North across the pampa

After completing my journey from Prudhoe Bay to Ushuaia, I couldn't escape the feeling that the trip was all over, that the journey up the coast to Buenos Aires was just going to be a long, straight, dull ride across the flat pampa with nothing to see. It was all of those things, but if there is one thing I should have learned by now, it's that nothing on a trip of this nature is ever easy.

I'd left Rio Gallegos later than planned as I was tired from the previous late night. I wanted to try to get to Buenos Aires by the 22nd December, to allow myself time to get the bike organised and hopefully make home for Christmas, so I knew I had three days to cover more than two and a half thousand kilometers.

Mother Nature had decided it was time for me to leave the continent anyway, at least that is what it felt like as enormously strong north westerly winds tried to blow me into the Atlantic Ocean. Having filled up with fuel in Rio Gallegos, I was shocked at the rate it was depleting at. I started to worry there was a fuel leak, and stopped to check a couple of times. It couldn't be the wind that was affecting things that badly... could it? I didn't have enough fuel to make the planned stop at Puerto San Julian, but fortunately there was a garage about halfway so I was able to top up, the wind dropped and the bike made San Julian with something like it's normal fuel economy. Hmmmm. North of San Julian the wind was much worse, and again it became apparent that I was not going to make the next big town because of the decrease in fuel efficiency. However, I knew as I had passed this way on the way south that there was fuel in Fitz Roy, so I could let the bike plow through the fuel until then.

To give some idea of just how vast, flat and empty the pampa is, I saw the three tiny hillocks that gave the small outpost of Tres Cerros it's name fully twenty miles before I came in sight of the town itself. The bike threw up the first low fuel warning after 160 miles, I am normally disappointed if I get less than 240. The wind was simply hammering my fuel supply. I filled up again at Fitz Roy - the same garage where my chain had jumped not so long ago - and knew then that I was safe until Comodoro Rivadavia, my stop for the night, because there was another town halfway. Of course, there were other things than just fuel to worry about.

I sat on the bike in the garage at Fitz Roy looking at the ominous dark clouds north, and wondering if I should sit out the rain. But the storm didn't seem to be moving much despite the incredibly strong wind, and of course the only place to sit would be in the fuel station. So I thought I would press on. The next few minutes became the tensest of my life, I think.

I rode north watching huge forks of lightning lance down into the flat grassy plains in front of me to the left, fascinated and thinking that I was lucky I wasn't under that little lot, when the road bent round and headed straight for it. My fascination turned to horror as I realised the next highest thing, other than me, for miles in any direction was shubbery that wouldn't cover my knees. I could see rain a long way ahead up the road but it was the lightning that had my attention, it seemed to be right at the very front of the storm so I gassed it and hunched as low as I could over the tank, hoping it wouldn't strike a rapidly moving target. I'd cleared the first of the dark clouds and was nervously glancing behind and left when an enormous purple-tinged fork came down not far from the road on my right. I squashed my tank bag to one side so I could get even lower, and put the throttle to the stop. It seems silly now looking back, but at the time I know I thought at least once "I don't want to die".

But it was my own stupidity that was nearly the cause of something bad happening. The rain came down hard and was being blown into waves of spray by the wind that made it difficult to see. I've not experienced conditions like it. I was looking up at the clouds often, and as I went around a gentle bend the back of the bike went right, then left in a huge wobble. That made me sit up, and I realised with a shock I was doing more than 90mph in the pouring rain, on horribly worn knobbly trail tyres. Added to that there was a chemical sheen on the surface water, maybe some diesel on the road. The imagined danger of the lightning had almost resulted in a very real accident.

Then suddenly there was a gully, the road dropped and I was no longer the highest point. I caught up to a coach and sat behind him for a while, although it had been maybe ten minutes since I last saw any lightning. It wasn't really until I reached the town of Calleta Olivia that I relaxed though, the sun was starting to peek through the clouds and the wind had switched directions, and was now coming in from the Atlantic. By the time I reached Comodoro Rivadavia the easterly wind had reached storm force and was battering the hotel I stayed in. I was glad to be off the road and felt at the time that never riding again might not be such a bad thing ;)

The next day I was reluctant to leave and got on the road a little late again. The skies were blue though despite the very strong wind, which had my neck and left shoulder aching within half an hour. I couldn't imagine twelve hours like that, with nothing to see but flat grass again and the odd Guanaco, but somehow I got through it. My biggest worry when I pulled in to Viedma, after 11pm, was the state of the tyres. The centre strip on the rear was worn totally slick, and the front tyre had been worn into a strange uneven pattern that meant the bike rumbled over the road rather than riding smoothly. I hoped they would last the almost 1000km I had remaining to get to Buenos Aires the following day.

Monday 22nd was all about watching the kilometer signs gradually descend. I'd done so many long days that my butt hurt before I even left Viedma in the morning, and my neck hurt as soon as I got into the wind. Viedma had kind of marked the end of Patagonia, and I figured on a map I would be about opposite Osorno in Chile, where it had started. So that made sense. There were a few outlying "suburbs" around the town, contrasting with Patagonia which was either small towns or sheep ranches. Heading towards Buenos Aires, the landscape quickly became farmland, fields of gold as far as I could see, which brought on a new problem.

The immensely strong wind was creating dust storms across the road, which started out ok but quickly became really dense. The thicker dust clouds would have me trying to cover the gap at the neck of my helmet, to stop the wind blasting dust up into my eyes. At a couple of points the storm was thick enough to blot out the sun and bring visibility down to a few metres, my world became the solid white line at the side of the road - it was all I could see. After what seemed like ages but was only really an hour or so, the surrounding land started to become less sandy and more grassy, so the dust clouds lessened. For hundreds of kilometers south of Buenos Aires, there was field after field of cattle. Not surprising that Argentina is famous for beef!

I stopped for fuel about 300km from Buenos Aires and realised with a shock that I had bought my last fuel on the trip. Next time I had to buy petrol I'd be in the UK, and gasping at the expense, no doubt :) I don't know if it was due to all the dust south and west, but sunset was particularly red and beautiful. It had been dark for a couple of hours or so when I finally turned off the autopista into downtown Buenos Aires, too exhausted to even be cheerful let alone celebrate. I'd been in the saddle another thirteen hours, and putting my watch forward an hour for BA meant that it was after midnight when I found an hotel.

I will be in Buenos Aires for Christmas. If you've managed to stay with it this far, thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed the journey as much as I did. Wherever you are I hope you have a very Merry Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous 2009. No matter where your travels take you, may you always have a full tank of fuel and the sun on your face ;)

Best wishes,

Frase.

PS I will write up an epilogue once I get home and update all the pics