. And waited. And waited. 40 minutes later, I look up from my book, realize how long has passed, and say to Kay "maybe he was saying that we need to go in there for breakfast?" "Surely not," Kay answers "that's where he went last night to get food. Isn't that the kitchen?" We sit for a few minutes longer, and then go up to the doors where the guy vanished only to see that there's an entire room full of tables inside, which you can't see because curtains are closed on the windows all the way around the room. And there's a buffet set out with coffee, tea, juice, bread, lunch meat, cheese and yogurt. So after a really long wait we had a lame breakfast of lunch meat sandwich and yogurt. Was a disappointment, because I saw breakfast on the menu we'd been given the night before and was really looking forward to yummy eggs and stuff. Yet another sign that Chile just doesn't do breakfast. By the time we finished breakfast, it was close to 10AM and I still wanted to get some work done. I'm writing a three-part series of articles about the trip for a motorcycle retailer based in the US, and I wanted to edit the draft I'd written of Part 2 and get it sent off while we had net. Sharing about the trip is something I really enjoy (as opposed to some of the writing I do, which is sometimes about stuff that just doesn't get me excited - writing about mortgages, corporate newsletters, etc.) so Kay encouraged me to do it and said he didn't mind waiting. So I did, and then borrowed the public computer in the lobby to send it off to my client. While I was on the computer, I checked my email and saw that I'd gotten a note from RevZilla. I'd emailed Anthony from RevZilla the other day to ask if there's any way to get me a new Gerbing controller for my jacket, as I do NOT fancy trying to get to Ushuaia with no heated gear and no thermal layer. Anthony and the Patrick at RevZilla *really* came through for me. There was an email from Anthony saying that if I could get them a solid address, they'd get me a controller out ASAP. They were out of dual controllers (which is what I currently have) but I'm only running the jacket anyway so I don't really *need* a dual; I'd just bought one with the idea that someday I might add some other piece of heated gear. So I told him we were in Chile, and asked if they could find a place to send it for me as I was headed to Santiago to get my bike serviced, but didn't have a reliable net connection to do the legwork on finding a shipping address. I basically said to send it wherever it'll go through and tell me where to pick it up. Of course all of this took time, so by the time I finished using the net on the borrowed computer and we got the bikes loaded up, it was noon. The second time on the trip we've stayed until check-out, and both were in Chile. The time difference in Chile is really wreaking havoc! Because it's light until after 8PM, we ride later and don't have as much time at night to do the writing/posting. So it falls to the morning, which makes us late getting out. You'd think it'd be a win-win to have all this extra light, but it causes surprising difficulties. Anyway, out on the bikes and then back into town to the gas station because we have no idea when we'll see gas again, and also we want to buy water. We're still having intermittent problems with diarrhea, and it's hard to narrow down the cause, so we've been buying bottled water instead of pumping with our filter just to be safe. Chile has civilized gas stations like we're accustomed to in the United States, with mini-marts that have cold drinks, including big bottles of water. We haven't seen a mini mart at a gas station since… Colombia? And then only a few gas stations had them in the big cities. At the gas station, I watch a flopped dog while Kay goes to get water. I miss our dogs at home, and flop dog reminds me a bit of my dog. (Looks nothing alike, really, but something similar about the way he was flopped.) When Kay comes out, flop dog wakes up and woofs under his breath at us - the deep, guttural kind that isn't really a full-throated bark, but more of an "I'm not sure about this. Why are you staring at me? Why are you wearing those weird things?" http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4126/...5d59845516.jpg Cute Flop-dog We fill up our Camelbaks and get ready to head out, and flop dog suddenly stands up when he sees us get on our bikes. We back them up without starting them, and he walks over to watch the process. Kay starts his bike, and then I start mine, and flop dog comes to life, running along side our bikes until we get to the road, and then crossing the road to run along side us. We've encountered a lot of dogs that like to chase and bark aggressively at motorcycles on this trip. Formerly-flop-dog was the first dog that just ran along side us - no aggression, not even chasing us - just keeping pace with us in a rather curious and endearing manner. It was a totally stupid, silly random encounter with a local dog, but it got my day off to a good start. Riding along the Chilean cost some more was beautiful. We contemplated camping on the beach, even though we said we wouldn't do that again, as all of our stuff ended up covered in mist and wet the last time we did it. But the beaches and ocean was just so beautiful, particularly with the desert on one side and the ocean on the other, that we were willing to reconsider. Nothing much happened for a while. It was a long ride down the coast, and then back into the desert, without many cities. I was struck anew with how lucky I am to be on a trip like this, and to be sharing it with Kay - how beautiful the landscape was, and how glorious it is to be touring the Americas on a motorcycle. So much better than by car or any other means of transport I can imagine. I was a bit paranoid about the oil leak, though. We'd put about 200ml in the bike the night before, and I was worried about the rate at which the oil was leaking. Would the bike be ok running so hard until I checked the oil at the next gas stop? Was that smell just the smell of road construction, or oil hitting my exhaust pipes? I had to resist the urge to ask Kay to stop so I could check my oil a half dozen times. I kept reminding myself that we'd gotten off to a late start, anyway, and I wanted to get some miles under my belt for the day before we thought about stopping. http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4150/...8bb105036b.jpg It's leaking from those nuts http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5136/...405099ab45.jpg The oil's getting everywhere Eventually we got to Copiapo, where I suggested to Kay that we stop and look for a place to have lunch as it was going to be hundreds of kilometers until the next town. It was around 2PM, which is normally a bit late for lunch, but we'd gotten off to such a late start that I would have felt guilty stopping any sooner. We rode along and finally spotted a hostel with a restaurant inside, and pulled in. As we were stopping, we saw that it had a sign for wi-fi, too - great, as I wanted to check my email and see if I had anything from RevZilla about the Gerbing controller that needed attention. Parked the bikes, went inside, ordered and asked about wi-fi. They had it, and gave us the password willingly! Good, because the prices were expensive. So I connected my iPhone to the network to check my email, and sure enough - there was a note from RevZilla. Anthony from RevZilla had gone above and beyond and had copied someone from Gerbing on my question about diagnosing the problem - I asked if there was any way for me to check from my end if it was the controller or jacket that wasn't working. Patrick, also from RevZilla, had found the mailing address for the BMW dealer in Santiago and asked me if it was ok to send the package there. Yes, and thanks! A bit later, I got another note from Patrick asking me about my liner size. I sent a reply, and got a final note saying that both a controller and a liner were on the way, and I should notify BMW because there may be customs fees and I should tell them not to turn the shipment away. Sent a couple of quick emails off to BMW telling them that our bikes would need serviced, and also that I would be receiving a package there. I owe a HUGE thanks to Anthony and Patrick and all the other guys at RevZilla! They helped me to get my Rev'It boot problem resolved back in the very beginning of the trip (they spent time helping me find a new pair of boots, and took care of shipping my old ones back to Rev'It for a warranty repair, etc. since I wasn't able to deal with it myself from the road) and now they've gone above and beyond to help me get my electrics sorted out before I head back into the cold. Patrick did all of the legwork to find a place to ship it, and Anthony went above and beyond to copy Gerbing and look into diagnosing the problem for me. These guys are bikers who "get" and care about their customers, they have a great, user-friendly website and they make great videos to share information and help people make informed buying decisions. I've been a RevZilla fan since I bought my first piece of gear from them (my old Rev'It! pants that I crashed in on my first day out on my old bike, which I had to replace - my crash shredded the pants, but the pants saved my knees, so I'm an ATGATT girl for life) and I can't recommend them highly enough. Anthony is here on ADV and takes the time to answer questions about purchasing decisions here, and the guys in the store/warehouse will be happy to help you if you call in with questions. I've also had prompt replies to emails. Seriously can't speak highly enough about these guys, and I'm not sure the remaining cold parts of the trip would have been possible without their help! So after all of the emailing with RevZilla and the BMW dealer in Santiago, it's after 4PM by the time we leave "lunch." I feel kinda bad because we've lost so much of the day, but the electrics (or lack thereof) were really a problem for me in Bolivia, as I don't have the thermal layer of my Sand jacket with me (didn't think I'd need it with the electric jacket) and it's just too cold to be riding without a thermal layer at all. So while it took a lot of time out of the day, Kay and I agreed that it was time well spent and we're both relieved to hopefully have the problem resolved. Luckily, the sun doesn't set until after 8PM in Chile (did I mention the love-hate thing with the time zone here?) so even though we were leaving town after 4PM, there was plenty of light left. Back on the road, and riding through the Atacama desert. It's still so surreal to be in these places I've only read about before. The Atacama *is* super dry, and Kay said he was getting kind of tired of desert at this point, but I still think desert landscape is desolate and beautiful. As we're riding along, I hear an "Oh, shit!" from Kay, followed immediately by a "Guess what I just lost? The bite valve to my Camelbak!" We've both been having bite valve problems for a while. I guess the Camelbak just wasn't build to withstand three months of constant daily use. My bite valve has been leaking since Nicaragua, and Kay's has been randomly popping off since Colombia, I think. My first thought is "Oh, shit, we'll never find a new bite valve to buy down here, so we've gotta stop and find it!" So I yell to Kay that I'm pulling over, and ask if he just now lost it or if he just noticed it. He said he did just lose it, as it started spraying water all over his leg when it popped off, so I park the bike on the shoulder and start walking back down the road, scanning for it. It's a small blue piece of plastic in the middle of the Atacama desert, but I know Kay needs water and I'm not willing to give up without at least looking for it. "Ok, I'll ride back to that sign post and start looking from that end," Kay says over the headset, and I continue walking back down the road, looking for it. I'm not sure I can spot it, but I'm willing to walk up and down for a while looking, as I really am convinced we wouldn't find a Camelbak bite valve anywhere down here in South America. Kay rides back and starts riding his bike slowly toward me, looking for it, but I can hear in his voice that he doesn't think he'll find it. When I've walked about half a mile from my bike, he starts urging me to turn back and let him walk back to look for it from here. I refuse. Of the two of us, I'm always the one who can find things - Kay can't even find his keys in his pocket sometimes - so I think I have the better chance of spotting it. I'm better at spotting signs, and just about anything else that requires concentrated looking. I'm also determined, and Kay sounds frustrated - I think he'd do a half-hearted search and then declare that he can't find it, but I'm not willing to accept failure just yet. So I refuse to turn around and go back to my bike, and keep walking. This goes on for a few more minutes, with Kay urging me to turn back and saying he'll take over from here, and me refusing to turn around and looking more for the bite valve. I have no idea where it might be, whether it's on the road or the shoulder, and spotting a small blue piece of plastic is a long-shot… but I'm stubborn. I figure I can walk a bit further - probably to the sign where Kay started searching from his bike - and then turn around and start looking at the shoulder or the other side of the road. But it's hot, and I am in the middle of the desert wearing full gear, and I'm starting to get hot. I unzip my jacket and wish I could take my helmet off, but Kay's way behind me and we're using the headsets to communicate, so I can't. So I just drink some water and keep walking. Just when Kay has almost worn me down to the point of turning around, and letting him take up the search, I catch a glimpse of something blue out of the corner of my eye. There it is! The Camelbak bite valve, in the middle of the left lane! A quick glance in both directions to see if anyone is coming, and then I dash the remaining yards down the road and grab the bite valve. Victory! It has required me to walk probably 3/4 of a mile from my bike (which is actually not far given the speeds we were going when Kay reported that it had popped off) and I've gotten all hot and sweaty in the desert… but I found Kay's bite valve! I found a small blue piece of plastic in the desert! The sense of accomplishment I felt was ridiculously overblown, but I was proud of myself. For once, my stubbornness was vindicated. I still believe Kay wouldn't have found it - he'd already ridden his bike past that stretch twice looking for it - but my determination and refusal to accept failure paid off. I return the bite valve to him and walk back down the road to my bike. He says "I'd give you a ride, but…" he can't, because both of us have our camping crap piled across our passenger seats. The walk back to my bike is equally long and sweaty in the desert, but my victory buoys me. Not for very long, though. About 10-15 minutes after we get back on the bikes, I start feeling nauseous. It comes in waves, and a couple of times I think I might need to pull over and rip my helmet off to barf. I suspect I've overexerted myself in the dry heat of the Atacama desert, and I may have the beginnings of a mild case of heat stroke. There's fatigue, nausea and intermittent dizziness. But I don't mention this to Kay, because I know he'll just worry, and there's no place for us to stop - we're in the middle of the desert. So I keep my eye on Vallenar, which is the next town big enough that there might be a hotel. And the nausea comes and goes, and to add insult to injury, my intestines are threatening me, too. After another 100 kilometers, it's close to 6PM when we near Vallenar, but I know I'm done for the day. The idea of riding on to the next town, or camping in the desert without the comfort of a bed and a bathroom, is just too daunting. I ask Kay if we can please look for a hotel in this town instead of going on, and explain that I'm feeling nauseous and my tummy is bothering me. He agrees readily - he doesn't ask me to push myself when my health is involved - and we turn into the town to look for a hotel. We drive around aimlessly for a few minutes and take a couple of turns that look like they're not going to get us anywhere near a hotel, and then we find "city centro" which is usually good for having a hotel. I spot a sign for a hotel down a side street, but it's one way, so we have to go around. While we're driving, we pass a hosteria (like a hotel but with fewer rooms, usually) and park so Kay can go check it out. My bike drips some oil onto the exhaust pipes, which turns to smelly smoke, and I worry about my bike. Kay goes in to check the place out. He comes back out a few minutes later with the news that "this hotel is absurdly expensive." It was just over $150 US, in some random town in the middle of the desert. He saw nothing to indicate why it might have been so expensive, but we're definitely not paying that, so we ride on to the next place I saw a sign for. It takes a couple of false starts because of the maze of one-way streets, but eventually we find the next hotel and Kay goes to check it out. While I'm standing with our bikes, a woman comes up and starts trying to chat with me. I'm still wearing my helmet and earplugs, and don't speak Spanish very well anyway, but it's nearly impossible for me to understand with the earplugs and helmet on. And I'm too hot and feeling sick to want to bother with taking the helmet off to have a conversation I probably can't understand anyway with a woman in the street. I try to my "no entiendo" routine and she's very persistent, so I resort to switching to English "I'm sorry, I can't understand you, I'm wearing earplugs" and tap my helmet. I really should learn how to say "I'm wearing earplugs" in Spanish. Eventually, she gives up and goes away, just as Kay comes out to announce "this hotel is ludicrously expensive. How badly do you want a hotel tonight?" The price was over 100,000 pesos (over $200 US) which is far out of our price range. "Pretty badly," I answer, as I'm feeling like I just want to drop. I definitely don't have it in me to ride to the next town, which is 200km away and it's already 6:30PM, and I don't think I have it in me to find food, go out into the desert and camp. I just want to lie down someplace soft. So Kay says "We're going to have to pay for it, then. They recommended another place around the corner, but it's over $70." We normally never pay that much for a hotel - we try to pay less than half that - but I was really not feeling well. So I said "let's go check it out." More difficulty navigating the one-way streets, but eventually we find it. Kay goes in to check it out, and returns with good news. The room is nice, there's parking for the bikes, and the internet works! I sent him in with my iPhone so he could ask for the password and *make sure* the internet works before we took a room. So many times, we've been told "Yes, we have internet," only to discover that the network isn't working right now, or the password that the front desk has is wrong, or that the internet is non-functional in some other way… and we really needed to catch up on the blog, research the route into Santiago for the BMW dealer, etc. So I feel bad that I made him ask for the password to check the net before we took a room, but I really didn't want to stay in another overpriced place that didn't even have net. Got the bikes around to the parking and discovered that the hotel was actually quite nice. There was a locked courtyard for our bikes, and the rooms were on the ground floor! Score! Took our bags in and the room was nice, too - there was a big bed, and two couches where we could sit and work on our posts. If we had to pay too much for a room, at least the place was decent, and it included breakfast. Kay showered and started photos uploading, as we had a ton (over 60 photos from just a few days!) and then we headed out for dinner. We were in town center, surrounded by commerce… but no restaurants. We found two cafes that served coffee and snack-type things, three panderias that had bread and yummy pastry things, but only one restaurant. When we spotted the restaurant, we started to go inside, but Kay commented that it was too dark inside (they hadn't turned on lights yet and it was after sunset) so we continued on. Walked a few more blocks and still no restaurants. So we headed back to the one we'd seen, and went inside. Asked for a menu, which they didn't have, and when we asked what they have to eat, the waitress seemed helpless and asked a guy who had been at the bar to come and deal with us. He named one dish (I forget what it was, but we didn't want it), we asked what else, he thought for a moment then named another dish that we didn't want… but he seemed quite reluctant to keep talking to us. Getting another dish was like pulling teeth. So after a couple, we decided to give up and look elsewhere for food, even though we'd had no luck finding other restaurants. Eventually, we spotted a Chinese restaurant, which we almost didn't see until we were past it. "Do you want Chinese?" I asked Kay. "Who cares? It's a restaurant!" So we go inside, get actual menus and prompt service. Order a couple of "Chinese" dishes, and when they come out, they're actually quite tasty. And Kay even spots a Chinese man working in the kitchen! Score! The one thing we've observed about Chinese restaurants on this trip (and in general) is that the food is usually just something else dressed up as Chinese and marked up in price. This food actually tasted good, and the price was reasonable, so this Chinese restaurant proved a surprisingly decent find. After we left the restaurant, I wanted to go back to the panderia where I'd seen the tasty pastry before, but it was closed. So then I was going to just settle for getting a Diet Coke somewhere, because I was thirsty and really enjoying that I'm back in a country that has Diet Coke, but everything was closed except the Farmacias. We go in one and find soap (our room lacked it and we lost our old spare bar) and stand in a random line. And wait. Nothing happens. Wait more. A woman to our left cuts in front of us in line. More waiting… and then the cashier calls a number. WTF? Numbers to check out? I assumed that the numbers are for helping people who have questions, but you can't even check out without a number, and we've been standing here for 10 minutes. Eff that. We put back our stuff and walk across the street to the other farmacia, and find the same bar of soap but nothing to drink. More waiting in line, but this time we knew to get a number. Haha, bitches! 75 is our number! Get your own damn number! And then we have soap, but still no diet coke. So now it's back to looking for a store where I can buy Diet Coke. We walked for blocks and blocks, and didn't see anything. Kay wanted to give up, but is willing to indulge me and I said "let's just walk to the end of that block and then I'll give up." Luckily, that block happened to contain a supermarket! Kay's note: every time i see a Panderia I always wish they sold pandas too. Maybe even just little panda shaped cookies… Unluckily, the supermarket was the supermarket from hell. Every single person in Vallenar was shopping there at the same time. We had to wait behind what felt like 20 people in the "10 items or less line" and after we'd waited for 15 minutes, Kay said "Do you really want a Diet Coke this much?" Yes, I did. I didn't feel good and I wanted a Diet Coke. So we waited longer, and by the time we got out of the supermarket and back to the room, it was nearly 10:30. Friggin late. And we still had posts that needed writing and uploading. Sadly, we were up till 1AM dealing with the web stuff. I was upset at being up so late, but it needed to be done and I was glad we'd finished it. Still no down time, though, which disappointed me because I'd been feeling sick… but the trip takes priority. Kay's Note: what Dachary hasn't mentioned is that when we got water an the gas station I accidentally bought water with carbonation. We cracked one bottle open before we realized it but the girl let me exchange the other two. Not wanting to waste water I put it in mine. For the rest of the morning my Camelbak was pressurized. I suspect that's what caused the bite valve to pop off today, but it has popped off with normal water too. Every time I bit down on the bite valve that morning water would go spewing into my mouth way faster than normal. So. No carbonated beverages in your Camelbak folks. |
Day 85 - Vallenar to Catapilco Chile
There was net, so, as per usual, we left later than we intended. Everything takes longer when there's a net connection we're free to use.
Breakfast, included in the room, was probably the lamest yet in Chile. We go to the "Comedor" which was just a normal room with tables set up in it, each one with a saran wrapped plate of sliced ham and cheese, and a couple common tables with hot water (for instant coffee or tea), a pan of cold scrambled eggs, and a thing of yogurt by each place setting. One table was already occupied by about 7,000 ants, who were very grateful for the ham and cheese. We went with the table farthest from them as we don't like eating with "their kind". The oil is still leaking, but the flow seems to be pretty slow overnight, so we head back into the Chilean desert, only this time it was somewhat chilly. All vents done up and contemplating, but not actually going for, the rain liners. Lunch rolls around and we're all "MUST EAAAAT!" We pull into the first restaurant we see. It's totally closed but without any signs indicating that. Bitches. We ride on and see a big "RESTAURANTE" sign. Yes, but wait, there are like four… big one that knows how to market and promotes its great view and fish, or the small one in front of us. We go for the one in front of us. The Restaurant Brisa Marina. We order a cheese empanada each, as well as a normal lunch plate. We discover that the empanadas are deep fried. Then we discover that they've got a light flaky crust. Then we discover they're ****ing delicious and regret ordering normal meals too, because we could have just eaten heavenly deep fried empanadas. (They're especially good with the included salsa, which is just the right combination of fresh with an undertone of spicy.) Sitting in the warm sun by the ocean, eating these delicious things, is wonderful for morale. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5136/...c038cf7080.jpg Bash plate? or Oil Pan? http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5255/...c75ca6990b.jpg Well lubed Shock Back on the road and through more desert, until it's time to stop for gas. When we see towns that are big enough to have gas, we always stop, even if our tanks aren't empty, because we might be about to undertake a 170-mile stretch that has no gas stations (the longest stretch so far in Chile where we haven't seen gas). So we're filling up at a gas station on the outskirts of La Serena when a white guy with crazy hair walks up wearing a RevIt Cayenne Pro Jacket and speaking English. He's got a KTM parked in a spot that was obscured by a pickup truck when we came in. Holy shit. "We'll come around as soon as we've filled up." I say, and then we do. Beto and his girlfriend Tracey are riding two up from Colombia to Ushuaia, and then possibly around the world afterwards. They're trying to figure a route that doesn't involve a carnet, which seems odd to me, but hey, if it's possible it saves a bunch of money. Unfortunately they'll have to skip most of Africa. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5297/...1a94fc6e0e.jpg Beto and Tracey His KTM's been holding up better than our BMWs but one has to wonder what a KTM rider does when their bike needs fixin' on the road. It's as modern and specialized a bike as ours, but with BMW there's at least one dealer in almost every country (except Argentina for some reason). There was a curious moment when someone mentioned his jacket and I pointed out that it was the Cayenne Pro, "…the precursor to the Rev'It Defender", and he was all "But I just bought it new." I'd apparently just popped some small bubble… oops. "It's a great coat" I said, "I was considering it before I got this one one closeout. Plus it's like $400 cheaper than the Defender " I guessed. Turns out it's $150 cheaper. I must have been thinking of the new Klim jacket… anyway… We have a nice chat for a while, and then hit the road knowing we can't make Santiago by nightfall, but figuring "Hey, we'll just camp tonight." The plan is to eat around six, then avail ourselves of the first good camping spot we see. Unfortunately, immediately after La Serena the road becomes a toll road with speed limits of 120kph, a divider, and an increasing population density which results in people starting to put fences up around everything. Mother ****er. We eat at a gas station / truck stop thing where we see a couple bikers we'd passed earlier, one of whom was riding a local cruiser and forced Dachary to slam on the brakes or get squished a while back. They made no move to talk to us. We returned the favor. We discuss the situation with the fences. We still want to camp, we're just worried it's going to be hard. (Dachary's note: by the time we get to the service station, we've been on the toll road for around two hours and the 120KPH speed limit is wreaking havoc with me. It's around 75MPH, and we haven't ridden that fast since leaving the US. So there's the mental difficulty of going that fast, when we've gotten used to going so much slower for so long. Also? My lack of laminar lip is really hurting me with speeds this high. I had the lip when we were riding interstate in the US, and the lip funnels the air up and over my helmet. But without the lip, my Z-Technik windscreen blows the air directly at eye level. So it pushes back on my helmet, pushing it against my forhead, and the wind also catches the peak of my helmet and pulls my neck up. I try to crouch down behind the windscreen, which helps, but by the time we get to the gas station, I'm fatigued and headachy, and my back, shoulders and neck ache from the wind. I just want a break. We normally wouldn't stop for so long, and I wasn't planning to eat at 5pm or eat at a gas station, but I wanted to sit down for a bit and I honestly could have been happy stopping for the night there.) Back on the road shortly after 6, I spend the next half hour counting how many good places I see to pull off and camp either where we wouldn't be seen or where we're far enough from the road it wouldn't matter. It seems to be about four per half hour. So, we're ok but concerned it may decrease as we get closer to Santiago. "At 7:30 we'll take the first *good* place we see. Ok?" Dachary agrees. Just after 7:30 Dachary asks "why don't we try this exit." I'm not convinced it will work out, but what the hell. We go…. hmm, no, not looking good. We pull over to turn around and i notice a dirt road to the left with a sign that says "Cemetery" … people don't generally visit cemeteries at night, and sunset is not even 40 minutes away…. We go in. There's an archway leading into a large rectangular courtyard with a dirt road leading to an archway in the far side, through which is the actual cemetery, but between the archways is just one short, tree-lined, dirt road with slightly overgrown open space on each side… We think this'll do just fine. We set up…no not there… over… hmm prickers…hmm.. horse poo… err… here. Yes. We set up the tent. We move the bikes. Hmmm it still seems pretty light out. Check the GPS to see what time sunset is. "Oops. Sunset's at 8:40". We're not sure when we got the extra 40 minutes but, whatever. I snap some pics, Dachary settles in for the night, and I wander off to find somewhere to poo….The ground is nigh-impossible to dig a hole in but, "oh, that'll work". http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5299/...c8a83cce81.jpg Hideycamp #2 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5095/...efdb1b2273.jpg Sunset through trees http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5254/...d4b73cfaba.jpg Admiring the sunset We hear car sounds. No biggie, there's a road just down the… A car drives through the first archway. Dachary is pantsless in her sleeping bag. I have my pants around my knees and am shitting in a hole. "Shit" Fortunately the hole I've chosen is behind their line of sight. I wipe quickly, try to pull up my pants before standing up, then shove the toilet paper up under my rain liner (it's slightly chill so I'm wearing that) and the trowel up my sleeve. I'm thinking the only way I could get more disrespectful is to actually shit on their family plot, so walking around holding a roll of toilet paper in plain view is probably not the best choice. By the time I get to the tent they've gotten out of their car and gone into the actual graveyard. I climb into the tent, but leave my feet hanging out the door (shoes can't come in) in case they come over to discuss how bad we are. For the next ten minutes we whisper to each other. We're working under the belief that humans don't like confrontation, or the unknown. By hiding in the tent we'll be as non-offensive as possible (no big gringos wandering around their graveyard), and we'll make it require the most effort if they do think about confronting us. I peer through the air vent… "Nope. Still in there." … "Nope. Still in there" eventually I see them come out: Mom, Dad, Auntie M. They climb into their car turn around and leave. We wonder if they'll call the cops. I'm voting they won't. I go back to my hole to get some extra wipes. ;) Dachary starts unraveling the headphones for some Torchwood. I get out the iPad, check what's currently loaded, turn around and…. she is sound asleep. It's still early, like 8pm, but she's bushed. I read for a while until well after full dark then join her. No cops, and the neighbors are quiet. |
Day 86 - Catapilco to Santiago
Waking up in the tent this morning was a lot easier than last time. Falling asleep early (like 8:30PM early) made waking up at 7AM a much easier task. I didn't grump at Kay, and because I was paranoid about someone finding us in the cemetery and getting upset, we were quite efficient at packing up. We were on the road around 8AM, where it was chilly and misty. I don't think I was fully awake yet when we hit the first tunnel, which was LONG. Longest tunnel we've been in on the trip. But it was well-lit, so go Chile. You've got your shit together.
Lots of tolls this morning. Three or four toll booths in the 150km coming south into Santiago. We seem to have left the desert and come into the mountains, and the mist and mountains in the early morning sun were quite beautiful. Alas, Kay's camera, which he uses to take pictures while we ride, was completely dead, so we have no pics. But we'll have to make it a point to ride early more often, because aside from the cold, it was beautiful. Rode until we got to a gas station, where we stopped for gas, a bathroom and gas station breakfast. Yes, that's right, my friends - gas station hot dogs for breakfast. It's a time-honored tradition from Mexico that we've been forced to abandon for most of the trip, as most of the places we've been don't have mini-marts in gas stations. But Chile is now the land of infrastructure surprisingly similar to the United States, so we have gas station hot dogs for breakfast. And pay to use the bathroom, but my bum prefers actual toilets to holes in the ground for my morning business, so I'm just happy we found one. While we're at the gas station, a crazy woman gets annoyed at us for sitting on "her" bench and eating our hot dogs. She starts flinging the benches around, literally, and then sweeping up with a broom and a dust pan as though we've gotten the place dirty, glaring at us all the while. But she's not an employee of the gas station. We're amused when she goes to glare at a trucker who is backing up and whose truck is going "beep, beep, beep" as he reverses. She walks over to his truck and stands glaring at him, hands on hips. Kay and I ponder going back to the benches to see if it's enough to tempt her to return and glare at us more, but opt to move on toward Santiago. With surprisingly little fanfare, we hit Santiago around 10AM. Traffic is well-behaved; there's no lane-splitting, the merging is civilized and people are going at or BELOW the speed limit. Chile has surprised us for its adherence to traffic laws. It is unlike the rest of Latin America. Chileans actually *stop* for stop signs at railroad tracks, they mostly obey speed limits and stop lights, and drive in a very civilized manner. We've gotten into some bad habits in the rest of Latin America and it's nice to be back where people drive so sedately - especially when trying to navigate an enormous city with crap GPS maps. We make it as far as the city center before realizing we've missed our turn and then turn around and head back out. Luckily, the turn we missed the first time is actually marked in a way we can recognize on the way back out (into town, it's marked only with the neighborhood name; going out of town, it has the road name marked, which is what we're looking for) so we get the right turn. The rest of the directions are surprisingly easy to follow. We pass the BMW dealer and look for a place to turn around, as it's a divided road, but at the last second, Kay spots the motorrad service area, which is down the street and across the road. We turn in and park in the service reception area. Alas, this time pulling up to a BMW dealer is not like being visiting princes welcomed from afar. This time, Kay says it's like "being a valued customer." We take off our helmets, and no-one comes to greet us or instruct us to bring our bikes around to the back. We go inside and ask the pretty receptionist if she speaks English, which she does, lucky for us. So we tell her we've emailed because we're traveling from Boston, we have two bikes that need service (one of which has an oil leak), and we've also got a package coming there. She asks for our paperwork so she can put us in the system and start work orders for us. No, this is not like the other BMW dealers we've visited. We get the paperwork, she goes off to make copies, and we sit down while she puts us in the system. Then she asks if we want coffee or water - the sole allusion to the BMW generosity and focus on taking care of customers that we've encountered in our prior visits. While she's putting us in the computer, I ask Kay to get the dealer's address from the bike, as this is the address where my package is being shipped. I want to make sure the address is right. He gets it and brings it back. We ask, and she says "No, this address is the one down the street." (there are apparently three locations). Kay asks if she can call to see if the package has arrived, and she does. No package there, but she calls another place. No package there, either, but Claudia, the person who receives the packages, knows to send her an email if our package arrives, so they're expecting it. So at least there's that. She does the intake on our bikes, and we say we can stay until they've had a chance to look at the bikes and diagnose them. She says that's fine, and asks if we have email in case she needs to communicate with us. We tell her we do, but that we don't know if we'll have internet because we don't know where we're staying. Can she recommend someone? She can, but the local neighborhood is quite expensive, so the hotel she can recommend is $120 per night. We'd have to go quite far into Santiago to get a cheaper hotel. So Kay pulls out our South America book, which we haven't used in ages, to try to find the name of a place we might stay for cheaper in Santiago. Much staring at the book and flipping pages. While we're trying to decipher the giant section on Santiago, some techs come out and look at our bikes. The sprockets need to be changed, which we'd asked them to check, so Kay goes and pulls out the spare sprockets he's been carrying around in his panniers. They confirm that the brake pads are still good, which I find hard to believe because my bike is STILL using the stock brake pads and they have almost 18,000 miles on them. Well done, BMW? http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5178/...f463dfea68.jpg Time for a new sprocket After a quick look under my engine, the tech confirms that the problem with the oil leaking is just a gasket that needs to be replaced. We're not sure exactly where or what gasket, but it sounds simple, so I'm relieved. Much better than some of the horrible scenarios that I've been imagining. Hopefully the labor isn't that expensive, as I can't imagine the gasket being expensive. Kay's note: It's the gasket around the gearbox, at least I *think* it's called the gearbox. I know what it is, just not what it's called. There's a big cup-like piece of metal that screws onto the left side of the engine and covers a bunch of gears. Around the edge of that is a big-ass gasket. That's what has gone. Drain the oil, remove a bunch of screws, remove the piece, replace the gasket, put the piece back on, screw, screw, screw, and voilla. Should be quick and easy, although whoever does it will be covered in oil. So my bike is diagnosed, which means we can leave. Do they know when our bikes will be ready? Tomorrow afternoon, late. 3PM maybe? This is not ideal, but we're waiting for my package from RevZilla to arrive in Santiago, anyway, so I guess I shouldn't complain. So we find a hotel in the book that looks like it might be in our price range, and ask if she can call us a cab. She explains that if she calls a cab it'll take 30 minutes to come, as there aren't any in this area, but we can just hail one in the street and it'll be much faster. So I suggest we haul our luggage out to the street so we're ready, and Kay goes out to hail a cab. We try. And try. And try. In well over 20 minutes, I see three empty cabs - one didn't stop, one stopped but told Kay he couldn't take us where we wanted to go, and one went by while Kay was talking to the cab which ended up unable to take us. So after 20+ minutes, we go back inside and ask her to call us a cab. In the meantime, Kay has noticed a moto shop next door. I've been wanting to buy chain lube for ages to lube my chain manually, since the Loobman is doing what I consider to be a sub-par job. Kay's front tire is also getting quite low, and I'm concerned about it for the dirt to Ushuaia, so I suggest he check there for a tire. He's annoyed that I don't go check there for chain lube. We frustrate each other, and he goes to check for a tire (which they didn't have in stock at the BMW dealer). While he's there, I stand by our stuff and guard it. Now that it's been moved outside, we must apparently stand in the sun and make sure no-one steals it. I'd rather be in the shade, and Kay snipes that this is why he wanted to leave it inside. So I stand there and work on a sunburn while Kay is checking for a tire/chain lube. And while I'm there, a manger-type-guy from the BMW service center comes out and I see him watching the road. A minute later, a cab comes by. He crosses the street and hails it. I see him gesturing to the cab to go down the street and turn around, and the cab does. So I surmise that he's just gotten us a cab, and Kay is still in the shop talking to the guy about chain lube and tires. I run in and tell Kay that the guy has hailed us a cab, and he's annoyed because he's in the middle of a conversation. I ask for the book that has the address of the hostel where we want to go, and take it out to the street, prepared to see if the cabbie can get us there. The manager guy who has hailed the cab walks back looking pleased with himself, and tells me he's gotten us a cab (in Spanish - apparently the only English-speaker here is the receptionist). I thank him, and he starts to walk inside, where the receptionist pops her head out and says "two minutes." She's just called for a cab. They argue a minute as he tells her he just got one, and she tells him she's called one. So Kay and I aren't the only ones having communication difficulties today. In the meantime, the cab pulls up. I take the book and try to show the driver where we want to go. He seems confused and starts asking questions in Spanish. I flip the pages to the map of the neighborhood, and indicate which number I want on the map. While I'm doing this, the receptionist comes out and gives him the name of a Metro station. Apparently that's supposed to help him find the place. There is much back-and-forth and he looks at the map for a while and I'm not convinced he actually knows where it is, but eventually he says he can get us there. Luckily, Kay has appeared from the shop next door, so we load up the luggage and start our drive across the city. (Yes to chain lube, no to tires, although the guy at the shop found one for him a few blocks away. But now we're in a cab trying to find a hotel so we have no chance to go look for it.) It's a LONG drive across the city. It goes on for what seems like forever, and I keep looking for roads that are on our map but none of the names match the map. After a $15 cab ride, we've apparently found the place. Kay goes up to the door and asks the cab driver not to unload our stuff just yet… which is good, because there are no vacancies. But the guy at the hostel calls another place, confirms that they have a room, comes out and gives the cab driver directions and sends us on our way again. Yay! We go another mile or two around several more corners and end up at another hostel. Kay runs inside and comes out a minute later with the thumbs up. Yay! We start unloading the stuff from the cab - after a $20 cab ride. With another $20 to get back to the BMW dealer tomorrow, and this hostel being more expensive than the last one, it's cost us more than $100 - we might as well have gone with the hotel that BMW would have recommended and saved ourself the hassle. But the hostel has wi-fi and they speak English, so it's not all bad. Haul our stuff up to the third floor, and we're optimistic about the services available here… so Kay runs down to see if they have a laundry service. They do!! We haven't had our laundry done since Colombia - we wash it in sinks when possible but you can only do so much with Dr. Brommer's in a sink. Our clothes had gotten to the point that they weren't really getting clean anymore when we washed them, so we were psyched about a laundry service. She brought us a laundry basket and we filled it up with our clothes… and then pondered washing the gear. The bikes wouldn't be done until 3PM tomorrow. We might have to be here another day anyway to wait for my package from RevZilla. And check-out time here is 11AM, so we wouldn't know until after checkout (and a $20 cab ride back to BMW) whether the package will arrive tomorrow or Friday. So we make an executive decision to stay two nights, and have them wash our motorcycle gear, which gives it time to dry properly. While we don't care about the dirt and the grime, it's getting stinky again, and we're not fans of that. So laundering them is a nice treat. Kay's note: I was fairly confident we'd have to stay here two days anyway because of the package, which made the pricey cab ride here totally worth it. We checked on the net when we got here and, yup, it just left the US. So, it's unlikely we'll see it tomorrow. It's shipping USPS international guaranteed which is actually USPS handing it off to FedEx because USPS can't do jack once it leaves the United States. But, I'm thinking the USPS didn't really feel motivated to get it to FedEx quickly, so now FedEx will have to hustle to meet the guarantee. But, that's OK. FedEx understands words like "motivated" and "hustle". We take off as many clothes as we can to send down to laundry. I'm lamenting again that I only brought two bras, which means I can only send one down to be laundered (it won't be done until tomorrow morning). We both decide to go commando so we can send all of our underwear to be washed, and we find our least-worn shirts so we can get the ones that we wear most often washed. Yay laundry! By then we're effing hungry so we head out looking for lunch. We walk down the street to a restaurant that the staff recommended, and go inside, in spite of the slightly high prices. It turns out to be a fancy, fine-dining restaurant, and I feel out of place with my unwashed hair and unflattering tank top. But I order a Kobe beef steak, which is DELICIOUS, and Kay orders his first beer of the trip. We splurge but it's totally worth it. The meal is wonderful. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5212/...c7cc7c18f8.jpg The first alcohol of the trip Kay's note: I had a total brain fart when looking at the prices on the menu outside and thought everything was about 1/2 as much as it was. I would have voted to go on if I had of thought straight, but yeah, really tasty, and yeah, nice to splurge on good food for once. Out to explore the city. Santiago is by far the nicest city we've encountered on our trip. Chile in general, and Santiago with it, is effing expensive. (We're spending $70+ per day on gas some days, and the hotels we've been staying in when we stay in hotels are $60-70 per night - far above our price range, and one reason we've been keen on camping here in Chile.) But Santiago is a city that clearly has money, as it's NICE. The buildings are nice. The streets are clean. The traffic is well-behaved. And the city actually seems like it might be worth exploring. Since our first impulse is usually to get far from cities as fast as possible, it's a big plus in Santiago's favor. We each pick a direction, which proves to be rather lame (and hot) and I realize I haven't put any suntan lotion on, and don't want to court another second-degree sunburn. So we start to head back to the hotel, but then I spot some artisan tent things and remember that the lady at the hostel said there's an artisan craft area this way, so we poke around the neighborhood a bit. I spot a frozen yogurt stall, which sounds delicious, so Kay and I each get one (mine wins). Then we find some stalls that have a few cute things for us to bring back for friends, which hopefully won't get broken in our panniers. Kay's note: They give you a chocolate or vanilla base and you pick one, two, or three different fruits to have blended in with it, plus sugar or some artificial sweetener. Great idea. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5015/...ea05bc5c1e.jpg Bull under a china shop http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5059/...58e6cc2877.jpg Scratch it! http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5179/...e2da18301e.jpg Santiago Street Art http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5216/...6f39f39aff.jpg Street Art Done, and back to our hotel for the afternoon. We've got posts to write to catch up our blog and ADV, and it's hot out, anyway. Maybe we'll try one of the pizza places we passed for dinner. We've been pushing hard lately because I'm worried about the timeframe, but it'll be nice to have a day off tomorrow. Hopefully my package from RevZilla comes so we can head out on Friday and be ready to tackle the crossing to Argentina and the final country on our trip! Kay's note: bad headache. I think I'm dehydrated. I go to take a shower, because I'm done with my post. Warm water is awesome. I come out, and there on the floor is my pants, my underwear, and my shirt…. wait a minute… my underwear?! I'd intended to go commando, apparently got sidetracked before removing them for the laundry, and then not noticed for the rest of the afternoon. I guess it just goes to show how comfortable Ex-Officio underwear is. |
I have to say how much I appreciate the minutiae that you build into your travelog!
I'm sitting here in SE Queensland, listening to the rain lash and wail against the windows, knowing that I am going to lead a club run in the morning (Ulysses Club "Sunshine Coast"!) I know that when we rock up at the Ettamogah Pub - our starting and finishing point for our rides - there will be some that whinge about the wind and rain to be anticipated on Mt Glorious. Yep: That'll happen! But I'll just relate to them Kay's vicissitudes about being nearly sprung taking a dump in a Chilean cemetary.. After that, the terrors of mountain rain, wind, flying branches, washaways should all fall into place.... Keep up the good writing I say! Much appreciated. Rob |
Day 87 - Santiago, Chile
[QUICK NOTE]Our net connection is too bad to upload photos today, but we're five days behind so we wanted to post anyway to keep people updated. We'll go back later and edit the posts to add our photos, and also make a separate post of the photos when we get a faster net connection. Apologies for all the words and no photos![END NOTE]
As we always find on a "day off," there's a certain pleasure to waking up and knowing you don't have to make any miles today. The only reason we set the alarm at all was to make sure we didn't miss breakfast, which was included with the hotel. Leisurely got up, read a bit, went down to breakfast (which was surprisingly lame) and generally enjoyed being lazy. Went out afterward to get me some Diet Coke, because I'm *really* enjoying being in a country where I can find it again, and then back to the room to be lazy. Honestly I forget what we did in the morning. We were killing time until our laundry came, and then I think we planned to go out and see some of the city. There was a park nearby that our hotel had told us about; you could take a tram to the top of a hill and see the city all spread out, and the mountains surrounding it. That sounded nice. At around 1PM, Kay went downstairs to check on our laundry. He returned victorious! Everything was dry; they'd hung our moto gear to dry since we'd told them it couldn't be run through a drier, and we were thrilled to have clean clothes. It was glorious for all of 30 seconds, until I started separating things. Turns out, I was missing a sock. It sounds trivial, I know. Socks go missing all the time. But these are tall Smartwool socks that work great under my motorcycle boots, and they're quite expensive in the US ($26+ per pair). I had three pairs with me, and with a missing sock, I'd be down to two pairs. That simply wasn't cool. At any given time, since my waterproof boots are no longer waterproof, I might have a dirty pair and a wet pair, which gives me one extra pair to play with. With only two pairs, I envisioned a world of eternally wet socks. Plus I was upset that I have so few possessions on this trip, and I'm so careful with them, and the *second* I let something out of my hands, it goes missing. Needless to say I was not pleased. I asked Kay to go back down and ask them about it, because I knew I was overly upset and didn't want to be a bitch to them. He returned saying that they were very sorry, but they had no idea what might have happened. They showed him where they had hung the clothes, and Kay had been there when they took them off the hangars and they didn't seem to think there was any way it could have gone missing. It had just vanished. That left me in a funk. Again, I know it sounds like such a small thing, but I've been so careful with my stuff, and I have so few clothes - it's the one thing I always wish I had more of. And I was not optimistic about finding a pair of socks to replace them. We were in a huge city, but our $20 cab ride from the day before discouraged me from going out to explore it. Santiago does have what appears to be a pretty comprehensive subway system, so there was always that option, but I spent a while resenting the necessity of going to look for socks and generally being in a bad mood. Which I regret now, but… *shrugs* Eventually we went out to eat, and we decided to try the KFC not far from our hotel. It's totally lame to eat fast food from the US, but there are times when you just want familiar comfort food from home, and KFC seemed like a good call. Unfortunately, the KFC in Santiago has very little that is recognizable from the KFC in the States, and the food that we did get was underwhelming at best. Boo disappointing meal. Back to the room where I pout some more, and then decide we should maybe hit up the camping store that had an ad in the hotel lobby to see if we could replace my socks. But wait - they have a website! Before we try to get there, lets see if we can find similar socks on their website. Well, there's a pair that *looks* similar, although it's not Smartwool… how much? Oh. A little over $40 US. Yeah. I'm totally bummed about not having that sock, but not $40 for a pair of socks bummed. That's one or two nights in a hotel, or several meals, or gas - not gonna waste it on a pair of socks. Especially with moto repairs of unknown cost hanging over our heads. So I nix our foray to look for socks, and read more. We watch a bit of TV on the iPad and eventually head out for dinner, which culminates in another disappointing meal. I'm annoyed that with this ginormous city and probably hundreds of restaurants, we keep finding the bad food. Lesson kids? When you're in a bad mood, you carry it around with you. Don't do that. Back to the hotel, and wait! They've found my sock! They're very sorry about the inconvenience and they don't know how it happened, but they're happy to return it to me. Yay for the sock! And now double boo that I wasted all day being upset about it. Back to the room for some more TV on iPad, and then we decide we should watch the "off road riding technique" video that Stephen gave us in San Cristobal. It turns out to be surprisingly short. It contained some good tips, but sadly I don't think I'll be able to practice before we get to the dirt itself. Baptism by fire for me! Then we ponder route a bit. We'd really like to ride Route 7 here in Chile. Everyone says it's beautiful and wonderful and the photos I've seen are gorgeous, so we're in favor of it. Plus one of the guys on ADV said it was mostly hard-packed dirt, while Routa 40 in Argentina consisted of a fair amount of gravel/rocks/sand, and the hard-packed dirt sounds better to us. So we look into the ferries and how far we could get. Unfortunately, to do route 7, there's a series of ferries of varying lengths you need to traverse one stretch to the next. And the second ferry on the route only runs in January and February - it's March now, which means we're too late for that ferry. To go down to that point is only 28KM (or miles? I forget) on routa 7 itself, which pretty much nixes that for us. Looks like we'll be crossing into Argentina and doing Routa 40 after all. It seems to be mostly paved, according to our map, except for a roughly 500km stretch (which we could bypass, but won't) and a little over 100km section near the bottom. So route is decided, and the day is pretty much done. Not being on the bikes was a nice break, but in all, the day could have gone better (mostly due to my bad mood). |
Day 88 - Santiago to Los Andes
Theoretically, the bikes should have been done yesterday afternoon. We'd also been keeping an eye on the package from RevZilla, and it looked like it arrived yesterday afternoon. So we were looking forward to getting to the BMW dealer, picking up the bikes and the package, and then heading for Argentina.
The day did not go as planned. We emailed BMW first thing in the morning (7:30am, and they open at 8) and waited for a reply while we showered, packed our panniers and had breakfast. Nothing by around 9:30, so we decided to load some money onto a Skype account and call them. We spent a while futzing around with trying to find Kay's user name and password, which he's forgotten, and the reminder email didn't seem to come through. So I got my laptop back out, fired it up, added money and prepared to make calls. First, I called BMW. The woman who answered was the receptionist who speaks some English, and I wanted to confirm that our bikes were ready. She said no, they're about to start working on our bikes and they should be ready by 5:30PM. WTF??? When we dropped them off on Wednesday, they told us they'd be ready by Thursday (yesterday) at 3PM. So why a day plus late now? Instead of arguing, I just asked about the package. That seemed to jog her memory. "You're the ones with the ses sequenta bikes?" "Yes, that's us." "The yellow one and the black one?" "Yes." "Oh, yes, those bikes are ready." Agh! Ok. Good. Bikes are ready. Package? Not there, she says, but she can call the other office and ask. I explain to her that we've got the tracking info and the package was delivered yesterday evening, and she promises to make the call to check on it. But we're still not communicating the best, so I thank her and hang up instead of trying to get more info from her about the package. Kay and I don't trust the package thing, so we call USPS to confirm that the package was successfully delivered to the address specified. The tracking info on the USPS website indicates that it was delivered, but it lists a different neighborhood than where it should have been sent. So I ask Kay to make this call, and he discovers that FedEx also has tracking info for the package (as FedEx takes over for it at some point along the day) and the FedEx tracking info is correct and comprehensive. But he confirms with the woman on the phone that it was delivered the address on the package, and we've confirmed with the woman at the BMW dealer that the address matches one of their locations (although not the one where motos are repaired) so we're confident the package is there. So finally we're free to pack up and head to the BMW dealer. Which we do, after having the hotel call a taxi for us, waiting a while for it and then another lengthy cab ride back. Interestingly, though, this cab ride only cost us like $13, compared to the $20 of the cab ride from the dealer to the hotel. Bonus less cost? At the BMW dealer, the bikes are sitting out front ready to go. The receptionist offers to go over the paperwork with us to explain the costs, and then we'll pay. She does, and Kay and I exchange glances (and cringe) when we get to the price. $300 for his bike, and close to $400 for mine. YIKES! This is by far the most expensive labor we've paid anywhere on the trip, and we can't understand how this visit has turned into a $700 visit. But we pay and make nice, and start to load up the bikes. Where I notice that Kay's taillight cover has busted. The ever-loving taillight cover that's been replaced now when the first one came off. This time, the screws were still in the taillight assembly, and pieces of the cover were broken off on the screws. We went in to ask about it, the receptionist who speaks English came out, looked at it and then vanished back to the service area for a while. When she came back, she made an excuse (I think it must have come off when the washing guys were washing the bike, because we don't have any pieces of it anywhere) but they'd fix it for us. She says they would have noted when they did the service that it was broken if it had been broken when we brought it in, and they didn't, so it must have happened on their watch. At least there's that. So we go inside and sit with the iPad while they set about to fixing Kay's taillight. At one point, they come in with a stock taillight cover and they seem to have completely taken off Kay's taillight assembly (undoing the wiring), and they start talking to the receptionist. A minute later, she comes over and explains that the part isn't original. Duh! We could have told them that. I don't know why they had to take the whole damn taillight assembly off to figure that out. She says that they don't have the part to fix it since it's not original, but they'll send someone to buy the right part and make good for us. It's irritating, but at least they're dealing with it, so we go back to chilling. Shortly after this exchange, we ask about the package again. She makes another call, then tells us that they don't have the package. We confirm for her that it was delivered at 5:28PM yesterday, show her the mailing address where it went, and tell her that the name of the person who signed for the package was "ROJAS." We have the tracking number, and we offer it to her so she can look it up, but she doesn't seem interested - she tells us there's a public computer we can use to look it up if we want, and then goes back to her phone call. Kay goes over to use the computer, and runs into Simon. He's an adventure rider from Montreal here on an F800GS, and unfortunately for him, his suspension has given out. He's just been told that it's going to take 15 days to get the parts and his trip is on hold for a bit. We feel bad for him, and chat for a while as we wait for them to fix Kay's taillight. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5051/...0e951baf86.jpg Simon Things drag on. At around 1PM, the receptionist tells us that the person who probably signed for the package yesterday evening won't be in the office until 2PM, and they can't find the package, so they'll have to wait for that person to come in and ask what they did with it. We're getting very hungry, so I go out to see if there's any food nearby while Kay chats with Simon some more. The only thing I see is a gas station down the street, so I tell Kay and take his order for gas station food. Quick trip to the gas station and then back with some ready-made sandwiches, chips and drinks. We nom while Simon wanders around, talking with the BMW guys and us intermittently. Eventually we finish our meal, and he seems to have his business finished, so he says goodbye and heads off to his hostel for the weekend. In the meantime, 2pm has come and gone, but the receptionist has vanished and we don't know who else to ask about the package. And Kay's bike *still* isn't ready, anyway, so we watch some more TV on the iPad. At around 3:30, the receptionist comes back… and Kay's bike is finished. Yay! We ask about the package again, she makes another call and says they still don't know where it is. Only one package came in yesterday and it went to a guy there at the dealer, so they'll have to check with him to see if it's my package. Someone will call back. At this point, we've been sitting here since like 11AM and we just want to be gone. Kay suggests that he ride over to the other location she keeps calling, thinking that being there in person might be more effective, while I wait here for news. Sounds like a decent plan to me, too, so he goes to load up his bike, and I decide to load mine up, too, so I'm ready to go whenever we can actually leave. He goes back in to confirm directions to the other BMW location, and comes out to report "I think we should both go, because it's kinda far away, and she gave me the name of the guy who got our original email about the package anyway. He's at that location." So we both go, which I prefer, anyway, because I don't like it when Kay goes off without me. I worry about him. Shortly before 4PM, we're on the road to the other BMW dealer where we can *hopefully* get my package from RevZilla and get the hell on the road. On the way to the other BMW dealer, Kay says over the headset "my gas light just came on." Hmm, that's weird, I think - I'm pretty sure we're not due for gas. But we're passing a gas station and Kay wants to go in and fill up, and we could use gas eventually anyway, so we do. When I go to reset the trip meter (which is how we keep track of our gas - every 120-160 miles we start looking for another gas station) and find we've only gone 89 miles since our last fill up. No way in hell should his gas light have come on. I tell him that, which he thinks is strange… and when we start the bikes to head off, his gas light is still on. Yikes! We find the other BMW location without much trouble, go inside and ask the receptionist for the guy who's name we have. She asks our names, and Kay tells her, and then says "una packeta" which is apparently enough to jog her memory - "Ahh," she says with a knowing air. She tells us to sit down (all of this is in Spanish - she may or may not speak English, but we've addressed her successfully enough so far in Spanish so that's how the exchange is being handled) and we do. Just a few minutes later, she walks over with an open box. Eureka! It's my package from RevZilla! I pull out the contents and it's a jacket and controller - just what I was expecting. It's open, so I don't know if there was anything else in the box (like paperwork or anything), but this is the important stuff anyway. Apparently there was a customs fee, which they paid, so she shows us the paperwork with the fee, asks for a copy of one of our IDs (Kay hands over his passport), asks us to sign off on this book that we've received a package, Kay goes to pay the customs fee (which turns out to be around $60 US) and then we think we're done. Just as we're about to head out, she asks him to sign and write on a piece of paper (the copy of his passport, with a "received" stamp on it) and says to us it's ok if it's in English (in Spanish) so Kay writes "Received," date and name, and then signs it. And we're done! There was a surprising amount of paperwork involved, but it took very little time and was all totally reasonable. Unlike all of the stupid phone calls all day from the other BMW office that never seemed to yield any results. Coming here in person was absolutely the right call. When we head back out to the bikes, Kay says he'd like to head back to the motorcycle service center to ask about his gas light. He's worried that it's related to the fuel pump, and the last thing we need is some sort of problem with that in Argentina, where there isn't a single BMW dealer. Also, it's suspicious that it's come on right after a service - a service where they broke his taillight cover. So back to the other BMW location for the motorcycle service… Kay's note: the fuel gauge and the fuel pump are in the same assembly and I'm not sure if it being on will trigger anything else to happen. For example. My bike can be in neutral, without the neutral light on. It'll stall the engine if i put out the kickstand in that state. Is there a circumstance under which the fuel pump will turn off when the fuel sensor is whacked? I dunno, and don't want to find out the hard way. …and on the way, I notice that his brake light isn't working properly. It's constantly on. It's supposed to have a dim setting that serves as a regular taillight, and then it's supposed to get bright when he hits the brake. But it's staying constantly bright when he's nowhere near the brake. We assume this is something that BMW has done, since they removed the *entire* taillight assembly before, including disconnecting the wires that the guys in Colombia had set up for us. They had the same problem in Colombia, but when they changed the wires around, it worked properly. So we figure BMW has probably got the connections backwards, and it should work just fine once we get that fixed. So we pull up to the motorcycle service again, and Kay goes inside to alert them of his problems. At this point it's around 4:40PM and we know they close for the night at 6PM, and will be closed all weekend. I'm concerned that they won't be able to get to him, but annoyed that they broke it so willing to see what happens. The guys inside go to fetch the receptionist who speaks English, and she translates as we explain the problems with the gas light and the brake light. They try to make some excuses, Kay negates them and they take the bike back again. Back to the couch for some reading, this time. At around 5:15, they come inside and talk to the receptionist, who comes over and explains that the problem isn't with the connections - it's a more serious electrical fault. It might be in the relay somewhere, it might be a connection somewhere in the wire harness - but BMW has determined that it's definitely not the connection at the brake light. Overall, it could be nothing but it could also be a serious electrical problem manifesting for the first time. Since we're traveling a big distance, they'd like to work on the bike and have it for us sometime tomorrow. Kay's note: I'm still thinking that yes the connections are fine at the light but that they've just got two wires switched. Not going to deal with it tonight. Neither of us wants to stay in Santiago for another night, but at this point, it's already after 5pm. We don't want to end up in Argentina with some undiagnosed electrical problem, and who knows what else could go wrong if it's a problem in the relay. So we agree to have them work on it tomorrow, thinking they're coming in for us because we're traveling, etc. Kay looks up the info for the hostel where we've stayed the last couple of nights, and asks the receptionist to call and see if they have a room available for the night. "Only one night?" she asks, and we confirm. They do have a room, so Kay goes and gets his panniers off the bike and we prepare to head back to the hostel for another night. A couple of minutes later, Kay comes back inside and the receptionist walks over to us. "I made a mistake," she says. "I said tomorrow, but we won't be able to work on the bike tomorrow because we close for the weekend. It will be Monday." Kay and I look at each other. Monday would mean 3 more nights in Santiago, in expensive hotels, eating expensive food, not making any forward progress… plus whatever BMW would charge for the service. And we've just paid $700 for service, plus too much for hotels, etc. Eff that. Neither of us wants to ride off on a bike that might have electrical problems, but at this point, we also can't afford to spend another $500-1000 in Santiago, and spend that many more days here. So we agree to take our chances and tell her to call the hostel back and cancel our reservation - we want to leave. She does. We wait for Kay's bike. And wait. And wait. They close at 6PM. At around 6:10PM, the guy walks up and hands me the keys to Kay's bike. The receptionist comes over and says that they were concerned about us riding off on a bike that may have electrical problems, so they spent some extra time checking out the relay and electrical connections. She confirms that the bike isn't fixed, but the problem is *just* with the brake light and/or gas light. Not the electrical relay or whatever else. I thank her, while thinking "WTF?!?!" and we get the bikes loaded up and get away as quickly as possible. These guys may be perfectly good service people - it may be just a series of coincidences - but they seem to keep ****ing up Kay's bike in a suspicious manner and neither of us wants to be here any longer. So at around 6:20PM, we're loaded up on the bikes and heading out of Santiago. We don't care how far we get - we just don't want to deal, and want to get out of the city and away from the BMW dealer as quickly as possible. On the road we head west toward Route 5 and then north as quickly as possible. We get on a road that's more direct, heading to Los Andes and then turning east toward Mendoza in Argentina. That's our route for tomorrow, but for tonight, we just want to find something to eat and someplace to stay. We'd both be happy to camp but we're starving and need to eat beforehand, and it's too late to eat and have much light left. So we'll probably end up getting a hotel in Los Andes. We see a hotel and restaurant by the side of the road, get off and turn around… only to discover that it's a "five star pet hotel." Hah. Not for us. And the restaurant next door looks deserted. Back to the highway, and in a bit more, we reach a bypass for Mendoza or a turn into Los Andes. Los Andes it is… and not too far after the turn-off, Kay spots a bit "Motel" sign. Yay! We pull in… and it's a kiss-no-tell motel! Double yay! We pull into number 22, since that's my birthday, and Kay checks out the room. Seems perfectly nice, but no idea about the rates. He wanders off to find someone, negotiates a really cheap rate for the entire night ($14 - the cheapest we've paid in Chile!) and it includes breakfast. Score! Oh, wait, the guy misspoke when trying to accommodate us with English. It's 14… thousand pesos. About $28 US. Kay pays, and then rides off to find us dinner while I work on writing up the last couple of days. More time than expected later, Kay returns with dinner. Apparently Los Andes, or at least the part where we find ourselves, is a teeny city with not much. He had a very hard time finding an open restaurant, and when he did, all he could find was empanadas. I like empanadas ok as an appetizer or with a meal… but I can only eat so much of them, and an entire meal of them seems daunting. We dig in, and it's as daunting as it seems. I can only eat two before having to give up (Kay's gotten us four each). Yet another lame meal. We haven't had a good meal since the lunch we had two days ago at the expensive restaurant. I daydream about that steak. Kay's note: I got three flavors. One was quite tasty, one mediocre, and one neither of us liked much. I think empanadas make a good meal. Dachary disagrees. While waiting for them to warm I had a great conversation with the guy and he ended up offering for Dachary and I to stay in his house for free. Sweet guy. Very patient with my bad spanish. But, we'd already payed for the room and I'd rather it than with a total stranger who wasn't a motorcycle geek. Kiss-no-tell motels, though? We highly recommend. They're really growing on us. No hassle, usually pretty clean and decent amenities, plus the bikes are safe and secure. So if you're traveling, they're not a bad place to stay. Kay's note (to the end): the cost for the bikes is almost entirely labor. We supplied the sprockets so those were free. The gasket, oil, cleaning solution, were fairly inexpensive. We did buy two replacement mirror screw things (since we've already goon through two) which cost about $60 but… $100 per bike to put on the sprockets! We'd have done it ourselves if we'd had a clue about the price, and a wrench big enough to do the nut on the front one. As Dachary says "For $200 we could have bought a damn wrench." Also, remember how I said labor is cheap in Latin America? Yeah, not in ****ing Chile. I don't mind that the receptionist woman made a mistake and didn't realize it was friday, but I was pissed about how she treated it as if it were a total non-issue for us to stay in town for another three days. Even if you ignore the price you should never assume that waylaying someone in a town for three days is a non-issue. Also, I'm pissed about the effing package. First off, they get a package they don't seem to have a clue about. Second off they have to pay $60 in customs fees for it. Third off they open it up and find shit that no-one there has a clue about the contents. Doesn't that kinda thing stand out? I'd expect a "oh THAT package… we wondered what that was." kind of response. But no. Hours and hours of "dunno what you're talking about." Arrgh! Dachary and I were totally looking forward to that package. The guys from RevZilla had gone out of their way to get it to us. We were going to do an "Unboxing video" and everything, but the day had been one long frustration after another, and when we finally did get it all we wanted to do was get the hell out of Santiago. But first we had to go back and deal with the low fuel indicator… ugh… Some people don't get why we don't spend time wandering around these cities. It's one of the primary goals of their trips. But, we get lost driving in them, spend too much money staying in them, always have trouble escaping them (although usually not because of the roads), and generally find that…. they're … cities. We prefer the countryside, the beautiful scenery, the small towns with nice people who aren't all caught up with the hustle and bustle of city life. |
Day 89 - Los Andes, Chile to Mendoza, Argentina
Day 89 - Los Andes, Chile to Mendoza, Argentina
Breakfast in the loooooove hotel was, predictably, lame. We got instant coffee (which I won't knowingly drink - yes, I'm a coffee snob too stupid to bring my own), toast, yogurt and "Sprim" peach juice. Which, really, is better than some of the breakfasts we've had… but a couple of pieces of dry toast, a yogurt and a cup of juice isn't my idea of a good way to start a chilly morning on the bike. Out of the love hotel shortly after 9, and off to the border with Argentina. Yay! This, apparently, is where the Pan Americana crosses into Argentina and goes over to Buenos Aires and then down toward Ushuaia. We were planning on taking it as far as Mendoza, and then taking one of the other roads down toward Ushuaia (probably Routa 40 much of the way). http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5179/...42e05251d8.jpg IMG_2651 . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5177/...9ec8807b54.jpg IMG_2658 And I've gotta say, the stretch of the Pan Americana from Los Andes to Mendoza is breathtakingly, stunningly beautiful. You enter the mountains right away, and the road runs through a valley with tall verdant mountains on either side, which slowly change to tall, rocky, sandy mountains. At one point, you climb a switchback with numbered curves - 28 of them, and then I stopped remembering to look at the numbers. You could see the whole valley and the road stretched up to the top like a string of spaghetti. It was awesome. Kay's note: I humored us by imitating The Count from Sesame Street. "Curva Siete! Hah, hah, hah hah…" Confession: Kay and I have been joking back and forth "It's a pity we're taking the Pan Americana. Nothing to see here. Nothing beautiful at all." Between exclamations over this pretty thing and that pretty thing. We don't mean it in ill will - it just boggles the mind that people can ride the Pan Americana and say "nothing pretty." Sure, there are boring stretches, but there are also breathtakingly spectacular stretches, and it hasn't at all been the mile-grinding, soulless road that the reports and people's comments would have us believe. Waiting for the construction flagger to wave us on… http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5176/...345b336270.jpg IMG_6709 . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5296/...e54b7d94b8.jpg IMG_6711 . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5057/...24773593e9.jpg IMG_6717 . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5013/...b127f32561.jpg Waiting in the Pass At the toll booth before Christo Redentor Tunnel http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5257/...b8d496fc37.jpg At the toll booth before the Christo Redentor Tunnel At the top of the pass, you're at around 3,200 meters. And after a while at that altitude, I was starting to feel it. Apparently I'm never going to be a mountaineer, or I'll need to do a *lot* of acclimatizing. At the top of the pass, you arrive at a building and signs thanking you for your visit to Chile. So one assumes this is the Chilean border building. We pull up where all of the cars are parked, and Kay goes inside with our paperwork while I change some American dollars to Argentinian pesos. (I wanted to keep our Chilean pesos because we'll be entering Chile again. Unfortunately, the guy at the building rejected four of my $10 bills, because they had writing on them - got them that way from the ATM - so I was only able to change $30 without digging in my panniers for more cash. But I figured that would be enough for gas or lunch until we could find an ATM and withdraw some Argentinian cash.) http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5291/...8c8dcaaebd.jpg Gimme Da Cash! A little over 20 minutes later, Kay comes back with some unexpected news. "It's another backwards border." Apparently, after standing in line for a bit, one of the truckers there with him started chatting and they figured out that Kay didn't need to be there with our paperwork. He confirmed what the trucker said with an official, but basically - the Chilean border building is for *entering* Chile and *exiting* Argentina. You exit Chile and enter Argentina in one combined building - on the Argentinian side. This is weird to us after all of the Central America (and even the other South America) borders where you exit the country inside of the country, cross no-man's land, and then enter the next country inside the next country. So back on the bikes and through the crazy long tunnel into Argentina. The tunnel is through a very tall mountain, and was a joint Chilean and Argentinian effort. It spans the border, starting in Chile and ending in Argentina (the signs for the border are inside of the tunnel). The tunnel is a bit over a mile long, and is well lit, but has very poor ventilation. You could see the dust and dirt particles in the air, and it smelled strongly of truck driver fumes. Out the other side of the tunnel, and shortly later is a road up to a statue of Christ that is apparently commemorating the tunnel. It's on the top of the mountain that the tunnel passes through, up a crazy switchbacky 8km dirt road. Kay expresses a vague interest in seeing it, but I don't want to take the time out with the border crossing ahead, so we decide to go on. Shortly before entering another tunnel, we pass a few restaurants and decide to turn around and get lunch. We have no idea how long the border formalities will take but it's around 1PM already and we're both wicked hungry again after teeny breakfast and riding through the cold. We stop at one of the restaurants (the one that has a GINORMOUS Saint Bernard-looking dog snoozing out front) and walk inside, not sure what to expect. A guy greets us warmly, lists a few food items and explains that if we want a hot plate, we can go serve ourselves. We go inside (as we're sitting in the enclosed porch) and there's a friendly lady in front of a covered buffet. She opens it as we walk up, chats with us for a minute, ascertains that we speak English, and then does her best to explain what's in each of the dishes in English. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5138/...88493a0614.jpg Marshmallow-Bernard I get beef in a wine sauce, beef in gravy with carrots, a meatball and some rice, and Kay gets beef in wine sauce, beef in gravy with carrots, lentils, some sort of Argentinian bean dish (she says it's a national specialty) and rice. We retire to our table (and me with a Diet Coke! Yay! Argentina has Diet Coke!) and proceed to nom. Nom nom nom. OMG this is the best meal EVAR! The beef in wine sauce is particularly tasty, but it's all wicked good. Oh, and what's that? It comes with dessert? Don't mind if we do. Kay picks up a desert of jellied sweetness on top of cheese, and I grab a blondie-looking-thing in some sort of sauce, and we nom that too, with great pleasure. We both agree that whoever made this menu is SMART. Not only is it tasty, but the food shows real thought - the pairings are well-made, and whoever designed the menu chose food that will sit well in a buffet and just get tastier as it sits. Same with the desserts. This is probably the most intelligently-conceived menu we've had, as the flavors and pairings really went well together - almost like a fine-dining restaurant in the US, but in a homestyle setting. Totally unexpected but delicious lunch. It surprises us with the cost, though - I have to put back one of the bottles of water we were planning to buy and *just* have enough Argentinian pesos to pay for lunch. During lunch, Kay has decided that he'd really like to see the statue after all. He says "When are we gonna have the chance again?" and decides to head off. I'm feeling even more ill from the altitude - short of breath just walking to the bathroom, and dizzy and lightheaded - and I don't want to tackle 8km of switchbacky dirt on a high mountain with no guardrails. My fear of heights combined with my apprehension about the road surface and my reaction to the altitude seem like a dangerous combination to me, so I opt to sit on the bench outside the restaurant with the Saint Bernard and read my book while Kay goes up to check out the statue. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5053/...119093a3a6.jpg The view on the way up to the Christo Redentor Monument . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5013/...5b814713db.jpg Christo Redentor . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5218/...8ece7354a6.jpg Christo Redentor . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5097/...07d53b2c71.jpg View from the Christo Redentor Monumento He returns not quite an hour later, we put on our rain liners and Cyclone Buffs because we're chilly, and then head off to the border crossing, finally. It's around 3PM now. Kay's note: The views up the road were gorgeous, and the road surface was pretty decent. At the top it was very windy and there was one of the better statues I've ever seen of Christ. I think he looks kinda badass in this one. Sadly, the guy who offered to take my picture was a crappy photographer… Oh well. I scurried up and down the hill as quickly as I safely could because I didn't want to leave Dachary sitting for any longer than necessary. I really wished she had of come, because I don't like doing things without her, but it was too close, too easy, and too fast for me to just drive right past it without stopping. Also, I figured that if something happened to me I'd only be about 1k away from her. Ok, yeah, maybe 600 meters up, but only 1k away. ;) Through another tunnel and down the road a bit more is the Argentinian border building. And I've gotta say, it's the best border building we've seen yet on the trip. You literally drive into the building, and there are rows and rows of booths with aisles between them for you to drive down and get processed. Immigrations in one booth, and then pull forward to aduana for customs. At immigration, they asked us for more paperwork, which we didn't have, and then gave us another form to fill out (just the basic tourist info, such as name, country, destination, passport number, etc.). Out of Chile and into Argentina. Check. Now for the bikes. Pull forward to aduana and hand her our paperwork. Wait… she looks confused. She asks Kay something, but we don't understand, and she shares a significant look with the other women there. She tries type-typing some more and doesn't seem to get anywhere. Eventually, she hands our paperwork to one of the women in the booth with her, who motions us to pull forward. We do, and the aduana woman who has our paperwork vanishes off to an office. We sit by the bikes and wait, and Kay wanders around to inquire about where we can buy insurance for Argentina, but doesn't have any luck. Apparently the only place we can buy insurance FOR Argentina is back in the Chile border crossing building, which we weren't even supposed to use. You can't buy insurance for Argentina in the building where you check into Argentina. Bummer. Kay suggests going back to the other border building to buy insurance, but I don't want to ride another 20km back after we've already checked into Argentina, so I suggest we'll just get it somewhere down the road. Kay's note: not only couldn't you by insurance there but I asked Chile and Argentinian Aduana people if it was obligatory (I was pretty sure it was) and they were all clueless. "Obligatory? In Argentina?" I wasn't stupid enough to ask the Argentinian Aduana people we were actually dealing with though, for fear they'd prevent us from proceeding. I asked an Argentinian police officer and he said we could buy it somewhere like 25k down the road, but his distance estimates were crap and we never saw anything that looked like it might sell… anything. A few minutes later, the aduana woman comes back and tells us to follow her. She points us to an office, which we find after asking a guy awkwardly in our poor Spanish, and another aduana woman is processing the entry paperwork for our bikes into Argentina. She asks us a few questions, but mostly is being efficient processing the paperwork. An aduana guy comes in while she's doing our bike forms and starts chatting with us, and seems surprised when we say we're going to Ushuaia. "That's over 3,000 kilometers!" he tells us. 3k? Dude. We've ridden our motos from Boston. 3k to Ushuaia? Is that all? We have a nice little chat, the woman has us sign some forms she's printed, the guy tells us "Good luck!" in English, and off we go to our bikes. We've got to give someone a piece of paper with a bunch of stamps on it when we get to the control point (7k, a guard tells us) but otherwise we're officially in Argentina. The last country on our trip! Yay! (Well, except for that little bit with Chile, but we've already been in Chile so it doesn't count as a new country.) On the bikes and down the road. 7k comes and goes. 7 miles comes and goes. Eventually we decide we must have missed the control point, and Kay says "Oh, well, we'll just have to keep the paper with the stamps as remembrance." And then, of course, about 10k later, we hit the control point, hand over our stamped papers and are really in Argentina! Kay's note: it's a piece of blank newsprint that we were handed after exiting the tunnel where an Argentinian Cop wrote or license numbers on it in pen and stamped it. Then all the other Aduana and Migrations people stamped it in random places. It's a total hack that's a pale imitation of the really nice form they had for everyone to stamp at the Bolivia / Chile border so that the exit guard could easily see that you'd been to all the places you needed to go to. We ride on, past more beautiful scenery. It's just as pretty on the Argentina side. Oh, woe is us, having made the decision to ride the Pan Americana for this stretch. It's a pity there's nothing pretty to see here. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5018/...327210e02c.jpg IMG_2687 . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5138/...c83ecd5393.jpg IMG_2690 . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5134/...480fde1133.jpg IMG_2694 . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5171/...a4584f996c.jpg IMG_2700 . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5256/...a476413edb.jpg IMG_2716 . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5291/...c683215b03.jpg IMG_2730 . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5254/...e7b1a54335.jpg IMG_2734 Eventually we get to Uspallata, where we've heard from another adventure rider who is ahead of us that there's an ATM, but it was out of money when he came through a few days ago. We stop and ask around, and find the ATM, but it's still out of money even though it's attached to a bank. We also run into a ton of Argentinian adventure riders, and chat with a few of them. Kay discovers that it's a four-day weekend in Argentina, which is why so many riders are in Uspallata, but also that it's a big problem that we haven't bought insurance yet. One of the other riders says "You'll have to be very careful." And because it's a four-day weekend, he's not sure when or where we'll be able to buy insurance. Kay's note: while there we stop in the bathrooms to pee and I discover a large dog has taken over one of the stalls for a nap. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5177/...fd70f56642.jpg It's his stall Damn It! And we discover the beginning of a curious trend that would never fly in the US. Hot water vending machines. People line up for these things regardless of how hot the day is. We suspect it's related to their habit of drinking instant coffee… bleb. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5099/...85ce6b0549.jpg Agua Caliente We ride toward Mendoza, where we'll have to hunt down an ATM, and debate insurance. Kay wants to ride back to the border and buy insurance from the building on the Chile side, but we've already gone over 70km from the border and I'm unwilling to make a 140km round-trip at 5:30PM. Especially when we don't have any Argentinian money, and the only place to get some is Mendoza - over 100km ahead. There's no way we could get back to Chile, get insurance, and get to Mendoza before dark. We probably couldn't even get back to Uspallata before dark. We'd run out of money and wouldn't have money for dinner, gas, a hotel or breakfast tomorrow. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5019/...935394ef6a.jpg IMG_2742 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5217/...b2873c9e3f.jpg IMG_2747 I'm quite adamant about not going back, and Kay feels quite strongly that our not having insurance in Argentina is a real problem, so we debate our options. Eventually we decide we'll have to get some before we cross back into Chile later, and maybe we can get some at a future border crossing. I secretly think we'll find some in a town somewhere, or maybe even online, and am not worried about it, but it really seems to be bothering Kay. The debate continues as we get closer to Mendoza. We ride through a few sprinkles, and I look back in the rear-view mirror once to see that the heavens have opened behind us and there's a solid column of water falling from the sky a few kilometers back, where we just came from, but we manage to avoid the worst of the rain. We get to the turn where we have to either go into Mendoza or head south, and we go into Mendoza for an ATM. Sadly, Mendoza is 26km north of the turn, and we have no idea where to look for an ATM, so we head toward town center - all the way into town. All 26km. We do pass a few hotels on the way into town, so at least we know we can find one heading south again if we need to. Kay's note: imagine the center of a nuclear mushroom cloud. That's what this water-column looks like. Totally freaky. Eventually we pull over at a random service station to ask someone where to find an ATM, and he points at the bus terminal across the street. I wait with the bikes while Kay goes across the street to do our business. He returns with cash, yay! So we buy gas, and even though it's after 7PM, we decide to head south out of town and look for one of the hotels we passed on the way in, instead of going further into the center of town to find a hotel. So we head south. We pass one of the hotels I saw, but I see it too late and don't want to turn around for it. There were a couple more ahead. We see an exit that has a hotel sign, and turn off, but can't find a hotel. We wander around for a bit but don't see anything obvious. We see a sign that advertises camping, and we turn down that road to see if we can find a campground, but a mile or two down the road, there's nothing and we decide to turn back. It's starting to get dark. We turn around in a big empty dirt field, and Kay points out that we could camp here if we needed to, but I argue that it's too close to the road, too exposed (there isn't really any cover at all) and besides, I haven't had dinner. Whilst turning around in the dirt field, I try to swing wide around a mud puddle and end up dropping the bike on the edge of it. I holler for Kay, who turns around and comes back to help me extract my bike from the mud. The pannier is undamaged, luckily, but the rear brake lever is bend badly. Mud is still my nemesis. The brake lever is unusable, and also in the way of using my foot peg, so Kay pulls out our big wrench (the one for dismounting/mounting the rear tire) and uses its leverage to bend the brake lever back most of the way. It's still not perfect, but it should work long enough for us to find someplace. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5212/...4820f6c0d7.jpg Bent Brake Lever Of course, now it's getting darker. We head back to the highway and get pointed south again. A few minutes later, we see another exit that promises hotels in both directions. We get off, and go to the right, looking for the promised hotel in 1km. Nothing. No signs, no hotel - just a town. We decide to turn around and check the place that's supposed to be 4km on the other side of the highway. While heading back that way, we ask a police officer where to find a hotel, and he basically says to turn around the way we were originally headed, go four blocks down, take a right, go another two blocks, take another right and there's a hotel. We do, and we find it, but there are no vacancies. And the woman at the hotel can't recommend another hotel. So back to trying to find the place 4km on the other side of the highway, which is now even further away, and oh, yeah - sunset was a few minutes ago so it's getting toward full dark. Down the road in the other direction, and we follow some signs I see but can't read clearly, advertising a restaurant and… something… 4km down the road. Ok, that's roughly where the sign said it should be, so we go that way. Take a right, still following the signs… and see a sign another kilometer down the road pointing down a dirt road. Kay stops and reads this one, and it's "restaurant and events." Not hotel. Damnit! Now we're in the middle of nowhere, and there's no hotel, and we've gone a long way from the dirt space where Kay had suggested we camp, and my right ankle where I dropped the bike is swelling and painful, and my left shoulder hurts, and I'm way crashed from not eating enough today, and crying in my helmet. I don't know what to do. Kay's note: At this point I don't either. There are places to camp but camping requires the most mental dealing, which Dachary is not up for. I'm thinking that if we DO find anything hotel-like they won't have food, and there's little chance we'll find anything soon, and Dachary has stated that she isn't up to dealing with getting off the bike unless she doesn't have to get on again, even if it's to eat food, which she really needs. So, I don't really know what to do that will work for her. While we're standing there on our bikes, at a complete loss, a small local moto pulls up and a woman and a child get off. The guy stands there with the moto. Kay goes up and asks if the guy can recommend a hotel nearby, and the guy tries to talk to us, but we're having trouble understanding. Pretty quickly, he says to follow him and he takes off down the road in the direction we were heading. It's full dark now and we're riding through the countryside with no idea where we're going and not a clue where the guy is leading us. After just a couple of kilometers, we pull up in front of a place that advertises cabanas. Yay! Cabins! Just as we're pulling up, a guy on a bicycle is pulling in and walking over to the locked gate. Our guy on the moto talks to him, they have a brief exchange (wherein our helper on the local moto explains we don't speak much Spanish) and the guy on the bicycle vanishes behind the locked gate. The guy on the moto tries to tell us something, but we're not sure what it is. They don't have any vacancies? Or the guy on the bicycle wasn't sure? But the guy on the moto is standing there and seems to be waiting for something, so we wait with him. Kay's note: he was saying that if this didn't work out we could go to one that he'd passed on the way here. A few minutes later, the guy on the bicycle returns with a thumbs up. They have a vacancy! We can stay! We thank the guy on the moto who led us here profusely, he shakes both of our hands and then rides off back to his wife and daughter. Again, the kindness of strangers at an absolutely desperate moment gets us sorted, and we follow the guy in, park our bikes, look at the cabin and pay him far too much money to get a roof and bed for the night. Alas, he locks the gate behind us, and we're in the middle of nowhere anyway - no sign of a restaurant, and it looks like I won't be getting dinner. I'm not pleased, but at least I'm off the bike, which was my biggest priority at that point. We bring a few things into the cabin and Kay notes that there's a stove, and we have a box of macaroni and cheese, so at least we can make the mac and cheese. I start water boiling while he goes to grab the yellow dry-sack off his bike that contains the food. Unfortunately, we discover that the mac and cheese box has gotten squished at some point, and most of the mac has strewn itself over the inside of the bag, so Kay takes a bunch of stuff out and starts a fishing expedition, grabbing handfuls of macaroni from the bottom of the bag. Eventually we get most of it, the water is boiling and we throw the mac in. We also find rice that I'd forgotten about inside the bag, so I pull out our cooking pot that we use with our little stove to make some rice, too. I figure we can put some of the mac sauce on it and stretch our meal a bit more. I put water and rice in the pot, put the lid on it and put it on the back burner of the stove. We stir the mac and watch TV on the iPad while the rice cooks. When the mac is done, I decide to take the lid off the rice to check on it, even though I know you're not supposed to check on the rice halfway through. I want to, anyway. I grab the lid and pull… and it doesn't want to come. So I pull harder. And the lid comes away from the pot, melted plastic stretching from the pot to the lid. Yikes! The plastic lid has melted to the pot all the way around, and the rice is burned on the bottom and looks uncooked on the top. The lid is ruined, the pot might be, and no rice. I decide that I should not be allowed to touch things anymore, and have Kay deal with getting the mac dished out. Kay's note: there wasn't enough water in with the rice to start with and the lid has holes in it (intentionally) so all the water boiled out, and left the heat going directly up through the metal into the plastic lid. So, totally our fault and not crap design on the part of the pot, although I'm thinking i'd prefer it if it had a metal lid instead of a meltable plastic one. Dinner concludes with watching TV on the iPad whilst nomming the mac, and then retiring to the bed where I can crawl under the covers and hopefully avoid the all-too-attentive mosquito that has been dining on me during dinner. I'd forgotten about mosquitos in Peru and Chile - hadn't had to worry about them in so long that I'd dismissed the nuisance they are. After finishing our episode of Torchwood (our current TV series on the iPad) we decided we should sleep, and within minutes of turning out the light, the damn mosquito buzzed my ear. I jerked uncontrollably, asked Kay to turn the light on so we could kill it, and tried to decide how not to keep us both up all night with me freaking out about mosquitos, on top of everything else this evening. I ask Kay to go get my Buff from my tank bag, and then proceed to pull it down over my head. It covers my skin from my forehead to my neck, and then I pull the sheets up to my neck. There! Now the little bastard can't get me! No exposed skin. Kay points out that I could probably just put the Buff over my ears to keep them from buzzing my ear, but I prefer the no exposed skin route, even though I look ridiculous with a Buff covering my head, and it gives me the peace of mind that I need to fall asleep. I pass out quickly. Kay's note: She's turned the Buff into a giant head-sock. It's like some freaky modern dance performance. |
Day 90 - Mendoza(ish) to Santa Isabel
We'd set the alarm for 7, and hit snooze twice, because we wanted to be up by eight, when we thought he was going to come by with the change, but we were both exhausted and would have really preferred more sleep, especially if we had of know no-one was going to come at eight.
Last night's confusion over where or when we'd get the change for the room was quickly resolved through a lucky meeting with the guy and asking… "where? am I supposed to get the change?" to which he told me his boss would bring it. "Oh, when?" "11 o'clock." "Ah. But I need to go…" "Hmm… let me ask this guy here if he can make change." And he could. So, we left, went back into the town we explored the previous night where we'd seen ATMs and a place that sold insurance. We doubted the insurance place would be open, since it was Sunday and a holiday weekend (we still don't know what holiday) but it was worth checking. The first ATM had no money. The second ATM wouldn't give me any money, and the third ATM brought up a screen asking me to make a choice as to what action I wanted to perform and directed me to press one of the nonexistent buttons. There was a keypad below, and zero buttons around the screen. But, this wasn't some fancy new-fangled touch-screen kiosk. No, it was your typical ASCII arrows pointing to buttons that were supposed to be on the side of the monitor, but there were none. There wasn't even a way to cancel and get your card back without using the keypad. The fourth ATM, around the corner, was one that i'd seen a pile of people using the night before, and worked fine… once I realized that in Argentina you can't withdraw more than 1,000 pesos (about $250) at a time, which sucks when you consider how long we'll be here and how much everything costs here. Alas…. We drove on, finding, without surprise, no offers of breakfast. Our day continued through wine country where my neutral light magically came on. As I was currently maintaining my speed in fourth or fifth gear I was pretty sure I wasn't actually in neutral, and that another electrical gremlin had appeared. As the day continued it turned off, turned back on, flickered, and generally misbehaved. When I went into BMW Santiago I had zero electrical problems. They removed my entire tail light assembly when I pointed out that they'd broken the red plastic that covers it (most likely the people who washed it). And when they gave it back it wouldn't go bright anymore. Not half a mile after I left my gas light came on (incorrectly), and now, my neutral light came on. I'm not saying they ****ed it up, but it seems a mighty big coincidence to me that something would get ****ed with my electrical system after they ****ed with part of my electrical system. Anyway… as lunch time came, and we were both starving, we found ourselves behind a bicycle race, and then in the midst of it as the leaders and the laggers had spread out a fair amount. Past closed restaurants, and uninteresting restaurants, to one we wanted to get to but couldn't because the police wouldn't let anyone turn around and go the direction we'd just come from (because of the race). Then into town where we were detoured away from the main street with all the shops (and food) and onto residential streets. Until eventually we were able to cross the main street (but not enter it) where we saw a restaurant on the corner and said THERE! , pulled over and ate. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5257/...354430dd5e.jpg Bicycle Race It was surprisingly tasty. I had ravioli and Dachary had some sort of battered and fried thin-steak which was oddly reminiscent of fried fish, but still quite tasty. To top it off, they had wifi which we used to pay some bills so that the dog-sitters didn't find themselves in a frozen apartment. We still don't know why it didn't get paid automatically. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5053/...65f7b09c61.jpg Leaving wine country Wine country petered out into a vast open plain, with fences. Seriously WTF are they keeping in, or out?! It's possible to camp on the side of the road, obscured by scrub brush and some short tree/bush things, and we were pondering the best strategy for hidey-camping in it when we came into a town (Santa Isabel) around 5:30pm to get gas, and chomp a couple ice cream bars while we contemplated what to do next. Food then camp? Maybe the next town for food? hmm… http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5057/...b6ec42779f.jpg The Naughty Cloud I highly recommend the "Cook" ice cream bars by the way. Very tasty. As we sat there chomping and contemplating, a guy came in with his kid and asked if he could take a picture of his child on the moto. "Sure" we said, "but be careful because it's heavy." He thanked us and we followed him out a minute or so later and got to watch him posing for a pic with his kid. It was cute, and we didn't mind at all since he asked. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5256/...919826d21c.jpg Future Adventure Rider? We'd decided to get food, then try and camp. It'd be tight with the remaining sunlight, but we should be able to pull it off. Some of the food places looked closed, but then we saw one that doubled as a Bus Terminal, so we said, "they'll be open!" and they were… technically. We walked in, and sat down. One of the two employees saw us. We sat… five minutes went by. I went back to the guy at the front desk (just outside the dining room) and asked "Is the restaurant open?" "Yes." he said, and I saw the woman behind the counter who worked it. I went back in and told Dachary that yes, it was open and not just being used as a seating area for bus people. The woman popped her head in the room behind the bar thing, then left. We waited some more, and some more. We contemplated the fact that I'd asked if it was open, but not specifically asked if it was open *for food*. We didn't' want to be obnoxious. We waited more. They definitely knew we were there…. **** this. If they're not going to get off their ass to even give us a menu, or ask us to wait a few minutes then **** them. The service will probably continue to be crap. We put our coats back on, grabbed our helmets and tank bags, and left. On the way out the guy was all "But… BUtt….Don't you want food?!" or something like that. I don't really know what he was saying and I don't care. I kept walking. We got on the bikes, crossed the street, went into a little cafe that we could see some people in, and had two delicious, and enormous, sandwiches. While they were being prepped an old guy gave us some helpful navigation info for circumventing the next large town while we all poured over the map. We'd planned on camping, but the sun was starting to set, and I didn't want to be rushing to get away from town and then hunting for a place in the dark. The cafe also had a Hospedaje so I asked the proprietor, how much (100 pesos, about $25 US) and went to see. He had been pretty obsessive about swatting flies in the restaurant (so many have just left them to multiply by the hundreds) and we had a feeling the place would be clean. It was. In fact, it's one of the nicest rooms we've had on the trip. Smelled a bit like cleaner, but we can deal with that. Then he lit the burner for the hot water heater and the place smelled like gas for…well, it smells like gas still, but my nose is starting to ignore it. We decided that since we had some light left we should tackle the wiring of my tail light, so we got out the wiring diagram, removed all the electrical tape, and starting reattaching the wires in different combinations. None of them made the light get brighter when the brake went on, and one of them made a spark, but didn't blow a fuse. We didn't replicate that combination. In the end we gave up and put it all back the way it was in the first place. I have resigned myself to riding with the neutral light and gas lights on and am just crossing my fingers that the thermostat light doesn't come on because I could royally **** up my bike if it starts lighting up in error, and then it actually does overheat and I don't have any way to know. Ditto for the oil, but that's easier to check. I love my BMW but I'm having issues with the "Unstoppable" marketing they have in all the BMW stores. It seems just as stoppable as any other bike by a decent manufacturer. |
Day 91 - Santa Isabel to Piedro Del Aguila
The alarm went off. She hit snooze. The alarm went off. She hit snooze. The alarm went off. She hit snooze. I asked her why she didn't just turn the alarm off. She did…
We hadn't slept in in a while and both really wished we could have yesterday so I fully encouraged the extra sleeping. Eventually we got out of bed and loaded the bikes. I wandered around to the restaurant and asked the guy if they had breakfast, he seemed a bit confused and suggested the "machina" which I'm pretty sure was an instant coffee machine, and not, an instant breakfast machine. Thanks, but… no. Dachary's note: Last night was wonderful, I slept extremely well and really enjoyed being lazy this morning. Normally I'm eager to get up and on the road, but today I felt like being lazy and really appreciated Kay indulging me. I was in the best mood I've been in for a *long* time and it was absolutely worth losing the hour or or whatever of being on the road for being so happy. We rode out, and the scenery quickly changed. North of Santa Isabel there were fences about 100ft from each side of the road, but between the road and the fence were lots of big bushes and small trees that you could use for cover if you wanted to camp. You wouldn't be completely obscured, but good enough… Almost immediately south of Santa Isabel there was only scrub brush about one foot tall. If you were to camp here it'd be in plain view on the side of the road. Before, and after, we saw very few dirt roads to the side that weren't behind locked fences, and most of the ones that were accessible had fences right along their sides as far as we could see. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5053/...1a06e026e6.jpg IMG_2785 For a while, not much changed, and eventually we stopped for lunch at a hotel / restaurant next to a gas station in the middle of nowhere. It looked like it might be pricey, plus the whole captive audience thing but we were hungry. As we entered the door we saw a "WiFi" logo. Sweet. We go in. We sit down. We're watched by four workers, and watched, and watched, and basically ignored for at least five minutes. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5252/...a8fcfbbc8e.jpg IMG_2789 I walk up…. "um… is it only the buffet? or do you have a menu…." I know they have a menu, because it's on display in front of the door… One of them comes out and shows me the buffet "These are hot. These are cold. You can eat as much as you want…." Really… Wow… thanks… Is that how buffets work? Then, she reluctantly hands me the menu, but just one. I take it back, we both look at it. I vote for the overpriced buffet because it looks somewhat decent, and I don't want to deal with the employees any more than I have to since they obviously don't want to deal with us. Dachary thinks it looks decent to, so we go for it. There was a luke-warm pork with ham and melted cheese on it that was passable. There was cold quiche that was almost passable. Then there was the meat dish that tasted like cat food. Literally. Then there was the next meat dish that tasted even more like cat food. I've opened thousands of cans of wet cat food in my days and I swear to you this shit tasted exactly like the cat food smells. Dachary went with some of the potatoe-salad looking thing and her reaction was so strong, and immediate, that I swear I thought she was going to barf it out on the plate. They even ****ed up the corn on the cob. I didn't even know this was possible without burning it, but apparently it is. We pulled out, saw a cone in the road, and a detour off the side of the road beneath a banner proclaiming the evil nature of fruit and a welcome to Patagonia… Patagonia?!?! WTF?! I thought… but… it can't be Patagonia already! Promising we had no fruit, we were fumigated and on our way. Ten minutes later we passed some tiny pizza and sandwich place and so wished we had lunch to do over. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5220/...8564e2babb.jpg No Camiones! Towards the end of the day we found a gas station with about ten Adventure Motos: Transalps, Africa Twins, BMW GSs, etc. We filled up and no-one approached us. We turned around and pulled up alongside them. "Hey! Where you coming from?" He named some town just up the road. "Ahh, and where you going?" Just making a loop. They asked where we we were from and I told them. It didn't seem to have any impact. "how many days?" I asked them "Today and tomorrow." "ahh… right then… Adios!" It wasn't that I thought they were posers or anything. But, no-one seemed to show any interest in us, or our trip, and they didn't seem particularly interested in expanding upon themselves. So **** it… One thing they did mention was the name of a town down the road that was good. Everyone wants to know where we're going NOW, like… tonight. They just don't get that we don't have a clue. "South!" I say. "No no. Tonight." "I don't know…" They think we're just really bad at Spanish, which we are, but the truth is that I don't have a ****ing clue where we'll be tonight. I say we'll drive until it's night and then look for a place to sleep. "Yes but where?!" they want to know. I think that may be the big difference between people stuck in the corporate world and people who have set themselves free on their adventures. When you're dealing with schedules and shit like that you plan. You worry about tonight… But, for us, tonight is largely dependent upon how the day progresses. Usually we look at the map in the morning and say "hmm… I dunno… maybe we'll make it this far today…" But we don't pay any attention to the name of whatever town that was, because we don't care and we don't even know if it has a place to stay or eat in it. We just go… Some days the road is fast. Some days it isn't…. In South America there's an increasing chance, every day, that we'll simply end up in the middle of nowhere when night comes. And that's ok... http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5218/...80aa9d322d.jpg IMG_2804 . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5175/...dba2a498e0.jpg IMG_2813 Just before the uninterested bikers a huge lake opened up to our left, and we followed its coast until we eventually made it to the town we think they recommended: " Piedro Del Aguila". As far as we can tell it's the Fly Fishing capital of Argentina. People dragging boats everywhere. Lots of cars with dirt bikes with race numbers on them (not sure what the deal is with that). A nice park. A campground (didn't see that until after we grabbed the Hospedaje with WiFi on the sign… wouldn't have seen it from the bikes anyway). And a pile of restaurants all of which were closed. We eventually found one that was only technically open, and when we walked in the lights were off and upon asking if they were open, "no, not to go. for here." the waitress had to walk off and ask someone else if they were open. Weird I tell you. Back at the hospedaje we've got shite for upload speeds ( It has taken over half an hour to upload one picture at 1KB/s now) but we're happy to be able to post to you. We're uploading the backlog of posts since Santiago without pics. Oh, before I forget. Today my odometer stopped working. Or, we think it did. It now only shows the trip meter. We're not sure if the odometer is still counting behind the scenes or not. I hope so because what little resale value I had is quickly plummeting. Not that I want to get rid of the bike but still…. Oh oh… We passed through Neuquin today, and when we got to the Hospedaje we ended up chatting with some guys who had taken their bikes and their kids to the moto race today and they informed us that two months ago a BMW moto place had opened up there. It's not even on the BMW site, so I'm not sure it's an official dealer or what. But, the point is that there's a place in Argentina to get your BMW looked at. Me? I'm crossing my fingers that Horse can hold out for another 5,000 kilometers. Which reminds me… I'm leaking oil now. Starting minutes after leaving BMW Santiago I have: tail light that doesn't indicate braking, gas light that won't go off, neutral light that is on 90% of the time, and now leaking oil from the sump plug. Bonus about the neutral light, though? I can totally drive off with the kickstand down now. The bike still thinks I'm in neutral and doesn't stall. And because there weren't enough notes at the end of this post. Dachary has just reminded me of something that's been going through my head the past couple days. At the start of this adventure I thought I could be one of those people that wanders around the globe for years on end (oh to be able to afford that). But, as the journey has progressed I've come to the conclusion that 90 days is just about right for me. I'm missing my comfy couch, my dog, and just… chilling. I think maybe It would be better if we had time to just hang out in a nice city for a couple weeks… maybe that's the trick to making motorcycle trips last years; more time to stop and stand still. But even then… I like having *my* home. It's a safe, and relaxing place I've carved out for myself in a neighborhood I love where I can find what I want or need without worry. Home is a good thing, and being away from it for a while really makes me appreciate it all the more. |
Day 92 - Piedro Del Aguila to El Bolson
The day started off, as usual, with us getting out of the hotel late because there was internet. Even though it wasn't particularly *good* internet, I thought of a couple of things we should do/check at the last minute which of course took longer than it should have. In the end, it was after 10AM when we got out of the hotel, and I'd suggested that we skip the lame hotel breakfast (i.e. bread) entirely and get some sandwiches at the gas station down the road, so it was 11AM before we hit the road.
Still, in spite of the late start, I was feeling good. I had an actual sandwich for breakfast, and Kay and I agree that eating breakfast to start the day has a huge morale effect (as well as physical effect). AND! I got Diet Coke and some chocolates - which, since I'm suffering the effects of being female at the moment, is a vital infusion of chocolate to the system - so I was really in a good mood this morning. One thing worth sharing: we've passed a TON of motorcyclists here in Argentina. Many of them have been adventure riders with panniers, etc. but a lot of them have also just been local motos with no panniers. And almost without exception, they all wave and seem happy to see us. It's almost like being back in the States, where you wave to your fellow biker because you're all part of a brotherhood of people who like to explore the world this way. It's nice. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5172/...0fc397eac5.jpg Routa 40 Alas, the good start to the day didn't last long. After less than an hour on the road, I was saying to Kay "the next bathroom we see, I need to stop." Kay pointed out that it might be a while before we found one… and he was right. We rode. And rode. And then rode some more. Until things got so desperate that I had to ask him to spot a good bush for us to pull over. Luckily, this stretch of the road had a ton of good bushes, so we pulled over at a likely spot, I grabbed my toilet paper and practically ran up the hill at the side of the road to squat behind a bush. Unfortunately, this wasn't a normal quick bathroom break. This was a "you are going to have HORRIBLE diarrhea so get off the bike NOW!" sort of break. I've dealt with diarrhea off and on since Mexico, I think, and this is the first time on the entire trip it's been so bad I couldn't wait for a bathroom. Remember my comment a week or two ago when we camped in Chile and I commented that I hadn't reverted to a savage enough to poo in a hole? Yeah. That's because I hadn't had a truly horrible case of diarrhea yet. This made the other bouts look mild. So I took care of things. And stood at the top of the hill for a couple of minutes because I knew I wouldn't be done. I was right. More taking care of things. Did I mention it's difficult to clean oneself properly, bathroom sanitation-wise, wearing full motorcycle gear? For me, the knee armor and the tall boots make it difficult to position oneself well for maximum cleaning. So there was a lot of wiping, and apparently my TP isn't particularly bum-friendly… my ass HURT when I was done. Back to the bikes, and I immediately take two Immodium. And then I stand there for a few minutes to see if I'm going to need to dash back up the hill. Apparently not. (In the meantime, Kay has been snapping beauty shots of the lake nearby, and an armadillo he happened to surprise when photographing some flowers. So it wasn't a totally wasted stop.) http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5252/...aa48348b6b.jpg IMG_2863 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5013/...4491a55ffe.jpg IMG_6763 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5099/...614c0e149e.jpg IMG_6766 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5174/...2ba7987ae9.jpg Armadillo Diarrhea without a functional bathroom, though? Gross. Unhappy. Disgusting. Wouldn't wish it on an enemy sort of thing. I hope to not have a repeat of that. We get a few miles down the road, and it becomes evident that the Immodium hasn't kicked in yet and I'm going to need a bathroom again soon. I say as much to Kay over the headset, and as we're riding, I spot a sign for a restaurant in 7km. "I need to stop at that restaurant!" I yell to Kay over the headset. "Are you hungry enough to eat anything yet?" he asks. "Probably not, but I'll try if I have to. I just need that bathroom!" And then I spend the next 7k telling my intestines "Hang in there. Come on, we can hold it. Just 7k." Etc. etc. A mantra of hope in my head because I *really* don't want to have diarrhea by the side of the road again. We get to a sign for the restaurant, which happens to be up on a hill, but it wasn't obvious early enough and Kay rides right by it. I yell to Kay that we just missed the restaurant, but there's a beautiful bridge across the lake, and on the other side there is what appears to be something that might have a bathroom. At first glance it might be a restaurant, but we realize as we pull up that it's a gas station with mini-mart and a whole bunch of people pulled over, using the services and enjoying a break by the lake. We pull in and I run to the bathroom, grateful that it has a toilet seat. And spend far too long in there, feeling bad for the queue of women waiting behind me (there are three stalls, but there are a ton of women in line and I know me staying in there so long is delaying everyone else) but I don't have much of a choice. After I'm done, I decide I should stick near a bathroom for a while so I don't have any more repeats of this near-call stuff, so Kay grabs me some potato chips to nom (I think I need the salt - dehydration is a worry with diarrhea like this) and some Diet Coke, and we hang out by the lake while I wait to see if my tummy will be upset again. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5055/...f242b8f65b.jpg IMG_6788 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5291/...013e79fc2e.jpg IMG_6819 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5091/...3331e6357b.jpg IMG_6828 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5253/...a0c6446587.jpg IMG_6831 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5300/...37793c4112.jpg IMG_6833 45 minutes later, I've been back to the bathroom once and think my intestines are hopefully happy enough to let me ride safely for a while. So back on the bikes. Where I realize that all of this mucking about with the diarrhea has dislodged other things… i.e. my "feminine hygiene product" has become positioned incorrectly, and is EFFING UNCOMFORTABLE! Obviously you men out there can't conceptualize it, but for any women reading this - you probably know how unbelievably uncomfortable an incorrectly-positioned feminine hygiene device can be when you're straddling a motorcycle. OUCH! But we've already spent so long here that I ask Kay if we can pull over at the next gas station we see, which I think will be in about 30 miles, so I can adjust. In the meantime, the landscape has gone from being interesting to drop-dead beautiful. Shortly before the last stop at the gas station, we'd rejoined Routa 40 (we'd left it for a while when there was a dirt section because I saw a paved road further east that would be faster) and it was absolutely stunning. Beautiful. Glorious. Kay was snapping pictures the whole time, and we were commenting back and forth about how beautiful it was, but the whole time I wasn't able to really enjoy it because of the intestinal trouble, and then the problem with my feminine hygiene products. I even remember thinking at one point "I really wish I wasn't dealing with this stuff so I could just enjoy the scenery more, because it's beautiful and I'm not paying enough attention to it." http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5135/...8cfb78887f.jpg Routa 40 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5220/...d6ab33258a.jpg That's one way to do it... http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5134/...aff602c966.jpg Routa 40 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5019/...17c135ef1f.jpg Routa 40 The landscape continued to be beautiful, and we arrived at San Carlos de Bariloche, on the shore of a stunningly beautiful lake, surrounded by mountains - some of them snow-covered. We hadn't actually gotten gas at the last gas station, so we had to leave Routa 40 and go into town to find a gas station here. Also, I wanted a bathroom so I could deal with my stuff. So into town we go, to discover - this town is effing gorgeous. Most of the towns we've seen so far in Argentina have been pretty well developed for Latin America. We'd commented yesterday or the day before that we could have been driving through Middle America, the landscape and towns seemed so familiar. But Bariloche is something special. The architecture in the town is intentionally planned to mimic the natural beauty of the surrounding landscape. There's a lot of natural wood-looking details, decorative trim and high-quality building and architectural styles that really elevated the town itself to express beauty and quality. I definitely wished it was later in the day so I could justify staying there for the night, because it was the kind of town where you want to spend more time. We really liked what we saw and wished we had more time there. We were relatively quick, though. We got gas, used the bathroom and grabbed a quick sandwich, since it had gotten to be 3pm and we hadn't eaten lunch yet. Then we headed out again, not without a backward glance or three at the beautiful town we were leaving, and back to Routa 40. More beautiful landscape. Gorgeous mountains surrounding us, marching south, pine and evergreen trees standing sentinel over rivers and lakes meandering along the valley floor. I've really never seen anything like it. It was as beautiful as Colombia, if not more so, but with a different feel. Colombia was lush and verdant, whereas this section of Argentina feels alpine. Snow on some of the mountains, pine trees everywhere and a hint of chill to the air, even at the hottest part of the day. This part of the land stirred my blood in a way that few places on the trip have - if I were ever to move somewhere out of the United States, I could see enjoying this sort of landscape. Kay commented that it was one of the best days of riding on the trip so far, and I have to agree. I kept an eye on the map and decided that El Bolson might be a good place to stop for the night. We've seen literally a ton of places offering camping here along Routa 40, as well as plenty of good hidey-camp spots, but with the diarrhea and me being girly, I really wanted a functional bathroom. And for the first time on the trip, I actually regret not camping. This type of terrain begs for camping. I'd really love to be surrounded by this beauty while I fall asleep, and wake up to it in the morning. I lament my desire for a bathroom… but practicality wins out. If we had to camp, I would, but it makes more sense to stop for the night at a place that is likely to have a hotel or hostel and hope I feel better tomorrow. We ride through town, spotting a ton of cabanas (cabins) but only one or two hotel/hosteria, and neither of them looks particularly promising. Also, as it's early (around 6pm) Kay has decided that he'd like to shop around for a place that has wi-fi. We have a ton of pictures to upload and there are a few things we didn't get to do on the Web last night because the net connection was so slow. So when we spot a hotel down a side street, check it out, and discover it has wi-fi and a nice, clean room with a bathroom - we take it. Even though it costs too much, as most everything in Argentina seems to. Settled in for the night, we discover a reasonably fast (although quirky) wi-fi connection, and Kay starts uploading photos before we head out for dinner. With a bit of light left, we wander out into the town looking for a restaurant that's open. That 4-day weekend the other adventure rider warned us about on Saturday when we crossed into Argentina? Apparently it was a Monday-Tuesday holiday, because *nothing* has been open at the towns we've stayed in the last couple of nights. Including restaurants. Tons of them, closed. We wandered around a bit and stopped at the first open restaurant we found. It turns out that service was slow, Kay wasn't particularly thrilled with his meal (whole trout, with bones, which was inconvenient) and my steak had a ton of gristle… but it *is* true what they say about Argentinian beef. It's some of the best beef I've had, including the Wagyu beef I had in Santiago, and some of the good steaks I've had at home in the US. It's not cheap here, either, but I'll definitely be getting steak again in Argentina now that I've gotten a taste of it. Kay's note: I'm pretty sure this is another tourist town (thus the high prices), although I'm not sure why tourists come here other than the fact that it has 4000 places offering "Camping". Dachary says she saw a shop sign offering lots of different nature related activities here, and notes that it's the only town for the next 170k so there not much of anywhere else to stay and do your nature related activities. On the way back to the hotel, we walk right past an artisan chocolate shop. That happens to be open. When we first crossed into Argentina from Chile, we passed a ton of artisan chocolate places, but we didn't have any Argentinian pesos yet so I couldn't stop and buy chocolate. I've since commented to Kay "now that we have money, of course we haven't passed a single artisan chocolate shop." It was obligatory that I walk in and check it out. Kay was shocked when I walked back out again, because they didn't have any "assorted" boxes of chocolate. One had to pick out the chocolates that one wanted. I couldn't be arsed to try to pick out individual pieces of chocolate, but I couldn't quite bring myself to walk away, either… so a quick consultation with the iPhone to get the word for "assorted" and then back into the shop to try to order an assorted box of chocolate in my poor Spanish. Some initial misunderstanding led to much mutual smiling and me walking out with an assorted box of chocolates. Score! So the day started out with promise, had a less happy middle, but has ended well. I am a happy woman, and hopefully tomorrow the diarrhea will be cleared up. Just in time for some dirt! (Random note about Kay's bike for the day: his brake light has started working again. The gas light also went off at one point, but then came back on. Still full of gremlins, but at least he now has a functional brake light again.) Kay's note: on the way to the restaurant we stopped in a supermarket where, once again, I grabbed some tasty looking bread products… something that looked like a cinnamon roll, only not, and something that looked like a regular bun but I suspected had something sweet inside (there was no signage). By itself this is not very noteworthy, but when we got back to the room at night I discovered that unlike all the other fresh bread products we've purchased and been disappointed by, this was ****ing delicious… well, the not-cinnamon-roll was. The other thing ended up being a bun with pineapple in it, which was pretty tasty. I'm soooo happy about this. Fresh baked goods have finally redeemed themselves, and they only cost $0.25 each! |
Day 93 - El Bolson to Sarmiento
Because we have internet the morning takes longer. We're figuring out when the cheapest day to fly home will be (still haven't purchased the tickets), checking on the stocks that are funding this (plummeting since the day we left), and e-mailing our dogsitter. Checkout time is 10:00, or maybe 10:30, depending on which sign you read but Dachary read the 10:00 one and starts stressing and getting a bit grumpy about not going over (since we're getting close). I'm not sure why since the guy won't care about a few minutes over, and even if he was an ass about it he can't do anything because we paid in cash.
We leave, go to the Seguro place we saw. They're open! I go in, stand in line, interrupt the lady when she starts in on the next guy "Excuse me a moment." They ignore me. I loom a bit more, and wait for the next paragraph to finish. "Excuse me a moment"… Ah, I have your attention. How nice. "do you have insurance for one month for my moto?" "No" "Ah. goodbye." We go to the bank and see a huuuuuge freaking line out the door. Fortunately the line is for the bank itself not the ATM. The ATM though is out of cash. Damn. But I learn something because two people used it before me. I was wrong about the machine with no buttons before. Just because it's an ASCII art terminal with arrows pointing to nonexistent buttons doesn't mean it isn't a touchscreen. I prodded it experimentally and yup, pressing on the arrow or the words works sometimes. There's an ass-hole at the gas station who not only tries to line-jump us but blocks the people who are at the pump from leaving. Then someone does line-jump us from the other direction. I ask the guy if the road we came in on is Routa 40 south, but no, it's jumped to the other main street in town without any signage. Dachary's hunch was right although I haven't a clue why she suspected it. While waiting for gas we see a break in the clouds where a shaft of light maybe 50 feet wide shoots down like a spotlight from God and starts moving across the hills. It's pretty amazing. Dachary though, is not having a good morning with the check-out time stress, and the assholes at the pumps and gives an official "****-it" to getting water across the street at the minimart and suggest we get it later. So we take off. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5059/...906ce85b3b.jpg IMG_2915 The scenery's not as amazing as yesterday, but it's beautiful in a rolling hills of scrub brush and grass kind of way. There's nothing to eat though and we didn't have "breakfast" at the hotel (more bread probably). The rain liners we put in at the start of the day (tops and bottoms) are helping with the cold but we're starting to feel the legendary Patagonian winds (and see the signs) and it's getting rather chilly. The hunger and the chill do not help with Dachary's mood. I nommed some of the leftovers from the roll things I picked up last night, so I'm not starving, but Dachary eschewed grabbing some bites because of time and stress. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5055/...8dc1bbb8e1.jpg Half llama half deer things Finally, it's 1:30 and we come into a town that… oh look a sign for an ATM… we follow it. There's nothing down the road except a police station. We go back… I hope there's at least gas in this … YES. With a minimart with tables even! We pull up. We go in. The lunch offerings are… minimal, but better than nothing. Two Ham and Cheese on wheat sandwiches (one piece of ham and one piece of cheese each) and two small beef Empanadas. While Dachary's in the bathroom I noticed a map of Patagonia with gas station icons… that'll help. So we got that too, but as we eat we find it's only the part of Patagonia we've already traveled through… shit. I fold it back up and ask if I can exchange it for one of all of argentina. The girl walks off and sends the other girl. I try again using more words… oh, yes, sure. Great… map of Argentina with…. shit this one's by the same manufacturer, and has lots of icons, but no Gas icons. WTF. Oh well, at least now I have a map for my tank bag so I can see what Dachary is talking about when she's asking me my opinion about the road choices ahead. I'm not as good as her at reading it while riding, but I find it's very nice to be able to have an idea of what's ahead, and the distances to towns and such rather than just having to blindly follow someone else's instructions. The GPS isn't much help as I can only see about 10k ahead of me on it unless I switch to a different mode, reorient it, and zoom out … which is a pain (nigh-impossible when i have winter gloves on) and steals too much attention from the road. We've found the GPS is good for the "where am I now?" question and the Map is good for the "Where are we heading?" question. A great combination. Anyways, our crappy breakfast / lunch does wonders for Dachary's mood. We go out, put on our electrics and our Cyclone Buffs and Dachary switches out of her mesh gloves which were freezing her hands. After filling up we make one more attempt to find the ATM, and do. I then proceed to break it. I think it failed be able to call home to do the transaction, gave me my card, and then gave up and said it was out of service. On the road the warmer layers have made an incredible difference. Neither of us have turned on the electrics, and we don't for the rest of the day, but now the wind is just a physical force pressing against us. It's not this negative thing that comes and chills you. Before it was "arrgh wind!". Now it's "hmm the wind is blowing me around a bit" At one point the road takes a sharp turn and we get the wind behind us. We're riding about 60Mph and it feels like standing still. So, I'm thinking the wind is somewhere near to 60Mph… maybe I'm wrong. When the day is done we encountered some pretty strong winds, and spent quite a while leaned over, but nothing worse than we've encountered on the trip before. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5259/...bcda29ff12.jpg Rider takes a break We stop opportunistically for gas, because we've passed towns with literally 1 and 3 buildings and have no confidence that anywhere on the map will have… anything. Just before another gas station Dachary spots something that might be a bank down a side street. The gas station attendant confirms this. The ATM however claims i have a zero dollar balance and won't give me money. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5220/...f7104ae82a.jpg IMG_2928 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5140/...6b6534dba0.jpg Dachary in the distance http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5214/...72741358a6.jpg Curva Peligrosa http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5133/...be0c36bda9.jpg IMG_2939 We drive on, and are starting to get concerned about the money thing. Yeah we'll probably pass more ATMs before Ushuaia but who knows if they'll give us more money and it's been the same Fail bank at the last two small towns. We decide that since Sarmiento is the biggest town on the map for a while (possibly the rest of the way), and everything else is dinky town it's worth going the extra 80k there and back. Plus Dachary is still physically feeling the need for a hotel, and that's our best chance for one of them too. When we're there I pull over and ask a guy where to find an ATM. He tells me about the one ahead, and then says where the other one is if that one isn't working. Yay for backup plan. We go down the road just a smidge and there it is. It's the same bank. We've named it the "Bank of Stupid". I go in and yup. Zero balance. I'm not stressing about the balance because it's almost impossible to have a balance of exactly zero. Negative sure… but what are the odds of accidentally withdrawing exactly the amount within your account? We go to the backup bank and thankfully it's the branch from this morning that was out of cash, but seemed to work otherwise. Yes it's work… no. Zero balance. WTF?! Just for the hell of it I try the business account and I get money! What the hell? Ok. Now, I'm stressed about the Zero balance. There was a hotel on the way into town, and we see another while waiting but it's across the street from a politician's office who feels the best way to attract votes is to blare music very loudly from speakers set up outside the front door. It's worse than a nightclub and the hotel is across the street. We go back to the first one. From this side it looks abandoned. But there are lights on so I try anyway. The metal bar gate in front of the front door isn't locked so I open it. The glass door behind that isn't locked so I open it … er the handle fall off… I put the handle back on, and open it more carefully. I walk in… There's no-one around. "Hola?" … no response "HOLA?!" … no response… There's a light on in a room just off the hall that has what appears to be someone's lunch fixings (bread, soda, etc.) on the counter…. weird. Back to the hotel across from the not-nightclub. 150 pesos for two twins or 200 ($50 US) for a double. Internet in the lobby but it's on a main street, there's no parking, and it's across from the loud politician. Dachary's not happy. She sends me back in to see if the woman can recommend another place that has parking, but refuses to tell me if she'll take it if she says there's nothing else. She's been hungry for hours now… The woman says no, she doesn't know one. I think she also says there aren't any other hotels, but I'm not sure. Then she says something I don't quite catch about parking on the other side of the block. I tell Dachary. She wants to keep looking although I'm pretty sure we have seen the whole town. I'm frustrated, feeling I'm in another impossible situation where there's no acceptable solution. The woman said there's no other hotel with parking, we've seen most of the town, and no other hotels so what else is there to do but take it? I tell her to lead the search since she's so determined, but she claims she doesn't know where she's going… I counter that I don't either but it gets me nowhere. So, with nothing else to head for, I go in search of the parking the woman was talking about. Turns out, it's another hotel… with parking. I swear to you the woman said "no" when I asked her if she knew another hotel with parking. I was pretty confident she went on to say there was no other hotel too… This one's run by a much nicer lady. You can't hear the loud politician inside, is twenty pesos cheaper, and has net in the lobby. It does, however, have Zebra striped bedding and only rooms with twin beds. Totally incongruous with the rest of the place. Whatever. We take it. Theres even a printed piece of paper with the password for the net in the room. We try it since we can barely see it in the room. "Authentication failure" hmm.. we try again. No. I bring the laptop and go see the lady. "What's the password for the internet?" Sadly, this hotel has one of the few secure passwords we've encountered, so she's reading it off to me and yes, it's the same one, and no, it doesn't work. I can see what she's reading from and confirm it. She keeps thinking I'm not getting it. I keep showing her the password I'm typing in. She writes it down and holds it up next to the screen. Yes, they're the same. No it's not working…. Repeat…. Give up. She's not convinced her password is wrong because she's elderly, doesn't understand computers, and someone she trusted told her it was the right password. I'm assuming a lot here, but I'm pretty sure I'm right. We decide to find an internet cafe before we grab food, thinking the cafe will close first. We can't find the one we saw before without way more wandering than Dachary is up for because she needs food, and if you haven't noticed the trend here Dachary needs to be feed at regular intervals just like a diabetic and we've not been doing that. Anyway, we give up looking for net and start looking for a restaurant. I know there's one near the hotel so we wander towards that. Along the way we pass another restaurant with a row of computers all populated by kids playing first person shooters. I go in and ask if they have WiFi… they don't but they'll let me use an ethernet cable with my laptop. Excellent, because we need to check the bank accounts and I aint doing that on a public computer. Log in and … oh.. shit…. Negative over $1,000 (US). That's um… That's not good. Check the business account… Yup, that's about right. Looks like the plane tickets from Panama just hit my account a week ago. I ****ing hate that merchants are allowed to sit on charges like that. There's also a $1000 transfer from my personal account to the business account that has gone into limbo. Same bank, but apparently they're not sure if they're good for the money because they took it out of my account and are now waiting to see… if they have it ? before they give it to our business account?? I dunno. But, of course about $300 of the -$1,000 is overage charges. I tweak the stock sell price to sell it since I accidentally put it a dollar too high yesterday, where it would have probably sold, but didn't, we read your comments and smile big smiles, then run off after about half an hour in the net cafe to find food before everywhere closes as it's now 9:30 at night. Dachary doesn't want to eat at the net cafe it was too loud, and filled with young teens blowing things up. Also, while they had hamburgers and pizza and things I've given up on ever getting a real pizza in Latin America. I keep bringing it up when I see it (habit) and then Dachary says "do you really trust it?" And I don't, so we get something else. The restaurant I'd seen earlier is there, and open… hours are 12-3pm and 8-11pm.. hmm. Inside the menu is painted on the wall, and the place smells somewhat of gas but when the proprietor comes over he's all excited about his offerings. Telling us how the pasta is all hand made as is the sauce, that they don't use any of that canned stuff, etc…. He goes over some of the options (with and without pasta) and recommends the beef pasta. We say "Beef is good" and there's a little confusion about what we want with it and we're all… "Whatever you recommend" because it's rare to see someone so excited about their food. So, he brings us spinach ravioli. I'm not sure what happened to the beef. It's… ok. The sauce is interesting, and hand made too, but also … ok. On the way back to the hotel Dachary hunts for Coke Light (Diet Coke) but can only find regular Coke in the wine store next to our hotel, but in the process of pulling it out of the fridge causes three other bottles to fall (stacked by fools), one of which escapes the case, plummets to the floor, breaks the cap and starts shooting an arc of Sprite across the room. For a moment everyone stares at it. Then Dachary reaches down, grabs it by the cap and picks it up while Sprite continues to pour out through her fingers and onto the floor. I'm watching through the window from outside and laughing my butt off. People in the store are grinning at the chaos and running for something to clean up the growing puddle with. She's apologizing… It's excellent. She apologizes more, puts her coke on the counter and realizes that she only has a hundred (it's what the ATM dispenses) for a bottle of soda. Then has to come out to me to get some small bills. That coke was worth every peso. Back in the room the mood is good, but tired. I write up a couple responses to comments to the thread on ADVRider, we watch a Torchwood, make love, and go to bed. Some days have their ups and downs. The plan, with regards to money, is to sell the few stocks I have left, which should be just enough to cover the plane tickets and rest of the trip. We'll try and store the bikes at Dakar Motos and have them ship them up north to us when we can afford it. But, when we get home we'll be broke to the point that we won't be able to pay the next month's rent. So… that'll be interesting. I'm crossing my fingers that I'll be able to get another position at my old company, or anywhere else in Boston. But as a web developer who's run their own business and has 15+ years of experience I've usually got a good chance at the jobs I apply for. Side note: We forgot to mention that the other day I killed a bird. It was the first real death of the trip as the llama I drove over was already dead. That, and we don't count the thousands and thousands of bugs we've killed. I was riding along when this bird launched itself from the side of the road towards the bike. I'm not sure if it hit the side of the bike and then my knee, or went directly into my knee, but at about 60mph I felt the thud of it bouncing off of me. Dachary saw something come off the right side of the bike and go flying off to the side of the road. She thought I'd dropped something, but when she passed through the same section of road there were still feathers floating in the air, and judging by the "velocity with which he was ejected into the ditch" there's not much chance he survived. The next day I was pondering him and feeling bad that I hadn't gone back to make sure he wasn't laying there suffering. Put him out of his misery if needed… |
Day 94 - Sarmiento to Perito Moreno
Routa 40… what can I say about Routa 40? It's wonderful, glorious and wild.
And today, it totally kicked my ass. We knew that today we'd hit dirt. And we've been warned (in this thread, even) that Routa 40 is gravel and sand, and would be outside our comfort zone (mine, that is). But that warning didn't prepare me for the reality of today's riding. Let's be clear - I've done very little riding on unpaved surfaces. Before we left, we did some dirt rides in New England, but the dirt we rode back home was mild and well-behaved. And it was just dirt. Mostly hard-packed. I've never ridden in deep gravel. I'd never ridden in sand before this trip. In fact, I'd never really ridden in anything loose before we got started. My first real experience with loose stuff, aside from riding on beaches a couple of times which I actually kinda enjoyed, was riding the road to Tierradentro in Colombia. It had pretty much every kind of road surface; paved, hard-packed dirt, rocky dirt, deep-ish sand and loose soil. I rode it and didn't drop the bike once (or maybe once when stopping - don't remember) but I was terrified and far outside my comfort zone there. The bike kept sliding all over the place and doing all kinds of crazy things, and it was worse when I'd be in a corner and traffic would be coming the other way and I wasn't able to get out of the way or move quickly and had a few uncomfortable encounters, including one what I was convinced at the time was a near-death encounter with a truck. So that introduction to loose stuff did not go well. Since then, I've kinda been dreading any kind of non-paved surface we've encountered (even though I had ridden dirt before and didn't mind at all - now even a little dirt could set me off). Luckily for me, because of time constraints, we've mostly stuck to the pavement. There have been a few roads that have turned to dirt for a while and then back to pavement (particularly in Colombia, but also in Ecuador) and that was ok, but if I saw a segment of the map that was dirt, I went to dread before we ever saw the state of the road. With that in mind, I was not looking forward to encountering the unpaved sections of Routa 40. But I know it's something that Kay really wanted to do, and there are some things off it that we'd like to see, so I figured that when we got here, I'd just suck it up and deal. I figured I could ride a bit slow until I got comfortable with the road surface and just take it as it comes. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5014/...9ccdd22af8.jpg The start of the dirt So when we left Rio Mayo, where the pavement ends, I actually wasn't dreading it. I just kept telling myself that it wasn't too bad - just 120km of dirt before Perito Moreno, where it's paved again before it goes back to dirt - and just to take the one section of the road at the time. We rode up a bit of a hill that had gravel on it, and as my first encounter with real gravel, I was a bit unnerved by the way my bike was acting. The front end kept trying to go all over the place. We made our way to the top of the hill and I found my way into a rut (without ever knowing anything about driving in ruts, really) and found it was much easier going. Only one problem: the tall piles of gravel between each rut. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5218/...70e66d8be5.jpg IMG_6865 For a bit, I was keeping up with Kay - going 40+ KPH, thinking that as long as I could stay in the rut, this road might not be so bad. Not bad at all, actually. Then, without warning, the rut ended. Oh shit! Front end starts going all squirrely. It feels like the bike is suddenly trying to go sideways and the combination of gravity and forward momentum demand a terrible toll. Bike almost goes down on the right, and my right foot hits the ground, running on instinct, and I manage to keep the bike up. Hit another rut, and suddenly the bike has traction again and starts going forward like it had never tried to unseat me, or threatened to go down. Nothing to see here, just a well-behaved moto going forward on an unpaved road. A bit bumpy, but nothing out of the ordinary. Adrenaline racing through my veins. "Holy shit, did you see what my bike just did?" I ask Kay. He didn't - he's riding ahead of me and didn't happen to be looking in his rear-view mirror just then. I told him the bike almost went down and I just managed to save it by putting my foot down, and he warned me that while that was my instinct, I shouldn't do it - I could get hurt by trying to put my foot down and would rarely save the bike from going down. I tried to keep this in mind, and hoped I wouldn't need to. A few minutes later, the rut I'm riding in ends again. This time the bike goes squirrely to the left, and then to the right - bumping across a rut and threatening to throw me off. I think I'm down for sure this time, but my foot goes down instinctively, the bike keeps moving, and when the front tire hits the new rut, the bike straightens out like nothing had ever happened. Riding along… oh shit! Swish! Swish! Bam! Nothing wrong at all - nothing to see here. Adrenaline redoubled now, and I'm suddenly very aware of how dangerous the thick gravel is. It's fine as long as I'm in a rut, but the ruts end. Without warning. And when the road was in shadow, it was easier to see the ruts - now that the clouds are breaking up and the sun is coming out, it's lighting the road quite brightly and it's more difficult to make out the ruts from the piles of gravel in between them. At this point, I think I had lost the mental battle. I just wasn't prepared for how the bike would handle in this deep gravel. The ruts were ok, but when they ended, it scared the shit out of me. A few minutes later, Kay suggests that I cross to his rut, because it seems wider and better than the rut I'm riding in. He says I should slow way down to cross, because when I try to plow through the gravel between them, the bike will go squirrely. So I slow way down, but apparently not slow enough. I try to cross the gravel between the ruts and the bike goes down. It happens almost before I can react, and I'm thrown off but manage to avoid falling. I reach down to hit the kill switch and yell to Kay "I'm down." I could maybe get the bike up again without help if the road was flat and paved, where the tires had traction, but not like this - not in piles of deep gravel where I barely have traction. So I stand helplessly by my bike and wait for Kay to come back and help me… and "I'm down!" I hear in my headset. I look ahead - way ahead, as Kay had gotten ahead of me at that point - Kay had tried crossing the ruts to turn around and ride back to help me with my bike, and his bike went down, too. "Do you need help?" I ask. "No, I'm fine," Kay says, and starts trying to get his bike up. And trying. And trying, without success. Because of the way the bike has fallen, he can't seem to get it up without help. I ask if I should go to him to help him pick up his bike, or if he'll help me pick up mine first, and he comments that his bike is further in the road so I should come help him get his first. Kay's note: Dachary fell at probably 30kph she told me she wasn't ok, that she hurt her leg, but then I dropped mine as I crossed the ruts turning around and totally forgot about her being in pain. I should have totally gone to her bike so she could ride to mine but I'm a forgetful idiot sometimes. I walk up to him, nursing my left shin (somehow it got hit when I got thrown off the bike) and it takes a few minutes to get to his bike because he'd gotten so far ahead. When I do, we try to lift the way we normally pick up his bike - him on the front and me using the luggage rack to get leverage on the rear - and nothing. The bike will barely budge. We try again, and still nothing. This is new. We've never had this much trouble getting his bike up. When we tug on it, the whole bike just slides in the gravel - there's no traction at all. Every time we try to lift it it the handlebars seem to rotate into Kay's crotch. I suggest that Kay keep pushing up on the front of the bike, and I'll go to the other side and try to pull on the handlebars and pannier to help get the bike up. We can't rely on traction so maybe equal forces on the opposite sides of the bike. Plus I can use my weight to try to counter-balance the bike when pulling on it and hopefully we can get it up. On three… one… two… three! And the bike lifts up. Yay! I hold it while Kay gets on, and stand nearby while he tries turning around to ride back to my bike, just in case he goes down again. He doesn't, and I walk back to my bike while he rides back to it. We get to my bike, and go straight to the same method to lift mine, since the normal way didn't work on his bike at all. My bike has fallen on my right pannier, and Kay can easily lever the bike up onto the pannier, so it's at a better angle and doesn't have as far to lift. One, two, three - and my bike comes up much easier than his. I put the stand down and climb on, and we start heading forward again. But by now I'm *really* not happy about the gravel on this road, and it's not far before I hit another squirrely patch and just break down into sobs. I was *not* prepared for this. Kay tells me to stop the bike and take a break but I think that if I try to stop I'll go down again, so I ride like that for a minute, trying to see the rut through my blubbering. But soon I realize he's right and I have to stop, but by now I'm well past the point of reasoning, so I just grab the clutch and let the bike slow down, and then grab the front brake and hang on and sob like someone just died. I don't even put the bike in neutral - I just stand there holding the clutch and brake and hang on while I sob. Kay has stopped and gotten his bike a bit further off the road, and has walked back to check on me. He tells me to put my side stand down, but I can't even manage that. All I can do is hang on and cry. He stands there helplessly, wanting to do something (I'm guessing) but not able to reason with a woman who won't even put her side stand down. After a couple of minutes, I'm sick of holding my bike up and want to go sit down on the side of the road - away from the bike - so I put it in neutral, put the stand down and manage to kill the engine before dismounting and walking away. I'm not going to lie - this was my darkest hour since starting to ride a bike. Even when I crashed my first bike, I never thought of not riding. But here, now, stranded on the side of Routa 40, I was half-convinced I'd never get back on a bike again. I yanked my helmet and gloves off and sat by the side of the road, sobbing my lungs out, crying harder than I've cried since my grandma died 9 years ago (my grandparents raised me, so it was pretty much like my mom had died). Kay sat down next to me and tried to talk to me, but all I could say was "I can't do it." Over and over again. Sob. "I can't do it." Sob. "I thought I could but I just can't." Sob. Variations of this went on for probably a good twenty minutes. Every time the sobs just about petered off, I'd think of letting Kay down, or ruining our adventure, or having to turn tail and be defeated by a stupid *road* and I'd just start sobbing again. It felt like I had absolutely no control over my emotions and I felt defeated by the entire thing. It was just too much. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5176/...b08839ca20.jpg Despondent Dachary Eventually, I said "You're going to make me get back on the bike and ride it somewhere, aren't you?" Kay didn't understand, so I clarified "We can't stay here." "Well, I can ride the bike back, hitchhike back here, and ride the other bike back, if you really can't ride back." The thought of having to hitchhike back to town and make Kay ride two bikes back was too much. I felt bad enough about breaking down like this, but it just felt wrong to make him ride two bikes back to town when I was physically capable of riding mine. If I'd been hurt or injured, it would have been different - but I worried about Kay riding by himself, and what would happen if he'd drop one of the bikes without me there to help him pick it up? Or what if he got hurt and had no-one to go for help or even perform basic first-aid on him? Worrying about him seemed worse to me than trying to ride the bike somewhere, so it was clear I'd have to ride it. The obvious choice was to ride back to Rio Mayo and regroup. I asked Kay to check my trip meter because that would tell us how far we'd gone since we got gas, on the edge of Rio Mayo. (I reset the trip meter every time we get gas so I can keep track of how far we've gone and when we need to start hunting gas again.) A little over 18 miles. We were less than a third of the way to Perito Moreno. And yet… in spite of my meltdown, I'm not a quitter. I'm very stubborn by nature. I hate leaving things undone, and admitting defeat to a road just seemed… weak. Turning around seemed like the coward's way out. Plus, from a very practical standpoint, the road forward at that point looked relatively flat with wide ruts, while the road back had deep, narrow ruts that made me cringe to think of. So, in spite of the fact that it was more than twice the distance we'd already come… I wanted forward. I wasn't at all sure about my choice, but it seemed like the right thing to do. I had to at least try. And then there's the whole falling off the horse thing… the idea that if you don't confront your fears when they're large in your mind, they'll just get bigger and bigger and eventually become this massive THING in your head and you can never really get past them. I don't always do the best job of it, but I do try to confront my fears. I try not to let them rule my life. (Hence a woman being afraid of heights climbing around in rafters 150 feet above a stage, or climbing small mountains… I generally try to confront the things that I fear.) So. Forward it is. This time, I went in front. I wouldn't try riding at the speed that Kay set - I'd ride as fast (or slow, as the case may be) as I damn well please. I'd have preferred to have warning of ruts ending, which was an argument for having Kay in front… but the speed issue was more important for me, and I had more control if I led. So I did. When we first got moving again, I went *very* slow. So slow I had to use some clutch to keep from stalling the bike. Luckily, not far after I had my meltdown, the road became a bit easier - the ruts were wider and flatter. I picked up my speed a bit. I was going 20KPH. At this rate, with 80 kilometers to Perito Moreno, it would take us four hours. I was ok with that. It was around 1:30PM, I think. And I felt a rather serene sense of calm come over me. It would take as long as it took. I would go as slow as I needed to go to feel like I had some chance of controlling the bike and reacting to the road conditions. At first, it was grim. I hung on, gripping the bars so hard my hands hurt, until I heard Kay say in my helmet (I swear sometimes he reads my mind) "Don't forget to relax your muscles a bit, and relax your grip on the bike." I did. It got a little easier. More forward. I found a good rut that seemed to keep going, and noticed my speed creeping up a bit more. I was near 30KPH at points. I know it was painfully slow to Kay, and crossing big distances this way would take a very long time, but we were moving forward and that was the important thing to me. 30KPH (around 20 MPH) seemed like a fine speed. Kay's note: honestly I didn't care. I was just happy that she hadn't given up. Although I still contend that the bumps are a lot easier to deal with at speed, I really didn't mind just chilling behind her. I'm in no rush to get anywhere. And then we got to a cattle barrier thing… these metal grates in the road that Kay said prevent the cattle from crossing from one field into another. Apparently they don't like to cross them, for some reason. The road gets narrower at these grates, and the ruts vanish as all of the cars make a different line to cross the grate. Luckily, by this point I knew that the ruts would vanish, so I slowed way down and just kept moving forward through the deep gravel. The front end did move around quite a bit but I was going slow enough that I could have easily stopped if I needed to, and put my feet down, and that gave me the confidence that I needed to keep moving forward. So I crossed the cattle barrier, found a good rut again not far down the other side, and kept going. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5135/...9ca785f7a0.jpg IMG_6849 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5096/...669e5e9995.jpg IMG_6886 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5177/...72ca5d7d04.jpg IMG_6878 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5137/...62ff4ba3d2.jpg IMG_6868 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5136/...552623d432.jpg IMG_6853 I have no idea how far things went on this way. I kept my eyes on the rut, and seemed to have a knack for picking the best rut. It was ok. Going this slow, I had time to see a rut ending and react appropriately. The only thing I couldn't control was the wind. It had been blowing steadily since yesterday at some point, but it had picked up while I'd been sitting down, having my breakdown. It was a constant pressure, but the wind speed varied, so the angle at which you'd have to compensate varied. As a result, the wind would regularly blow you across the road. Just a little bit - just a foot or two - but with the need to stay in the rut, even a foot or two could be a serious problem. That could put you in the gravel burm between the ruts. So it wasn't just "stay in the ruts and watch what they're going to do ahead of you" - it was "fight the wind to stay in the ruts and watch what it's going to do ahead of you." It required constant concentration and careful attention, and even so, the wind pushed me into the gravel once or twice - but I was going slow enough that I was ok, I just let the bike do what it wanted to do and drifted with it. No more squirrely stuff that I'd encountered earlier when I was trying to keep up with Kay's 40-50kph. At some point along the way, we passed a sign for road construction. We laughed. This was a gravel road in the middle of nowhere - what kind of road construction could it be? And then, magically, there was a whole wide gravel road beside us. A second Routa 40, which they were preparing for pavement. Kay joked that maybe we should ride up there and try using that one, because there weren't any ruts. But at this point I had gotten attached to the ruts - they were Good Things as long as they didn't end suddenly and dump you into a gravel pile. Kay's note: not long after this the road got a little skinnier at another cattle grate with an approaching truck. Dachary decided to play it safe and pull over rather than try and fit beside the truck. I pull over behind her and as I am almost fully stopped, crossing a rut of course, the bike starts tipping down to the right. Dachary is talking over the headsets about how she wanted to play it safe and not drop it beside the truck and my face is heading for the dirt. I'm simultaneously wondering if my helmet is going to impact, and pondering the irony of what she's saying as I head for the ground. She goes on for a second or two and then I hear something like "oh my" as she notices what's just happened. The guys from the oncoming truck, and the one behind us, all hop out and the bike is righted in seconds while I'm trying not to break out laughing from the situation... And then, magically, there was pavement. This was very tempting. The pavement ran along side the gravel Routa 40 for miles. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5258/...e7aee3b65c.jpg IMG_6870 At some points, we passed construction workers doing stuff on the pavement, but for the most part, it just looked deserted and pristine. I kept thinking how wonderful it would be to be riding up there on the smooth, beautiful pavement instead of down here in the miserable gravel, but the other cars and trucks on the road were using the gravel, so I figured we should, too. Kay's note: the pavement, like the beautifully graded dirt, was separated from us by a very large ditch, or raised above us by four feet. There was, occasionally, a rough crossover that was probably for the construction workers. I'm sure we would have switched over if it was trivial to do so. And then, eventually, after we'd been riding alongside the pavement for so long I thought it was just going to follow us all the way to Perito Moreno, the gravel Routa 40 had a desvio (detour) onto the pavement. Yes, that's right. We went from deep gravel Hell to beautiful, smooth, firm, traction-y pavement. And it felt WEIRD. It almost felt like there was something wrong with the bike, because it wasn't bumping and jouncing along anymore. It was almost too smooth. We had traveled about 44 miles from Rio Mayo when we ran into pavement. We've got two maps of Argentina - mine is a Michelin map we bought in the States (widely regarded as one of the best maps you can get, Kay says) and Kay is using a map of Argentina that we bought in a gas station, because we thought it showed gas stations. It doesn't, but Kay decided he'd like it in his map pouch since he never knows where we are - I'm always the one with the map. Kay's map seems to be more recent than mine, because it shows more stretches of Routa 40 as being paved than my map. But even his more recent map showed this entire stretch of Routa 40 from Rio Mayo to Perito Moreno as unpaved. And yet, here we were, a little over halfway there, and we had magical pavement. I felt extremely lucky and gratified to be riding pavement again… and yet also, peevishly, a little disappointed. I had resigned myself to riding all this way on the crap gravel, and had made a weird sort of peace with the idea. But here I was on pavement, after all. Still, the pavement enabled us to ride so much faster. And I was also able to look around me, for the first time since we left Rio Mayo. The entire way, I'd been so busy staring at the ruts and the gravel road that I'd barely had the energy or attention to spare to look up. But now that we were on pavement, I could see that we were riding through beautiful country. Everyone says that Patagonia is flat and empty, but it isn't. There are small hills and curves - just enough to give the landscape an interesting symmetry for the eye to follow. And there's scrub and small bushes to break up the barren terrain. The sky is oh-so-blue, and it feels like you can see forever to the horizon. I'd been missing all of this while we were on the gravel, but now on the paved road I had the leisure to appreciate the beauty of the country we were traveling. On the nicely paved road, we made speedy progress toward Perito Moreno. It was around 4PM when we hit the police checkpoint outside of town, where the female officer asked me about where we were from and where we were going. She was not satisfied when she asked me where we were going. Ushuaia, she knew, but she wanted to know where we were going *right now.* I didn't know. I wanted to sit down and look at the map again, because it showed 500km of unpaved road before me, and after the hellish breakdown I'd had on this stretch of road, it seemed like a bad idea to venture further afield. So I told her we wanted to go to Perito Moreno for a restaurant and a gas station, and then we'd decide where we were going. That wasn't a good answer for her. She asked again - were we going to the border crossing with Chile, to Perito Moreno, or where? I said again that we wanted Perito Moreno and then maybe Routa 40 or maybe we'd return to the Pan Americana, to Routa 3. But that we didn't know. She didn't seem to like this answer. She asked me something else, which I didn't understand. Then she asked for my bike papers and my passport, which I handed over. More questions, which I didn't understand. (I think at one point she asked me how old I was? But that question always confuses me - why does she need a record of that? - so she calculated it herself before I could answer. And then wrote it down on her record, along with my name, my passport number, my destination, and my moto's license plate number.) Back to Kay for a question he didn't understand before giving up and asking for the passport and bike papers. She took his information down, and then ignored us. Kay asked if we could go, and she waved us on, almost as an afterthought. Definitely the weirdest police stop we've had here in Argentina. Kay's note: she's writing this down on a side of a sheet of blank paper. I can appreciate that she's being diligent about her job, but really. No-one is ever going to see this information and I doubt she'll stick it into a computer anyway. If it were that important there'd be a damn form for it, or at least some lined notebook paper. Not a blank sheet with random information written here and there on it. Down the road to the gas station, where we gas up (we need over two gallons each, even though we've only gone 80 miles since our last fill-up - riding the gravel used a LOT of gas) and ask the gas station guy for a restaurant recommendation, as we're cold and hungry (lunch was a lame ham and cheese sandwich at the gas station in Rio Mayo). He sends us into town. We follow his directions and find a decent-looking restaurant. Which is closed. So back to the main street. Where every. Single. Restaurant. Is. Closed. No idea why. It's shortly before 5pm - after 5 by the time we check the last restaurant in town. A couple of panderias are open (bakeries) but no restaurants at all. So back to the gas station where we eat yet another stupid gas station sandwich (over half our meals here in Argentina seem to be gas station sandwiches) and contemplate the maps. Kay is for going forward. There are only a few unpaved stretches of Routa 40 left, according to his map - a bit over 300km in total. He says that I proved I could ride this road after my breakdown. I point out that it took us four hours to cover 44 miles. He points out that we were stopped for a while… but I was still averaging 20-30kph at best and 300 kilometers at 20-30kph is days of riding (plus the paved stretches in between). So I'm in favor of crossing over on the paved road from Perito Moreno to the Pan Americana (route 3) and riding the last few hundred kilometers there. But that has the unfortunate side effect of taking us away from the glacier we want to see on the way down. There is a paved route from the Pan Americana to the glacier, but that's essentially an extra 500km of riding (round trip). I still think an extra 500km of pavement would be faster than 300km of dirt, but I know Kay wants to go the rest of the way down Routa 40 and doesn't see it as a big of a deal because I've proven that I *can* ride it… Thinking of routes makes me want to cry again. I'm still emotionally wrung out from earlier and don't want to make a decision. Plus I'm cold and feeling battered from the unaccustomed bumping and bouncing around. My forearms are sore from gripping the bike too tight, and from the bouncing around the front end did on the gravel. My left shin is sore from where I banged it when my bike went down. I'm cold and want a good meal, still - gas station food isn't cutting it. So I ask Kay if we can go into town and find a place to stay (and yes, pay for a hotel instead of camping - I'm already cold and think it will be too cold at night for me to be comfortable) and he's willing to accommodate me. So back into town, where one of the restaurants we checked was also a hotel and advertised wi-fi. Kay asks about the price (more than we want to spend) and then walks down the street to ask at the other hotel. Even more. So it's pay more than we want to spend, or camp. I'm still really cold in full sunlight, so I opt for pay more because I want to be warm. And I feel in need of a comfy bed after the battering I took on the road. So we book the hotel, pull the bikes in, unload stuff and get down to updating the ride report. When Kay asks for the password for the wi-fi, he also asks when the restaurant opens. Apparently it doesn't open until 8:30! We assume she meant PM. So now we've killed enough time that we can hopefully go out to the restaurant and get a warm meal, which I am very much looking forward to. Who knew it would be this difficult to find a restaurant for food in Argentina? Kay's note: this is a recurring problem. So many restaurants just aren't open. Our South America book noted that Argentinians typically eat dinner around nine. What it failed to mention was that none of the restaurants are open until just before then. So frustrating. While we ate our sandwiches at the gas station this evening dachary noted that she never thought she'd be somewhere where there was so frequently a town and a main road and nothing to eat. Also, don't stay in Perito Moreno. $65 US was the cheap hotel (Hotel Americana, with somewhat functional wi-fi and good parking). There are a couple campgrounds here which probably aren't expensive. Dachary was exhausted from her breakdown, and cold (probably from spending so much energy on the same), and stressed, so I don't regret the decision to take the warm hotel room, but Dayum! |
Day 95 - Perito Moreno - Tres Cerros, Argentina
It was decided. Pavement was the way to go. From Perito Moreno we could cut east to the coast, then down Route 3 (the Panamerican). There's a hundred kilometers or so of dirt towards the end that there's no getting around but Dachary was willing to do that.
Before going out though we head to the hotel restaurant for "breadfast" They call it breakfast but no. Argentina doesn't have breakfast as far as we can tell. The waiter brought us a basket of breads some jelly, some butter (this has been surprisingly rare) some coffee and tea. I thought when he went away that maybe he'd return with eggs, but no. Not even in the Hotel Americano. While we eat they're playing footage from last nights earthquake and tsunami in Japan on the TV. Dachary intentionally avoids watching it. I can't not. It really affects me. As I commented on ADVRider when we got back to the room: There's something... *more* about seeing something like this when you too are far from home. When you're home it's happening "over there" but you're safe "here". Except, we're not home at our safe "here" were "over there" too. Maybe not the same over there... maybe it's "out here" but we're out in the world, far from home where everything always feels so much safer than it really is. Anything can happen "out here". We don't have a clue what today holds for us... accidents, smiles, frustration, laughter, hardship? I was almost crying reading the details of what happened... Everything's so much more "out here". ... Bundled up like sausages, Dachary even put her thermal liners in her legs, but neither of us deemed to put on our winter gloves. Not far down the road we saw rain ahead, pulled over, put the rain covers on our tank bags and reached for the winter gloves. So glad we did. The next couple hours were wet, cold, more wet, and more cold. It was about 40 deg F when we started but the wet gear just sucked the heat from us. When we finally got to the next town we tracked down the gas station pull up to the pumps, and wait… and wait… wtf are those guys doing? Finally a guy comes out. No gas. Only diesel. Why they didn't block of the lanes to the gas only pumps is beyond me. "Where is a gas station with gas?" they gave us directions to another one which we found, with a long line… Lines mean gas. We like gas. We get into line and sit there for about forty minutes getting soaked. Afterwards we go back to the first gasless station because it's got a nice eating/seating area and hopefully food. We get in and disrobe as much as possible. Dachary goes and changes her shirt because she'd neglected to tuck in her t-shirt and the soaking wet bottom of it is slowly sending water upwards. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5131/...91f6de212a.jpg Dachary's Cocoa . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5100/...5d1b712e37.jpg Kay chills We find some empanadas, microwave them, thank the gods for hot food, and decide that this whole Hydrotex / GoreTex thing is ****ing bullshit. We've been good about keeping them clean, which seems to be the key. And they do keep us dry for a little while, but eventually they always reach their saturation point, and we end up damp. Our legs, which in riding position are pressed against the GoreTex and it against the shell, are soaked. **** this noize. **** it in the ear. It sucks to put them in and we just keep getting wet. Get yourselves some Frog Togs. We also decide that while we totally respect Joe, and know that he's done the pass before Ushuaia in the snow without electric gear, his claims that others can do so must take into account the fact that he is a motorcycle riding alien who never eats, drinks, or pees and obviously has a different metabolism. His kind is just more impervious to the cold than us humans. If it weren't for our electrics (and the huge help from Revzilla in getting Dachary a replacement) we would be shivering uncontrollably. As it is, we're just cold. Dachary's thermal skivvies are wet (under the Hydratex). My wet pants are sucking what warmth I can maintain out of me and we are NOT looking forward to going back out there. Earlier in the morning I had pondered what the cars passing us must think, "… and they do this for fun?!" That bit kept going through my head. Just as we were about to head out Dachary started in with another bout of shivering and we found her some hot cocoa which helped. We had a few minutes of simply overcast before catching up with the rain again. And then… oh bliss. Oh Joy. Dry skies! Without the rain we started to dry out, and while the temperature hadn't increased, our moods had. After a while we came to a curious desvio (detour). The curious thing about it was that the road continued forwards with brand new pavement, but they'd made a dirt mound in front of it and the desvio sign told you to go left OR right…. left was next to town, but right looked wider and flatter, although just as wet. So, we go right. About 100 meters in my back end starts fishtailing, I let off the gas to let it chill but no. I'm in the slickest mud I've ever encountered and there's nothing for it. It's going down. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5136/...ac16b60c0a.jpg Offloading I hit the kill switch, get up, and look around. My left pannier is about four feet behind the bike. Shit. Oh well. Dachary has stopped way behind me, having barely gotten onto the road and not into the real mud yet. This isn't normal mud. This is wet clay. It is caking itself around the bottom of my boots. Each one is at least two pounds heavier by the time I've finished moving the pannier that ripped off to the side of the road. Dachary comes over and we try to lift the bike but we've got no traction with our feet and the bike is just too heavy without any. I remove the second pannier, but leave the yellow bag over the back of the seat. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5138/...5fca0f507d.jpg Mud . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5180/...9a0289ed0a.jpg Mud Second try it starts to budge but… no wait. Have to adjust my position. Ok. Try again. It starts lifting… half way… heading back down… keep going …. three quarterrrrssss… my feet are slipping out from under me. It's that last bit, going up past the tipping point. I'm lifting as hard as I can and my feet just keep sliding out from under me. It starts to go back down. I think about letting it and trying again, but it's not going to get any better… "keep going" I say… and we're both pulling as hard as we can. I'm seriously worried that one, or both, of us is going to **** up their back muscles doing this, and then…. past the tipping point… up to the…. shit I need to put the kick stand out, but holding it up is really hard even though it's almost vertical. I get it out, and we lean it down where our wonderful "big fat foot" takes the weight and doesn't go plunging down into the mud like the factory designed foot would. Seriously, WTF is it with all these "dirt" bikes with skinny little feet on the kick stand? Is there any manufacturer out there who makes a dirt bike with a fat enough foot do handle real sand or mud? Anyways… I decide that ****ing with the panniers here in the mud isn't a brilliant idea so I walk them back to the part of the road where it was just wet gravel. Dachary stays with the bike while I get on and turn it around, very, very slowly. This stuff is horrible. The big problem is that even when you're stopped totally still, there is a very good chance you'll drop it because as soon as it starts leaning one way you'll put pressure on your foot and it'll start sliding out from under you. Also, my rear tire sucks for this. Back at Lima BMW I asked them for a dual sport tire. They said "how about a Metzler Tourance?" Now, while it's not my first choice, it IS the first choice of a lot of riders, and it's good enough that there's real debate about it. So I said sure. The next day they have got the Tourance in and hand it to me… "huh" I think, "I don't remember the Tourance having that tread, but it says 'Metzler Tourance' on it so I guess I must have been misremembering." It's not a tire I've done a lot of research on. But, a couple days ago we stayed in a hotel and when we went back to our bikes and there was a Dakar sitting next to us with a Tourance on the back tire. But that Tourance doesn't look anything like my Tourance. THAT tourance looks like I remember the Tourance looking. I look at mine again. Metzler Tourance EXP. I've just looked it up and this thing IS marketed as a "dual sport" tire but it so isn't. It's got big fat patches of rubber with skinny little ditches in between. It's like a "oh someday I may go on dirt" kind of tire. ****ing BMW Lima. They were nice enough, but they are NOT riders there. Better than BMW Santiago though… Anyways… I get sidetracked this much in real life too…. I get the bike turned around without falling, and backtrack over a part Dachary has discovered is a bit firmer than the rest. Plus it all gets better as we head towards her. Back on firm ground I find a large block of concrete to scrape off a couple pounds of mud from each boot, and a smaller piece of concrete which I then use to beat the part of the pucks that hang onto the panniers. The pucks are ok, they don't need bending. It's the aluminum sides of the pannier itself that have been bent so that the L shaped thing now comes out at an angle. *Wham* *Wham* *Wham* *Wham* *Wham* *Wham* *Wham* *Wham* *Wham* *Wham* *Wham* *Wham* *Wham* *Wham* *Wham* *Wham* *Wham* *Wham* "good enough" I've beaten the top two into submission. The bottom two are still angled out more than they should be, but they're still firm and even if they rattle the weight of the pannier will keep them in place. I start screwing it back on. The bottom two don't move around really (yay) but only one of the top two actually pulls close enough to engage the frame. The other one is all "I'm tight! I'm good! I can do it!" but isn't actually touching anything but the pannier itself. Dachary thinks it needs more banging. I think back to the many days we've gone to take the pannier off and found that one of the top two had come unscrewed while riding. I KNOW I've screwed the one that made contact quite tightly and decide "**** it. One has been enough on many other days." Mostly I don't want to deal with taking the ****er back off, with everything covered with mud and whacking it with concrete, putting it back on, and repeating as many times as are necessary to get it mostly flat. "I'll deal with it later." Dachary is skeptical but says "It's your pannier…" I think she's convinced it's going to rattle off the bike at 100kph and strew the contents across the road. She may be right about the rattling off, but I think it'd keep the contents in… We come to the conclusion that it's ****ing stupid to deal with this mud OR the other mud when theres nothing between us and that beautiful new pavement except a little dirt burm, especially when part of it has obviously been ridden over by others. So we go for it. We ride up onto the beautiful new pavement that the desvio is avoiding. It's glorious. We watch trucks go past us in the mud we're now avoiding. Haha WE ARE MOTO! The road goes around most of the town. Eventually there's a desvio on it… on the road you're not supposed to be on in the first place. We go around it. They didn't make the dirt pile big enough. Just past this, in a part we're pretty sure cars aren't allowed on, is an old gray bearded hitchhiker who jokingly pulls up his pant leg to show me some leg whilst giving me the hitchhiking thumb. I pull up and smile. I totally thought he was a tanned American hitchhiker and started speaking English, but no, he's a local. "Where you going?… Ahh… where you from? ahh.." Same questions back at him. Then because we're unsure about which way we're supposed to go here we asked him which way and yup, keep going… Then we come to a place where there's a significant pile of dirt with road signs and other debris shoved in it. There's a spot in the dirt that we might be able to get over but it's a bit high in the middle and there's mud on the far side. To the left is a road that goes down a ten foot wet clay / mud slope to about 100 feet of more wet clay shite then up to the road we're on on the other side of the pile of dirt. To the right it goes nice and gradual down over what looks like wet semi-packed gravel, around a ditch thing, then back up the other side… That looked like the way for me, and I said as much and proceeded to walk that way to show just how nice this gravelly stuff was and watched my feet squish down through the gravel into more mud… at least it wasn't clay mud. So… We pondered. By this point we could have definitely just gone through the mud and up the other side, but, with it as slippery as it was there's a pretty good chance that either, or both, of us would have dropped each bike twenty times. Over.. yeah, over looks good. I go first and have Dachary stand close to see what I do, or fail to do, in my attempt. Up and …. stuck. The mound was high enough that the bike is now just sitting on the engine on a pile of dirt. I start rocking it back and forth sideways to flatten things out a bit, but the wheel's just spinning. Dachary offers to push, and I'm afraid a rock is going to go shooting out from under the tire and hit her leg at 30mph, but what choice do we have? She pushes and uppppp over I go, front tire into the slippy clay shit on the other side. I feel like I'm in one of those cartoons where the character is all "whoa… whooah" tipping back and forth carrying something absurdly heavy across a beam that's curiously suspended over a ravine. I have to turn about 60 degrees with the front tire as soon as it hits the clay and then up a little incline to the road again. This all sounds much more dramatic than it is. Really it was a small mound and a tiny bit of mud. I hop off, come back, kick at the dirt that I got stuck on to make it lower and wider. Hop up and down on it. Kick it some more, and gave Dachary's bike a go. Hmm. I haven't sat on this bike in a while. She's mentioned that she thought it was lower. I thought it was just one of those "is this lower or is it me" kinda things, but no her bike is definitely lower. I can totally flat foot it now and we weren't able to when we stared this trip. Last time I looked at her rear shock (when the gasket was going) it didn't look like it was particularly compressed so I don't know what's going on with that. But, this time going over the mound was much easier. I guess my kicking did some good. Wasn't sure if I was wasting my time or not. At the gas stop earlier we were all "we may want to stop early." because… well… we were cold, wet, and miserable, but now, with the glorious weather we were all "stopping early?!" Nah, we can totally make the next town before dark. I'm fine! We pull into the "stopping early town" and there's a minor problem: no gas. Shit. We had to decide. Go on, and possibly get stranded at the very end of the day, or stay here at the hospidaje across the street, hope they got gas in the morning and if not take the same chance but at least do so in the day. We decided to go on now. It worked out for us. We were running on fumes when we got into the station (still had our spare 1.5 gallon tanks though) and the station had gas, and there was a hotel… but I think it was the wrong decision. Better to stick with a known place to sleep then potentially having to be forced to camp in near freezing weather with pouring rain, because… on our way to the next town, that's what we got. Ok it was probably 40 degrees out, but it felt like near freezing the way we were soaked. But, there was gas. And a hotel. We went for the gas first, because we weren't going to risk there not being any in the morning, and as we're in line an adventure bicyclist pulls in. We love the adventure bicyclists because they're the most bad-ass of all, but we were all "That ****er better not be going to the hotel and get the last room." We fill up, and pull into the hotel ASAP. I go in, can't figure out where the reception is, and can't understand a thing anyone is trying to tell me because of the helmet, earplugs, and balaclava (Cyclone Buff). I take it all off, and try again. Ohhh… wait here for someone. Ok. I do. My teeth start chattering uncontrollably, then stop, then start up again. Dachary's pacing outside, probably just as cold as me. Eventually a woman is summoned, who tells me the outrageous price (270 pesos about $48 US), informs me that there are only rooms with twin beds, but they do have internet and "breadfast" is included. Before coming in I'd said to Dachary "we're taking it whatever it is right?" "Oh yes" So, I took it. We came in, unpacked, each hopped in the very warm shower and just sat in the beds twiddling things, poking the net, and mostly just warming up before heading to the restaurant for dinner. We asked for the menu and were told they had carne (beef) with rice. …. Ok We'll take that. Now, it should be noted here that it's not at all uncommon for us to come to places with one ****ing item available and no actual menu to speak of. We thought it a bit odd here but… whatever. The carne was essentially a big roast beef meatball in a pile of saffron rice, both of which tasted odd. Some other folks came in and were served soup. Hey… how come we didn't get offered soup?! We'd totally have taken soup. The bread, in the bread basket (ubiquitous down here) was at least a day old and had been sitting out on a table somewhere since its birth. Dachary didn't finish her weird rice and went to the gas station store to find something to supplement dinner. The cold had obviously affected her brain because she chose more gas station sandwiches. I tried to suggest anything other than them, even a variety bag of cookies, because I was convinced we'd be spending far too many of our future days eating ham and cheese gas station sandwiches. She didn't listen. The sandwiches were worse than the weird rice. We spent a good amount of time experimenting with two bodies and discovered that that these really were the smallest "twin" beds we'd ever seen. |
Day 96 -Tres Cerros to Rio Gallegos
"Breadfast" was even worse than expected. We go to the restaurant but it's closed, and we're instructed to go acquire breadfast in the gas station seating area. So we go, and sit, and wonder how exactly this is supposed to work. How are they to tell the difference between people coming in to sit from the gas station and people wanting breakfast without… whatever else they'd buy?
We sit. Nothing happens. We watch others do the same. Nothing happens to them either. Eventually one ends up talking to an employee. He gets up, acquires his bread products from the glass cabinet that holds them, then goes back to his seat. Hmm… I must have missed something, because how does he get his coffee or tea? I go to the cabinet. Noting that it contains the same bread products that it contained last night, and probably all day yesterday. I grab a selection for us, and stand in line at the cashier hoping that somehow he's involved in the process because we'd be damn thirsty without some drinks. I show him my receipt from the hotel, as instructed by the woman last night, and drinks are ordered. The bread products are, indeed, from yesterday, and we only eat some because they all suck now. We're not being picky… these are the light flaky things like croissants that simply don't survive very long. The weather, however, is beautiful. There were a few clouds when we got up, but they've burned off or moved on, and now it's almost exclusively blue sky. The thermometer claims it's 50 degrees although it feels more chilli than that. I'm hopeful that I'm just perceiving it colder than it really is. Dachary is convinced the thermometer is broken… she may be right. So we load up the bikes, or… start to. Dachary loads her panniers and I decide that mine require further beating. So I wander off, find a brick, and begin to liberally apply it to the pannier. Last night we'd determined that the screws were still just fine, it was the pannier itself that required straightening where the screws emerged. I beat it until my hands hurt, which wasn't much, because bricks don't seem to be designed with many shock absorption devices for ones hands. But, it helped somewhat. Now both top pucks make contact, although one only barely. I consider it the reserve puck… to be used in case the other one fails. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5218/...877a575202.jpg More LlamaDeer The we ride for a bit, passing more llamadeer, and i start futzing with my mirror when I hear Dachary ask if i saw… something. I didn't quite hear. "Ostrich" she says. "Ostrich?!" I think. "On the side of the road." she says. Ok… I know I was focusing on the mirror but how the hell would I miss an eight foot tall giant blob of black and white against a tan tan landscape? Damn. I've got to pay WAY more attention… A little while later I see some grayish birds maybe two and a half feet tall milling about on the side of the road… "Ostrich!" I hear… "Those are emu" I reply. And they're surprisingly well camouflaged. The gray isn't a solid flat color like on a seagull. It's got variation, and their legs and neck are a nice gray too. Apparently Dachary has never seen an ostrich in real life, and she's definitely never seen an emu. I can't remember ever seeing an emu in real life either, but i'd seen them on tv. I inform her that an ostrich's back would come to somewhere near her shoulders, while its head would loom over her, and that they're black and white. I think maybe she assumed that these were just females. Looking at the pictures as I write this I realize that female ostriches do look a lot like really large emus, only with white tips on the wings. Also, I've no clue why there are wild emu running around in Patagonia. More llamadeer, a few more emu, and not a lot else. Routa 3 is really flat and this part of it is one of the most boring roads on the trip. But, every time we stop for gas, or a pee I excitedly tell Dachary "Guess what?" "What?" she says. "I'm not frozen!" "Hooray" she says. I've decided that today is a wonderful day because I'm not ****ing frozen like yesterday. It doesn't matter that the landscape is lame. I'm not frozen or soaking wet! The temperature isn't actually much warmer (if any) but the lack of rain makes a huuuuuge difference. There was, however one notable problem, well… three, on the way to our lunchtime gas stop. The throttle got stuck open… three times. At least, that's what I thought was happening. The first time the revs started shooting up and there was still some forward pull from the engine. Shit! I grab at the clutch. I try switching gears, because I don't know what else to do, and … that seems to do it. It calms down. Of course, I was right behind a big truck when it happened. Next time it happened I'm behind another car, just about to pass it. And again … I'm noticing a trend here… My barkbuster had gotten shoved way up when I dropped it in the mud the other day (probably saved my clutch lever) and I haven't bothered to fix it yet because we're not going to be on dirt or anywhere else I'm likely to drop it again.. I'll get to it… but now I notice that the top edge of the plastic is pressing hard against the place where the clutch cable starts coming in to the lever. Hmmm. At lunch we find that the gas station serves real, honest to goodness food! Holy shit. How wonderful. I point to the food on other peoples plates "Look! Real food!" After we order I keep interrupting the conversation with "We're going to have a real lunch!" Today is a good day. Even the crazy engine shit can't get me down. After lunch I take the leatherman to the Barkbuster, loosen it up, then have to karate-kick it down into place because we can't push it. After it's back in place we notice that the plastic slamming upwards managed to break the tension adjustment screw / tube thing in half. So, no more tension adjustment for my clutch. My theory is that the first time the clutch was only mostly in when it got stuck and thus there was still some engine power. The other times I was about to pass, and while, at the time, I associated it more with the hard twisting of the throttle rather than the clutching, which is totally on autopilot at this point. No more problems after the tweak though, and the tension seems to be fine. Eventually we make it to Rio Gallegos, where we've decided to stop for the night because the border is close and we don't think we can make it anywhere else with a hotel. We pull into the gas station, hop off for a desperately needed pee and the ATM that happens to be there. We notice that the gas station attendants are shooing the customers away when they come. Not good. We're gonna need that "gas" stuff. But then, a tanker truck pulls up, and parks over by the holes in the ground they pour the gas into! Oh happy day! I confirm that no, they don't have gas, then ask how long? "Medi hora"… I can wait medi hora, even if that is probably a bullshit estimate. We go in, take off our gear, and some gas station snacks (empanadas and cookies). Occasionally people notice the truck and try to form a line to wait for it, but the guy shoos them off. I take a picture of the tanker truck guy because I'm so happy he's shown up, and how often do you get to see one offloading its contents? But after that he gives Dachary and me the evil eye every time we try and see if there's any progress. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5015/...48279c1524.jpg This man makes us happy The whole time he's offloading Dachary is chomping at the bit to get out there, but we don't want to gear up, get in a line, and then get shooed. So, we wait, until the tanker man starts putting away his stuff (an hour after we got there) and a line starts to form, but doesn't get run off. We throw on our stuff hop on the bikes and get in line about eight cars back. It takes another half an hour, but eventually, we're gassed up, and set off in search of a hotel, but drive past the whole city without seeing a one. Ok… Usually hotels exist where travelers can see them, because the locals tend to have places to sleep already. We go in towards the center of town and see a building with HOTEL and contact information on the side. Pull up. It looks like a hotel. But there's no-one at the desk, the desk is a bit dark, and the door is locked…but there are cars, and …. hmm. I wander around the corner to where Dachary saw another hotel sign. It points directly at a tiny house. That can't be it. There's a very large pink house looking thing beside it, which *could* be a hotel. I walk up to the door. This doesn't look right. I ring the buzzer. An old lady opens the window beside me and informs me that no. It's not a hotel. Not anymore. I apologize and ask if she knows where one is. "Centro" Which confirms, to me, that the one around the corner, is in fact, not a hotel… at least not anymore. While I was away Dachary deduced that it was now an apartment building. Centro it is… We pass a fancy fancy looking place that we're pretty sure we don't want to pay for, but see nothing else. I go in, in hopes that either we're horribly wrong or that they can lead us to somewhere more appropriate. I'm not wrong, but he does lead us to somewhere more appropriate. The Hotel Paris, which is only 225 pesos ($60 US) has good off-street parking, and WiFi. I say "Only" in the context of Patagonia where every hotel is "only" ****ing expensive. But, the lady at the desk is nice and it's not a town that looks to have many that haven't gone out of business. The room, however, is roughly 1,000 degrees inside. That's ok, there's a window and it's already cool out. We track down dinner and luck out in that it's 8 PM and thus we can find a restaurant that's actually open. I'm just pooped, and Dachary's mentally pooped, so we decide to call it a night and get some sleep… with the window open. |
Day 97 - Rio Gallegos to Rio Grande
As usual, breakfast plus internet equals us scraping out right around the 10am check-out time, and getting a later start than intended. We knew we had around 100km of dirt today, plus two border crossings, and didn't think we'd be able to make it far past Rio Grande, but I was secretly hoping to get there early enough to push on to Ushuaia and try to make it all the way. So I was slightly disappointed by the late start, but still secretly optimistic. I didn't share these thoughts with Kay.
When we left the hotel, the sky that we could see from the courtyard was blue and sunny. We were hopeful that we wouldn't be riding in rain today - I was particularly hoping for that on the dirt stretch in Chile. But because the sky seemed beautiful, and I'd read that the forecast didn't have any rain in it for today, I didn't bother to wear the plastic bags under my formerly-waterproof boots. Not long after setting out, ominous-looking clouds started massing on the horizon. "It looks like we'll be riding in rain today, after all," I said to Kay over the headsets. "Don't say that!" Heading south from Rio Gallegos, we encountered a police checkpoint where they were stopping every person traveling north or south, and writing stuff down on a clip board. We thought this was a bit ridiculous, because south of Rio Gallegos, where are you going to go? Chile, and then to Argentina again. There's very little down there. When she got to us, she motioned us to the building on the side of the road, and told us we had to take our passports inside. We did, and they had a giant ledger of hand-written information including passport numbers, names, nationalities, etc. What's the purpose of this? It's not at a border. It's just a random police checkpoint between Rio Gallegos and the Chilean border. Even if they had to retrieve information, how long would it take to find a single entry in a paper ledger this big? We didn't understand at all, and it was more removing the gear and gearing up again, which is annoying with all the winter layers. Back to the bikes and we pushed on toward the first border crossing, me wishing to go faster to try to beat the rain to the dirt part. We figured we'd have a short-ish day since we were stopping at Rio Grande (I still hadn't shared my thoughts about trying to push on) so we were taking it a bit easy on speeds. Still, it wasn't long before we got to the first border - to go into the small stretch of Chile before coming back into Argentina for the final stretch. The border crossing was trivial, although it was more like the borders we'd gotten used to up north - check out of Argentina on the Argentina side, ride down the road just a bit and then check into Chile on the Chile side. This is the first non-integrated border post we've seen in a while, and we'd gotten kind of used to the one-building borders; this was a bit more of a PITA because of all the extra layers. It takes me forever to gear up with all the layers, and I hate taking my helmet off when we stop because my Foggy inevitably gets messed up, and I have to spend a few minutes fiddling with it trying to get it back in the right position when I put the helmet back on, and then it takes forever to put my gloves on under my jacket sleeves (they're too long to wear the gloves over them), zip up properly, plug in the electrics, etc. So I had been hoping for the single-building crossing so I could do the gearing up just once… but alas. On to Chile for check-in. They have us fill out one of the forms we've already filled out when we crossed into Chile the first time, and Kay tries saying "we've already done this - do we have to do it again?" But we do, because the form becomes our bike import paperwork for this teeny stretch of Chile. So we get checked in, and while the border crossing itself was trivial, it took 45-60 minutes between the two buildings, waiting in line, etc. Bah. The day is wearing away. We ride on in the paved section of Chile, and I get occasional rain spatters on my visor. It's going to open up and full out rain on us; it's only a matter of time. We don't go as fast as we could, but eventually we arrive at a ferry crossing. Kay had read about a building where adventure riders put up their stickers, and went to go put one of ours on the window and take a picture. He placed the sticker and went to turn on his camera… but discovered that the battery had just died. Bummer. We have a spare charged battery in my pannier, so he walks back to the bikes to get the spare battery, but I've already started walking to the front of the line to check on the ferry, and I'm too far from the bike to bring him my camera instead. So he's got to walk back down the line to our bikes to get the spare battery, and in the meantime, I've arrived at the front of the line and see that the ferry is lined up. I suspect they're going to start waving people on any minute, and doubt Kay has time to get the spare battery. I say over the headset that the ferry is lined up and I think they'll start boarding in a minute, and assume Kay will realize he should grab my camera and *run* to get a picture of our sticker, but he doesn't make that connection. He gets the spare battery out and starts to walk up toward the building again to grab a photo of our sticker, but the line has started to board. So he has to run back to the bikes to ride onto the ferry, and we don't get a picture of our sticker at all. Luckily, I remember we'll have to come back this way anyway, so he can get a picture of our sticker on the hostel on the way back. Kay's note: the ferry seemed to have been dallying for a few minutes anyway. I didn't think that everything would suddenly start happening right away. On the ferry, and the bikes are penned in by cars and a giant semi next to us. I've never been on a ferry big enough to transport semis, and there are several on the ferry - I thought there was no way they could fit the entire line of cars and semis on here, but it appears that they have. Kay's instructed to go pay at the cashier on the boat, but he doesn't want our money, and we're still not sure if it's because we're adventure riders or they just don't charge for motos. Kay then goes up to the pedestrian deck to get some photos, and a few minutes later, I decide to join him. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5253/...9645727726.jpg Dachary waits with the bikes http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5259/...18846efe9d.jpg Kay on the Ferry http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5299/...3c819730b2.jpg Dachary on the Ferry http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5300/...64642676c5.jpg Us on the ferry We're up watching the other shore getting closer, and I think I should probably go back down and gear up again since it takes me forever. So I start back that way when Kay says "Dachary! Look what that man is wearing!" "Ohhh, moto pants…" We walk over and start chatting, and Kay meets Liam; a Brit who started this journey in Las Angeles and is also heading to Ushuaia. He and his wife are riding two-up, but his wife has gotten quite cold (they don't have electrics) so she's trying to warm up somewhere. We chat for a few minutes, and then his wife Toni joins him, but I've already headed down to gear up so I don't get to meet her. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5296/...aa5fd063ec.jpg Liam and Tony Kay's note: Liam and Tony had been traveling for eight months from Los Angeles and somehow we were the only moto riders they'd actually met and had a moment to talk to. All the others were headed the opposite direction on the highway. How odd... Just in time with the gearing up, though, as they lower the ferry ramp and start disembarking. As semis are driving off, the ferry is still drifting, and I think it's a bit unnerving that the ramp is moving along the concrete as people are driving off. Kay says "I think we should do that last bit as quickly as possible!" and I agree, but before it's our turn to ride off, the ferry stops drifting and we get to ride off a stationary ramp onto stationary concrete. Yay! I manage to extract myself from the ferry with zero trouble and am proud of myself for not embarrassing myself by dropping my bike at any point along the way. We have around 60km of pavement to ride before we hit the dirt, and there's what might be a town at the edge of the dirt. I ask Kay if we should stop for lunch, or just hit the dirt and try to beat the rain. He still doesn't think it's going to rain, but I comment that I keep getting spatters on my visor, so he takes my word for it and agrees that we should probably skip lunch and try to get the dirt out of the way before the rain. We get to where the pavement ends, and just before the restaurant at the edge of the rain, we see an adventure rider and wave… and it's Joe! Joe who we met in Colombia and rode with into Ecuador! I look further and there's Vern pulling out of the restaurant parking lot, and we've all pulled over at the side of the road and start chatting. Vern suggests that we go to the restaurant and grab a Coke and catch up, and Kay and I gladly abandon our plans to skip lunch as we sit down with the guys. I was totally not expecting to see Joe and Vern again on the trip. They ride faster than us, and they don't take the breaks that we take, and as far as I know they didn't have any of the bike problems we had that delayed us through Peru and Chile, so I'd expected them to be long gone. But here they are! And I am unexpectedly thrilled to see them. I had definitely enjoyed hanging out with them before, but there's something really awesome about seeing them here again near the end of our journey. It totally made my day. So we went to the restaurant, where we discover that yesterday morning, Joe's bike (and himself) had caught on fire. Yikes! Everything seems to be ok, but his Frog Tog top half went up like kindling, and he's got burned patches on his motorcycle jacket and his frog tog pants. His bike also has some burn spots. What happened, you ask? I'll let Kay write it because he got more of the details. I'm just glad Joe's ok, and his bike is good enough to continue the journey. Vern also did a full writeup on his blog, if you want some pictures and the story from the guy who witnessed it all (and got Joe stopped so he could put the fire out - apparently Joe couldn't see the fire at all, and didn't realize that he and his bike were on fire - and wouldn't have if Vern hadn't gotten him stopped). http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5060/...d909961576.jpg Joe Caught Fire Kay's note: Joe had a gas can on his pannier, which had a towel under it to keep it from rattling. The edge of the towel was apparently touching the muffler, which set it aflame. Then, the flames licked upwards towards the tire he was carrying and the quarts of oil he was carrying IN the tire. The plastic oil jugs melted and oil poured down onto the muffler which was wrapped with some fiberglass webbing (don't know why) which acted like a giant wick when combined with the oil. Dramatic story aside, it was really great to see the guys again and catch up with them. I really enjoyed riding with them and it was wonderful to see them so close to the end of our journey. During lunch, the Brits arrived and joined peripherally in the conversation - I would have been happy to chat with them more, too, and hope they didn't feel excluded - I was just having such a good time catching up with Joe and Vern that I didn't have a ton of attention to spare. They recommended a place to stay in Rio Grande and promised that they'd send us details on a place to stay in Ushuaia. And they gave us some info about the dirt stretch we'd have to travel - Joe initially called it "damn near like an Interstate" but they amended the statement to say that there were some sections with loose stuff, and to watch out for the corners because some loose stuff has gotten piled up in them and it would be easy to take a tumble there. But in all it was a good dirt road; Joe said he'd been going around 35ish MPH, and Vern 40-45 MPH. Buoyed by our surprise visit from what felt like old friends at this point, I didn't even have it in me to dread the dirt. I was in too good of a mood from our surprise encounter with the guys. We went to the nearby town to get gas, and then Joe and Vern headed north and we hit the dirt. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5133/...a7750d426c.jpg Vern Waves Goodbye It was pretty much exactly as they'd said. The starting bit was wide and a bit rocky but there wasn't much loose stuff, and it was easy to go fast on. Kay had me lead so we could go at a speed where I'd be comfortable. Whenever we got close to corners, I slowed down a bit with Joe and Vern's warnings in mind, but we didn't have any trouble. Toward the middle of the route, we encountered a longish stretch of loose stuff, but it was a relatively thin layer of loose stuff and nothing like the horrors of Routa 40. I found myself driving 30-45 MPH most of the way, and we made good time. I even passed a couple of cars and a semi or two. I think Kay was probably surprised by my speed. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5217/...d88120cd43.jpg Dachary Rides the Last Dirt Toward the end of the dirt, the rain caught up with us. It was a light drizzle a first, and didn't seem too bad; it mostly was keeping the dust down. Nothing seemed to get particularly slippery. We arrived at the first border crossing to exit Chile and encountered the Brits. They were just leaving. Liam said it was a quick stop, so I left my helmet on to minimize the re-gearing-up between this border post and the next one. Vern had warned me there was something like another 8 miles of dirt before the next border post, so I knew it would take a bit, and then it turned to pavement again. Unfortunately, checking out of Chile wasn't as quick as Liam would have us to believe. Mostly because it seemed like every person in front of us had some kind of trouble that require five times longer than it should have to process them out. While we were waiting in line behind like five people, and entire busload of passengers disembarked, got processed through the border, and then left again. In the time it took to process an entire busload of people, two of the people ahead of us got through. Eventually, the guy who processed the bus waved us over and processed us out of Chile, and only one guy was ahead of us at customs, so it didn't take long there… but what I had expected to be a five minute stop had taken like 25 minutes. Kay's note: on the Chilean paperwork, where it asks for the number of passengers for the bike the correct answer is the number of passengers it IS carrying not the number of passengers in COULD carry. This is the opposite of all the other borders that ask that question. This caused a minor delay in processing my bike out. Down the remainder of the dirt, and to the border crossing where we check into Argentina. Which, again, sadly, was quite slow. Again, only a few people ahead of us, but there was only one person working and I think it was the same few people who had problems checking out of Chile. So it took *forever*. It took us something like 45 minutes to process into Argentina, and the actual processing itself only took like 10 minutes. Now don't get me wrong - this is nothing for the border crossings in Central America. Our longest border crossing was the Pan Americana in Honduras and that took us over 10 hours, and we've heard horror stories of people waiting for days. But down here, the borders have been quite efficient. And for this teeny stretch of Chile, we were expecting the borders to be trivial - which they were - but they took far longer than we would ever have guessed they would. Kay's note: there's literally nothing in this tiny part of Chile besides a penguin beach and an elephant seal beach (i think), and a tiny handful of dirt roads, so there's not a lot of point in doing much more than waving people through. So by the time we got processed through Argentina and back on the road, it was getting close to 5:30PM. And it was raining. Rio Grande was something like 100km away, and Ushuaia was still close to 300; there was no way we could make Ushuaia before dark. So Rio Grande it would be. And it wouldn't even be the early night we'd been expecting. The ride to Rio Grande was relatively uneventful. We were reunited with the coast, and it was quite windy at points, but otherwise it was blessedly boring to be back on pavement, even if there was rain. When we got into Rio Grande, we followed Joe's directions to the gas station, but headed first to the hotel across the street that he had recommended. Unfortunately, the hotel had no vacancies. Kay asked for a recommendation and got directions to another hotel, but we decided to get gas first as we were here and they seemed to have gas, and we had no idea if they'd still have gas in the morning. So we got gas, and then rode off to the hotel that the first place had recommended. They also had no vacancies, and recommended a hotel back the way we'd come, but neither Kay nor I had seen it. So we rode off looking for the third recommendation, and didn't see it, but I spotted a hotel down a side street. In this maze of one-way streets, it took us a bit to get to the hotel, and I got horribly disoriented at one spot and was sure we were headed the wrong way, but we found it and Kay went in to check. They did have a vacancy, but it was outrageously expensive and they only had street parking. We'd take it, anyway; we were worried about getting a hotel at all and had no idea where to look for another. And we'd been warned that everything was outrageously expensive, so it didn't really matter… we just needed a warm, dry place out of the rain. We unloaded the bikes, and then, because we were parked on the street… for the very first time in the 15,000+ miles on this trip, we pulled out our motorcycle covers and covered the bikes. That saved us the trouble of bringing *all* of our stuff in and made us feel a little more secure with the bikes parked on the street. Kay's note: I'd totally forgotten about the covers. Didn't even occur to me to use them, but so glad we had them when she reminded me. We ventured back out again pretty quickly, without changing out of our wet gear, because it was still raining a bit and I didn't want to get my dry clothes wet. Armed with a map Kay had gotten at reception, we headed toward the restaurant the woman at the desk had recommended. It was after 8PM so we were fairly confident the restaurant would be open. We found it without too much trouble, walked up and tugged on the door handle… nothing. It wouldn't budge. Lights were on inside, and I saw wait staff wandering around, but it wasn't open yet. I assumed they would be open soon, and we just had to kill some time. Luckily, I'd spotted a confetteria, which I correctly surmised would have tasty things, so we walked back to where I'd seen it and grabbed some delicious-looking baked goods. And then we walked back toward the supermarket we'd seen so I could look for some Diet Coke that I could take back to the room, but we passed a kiosk along the way that had some, so we just grabbed it there. At this point, it was after 8:30 so we headed back to the restaurant. A couple was sitting at a table by the window, so we were optimistic… but when we tugged on the door, it was still locked. Still not open. This time, though, a guy came to the door and opened it… and when we asked if the restaurant was open, he sprouted a stream of rapid-fire Spanish at us. Neither of us was catching what he was saying, so Kay tried again to simplify it. "I don't understand. I speak very little Spanish. Is the restaurant open, yes or no?" (In Spanish.) Again the rapid-fire stream of Spanish, but we got the impression that the restaurant was *not* open, and I caught a "medi-hour" in there somewhere. So we thanked him and walked away. "Do you want to wait another half hour and see if it opens?" I asked Kay. "No" was the answer. Kay suggested we walk around for a bit, but I was way overdue for something to eat and didn't have it in me to wander around aimlessly without food. So I suggested he consult the map he was carrying around, and see if there was anyplace else to eat. There were a couple of "food" icons a few blocks on the other side of the main road, so we started walking that way… …and ran into the Brits again! They were coming to the restaurant where we'd been trying to eat - the one that wasn't open. We told them about our experience there, and that we were looking for someplace else that was open, hoping they'd join us. We always like chatting with other bikers and were hoping to have dinner with them somewhere, since they hadn't ended up at our hotel and we had no idea if/when we'd see them again. But they were set on trying the restaurant that wasn't open yet, and I wanted food, so we went our separate ways. Further than we thought, and the restaurants were both restaurants in hotels. One looked super fancy and had a casino in the hotel… I didn't want to eat there. So we tried the one across the street. By the time the menu came, I was crashed to the point of not having it in me to decipher the Spanish and make a decision about food, so I asked Kay to order me a chicken dish. He got me chicken and mushrooms, which had a surprising amount of mushrooms, but the sauce was tasty and it satisfied me after all. Feeling much better after the meal, it was back to the hotel room to enjoy our tasty pastry treats and watch an episode of Top Gear. I didn't want to deal with the ride report, and figured we'd have plenty of time to do it tomorrow as it would be a short ride to Ushuaia and we'd have all day left to explore and catch up on ride report and internet stuff. |
Day 98 - Rio Grande to Ushuaia!
The room was nice, but checkout is at 10, so we can't lay about much even though we've got a short day ahead of us. It's odd though. In Central America the checkout times were as late as 1PM. In Peru they were either late, or early. After Peru it's always been 10 AM. On the one hand that's not bad because it means we can't dally. On the other hand we don't generally get out before 10 when there's a breakfast included, and especially not when there's internet.
There was no mention of breakfast, and no real place to eat it besides a few small tables near the front desk which seemed to be for coffee, but when I go down to check the email (net doesn't work in the room) to find the address of the hotel Joe and Vern recommended I discover that not only is there a Breadfast there's fruit! A fruit and breadfast! I run up to tell Dachary who's lingering in the hot water shower. "A Fruit and Breadfast?!", she says, and hurries to finish. There's fruit, and yogurt, and cereal, and the tastiest croissants with sweet stuff brushed on that we've had the whole trip. But time is running out and Dachary's starting to stress about getting out on time. I try and convince her that there's no need to stress; they won't mind if we're a smidge late. But, it's no use. We take off the covers and load up. Retracing our steps out of town to the bypass because it sounds better than dealing with all the red lights and unknown directions, but then Dachary sees a sign, and we pull a U turn and go through town on a not particularly red light infested road. Soon we're back on Routa 3. The sky is overcast, and Dachary's convinced it's going to rain on us. Not long and we see evidence of rain in the direction we're headed, so we throw the rain cover on my tank bag, which I'd left off so that I could use the little camera while riding. There's cold damp wind blowing in from the Atlantic. And soon it's mixing with cold wet rain from the sky. We're wondering where the "mountain" is because we're mostly just seeing flat, or almost flat, terrain, but soon it becomes apparent as tall mountains appear from behind the clouds. We stop for gas whenever we see it. Even if we've only driven 70 or 100 kilometers. It's not that we're afraid of running out. We're afraid that we'll get to where we *need* to fill up and the damn gas stations will have run out. First order of business when we arrive in Ushuaia is NOT to go to the park OR the hotel. It's to get gas, just in case there isn't any when we try to leave. We pass about six adventure bicyclists heading north in ones and twos and as we're making our way up the "mountain" The Brits catch up with us. It's wet, and the road gets very twisty, with occasional bouts of small fallen rocks, or thin streams of water a foot wide running across the middle of a corner, with the occasional strong gust of wind thrown in for good measure. I just take it easy. No need to rush. But the mood is weird. For me I'm excited, but not bouncingly. Mostly, I'm happy that my electric jacket is keeping me warm, and providing a layer between me and the rain liner so that I don't feel damp. I wonder what I'd do if the bike broke down between here and Ushuaia. We've only another 50 k until town. I decide I don't want to ponder that. Breaking down in the middle of the trip is one thing. Breaking down so close to the goal would be torture. I can't really talk to Dachary because, in an odd twist, I can't hear her during the rain. Usually, the headsets **** up in the rain such that she can't hear me. It's the damn noise cancellation. Before the rain though Dachary had been rather quiet… but not in an enjoying the silence kind of way… I asked her how she was doing mentally, and she said she felt like crying for some reason, and seemed as confused about it as I was. Soon after coming down the mountain the rain ends and we get to Ushuaia where we forget Joe's note about avoiding the dirt switchback until it's too late and have to ride it anyway, fill up the bikes, watch the Brits go by, and gear up for the trip to the famous sign. Now, it should be noted at this point that we've skipped lunch earlier because when we passed the place half-way here that was recommended by another ride report we decided to just go for it instead of stopping. I'm not sure what Dachary's reasoning was, but mine was that we'd eaten not two hours before and when it's cold and unhappy riding we both tend to linger, avoiding getting back on the bikes. Back in Ushuaia Dachary's hungry, wet, and, having forgotten to put plastic bags on her feet, now sporting squishy socks in two portable puddles. Until you've ridden for hours with two portable puddles on your feet you have no idea how demoralizing it can be. But, we both agree it's best to take advantage of the near-sunlight while it's here because who knows what the weather will be like tomorrow. When we get to the park the road has turned to dirt (both of us had forgotten this detail) and Dachary's all "where's the sign?" And I'm all "soon". And then we reach the gate, and Dachary's all "There's a gate!" and I'm all "So?" I'm not sure why the gate concerned her, but yes, there's an entrance fee of 65 pesos for us foreigners but it's good for camping the night there too if you want. I'm pretty sure I remember something about the sign being past the gate. I pull over to put my gloves back on and Dachary informs me that the primary puck on the left pannier is no longer holding and it's only still attached by virtue of my "backup" puck. Well… yay for the backup. I unlock it, open it back up, and attempt to not burn myself on the muffler while getting the errant puck reattached. I'm happy to report a lack of burns. We drive in until there's an intersection and I have to consult the map to figure out where to go. We continue straight and straight, and straight through one of the most gorgeous national parks I've ever seen. It's fairly small but it makes every moment count. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5212/...21247a85af.jpg Parque National Tierra Del Fuego . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5095/...ee71d3d2ff.jpg Dachary in Parque National Tierra Del Fuego We're in awe of it, commenting back and forth over the headsets; wondering why none of the ride reports we've read have mentioned how amazingly beautiful this place is. It's this wonderful gift at the goalpost of this huge journey. We both wished we had camping gear that could handle sub-freezing temperatures, but we don't and according to the weather it's gonna be that cold. When Joe and Vern left town two days ago it was 37 F so definitely below 32 that night. Anywhere below 40 and we're not happy to be outside in our sleeping bags. And then, at the end of the road, is the sign. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5171/...efc64187ee.jpg El Fin de Monde . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5014/...3d97e1bde3.jpg El Fin de Monde And we are both happy, relieved…. I'm not sure. We commented last night that we thought it might be somewhat anticlimactic. That there's really no good reason to go to Ushuaia beyond the fact that it was where the land runs out. But, it is beautiful. And there's something of a sense of accomplishment, but it's a tempered one, because, while you've reached the goal, you're really not done. Anyone heading south to Ushuaia almost always has to turn back around and drive another three thousand kilometers to Buenos Aires to get home. It would be much better if there was a gaggle of other adventure bikers there… or even the Brits. What happened to the Brits? http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5133/...d07ab40666.jpg At the end of the world For Dachary the event is tempered more by her cold and wet pants and squishy boots. So, rather than ask her to walk anywhere in her portable puddles, we turn around and head back to town and ponder all the other bikers who have made this same pilgrimage to Ushuaia, and how there are very few other points on the globe that draw adventure riders like Ushuaia does. There's Ushuaia, Prudhoe Bay, the Cape of Good Hope where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet and… we can't think of anything else. Sure there are lots of famous places we tend to visit on our journeys but few that define them like these… http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5014/...d8815fda93.jpg She's got squishy boots . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5098/...d7cff545e7.jpg Dachary in the park . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5093/...e84477115c.jpg The Park at the end of the world In town we fail at finding the hotel that Joe and Vern recommended. Mostly, due to the street we need being one way in the wrong direction. We find an excellent hostel called Hostel Torre Al Sur which is at S54 48.482 W68 19.136 in the middle of Gdor. Felix Paz st. It's actually quite easy to find and, seems to me to be exactly what you hope for with a hostel, except for the fact that it's on a hill with lots of steps to the front door. It's 60 pesos ($15 US) per person per night, which is freaking incredible around here, has internet, a tiny driveway, and good smell, but… Yesterday Dachary made it clear she'd really like a day off. I think there'd been mumblings about it for a couple days prior, and you should never deny your partner a day off after so long, plus she really seemed like she needed it. And, as we've mentioned before, one of Dachary's requirements for a place we stop to chill is a private bathroom, which is the only thing that Hostel Torre Al Sur can't provide. So, we continued our search for Joe and Vern's hotel. Along the way we find the Hotel Americana which is right in line with what we've been told hotels cost around here (400 pesos / $100 US). But, the parking is meh (essentially a driveway), and I have a feeling that Joe and Vern's place would be better, and it's supposed to be right around here. So we go to look. At this point Dachary is showing signs of having mentally crashed, but is willing to look more. So we do, and we don't find it, and I'm concerned about her, so I say "**** it" and we go back to the Hotel Americana with a stop off at one other hotel that has no rooms, but when we get there and step off the bikes Dachary notes that while it has a restaurant (pricey) it's not open, and she needs food. Like literally needs, not wants. We violated the rule about feeding Dacharys at regular intervals. It's like feeding Mogway after midnight… She's said she won't stop at a restaurant to eat because she doesn't want to deal with sitting in her wet pants and portable puddles and she doesn't want to stop at a hotel if there's not food, and she isn't up to wandering around looking for a hotel that meets the requirements. After writing the full details of what followed we decided that, this once, it was better to leave out the emotional stuff and just give you the end results. It's not that it was any worse than anything else we've detailed, it's just that… today was Ushuaia. Today was the grand climax of the trip, and we don't want it overshadowed by the unrelated fatigue induced breakdown that followed for Dachary. The short short version is that the impossible situation shorted Dachary's weary brain (i mean that literally… it needed fuel), and ultimately forced us to ride around town with her in a bad state. When we went to back out of another full hotel Dachary made a poor decision about how to extricate her bike and ended up dropping it on the sidewalk, next to a small tree. I'm not sure how exactly she managed it but her right hip, left shin, and something else on her right side that she's having trouble identifying, and her right elbow and shoulder are all in a lot of pain even though she seemed to land standing. She got right back on, painfully, and was unwilling to stop and get off the bike until it was for the rest of the day even though she was wailing in agony over the headset while trying to ride. So I did the only thing I could, and took her back to the pricy hotel to get her off the bike and into a bed. (end editing bits out) At which point she is, of course, still needing food, so I go down to the guy and ask if we could maybe have a pizza delivered? "Is not possible" he says in English, in a tone that makes you know he really wishes it was. "Is not open until 8"… What the **** is it with this country and none of the restaurants opening until 8pm?! does no-one eat here? "Is there anywhere I can get food?" I ask, and am told that there should be sandwiches a couple blocks away. Good. Sandwiches work. Some more trials and tribulations of hotellery ensue but eventually I take off to find the mythical "open restaurant" and eventually, after passing three that were closed, actually find one… and it has pizza too. I don't know why I have hope for pizza in this town but I do… maybe I'm just hoping for something good. I know I'm hoping for something simple that'll make her happy. They don't have pepperoni, which should have been a sign that this going to be another odd pizza, but I order the Four Cheese and wander back to the supermarket I passed to get her some Diet Coke for the evening. The pizza turns out to be pretty decent I think. Dachary disagrees, but eats anyway because she's hungry and needs food. Our tag line for Argentina by the way? "Argentina: this tastes… odd" Everywhere we go there's something odd about the food. When 9PM comes along we're feeling hungry again, as the last meal was really just a late lunch, so I go down to the restaurant, hoping to avoid wandering the town alone in the dark and drizzle looking for food but no… while the restaurant is open from 8-11 it's not open *this* night because the person needs a night off every week and this is the night. I return to Dachary with the bad news, and wander out into town where I find some relatively decent chicken at the place we got the pizza from. Ultimately, it's just not Dachary's night. But, in spite of the stress and the pain, we're happy with what we've accomplished today… or, what we've accomplished in the past 98 days I should say. Dachary's note: today should be about reaching Ushuaia. We've gotten to the end of our journey and reached our goal. And the bit around Ushuaia itself is surprisingly beautiful. There's been so much empty, flat land that I was kind of expecting that from Ushuaia, too, but about 100km before you hit Ushuaia, you start encountering evergreen forests and an alpine landscape. There are hills, and lakes and beautiful mountains. I wish we were here when it wasn't raining, because I expect the area is fantastically beautiful when you can really see it all. The problems with finding a hotel and me ultimately getting hurt when the bike went down were stupid and I didn't want to overshadow this day with a long, drawn-out account of them. We're here. We made it to Ushuaia - the end of the road. The city is bigger than I'd expected down here at the bottom of the world. I'm looking forward to spending a day here, which is all we can really afford at this point - hotels and everything down here being so expensive, we've got to turn around and head north again as quick as possible - but I hope the rain will stop and my injuries will calm down enough to let us explore the city. I'm sure there's plenty to offer for a few days of exploration, and I hope we get the chance before we have to turn around and head home. |
Congratulations!
Congratulations on the completion of your goal!
I know that sometimes you can get a feeling of deflation - but the elation will come soon enough. Dachary: Hang in there, girl. What your mother told was true; motorbikes are dangerous. And you have felt some of the pains. But some of us face the danger, build our skills and reap the joy of the highway. You, Madame, have my respect and admiration. Kay: A true soldier of the great far horizon. You have been resolute, resourceful and skilfull. Hang in there, Rider. To you both: well done. May we meet on the road. Rob Hall |
Bravo! great read guys!
Cant wait to read what happens on the ride north to BA. I have really been enjoying this one! |
Day 99 - Ushuaia
We weren't going anywhere today. That was the plan at least.
And, we did a pretty good job of sticking to it. There was talk of taking a taxi to the chairlift, and the chairlift to the "glacier"… but then we learned that it was kinda lame, as glaciers go, and there was like one to two miles of walking after tho top of the chairlift and Dachary was still hurting, so we nixed that idea. Plus, we're going to Perito Moreno Glacier, which is definitely not lame, as glaciers go. I wandered about town looking for a different restaurant for lunchtime sandwiches but no… choices were pretty limited in our part of town. So, I grabbed a Hamburgesa Estilo Club and Lomito Classico at Azul (where I'd gotten the pizza last night), brought them back and discovered they were, quite possibly, the best sandwiches we'd had the entire trip. Definitely the best hamburger I thought, and Dachary loved her Lomito Classico. There was discussion of maybe seeing penguins, but that takes all day, has to be booked one to two days in advance, and costs like $60 US per person to get on the boat, and that's two nights in a hotel here in southern Argentina and we've only got a smidge of money left. So we nixed that idea. Plus there's a chance for penguins on the way to Buenos Aires where you can drive to a parking lot on the beach with penguins right there… except they leave mid March so we may be too late… Which left us with a comfy bed, time, and each other. Alas, such hardship. ;) We read, we watched Torchwood and Top Gear. We were going to go out to dinner when Dachary remembered the work she needed to do for a client, so I went out and procured seconds of our delicious sandwiches, and we enjoyed them just as much even if the fries were lamer this time. It was good. Just chilling for a day. Enjoying the down time. Dachary's note: I really wanted a day off, and while I feel kinda lame for not wandering around Ushuaia more, it was a good day off. We haven't had a day off since our bikes were getting serviced in Santiago, and we've been pushing hard since then. So I don't mind too much that we were more-or-less vegetables yesterday… I'm sure our bodies needed the rest, which is evidenced by the fact that we slept in till almost 9am and were still drop-dead-tired by 10pm. I think we're going to be catching up on a lot of sleep when we get home. Or maybe while sitting around in Buenos Aires waiting for our plane. |
Day 100 - Ushuaia to Rio Grande
We actually managed to get up, get some work done, have breakfast and still beat check-out time, which was a bit of a miracle since my panniers were torn apart… Kay had gone looking yesterday for a fuzzy for his Cardo microphone and that resulted in dismantling my panniers. They always take too long to put back together when we have to dig deep down for something.
Got out just after 10AM, and we were sweating as we bundled up. This is one of the most annoying things about wearing all of these layers. When you're getting ready, you overheat in zero seconds flat… but we've both been riding in cold enough at this point to know that we'd need the layers, so the key is to get moving as quickly as possible. And sure enough, once we hit the road, I turned my electrics up. Rain was in the forecast today, and I remembered to put my feet in plastic bags before I put them in the boots… but I didn't realize until I'd already locked up my panniers that the plastic bags had holes in them. I have more bags in my panniers, but I didn't want to deal with unlocking them and taking stuff apart so I could find them, so I decided to deal with the holes. They were small holes, and I hoped that maybe the rain would be minor enough that it wouldn't matter too much. Hit an ATM on the way out for some more cash to tide us over on the road, and then off… north. It was strange to be heading north. I realized as we rode up to the police checkpoint on the edge of Ushuaia that we couldn't tell police we're going to Ushuaia anymore… the thing that has been our goal for 100 days is a place we've *been* now. Now the goal is Buenos Aires, which isn't anyplace either of us cares to go… but it's how we're getting home. And we're both excited to be going home at this point, so we're excited for that… but Buenos Aires itself, sadly, is just another city, and I think we'd both prefer to avoid it if we could. But I was looking forward to the glacier, and hoping we could spot some penguins at the penguin beach, so it's not all a slog back to a big city we don't care about. There's still some fun stuff along the way. So leaving Ushuaia saw us in an odd mood. By the time we'd left, the clouds had cleared a bit and we could see more than we've been able to see since getting here. We could see mountains on the other side of the water south of Ushuaia, and we could see the mountains to the north of Ushuaia quite clearly. They were beautiful. Riding along toward the mountain pass was lovely. Some of the mountains were snow-capped, and the lingering cloud cover made the whole scene more dramatic. The breathtaking scenery down here was a most pleasant surprise at the end of our road… much of the area of Patagonia north of Ushuaia is just flat plains with the occasional hill… beautiful in their own wide-open way, but we were simply not expecting the alpine landscape and beautiful snow-capped mountains that awaited us at the end of the road. So we were happy we were able to see more of it as we left Ushuaia. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5015/...9557b1ff98.jpg Routa 3 near Ushuaia http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5215/...7125ed018a.jpg Routa 3 near Ushuaia http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5213/...1968e50421.jpg Routa 3 near Ushuaia http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5218/...136908e708.jpg Routa 3 near Ushuaia We enjoyed the scenery right up to the very mountain pass itself… and then we rode into a cloud so dense we could barely see 100 feet ahead of us. We've ridden into dense cloud cover many times now on this journey, but this time it was literally as sudden as riding around a corner and being confronted with a wall of cloud, completely unexpected. It was kind of surreal. And in just a kilometer or two, we rode out again, and could see more beautiful scenery under the cloud cover on the far side of the pass. We did run into a little rain at one point, but it was barely enough to qualify as rain… just enough to make us damp, but not enough to make us totally wet. It only lasted for a minute or two, although there was pervasive drizzle for a decent amount of the route. Stopped at Tolhuin for gas, and pondered the plan for the day. Riding to Rio Grande was going to be a *really* short day, but 80km north of Rio Grande there's the border crossing into Chile, 100km of dirt, some more pavement, a ferry, more pavement, the border crossing back into Argentina and more pavement before Rio Gallegos. Probably a total of something like 260km of pavement, 100km of dirt, two border crossings and a ferry crossing. Alone, any of these things would have been fairly trivial. But together, it potentially adds up to too much time (especially since the road was still wet, so we don't know what condition the dirt will be in) for us to get to Rio Gallegos before dark. Neither of us wants to ride in this region after dark because there are so many llama-deer (many dead on the side of the road, and packs of them hanging out near the road) and it's too dangerous. And I think, for the moment, we're still too far south to camp comfortably with our gear (the temperatures are too cold). So we agreed to ponder it when we arrived at Rio Grande, but I think we both realized we wouldn't be able to do the leg from Rio Grande to Rio Gallegos today. It was around 1pm when we rolled into Rio Grande, and the last 100km from Tolhuin had been a bit windy. My boots were soaked from the wet roads, and we were both a bit chilly. As always, the first order of business was to find gas. We've heard from two other sets of riders who have been here recently that Rio Grande has been out of gas, so we wanted to make sure there was enough gas for us to go on. There was, so then it was the question of how far we could make it today, or what to do next. After discussing our options, neither of us wanted to take a chance with the next leg today. So it was into the gas station for lunch (since none of the restaurants are ever open at this hour) which was, unsurprisingly, more ham and cheese sandwiches and chips. And while neither of us had been particularly cold on the bikes, sitting in the gas station we both got very chilly. Was probably a good call for us to stay here. We headed toward where we had seen a cheaper-looking hostel on a side road when we were through here a few days ago, instead of the expensive hotel where we'd ended up last time. We found it fairly easily (in spite of me getting turned around and insisting to Kay it was somewhere it's not) and Kay went in to check. 200 pesos for both of us - HALF the price of the other place. The room is a bit of a downgrade from the types of places where we've been staying (i.e. the sink doesn't even have a drain pipe, but instead just runs onto the floor and drains through the floor drain… and the entire bathroom is the shower… there's no shower curtain, so if we shower, the toilet and *everything* else in the bathroom is going to get soaked). But it's half the price. The thing is, if we'd had this room in some of the places in Central America, or Colombia or Ecuador, I wouldn't blink at it. It would even be fairly nice compared to some of the places we've stayed. But to be staying here paying $50 US for such a crap room, that's comparable to some of the rooms we've paid $7 for in other parts of Latin America… it's a hard pill to swallow. I really wish Argentina wasn't so expensive (this part, in particular). Chilled in the room for a bit, and then went out to walk around the town and see if there was anything to see. There wasn't. Kay spotted a store that had camping-looking stuff in it, so we walked a bit further, turned around and headed back, checking out the store that had the camping stuff on the way. It was a teeny section in the back of an upscale department store (think Macy's, but on a much smaller scale) and we didn't really see anything we needed. But just as we were heading out, I had a flash of brilliance… "I wonder if they have any waterproofing stuff for boots?" So I head back over to where I saw some spray bottle things to see what they had… and Eureka! They have spray waterproofing stuff! One of the ladies spoke a little English and recommended one of the products in particular to us, so we took it. Yay! If it works at all, I'll be thrilled because my boots were portable puddles again today, with soaked socks - even in my plastic bags - even without "real" rain - just from wet roads. Bah! So waterproofing spray totally made my day. I just hope it works. On the way back to the room, we stop by the wonderful bakery that had the delicious tasty treats last time we were in town (which just happens to be right across the street from our hostel… that's how I spotted the hostel when we were here last time) and brought some back to the room to nom. And then, bah, Kay ate one that we were supposed to share and I was sad. Kay's note: because I'm an idiot... Watched our last episode of Dr. Who that we have on the iPad (a two-part special that isn't in any of the regular seasons) and then puttering around on the computer. Alas, our cheap hostel doesn't have net - first time we haven't had net in probably a week - so maybe we'll get out of here at a decent time tomorrow morning. Now I am busy anxiously waiting for my boots to dry enough for me to spray them with the waterproofing stuff. You're supposed to let them sit for 24 hours after spraying, which obviously I can't do… and I somehow think I shouldn't spray them while they're wet. We'll see if my impatience gets the best of me and I spray them anyway. Even if the first coat doesn't work 100%, the bottle is big enough that I can re-apply. Keep your fingers crossed for the waterproofing stuff! It would TOTALLY make my day, week and probably the remainder of the trip to have boots that are waterproof again, especially with all the rain we keep encountering. |
Day 101 - Rio Grande to Rio Gallegos
Breadfast initially consisted of yesterday's leftover rolls at the restaurant. I went and asked the lady if they had any croissants, since, while we may not be a fan of Breadfast we do enjoy the Argentinian croissants with a bit of sweet brushed over the top. "Oh, yes. I'll go across the street and get them." Across the street being the delicious bakery.
Breadfast was much improved upon her return as neither of us was interested in the leftover rolls. We hit the road around 9:30, which is pretty good for us, and both hoped that maybe, with a good start, and a little luck at the borders, and dry dirt we'd be able to make it beyond Rio Gallegos today. Dachary was hoping for El Calafete, which is another 250 kilometers beyond Rio Gallegos, but I never really thought we'd be able to pull *that* off. We both agreed that while we'd ridden the same roads on Day 97 it was far more beautiful when it wasn't raining. More llamadeer, a couple more not-emus, and generally excellent dirt which Dachary went nearly 70kph on the whole way (except when the gravel got thick at the corners). Just after the Dirt began the Chileans insisted we fill out the same damn form for the bikes that we'd filled out the last two times we'd entered the country. So annoying. We don't understand why they can't just pull our info from the last time they entered us into the computer. We stopped for lunch at the same place we ate with Joe and Vern last time, and had some delicious roast beef. We also split the marrow from the bone Dachary got and both agreed it was very tasty. I, however, also decided that it was way to disgustingly jiggly and squishy for me to eat again unless i was reeeeeally hungry. But, I had to try it. Lunch wasn't quite the same without the boys though. And, the ferry charged us this time: 4,200 Chilean pesos per bike. Dachary's note: riding this route in the sunshine was almost like a completely different experience. It was overcast and raining last time, but the sunlight cast a completely different light over the scene and really highlighted the beauty of this part of the world. There are practically no trees - just short scrub - and it's a lot of flat with gentle rolling hills thrown in, but in the golden sunlight, the landscape really shines. Was a world different from the other day, and much more pleasant. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5293/...1f0ca30677.jpg Tierra Del Fuego . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5171/...826402532a.jpg Tierra Del Fuego . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5296/...c5fe79d1f1.jpg We got dusty . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5174/...c034ba8061.jpg IMG_7039 . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5299/...7585b198ca.jpg Returning on the ferry . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5100/...72113fdf16.jpg Amongst good Company Another long line at the border, but nothing compared to entering Costa Rica so it didn't really bother us, although we could have done without the six year old girl who, judging by the way she threw herself and her ball across the floor the whole time we were in line, was probably high on speed… or cocaine. It's hard to tell at that age. Entering Argentina again was slightly exciting in one aspect… it was our last real border crossing; according to Dachary "Airports don't count". But somehow all the borders and miles, and dirt added up to us rolling into Rio Gallegos a little after 7:00 PM. So… no going to El Calafete. The Hotel Paris which we stayed at last time had only one room left, which had no private bath, and after declining to subject herself to the "shower" in last night's bathroom (can't blame her) Dachary had declared that she wanted a shower and didn't want to deal with showing her bootie to the hall. So we went down the street. Same deal. So we went down the street. I'm not sure what hotel we're in but the twin beds are even smaller than the teeny ones we encountered before, and the whole place smells like old-people, cigarettes, and something we can't quite place, costs 220 Argentine pesos, and doesn't include Breadfast. Fortunately there's a window with a breeze in our room. Unfortunately there's a bidet in the shower… like IN the shower. I was sitting on the toilet, pulled back the shower curtain out of curiosity to see what we'd purchased for ourselves and felt like I'd suddenly interrupted the bidet just before it had finished. There is space to shower, but if you really really want to get clean fast you can use the bidet and shower at the same time. It didn't rain on us today, which meant that Dachary's boots were dry, which meant that she could waterproof them. So, like a gleeful little schoolgirl, she did. Or, she sprayed them with waterproofing spray… no telling yet if it'll actually work. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5295/...13a64a20b8.jpg Waterproofing Her Boots . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5020/...9d872cd2a7.jpg Waterproofing Her Boots We pondered Gas Station Dinner at the YPF across the street, but both feared the the hamburgers had been there all day and would be gross… so wandered back to the restaurant we ate at last time where Dachary accidentally got excellent steak and I got totally boring ravioli. Back at the room we got an e-mail from Naomi and Alberto saying that they're in El Calafete and shall be awaiting our arrival tomorrow. We can't wait. They're staying at a campground and it's hovering just below 40 F at night, which will be a bit chilly but we'll totally do it to hang with Naomi and Albert. For future Runaways: When you find yourself needing to stay in Rio Gallegos head for Centro. When you see the flags outside the Hotel Rio… something fancy looking take your next left (illegally). Go a block and a half and there's the Hotel Paris ( GPS is S 51 37.245 W 69 13.023 ). Parking is to the left of main entrance. Should that fail continue about a block and a half down and look for the hotel on the left which is a bit lower quality. Parking is to the right of the main entrance. Should that fail go two blocks down, hang a left, and just after the next intersection there will be a hotel on the left corner which is a bit lower quality. Continue to the far side of the building for the parking. Should that fail you're on your own. |
Day 102 - Rio Gallegos to Calafate
We got a surprise e-mail from Naomi with directions to the campground in El Calafete where we were headed, and they were staying.
We were pretty bundled up against the cold and the rainclouds we saw off in the distance, and the road was a lot more of the same we've been seeing lately so there wasn't much to note from the early riding until I asked Dachary how she was doing and she responded that she was "… trying to figure out if I'm getting shocked" … "O… k…" That's not good. I'm imagining some intermittent little shock being delivered from her electric jacket until maybe ten minutes later she tells me to pull over. She never tells me to pull over so I'm pretty concerned. She says she can't deal with the shocks any more and describes it as a "… sharp stabbing pain…" and pulls up her shirt to expose a line of red unhappy skin on her belly. This is not good. We need the electric jackets to keep from freezing. Dachary grabs her lightweight Buff, folds it up and shoves it up under her shirt on top of the red aggravated area, which appears to be at the same place as where the wires come in to the jacket… hmm. We drive on and that seems to have done the trick, although neither of us is happy about it. Eventually we get to a gas station about 90 miles down the road, in the only town likely to have one between here and our destination. Of course, it doesn't have gas. We won't make it to El Calafate, or… we wouldn't if we didn't have our spare gas canisters, which, at highway speeds, will give us about 90 miles each… just about the amount missing from our tanks now. So, with some serious bitching at the safety devices in the spout we eventually get both bikes topped off and go in for some warmth and lunch… of course, the place isn't warm, and the lunch is cold ham and cheese sandwiches, but they're food… Dachary stops in the bathroom to put on a few more t-shirts to insulate her from the shocks instead of keeping a wodged up Buff under her shirt. We eventually get sick of not getting warm, head out, and finish gearing up when a guy swings around asking if his wife can take a picture of him next to us and the bikes, which we happily oblige. We then set off into the rain that finally caught up with us in force at the gas station, and then ride right out of it maybe fifteen minutes later… Oh yes. Joyous sunlight, getting stronger by the minute. Soon, we're approaching El Calafate and it's getting more and more scenic by the minute. There's a scenic overlook with a bird of prey hovering on the updraft barely even twitching its wings as it watches for prey. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5180/...99f1fcd57f.jpg Look at the big version for the bird . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5053/...b0c36e8ec4.jpg Scenic Overlook Panorama (Click through to the large versoin to see the full panorama) . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5259/...7d20d2f653.jpg Scenic overlook . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5012/...7c360c8029.jpg Scenic overlook It gets better ever mile we go forward. The lake is fantastic and mountains start rising up in the background until we're turning down into El Calafate, where we stopped at the gas station (because who knows if there will be gas tomorrow), then pull over to unhook our gas cans for a refill when Naomi shows up on her way to find a new lock. Excellent. We chat for a bit then head off for lunch where we find a place that's a) open b) has good burgers and c) excellent cappuccino. Very nice. We head over to the campground, set up start chatting and are generally happy to have finally met Naomi and Alberto after so many emails back and forth. Naomi, Dachary, and I head out to the grocery store just down the block to procure some meats and veggies to grill for dinner. Dachary's note: I'm also sick of having cold arms on the bike, so I decide to look for a long-sleeved shirt, of which I have zero. I'll take a t-shirt, but a sweatshirt would be even better for its insulating properties. I'm pretty sure El Calafate will have something, because it's a big touristy town and I've seen someone wearing an El Calafate jacket at the Chile/Argentina border. So while we're wandering around town, we poke into a few shops, and eventually find one that has some long-sleeved thin sweatshirts… I find a gray Routa 40 sweatshirt and am ready to buy it, when Naomi and Kay spot a "waffle shirt" that seems to be made of the same material of the old-fashioned long johns. They both agree that the waffle shirt will be better insulated than the thin gray sweatshirt I want, and I lament that it doesn't say "Routa 40" and Naomi offers to draw the Routa 40 crest on the shirt. But I concede to wisdom and buy the waffle shirt instead, and immediately put it on - and comment repeatedly throughout the night that I'm so nice and toasty warm with my lovely waffle shirt. It was a great purchase, even at $63 US… I just wish I'd bought it sooner. Back at the campsite, grilling commences. Plates are filled, and the chewing commences, and continues for quite some time. It's a shit cut of beef and almost every piece I have involves chewing for two minutes then spitting out the unchewable remainder. The choirizo and onions decent though. Good to be amongst good people again. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5060/...3c7845cd4c.jpg Naomi and Alberto |
Day 103 - El Calafate & Perito Moreno Glacier
Didn't particularly want to get up this morning because it was cold and I just wanted to stay inside the sleeping bag, but Naomi and Alberto were heading out to the glacier and then off to Chile, so we wanted to ride with them to the glacier and didn't want to make them late getting to Chile. So Kay went off to shower while I wandered off in search of an ATM. One ATM out of cash, but five blocks further into town I found some money. Yay money!
Back to the campground just in time for the restaurant to open, and the four of us go to have some omelets. One nice thing about being in a touristy town is you can find breakfast places that serve more than just bread. The omelets were a bit… odd… too salty, I think, but it was so nice to have eggs for breakfast again that we weren't about to complain. Breakfast took longer than expected, and Naomi and Alberto had to pack up their tent and everything since they were headed off to Chile afterwards, so we got on the road to the Perito Moreno glacier shortly after 10AM. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5018/...4a1740b51c.jpg Naomi http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5176/...eca0356e55.jpg Naomi and Alberto http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5053/...a5abab8142.jpg Naomi Poses Luckily it was sunny and beautiful, so we were optimistic about getting good views of the glacier. $25 per person to get into the national park, and a 35k ride down a twisty, but paved, park road to the parking lot. From there, you board a shuttle bus to the glacier visitor center and can walk around on a multi-level walkway with lots of stairs and balconies to view the glacier from different angles. Unfortunately, along the way, the sun was hidden behind some clouds and there was a smattering of minor rain. When we walked out onto the walkways and could really see the glacier, it was immediately apparent that the glacier completely dwarfed any sense of scale we could imagine. It was massive. Beyond comprehension massive. At one point, Alberto observed that this glacier we were seeing was just the tip of the ice field spilling over, and was probably something like 1% of the total ice, and Naomi pulled out the map so we could look at the massive ice field. We all agreed that it was mind-boggling and really too large for us to wrap our heads around. We stopped at several different balconies on the walkway to get different angles of the glacier. Much of the ice had a blue-ish tint because the ice compresses over time and the oxygen somehow ends up getting… compressed out? I'm not sure exactly, but it had an otherworldly tint. The top edge was raggedy and you could see thousands of crevasses. It looked deadly and alien… and yes, like something out of a movie set. It didn't look real. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5058/...779117e1cc.jpg Naomi at Perito Moreno Glacier http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5013/...7fcb4a35ec.jpg Alberto http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5179/...427e907909.jpg Naomi at Perito Moreno Glacier http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5299/...2c47c0ca04.jpg Naomi and Alberto http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5014/...4773580788.jpg IMG_7119 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5255/...1554e4dd98.jpg Dachary at Perito Moreno Glacier http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5051/...16412ba681.jpg Dachary http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5057/...12fc1f0ab6.jpg Dachary and Alberto shooting Perito Moreno Glacier http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5132/...d28d63abbf.jpg Dachary at Perito Moreno Glacier http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5100/...54cec7bebb.jpg Dachary at Perito Moreno Glacier http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5092/...357e15edac.jpg Dachary and Kay at Perito Moreno Glacier We saw one spot where the ice was clear and had a deep blue tint, with a darker black around it… I have no idea why the ice did that but it was very distinctive, and seemed to draw the eye no matter where we were. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5140/...40b1d40cfe.jpg Perito Moreno Glacier Moving around to different balconies, we eventually settled on one that was overlooking the right side of the glacier as we were viewing it, as that's where we'd heard all of the crashing sounds from (but hadn't seen much of the ice falling). We went over to that side and stood around for a while, taking gratuitous shots of us in front of the glacier (including some RevZilla love…) http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5257/...56f9ee1517.jpg Revzilla at Perito Moreno Glacier … when some of the ice just started crashing off. It was insane. It was a massive chunk of ice, following a couple of smaller chunks. It turned out to be one entire part of the glacier face, from top to bottom - the scale is really difficult to understand but the splash itself was like an explosion. It was a really impressive break. Kay's note: I was ready with the good camera and got an amazing sequence of the face falling off in three sections with the whole splash. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5266/...efe50546af.jpg Dachary, Kay, Naomi, and Alberto We waited around a bit after that, but nothing else broke. So back to the visitor center for a quick bathroom break, and contemplate having coffee. Unfortunately the restaurant was super crowded and Naomi and Alberto were heading off to Chile, so we opted to skip coffee and get back to the bikes. We had to wait for a couple of shuttle buses to come as they filled up too quickly and there wasn't space for us, but we got on the second one and made it back to the parking lot where our bikes were stashed, only to find that it was still raining in the parking lot. At least it had gotten sunny while we were viewing the glacier! The surrounding scenery is quite nice, too, though… http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5171/...18ee65c96e.jpg Mountain by Perito Moreno Glacier http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5093/...17d5e74a73.jpg Mountain by Perito Moreno Glacier We told Naomi and Alberto not to wait for us, as we always take forever to gear up when we're wearing this many layers for the cold, and we knew they were pressed for time to get to Chile. It was already shortly after 2pm, and they had to head back to El Calafate for gas before riding roughly 250km and dealing with a border crossing. So off they went, and Kay and I took our time getting back to town. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5180/...e821460fb4.jpg Naomi and Alberto We stopped for gas and then headed back to the campground that Naomi and Alberto had recommended (where we'd left our tent), as we'd decided to stay a couple more nights since we have time to kill and this seems like a nicer place to kill time than Buenos Aires. And much to our surprise, there were two fully-loaded F800GS adventure bikes sitting in the parking lot! Naomi and Alberto had gotten back to town, decided it was too late in the day to get a good start for Chile and decided to stay here another night. So we got to hang out with them more! Went back to the place Kay and I found for lunch yesterday where we had a nice, long, relaxed lunch. We got lomito sandwiches, which were super tasty, but the fries were sadly much more greasy than they were yesterday. Naomi and I ordered hot chocolate, which was wonderful… it was like real, rich, melted chocolate in a glass - not like some powder or the partially-melted chocolate flakes in hot milk I had the other day. It was glorious. Good food and good company made for a very happy meal. After lunch, Alberto headed back to set up camp again while Kay, Naomi and I went scouting grocery stores. Naomi and Alberto actually cook things and camp more often than we have, and they wanted something breakfasty (oatmeal is a good one they seem to like) but were having trouble finding. Two grocery stores and we found some oatmeal and stuff for dinner, and Kay and I finally got our Routa 40 stickers and we also got some patches. We've also deeded our egg holder thing from REI to Naomi and Alberto, because they might actually get some use out of it and we're almost done with the trip and have never taken it out of the yellow bag. Hopefully they'll get more use out of it! Back at the campground for updating the blog and looking at pictures of the glacier (far too many) and it's getting a bit chilly. Hopefully tonight won't be too much colder than last night! But it is nice to camp and chill for a few days… now that we've already done Ushuaia, we've still got almost two weeks to kill and no real "goal" so we have time to revisit some of the things we've skipped along the way and take our time dawdling back to Buenos Aires. |
Day 104 - El Calafate
Didn't set the alarm today and woke up at 8:30AM - it was glorious. Naomi and Alberto were packing up to head out, and Kay and I sat around and chatted with them for a bit before heading into town for breakfast. Happily, the lunch place we found on our first afternoon here also had breakfast, so we had an Americano - tons of food. Toast with butter and jam, corn flakes, fruit salad, juice and… the coveted eggs. Plus coffee for me and tea for Kay. It was a lot of food but we were so happy to have a real breakfast that we dug in and ate pretty much all of it.
Back to the campground, and Naomi and Alberto were still there! We were surprised as we thought they'd want to be up and out early, but we ended up chatting with them some more as they finished packing. A huge dog had been following them around all morning, and came over to stand in their way as they mounted up on the motorcycles and made to leave the campground. He tried blocking their path, but they revved their bikes and he got out of the way - although he ran along side of them all the way into town. Kay and I puttered around the campground after they left. We mucked about with computers and reading devices on the picnic table next to our tent, and when I got chilly, we headed into our tent and enjoyed a peaceful afternoon just chilling out. The sun backlighting the trees cast gently swaying leaf-shadows on our tent walls, and we both really enjoyed hanging out in there more than we typically enjoy time off in a hotel. The tent is *our* space. We decided we need to camp more often, and hoped to get someplace warmer where we could camp more. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5291/...533f3a9b5b.jpg Smiling Dachary http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5014/...e1597079ca.jpg Tent Stuff http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5133/...7f4b9f6897.jpg Camping Again The plan for the day had been to ride over to check out Fitz Roy, a beautiful mountain area around 100km from El Calafate. Naomi and Alberto had told us about it and showed us some pictures, and there were also pictures around town. But we hadn't been in any hurry to get on the road, and were sitting at the picnic table around 1:30 when a guy came over and started looking over the bikes and chatting with us. He said he had a new F650 of his own, and thinks they're great bikes. We mentioned that we were pondering going to see Fitz Roy, but he said it was too late in the day for us to go unless we planned to stay there. We hadn't, and hadn't realized it was going to take us that long to get there and back, so we pretty much gave up on the idea. I thought maybe we'd go see it tomorrow, instead, since we're in no real hurry to go anywhere. Gas station lunch of sandwiches and chips, to save a bit of cash and because we weren't terribly hungry after breakfast, and then a little wandering around town and poking our heads into shops. Back to the campground, and we saw an adventure bike waiting there! It was Maichek (pronounced "Matt-check"), an Aussie who is spending the next year in South America. He was looking for some friends who he thought were in town, so we only chatted briefly before he headed out hunting them. A bit later, though, and he was back! Apparently he was going to camp here, too. Kay and I ventured back into town to get stuff to make dinner, since we were at a campground and could actually cook - and set about frying some meat and making some pasta. Kay actually read the stove manual and used the cleaning thing (a magnet) and the stove was working beautifully again, almost like new… until we were boiling water for the pasta. Then it started sputtering and threatening to die again, just like it did the last time we tried to use it - in Palenque. We managed to keep the water boiling long enough to cook our pasta, but I still don't trust our stove. Kay's note: The stove comes with a multi-tool for all the various nuts and such. On that is a magnet. To clean the stove you simply wave the magnet under it. After the meat I just waved the magnet under it again, and pumped the tank more. I'm not sure if it was being clogged or if the pressure had just ran out, but this stove does seem to be less happy than the one we sent back for the recall. During dinner, Maichek wandered back over to chill with us. He drank some wine and we shared stories. He had horror stories of Routa 40, too (as did Naomi and Alberto) - I swear that road is sheer evil. After talking to other experienced bikers about their troubles with Routa 40, I'd definitely abandoned my thoughts of asking for a rematch. I rode the section I rode, and I'm going to leave it at that. I overcame my little section of it and I'm not such a masochist (nor do I have anything to prove) to tackle more after hearing about all the trouble that other experienced riders have had. Traded stories with Maichek until I was cold and shivering, and Kay said we need to get me into the tent. And as we're putting the kitchen stuff away, a couple wanders into the campground who apparently know Maichek - and we discover that the gent was a guy we'd met at the Argentina/Chile border a few days earlier when we were either coming or going to Ushuaia! (Can't remember which.) He'd done the US and Alaska on a… Honda… Shadow 700? We can't quite remember the details - I was still wearing my helmet because I'd expected a quick border visit when we first met him, and so I had my earplugs in and Kay was the one doing the chatting. But it was wild that he just happened by our campground, and we chatted a bit more about the trip, the bikes, waterproof gear that isn't… all the things bikers chat about on the road. I was quite chilled by the time we got me into the tent, but it was a good night of chatting with new friends. And a surprisingly awesome day of doing nothing. This is much better than killing time in Buenos Aires, methinks. |
Day 105 - El Calafate to Rio Gallegos (AGAIN).
Last night, a little after midnight we woke to the sound of rain pouring on our tent and Dachary really needing to pee. I remembered I'd shoved a teeny umbrella in my Camelbak, which made the endeavor slightly more bearable. Upon seeing the time I decided to try and hold mine for another seven hours or so; hoping the rain would be gone by then.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5096/...9dfc735620.jpg Wet Wet Wet (Yeah, that's right, another morning of wet ass thanks to my Airhawk cover) We had bought eggs the other morning, and fully intended to cook them for breakfast, but with intermittent sprinkles in the morning neither of us was very into the idea, so we went back to the restaurant at the hostel and were told us we could have the lame bread buffet but no eggs. Damn. With a forecast for rain, and cold we figured maybe we should just stay another night, only in a room this time. But, it was 150 pesos with a communal bathroom. Maybe some of the other hostels in town would have a cheap one with a private bath. Back to our favorite restaurant in town which wasn't open yet, but has an employee waiting to be let in. **** it.. Pandareia across the street… hmm unhappy looking croissants. We go to check the hostel next door but it doesn't look very open. When we turn around though the employee was nowhere to be seen. It's nine minutes before nine AM and our choices are gas station breakfast (ham and cheese sandwiches) or tasty restaurant. I vote for tasty restaurant. I'm sick of gas station food. Eventually, the door opens and we go in. Dachary pokes the net on her phone while we eat tasty omlets and discovers that while there are plenty of cheap dorm style rooms in El Calafete (averaging just under 30 pesos ( about $8 US )) anything with a private bath is pricey. According to the weather forecast tonight is going to be too chilly for us to camp again, so we decide to split town. The only point in staying here is to save money while killing days waiting for the plane. Also, it feels wrong to me to be sitting still so long. Why aren't we going forward? It's in my blood now. Forward… Forward… Forward! Not sure what's going to happen when we get home. But, the weather's sprinkling off and on, and we don't really want to go, because we think we're going to get rained on, and it's already cold. So Dachary decides to fiddle with her tail light, which has gotten increasingly wibbly. It bounces up and down constantly as she rides. We think it's partially by design, but it's been getting worse. Unfortunately, we can't figure out how to get to the damn screws. Maichek comes over and he and Dachary poke at it, read the repair manual, and generally wonder what the BMW designers were smoking when they came up with the idea for the tail light assembly. I puttered around loading and packing the remaining stuff until eventually they gave up. I think we'll have to take off the entire back end, remove the wheel, and sacrifice a chicken to get to the nuts in question. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5013/...1333a9c619.jpg Dachary and Maciek poking the bike So, we pack up, say goodbye, and hit the road. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5016/...104c4738f5.jpg Maciek and Buttercup The road is utterly lacking in rain. Puffy clouds in clear blue sky. I'm gradually turning my electrics down more and more. We are very happy campers. And then, we climb a couple hundred feet onto a higher plain where a cold winter wind eats into us from the side. I start turning up the electrics more and more. Soon the snot in my right nostril has frozen. This is not *quite* as good. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5136/...fae9646389.jpg Patagonian Riding Position (I spend hours at a time riding in Patagonia with my head tilted into the wind like this) We stop for gas and debate where we'll stop tonight. Neither of us wants to stay in Rio Gallegos again. It's not that we dislike the town. It's that we've already stayed there twice. We think we can cover the 300 kilometers to the next town north of it before dark, but we need to get lunch now, because we can't afford to have Dachary skipping food for that long. When we get in though, there are no sandwiches. The sandwich shelves we got lunch from before are bare. Shit. But, then a man brings ketchup and mustard out to a couple sitting at a table. They've got silverware too. What's going on?! I go to pee, hoping their food appears before I return, but no. I ask the guy at the counter if they have food and yes; yes they do. Beef, milanasa (a kind of flat breaded beef thing), and sides. "Two beefs please!" "They're very large. Are you sure you want two?" "Do you want to split one Dachary?" "Sure" "One beef then." "What do you want with it?" "umm… what is there?" "Fries, mashed potatoes…" "Fries please." "Do you want xxxx?" "huh?" "xxx" "I don't understand." "Fried egg." "Oh. Yes please." So, yeah. Food. Not bad, but not… huge. It's a bit much for one person, but not quite enough for two. We press on. Lunch has taken an hour even though we didn't dawdle, and Dachary says we've got an hour before we hit the turn where we'll have to commit to going north or Rio Gallegos. Half way there though I'm fighting not to fall asleep. I'm catching myself in a few of those "oh shit" moments where you realize that while you weren't asleep you weren't entirely aware of what the road was doing for a second. This isn't safe, and, as much as I hate to do it, especially when it's only a little after three PM, I tell Dachary we need to go to Rio Gallegos because I'm just too tired. So that's what we do. I think one of the great things about both of us as riding partners is that we put safety before everything else. Dachary makes sure to keep talking to me for that last half hour, because it's the only thing that keeps me awake in these situations. The police checkpoint on the outskirts of town makes us pull over so that he can write down our license info. We think it was really just an excuse to admire the bikes for longer, because after asking where we rode from he tells us it's a dream of his to go on a ride like ours. I hope he does. There's a gas station as you come into town, and they have real food. It's not been long since lunch but Dachary's "starving" and I could eat more, and neither of us wants to eat at the expensive restaurant in town. I say THE expensive restaurant because while I've walked miles around here we can't find another restaurant. We're sure there is one. It just isn't anywhere near the hotel. But the gas station provides us with two huge Lomito Completo sandwiches. In South America, whenever a sandwich is labeled as "complete" it essentially means "with the works" but you never know what "the works" constitutes. Avocado? Egg? Cheese? Lettuce? It's a crap shoot usually, but this time the signage actually tells us we'll be getting lomito (beef), egg (fried), lettuce, and tomato. It's pretty effing tasty, and while we may need a snack later on we should be able to avoid the restaurant. The Hotel Paris has a room for us again. Yay. But it smells like smoke. Boo. They've got another one for us. It smells like weird. We go for the smoke as it's a nicer room. |
Day 106 - Rio Gallegos to Tres Cerros (again)
I realized this morning that the money from the stocks we sold should be in my account, and as a result i should a) no longer be negative and b) should be able to buy the plane tickets. So, I hop over to Orbitz and Travelocity to see if the price has gone up since the last time we checked. Yup. But, oddly, if we travel three days earlier than the cheapest day last time we get a few hundred bucks off. I go to book it but my card is rejected.
Frustrating, but not wholly unexpected. My account was over $1000 negative for a while so I'm not surprised they put a block on the card. I call them up (thank the gods for Skype) and find out that yup, that's what happened, but I'll have to wait until 8:15 AM Eastern time (we're an hour ahead of them here) to call the department that has the power to unlock it. So, we go down to breakfast, come back, and call. It's one of the most painless phone calls I've ever had with a bank. "Give it at least five to ten minutes before trying." she says. Five minutes of packing later and I'm resubmitting the form on Travelocity. Ooops, session timed out. Redo the search, get the same price as before, try to book it, and get a warning message "the price has gone up!" like $500 up since half an hour before. "WTF?" I think. I redo the search. Now it's $800 higher. "You Ass holes!" They know I want it, so they keep jacking the price. I search around and find that If I fly out one day later than that I'm only about $200 more than earlier in the morning but still ahead of Orbitz and the other Travelocity price. I hate this bullshit. On the up side, this flight leaves just after noon instead of at 3 in the morning. Unfortunately there's an 8 hour layover in Washington DC in the middle of the night. Anyone feel like hanging in the airport? I doubt we'll be getting much sleep. So, running late, Dachary stressing about passing the checkout time, and not entirely sure where we're going to attempt to see penguins today, we set out. Oh, wait… there was a printer by the hotel computer. I drop my tank bag by Dachary and the bikes and go back inside to print. I figure it's better here than hunting down an internet shop with a printer later on. And *then* we set out. It was freezing when we started. I mean that literally. It was 32 F / 0 C as we packed the bikes. On the road Dachary's eyes were watering and I was riding with my left eye closed because the frigid patagonian side-wind hit the helmet in precisely the right way to sneak in and blow on my left eye. Having one really cold eyeball is not a pleasant sensation. Thankfully, we had the electric jackets and grips, but an hour into it and we had both commented about sore necks from the wind. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5307/...b8c85ac63c.jpg Just me and my shadow We rode on until the YPF (Gas stations down here are either YPF or Petrobas) we'd found on the way south that had gas and real lunch. Dachary had a perfectly round piece of pounded, breaded, and deep fried chicken. It was somewhat disturbing in its approximation of a perfect circle. I had a quarter chicken, rotisserie style I think. Mostly, we just enjoyed being able to sit without our necks kinked over to the side for a while. We encountered a couple semi-frozen Argentinian adventure rides as we left, but they didn't seem too interested in chatting, and we headed for Puerto San Julian. A number of sites and promo things we've seen claim this is the place to go for Penguins. Drive into town until you hit the water (or the replica of a spanish ship) hang a right, and you'll see a tiny pale shack with big yellow letters. You can't miss it. The problem is, that the boat only goes out when there are at least four passengers. But, they didn't seem particularly confident that the next boat would have four passengers. They didn't seem particularly confident that the next morning's boat would have four passengers either. I inquired when it was that the penguins left. Somewhere between the end of march and the middle of April she replied. In December they return to have their babies. I asked this because there are two penguin breeding grounds north of here that we can drive to on our schedule without waiting for two other people who may or may not show up. Better yet, it doesn't require staying in San Julian because it's a ****ing depressing little town. We can't describe precisely why, it just is. It wants to be a tourist town, and judging by the number of hotels it's PR department is doing a good job of convincing the world it is, but it's just a sad place and neither of us had any desire to stay there, especially not when staying might result in more depression resulting from a lack of boat. So we headed north. There was a good chance we'd end up staying in Tres Cerros again and we discussed how sad it was that we would rather stay in an overpriced gas station hotel with the world's worst Breadfast than in any of the hotels or Cabanas in San Julian. At one point Dachary suggested that staying in San Julian was like some sort of punishment, and, with a Godlike voice, said "Bad Tourist! We're sending you to San Julian!" I noted how ****ed up it was that there were all these cabanas there, one place was even building a couple more, and they all were overlooking dirt fields. "Hey honey, let's get away from it all and get a cabana in the middle of a dirt field!" It had warmed up by this point, but as we left San Julian the wind got even stronger, and we spent much of it leaned over, taking right turns whilst leaning left. Soon Dachary suggested that she was not only sore from the wind, but tired and really not feeling like pushing beyond Tres Cerros tonight. I had zero problems with this suggestion and when we came back the lady remembered us and happily charged us just as much as before. This time though, we were early enough to avail ourselves of the laundry service, which required learning the words for bra, underwear, shirt, and socks, since they do it by the garment here instead of by the bag. Side note: We've heard other adventure riders suggest that they simply pull up to a laundromat when they see one and throw all their stuff in. We would love to do this, but to date we have seen zero laundromats. There was one place that looked like a laundromat in Granada, and may have been one, but it was also a cheap laundry service so we let them do it for us. Others we've talked to along the way have also been using various laundry services. Sometimes it's cheap. Sometimes it's $20 US. Most of the time we just do our laundry in the sink, but sooner or later you really do need to get it shoved into an actual laundry machine. So yeah. We're chillin' in Tres Cerros. Hopefully we'll see Penguins at Punta Tombo tomorrow. We think we can get there with just over 20k of dirt which we hear tale is well maintained for all the tourists. We were going to post this from Tres Cerros too, but the power went out, and the internet never worked again after it came back… grr. ( Dachary's note: what hasn't really been coming out in the posts for the past few days is that I think Kay and I are mentally checked out of the trip now. We're still a little over 2k kilometers from Buenos Aires, and have something like 10 days to kill before we can fly home, but neither of us is mentally "here" anymore. All the time leading up to Ushuaia, we were living *in* the trip. Our focus was on our day's travel, maybe something ahead, with the ultimate goal of reaching Ushuaia somewhere off on the horizon. Neither of us ever really thought or talked much beyond that. Now that we've reached Ushuaia, even though we still have a fair amount of riding left, penguins to see and more time until we go home, we're both already thinking ahead. It's about home now. We're both very much looking forward to seeing the dogs. I'm thinking about various writing projects and work. And, amusingly, Kay is already planning the next trip. He's currently leaning toward the Trans-American Trail on a Honda Ruckus, which I'm willing to do but will reserve real planning until we've at least sat on them. He had big plans for the Stella, too, but hated the thing once he bought it, so I'm not so interested in planning that far ahead. But we've been debating what we'd bring on a Ruckus, how the trip and gear would be different, etc… Yeah. Neither of us is in the here and now anymore, which seems like a shame for this part of Argentina and the end of the trip. I wish I could be savoring the remaining days. I feel almost disappointed that I'm mentally checked out, because there was something really satisfying in being so in-the-moment on our travels before. It seems kinda sad to be thinking about work and all of the mundane things waiting for us back in Boston, while we're still here on the end of this wonderful trip. ) Kay's note to Dachary's note: I'm not sure if I'd say "checked out" for me. But, the trip definitely feels like it's over. Mentally I'm just killing time. It's not that I feel sick of traveling. It's that we've reached our goal and now we're just waiting for the plane. As for the TAT on a Ruckus. I love the idea of doing a big trip on a small bike, and even if we never do it I'm totally enjoying the mental exercise of figuring out what gear we should / could take and what mods would have to be done to make it survive the western portion of the trail. It's good to have something like that to ponder while you ride. |
Day 107 - Tres Cerros to Comodoro Rivadavia
Slept very well last night, but was still super tired on waking up and kept hitting snooze. Eventually I dragged myself into the shower, which made me cold again (the room was cold and the shower wasn't producing enough water to warm me up) so I had to crawl back into bed to warm up before venturing out for breakfast. Today's croissants were just as lame as the last time we stayed here, but the coffee was actually tasty today, and I bought a carton of "multifruital" juice (pear, orange, banana and pineapple) and breakfast was surprisingly decent.
As usual, we didn't hit the road until 10AM. No idea what took so long this time, as the internet we were planning to use to update the posts last night went out when the power went out, and never came back on. So we had no internets since like 7PM yesterday, and didn't get to do any of our normal net stuff. I assume we were just late getting out because I was tired and cold. It was immediately apparent upon hitting the road that it was *windy.* Typically, it's been calmer in the morning and then gets windy in the afternoon - anywhere between 1-3PM the wind seems to pick up. It was as windy this morning as it has been most afternoons, and as the day wore on, it just kept getting more windy. Unfortunately, my neck hadn't recovered from yesterday's wind, so by the time we got to Fitz Roy, around 130km north of Tres Cerros, I was in real pain. Having the wind blowing against your helmet all day at the same angle creates a surprising amount of neck pain. I wished my head would pop off just to make it stop. This time, Fitz Roy had gas, but the store was closed which meant I couldn't get in to use the restroom. The gas station guy said I could go a couple of blocks away to the visitor's center, but I didn't want to deal with gearing up to ride a few blocks so I told Kay I'd wait till we got to the next town north, about 85km. And of course, 20km later, I had to pee, so I asked to pull over and ducked behind some bushes. Did I mention that the wind had picked up? Yeah. As I was walking back to the bikes, the wind lifts my bike up and over vertical to fall down sideways. The wind literally pushed my bike over. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5144/...6c2c69dc73.jpg It was tired It fell over past the pannier and the poor little side-stand was up in the air looking all sad… like "I was trying to do my job! See! I didn't fail!" But the wind was just too strong. It took Kay and I some hauling to get the bike lifted again uphill, and once we did, I made Kay stand next to it until I got mounted up and could support it myself and keep it from falling over again. It was WINDY. More riding in the wind, and a minor detour into Caleta Olivia led us past a gas station with a cafe. At this point, it was nearing 1PM and I was getting hungry, not to mention very much craving a break from the wind, so we went in. Had a lomito completo, which is a wonderfully tasty sandwich… in this variant, it was beef, ham, cheese, lettuce, tomato and a fried egg. A ton of food, but after breadfast, it was welcome. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5187/...f97c7f8427.jpg A celebration of Oil Men Back on the road, and I told Kay I'd probably have to stop for the day in the next town. The wind was killing my neck, and was blowing us all over the road. It's the worse wind we've had so far in Patagonia… up until today, I was beginning to think all of the people who complain about the wind in Patagonia were exaggerating. I don't think that anymore. The next town was Comodoro Rivadavia, and it was only something like 90km down the road. That would put our total mileage for the day at around 180 miles, and it would have us stopping for the day at around 3PM… with still nearly five hours of daylight left. But the next place north of Comodoro Rivadavia on my map was over 200km north, and I knew that with the wind blowing as hard as it was, I just didn't have it in me to ride that far before stopping. Kay was very patient about my request, and it turned out to take a while to find a hotel and get settled anyway, so it was nearly 5PM before we got the stuff loaded into the room. Kay's note: Dachary said "I feel ridiculous stopping at 3 o'clock but I just don't have it in me to do another 150k to the next town." I didn't blame her. The wind's just tiring. On the bright side, the hotel is right down from a sewing shop, and I had Kay grab a needle and thread so I can fix his Airhawk straps. I was determined to make the early stop count for something. The hostel also has internet, so we could update the blog and do a few administrative things, which is good since we haven't really had net for the past several days. So yeah. I feel a little lame for being defeated by wind, but this is no ordinary wind in Patagonia. This is two days in a row of really strong side winds that yank your head up and back no matter how you move your helmet (although pointing down and to the left seems to help a bit) and buffets you across the road at a whim. Hopefully the wind calms down a bit before tomorrow morning. If it doesn't, I assume that a good night's rest and a liberal dose of Advil will help my neck relax before tomorrow and hopefully make it a bit easier to ride in whatever wind we encounter. Kay's note: the riding yesterday, and today up to Caleta Olivia was flat and… flat. The only things of note were the llama-deer that kept jumping into the road and not-emus that kept being exceptionally well camouflaged. |
Day 108 - Comodoro Rivadavia to Trelew, Argentina
Penguins!!!!
Er… sorry. Couldn't contain myself. The day started with the sound of wind, and me taking experimental trip into it to find croissants. When we got off the bikes yesterday I was sweating my ass off. It had started off cool, and when the winds picked up enough we'd both turned on our jackets just a wee bit. But at the end, walking around looking for a hotel left me sweating. This morning I decided to forego the thermal leggings and the rain liner in the top. I swapped the Cyclone Buff for the lightweight one and pondered swapping in the summer weight gloves, but Dachary stopped me with the simple reminder that we're always too warm when we start, and then just right, or even cool, when we're on the highway. On the highway she was proven wise. Around 12:15 we pulled into a YPF, filled up, and went inside to eat, but were told we'd have to wait for 12:30 to get sandwiches. So we do… and then we wait another ten minutes. Then a girl comes over and takes the order of the people sitting at the table next to us. We go up and order for ourselves. My Hamburgesa and Dachary's Milonesa (sp?) sandwich take just short of forever to come. I'm getting somewhat annoyed because there's no good reason for it to be taking as long as it is. Dachary reminds me we're in Latin America and everything happens about 400% slower. The foods pretty good, although by the time Dachary's approaching the end of her rather huge sandwich the Argentinian "odd flavor" has reached critical mass and she can't finish it. So, we head out, and turn down the paved road to Punto Tombo, and then onto dirt for the last 20k, but it's pretty good; mostly just a thin layer of gravel on top of hard packed dirt with occasional hard packed sand under thin gravel. We park, put the backpack straps on the tank bags, cable-lock the jackets and camelbaks to the bikes, pay the entrance fee, and then there are penguins… everywhere. ****ing all over the place. Penguins in the walkway. Penguins by the walkway. Penguins on the hills. Penguins by the water. Penguins as far as the eye can see. It was awesome. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5029/...61527239cb.jpg Punto Tombo . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5303/...11f6ef594a.jpg Punto Tombo . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5228/...f6838f88e8.jpg Punto Tombo There were a number of young ones who hadn't finished plucking out their baby feathers: http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5102/...c1d64a77f5.jpg Punto Tombo My friend John requested on our blog that I wave to the penguins for him, so: http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5066/...680ed6197f.jpg As per John's request One thing we weren't expecting there was llamadeer http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5251/...e2cc0a4469.jpg llamadeer and penguins at Punto Tombo I love this pic. I just never expected to see penguins in a setting like this. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5143/...55143993fa.jpg Punto Tombo . The pattern of their feathers is so cool http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5227/...bd7ba9e300.jpg Punto Tombo . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5187/...672e33bda8.jpg llamadeer . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5011/...585c3566ae.jpg llamadeer . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5176/...f249aa7e56.jpg Punto Tombo . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5141/...46c947dc52.jpg Punto Tombo . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5092/...2ddb8cdec1.jpg Punto Tombo . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5303/...33557cc564.jpg Punto Tombo . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5019/...8fc31f1bdd.jpg Punto Tombo . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5060/...c6ac536dfb.jpg Punto Tombo . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5140/...6e41918cfc.jpg Punto Tombo . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5187/...9fbd705864.jpg Punto Tombo . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5268/...8aa20a335c.jpg Punto Tombo . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5055/...a42dc64466.jpg Punto Tombo . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5017/...9d9faca87d.jpg Punto Tombo . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5171/...01223d2286.jpg Me and my other shadow Eventually Dachary's boiling as she's wearing motorcycle boots, and motorcycle pants with rain liner, thermal leggings, her waffle shirt, and her electric jacket (unplugged obviously). I've got the same but without the thermal leggings and am able to make it the last 250 meters of the trail and back but the way back is pretty hot, and the sun is starting to get pretty low. I'd run out of water in my camelbak on the way in, and the bikes will run out of gas on the way out if we don't fill them. So I run in to get water, and then we start filling the bikes from our cans. We've moved far enough north that we've lost almost an hour of daylight compared to Ushuaia, so we take the dirt a bit faster than before, and exceed the speed limit on the pavement by a bit more than before too. As we're coming into the city limits of Trelew we see a Petrobas, and then, "What's that?" there's a Hospedaje right next to it… with a restaurant. It looks pretty deserted, but still has folding chairs out front…hmm.. I go in and SCORE. Hotel, Wi-Fi, restaurant, next to a gas station, with zero need to go hunting through a city! Resonable price (for Argentina) too; about 220 pesos ($55 US). The place is pretty newly constructed, the Wi-Fi actually works in the room, and we are so effing psyched to not have to deal with hunting in a city. It's called the Hosteria Ffarm-Taid and you can find it at S43 17.306 W65 15.961 Just look for the Petrobas as you are coming into town from the south, or after you've left town if coming from the north. The pork chop at the restaurant was really good too, but the fries and mashed potato kinda sucked. |
Day 109 - Trelew to El Condor
We poked into the restaurant on the off chance that there would be some sort of desayuno, and there was - they had media-lunas (croissants) and we got coffee and tea. Sadly, the coffee wasn't drinkable - probably more of the instant crap they love so much here in South America - so I gobbled my croissants quickly and we headed back to the room to get ready. Surprisingly, in spite of it being a place with internet and us spending some time chatting with a guy who was staying in one of the other rooms, we got out early (for us) at around 9:30AM. Grabbed gas at the gas station next door and hit the road.
What followed was one of the most boring days I've ever had. It was definitely my most boring day on a motorcycle; I was more bored than I ever thought possible on a motorcycle. We rode through flat, boring (did I mention boredom?) landscape; similar to the same flat landscape we've been riding through since we left El Calafate. A body can only take so much of the same thing before succumbing to boredom. At one point, we ran into a police checkpoint at a state border where they wanted to look at Kay's paperwork and ask us a few questions (the standard where have you been, where are you going, etc.) But for the first time ever on our trip, a drug-sniffing dog checked our panniers and dry sacks while the other police officer examined Kay's paperwork. Apparently the cop asked about insurance, which Kay ignored, and then proceeded to ask about the next gas stop to try to distract the officer from the fact that we don't have any Argentinian insurance. He waved us on shortly after, and we rode off to the happy sight of the drug dog rough-housing around with his handler. I miss our doggies. When we hit the gas stop 40km later, we stopped for lunch - not because either of us was particularly hungry, but because we didn't know how long it would be until we found another gas stop and I wanted a break from being on the bike. We bought gas station ham sandwiches, and the lady toasted them for us, and had some chips. It was kind of a pleasant change from all of the disappointing meals we've been having lately. Who knew I'd look forward to a gas station sandwich lunch, when before I was lamenting the fact that it was all we could get? At least you know what to expect, and they're consistent. Back on the road, and more boredom. We rode, and rode, and rode some more. The landscape changed a bit; we started seeing more scrub and bushes until the flat land was almost completely covered with a layer of green, short scrub. But it was still flat and windy, only now it was a different color as far as the eye could see. At one point, Kay rode to the edge of the road and stuck his foot out to the side, brushing his boot against the weeds at the side of the road. "Just to see if I could." He did that again from time to time, because we were both bored out of our minds. It was something to do. As much as we've really enjoyed this trip, and had some totally epic days of riding… I think now we're both just ready to get home. I worried when we set out if we'd feel disappointed or depressed to be coming home, but I'm excited about it, and I know Kay is, too. Occasionally during the ride we'd throw out something we're looking forward to when we get home - the dogs are the big one, but also just sitting on our couch, watching TV; I'm looking forward to cooking something tasty in our kitchen; and we're both looking forward to food we haven't seen since we left the States. Which has engendered an ongoing discussion about foods we want to eat when we get home. We've been saying for half of Argentina now that we really want a good American breakfast when we get home. There's a great breakfast place around the corner from our house, and I told Kay a week or two ago that I don't care how broke we are - we're going there for breakfast when we get back. But since then, random foodstuffs have been popping into my mind with mouth-watering intensity - things I didn't realize how much I love and take for granted until I had to go without for four months. I was reading a book on my iPhone at the end of the day, and the main character ate some pancakes. "Pancakes!" I said to Kay, remembering the glorious pancakes we had in Granada. Those were probably the best pancakes I've ever had in my life. Which started a discussion about where we could go for pancakes when we get back to Boston. And then, a bit later… "Sushi!" Out of nowhere. We had just kissed and Kay had gone back to his book and I got a whiff of something - probably the ocean water nearby - that made me think of sushi. Oh, how I miss it. And then there was Indian food… And Chinese (dim sum)… And brownies… So that's our new thing. Randomly naming foods we miss that we're looking forward to eating when we get home to Boston. I've lost a ton of weight on this trip, and I have a sneaking feeling I'm going to gain it all right back when we get home. But all of these little day-to-day things that you take for granted, like having a choice about what you want to eat - those are the things that really hit home after a while on the road. Sometime in the afternoon, we stop for gas again and decide that it's gotten warmer. In fact, it's gotten so warm that it's time to shed layers. Yay! We're both psyched. Kay takes off his rain liner and heated jacket, and I do the same. I'd already taken my waffle shirt off earlier, so that leaves both of us riding in just our jacket shells (with all the other gear, of course.) I'm wearing my thin cotton Buff instead of my thick wind-breaking Cyclone Buff, and we both switch to summer gloves. And it is glorious. Glorious! We feel like we've each lost 10 pounds and have suddenly ceased to be sausages - there's so much more room in our gear now and everything is just a little easier. Gearing up to ride off without the extra layers is faster and infinitely more comfortable. It's the high point of our day, and a wonderful gift in the middle of a very boring day. For the next hour or two, one of us would randomly say "It's so comfortable!" or "It feels so good!" over the headsets because we were so happy to shed the layers. Eventually, we arrived in the town where we'd intended to call it a night - the plan was to ride to Viedma, and then down Route 1 a little bit to the campground where Horizons Unlimited hosted a meetup in December. It sounded like a nice spot where we could spend a few nights and kill a bit more time before arriving in Buenos Aires, where we're going to have to sit around until it's time to fly home. At this point, we're only 600 miles from Buenos Aires, which is two easy days of riding in South America… and even if we weren't, I was so bored I couldn't ride another hour and had no hope of making it further down the road. It turns out that Viedma is a surprisingly crappy little town. We saw a sign for Route 1, which took us down a road that had like 30 of these ginormous speed bump things. They were more like pyramids with the top chopped off - they're probably 3 feet from front to back, so your wheels go up on it, you ride on it for a second and then you come down the other side. They came in pairs before every road that intersected Route 1, in lieu of stop lights, and it was one of the most ridiculous roads we've seen. Eventually it merged with some other road and stopped doing that, but in the meantime, it had completely bypassed the town, so we didn't see a gas station where we could fill up, or a supermarket where we could buy some food to cook at the campground. 30km later, we arrived at El Condor - a sleepy little beach community with a surprising amount of hotels. It was slightly nicer than Viedma, but very lacking in amenities. We passed what might have been a supermarket, but our first priority at this point was finding the campground, so we road past and figured we'd come back later. A few minutes later we see a sign for a campground, so we turn up into it… except it's right across the street from the beach, and the entrance is covered with a big mound of sand. Kay takes it easy, gets his rear tire a bit stuck but is eventually able to power through it and makes it past the sand. I swing a bit wider and get stuck in a different spot, and my rear end fishtails wildly as I free my rear tire from the mini-sand dune, but I remained surprisingly controlled and powered through the sand. As much as I might not want to admit it, I seem to be getting better at non-paved road surfaces. Around a corner past a building and we enter the campground, except it doesn't look like much. In fact, we both have a hard time believing that it's the same campground where Horizons Unlimited hosted a meeting. Kay asks the guy who comes up to us if there's another campground, but he shakes his head no, so Kay asks about price and sets us up for the night. The plan had originally been to stay for two nights and spend the day here tomorrow, but after seeing this place, neither of us wants to commit to that right off. I go visit the bathroom, which is disgusting, and Kay heads out to scout and see if there's another campground. He sees no sign of one, but there is a tiny "kiosko" (think convenience store) across the street, and also a couple of restaurants. So we set up the tent, read for a bit and then walk across the street to check out the beach, the kiosk and the restaurants. The beach is beautiful. A dog walks by, we speak to it, it wants to be petted, I pet it and then it jumps up on me for more lovings. I oblige, missing my dog from home. Then it runs off, and we go back to walking on the beach for a bit. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5093/...f4a8451edd.jpg El Condor http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5021/...c0cabe6275.jpg Kay in El Condor http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5021/...b34076f784.jpg Success http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5053/...777362539b.jpg El Condor We walk down past where the GPS had indicated the other campground to be, and see no sign of it. This has to be the campground where Horizons Unlimited met. As usual, the restaurant isn't open until 8:30, although when we ask the guy at the kiosk about it, he offers to make us some sandwiches. We buy some chips and decide to come back later, when the restaurant is open, as the other restaurant doesn't inspire us with confidence and Kay has decided we should eat at the "good" restaurant on the beach to make up for the crap campground. Another trip to the bathroom, and it has gotten even more disgusting, which I tell Kay and he suggests in all seriousness that I use the men's room. I just can't, though. I can't stand the idea of walking in on a guy peeing at a urinal, or being in there when a guy walks in. I'm still too "civilized." So I use the disgusting bathroom, and it's slightly mitigated when one of the other stalls is unlocked so I can start using a non-disgusting stall. Suddenly I feel much better about the campground. We venture out for dinner when the restaurant is open, and it looks like we'll be the only patrons. And there is no menu. The guy rattles off a list of options, none of which sound particularly good to me, and Kay eventually settles on Napolitano, which is milanesa with ham, melted cheese and tomato sauce on top. I order the same thing because I'm not thrilled with any of the options, and it sounds about as good as anything else, but I tell Kay after the waiter leaves (who is, incidentally, the same guy from the kiosk… apparently he owns both places, and is surprisingly attentive) that I'm sick of milanesa. He didn't realize that's what he ordered, but I tell him nothing else sounded better, and we wait for our food. When it arrives, I'm pleasantly surprised. The fries are the tastiest fries we've had in ages (but now I'm dying for some rice… what happened to the rice? Why are we never offered rice anymore?) and the napolitano is only slightly odd-flavored. As I eat more, the odd flavor goes away and I'm left with something resembling tasty. I enjoy the meal a lot more than I'd expected to, and watch the lightning light up the clouds off to see. It looks like we're going to have a storm tonight. |
Day 110 - El Condor
Day 110 - El Condor
There was rain in the forecast last night, and as we ate dinner in a nearby restaurant we watched cloud lightning as the edge of the storm rolled in and the wind just kept picking up. For me it was exciting because it wasn't just wind blowing like it does on the plains of Patagonia. This was wind with a purpose. It was bringing a storm. When would it come? What would it be like? As a precaution, I pounded down the tent pegs some more so the wind wouldn't rip the fly away, and then huddled in the tent listening to the fly flap and flap and waiting for the rain. I kept waking up listening, wondering, and not getting back to sleep. Then the rain came, and came, and Came. It billowed. It poured, and everything was drenched… except us! (Dachary's note: I did get wet, actually, but it wasn't our tent's fault. Just before 1AM, I woke up for a mid-night pee run, and it wasn't raining yet. Yay! But a few hours later, it was POURING rain - apparently I'd managed to sleep through the beginning of it - and I had to go out to the bathroom again. Had no choice. I bogarted Kay's waterproof boots, which turned out to be perfect because there was deep mud and lots of standing water between me and the bathroom. Even using Kay's little umbrella that lives in his Camelbak, I got pretty wet - but the stuff in our tent didn't. Just me. Boo on late-night pee runs in the rain. It's the one thing I *really* don't like about camping.) I have GOT to hand it to REI's tent designer. Our Quarter Dome T3 Absolutely kicked ass last night. No rain in the vents. No condensation in the morning and even though our tent was sitting in a puddle of soaking wet sandy mud none of our stuff was wet. I think a little moisture did seep through under our mats because of the pressure of our bodies but not enough to pool, and our sleeping bags stayed dry because of the mats. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5011/...ebc6ed57fa.jpg El Condor When morning came, we did our AM bathroom run (the rain had stopped) and sat around in the tent, reading and being lazy. At one point, Dachary asked "Are those four little dog paws by our tent fly?" The wind was still flapping the fly, and every time it flapped up we could just catch a glimpse of little white dog feet. I opened the fly and it was our friendly neighborhood campground dog. We gave him some pets, and he poked his head into our tent to get some love from Dachary, too, but stayed outside under the fly like a well-mannered little dog. After getting some pets, he wandered off to do whatever campground dogs do when they're not hanging out with guests. The ground dried out pretty quickly after the sun came out, and we spent the day doing pretty much nothing: reading, watching a little TV on the iPad, unexpectedly tasty lunch at the place next door, napping… it was pretty good. But then we decided it was time to make dinner. The stove has been finicky this whole trip (not that we've camped much but…) and we needed it to keep water boiling for over fifteen minutes. We crossed our fingers, waved the cleaning magnet, hooked everything up, pressurized the bottle and… nothing. More Pressure!!! pfft. spittle. nada. ****. We grabbed the instruction manual. We disassembled the stove. We cleaned the needle. We cleaned the nozzle. Neither of them needed it, but we didn't know what else to do. We reassembled everything. We hooked everything up. We pressurized the bottle and… nothing. Dachary said there was nothing left to do, except something the manual mentioned about replacing a fuel filter, but we didn't have a replacement. I looked at the manual. It said you could actually run for a while without the fuel filter but there would be more soot from the flames. I don't mind soot. I grabbed a paperclip… What? You don't have a paperclip in your kit?! I poked the teeny filter out. I put the pieces back together. I hooked everything up. I repressurized the bottle and… huge ****ing flame! Like three feet high! http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5175/...b78cc59dd8.jpg see that little dot? (that's the fuel filter) A little adjusting, a little burning off the excess, and soon we've got hot water… wait. What's that weird stuff floating in the water? I'd be ok with tap water being boiled, but I'm going to have to agree with Dachary about floaters being bad. We break out the water purifier. Pump pump pump pump SPEWWWWWW all over my crotch. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5131/...2c96bf7c4f.jpg there was an accident Apparently the filter had reached its limit. The crap buildup was enough that it couldn't fit water through. Fortunately we had a spare; a spare, I should note, that I never thought we would actually use. I figured that since we were filtering clear looking tap water most of the time, and not pond-scum there would be very little to actually build up in the filter. Apparently I was wrong. I dug the new filter out of the bottom of the pannier, swapped it out, and continued pumping. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5299/...7402c05801.jpg It died so that we might live... Side note: This is one bad-ass water purifier (not filter). It can remove "… contaminants down to 0.1 micron, including giardia and cryptosporidia." In the end it took us an hour and a half (literally) to boil water. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5055/...17ecd6215b.jpg Please, dear gods, let it boil! . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5262/...1f79b568dc.jpg Camping On the up-side my pants dried quite quickly. On the down side, after an hour and fifty minutes (twenty more to get the tortellini finished) we discovered that the food was so bad that even the campground mutt wouldn't eat it. Really. We only ate it enough to curb the hunger and tried to foist some of the remainder off on the dog, who wanted nothing to do with it. We did watch a wonderfully funny episode of Top Gear while we ate though, and that helped distract from the flavor… somewhat. Before going to sleep we checked the weather for the next night. Weather.com claimed a low of 54 and a current (three hours earlier) temperature of 48… we were not filled with confidence. Google had it right though. Did you know you can just type "weather for place_name_here" and it'll give you a forecast? Google's claimed temp was 43, which sounded about right, and suggested that tomorrow night we'd freeze our booties off if we tried to camp. Guess we're not staying another night. |
Day 111 - El Condor to Tres Arroyes
As it was rather chilly this morning, I wasn't tempted to linger and wake up slowly. When the alarm went off, I immediately made my morning trip to the bathroom, and then came back and crawled into the sleeping bag and started packing stuff away. Whenever we spend more than a night in the tent, all kinds of stuff invariably ends up in there and needs to be put in its appropriate place so it can go back in the panniers.
Laptop has to go back into its protective sleeve and dry sack, kitchen stuff has to get put back in the kitchen bag, the stuff that got removed from my tank bag has to go back, have to deal with the clothes bag, etc. All this stuff takes a surprising amount of time, and it was cold, so the logical thing is to do all of this from the comfort of a sleeping bag. Kay took a cue from my packing and decided that today was not a day to linger, and joined me in packing up instead of taking our time and waking up slowly. We got everything out of the tent in fairly decent time, but then it ended up taking forever to get things put on the bikes and get away. In the end, we didn't get out of the campground until around 9:40AM, which was a little disappointing because we didn't take time to eat breakfast or poke the 'net - the things that usually keep us at hotels until checkout time at 10AM. It seems to me that if we skip breakfast and net, we should get out more than 20 minutes earlier… Also, Kay totally didn't warn me that I had crazy hair this morning. I'd gotten so cold in our tent last night that I slept with the Cyclone Buff pulled over my head in a balaclava, and my winter hat on top of that - and when I went to the bathroom this morning my hair was utterly crazy. I was embarrassed about the crazy hair when a woman from the campground came over and tried chatting with me about the bikes. She was using Spanish that we don't know, so it wasn't a very successful conversation, but she smiled at us and seemed pleased by us being on motos. She didn't seem to mind my crazy hair. Unfortunately, with all of the COLD this morning, we had to add back in all of our cold-weather layers that we were so happy to shed the other day. Rain liners back in our clothes, heated jackets back on and winter gloves back out. We were sad to have to be putting this stuff back on, but definitely wanted it because it was chilly riding out. First task of the day was to get back into Viedma, where we'd pick up Routa 3 again, and find gas and an ATM. Time for more money. Gas was easy, but we asked a guy at the gas station who came over and chatted with us (in English!) about an ATM, and he gave us slightly wonky directions. We ended up missing our turn and going over a river, and then not being able to get to a bridge back across the river… I finally asked (insisted) that Kay stop at the gas station we saw and ask directions to an ATM over here. These directions were accurate, an ATM was located and money acquired, and we made it back to Routa 3 with a minimum of fuss. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5021/...16d9198366.jpg Dachary Waits Except now it was 11AM already, and we hadn't even left town. Luckily we're not in a particular rush to get to Buenos Aires, and had no destination in mind when we left, but it was still a later-than-usual start considering we skipped most of our usual morning routine. Back on the road. More boring riding, although I felt it was a little less boring after our day off. The landscape changed to a bit of scrubby grassland with small rolling hills, which was more interesting, although our helmets instantly became covered in bug splats. And then the landscape changed again to quasi-farmland. We loved the green smell, but couldn't figure out how they were farming because the ground we could see looked like sand. Tried stopping at a YPF for gas and lunch shortly after 12PM, as we were both starving from not having breakfast and last night's lame dog-rejected pasta dinner, but it didn't look like it had a restaurant or even cold sandwiches, and we both wanted a warm lunch. So we continued down the road to the next town, where I knew Joe and Vern had stayed when they went north and assumed we'd find gas and maybe a restaurant. We did find a gas station that served food, happily. Kay got a hamburger, and I got the lomito completo that I've grown to like so much… except mine came not on a sandwich, but as a platter. And I liked it even better than the sandwich. The fries were also surprisingly tasty. In all, lunch was a complete success, even though we both had things we've been eating a lot lately and are starting to get tired of. It felt like a feast after no breakfast and last night's lame dinner. Kay's note: there's really not a lot of choice on the menus we've been encountering: hamburger, lomito, milanesa(sp?), and maybe, if you've been very good, and brushed your teeth, chicken, with fries because you couldn't possibly want anything other than fries with your food. Back on the road after lunch, and more boring riding. We both kept getting random songs stuck in our heads, and updated each other periodically about what song we were stuck with, occasionally singing along together. Eventually the speed limit went down to 80KPH, and we kept going around 100-110KPH because that's what we've been doing for weeks and we didn't feel like we'd get anywhere going 80KPH (not quite 50MPH). And the Argentinians on the road were passing us like we were standing still. Apparently going 110KPH in an 80 isn't fast enough for people down here. I definitely felt like I was driving in Latin America today. The passers were cutting it far too close with the oncoming traffic, which was particularly nerve-wracking when WE were the oncoming traffic and cars were barreling down our lane the wrong way towards us at 110+. Not much else to report. During lunch, we'd decided we should shoot for Tres Arroyes as our stop for the evening, which is about 300 miles from where we started and 300 miles from Buenos Aires. I would have liked to make it a bit further so we wouldn't be heading into BA at the end of a lengthy-ish day, but we didn't know how far it would be to the next town that had a hotel and didn't want to get stuck bush-camping in case it would be too cold. Plus we both stink from not showering the past couple of days whilst camping, and were looking forward to a warm shower. So we check a couple of hotels in Tres Arroyes, find one (Casino Hotel) that has a reasonably decent price (for Argentina) and a hotel, and stop for the day. Turns out there is an actual casino behind the hotel, which we wandered into looking for soda I could buy. We both agreed that the machines in the casino seemed lame - it's just like sitting at a computer punching buttons, and we didn't want to waste any pesos gambling there. Couldn't get anyone's attention to buy soda, so we went out to the main street and saw a YPF just down the way. Headed in that direction and it turned out to be the biggest YPF we've seen yet, with something like 8 or 10 lanes for gas and diesel and a full-on cafe with a large seating area, as well as the usual munchies. We decided to skip the casino restaurant and grab some sandwiches while we were here, and also ended up grabbing some croissants, which amused me. As much as I really don't enjoy the Argentinian practice of "breadfast," the croissants you can get down here are growing on me. It's been days since either of us has had a croissant, and I was surprised both that I was craving one, and that Kay wanted them, too. Enjoyed some croissants with our dinner, and I'm pondering going back in the morning for a cappuccino and more of those croissants because the coffee smelled SO good. Breakfast is included in our hotel, but I might skip it for that cappuccino… Random note from today: as of today, I have put 20,000 miles on my Beemer! I only logged 1,000 miles on my first bike (a Ninja 250, which I crashed and repaired before buying the Beemer). So does putting 20,000 miles on my bike make me not a newb anymore? ;) |
Day 112 - Tres Arroyes to Buenos Aires!
Today was the day - we were going to make a final push to get to Buenos Aires and Dakar Motos before the day was out, there to find out the fate of our bikes and wait for our plane to fly home on Saturday. We woke up at the same time as always, and made a concerted effort to get out of the hotel early-ish - we were ready to go by 9:00AM, but when we went to load up the bikes, we discovered it was warmer. Much warmer. So much warmer that it was time to shed layers.
Back into the hotel to get rid of the rain liners, and back out to the bikes to pack the stuff away. We also shed the electrics and even switched gloves. Toasty! Alas, after all of the shedding and packing away of extra layers, it was 9:40AM by the time we left Tres Arroyes and hit the road for BA. It was supposed to be a little over 300 miles, but the end bit would be navigating a massive city without a detailed city map, so we knew it would take more time. It always takes more time. Kay's note: at one point before leaving the room I turned to the mirror and exclaimed, "Jesus Christ! It's HUGE!" because my Honduran haircut has grown to epic proportions. For a while I looked like David Hasselhoff during his days on Knight Rider, but now it's just getting scary high. I don't know what to do about it. I want it to grow out more, but I'm going to have to go to interviews when I get home… Ugh. Interviews. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5294/...0822861ebe.jpg Jesus Christ it's HUGE Rode 200km to Azul where we stopped for gas, and decided we should eat some ready-made sandwiches to go because it would be faster. Of course, we still managed to take an hour for lunch. Kay ended up chatting with a guy, and was trying to find Dakar Motos on our GPS so at least we'd have a dot to orient ourselves even if the map had no detail, but was unsuccessful. Still, all of this takes time and our "short" lunch wasn't short. On the bright side, though, we found something that Kay has been craving for probably a week now… Snickers! For some reason, it's these small cravings that really make a difference, and Kay was thrilled to be eating these half-bar Snickers. One for the road, and back to making tracks for BA. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5190/...763066710b.jpg Snickers Acquired! The next stretch was filled with trucks. We've ran into a fair number of semis on Routa 3, but it seems like the closer you get to BA, the more they multiply. Literally every 60-90 seconds we were ending up behind another semi, and having to wait for the oncoming traffic to be clear enough to pass it. It slowed us down and meant we didn't have any really long stretches where we could just ride. Also, oncoming traffic from the opposite direction was even crazier than usual, as they were passing trucks from their side - which meant far too many near-misses as they hogged our lane entirely too close for comfort. Another stop, and this time we put the gas from our spare gas tanks into our bikes. We had enough to get into BA and give us slightly less than half a tank to navigate the city, etc. This way we wouldn't have to deal with our spare gas, and we could just trash the tanks at the end. A quick bathroom break, and Kay loaded a different GPS map onto the GPS at this stop to try to see the Dakar Motos dot. This one worked, but the map we're using only has a handful of roads in BA, so the routing on the GPS was worthless. We were going with Google Maps directions. After this, we wouldn't be stopping until Dakar Motos. We ride, and ride, and ride. Routa 3 into BA is actually quite unflattering. It goes through the barrios outside of town - the poor, run-down areas where there is grass and weeds overgrown everywhere, and a ton of intersections without functional stop lights where traffic is just coming from the sides and you can never quite be sure if they're going to stop. Further into town, and traffic is heavy with lots of stop lights - and we hit where we think the intersection should be, but we haven't seen any road signs to indicate it - just a big intersection that's called something else. We ride a bit further without turning, but then decide we've probably missed the turn - it was probably that big roundabout we passed before. So we make a complicated U-turn, and start heading back the other way. While we're stopped at one of the endless stoplights, another moto stops beside Kay and starts chatting. Kay asks if we're heading toward the main road we want, and the guy says no - it's in the other direction. He tries to give us directions, but the light turns green and we have to drive off. But now we know we have to turn around again. We look for a way to turn around, and see the guy on the teeny moto has pulled off to the side. Great! We pull off, too, and he tries to give us more detailed directions. His Spanish is too much for us, so he draws us a map - four kilometers back in the direction we were headed, and we'll run into the major road we're seeking. And something about having to turn right to take the left we want. We thank him profusely and start looking for a place to U-turn again. Then I notice something that appears to be a thin metal rod hanging down from Kay's bike, near the rear brake and chain. I tell him to pull over ASAP to figure out what's wrong with his bike, and we pull into some parking spots on a very raggedy incline, but it turns out it's just the Loobman tube that has pulled loose. Kay ties it in a knot and we decide to U-turn at a left turn just across the way, so after some minor drama involving me having to come down the curb right next to a bus (I insisted there wasn't enough room, and Kay told me to go anyway) we made the U-turn and got headed in the right direction again. We find a road that might be the correct road, but there's no road sign. Just the names of destinations on the road. Right is some neighborhood, and left is some other neighborhood. Both are meaningless to us. Luckily, there's a gas station right there, so Kay asks if this is the road we need - it is - and we U-turn in the gas station to find an easy way to get on the road. We make it into the major road, finally, and are hopefully headed in the right direction. Yay! We ride. And ride. And ride some more. Google Maps' directions told us to take an exit in 1km after getting on this road, but we go at least 3 or 4 miles and haven't seen the exit it wanted us to take. I ask Kay what we should do, and he says that the dot for Dakar Motos is still ahead and to the left, so we should just keep going this way. So we do, until we pass the dot and Kay decides we should get off and start trying to find it. What follows is random navigation trying to find one-way streets that are pointed in the direction of the dot. By chance, we decide to take a left on a one-way that just happens to be the correct road we were supposed to take - not where Google Maps told us to take it. So we follow it, and I spot the next road we were supposed to take just as we're passing it. Coming from the right, the street sign is different than the one on the left. So we circle back around, take the right road, start guessing where to turn because none of the roads are signed, and are just riding along when an old guy waves at us and points at a set of gray garage doors we've just passed. I tell Kay and we circle around again, get stopped at the garage doors this time, and Javier comes out to greet us. Yay! We've made it to Dakar Motos! There's no sign or anything, and we never would have spotted it if the guy hadn't pointed to it for us (I think he's a neighbor) so I'm glad he happened to be nearby. Kay's note: there is a hand-painted number on the door, so if you've got the address you'll be able to find it, but yeah, there's NO external indication that it's there. We get off and park the bikes, and Javier has room for us to stay at Dakar Motos. Yay! But he barely has room for the bikes - he has to take the panniers off another bike that is here just to fit ours into the space. One look around makes it clear pretty quickly that there probably isn't room to store our bikes here. We ask, and Javier confirms - we can't store the bikes here. And he doesn't have anyone else to recommend. He says there's one guy in town who might be able to store them, but he travels a lot and Javier isn't sure if he's in town right now. He says we should go to Uruguay to store the bikes, as he can recommend some people there, but we just don't want to have to deal with the logistical hassles of getting our bikes to Uruguay and then getting us back here for our flight. Javier has more bad news, though - it's not possible to ship bikes out of Buenos Aires without us here. So if we store the bikes here, we're going to have to fly back down to BA whenever we're ready to ship them home just do to the shipping paperwork. We can't leave an authorization with anyone or arrange an agent to ship them out on our behalf. So now we're going to have to pay not only something along the lines of $3,500 to ship the bikes home - we're going to have to pay another $3,500 for round trip plane tickets for BOTH of us to come back here to ship the bikes. Suddenly getting the bikes home has gone to $7,000. Javier seems to think we're crazy for wanting to store the bikes. He suggests (politely) that we should find a way to make it happen that we get the bikes shipped out while we're here. But we can't borrow that much money from anyone, and we simply don't have the cash. The stocks tanking on us really cost us (we lost a little over $5,000 in the stocks dropping from when we left the US at the beginning of our trip - which would have been enough to ship the bikes home and pay the first month of rent when we get back, while Kay finds a job and I get back up to full speed with my clients.) So the money simply doesn't exist to ship the bikes home. We can't make it materialize from thin air, we don't have parents to borrow from - just not possible. Kay suggests aloud that maybe we should just sell the bikes. Javier confirms that even if someone does buy the bike, he or she won't be able to leave the country with it - we have to be here to check the bike out of the country. It's unlikely we'd be able to sell the bikes in the three days remaining to us here, so we're back to having to fly down here to escort someone out of the country with our bikes, and then fly home from wherever. Not a good option, either. Javier leaves us with a lot to ponder. We need to find someplace to store the bikes, and figure out finances for when we get home. If we now have to raise twice the money to get the bikes home - money for us to fly down and money for the bikes to get home - it's going to take us longer, which means we have to store the bikes longer. Boo and boo and boo again. But there's a cat! http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5029/...33c25eb090.jpg Kay and Negrito On the bright side, we meet David - a Canadian who has been riding around the world since 2009 and has been all over the place. We spend a very happy evening chatting with David about travel, bikes and all the cool places he's been. It takes our mind off the logistical problems, which we now have four days to sort… so we leave that till tomorrow to figure out. ( Kay's note: I totally love David's approach to where he's going to go. He has had essentially zero plan. I think he went to Iceland because he found a flier about it on his way somewhere, had no idea it was such a big off-road riders destination. He didn't intend to go to Africa but then he was riding down the east coast of it. He was going to head over to south america, or somewhere, but that didn't work out so he went up the west coast. Totally just going with the flow. We stayed up until about 1:00 AM chatting and trading stories, although he definitely had more. He's totally easy to talk to, but it's been an interesting insight into the differences between the mindset of those multi-year riders and people like us who are much happier doing three to four months at a go. ) |
Day 113 - Buenos Aires
Today was an unexpected punch in the emotional gut.
Javier had no space left in the shop to store any more bikes and wasn't comfortable with storing ours in the enclosed back yard until space opened up. I think he, reasonably, didn't want to be responsible if someone climbed the wall and stole bits off of them. We'd be happy to sign something saying we're ok with that possibility, but people sign shit like that all the time and then get pissed when it actually happens, so I can't blame him. We had two options left: deal with the other guy in Buenos Aires whom Javier wasn't so sure about the quality / safety of the storage, or head to Uruguay to meet up with one of the places Javier could recommend there. There problem there is that we'd probably spend a day getting there, spend the night, and then have to figure out and pay for the transportation to get back to Dakar Motos, or figure out another cheap place for us to stay until the flight. We booted up Skype and called the local guy. He's an expat named Ed and the number on the web site is his cell phone. Yes, he said, he had space, but he's flying to Spain tomorrow so if we wanted to arrange it we'd have to do it today, so we agreed to meet at 4PM. It would take us about an hour to get there, and as three o'clock approached we were increasingly unhappy about it. We didn't want to leave the bikes. We didn't want to leave them in some anonymous parking garage, and we didn't want to leave them with someone we knew nothing about. The ride there was not happy, but it was at least a lot less stressy thanks to David converting the OSM maps for Buenos Aires to Mac format for us* before we left. Routable city maps! What a luxury! We get to the parking garage maybe fifteen minutes early and Ed's not there yet. The attendant is very confused as to what to do with us because we say we need to talk to Ed at 4 but Ed isn't here. In order to make the situation less awkward I decide to spend the $6, or whatever it'll cost, to attempt to call Ed on our cell phone. As with our attempt to call BMW when my moto was overheating in Costa Rica we failed miserably. We know the country code and all that. We just can't call anyone on this. We've paid nearly $100 US per mo for the ability to make calls internationally at an outrageous per-minute fee, and have been completely unable to use it. I don't know if AT&T is to blame or our own ignorance, but I don't know that it matters because the end result is the same. Anyway, I'm standing on the sidewalk attempting to make a call, and failing, when I see a woman walking towards me texting someone. I call to her, and in my poor Spanish explain that my phone isn't working, but could she please call this local number for me? She's a little suspicious, but it's pretty clear that I'm a confused foreigner and she takes pity on me, calls, and hands me the phone. Ed's on his way on a bus. He'll be here in about ten minutes. I thank the woman, and tell the security guard. And then we begin the real waiting. And it hurts. It's massively depressing. Yesterday I was unhappy about leaving them in an unknown place, but thinking it would be not much bigger of a deal than leaving them in any other parking lot for the night. No. Not at all. We're like those parents sending their kids off to live with their ex for a year; heartbroken, not wanting to let them go, not wanting to leave them, upset that we've managed to get ourselves into this situation. Ed comes with a big smile and a warm handshake. He shows us the space and the bikes he's currently storing in one of the other spaces he owns in this private garage. Two of the bikes are his and his wife's. He tells us about some of the overland riding he's done in years past. How he's worked in and with the Peace Corps for years. He seems a genuinely nice guy. He brings us back down to his wife outside and says "These are good people." and we start figuring out how exactly we'll handle paying him monthly (thank goodness we don't have to pay it all up front) and things like that. He needs to arrange with the person who's currently parking in that spot to use another spot somewhere and can't quite get it arranged so that we can leave them right then, but tomorrow morning we can come back and drop them off at 11 in the morning. We've told him earlier that Javier is squashed for space and that's why we can't leave them at Dakar and he's trying to figure out where he can stick our bikes overnight until we can put them in the real space, but we assure him that coming back tomorrow is fine. We start riding back and Dachary is upset about not being able to leave them, and having to come back again, but I contend that it's not Ed's fault. There was some miscommunication earlier and we suggested that we wanted to leave them later in the week, and he didn't want to start moving other tenants until we were sure we really wanted the space. But, we make it back to Dakar Motos, and feel we've had a minor reprieve. We have the bikes for one more day, but we're still not happy. We do feel much better about the space. It's not optimal like storing them at Dakar would be, but it's not bad at all, and after meeting him, and learning that he's storing his own bikes there does make us feel more confident about their safety, but still… our kids… Leaving them at Dakar would be more like leaving them with a grandparent. This is… I don't know… solitary confinement at a boarding school? http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5060/...e5ee75f6cd.jpg The Stickers at Dakar Motos We spend the rest of the evening chatting with David more telling him we absolutely owe him a beer for converting that map for him, and I'm quite happy when he asks if he can buy my fire extinguisher since one of the frequent scams you hear about from corrupt cops in South America is trying to get a bribe for not having a fire extinguisher or a hazard triangle, neither of which is required. I, of course, absolutely refuse to take payment for it. I probably would have chucked it in the trash anyway. He says we're even for the beer. It's a generosity stalemate. I try and foist some of the other crap we're going to abandon here for future riders, or trash if there's nowhere to stash it here but he's not having it. He's trying to get rid of shit not acquire it. Damn! -- There's been a bunch of discussion on our ADVRider thread about the decision to store the bikes. Lots of suggestions of alternate ways to address the situation. I thought I'd take a minute to give an idea of why we're doing this. Shipping each bike back to the US by plane is going to cost roughly $1,600. Doing it by boat would be cheaper up front, but the port fees at the destination port (Boston) are literally unpredictable and almost always end up bringing the price up to the same point as using a plane, plus you have the uncertainty of how long it will take to get there (You can NEVER trust any time estimates related to cargo ships) and you have to deal with all the Port Authority bureaucracy and payments (same situation everywhere in the world) to extricate them from the docks when they do finally show up. On top of that cost we've discovered that you can't legally assign someone to be your agent and ship them out for you. So, we'll have to fly back simply to be physically present when we shove them on a plane for home. We can get tickets for about $1,500 each if we book in advance. Grand total $6,200. Now, why not sell them? Because you can't actually do that; not, without ****ing over the buyer. A local could buy it but it'd take them forever and big money to get it into the local system. I've also heard something about Argentina not allowing people to permanently import used vehicles, but I don't know if that's true or not. I think not. Also, doing it locally requires a) Spanish b) time c) a phone number for people to call, and c) a place for someone to come look at the bike. We don't have the first three and the having people come to check out shit in Javier's shop would be obnoxious and simply wrong considering the amount of effort they've gone to to not advertise the presence of motos, especially pricey ones, on this residential street. Selling them to a US citizen would be trivial, but when they attempted to drive them over the border they'd be ****ed. Argentina is computerizing their systems, so simply forging an import document isn't enough. It would bring up a different owner in their system. The only somewhat reasonable way to do it is to sell it, fly down and meet the new owner, go to the border with them, check it out of Argentina and have them check it into the next country. This is obviously silly unless you're selling it to a close friend, and still requires flying back, and generally just a pain in the ass. Someone has suggested breaking them down into pieces and shipping them back as parts instead of bikes. This would most likely drop the shipping cost but you'd have to take it to customs in one piece, check it out of the country. Then bring it back in illegally, have somewhere you can break it down into little pieces, and something to put all those pieces in, then get those pieces to the boat / plane. Massive pain in the ass and requires time. We can't sell them as parts locally, because we still need to check the bike out of the country and the bike needs to be present to do that, and like selling the bike, you need Spanish, Time, and space to actually complete the sale. Really, there's only one option that avoids the costs and that's having them "accidentally" get "stolen" and reporting it. If they're "accidentally" "stolen" in the bottom of a remote and desolate canyon you can be reasonably sure they won't show up and have to be dealt with in the future. But, that leaves you without a bike back home. We like our bikes. Even if you ignore the emotional attachment what would it cost to replace them? Well, we spent about $8,500 to buy both bikes. We probably spent another $1,500 to $2,000 per bike to kit them out. And, if we had it to do again we wouldn't buy another 8 year old bike, so the cost for the replacing the bikes with similar used models would be more like $10,500. Grand total? Approximately $14,500. So, our options are $6,000 to get the bikes we know really well back home (plus $150 per mo for storage until we get the funds) or $14,000 to acquire replacements. Our plane goes out on Saturday, and everything else requires more time and more Spanish to arrange than we have. Someone suggested cashing in the plane tickets and riding back north. Even if we could arrange someone to watch our beasts for another 2 months or so to get there there's no way we could make it back home on $3,000. Also, we'd get evicted from our Aptartment and our shit would probably be on the street, or sold, or whatever to cover the remaining months on the lease. You see, we *really* have no money. When we get home we won't be able to afford April's rent, food will be purchased based on price, not desire. I will be desperately trying to get re-employed, and Dachary will be trolling e-lance for any writing assignment she can find that isn't paying hourly rates that would only fly in the 3rd world. We *should* have had money, but the stocks tanked and we lost $20 a share during the trip (should have sold at the start when we knew the price was already good). But, we knew this was a possibility. Honestly, I'm happy we were able to make it to Ushuaia and still afford plane tickets home. Taking an adventure like this is always a risk. Going broke was one risk we consciously accepted at the start of this. Also, some people have suggested loading up credit cards, but we don't have those. Or rather, we do, but we don't have any available funds. Dachary's got maybe $500 available between several credit cards, and mine is closed and I'm just paying it off. So charging roughly $3,200 simply isn't possible, and I think I've read that the shipping people here require cash, anyway. Dachary's note: when we got back from checking out the storage with Ed, we told David how surprised we were that potentially dropping off the bikes was so sad. I think it caught both Kay and I by surprise, as we'd known this is how it would be for a while, and we were both excited to be going home now. But leaving the bikes was much more difficult than we'd expected. David joked that it was because the trip was over, and now we were going home - we're not travelers anymore. I know he meant it in good fun, but until your trip is over - actually over - it doesn't sink in how much it can hurt to leave your bikes. I maintain that it wouldn't be as bad if we were bringing the bikes home, because then we'd be reunited with them on the other end in a few days and at least we'd be able to ride them around New England. But now, we're going from riding daily for 4 months to not even seeing our bikes again for probably 5 or 6 months… and it hurts. I don't think David realized how much when he was joking around about our trip ending. --- * Garmin is, in general, great, but they've done one very stupid thing. The Windows and Mac software use different map formats and essentially all the available maps are in Windows format, which would be fine, but the only software that will convert them to the Mac format only runs on Windows. So, Mac users have to beg the help of Windows people whenever they want / need a new map. It makes no sense, because on top of that, Windows people have no need of a tool to convert to Mac format since they have Windows. |
Costs for The Trip
We did some quick and dirty math, and these numbers aren't down-to-the-dollar accurate, but they're within a few hundred dollars in most cases. So for those of you wondering what a trip like this costs, here's how it broke down for us:
Total Spent During the Trip: $17,000 ($20,200) Transporting us*: $3,600 Transporting the bikes: $1,800 (Future transport of bikes back home will be an additional $3,200) Bike service: $2,000 Other repairs/replacements: $1,200 Hotels/Gas/Restaurants**: $8,400 This is just what we spent on the trip itself - not what we spent before the trip getting everything ready. We spent between $1,500 and $2,000 on kitting out each bike, including stuff like fairing guards, engine guards, Denali lights, panniers, etc. (For a full breakdown of bike mods, see our Company Vehicles page.) We also bought over $1,000 in bike spares that we carried with us before we left the US. So we spent probably an additional $5,000 getting the bikes ready before the trip. The total cost to transport the bikes doesn't include what it's going to cost to get the bikes home at the end of the trip. If we had the money to do it now, it would be an additional $3,200 (roughly), bringing that total to $5,000. So if you include the mods we made to the bikes before the trip, and what it would cost to get the bikes shipped home, the total cost would be around $25,200. Total Cost: $25,200 We also bought a lot of camping gear and new motorcycle gear for this trip, which isn't included in this cost breakdown. Camping gear is probably around $1,000, including tents, sleeping bags and cooking supplies, and new motorcycle gear for the trip is probably $1,000 to $1,500. But this stuff might easily have been purchased for US trips and/or just riding, so we don't really include this in the price breakdown. But if you wanted to include those items, it would bring the total to: $27,700. *The cost for transporting us includes two plane tickets from Panama City to Bogota, and two plane tickets from Buenos Aires to Boston, MA at the end of the trip. **While this wasn't the plan when we left, we ended up staying in hotels most of the trip. Camping was very difficult to find throughout most of Central America, although it was more available in South America. You could absolutely save money by not staying in hotels. However, the total cost for hotels in Mexico/Central America was probably around $1,000 (just guessing at a $20 average, which might be too high - I'm erring on the expensive side for the sake of estimating). South America through Peru was probably another $500. It wasn't until we got to Chile and Argentina that the hotels started getting really expensive (and subsequently we started camping and bush-camping more) and we spent probably $1,000 on hotels in 25-ish days of Chile and Argentina, so if you camp here you can save a ton of money. So estimating, the total cost we spent on hotels was probably around $2,500. You could practically cut that number in half by camping exclusively in Chile and Argentina, but you'll need good gear for the cold nights. You get diminishing returns by camping in northern South America and Central America, although it is a big area to cut costs. |
Day 114 - Buenos Aires
Today was the day. We were meeting Ed at the parking garage at 11AM to drop off our bikes.
It was a tough day. We know we're doing the right thing. We're happy we're going to be keeping our bikes, and we know it's just a matter of time till we get the money to come and claim them. It's a slightly daunting number to raise in 7 months (how long we have left until our Temporary Vehicle Import Permits expire) - basically we have to be putting away $1,000 per month, which is a lot but we believe it's do-able. It would be better if Kay had a job to go back to, and if most of my clients didn't pay on a Net 30 which means about 6 weeks before I have good money coming in again… … but we're both intelligent, enterprising people who are no strangers to making money when we work hard and get creative, so there's no doubt in our minds we'll be back within the timeframe to claim our bikes. But still. We hate to leave them. And we're probably not going to be able to get them back until October, at the earliest, which means we'll miss riding the entire summer (pretty much the only riding season Boston has). So that kinda sucks. I set the alarm for 8:30, and because David kept us up late chatting again (party animal! With a broad range of amusing and vaguely disturbing conversation…) we actually slept until the alarm went off. Puttered around for a bit and then hit the road around 9:40AM, armed with our bike covers. Alas, David was also heading out today, so we said our goodbyes before we rode off. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5176/...80d46291ff.jpgDavid . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5255/...e9b5fede98.jpgDavid's mighty steed. (By the way - did we mention that David was also a motorcycling newb when he set off on his trip in 2009? He'd ridden his BMW 1200GS just enough for the first service when he left, and before that, he'd only ever ridden a scooter, and hardly spent much time on that. That man has been all over Africa and half of South America, and done some pretty technical riding, and is still on the road. Who says newbs can't take big trips? He puts mine to shame. And on a 1200GS - what a pig to be picking up when you're riding solo!) On the road, we're reminded that the bikes are so light and maneuverable without all of our crap on them! It really is a joy to ride the bikes unencumbered, and made the parting pang even more acute - to be reminded of how much we love the bikes on a day-to-day basis - not just for this trip. Got back to the parking garage with a minimum of trouble, and nearly 30 minutes before we were supposed to meet Ed. The security guard knew to expect us this time, and told us to head on down to the spot, where Kay and I proceeded to stash the bikes the way Ed had told us the day before. (He wanted us to park them sideways in the very back of the spot so he could fit other bikes in front of them.) With a little maneuvering, we got them put in snugly and then covered them up. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5013/...a69d53e85b.jpgLeaving the kids behind Leaving them hurt. Even though we know we'll be back for them, it's unnerving to simply park them in a parking garage and know it will be months before we're back for them, and no-one will be looking after them in the meantime. Sure, it's a private garage with a 24-hour garage and CCTV, but it's not the same as if we left them somewhere where a biker is always around, like Dakar Motos. We go over the instructions again with Ed and his wife, and give them copies of our TVIP and pay for the first month's storage. Then we ask how to get back to Dakar Motos. They tell us to take one of two buses (the 92 or the 93) to the train station, and then we're on our own for which train or which stop we need (luckily we already know that). Then they walk us over to the bus stop, since they're headed that way themselves, and we catch one of the buses in the right direction. Success! A guy who got on the bus at the same time as us takes pity on us, shows us where to put our money (the slot is behind the driver's seat - not next to the driver like in Boston) and where to pick up our ticket. And then he agrees to tell us when we reach Retiro train station. We ask him in our poor Spanish, and he just smiles and says "yes" to us. I don't know if he speaks a lot of English or just a few words, but I get the impression that he was amused at us with our poor Spanish, hauling around our moto gear, tank bag and Camelbak. He tells us when we get to the train station, and we hop off the bus and then wonder where to go. Luckily, the day before, David had given us instructions on which train to get back to Dakar Motos (the train here is in a smaller train station off to the side of the main terminal, which would be really confusing if no-one had told us that beforehand) and I remember it as we're looking at the buildings, so we walk over to the correct terminal and find the train. We try to buy tickets, but the woman at the window just waves us toward the corral, and the man at the corral waves us past when we tell him we're "sin boletas" and tell him our train station. No idea why. We find seats on the train, awkwardly holding our stuff and trying to keep it off the guy across from us (they're two seats that face each other in the middle of the car, instead of the traditional forward- or rear-facing seats in the rest of the car). While we're riding out to our station, people walk up and down the train selling stuff. Water, soda, candy bars, pastries and who knows what else. A guy with a guitar gets on and starts singing in our car, and then collects donations at the end. The train is a hotbed of commerce in Buenos Aires. At one point, a guy puts a candy bar on my arm (I'm too busy holding my stuff to wave him off) and then walks by again and collects it a few minutes later, when I don't pay him. So very weird. Find the correct stop with no trouble, get off the train, and grab some sandwiches from the panderia since we haven't had breakfast or lunch and it's nearing 1PM. Back at Dakar Motos, we sit at the table in the little garden out back and enjoy our sandwiches. It's very bittersweet. The most challenging of the logistics are out of the way, so now there's only luggage to deal with. If we'd been even a day later, we wouldn't have been able to store the bikes here in BA with Ed - he was leaving today for Spain where he'll spend a few months before returning to BA. We're fortunate to have gotten this taken care of so easily, and yet it's still sad to be bike-less. On the train home, I comment to Kay that "we're passengers now." And it's true, and it's so very… depressing. We don't feel like doing much of anything, so after lunch, we sit around and poke the Internet, read on our respective devices and just chill. At one point, I comment to Kay that I want to play a game with him on the iPad (we bought several before we left and haven't played a single game the entire trip) and I get an introduction to Carcassonne. In all, it's a relaxing bit of downtime where we don't do much of anything, which is exactly what the doctor ordered after the emotional ups and downs. Kay's note: The Carcassone board game is excellent too, and has lots of expansion sets. The X-Box Arcade version is good too. Yeah, it's one of my favorite board games and I own all the versions. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5301/...c2beebd517.jpgMotorcycle Chain Support . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5135/...05453a121e.jpgKay sits Eventually we tackle our panniers. I don't want to try to bring my panniers on the airplane as luggage, as the only way to latch them requires me to lock them - and I suspect the TSA will break my locks back in the US. So I'm hoping that I can store my panniers here at Dakar Motos, and send them back on the plane with the bike when we come back to ship the bikes home. To that end, we rearrange the panniers - Kay puts stuff from his panniers that we don't need to take home right now into mine, and I pull out the stuff I want to take home and shove them in his. We're leaving stuff like the Cycle Pump, bike spares, tools, the service manual, the cooking gear… because we won't need that stuff without our bikes. But we're taking home our motorcycle gear - Kay says "just in case" so we have to shove our pants and stuff into his panniers, and the plan is to try to go into Buenos Aires tomorrow to find a piece of luggage to use for the rest of our gear. The helmets are the tricky parts as we know they won't let us just carry them onto the plane as a carry on item, and I want to make sure they're adequately protected from the rough handling that baggage receives. The whole point of helmets is to be able to absorb a shock, and they'll be useless if they get too banged up in transit. After sorting through the panniers until I get sick of it, we take showers that feel wonderful because it's been a few days since we've bathed, and then go back to the pizza place for dinner again. It's the third night in a row that we've eaten there, but it's late and I don't feel like going to the grocery, buying food and starting to cook this late. It's weird and much quieter to be there without David. The food is still good, but we're both really tired - all of the travel and the emotional stuff is catching up with us, so we crash for the night when we get back to Dakar Motos. |
Day 115 - Buenos Aires
Day 115 - The search for Spock… er… luggage (Buenos Aires).
The neighbors started arguing early last night. Initially I thought that the guy yelling was mentally retarded. Then I realized he was just yelling in Spanish. Unfortunately, they continued for hours and I couldn't sleep through it. Then I was too hot.. then… Yeah, that's right. I'm a picky bitch. :P Anyway, we get up, hunt down some pandas at the Panderia, eat breadfast, and figure out what else we can pack in my panniers. We've decided to take mine on the plane and store Dachary's here at Dakar Motos. We'd like to take them all but Copa only allows two checked bags and United Airlines allows zero… well, zero for free. First bag $25. Second bag $35. Go over size or weight on either of those and it's another $100, per bag. If we had of known we would have taken the slightly more expensive itinerary because it was all Copa and would have required any baggage fees or a fracking long layover in DC. The end cost would have been about the same and the hassle would have been far less. Also, with the bullshit over the price skyrocketing after our card was declined on the flight we tried to book first I accidentally purchased the flight protection from Travelocity. Hopefully I'll remember to try calling them tomorrow and see if we can get that refunded. Where was I? Oh yes, luggage. We've decided we can leave more than half of the shit we had in our panniers because it's useless without bikes. So we've packed that in Dachary's. We're leaving behind our sleeping pads, two 1.5 gallon gas tanks, one 2 liter gas tank, and one used tire at Dakar Motos for anyone who needs them. Javier has a small stack of used tires here for people too broke to afford a tire from his HUGE stack of new ones. If you need a tire near BA, check with Javier. This leaves us with 2 helmets and 2 sleeping bags to get back home. There's no space to leave them, and without them theres no possibility of riding… well, that's not true. We've both got old crappy helmets that don't fit nearly as well. Joe and Vern wandered into town before they left and got luggage, so we dropped them an e-mail to find out where. Vern responded with good directions and said they managed to find bags for $50, so we hopped on the train and headed downtown. We've written down the maximum linear size (64 inches) and weight (50 pounds) for a piece of luggage in my Moleskine (a must bring item) but lack any way to determine how big the luggage we're going to buy is. Fortunately I remember one of the street vendors outside of the downtown train station sells tape measures. Sure enough, they're still there when get there and for 10 pesos I am now the proud owner of yet another tape measure. There are probably three at home in the miscellaneous drawer in the kitchen. Most of the luggage we found was outrageously expensive. Seriously, what kind of people spend over $300 for a single piece of luggage… oh… wait… motorcyclists. That's actually a pretty good price for a single pannier. hmm… http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5064/...cffd65de33.jpg Maybe . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5230/...8ea7c8d96f.jpg Wire Moto . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5185/...2c4312b935.jpg Are you sure we're not in New York With a max price of 200 pesos ($50 US) we keep searching, and searching, and searching. We find a number of decent rectangular duffels for just under $50 US but are hoping for something with a bit more protection for the helmets. We find some stiffer things, but the helmets would barely fit and have no extra space for us to put padding around them. We take a break at a massive McDonalds that had two floors and at least 100 people spread out over 6 or 7 lines at a massive counter (not exaggerating) and a woman making sure people kept the lines all about the same length and writing peoples orders down on a form to hand to the cashier. I have never seen McDonalds employees work their asses of like these kids were. Eventually we find the best compromise. It's essentially a rectangular duffel with a stiff bottom, a handle and wheels on one end. At 199 pesos it's twice as expensive as a normal duffel and has slightly worse construction, but in washington DC we'll have to carry it, two panniers, the dry sack duffel, and two tank bags across the airport so we'll be very grateful for the wheels, and the tape measure confirms that it's under 64 linear inches (length plus width plus height). Like the tape measure, we've got one of these back home. We negotiate the crowds and stop at every Cambio (money exchange) along the way, but no-one wants our Limpera or Quetzales. At this point we're just crossing our fingers that one of the banks or money exchanges at home will take it because we've got about $150 US between the two. There were no money changers when we left Honduras or Nicaragua and we weren't aggressive enough about hunting down banks in the next country. Also, I've got a shitload of change from pretty much every country along the way because no-one wants to take that. David passed on a good solution for that though. At his last fill-up of any country he simply hands over all the coins he's built up during his time there and has them put in that much gas. It's kind-of a shitty thing to do to that last gas-station attendant, but it does solve the excess change problem. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5097/...7db168ec49.jpg So many zeroes, so little value . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5308/...6d1beb14fd.jpg Kay in the Park . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5179/...70294b12dc.jpg Dachary in the Park . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5023/...df6d0a160e.jpg Painters in the park . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5222/...e33a339476.jpg Historical uniforms? Tired of walking we chill in the park, then make our way to… Starbucks with a BMW! Dachary is a massive Starbucks fan and one of our friends gave us a Starbucks card when we left hoping we could use it along the way, and the BMW clinches it. We've got to go in. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5053/...05dec94b8b.jpg BMW and Starbucks Unfortunately, Starbucks cards don't work in Buenos Aires (it did in Mexico City), but we get a couple drinks and sit in the comfy chairs watching the world go by and pondering how best to acquire money to free our bikes. Discussions of bills lead to a mini-revalation that might actually help us get a fair way to our goal. I inherited a decent piano when my mom died and I should be able to get it out of storage without too much expense… I hope. We're not sure what it's worth, but IF we can get it and IF it sells within a few months it'll make a nice dent in the $6k we need to raise. So, those drinks definitely paid for themselves. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5229/...fafc8c4e15.jpg Dachary on the train. I ponder the ideograms on the train back, and we stop by the supermarket to pick up some food to cook for dinner, but the meat is behind a counter with no attendant and no bell, and the vegetables are behind a counter with no attendant and no bell which leaves us with pasta. Um… yeah. We'll try back later, and if that fails we'll just eat out. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5101/...7b4cd09371.jpg Get drunk with the robot. Get drunk with the robot. . http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5136/...59328ef393.jpg Buenos Aires Ideograms Emulate Janus. Ride bikes with robots. Run through the corrals (see picture below). Swing your child in front of the train. Run on the tracks. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5096/...5035a281d6.jpg Corrals For future Runaways staying at Dakar Motos this is the place to eat. Everything else around here looks a little skeezy, but this place has nice people, nice space, and good foods, reasonably priced. We ate here twice with David, and David got a beer both times, and we still spent less than we have in most of the places we've eaten dinner in Argentina. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5065/...242d359fd5.jpg Where to eat when at Dakar Motos. Tonight or tomorrow we'll pack up the new wheelie-duffel. On a related note Sandra informs us that new TSA regulations say that you can't ship any personal items with your bike*. That means that your panniers either have to be empty, or only contain bike parts when you ship it. So, if you're planning on shipping your bike to the US, you're going to have to hunt down luggage too. Also, she advises that you give her just under one month's warning if at all possible to arrange shipping to get your bike home (quotes from the cargo companies are only good for one month anyway). I suspect she can do it in less if needed, but it's always safer with lead time. * Apparently there was a bomb on a UPS flight and somehow this means we'll be safer without personal items going along with vehicles. Maybe it's me, but I think it'd be significantly more effective to hide a bomb in the metalwork of a vehicle than in easily inspectable panniers, or anywhere else you'd store personal items on a vehicle. Maybe the TSA just wants to prevent the really lazy bombers and encourage them to make it more of a challenge to prevent planes from blowing up. |
Some Trip, Mileage and Riding Stats
Days of trip including departure and day of flying home: 117
Days of not riding: 21 Days in United States: 10 Miles in United States: 2,569 Days in Mexico: 16 Miles in Mexico: 2,041 Days in Central America: 23 Miles in Central America: 2,137 Days in South America: 68 Miles in South America: 11,225 Total Miles: 17,972 Average Daily Mileage in US: 256.9 Average Daily Mileage in Mexico: 127.56 Average Daily Mileage in Central America: 91.91 Average Daily Mileage in South America: 165.07 Sans Non-Riding Days: Actual Average Daily Mileage in US: 285.44 Actual Average Daily Mileage in Mexico: 145.78 Actual Average Daily Mileage in Central America: 125.71 Actual Average Daily Mileage in South America: 200.44 Actual Average Daily Mileage in Colombia/Ecuador: 131.8 Actual Average Daily Mileage in Peru, Chile and Argentina: 224.92 Riding Statistics: Longest Riding Day: Chile, 434 miles Shortest Riding Day: Colombia, 7 miles Number of Days Riding 300+ Miles: 15 Number of Days Riding 200-299 Miles: 27 Number of Days Riding 100-199 Miles: 34 Number of Days Riding 1-99 Miles: 20 Number of Non-Riding Days: 21 |
Day 116 - Buenos Aires
Last night's home-cooked meal (pasta and beef chunks) didn't go over so well with Dachary's intestines and I was sent to fetch breadfast. 'Twas a good thing though, because on the way there was a dead dog up against the curb. He would have been a cute one too. I really didn't think it would have been good for Dachary to see that now, so I decide to not mention it either. We're sad about leaving the bikes. We're not sure how we feel about the end of the trip, we're really missing our beasts, and sometimes seeing hurt doggies can really get to her. I've mostly tried to just compartmentalize that on the trip. Dogs get hurt, get mistreated… there's nothing I can do about it. Their lives and circumstances are so radically different in Latin America.
Breadfast acquired and we take it easy. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5069/...2b231dc0d8.jpg Kay cleans the panniers I set about cleaning my panniers. They're covered in a film of dirt, and the fronts have tiny bugs splattered across them like little black sprinkles on a huge cupcake. I failed in my earlier attempt to remove the bolt-on Touratech bottle holders and the spare gas holder. Even with the correct sized alan wrench (Leatherman) the bolts just stripped instead of turning. So, I've decided to tent stickers over them so that they at least don't *look* like pieces of bare metal sticking out. And, to do that, they need to have something clean to stick to. After scrubbing them down with the broom I attack them with lots of baby wipes. Our sandwich lunch from the Panderia isn't particularly appealing today and neither of us want to finish it. Dachary sets to work writing mortgage posts for one of her clients and working up a massive hunger. Sadly, it's nowhere near 8 yet, and she can't decide what she'd want me to get from the supermarket, largely because we don't really know what our options are. Supermarkets down here aren't like in the States. Sometimes you do hit big ones, but, mostly the selection is severely limited. Dachary reminds me to take the armor out of my jacket. We've got space to pack it and it'll help avoid questions at the airport. The jacket's not so bad at an airport even with armor, because you can throw it on the conveyor belt. They weren't so happy with the knee and hip armor in Panama because you can't easily show them what you've got going on under there without stripping. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5266/...b3fd87f6ee.jpg Broken armor Anyway, I notice I've a crack in the tip of one of my pieces of elbow armor. Nothing serious as it's just the thin bit at the tip, but it is annoying. Probably happened as a result of trying to get the stuff back after the last washings. Very difficult to get it to fit in its pockets, but at least it won't shift in them. Maybe, with a little luck, the Armor's still under warranty. Not sure if it's been over a year since I bought the suit or not. While we're sitting around we hear Javier get a call from another rider. He's 100k away and Javier will be gone when he gets here. I guess we'll be letting him in. Before he leaves Javier gives us the scoop. It's a canadian rider who's been here a couple times before, and is riding a F650GS like us. Night falls, and we hear thunder in the distance… where is this guy? Eventually we see the lightning too. We've been holding off going out to dinner so that there'd be someone to let him in. Now we decide it's best to send me out to bring something back before the heavens open up. I throw on my rain liner (it's pretty warm out) and track down a pizza for us. I would have done something else but they claim meat would take half an hour, and I'm pretty sure I'd be drenched if I waited that long. It's already sprinkling out. I head back, and no Canadian. Dachary's been waiting in a chair just inside the door to make sure she heard him. Maybe he hit the other side of the storm and just got a hotel? We watch a little Top Gear when we hear an engine and then banging on the door. Voila, one wet canadian. His GPS died and he ended up asking the worst kind of people for guidance in getting here. There were very helpful, very ignorant, and very very wrong. But, eventually he made it. A bit wet, and in need of food, but that's not uncommon for our kind. ;) His name's Gus, and he'd taken like nine months getting from Alaska to Ushuaia and had spread it over two trips. I think he took roughly the same route we did. We talked a little, but ended up cutting it short because we had to get up early to be ready for our 8:30 AM taxi. Gus seemed nice, but we didn't quite "get" his trip. It felt like there was some vital clue we were missing, and without that we didn't quite understand why he was traveling in the manner he was. Nothing wrong with taking a while, or spending a month or two chilling in various towns, but the why eluded us. Sleep, however, did not, although it was frequently interrupted to scratch mosquito bites. No screen doors at Dakar Motos. |
Day 117-118: Flying Home (Buenos Aires, Argentina to Boston, MA)
Saturday dawned bright and early as we got up, showered and put the finishing touches on our packing at around 7AM, all the time trying not to wake Gus the Canadian. Javier from Dakar Motos said he'd try to make it to the shop in the morning to see us off and lock up after we left, but since Gus was scheduled to arrive, that took the pressure off and Javier didn't make it. The taxi was scheduled to show up at 8:30AM… at 8:20 I went out to take our trash out to the bin and the taxi was there.
So Kay scrambled to get his stuff wrapped up, and we didn't end up signing the guest book at Dakar Motos - we saved that until the last minute and then had to run. I feel bad about that. The guest book is this awesome log of who's been there and their thoughts and a little snippet of their personalities, and I wanted us to be in there too with all the other riders that have passed through, so I'm a little unhappy about that. Kay's note: In total agreement. Really wanted to sign it, but I remind myself that we'll be back and have another chance when we go to pick up the bikes. Taxi ride to the airport took about 40 minutes, and while we had mixed feelings (mostly weird) about being passengers instead of riding, it was definitely nice to let someone else do the navigating. We arrived shortly after 9AM, which gave us about three hours before our flight, and I was happy. I always feel time crunched when I get to an airport, but we had plenty of time and that relieved a lot of the stress. Especially as this was a long series of flights. Whilst standing in line to check in, we notice that some people have gotten their luggage shrink-wrapped. I assume it's to prevent security people from snagging your stuff, which we weren't too worried about, but we did think it might be useful to have Kay's panniers shrink-wrapped because we thought we might have trouble with checking them. They have lots of fiddly, pokey metal bits on them (see yesterday's post) that we thought might give the baggage handlers an excuse to turn them away, so shrink-wrapping seemed like a way to make them appear slightly less odd. We debate it and then he takes them out to get them wrapped up, and they are much less conspicuous when shrink-wrapped (although now they won't stand up at all). Check in with zero trouble, and Copa prints all three of our boarding passes for us - the two for the Copa flights and the one for the United flight. The itinerary is Buenos Aires to Panama City, Panama City to Washington, D.C. (Dulles), and Washington to Boston. Not optimal in terms of number of connections, but it was the cheapest flight we could find at around $1,300 each. When we check the luggage, the woman at the Copa desk asks "What have you got there?" and Kay explains that his metal panniers are motorcycle luggage, and she seems fine with it. Two big duffle bags and two motorcycle panniers, and everything is within the size limits (we'd checked before hand) and we have no excess baggage fees through Copa. Yay! Baggage safely checked and boarding passes in hand, we get through security with zero hassle. When we crossed the Darien Gap from Central America to South America, flying from Panama City to Bogota, we were still wearing our full motorcycle gear, and that gave the security people some issues. They were suspicious of our big boots and the motorcycle armor in our pants, which we can't take off to send through the x-ray machine because they're not overpants - they're just our pants (they had to take us off to the side and "inspect" the pants, which for me was behind a screen, but for Kay was out in the open). So this time we fly with our motorcycle gear safely packed away, except for our jackets, which we can send through the x-ray machines with our baggage. Just to be safe, I take all of the armor out of my jacket (it's in one of the duffle bags) and Kay takes his elbow armor out, but leaves his shoulder and back armor in. Security doesn't give us crap about anything and we make it into the terminal with no problems at all - much smoother than the Panama to Bogota flight from CA to SA months ago. Safely past security by 10:30AM and we find a cafe for breakfast. We order lomito sandwiches, because the lomito completo was one of the best sandwiches we had in Argentina (I kept ordering it because I liked it so much) except it wasn't the lomito sandwich we've been getting - it was basically really thick ham and cheese on a baguette. We were disappointed because we were looking forward to one more of those sandwiches before we leave, but it was amusing and perhaps somewhat fitting since we ended up eating so many ham and cheese sandwiches in Argentina. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5142/...2753ffc31b.jpg Nervously ready to board Flight from BA to Panama was from shortly after noon Buenos Aires time to shortly after 5PM in Panama… but we forgot about the time zone differences. So what we thought was a five-hour flight was actually seven hours. We'd both bought a bottled water before we got on the plane, and ended up drinking them both and still being really thirsty. Meal service on the plane consisted of some very sad airline food (beef in a wine sauce, except somehow my meal was missing the sauce and the bread, so Kay gave me his and we ended up splitting the meat so we each got some with sauce and some without). I commented that it was like eating dog food, but we ate it anyway - long flight and no choice. It took an entire movie (which we actually watched - I don't know the name of it but it had Reese Witherspoon, Jack Nicholson and Owen Wilson and was kinda cute - Kay just looked it up and it was called "How Do You Know") for dinner service to make it to our seats. And we only got a teeny half cup of drink - probably four ounces. Flying dehydrates you anyway, and we wished we'd gotten more water at the airport. With around three hours left in the flight, I noticed the flight attendants putting some sandwich-looking things in the ovens to warm up. I didn't know if they were for first class or what the deal was, so I pretty much forgot about them. But then, about 20 minutes before landing (and while the captain was making the landing announcements) they started handing out these little ham and cheese sandwiches. They'd been sitting in the warmer things for 2.5 hours - I think they forgot about them. People were literally unwrapping them as we were taxi-ing down the runway from landing - it was a very last minute thing. But we ate those, too, because we were still hungry from the teeny, bad-dog-food meal. In Panama, we remembered (luckily) that the currency is US dollars. We had some of those! So we bought some hot dogs, water and Gatorade at one of the food stands. We wandered the terminal looking for a money changer, hoping to get rid of our Nicaraguan and Honduran currency, but no luck. The layover wasn't too long - just a little over an hour before boarding for our flight from Panama to Washington, D.C. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5064/...5ea8bcc8f2.jpg Sunset at Tocumen in Panama City Sitting in the waiting area at our gate was a bit of culture shock for us. It was a flight to the US, and *everyone* around us was speaking English. It was so weird to overhear English casually spoken by the people around us after so long in Latin America. Sure, we're happy to speak English when we meet other travelers who speak it, and we speak it between the two of us, but we've just gotten so used to hearing Spanish that it seemed weird and kinda wrong that all of these people were speaking English. Kay's note: throughout the plane stuff we kept ordering things and responding to people in Spanish even though they were speaking English. At the last minute, we were still thirsty and dehydrated from the long BA to Panama flight, so Kay grabbed us each another water to take on the plane with us… … and it turned out that they were inspecting our carry ons before boarding our flight, for some reason, even though we'd already been through security to get to that point and had only been inside the terminal since then, and they confiscated our water. Took it away! We weren't able to carry any drinks on the flight, and we were already thirsty and dehydrated, so this did not bode well. Plus it was a waste of $5 since they basically trashed our drinks. Kay chugged his whole bottle before they grabbed it but I was too annoyed and missed my chance. On the flight from Panama to Washington D.C., we ended up sitting at the very front of economy class. This is a double-edged sword. It's great because you get a little extra leg room up there, but the tables are a bit awkward and you don't have a seat in front of you to put your stuff under. It's also far from the bathrooms. We thought this was a five-hour flight, but due to time zone changes again, it was only a little over four hours. Yay! We left Panama at shortly after 7PM local time, and arrived in Washington, D.C. at around 12:30AM Washington time. Again, on this flight we didn't get enough to drink. There was meal service, and this time we got chicken instead of beef, but the meals were even smaller if possible. Kay was smart and asked for two drinks when the flight attendant was passing them out, but I didn't and regretted it. So we were both still dehydrated upon arriving at Washington, and also extremely tired at this point, as it was 2AM Argentina time and very late for us. Got off the plane and had to go through immigration and customs checkpoints. It was very quick and no-hassle, and although we were tired and grumpy, we tried to be polite (as always) to the immigration guy. He had just come on shift and was fresh and friendly to us. He greeted us with a "good morning", which made me think about the time and do the math and realize it really was morning - he seemed amused by that. And when he was stamping our passports and we were heading out, he said "Welcome back, folks." Kay and I agreed as we were walking away that it was surprisingly nice to hear that from an English speaker in our home country. We were back. It was shortly after 1AM by the time we clear the immigration checkpoint, and we have to retrieve our luggage, take it through the customs checkpoint and then "re-check" it. We were NOT looking forward to this part because we'd be checking it with United, who has a stupid checked bag policy. They charge $25 just for you to check one bag, and $35 to check a second bag. So we were going to have to pay $60 in baggage fees, per person, just to check our luggage. And that was assuming it wasn't over their size or weight limits - if it was over, we'd pay an additional $100 for every piece that was oversized. Ahh, the US and their BS baggage policies… or maybe it's just United. Waiting for our baggage we were tired and a bit silly. I was all happy every time I saw a piece of our luggage coming. "Look, it's our yellow bag!" "Look, it's a pannier!" "Ooo, it's our black duffle." There was a couple next to us, and the girl was sort of smiling to herself when I was commenting on our luggage… I don't know if she thought it was my first time flying and I was all amazed by the baggage system or if she just realized how tired and silly we were at that point. We collected our pile, and then Kay saw a loose baggage cart thing and snagged it and piled our stuff on. Yay! Only one piece of our luggage had wheels, and the panniers were surprisingly heavy - wouldn't have been fun to haul them around Dulles. As we're leaving the customs checkpoint with our baggage, we see a "re-check your luggage" sign and think "Oh! That's what we want to do! We need to re-check our luggage!" and start to go that way. It doesn't look particularly open, though, and when a cleaning guy sees us heading that way, he shakes his head and waves us off, pointing upstairs. Apparently the re-check isn't open at 1AM. So we get our cart and head out. A few minutes later, we pass a Starbucks. And it's open. Thank the GODS! I'm still really thirsty, and the idea of sitting down for a few minutes with a warm drink before we have to deal with our luggage and our crazy long layover (did I mention that we got into Dulles at 1AM and our flight to Boston wasn't until 9AM? Yeah. Never be in a hurry when you're buying plane tickets, kiddies. Examine the itinerary carefully when you book a series of flights this long.) So we get some Starbucks and then sit on some chairs nearby to enjoy our drinks. With no real rush, we dawdle over our drinks and then try to find a working elevator to get us and our baggage upstairs. Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly, as you think about it) nothing seems to be open at 1:30AM, and it takes a bit of wondering. But eventually I spot some people with baggage carts getting onto elevators, and we follow them. When we get upstairs, we find the United ticket counters where we need to re-check our baggage… but they're all closed. Boo. It's close to 2AM, so we find some chairs and camp out. We pile our baggage at the end of the chairs, and I see some power outlets nearby so we plug in our cell phones to charge. Then we settle in to watch an episode of Top Gear whilst waiting for our phones to charge. At this point, we could try to sleep, except the chairs are a bank of like five one-person seats with arms between them. So we can't lay down. I could still sleep sitting up, I think, except the power outlets with the cell phones charging are like 10-15 feet from our spot. I don't want to leave them there while we're sleeping, and they need to charge, so we figure an episode of Top Gear will give them enough charge and then we can maybe grab the phones and sleep. When Top Gear ends, it's around 3:30AM and there's a woman in front of the United ticket booths moving the corral divider rope things around. I go to the bathroom and Kay asks the woman when the ticketing/check-in opens. She tells him they open at 4:20AM. He explains that we have a 9AM flight and ask if we can check our luggage then (as I think it'll be too early - the United baggage policy states that you can only check luggage up to four hours before your flight for domestic flights) but she says we can, so we think we're good. The cell phones could use more charging, so we decide to wait it out until United opens, collect our phones, check our baggage and try to get through security to find a place to nap. So we wait. And wait some more. Eventually 4:20 rolls around and people start getting in line. There are only a handful of people waiting around, but they all rush to get in line as though it's somehow going to take forever if they don't. Silly competitive people. We've gotten accustomed to a slower Latin American pace, where stuff will get done when it gets done and not sooner - so we let them go ahead and then go with our stuff. When we get up to the ticket/check-in, the guy at the counter points to a computer in front of the counter. Apparently they have some sort of automated check-in system. We stare at it dumbly for a minute, and then try scanning things to pull up our reservation. Kay tries the credit card first, which doesn't do it, and then we try to scan our boarding passes with no results. Eventually Kay tries to scan his passport, is successful and the computer brings up his reservation. He goes through the screens, selects his 9AM flight and tries to check his luggage. No! The computer won't let him - it says he can't check it more than four hours before his flight. We ask a woman standing nearby (a different one than we'd asked earlier, as she's down at the "executive class" check-in) and she confirms we have to wait until four hours before the flight to check in. ARGH! If I'd known at 3:30 that we'd have to wait until 5AM to check the bags in, I woulda said "**** it" to charging the cell phones more and just napped. An hour and a half would have been worth it. But when we asked the woman who apparently mis-informed us, we would only have had 40 minutes to wait to check our bags, and it didn't seem to make sense to me to try to nap for 30 minutes. Our mistake for believing her, I guess. Kay's note: United airlines is amazingly ****ing lazy. The self check-in doesn't actually let you do all the baggage stuff yourself, since they obviously wouldn't want people throwing whatever they wanted onto the conveyor. So an employee is still required to do half of the work. Instead of having the employee look up your name and swipe your card or passport with the efficiency of someone who does it constantly, they have passengers slowly poking at screens they've never seen before and putting the wrong thing in and wondering how the scanner works and… ****ing United. I know at this point that I'm EXTREMELY tired and grumpy, and I'm overly upset that we have to go back and wait another 30 minutes for it to be late enough to check our baggage. We've been awake for 23 hours at this point, 21 of which have been spent dealing with airports and flying, and I'm sick of it. I just want to be done. We're so close and it's highly annoying that we've got such a long layover. We could have driven home from DC faster than waiting for this flight, but we didn't have a car and we wouldn't have been in a fit state to drive at this point because we're so tired… but it just makes the delay that much more annoying. We go back and sit down, and a few minutes later, a United woman is walking up and down asking people about their baggage and directing them to the appropriate line, etc. I'm staring dumbly at our luggage, and I notice on our checked bag tags that the final destination on the tags is Boston. Boston? Does that mean the bags are already checked to Boston? Can we just hand over our bags to the TSA guys without going through the check-in process with United and paying their annoying baggage fees? Light dawns in my tired brain, and we call the woman over and ask her if our tags mean that our bags are already checked. She confirms that they are, and all we have to do is hand them over to the TSA checkpoint guys. In fact, we could have used the "re-check" baggage point downstairs, she tells us. We tell her it wasn't open when our flight got in, which seems to surprise her - do the United people not even know their own hours, or is this handled by some other part of the airport? Regardless, we can get up and walk our luggage over to the TSA guys, even though it's technically too early for our flight, because they're already checked. Yay! But why didn't anyone tell us that before? Kay's note: the re-check thing downstairs was a United specific recheck. Didn't see one for any other airline. And there was zero signage indicating that the little TSA booth at the end could be used for rechecking baggage. So we walk our luggage around the corner to the TSA guys, who ask for our boarding passes and "go check something" with the desk people. But then they come back and say it's cool and we can leave the luggage with them. (Oh, so weird to have people using American idioms in English to us! "It's cool?" No, the airport is not fria, nor does any of us have a fria beverage or anything else "cool"… oh, idioms. I had forgotten about those.) We walk off and leave our luggage with the TSA guys. JOY! Downstairs to the security checkpoint, because the one up here still isn't open (it doesn't open until 5AM, and it's around 4:50AM.) We wait in line while people go through the ridiculous security procedures here. Nowhere else have we had to take off our shoes, take our laptops or other liquids out of our bags, etc. It just seems so excessive after all the other flying we've done, perfectly safely. Kay wants to complain but I keep asking him to not talk about it here of all places, because the wrong word could get either of us hauled off for questioning. When we get up to the scanner thing, it's one of the new ones (backscatter?) that takes a basically naked image of you. We've been reading mixed reports of the amount of radiation you get dosed with, and we also both feel strongly about the privacy issue - especially as the person who is reading the scans is literally right next to the machine. In the propaganda about these scanners, they say "oh, the person looking at the images isn't even in the same place - he or she is on the other side of the airport, or in a room somewhere away from the scanner itself." The idea is that the person looking at the images never sees the person getting scanned, and its completely anonymous. But the person looking at the scans here at this Dulles checkpoint is right next to the machine - there's a little monitor and the person watches you walk up, get in the scanner, scans you and looks at your scan, and then watches you walk away. No, sir. This is not what we've been promised. So when we get there, Kay and I both ask for alternate screening. We have to walk over and stand next to a gate and wait for TSA personnel to lead us off and basically give us a very thorough pat-down. And because I'm a woman, they have to ask for "female assist" and it takes a few minutes for a woman to show up. She then explains the procedure to me, careful to go into detail about the pat-down process in regard to "sensitive" areas - i.e. boobs, butt and crotch region. She then asks if I have any "sensitive" areas - basically, I think, trying to make sure I'm not going to complain afterwards about being touched inappropriately. She asks if I want to go to a private room or anything, and I say "No, it's fine" and let her pat me down right there in the checkpoint. She's quick, impersonal and efficient, and asks me to wait there for a minute. She walks away, and then comes back and tells me I'm free to collect my stuff and go through, and thanks me - I assume for not giving her crap. I'm polite and friendly to her, as I know she's just doing her job and they're trying to protect the public - I wouldn't want to pat down a bunch of strangers every day if I were her; seems like a pretty thankless job to me. While we're going through our pat-downs, several other people also opt out of the backscatter scanner, so we're not alone in asking for alternate screening. That makes me feel better. There's a line of people waiting to be patted down by the time we walk off with our stuff, safely through the security checkpoint. Kay's note: I just said to the guy "I don't want the scanner. I'll take the extra pat-down." I have to admit my heart was beating pretty fast beforehand. Too many horror stories about the TSA bullshit and getting hauled into inspection rooms for hours and crap like that. We had time but I wasn't happy. For me the bigger concern was the reports I've been reading from scientists claiming that the radiation is seriously exceeding what the government is claiming and that there has been a serious lack of testing of the devices. We do a quick check of the immediate terminal, discover that everything is closed except Starbucks, and then go to our gate. A few other people are there, presumably also from international flights, mostly stretched out on the chairs sleeping. This seems like a great idea to us, as it's nearly 6AM and we've been going for 24 hours with no sleep. So we stretch out with our tank bags and jackets under our heads, I use my Buff to cover my eyes and block out the light, we stick our headphones in to drown out the nearby TV, and sleep. I wasn't sure I'd be able to sleep stretched out on airport seats, but I'm out like a light almost immediately. I wake up about 40 minutes later because I have to pee, and I go to the bathroom. When I come back, Kay stirs, and I ask if he wants to go look for breakfast or sleep more. He decides breakfast, so at around 6:50AM, with 40 minutes of sleep under our belts, we wander off to see what exists (and is open) for food in this terminal. We pretty quickly discover a brewery next to a Subway that has a few people sitting around. Kay grabs a menu to see if they serve breakfast items, but we're both brain-dead from lack of sleep and can't make any sense of the menu. A woman inside (who is dining there, not an employee) notices us flipping through and says "there's a menu on the big board there." We walk over to the big board and see breakfast type items, and decide to sit down and order breakfast. And then realize we don't know what we want, so we take turns going over to the big board to decide. As I'm taking my turn staring at the big board, a woman comes over to take our order and shows Kay the breakfast section of the menu. It was there all along - we're just too brain-dead to notice it. So we ask for orange juice and water (tap water we can drink again!) and stare at the menu for a few minutes, trying to get enough brain power to make a decision. It's hard, but I do, and Kay decides to get the same thing I do, which makes it easy. The woman comes back with our drinks, I order, we stare blindly at the TV not even understanding half of what they're showing, and then our food comes. We get a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs, sourdough toast, hash browns (think fried potato piece hash browns) and I get bacon and Kay gets sausage. Delicious. Wonderful. The best breakfast we've had since leaving Colombia, I think. No more of this crappy Argentinian or Chilean "breadfast." And after we've eaten, we're both a lot more awake and alert. We have enough brain power to begin to comprehend what's going on around us, and we can actually have a conversation again. We're still tired but the food has given us the energy to go on a little longer. Back to the gate, and I tell Kay I'm stopping at Starbucks again because I could use the caffeine and sugar to help keep me awake. It's totally worth the crazy long line. We sit at the gate waiting for it to start boarding (it's shortly after 8AM now so we don't have too long to wait) and I sip my coffee. We both go to the bathroom one more time, and the plane starts boarding around 8:30AM. We get on, get our stuff stowed and make ourselves comfy for the short flight. Everything goes smoothly and we depart on time, without waiting forever or taxi-ing endlessly on the runways. In the air, we get a drink service. "Yes, please!" as we're still both thirsty and dehydrated from all of the flying. This drink service gives us each an entire can of beverage (Sprite and Ginger Ale) which is something like three of the teeny airplane glasses full. Yay! Kay watches the in-flight entertainment (TV shows) while I stare out the window and think about being back in the United States and trying to re-integrate. When we land in Boston, it's good to be home. The flight gets in 10 minutes early, and Kay stops to re-activate his cell phone in case the friend who is picking us up needs to reach us. Then we head over to the baggage claim area, where we find our friend (Yay! So good to see our friends again!) and collect our bags. Apparently everyone else has already been and gone as our bags are the only ones sitting there, which makes it easy. Our friend has gotten us a luggage cart and we wheel our stuff off whilst catching up. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5260/...dafac05303.jpg Back in Boston We notice, though, when we pick up our bags, that the TSA has decided to inspect one of Kay's panniers. They've unwrapped the green shrink wrap and have taken some of the stuff out, but instead of trying to fit it back inside, have merely wrapped the entire thing with a big plastic bag and left the stuff they took out floating around loose in the plastic bag. We see a couple of holes in the bag from the baggage handling process and hope nothing is missing. Luckily, though, they opened the pannier properly instead of breaking the lock (we left the lock off the pannier when we checked them for just this eventuality) and there's no damage to the pannier itself. We get home quickly with our friend driving, and we go up and knock on the front door to let the dog-sitters know we're home. The dogs bark and bark at us. Dog-sitter opens the door (we got back earlier than I told her to expect us and she was apparently cleaning for us) and our dogs act like they're going to eat us. It's sad to be on the receiving end of this like any other stranger in the house. Go back out to collect our luggage, and then pile it in the middle of the kitchen floor. Our friend heads off, leaving us to get re-acquainted with our dogs and our house. The dog-sitter lingers a bit, finishing up a bit of cleaning (taking out the garbage, washing a couple of dishes and collecting a few of their things they've left here) and starts tearing up at the thought of leaving our dogs. She's gotten really attached to them while she was staying here, and we tell her gladly she can visit the dogs. She works nearby and will be in the neighborhood regularly, and I'd be happy for her to visit with them. I'm not sure she will, but I'm glad to see she's gotten so fond of the dogs. Meanwhile, they sit next to her like she's a safe haven and we're strangers. When I sit on the floor to greet them, Kay's dog comes over and sniffs me. I know I must smell weird from being in all of these places, eating strange food and traveling so long, but he seems to recognize me. He gets tail-waggy and gives me some kisses, so I pet him, but then he randomly snarls and snaps at me. I can't quite figure out how to handle him. He gives Kay a couple of kisses, too, but seems much more interested in me, and I feel bad about that. My dog, meanwhile, wants nothing to do with us. He sits in the corner and stares at us. But that's what he did when I first got him, too - he's a shy dog to begin with - so I know if I'm patient he'll come around. But I want nothing more than to pet and hug him after being gone so long, and it's hard to force myself not to push him. The dog-sitter leaves and we run a few errands. We go to the grocery store as the house is out of some staples - trash bags, etc. - and spend a surprising amount of money on re-stocking the basic stuff we use every day. (Kay's note: the house is out of EVERYTHING. Food, cleaning, everything.) Then we get back to the house, and we basically have to move into our apartment all over again. We packed up a lot of stuff for the dog-sitters, so we have to dig through boxes to find basic things like sheets for our bed, and towels for the bathroom. Kay wants his clothes so he can get some clean socks out. The dog sitters have also packed some stuff up, so we have boxes sitting around everywhere and I don't know where half our stuff is - it's going to take days to "move in" to our own apartment. I hadn't counted on having to do this at the end of the trip. It's daunting, and I'm exhausted. Kay wisely decides we should have some lunch, so we eat some sandwiches (turkey and cheese, not ham and cheese!) and watch a TV show on DVD. It's less entertaining than we remember, and our house feels excessively large. After the show, we walk the dogs because I fully intend to sleep for a while and don't want to have to get up in an hour or two and walk them. Then I shower, while Kay passes out on the couch. I wake him and we go to our own bed, which feels GLORIOUS (I remember it being rather uncomfortable - it didn't compress much and I'd get stiff after sleeping it for too long, but now our own pillows feel luxurious, and the bed feels so much more comfortable after all of the crap beds and hard ground we've slept on during the trip). We both pass out pretty quickly, and don't wake up until I have to pee around midnight. We've slept for around 7 hours and the dogs need walking, so we get up to walk them. Then we make pasta for dinner, because it's one of the staples we got at the grocery and the grocery is now closed so we can't get anything else, and watch a documentary on Netflix. Which again feels excessive and weird. Kay showers while I start writing up the past couple of days, and the next thing I know, it's 4AM and we're both exhausted again. I have a feeling our sleep schedules are going to be screwed up for the next few days. I do note at this point that somehow I seem to have picked up a cold. Four months on the road and nothing worse than diarrhea and altitude sickness. But 24 hours of traveling and now I've got a bad headache, a sore throat, messed up sinuses and that "off" feeling that comes with being sick. Boo for my return to the US! Also, the dogs seem to be adjusting quickly to having us home. By the time we wake up later, they're acting much more normal. My dog napped on the floor next to the side of the bed when I fell asleep, and was in his crate when I woke up like normal. Note from the next day: when we woke up this morning (Monday AM, Day 119) the dogs were completely back to normal. Kay's dog did his normal morning stuff, and mine, too. They're waggy and predictable and not acting weird at all anymore. That was a quick adjustment, but yay! Now I can hug my dog, and Kay's dog played "shoe" with him this morning… it's good to be with our doggies again. Kay's note: This is the official end of the trip. We're home. There's nothing more to do. There's a lot of stuff that's being going through our minds about that, and a fair amount of culture shock coming back into the US. Dachary's got a big post planned about that, and I'm working on another big post about the things we brought, specifically, what worked, what didn't, and what we think we should know about some of the items so that you can better choose your own. When we finally get the funds together to go extricate the bikes we'll write that up too I'm sure. And I wouldn't be surprised if we come up with a couple more things to write about here, but yeah… no more daily reports. |
Thanks for a great armchair ride.
Bill |
I read the very first post, and tuned in regularly to follow your progress. Your writing styles kept me entertained, and longing for such a trip. Thank you for sharing your trip, your ups and downs, and all in between. I'll miss the updates...
Welcome Home !! Pats to the dogs too. Cheers, Bill 2001 BMW F650GS |
On Returning to the U.S.
There's bound to be adjustments upon returning to the U.S. after a big trip like this. How do you go from riding every day back to the same old office grind? How do you feel about the things you see and used to take for granted on an every-day basis in the U.S.? And how has the trip changed you as a person?
I honestly wasn't expecting much in the way of re-integration upon returning home. When we originally left, I was worried that I might find it hard to adjust coming home, but in the past few weeks, I've been so focused on getting home that I didn't think it would be a problem. I was excited to be going back. I was ready to stop traveling for a while and go back to a structured, ordinary life. I didn't think about, or didn't know how to gauge, or most likely didn't even notice, all of the subtle ways that a trip like this has changed me. Sitting in the airport in Panama, it was weird to have people speaking English around me. I've gotten to the point that I automatically revert to Spanish when dealing with anyone other than Kay or another traveler, and it was odd to casually overhear English when we've been living on the road where we can only understand a fraction of what people are saying. On the plane, Kay and I kept ordering things and responding to the flight attendants in Spanish. Even home, I notice myself using Spanish to say things like "yes" and "thank you." And I kinda miss the Spanish, honestly. There's also the matter of toilets. For our entire stay in Latin America, we've been dealing with toilets that can't handle toilet paper. You wipe and then throw the toilet paper in a nearby trash can. At first, this seemed gross to us and required an adjustment. But we've gotten used to it, and now Kay and I are both having the experience of "oh, crap, where's the trash can?!" when we go to the toilet, only to remember a few beats later that we can throw our used TP in the toilet itself. It's an oddly strange thought to us after so long otherwise. Then there was the stuff I noticed flying home from Washington, D.C. to Boston. Looking down on it from above, you can really see how dense the East Coast is. There are roads EVERYWHERE. Houses and buildings everywhere. You have to go quite a ways to find any open space at all, and when you do, it's quickly interrupted again by buildings and towns. That was so strange to see, coming from South America, where you go a hundred miles between towns that are barely more than a dozen buildings. The roads here in America look like scars across the landscape. I had a feeling at one point that we were like parasites taking over the Earth's surface, and no wonder we're having these massive earthquakes and weather events. It's like the Earth is trying to shake us off, like a dog shaking and scratching to get rid of a flea. And we're no more important or consequential than that flea, to the planet. It makes me feel like here in the U.S., we don't know how to live. We've got these massive structures and infrastructure, which I can definitely appreciate after being in so many areas without infrastructure at all… but we're so spread out. We take up so much space. It feels wrong to me on a very deep level, after traveling through these sparsely-populated areas. It feels very crowded, and not at all eco-friendly. Too, there's the pettiness of the lives of the people around us. The conversations we overheard at the airport were about people going to concerts and sport events, school plays, and movies. People having work troubles, or people talking about their amazing vacations. Honestly, it all just seems so petty to me now. The people and societies we've been moving through have been concerned with stuff like having enough food to eat - they don't have the luxury to worry about going to a movie or having problems at work. They'd be lucky to have jobs. Right now, American society seems very… excessive. And petty and small-minded. Our house feels enormous. There's way too much space in here, and it feels wasteful. And we have so much stuff, most of which is completely expendable. We're having to remember how we like to do things. When we made waffles this morning, we discovered we'd forgotten how long we toast them, how we spread butter on them, how we eat them. These things are slowly coming back to us, but we feel divorced from them - outside of what used to be our every-day lives. Our own home and lifestyles feel foreign to us. I was unpacking some of my old clothes, and I had quite a large collection of funny t-shirts… that just don't feel the same anymore. They feel like they belong to someone else. I've gotten so used to having just a few shirts, and having all of these extra clothes seems superfluous - particularly as I don't necessarily want to be seen in some of them. I just don't identify with a lot of the humor on the shirts anymore, which is really strange to me because I thought humor was inherent to who you are. A distant part of me can say "yeah, I see why I found this funny before" but it just doesn't seem to matter anymore. Kay's having a similar experience with his movie collection. We both had substantial movie collections before we left, but Kay's was much bigger than mine and included a wide variety of films. Particularly, Kay had a lot of zombie movies, and enjoyed playing Left for Dead 2 with friends on the XBOX before we left (he had a standing Tuesday night date to play with friends) and now he's having a hard time understanding why he'd want to watch those things, or want anything to do with them. Most of the things in our movie collections don't really appeal to us anymore. I theorize that we've seen real poverty and people really suffering along the way, and the contrived drama and horror of these Hollywood flicks is no longer appealing. We've seen real darkness in the world, and why would you want to watch this for entertainment? Interestingly, the only things that seem to have any appeal to Kay anymore are the Disney and Pixar films. Things intended for young minds filled with imagination. Regardless, we're not the same people we used to be. That much is clear. We didn't feel ourselves changing along the way, but now that we're home, our old way of life feels somewhat jarring and unappealing to us. It's clear that we have changed, even though we didn't notice it at the time. Boston feels different. For both Kay and I, it's felt like home for years. When I first came here, it's a city where I knew I wanted to stay - a city I wanted to make my own. Kay feels similarly. But now, it just feels like a city. It doesn't feel like home - this place that we love. It's convenient to have a grocery store right around the corner, and I like that I can just walk over to the store and buy what I want, because that wasn't really an option most of the time on the trip… but aside from that, Boston doesn't feel particularly welcoming to me anymore. It's just another city. Kay and I agree that right now we don't feel like we belong. And we don't know where we do belong. Maybe we never did belong properly, and that's why we were able to take this trip in the first place… or maybe now we won't ever feel like we belong again, and that's why so many people who take a trip like this never really stop traveling. Either way, we've got some adjusting to do. |
What worked, and what didn't. A gear review.
Most of the items we brought with us worked as expected. Some were outstanding and require special mention. Some items seriously disappointed us. Some items simply deserve some comments to help you when considering items for your next trip.
Outstanding items: The Wolfman Ranier tank bag Normally we don't think much about tank bags. You get the size you want and they either work, or they don't, and they're not worth much mention, but throughout the trip we kept commenting about how much we loved these. Exceptional build quality, and so much expandability that when we encountered another rider with one fully expanded we didn't recognize it. The expandability was great, as it made it easy to stow things in the tank bag for a short time. Have some soda left from lunch? No problem, just stick it in your tank bag. Grab some cookies or a bag of chips to snack on later? Tank bag can hold it - just expand the zipper. At one point, Kay had octane booster and a quart of oil in the tank bag in addition to all the normal stuff he stored in there (big, expensive camera, Spanish-English dictionary, stickers, helmet cleaning stuff, toilet paper, etc.) and it still had more room. The map pouch is great, as it doesn't leave your map soaking wet after a rain. And as a nice added feature, you can get backpack straps for the tank bag so that when you step off the bike to spend a couple hours touring a ruin, you don't have to worry about people walking off with your tank bag or their contents. We also bought one set of the larger outer pockets and put one side pocket on each bag. The larger front pocket made storing the rain cover (which is very well designed, highly effective, and can have the map pouch stuck on it ) and the backpack straps slightly easier. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5060/...97b89feea4.jpg Wolfman Ranier Tank Bag The BeadBreakr and CyclePump from Best Rest Products The F650GS has a notoriously difficult bead to break and, with one exception, the BeadBreakr made that trivial. While a number of people just take regular electric pumps for cars and remove the plastic housing we really appreciated the compact and hard-to-kill housing of the CyclePump. Plus, it has an SAE plug on the end (as well as a bunch of adapters) so we didn't have to attach an SAE to Cigarette adapter to use it. Also, it easily pumped in enough air to set the bead for us (they've got another tool for setting the bead on non-tube tires). We also brought a manual hand-pump we could use for minor top-ups, and in case this one went out on us, but we never had any problems with this one and ended up never using the manual hand pump. We're lazy and this electric pump was highly effective, fast and easy to use. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5211/...0b985ac9d5.jpg Kay, working on the flat The Leatherman Wave A multi-tool is a must-have on any trip like this, but you can by an incredibly compact set of bits for this one that give you hex (metric and US), torx, phillips, and flathead ends. We used this constantly. Ex-officio underwear Dries fast, lives up to all its claims. Would absolutely buy again. Is stink-resistant and very comfortable to wear under motorcycle clothes (Dachary says more comfortable than regular cotton underwear). Smartwool T-shirts (or any other merino wool t-shirts). They wick well. They dry very fast. You can sweat in them for days and they still won't be stinky once they dry. Thin enough that when the wind hits a sweaty shirt through your vents you get all the cooling benefits that sweating is supposed to provide you with. The 100% cotton t-shirts we brought with us got nasty after one day of sweating in 100 degree F (38 C) weather and took too long to dry if the night was cool. So we'd be carrying around wet cotton shirts for days, or wouldn't bother washing them because they'd take too long to dry. Smartwool or other merino wool totally negates this issue. Merino wool socks. We used thin "liner socks" on hot days and thick Smartwool winter ones in the cold. Don't believe the claims about being able to throw them in the dryer, but everything else it true. They resist stinking ( although they can only do so much against feet ) and the thick ones keep you quite warm. They dry fast, too. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5106/...e143894e82.jpg Smartwool Socks Vinyl stickers No, seriously. We fixed and bodged so many things with these stickers. Bag of pasta came open? Sticker. Socks won't stay on the fan to dry? Stickers. Hole in the toothpaste tube? Stickers. Pannier corner falling off? Lots of stickers. Identifying luggage at the airport? Stickers. Yeah yeah, We hear you yelling about your duct-tape. We have that too, but we liked the stickers, and they don't leave a residue when you remove them like duct-tape does. Also, we love getting stickers from other riders and leaving ours in interesting places. You should totally get some made for your trip. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5243/...cd1154d9e2.jpg Who said the stickers were a waste of time? Cyclone Buff A buff is essentially a stretchy cloth tube. The cyclone buff doubles the stretchy layer for warmth and then attaches a thick piece of Goretex Windstopper fleece. Which is warm and absolutely kills the wind. Wear it as a neck warmer. Wear it as a balaclava. Wear it as a hat. Many of our days would have been painfully cold on the neck without something like this, and without a cyclone buff you're pretty much relegated to wrapping large scarves around your neck or using a balaclava which is not only single use, but also doesn't go as low under / over the neck of your jacket. We brought normal, lightweight, buffs too and used them to keep bugs from pinging off of our necks, or to keep Kay's long hair in check before the Honduran barber got ahold of it. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5206/...c06ae8484c.jpg Dachary's Balaclava Held Warm-N-Dry Gloves We were thrilled with these gloves and can't recommend them highly enough. We rode at highway speeds in sub-freezing temperatures and they kept our hands as warm as any other non-electric gloves would. The real problem was keeping our core temperature up. We rode in cold high-altitude climates with pouring rains and hail and putting these on was almost a delicacy. Our hands never got wet with them. The only note is that they are absolutely designed to work in conjunction with heated grips. The leather on the palm is standard summer-weight which makes them more comfortable and easier to close your hand and grip the grips, but would be a bad choice without heated grips. As a result, they provide good tactile feedback on the controls but they're not as warm as some of the massive snowboarding-style gloves. Perfect with heated grips, but not warm enough without. Also, in sub-freezing temps even with heated grips, our fingers got cold on some days. For regular commuting in sub-freezing, would probably get heated gloves. For this trip, though, they were the perfect choice. Kindle software We wish we had Kindles (see below) but, lacking them, the Kindle software on our iPhone and iPad enabled us to relax with good books in the evenings; something that was very much appreciated. Dachary read 21 books on the trip, and there would simply have been no room to carry around that much paper. Reading on the phone wasn't ideal (hence the wish we'd brought Kindles) but it made reading possible when it wouldn't have been practical otherwise. Items we wish we'd have brought: Frogg Toggs We got sick of our GoreTex and Hydratex rain liners leaving us damp. We really disliked walking into restaurants with shells that were soaking wet and left puddles below our chairs, even worse in a hotel. Putting them in on the road was so annoying that if it wasn't cold we'd simply skip bothering with the leg ones. Frogg Toggs have an excellent reputation amongst riders, hold up to highway speed winds, and don't feel like cheap vinyl. We've also heard that they help as windbreakers, and while our layers are *supposed* to do that, they weren't all that effective. There were times on the trip that an extra wind-breaking layer would have made a huge difference in warmth and comfort. Better external dry sacks. We bought an outdoor research dry-sack for the tent, Dachary's sleeping mat and something else. It seemed good when we bought it but it wasn't designed to survive the stresses of living on the back of a bike for four months. Next time we've decided that any dry-sack that lives on the bike will have to be heavy-duty PVC material like the bags made by Ortlieb and Wolfman. The Wolfman Expedition Dry Duffel on Kay's bike has been beaten, dropped, dragged, and shoved. Kay let one of the clips dangle against a muffler, melted off half of it, and it still held tight when he put it back. The extra d-rings were great for attaching bungies, or whatever, and the only negative comment we have about it is that the handles that meet across the top aren't quite long enough to meet when it's full. We'd absolutely buy another one but can't decide if we want one that opens along the top or on the ends next time. Another bra Dachary brought two bras but wished for a third because they take a long time to dry and they get skanky when you wear them. The non-sports bra was more comfortable but the sport-bra dried faster. Sewing supplies There are things we'd have fixed if we'd have brought a needle and thread. Cardo Scala Rider G4 headsets We bought these in Mexico City when the Senas died. We chose ease of use over known reliability in the beginning. The Cardo's aren't as easy to manipulate, and when it rained one of us would generally be unable to speak to the other, but the hardware design is hard to damage, and they've got a history of reliability. Kindles If you like to read there's no getting around the fact that you can't carry enough physical books and you'll have trouble buying more along the way because they're mostly in foreign languages. The kindle's e-ink screen is very easy on the eyes, it's small, lightweight, has a literal one month battery life, and can hold tons of books and download more whenever you get a net connection. We used the Kindle software on Dachary's iPhone (better screen) and Kay's iPad (bigger screen) but really wished we'd had actual Kindle's. Next time we will. Reading almost exclusively in the evenings and a smidge in the mornings Dachary devoured 21 books and Kay went through 12. There's no way we'd have been able to carry that many paperbacks. It should be noted that Kindle books almost always come with Digital Rights Management (DRM) which means they could literally become unusable at any moment, but right now there's no better way for an adventure rider to read on the road. More Lithium Batteries Spot Trackers require lithium batteries for a variety of reasons. You will have an incredibly hard time buying them outside of your home country. So stock up before you leave. We think we got approximately three weeks of constant tracking (while riding) per set. A small container of grease The grease on Dachary's rear axel seemed to wear away. The last time we changed her tire we were seriously concerned about how little there was. The gas station didn't have any but a local mechanic, when asked for grease, squirted some oil on the axel… "Well," kay thought, "it *is* a lubricant". Tiger Balm Tiger Balm is one of those creams that feels hot when rubbed into sore muscles. In addition to being very effective it also happens to come in a very small bottle (you don't need much). Tea and Coffee Kay's always been a tea fan and we were constantly being offered tea or coffee with our breakfasts. The problem is that other countries have different ideas about what constitutes a decent "black" tea. For a while Kay kept getting black tea with cinnamon and cloves. Bleh. He regretted not having brought along some "good" tea. Dachary wasn't a huge coffee drinker before the trip, but did appreciate "good" coffee. Kay got her a insulated mug / french press to be her one luxury item on the trip, but she decided against it to save space. It was a decision she'd come to regret after being frequently served bad instant coffe and discovering that "cafe con leche" was really "leche con un poco cafe". Throttle Rocker About three months into the trip Kay developed an uncomfortable case of Trigger Finger as a result of constantly gripping the throttle. He actually left one at home because he disliked how it felt in the way on the grip and had no problems on his previous three week trip riding around the states. While we don't like the idea of motorcycle cruise controls for safety reasons we recommend bringing a Throttle Rocker or something similar. If nothing else, throw it in your pannier just in case. Items we regret choosing: Sena SMH-10 Our trials and tribulations with this have been thoroughly documented. We can't recommend buying these. Go with one of the Cardo Scala Rider models. Synthetic sleeping bags They don't pack small enough and we wished we'd have invested in ones with a lower temperature rating. We've since been told that down packs smaller and is generally good to lower temperatures. For the next trip, we're looking into down sleeping bags that can zip together so we can share body warmth on really cold nights. Normal sneakers Kay brought some good sneakers designed for running off-road. They resist squishing and take up way too much space. Next time he'll bring converse low-tops because they squish very flat and you're not off the bike enough for good tread to be a real concern. Dachary's Ahnu Reyes Sandals squished well and had good tread, but occasionally got rocks or sand in them. She'd "absolutely" bring them again. Kay ended up using Dachary's sandals frequently when she wasn't using them herself because they were easier to deal with than Kay's shoes (i.e. didn't require socks, and Dachary always had them with her). 5 Function Digital Meter from Aerostitch A great idea but a horrible execution. The device was never designed to be exposed to the elements. Aerostitch claims it's "not extreme weatherproof without custom modification (disassemble, apply silicone sealant, reassemble)". We claim it isn't weatherproof at all without that and that a motorcycle company shouldn't be selling a device that isn't capable of being used on a motorcycle without such modifications. We do know of one rider who's done the custom sealing and had no problems. Aerostitch Triple Digit Rain Covers Simply not worth the effort, slippery, and when incorrectly worn fill up like water balloons. Touratech sidestand feet. Both had the bottom layer bend down either slightly or severely, and then fell off. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5046/...b0de784ac3.jpg It's somewhat bent Bike things that broke: • Kay's ABS, or rather, the ability to turn it off. • The 5 function meters. • Three inner tubes (rear flats on Dachary's bike). • 2 SW-Motech Quick-locks (hold the pannier frames on). • Corner of SW-motech Trax pannier. • Watertightness of SW-Motech Trax pannier. • Key to Trax pannier broke off in lock. • AirHawk straps (3 out of 4 ripped off). • BeadRider began unraveling • Engine Gasket on Dachary's bike. • Dachary's bike has gotten a few inches shorter in the rear. • Tail light / license plate assembly for Kay's bike. • Fork Seals on Kay's bike. • Gas light on Kay's bike. • Neutral light on Kay's bike. • Cooling fan on Kay's bike. • Important bolt fell out of Happy-Trails rack on Kay's bike. • Oil leak on Kay's bike. • Metal loop on Kay's kickstand. • Low beam on Kay's bike. • Odometer / trip meter on Kay's bike (stuck on trip meter at 0.0) • Rear left blinker on Kay's bike (dangling by wires) • 2 Touratech sidestand feet. - Both had the bottom layer bend down either slightly or severely, and then fell off. • 2 Mirror stalk screws that hold the mirrors on (designed to break easily). • Laminar Lip / Wind deflector at the top of Dachary's windshield. • A few of the array of screws that provide traction on the Fastway Pegs fell out of 2 pegs despite having used red locktite. • Dachary's Touratech chain guard broke where they always break and Kay's has a crack most of the way across. Other things that broke: • Dachary's Gerbing jacket. • Dachary's second garbing jacket works but shocks her. • Dachary's RevIt Rival H20 boots (zipper wouldn't zip, then came off). • Some stitching in RevIt Sand pants and jacket. • Kay's glasses (stepped on). • Sena SMH-10 Headsets. • Lid on our pot melted (user error). • Waterproofing on Dachary's replacement boots. • Waterproofnees of Hydratex in Dachary's Rev'It Sand Jacket and pants (she gets wet, not damp). • Cheap dry sacks getting holes. • Contour GPS camera (usb port fell inwards). • Cord pull tabs on three zippers on the BMW Rally Pro 2 suit fell off (zipper is unaffected). • Camelbak bite valves. (Kay's popped off repeatedly. Both now leak, Dachary's since Nicaragua ) • Camelbak lock thing that keeps water from coming out at all (Kay's fell out twice spewing water everywhere). • Metal underwire in one of Dachary's bras broke and had to be removed. • Shutter on one point and shoot now fails to always open completely (repeatedly dropped) • Lanyard keeping point and shoot from flying off the bike broke and had to be tied. • Both point and shoots now have scratches on the lenses (only one was used while riding). • One spork. Injuries and Ailments: • Kay's back was thrown out twice (lift with your legs not your back). • Far too much diarrhea (twice badly enough to keep Dachary off the bike). • Dachary's left shoulder in a fall. • Dachary's left shoulder/neck when reaching for a fan cord. • Kay's ankle - bruised the bone when trapped between pannier and sand. Hurt when pannier fell on it a second time. • Kay's shoulder (can't remember which or why) • Somewhat serious case of trigger finger in Kay's right hand. • Dachary's knee and ankle got scraped from falling whilst walking on sidewalk. • Dachary's hand got scraped on pannier and then on hanger used to hold stuff in pannier lid. • Dachary received a second degree sunburn as a result of standing for too long in the Colombian sun without sunscreen. • Dachary experienced severe Altitude Sickness in Bolivia ( shortness of breath, migraine, coughing, dizziness). • Assorted minor bruises and muscle strains. • Dehydration headaches. More in the next post. We've exceeded the 35,000 character limit for the HUB! |
What worked, and what didn't. A gear review. (part 2)
Camping:
We didn't camp nearly as much as we'd planned but we still used pretty much everything. [i]REI QuarterDome T3 three man tent [i] This worked exceptionally well and we'd highly recommend it or the two man version (the T2). http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5299/...c8a83cce81.jpg Hideycamp #2 Sleeping Bags Our sleeping bag choices were poor. My only experience with down is an old World War II sleeping bag i have that is effing warm but doesn't compress very well. Along the way we learned from other riders that good down compresses exceptionally well. So we'd go for down sleeping bags next time. Also, if you're traveling with someone else be sure to get sleeping bags that can zip together should the night prove unexpectedly cold. Next time we'll bring bags that are rated down to at least 20 deg F (-10 C). Remember that the temperature ratings on sleeping bags are not standardized and generally indicate the lowest temperature it will keep you alive at, not the lowest temperature you'll be comfortable at. We did bring sleeping bag liners, which were supposed to give us an extra 15 deg F of temperature range. We also found them to be useful in warm climates, as you could sleep in just the liner if it was too warm for the sleeping bag. It's also great if you're in a bed where you don't trust the sheets - just whip out the sleeping bag liner. Easier to clean than the sleeping bag itself, so if you get sweaty, just wash the liner - don't worry about cleaning the bag. Would bring again and highly recommend. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5014/...e1597079ca.jpg Tent Stuff Sleeping Bag Liners We both brought the Sea to Summit Thermolite Reactor Extreme Mummy Bag Liner which claims to add up to 25 degrees F of warmth. We're not convinced of that claim but it did help keep us warmer, is far easier to clean than a sleeping bag, and your skin doesn't stick to it like it does to sleeping bag material. On hot nights we've put the sleeping bags under us for padding and just slept in these. We'd definitely recommend these. For storage we ended up just leaving them inside the sleeping bag which we shoved in a compression sack. Therm-a-Rest Z-light Sleeping pad We bought this because it folds up into a square shape instead of the standard foam sleeping pads which roll up into a tube. Squares are much easier to strap in place. Next time we wouldn't buy either. The pad certainly helped but any bone that was pressed against the hard ground through it still hurt. Also, we didn't consider the additional thermal properties you get from using an inflatable mattress, especially the Exped ones with down in them too. Multiple travelers have reported getting punctures in theirs, which was specifically why we avoided inflatable pads, but they've all claimed that fixing them was trivial and the frustration was greatly outweighed by the comfort and warmth. Headlamps These are a must-have, and not just for camping. If you need to do anything in the dark these are way better than a flashlight. Kay went with a Petzl Tikka Plus 2 LED Headlamp which is quite comfortable and, at 50 lumens, seemed plenty of light, until Dachary would turn on her heavy-duty Energizer headlamp which totally emasculated the Petzl's 50 lumens. Also, the Energizer had a red light which was particularly nice because it doesn't kill your night vision. Kay can't stand the extra weight of the Energizer's battery pack or its additional strap that goes over the top of the head. Dachary never feels like the Petzl is going to stay on her head. If we had to do it again Dachary would probably take the same Energizer one and Kay would upgrade to a brighter Petzl with a red light. First Needs XL Water Purifier We used this very often, especially in countries where large bottles of water are only available in supermarkets. We never needed to filter pond-water or anything like that, but we could have. It isn't the most compact option, but it is one of the best. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5299/...7402c05801.jpg It died so that we might live... Food Prep We brought a cellulose sponge for washing dishes, and that was a mistake because they take quite a while to dry. Next time we'll bring one of those artificial foam sponges because you can squeeze almost every drop of moisture out of them before setting them to dry. Optimus Nova We're undecided about this. It gets spectacular reviews, whereas most stoves get mediocre reviews, and our first one worked great. But the fuel filter on the replacement we were sent after the recall started getting clogged the first time we used it. We didn't figure out what the problem was till the end of the trip. The manufacturer was great about helping us out with getting one quickly due to the time crunch between the recall and the start of the trip. We'll get a new filter and give it a few tries back in the states before committing to it on the next trip. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5055/...17ecd6215b.jpg Please, dear gods, let it boil! Dachary made the call to bring a Gerbing hunting/camping knife as a separate food-safe knife that was to be used exclusively for food. It made cutting beef, and everything else trivial. Not a requirement, but we liked it and will bring it next time. Kay suggested just using the Leatherman knife until Dachary reminded him of everything else we use the Leatherman knife for. It was a compelling argument for a food-only knife. small cutting board We definitely appreciated having somewhere clean to cut meat or veggies. Took up essentially no space, weighed nothing, and we used it as a replacement lid on our pot when we screwed up and melted the one it came with. You can also use it as a serving dish, a plate, etc. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5049/...d4c70f6fdb.jpg The cutting of meat GSI Outdoors Pinnacle Dualist (pot/bowls/cups) This is an excellent compact solution that gives you a pot, two cups, two bowls (insulated), and something to wash them in. All of it fits within the pot. We love this thing with one exception. The lid is plastic and if you accidentally let the water boil out of whatever you're cooking it will melt and be useless. We'd happily pay for another set if it came with a metal lid. Celulose sponge This was a mistake. You'll want a good scrubby sponge for cleaning your dishes but don't bring a cellulose one. Instead choose one of the artificial yellow foam ones. You can squeeze almost all the water out of them and they dry pretty quickly. A cellulose sponge is sometimes still damp in the morning. On the Bike: In the end we both decided we preferred the BeadRider beaded seat cover over the AirHawk. The AirHawk provides a soft and constant pressure that adjusts as you move. Unfortunately this means there's an inescapably constant pressure on your butt. A beaded seat cover allows you to move around to relieve pressure points and is surprisingly comfortable. Three of the AirHawk's four strap attachment points ripped out of the cover, and whenever it rained while you were off the bike you had to sit your nice dry butt on a soaking wet cloth cover. While we didn't have any problems a few riders we encountered had an exceptional amount of trouble with their AirHawks getting leaks and requiring lots of patching. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5096/...9dfc735620.jpg Wet Wet Wet The BeadRider wasn't perfect though. Too many accidental kicks when throwing a leg over the seat snapped the heavy-duty fishing line that holds the beads together. A few beads were lost on the side, and we had to re-knot them in a few places to keep other beads from falling off. The slipperiness of the ceramic beads left Dachary sliding forwards on her seat. The wooden ones aren't as durable but they aren't as slippery under your butt either. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5296/...ecd0f60397.jpg Fixing the BeadRider... again Loobman Dachary gave up on hers along the way. She was unhappy with how the zip-tie delivery mechanism required feeding more zip-tie from time to time (by design) and didn't feel it was a thorough enough coverage. Additionally she disliked not having something to clean the chain with. Next time she'll bring a brush and a can of chain-lube. We picked up some S10 chain lube along the way and liked the tiny spray tube it had. Kay, on the other hand, was pretty happy with the Loobman. He likes how low-tech it is and how he could reach down and squeeze it when he happened to remember while riding. Oxford Heaterz Heated Motorcycle Handlebar Grips Worked great and never needed to turn them all the way up, even in sub-freezing weather. Unfortunately the buttons for adjusting the temperature are nigh-impossible to manipulate when wearing winter gloves and it the unit resets itself to the lowest setting when you turn the bike off. FuzeBlocks FZ-1 Fuze block This product is notable because it's very small, and unlike every other fuze block out there allows each item to easily be switched or unswitched. When the bike turned off so did the electric jacket and grips. No more needing to remember to turn them off or drain the battery. The GPS on the other hand stayed on so that you could ponder the map. Denali LED Lighting Kit Worked great, and is probably the most affordable lighting system of its kind. When Kay's headlight died we simply pointed them down more and used them as replacement low beams. When we were driving in near-zero visibility it gave us confidence to know that oncoming trucks would be able to see them through the mist. When we turned them on at night the road was absolutely visible. We highly recommend these. Next time we'll spend the extra cash to get a second set for Dachary's bike, too. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5097/...0d280c5282.jpg Denali Lights Welded kick-stand foot extensions One of our favorite mods was the "big fat feet" we had an Ecuadoran welder attach to our kick-stands after the Touratech ones had fallen off. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5174/...882e79dbe3.jpg Welding on new kickstand feet and loop DID X-RING Gold Chains The general consensus is that you simply can't buy better. Ours have over 18,000 miles (29,000 kilometers) on them and have shown no sign of stretching. They should probably be replaced at this point but neither of us was fearing them at the end. They'd probably be in better shape if we had chain lube and cleaning brushes and were maintaining them thoroughly throughout the trip. Panniers There are few areas more opinionated than pannier selection, and we've formed a couple general thoughts about them. Easy on Easy off is a bigger deal than you think. Every time we went into a hotel Dachary would walk behind her bike and have her panniers off in roughly ten seconds. Kay would be unlocking, unlatching, and unscrewing the pucks in his for the next couple minutes. We decided the extra time of unscrewing pucks wouldn't be nearly as bad if one of us didn't have something so ridiculously easy to remove as Dachary's. We're not fans of the puck systems that so many metal pannier manufacturer's use. It's annoying to have to open the pannier and dig down into it, sometimes needing to remove things, to get to the pucks and then unscrew them just to get your pannier off or on. One requirement for the next panniers we be will be that the mechanism that attaches them to the frame is both external and quick to undo. We bought a full sheet of 3mm Neoprene with a cloth backing from FoamOrder.com and carefully mapped out the shapes of every panel we'd have to cut from it. Then used some 3M spray adhesive we picked up at an art supplies store to attach it. A half sheet of neoprene should be enough for one set of panniers. This proved to be a really good idea. No rattling, no black stuff from things rubbing against aluminum, and it provided a little bit of shock absorption for the contents of the pannier. Kay went with the Happy-Trail 38L Teton Panniers. We felt they were very well made, and don't think you'll find anything significantly more sturdy, especially not for the price. The frame was also very good. We were disappointed when Kay's was ripped off because the bolts in the pucks that hold it on did not shear. Instead the frame got tweaked and the little L shaped pieces of metal the the pucks screw into and hold the panniers onto the frame ended up bending the pannier until the angle of the L was such that its hold was less than the force being exerted by the ground. We honestly believe that Happy-Trail needs to switch to shittier bolts. If the bolt had of sheared it would have been a simple matter to grab a Leatherman, grab the end, unscrew it, and replace it. Instead, we've got a bent frame and L pieces that barely hold because, even after repeated banging with rocks, bricks, and axes, they are still not at the right angle. You can't get anything inside the pannier to help flatten it from the inside. Maybe a tiny bottle jack would work… There are a number of people out there who are soft-bag fans because of the possibility of getting your foot trapped / crushed between a hard pannier and the ground. This happened to Kay twice and if it wasn't for the malleolus armor in Kay's boots we're convinced the ankle would have been broken. With the armor it was just the lingering pain from a bruised bone. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5136/...ac16b60c0a.jpg Offloading The Happy-Trails panniers were modified with Carry handles, Touratech 2 Bottle holder (MSR Bottle and Fire Extinguisher), and Touratech 2 liter Canister holder (emergency emergency fuel). Dachary went with the SW-Motech Trax cases which we made the same handle-mod on. As noted above, we loved the ease of use of these, but in almost every other aspect they failed. The lid of each pannier has space in it, but unlike Jesse Cases there's no way to actually hold anything in the roof. We ended up using wire hangers bent in just such a way which kinda-sorta worked for large items like shoes. The Quick-locks that hold the SW-Motech frame together both self destructed as a result of tiny, no-speed drops where the slightest pressure (the weight of the bike) sheered the pins off the locking mechanisms. Dachary is convinced that in an off capable of ripping a pannier from a bike the frame would self-destruct, which would leave you totally screwed. How do you attach the pannier to a frame that's not really there anymore and limp to the next welder? Kay's convinced that the thin piece of bent aluminum rod that you use to latch the panniers to the frame would be ripped off and then you'd be screwed because it's not just something you can weld. It has to be just the right size and bent at just the right angles. The corners of the Trax cases are plastic and, as far as we can tell, nothing is welded on them. Everything is riveted. The plastic corners will easily rip free of their rivets in an off. We eventually ended up finding someone to replace the corner that'd ripped off. http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4100/...74264ab195.jpg Five dollar pannier repair While the cases were initially waterproof (although SW-Motech no longer markets them as such), they began to quickly get things wet inside after a couple of drops. The riveted panels pulled away slightly and made enough of a gap for water to leak inside - particularly the right pannier. We do not believe that this would happen with the Happy-Trail panniers unless there was a very serious dent. Everything in our panniers that wasn't supposed to get wet was in one of our many dry-sacks. This proved wise with the Trax cases. On the Hard vs. Soft debate we're still somewhat torn. We both went with hard for the peace of mind they provide. On one of the test rides with Kay's soft luggage he was constantly concerned about someone getting in to it. On the journey we had no problems with people trying to get into our cases, but we also didn't worry about it either. We're not sure it's needed, and if we were doing a trip just within the USA we might go with soft luggage, but we definitely appreciate the security aspect of hard luggage. On the Humans: BMW Rallye Pro 2 suit Great construction, exceptional armor, surprisingly good ventilation. Can't recommend it highly enough. We've looked at the Rallye Pro 3 and believe that they've taken the excellence of the Rallye Pro 2 and made well chosen enhancements. Ignore the fact that people think you bought it because of the BMW roundel and buy it because it's excellent. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5012/...83d29f632e.jpg Crowding around the bikes TCX GTX Infinity Boots The waterproofing was excellent. Without the malleolus protector Kay's convinced he'd have broken his left ankle, possibly twice. Only downside is that the edging at the top is very itchy for at least a month of riding, and after that it's mildly itchy. Tall socks are required. After using them long enough Kay decided that the boots had become so comfortable that it wasn't worth the effort of digging out normal shoes if he wasn't going to walking particularly far (more than a couple miles). http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5053/...d419b0ec60.jpg We seem to have gotten a bit dusty RevIt Rival H20 Boots These had a zipper that was way too fine, got borked on the first encounter with dirt/mud, and ripped off when trying to extricate a foot from them. These boots might be good for highway touring and commuters, but they're simply not practical from a construction standpoint for adventure riding. Any off-road at all is virtually guaranteed to cause problems with the fine-tooth zipper. Otherwise, they were comfortable and perfectly fine for certain applications, especially in their price point - just not for adventure riding. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5284/...d0e6296f7c.jpg The Zipper of Doom We ended up returning them at the beginning of the trip and replacing them with… Dainese Visoke D-WP Boots These lost all semblance of waterproofness by Colombia at around 6,700 miles and around 50 solid 8-10 hour days in a row of riding, but were otherwise well loved by Dachary and greatly preferred to the Revit Rival H20 Boots due to their thicker soles and extra shin protection. The extra height they provided was just enough to make it easier for Dachary to maneuver her bike in in parking, which she had to do on tippy-toes until the bike got shorter. We've been told that Gore-Tex will guarantee the waterproofing in any product that uses it but haven't contacted anybody yet about the waterproofing of these boots. Gloves Dachary went with the RevIt Monster Gloves for the warm weather. For safety reasons we don't recommend short gloves for most riders but Dachary's sleeves were actually a bit too long and, she believed, would cover, and protect, her wrists from scrapes even when pushed back up the arm. The Monster gloves wore great, and were extremely comfortable when broken in. They don't feel particularly protective and certainly wouldn't have done much in a bad off, particularly in off-road conditions, but they were great for long-distance touring with mostly paved riding. Dachary had the RevIt Zenith H20 Gloves for the rain and cooler temps. Kay seriously regretted not getting these too. While it may have been excessive to carry three pairs of gloves, there were times when it was too cold for the Monster mesh gloves but not cold enough to justify the Held Warm N'Dry gloves. The RevIt Zenith gloves were the perfect compromise for those in-between temperatures. Also good in the rain. Kay went with the Joe Rocket Sonic Gloves for the warm weather, but discovered that his thumb (average sized) got slightly jammed when twisting the throttle and eventually had to take out the stitching in the top of the thumb so that it could poke out. Dachary had these before the trip but the felt in the palm wore through near the thumb and became uncomfortable bumps at the edges of the wear holes. They're definitely good from a safety perspective (Kay's wearing the ones that saved Dachary's knuckles in a lowside) and were comfortable for Kay other than the thumb issue, but neither of us would buy them again. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5133/...d40ae272cc.jpg Glove Mod Kay went with the Aerostitch Triple Digit Rain Covers instead of the RevIt Zenith H20 Gloves, despite a total failure on a test run where they turned into water balloons surrounding his hands. This had been chalked up to user-error. Not buying a second pair of rain gloves would save us money and he didn't mind the slipperiness of them. On the trip it was decided that they were obnoxious and not worth the effort. From then on Kay just let his hands get wet unless it was particularly cold out at which point we'd break out the… Held Warm-N-Dry Gloves See the note about these in the Outstanding Items section. Short version: buy them. Buy them now. Just remember that they're designed to be used with heated grips. Electric Jackets Dachary went with the Gerbing and Kay with the Aerostich Kanetsu TLTec Windblocker. Our initial review made the Gerbing out to be the clear winner, but after 18,000 miles it's not so black and white. Yes, the Gerbing heated up faster and kept your arms warm too, but the first Gerbing jacket died on us, and the second one had a tendency to shock Dachary at regular intervals unless she wore thick insulating layers beneath it. It was quite painful when turned up too. And, when the first Gerbing died it provided essentially no warmth. The Aerostich on the other hand burned Kay when worn with the thin side against the skin and turned all the way up, but reversing it to put the fleece between the wires and the skin solved that problem. While the arms weren't heated like the Gerbing it did a good enough job at keeping Kay's core warm that it wasn't a big deal. And, most importantly it still provided a measure of warmth due to its fleece side even when it wasn't turned on. The Aerostich's lack of pockets was particularly annoying when walking around in it, as was it's "motorcycle" cut meant it came barely to the waist when riding and rode up to high when walking around. So, the question is, would we recommend either of them? We're not sure. Gerbing has a great reputation and is definitely willing to replace faulty products, but we're concerned that both jackets had problems. Also, willingness to replace a faulty product doesn't help when you're in another country or on another continent and don't have a shipping address. The Aerostitch has 1970's technology, but as a result it's not nearly as finicky, and we love that it has a fleece side that'll keep you warm should it break, or if you're just walking around town. The cut and the lack of pockets though… We highly recommend getting an electric jacket, we're just not sure which one you should get. Kay's considering the exo2 gear for the next trip. Personal Hygiene: Baby Wipes Far too many uses to list. About the only thing you can't clean with them is your visor because they leave a thin film of residue. Travel toothbrushes The kind that fold, or split into two pieces. Normal toothbrushes are too long for a toiletries stuff sack and chopping off the end of the handle leaves it too short for comfortable use. Plus if you have the kind that you split into two pieces and it goes inside itself like a little case, it keeps your toothbrush from getting stuff on it from your other toiletries (i.e. leaky soap, etc.) Towels We each brought a "large" chamois style MSR PackTowl which was more than sufficient to get us dry and packs very small, but next time we'll bring the extra large one. The difference in packing space is negligible and you should be able to wrap an XL one around you when you step out of the shower in a campground. You can't wrap the smaller ones around you. We also brought a tiny version for drying the dishes. We weren't sure if bringing a chamois towel for dishes was a good call or not before the trip, but in the end we think it was great. Mimikaki You could bring a bag of Q-tips, but that takes up space and needs to be kept dry. A mimikaki on the other hand can get wet, is reusable, and takes up less space than a pen. For those who don't know a Mimikaki is essentially an ear spoon. Americans tend to put this in the "gross" category but really it's no worse than a Q-tip and the Japanese have been fans of them for years. Kay went with a poor man's Mimikaki made from a paperclip (not as dangerous as it sounds), but you can buy real ones from sites like J-List. We recommend getting a metal one if you can find it. Side note: Dachary does not and will not use this. But also doesn't have the problems with ear wax that most people have. So to each his own in this regard. More in the next post... |
What worked, and what didn't. A gear review. (part 3)
Other:
First Aid Kit We took the Adventure Medical Kits Mountain Weekender First-Aid Kit and beefed it up with a number of additional items (see our Office Supplies page for details). We also brought their Suture / Syringe kit, because we've been advised that there are a number of hospitals in the world who can't afford fresh needles and need to reuse them. We suspect that this probably isn't the case in the Americas, but just in case… We chose, and would recommend, the Adventure Medical Kits Mountain Weekender First-Aid Kit because of its very easy to read section labels. We know from experience that in stressful situations you don't have the mental capacity to hunt for things. If someone's bleeding you want a pocket that says "Bleeding". All of the first aid kits we've seen that have any hope of fitting in a pannier need to have items added to them, but we think the clear labeling is a definite benefit in stressful situations. Also the first aid book that it comes with is quite good; not one of those crappy booklets most kits come with. We're not sure we'd bring the suture kit to the Americas again, but if you're heading to Africa or Around the World we'd definitely recommend it. We're happy to report that we only used the kit for burn gel and some pills, although we did consult the book several times to diagnose Dachary's diarrhea, degree of sunburn, altitude sickness, etc. On a related note, if you're fortunate enough to have an old-school pharmacist nearby, explain what you're about to do and ask them if you could have any of their first aid related items or pills that are either about to expire or just expired recently. Ours offered us a number of useful things that he was just going to have to throw out. Ziplock baggies Lots of people recommend these. We recommend against them. Every single ziplock we brought ended up self-destructing, and not just a little tear self destruction either. They completely wore out. Holes everywhere. Even nice round things like batteries couldn't be kept. Save yourself the frustration and just get some small, lightweight dry sacks for holding things in your panniers. We got a few multi-packs of small dry sacks from Amazon.com and they were great as both stuff sacks and at keeping important things dry when our panniers did get wet. Money Belts Neither of us ever wore them. Dachary put extra cash and cards in hers but left it somewhere not on her person. it may as well have just been an envelope. Kay never put anything in his. We wouldn't bother next time. We went with the advice of carrying a wallet that has fake cards and just enough cash for the day. If it gets stolen, no biggie. However, we had no problems in this regard on the entire trip. Maps The advice we'd received was to get maps with a scale of at least 1:500,000. In some cases we were able to find maps with a scale of 1:250,000. Some maps had great road coverage but no topographical information. Some had good roads and topographical information. Some were waterproof, some weren't. Our advice is this: If you're the type who goes out of their way to frequently ride tiny dirt roads then get a 1:250,000 scale map whenever you can. If that doesn't sound like you get 1:500,000. The problem with the 1:250,000 scale is that when you're traveling at normal pavement speeds you have to refold them three times a day just to keep the part you're riding on visible. Always get a map with good topographical information. The map we had of Chile was very easy to read, but we had no clue when we were about to deal with mountains and valleys which seriously impacts your riding speed due to all the squiggles. Also, it's good to know when you're about to climb into the mountains because it generally gets quite chilly when you do. Waterproof maps, when you can find them, have a surprising side-benefit. They're much more resilient when it comes to all the abuse your maps take from being constantly refolded to fit into the map pouch on your tank bag. Most of our paper maps look thoroughly beaten, and some have holes at some of the fold corners. We need to make special mention of the National Geographic Adventure maps. If you want a detailed map (1:250,000) these are easy to read, waterproof, contain topographical information, and include "dirt tracks" and "trails". The only downside is that they're only available for a handful of countries. Salted / Roasted Almonds The salted ones are hard to find on the road, but you'll sporadically find fresh ones. We recommend these, because they were always greatly appreciated when we nommed on them from a tank bag, and they take a while to digest so your body receives benefit from them for quite a while afterwards. If it's mealtime and you can't find anything nearby, grab a couple handfuls of salted almonds. Oxford Spanish / English Dictionary Something like 70% of the words we tried to look up (Spanish and English) weren't in there, but we found an unexpected benefit. When we were trying to convey something important, but lacked the vocabulary, we'd pull it out and look up the world. Frequently the other person would get interested and, once you'd figured out your word, borrow it to look up something they were trying to convey to you. So, while we wouldn't particularly recommend *this* dictionary, we would recommend bringing a paper dictionary, in addition to having a copy of Ultralingua on your iPhone (see below). Fire Extinguisher Didn't need to use it, but glad we had it. Also, it turns out that there's a common scam amongst corrupt cops in South America where they claim you are required to have one even though you aren't and try and get a bribe out of you. Ditto for warning triangles, which we didn't have. Business Cards You're going to meet people who are interested in your trip. You can either tell them your URL and hope they remember it, or hope that someone's got a piece of paper and a pen. Or, you can simply carry business cards. It should be noted that standard US business cards will just fit in a large Altoids tin. The corners might get compressed slightly but not badly, and it'll help protect them from getting beaten up. We carried a couple tins of them and were very grateful to have them to hand out. Cameras We were planning on both getting new point-and-shoot's for the trip, and after doing a lot of research using Flickr's Camera Finder to see what real world pictures looked like from various cameras we decided on the Canon PowerShot SX210 SI. Dachary bought hers, but Kay decided to spend his money on a used DSLR and found a Canon EOS 1000D / Rebel XS on eBay for about the same price $350. We also had an old Canon PowerShot SD1000 which was the "riding camera". The old PowerShot got tethered to Kay's tank bag and was used for shooting while riding. If something horrible happened as a result of it being used on a motorcycle we weren't going to be too bummed. The tether definitely came in handy as it was dropped or slipped out of where it got shoved for easy access while riding a number of times. Sadly Kay managed to forget it was there, pull the tank bag off the bike and cause it to hit the ground when the tank bag was lowered… repeatedly. Now, the shutter doesn't always open up completely. The combination of a good point and shoot (the SX210) and a DSLR is one we'd highly recommend. Mostly we just put the DSLR in landscape mode (no flash) and let it do everything automatically. A telephoto lens would have been nice, but the one it came with was surprisingly good. The 14x optical zoom on the SX210 compensated when the DSLR lens couldn't capture something small or far off, but time and again we were impressed with how much better the color quality is on the DSLR. Megapixels aren't everything. Our advice is to bring a good point and shoot you can throw in your pocket while walking around populated areas and a good DSLR for the really important / beautiful shots. And, if you have an old one, or can afford another, a point and shoot for your tank bag that you don't mind risking the life of. Video Cameras We brought a Contour HD, a Contour GPS, and a V.O.I. P.O.V video camera. The Contour HD worked flawlessly and provided great video. The Contour GPS worked flawlessly and provided great video until the USB port on it that you use to charge it and get data off broke and pushed into the camera where you could no longer access it. The P.O.V. never got used even as a replacement for the broken Contour GPS because the remote never seemed to reliably start a recording so you have to keep the screen on the main body visible and there's a big-ass fiber optic cable running from the body to the lens on your head. So, every time you step off the bike you have to remove the camera from your helmet and stow it away. (However, another rider told us that the GPS seems to interfere with the signal from the remote, and if you move the remote further from the GPS unit, it might work reliably. We never got around to testing this.). Also, because you want to not go through batteries at an insane rate you have to wire it to your battery (there's an adapter for that) but the device must be powered to get video off of it. So, you either have to hold your laptop next to your bike while you download the video or you have to stick in some batteries (it won't power itself from the USB connection) and then remove them when you're ready to plug it back into the bike. All-in-all the added complications and frustrations that the P.O.V presented didn't make Kay feel like bothering. We pondered Velcroing it to the bike, but didn't want to deal with having to detach it from the bike every time we walked away from it. We recommend a nice cordless helmet cam like the Contour HD or GPS. Just be sure to keep it charged so you don't miss that incredible moment. The GPS functionality on the Contour GPS is, right now, largely a gimmick. You can only share it via their video site, but we chose it because even though we planned to share the video on other sites, we'd be able to use the software on our laptops to know exactly where the video was taken which we found a useful thing on a trip like this. No more wondering "Where was this?" When we met up with OsoBlanco (on ADVRider) on the road and told him of our dead camera he mentioned that on his Around the World trip he and his companions managed to kill five Contour HDs. He'd also had trouble with the remote on the P.O.V. whenever it was too near his GPS. For this trip he'd switched to the Drift HD170 which seemed to be working ok for him, although we all agreed that no-one in the motorcycle camera space has gotten it *quite* right yet. It should be noted that right now the V.O.I. P.O.V is the only helmet cam we could find with a microphone in. So, if you want to narrate while riding (wind noise will be hard to overcome) it's your only choice. Computing We brought two mac laptops and an iPad. Two laptops is a bit excessive for most, but Dachary still needed to work for some of her clients from time to time and we were determined to keep up the daily posts. Writing daily ride reports takes a lot of work, and if you skip writing one evening you have to make it up the next so there were many nights when Dachary was writing one post or working for a client while Kay was writing a post. This was only an option because we had two laptops, and from a space standpoint, it was only justifiable because we had two panniers each. For riding two-up where space is much more of a concern, we never would have been able to justify two laptops. We brought the iPad because it has an incredible battery life and because with the addition of the thin Apple bluetooth keyboard it becomes a very effective writing device. We believed that we were going to be camping a lot and thought we'd be able to use it for writing the posts. This didn't happen but we ended up loving it for two other reasons: 1) excellent viewing angle for watching downloaded movies and tv shows. You don't have to crowd together to have the screen be at the right angle for both. 2) Kay would use the Kindle app on it it to read books downloaded from Amazon, but it's not nearly as nice for reading on as a real Kindle. We don't recommend the iPad for content creation unless you're using service like Posterous.com to post to your blog. About the only content the iPad is decent at creating is emails and Posterous.com ingests email and converts it into blog posts (on its site and others if you want), uploads the embedded photos and videos to Flickr, embeds galleries and audio players as needed. But, it can't post to ride reports on sites like ADVRider. If, however, you're just posting occasionally, or not at all… Can't recommend the iPad highly enough. The only downside is that you're going to have a harder time connecting to weak WiFi signals, which you'll encounter frequently, with an iPad (or iPhone) than you will with a laptop. The antenna's just not as good. Ultralingua If you have an iPhone grab a copy of Ultralingua. This is an excellent foreign language dictionary (to and from) with a huge vocabulary. Definitely worth the money. Plus many words that weren't in our paper dictionaries were in Ultralingua. Truly helpful and awesome. (Thanks Eric for recommending it!) Because they Rock: On our trip, Revzilla went out of their way to help us with returns and getting replacement items when we were in far off lands. Their support in finding the right items for the trip was exceptional. Their web site is also the best in the industry. For these reasons, because we are incredibly grateful for their support, and because they simply get what it is to be an adventure rider we'd like to suggest making your next gear purchases with them. You won't regret it. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5085/...c2820a4af6.jpg Us at RevZilla |
f650
I just came across your little trip, you seem to have had quite a fair amount of problems with the bikes, especially accessing filter etc to do basic maintenance. Was it a continuing problem maintaining the BMs and reliability seems not what it should be.
I was thinking of buying a BMW f650gs dakar, but seeing the overlaying problems you have both had, it looks likely that I should look more closely at a japanese machine instead. regards Mike. |
Quote:
None of the problems we had with the bikes were anything specific to the F650GS or to ANY motorcycle. Ground fault (probably) in the wiring, fork seals, engine gasket, fan... These are typical problems that happen on EVERY bike from EVERY manufacturer, and most of these were on an eight year old bike. We would still highly recommend the BMW F650GS, not because we're BMW fanboys, but because it really is a good bike. We believe that you'll encounter the types of problems we encountered on any bike. While we weren't thrilled with BMW Santiago the level of service is FAR better in a BMW shop. We passed hundreds of shops that'd work on the typical japanese bikes but they were generally hole-in-the-wall places that would be unlikely to be particularly familiar with whatever adventure model you choose because they never see bikes like that, nevermind how unlikely they'll be to have a part that fits. And that's one huge advantage to the BMW. Honda, for example, makes a lot of bikes but only sells some of them in any given country. So, a European might get a great Transalp but come to the US and be screwed when they need parts because you can't get them here. BMW has a very limited number of bikes and sells the same ones everywhere. So you can get the parts your bike needs in every country that has a BMW dealer (which is most all of them). It should also be noted the main BMW site is missing listings for a number of local dealers and service places. It doesn't show any for Argentina for example, and only shows one for Chile. We should note that we aren't thrilled with the new version of the F650GS as it really seems to be intended for commuters who only dream of riding offroad but don't ever actually do it (big exposed pipe, no bash plate, alloy wheels), plus calling it a 650 with an 800cc engine in it is just ridiculous and confusing. -Kay |
I haven't yet read your whole report, but I have to thank you for your followup regarding the performance of your gear. It's good, specific advice about the stuff you used and how well it worked. Very useful for someone planning such a trip.
Thanks. Jamie |
What did you ultimately do with the bikes?
Hi Dachary & Kay,
Did you ever reunite your bikes (did you have them shipped back to Boston)? I came across your Trip Log by chance, and couldn't stop reading it. What an amazing adventure. Not only a tremendous journey, but also commend you on the effort to document the trip daily. With all the photos, details, and logs it would make a great motorcycle travel book:thumbup1: By the way, do most of the countries you traveled through require local Insurance? Would it be better to arrange travel insurance in advance? Many thanks. Kam Great Falls, VA |
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