|
I am on my way home. I made it to Ushuaia on April 5th. After Ushuaia,
spend a few days hiking around in Torres del Paines and in El Chalten.
Spectacular places! On Wednesday I cut across from El Chalten (which is on
the Argentinian side of the Chile/Argentina border) to Route 3 on the
Atlantic coast about 130 km south of Puerto San Julian. It was the hardest
day of my trip; maybe my entire life. It was almost 200 miles of horrible
mud. I fell 9 or 10 times. I lost count after a while. Broke both front
signal lights, engine guards, and mangled the Jesse rack and one of the
bags. I really got my money's worth out of my helmet and my Aroestich
suit.
Here’s a little detail.
After my first fall as I was struggling to lift my bike out of the mud in
the middle of nowhere Patagonia, without a soul anywhere in sight, I hard
the sound of a motorcycle. I thought I was imagining things but down the
road, coming around a curb was a guy standing on the foot pegs of his bike.
To my disbelief, it was a BMW R1150GS. This guy, slipping and sliding, made
it up the same hill I wiped out on with impressive assertiveness. It was
surreal to see another GS in the middle of nowhere at the time that I
really
needed help. I was also wandering to myself why I couldn’t get up the
hill the way this guy did. I later found out the guy - Maricio -
was a highly ranked Paris/Dakar racer who does all the off-road training
for
BMW Brazil.
About 15 minutes behind Maricio was Decio, also from Brazil and on an
1150GS,
and John Cheney from Washington State on a F650. Behind them in a
pick-up
truck with a trailer that had a BMW Adventure on it was Ron Ayres from Ft.
Worth and Dan? From Alabama. Ron Ayres is the owner of Ayres Adventure
Motorcycle Tours and Dan and John were clients. Maricio was writing an
article about the trip for a motorcycle magazine and Decio was the company’s
coordinator in Brazil/South America. They were on their way up Route 40 to
Bariloche and points north. I was hoping to cut across southern Patagonia
to Piedra Blanca/Puerto Julian and the safety of the paved Route 3 and
head
north along the Atlantic seaboard. My front forks were leaking oil,
besides
various mechanical problems. I didn’t have the heart to put the bike
through any more punishment than I already had in the last two weeks
traveling across Tierra Del Fuego and Southern Patagonia. I decided to
head for the pavement and make it up to the BMW dealer in Buenos Aires for
some much needed repairs.
We all stopped about 8 km after the dreaded hill at Tres Lagos to fuel up.
Tres Lagos is the last fuel stop for over 300 km going up route 40. The
Ayres group asked the attendant about the condition of Route 40 heading
north and he told them that it was pretty bad - full of mud. As much as
everyone in the Ayres group wanted to ride the infamous Routa 40, they
were
also sick of mud. They decided to follow me on the 240 km road to the
coast. This was probably one of the luckiest things that ever happened
to me.
The road had some horrible patches of mud on it. Dan and Ron were
following
me in the truck and according to Dan’s count I fell 10 or 11 times. I
thought it was only nine but I stopped counting after a while. A couple of
spectacular falls that put me over the handle bars and send me crashing
shoulder and helmet first into the mud. I mangled and broke more things on
the bike than I have the patience to list, or care to remember. With the
help of Ron and Dan - helping me lift the bike out of the mud and clean
the
mud from under the front fender - I made it out to Route 3 at about 9 pm.
The last two hours I was riding in the dirt and mud in the dark. When I
made it to the pavement I, and the bike, were clacked in mud. I kissed the
pavement. There were moments were I thought that I would just leave my
bike
on the side of the road or just set up my tent in the pampas and camp out
until Ron and Dan could send a truck to come and hall my bike out.
To be continued at the next Internet stop. They are closing this one up
for
the evening. Time to go drink some capirihnias. I am in a beautiful
beach town about 2 hours north of Rio.
|
