Home. An epilogue

The great thing about Christmas Day in Buenos Aires is Christmas Dinner. Picture the biggest, fattest and juiciest steak you can imagine, add a little cheesy mashed potato and gravy and you can see why I didn't miss turkey too much ;) Of course Christmas didn't really feel like Christmas, the hotel had a small tree in reception, but the temperature being in the low thirties (celcius) and very humid made any thoughts of sleighbells ringing kind of farcical. I spent the day on Skype and IM to family and friends though which was cool. Of course Santa forgot to visit, maybe I had not been good, but I suspect it was more to do with my room not having a chimney :)

After Christmas Day it was a race to sort the bike out. I got in touch with Lufthansa Cargo, all of about six blocks down the road in downtown Buenos Aires, and went through the paperwork with them. They gave me directions to the freight terminal at the International airport, and I set off on Red 5 with her completely worn tyres through the dense traffic. At one toll booth I went to pull away and the rear wheel spun for a second before I got any grip at all. I found myself crossing my fingers that the tyres wouldn't cause an accident right at the end of the trip.

Arriving at the airport I found the cargo terminal easily enough. My Lufthansa docs were scrutinized several times at security, along with my passport and bike documents, but they eventually let me pass and showed me where to park. Sorting out the airway bill with Lufthansa was easy enough, but the cost seemed like enough to have bought my own Concorde and flown the bike home that way! I agreed with them that I would pay cash on delivery as they wouldn't accept cards, I had minimal Argentine Pesos left on me and they wanted US Dollars only. I didn't fancy trying to visit ten or so ATMs to withdraw the necessary money.

Next I took the bike into the local authority to be weighed and crated. I rode the bike onto a set of scales and even though I had broken down my tent and stuffed that along with any other heavy gear into the panniers, along with the big wooden pallet the bike weighed 310Kg. As the minimum charge for freighting a bike was 500Kg, I had a lot of leeway. So I threw in my crash helmet and gloves. I could have easily asked them to wrap me and freight me with the bike :)

The last riding of the trip was when I had to put the bike in gear and ride it onto the pallet, so the guys could crate it. The odometer read 25,408 as I turned off the ignition for the last time, meaning I had done a total of about 24,200 miles since riding out of the terminal in Vancouver back in July. As I walked into the reception area to finalise the customs documents I glanced back and Red 5, crash helmet still on the wing mirror, was being copiously wrapped in packing film. They weren't even going to disconnect the battery!

The customs documents were many, but not overly complicated. When riding into Argentina you are given a permiso form which says you can ride the bike there but not sell it, the same as most other countries in the Americas, however as I was leaving the country without the bike all the formalities had to be completed now. Then I got an unexpected shock. Customs was fine, but the company that had crated the bike needed paying.

Lufthansa had highlighted all the charges but had failed to mention that I would have to pay to get the bike crated. The company wanted 400 pesos (about us$120) and I had about 100. I went to the cash machine in the cargo terminal and it wouldn't give me any money. I knew I had money in the account, so tried to make the company understand that I needed another ATM. It took about a half hour before anyone realised what I was on about, and then it was only thanks to someone speaking a bit of English. They told me there was a fuel station with an ATM up the road, I went there and got the cash, and everything was finally sorted. The bike would arrive in Heathrow on the 29th December.

I flew to Toronto with Air Canada, just over 12 hours (plus 4 hours of delays) on a plane, and promptly went down with a very high temperature and flu-like symptoms. Maybe it was flying from plus 30 degrees to minus 20, maybe I picked up a bug in the airport or on the plane. But it wiped me out for several days. Eventually I flew Air Canada back to Heathrow, arriving on New Year's Day.

Immediately I was reminded of all the things I hate about the UK. The weather, although barely below zero, felt much colder and damper than Canada. It was uniform grey and colourless everywhere. The airport was full of jostling people, and the Tube station was so packed I started to feel a bit too closed in, and went to the Heathrow Express to get into Central London - which was alarmingly expensive. I spent the rest of the day shuddering at the cost of everything. I was thoroughly miserable when I got home, but walked in the door to find a package with two cds of Alaska photos that my friend Jim had sent me, taken on his camera back in August. Thanks mate.

I'd felt a bit too ill and tired to get the bike out on arrival, so went back to collect it on my birthday, the 3rd January. Although it was pleasantly sunny it was still icy cold and riding around the M25 was an endurance test, my fingers were totally and painfully numb when I got home, along with the front of my legs. In the whole of my trip I'd had one item "stolen" - my thick winter gloves. I lent them to a guy I rode with in Peru and he never returned them. How I swore about that during the course of the ride ;)

So, finally, I am home. My days are spent adventuring to the kitchen and dunking tea bags into hot water. Instead of grand mountain ranges my viewing is now daytime TV. I am even thinking about getting a job :)

Would I have done anything differently? Sure - five months is both too long and too short a time. Too long to be on my own, I now realise. I always thought of myself as a loner but actually I need company just like everyone else. Too short to take on the entire Americas. I could have spent five months in Canada, or the US, or South America quite easily. If I'd had company I would have been more inclined to camp in latin America, saving money and extending the trip. I'd like to have taken my time more.

Would I do it again? A definite maybe - North America or South America, maybe Costa Rica, and certainly with a riding partner or a pillion. But there is so much of the rest of the world to see too...

Worst part of the trip? Guatemala and the day I got the puncture. Either that or the bent cop in Panama. I think I was generally having a tough time at that point and just wanted to be elsewhere.

Best part? Now you are asking - Alaska, Canadian Rockies, Chilean Patagonia, Peruvian Altiplano, Costa Rica, Utah, the list goes on. Being able to do whatever I want.

Red 5 is in the garage, wondering when we are going to hit the road again. She needs new fairings, indicators, replacement crash bars, new luggage rails and brackets, road tyres, and a good wash and servicing but for a 25,000 mile old bike she has a lot left in her. I've never been to Rome... hmmm ;)

Thanks for reading and sharing in the adventure. I genuinely don't think this will be the last big motorcycle trip I ever do. But I think it will be the last solo trip.

Best wishes,

Fraser.



Picture courtesy of Jim Green. My photos are online at Photobucket

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

The bottom of the world

Having arrived in Ushuaia at almost 10pm the previous evening, it was very hard to get up the following morning. This part of the journey was always going to be tough, as I'd not left myself enough time to spend more than a day on Tierra Del Fuego. Getting onto the island had taken a lot longer than expected, so I wanted to make an early start.

Ushuaia itself was not actually the end of the road, although the southernmost city in the world. Ruta 3 left the city and went a little further south, almost immediately becoming a gravel road. In a kind of mirror of Alaska's Dalton Highway, the last few kilometers of the road are in Tierra Del Fuego National Park, so you have to pay a fee if you want to get to the very end. However I was happier paying a fee to the Park service rather than oil companies :) The park was nice, with snow capped peaks and many small lakes, although it was windswept, cold and rather desolate. The road got narrower with tighter bends and a few rickety looking wooden bridges that I worried might puncture a tyre.

Finally, after just over four and a half months on the road, I rounded a bend and saw two signs marking the very end of Ruta 3, and the end of my journey from Prudhoe Bay. There was a small turning circle and a car park with two empty cars. Other than that it was deserted and the only noise was the wind. My odometer read 23,307 miles, and when I left Prudhoe Bay back in August it had read 2,480. Total distance 20,827 miles. Of course there were still a few more to add :)

I'm not sure if I expected something more (although a welcoming committee or a chequered flag might have been asking a bit much) but I got off the bike and wandered around in a bit of a daze. I knew I should be feeling a sense of accomplishment, or joy, or something, but all I felt was tired. I went down to the water's edge, sadly not the South Atlantic or the Southern Ocean, but a quiet inlet of the Beagle Channel, and stood in the water reflecting on how Jim and I had done the same in the Arctic, all those long miles ago. I went and found a "lucky" pebble again. It just wasn't the same.

And here it kind of hit home that what made the trip, even though I had set out just to see all the geography in North and South America, was the people I had encountered along the way. The pebble I picked up in Alaska and the volcanic rock I was given in Costa Rica made me smile because of the memories attached to them. The pebble I had in my hand on the southern shore of Tierra Del Fuego was, sadly, just a pebble I'd picked up.

I decided to stop being a sadcase and explore a bit around the small, remote peninsula. Along the shore there were so many fragmented shells that the beach had a kind of pink tinge. Two geese of some sort eyed me warily. It was so quiet, when the wind dropped, and I spent a pleasant hour wandering and lost in my trip memories. Eventually a few spots of rain made me think about leaving, and looking at my watch I realised it was almost midday. I had two border crossings and a long stretch of gravel ahead of me... it was going to be a late finish again.

As I headed out of the park, riding north again finally, I realised that I would one day have to return. Ushuaia itself is a lovely city, surrounded by some great scenery, and I would like to see more of Tierra Del Fuego National Park. Only next time I might fly in ;) I made good time to Rio Grande, where again the wind was not as bad as expected and I stopped for a coffee to wake myself up a bit. At San Sebastian the Argentine border crossing took around half an hour, then a few kilometers across the gravel I got a real shock at the size of the queue to get into Chilean Tierra Del Fuego. It was massive. It took a full two hours to get through and although I knew I would be ok with the ferries running until 11pm, my Patagonia guidebook said that Chilean customs closed at 10pm, so the second border crossing, just south of Rio Gallegos back on mainland South America, would be very tight indeed.

I got to the ferry dock and parked in a line of cars as the ferry was out in the Magellan Straits and nowhere in sight. The resident genius in me decided that I should have a cuppa while I was waiting, so I went in the small cafe and came out two minutes later with a coffee and chocolate bar, to see all the cars gone and my bike on it's own in the middle of the road. Argh. The coffee went in the bin after two sips and I rode around the corner to see the ferry docked. I needn't have worried though, none of the cars were allowed on and all the space given to lorries, even some that turned up after me. I sat and fretted... it was 9pm and the next ferry would be 9.30. Twenty minutes to cross and then another thirty to the border, which would be shut by then.

I got the next ferry and stood watching porpoises roll through the water, whilst thinking about the border. I knew the Argentine side was twenty four hours, maybe if the Chilean side was shut but unguarded I could just plow through it? That would cause me issues getting back in but as I was leaving Chile for the last time (on this trip) I could worry about that later. Would it cause problems getting into Argentina though? It was raining, there was an incredibly strong westerly wind and it was almost dark. Camping would be next to impossible. There were no hotels in the area. In the end, as normal, it turned out I was worrying for no reason. My guidebook was wrong, and in summer months both Chile and Argentina borders were open twenty four hours. As I left Chile for the last time I tried to think about why I liked it so much. Stepay had said that Chile is just there, they keep themselves to themselves and no one knows much about the place other than Pinochet. I thought the border crossings in Tierra Del Fuego summarised things nicely - the Argentine side was showing a looped tourist video of Patagonia, whilst the Chilean side had The Simpsons ;)

I made my final entry into Argentina a little before 11pm and found an hotel in Rio Gallegos by simply riding into town, seeing a sign saying "hotel" and stopping there. Despite this method it turned out to be a halfway reasonable place to stay.

There are kilometer markers all the way up Ruta 3 to Buenos Aires. When I left Lapataia at the bottom of the world, I had 3079km to the end of the trip. Only 2650 more to go ;)

Frase.

Percussa Resurgo

A week is a long time to be stuck in Punta Arenas. I filled it mostly with looking around souvenir shops, drinking coffee and reading. I did a lot of that, especially on Sunday when the entirety of Chile closes. There was one coffee shop - which served the best coffee I'd had in Chile - where I got talking to the waitresses and after asking me if I like to dance for some reason, there was a bit of hustle and bustle and one of them came back with a notepad and pen. On the pad there were several questions in English about me, to which I wrote the answers as best I could in Spanish. She went back to where all the others were watching, and a few minutes later came back with a second set of questions, the last of which was my phone number. I let them down gently (I think), explaining I have no phone. To this day I have no idea which of them it was that was interested :)

From time to time I would drop in on Gonzalo to see how the bike repairs were going, it transpired I would need a new clutch pin made. By Wednesday the replacement o-ring chain had arrived and Wednesday afternoon Gonzalo went off to pick up the clutch pin. His friend Stepay, who I had first met on Saturday, volunteered to take me to a duty free shopping mall in his truck. Stepay was a huge, friendly guy and it would be difficult not to like him. As we chatted I started to wonder what I'd done with my life... he'd been a miner in the desert, he'd been in the navy, and now worked in the oil industry. He left me in a guitar shop whilst he tried to get family Christmas presents, and just ended up getting himself a pair of shoes. I think guys are the same the world over ;)

Back at the garage, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Red 5 was fixed. She had a waxed new chain, the clutch worked and all was right with the world. Gonzalo looked very tired and very stressed. He had a lot of work on - I think he must be the only person in Chile who works Sundays too :)

But the trip finale - Ushuaia, on Tierra Del Fuego - was back on. After settling up with Gonzalo and thanking him for a great job, I said my goodbyes and went back to the hotel, noting how nice it was not to have a death rattle from the chain at every set of lights. Punta Arenas seemed to have a large amount of dogs hanging about on street corners, and there was nothing they liked more than chasing motorcycles. At one point I had three chasing me, and in typical dog fashion when I had to stop at a set of traffic lights, all they did was stand there barking at the bike :) I suddenly realised on Wednesday night that it would be my last in Chile, I had a couple of border crossings but no more planned stays, so at dinner I made the most of aji, a sort of chilli sauce, and Cerveza Austral beer which is really good. I got talked into dessert and the waiter returned with a full one eighth of a very sickly cake the size of a small coffee table.

Thursday morning I set out knowing I had a fairly long day ahead of me if I wanted to make Ushuaia. I had taken Stepay's advice and rather than catch the ferry from Punta Arenas, which runs once a day and takes a couple of hours, I headed north to Punta Delgado and caught the ferry there. I was incredibly lucky to turn up as they were about to lift the ramp, so I rode straight on and the ferry left. By the time I had got the bike sorted the ferry was in the middle of the Magellan straits, and I had just enough time to spot a couple of black and white porpoises and have a quick chat with the deck crew (they were surprised I was English - almost all the bikers they see are German, or American). Approaching Tierra Del Fuego, I tried to imagine what Magellan must have thought as he sailed up these desolate waters, and saw the Ona fires on the shore which give the island the name "Land of fire". If my thoughts were anything to go by it was probably "Blimey, everything is grey". The only break in the colourless monotony was white caps on the waves, driven by the strong wind.

As far as the Ona were concerned, their fate mirrors one that seems to have repeated all the way down this huge continent. They lived on Tierra Del Fuego, subsisting off the land for centuries until the coming of the Europeans who by turns hunted them or arrogantly tried to convert them to Christianity. No Ona survived the 20th century.

Riding away from the ferry I was soon on gravel roads again, which got progressively tougher on the bike until San Sebastian. There are two San Sebastians on the island, one is the Chilean border post and the other the Argentinian border 7km further on. Arriving at Chilean San Sebastian, there was another bike coming through the border in the opposite direction, so I jumped off and went for a chat. The guy was German, and had been on the road around the world for SIX YEARS. I felt like a numpty amateur cricketer meeting Sir Garfield Sobers.

After clearing the border formalities, I walked back to the bike and my two gallon spare fuel canister - my FULL two gallon canister - was gone. I immediately grilled the customs officials, assuming that as I'd had problems before it had been "confiscated". They professed to know nothing about it, and told me it had probably jolted loose on the road. It had survived the worst that the Carretera Austral had thrown at it... I just couldn't see it, and started hunting around. Stupid. Eventually the SAG guy asked if I was going to ride back and find it, and I realised that it just wasn't worth it. It could have been stolen, it could be anywhere along the 130Km gravel road. The worst thing was I didn't mind the wasted fuel so much as the thought that I had carried the container since Fairbanks, and now it wouldn't make the end of the journey with me. Sentimental AND stupid :)

The northern part of Tierra Del Fuego was desolate - just grass, sheep and Guanacos. Dotted about on the Argentine side were a few estancias, sheep ranches, and a few official-looking signs proclaiming that Las Malvinas were Argentina, the islanders obviously have some depth of feeling. I'd been warned about the wind across the island, but to be honest it wasn't really as bad as around Calafate or Punta Arenas. The landscape started to change from flat or rolling grass into hills and then mountains, part of the Cordillera Darwin. There were even trees. The wind was cold now, and it seemed a long time since I had been sweating on the Carretera Austral. It was getting late, too, and I knew the sun would soon be setting. I was counting down the kilometers to Ushuaia and thinking how like Deadhorse in Alaska it was. There was a pass across the mountains, and then the final run into the town.

Crossing the "Ushuaia" sign, there was no jubilation, no cheering, I was just tired and wanted to find an hotel. It was about 9.30pm when I got off the bike, stiff from the wind and the long ride. I managed to catch sunset though, across Isla Navarino on the other side of the Beagle Channel. Reaching the very end of the road would have to wait until morning :)

The title of the post - percussa resurgo - means "struck down, I rise again" and it is meant to be the Jordan family motto. As a child I remember seeing it over the kitchen door in my grandparents house. It kind of seemed appropriate after recent issues.

Frase.

The End. Or maybe not...

There is nothing quite like the sinking feeling of looking down to see a puddle of oil and bits of crankcase under your engine, after the bike just ground to an unexpected halt. I can say this with confidence since it happened to me Saturday.

Having got to El Calafate with a sore backside, and neck pain from my head being blown about in the ferocious winds across the Steppe, I then got in the shower to wind down from a hard day and slipped straight over, injuring my knee too. I must have looked a sight hobbling around the hotel, clutching my neck and trying really hard not to wince when I sat down. Why do you never read about these things in adventure books? ;)

I got a tour bus out to Lake Argentino next morning. Calafate exists solely because of the tourists looking at the glaciers, and all it is good for is t-shirts, beer and glacier tours. There was no way I was going to get the bike looked at, or obtain a new chain. I tried to push my worries about the bike out of my mind and enjoy a day off, but the nagging doubt that I had to make Punta Arenas somehow just wouldn't go away.

The bus took us the 80km to the national park, then dropped us at a dock where we got on a catamaran which took us out to the glacier's south face. Perito Moreno glacier is odd for two reasons - firstly it occasionally is long enough to cut Lake Brazo Rico off from Lake Argentino, resulting in one lake higher than the other until the glacier finally breaks spectacularly - and secondly because unlike almost every other glacier on Earth at the moment, Perito Moreno is not retreating. Scientists are all over it trying to figure out why.


The noise as we sat a hundred metres or so from the ice face was the amazing thing, lots of cracks and splitting noises going on. At one point I saw a huge section at the centre fall away or "calf" into the lake, but was so busy gawping that I forgot I had my camera more or less in front of my eyes. After the boat ride the tour group spent a lot of time at some observation platforms with loads of other tourists, but it was nothing compared to Peru and I was quite happy to see how many people were interested in a cool natural phenomenon.


Heading back in the bus I more or less passed out for the whole journey, I was very tired for some reason. Back at the hotel I managed to find someone, finally, that still wanted to talk to me after she found out I was English. Since arriving in Argentina I had started to become a little paranoid that when people asked where I came from and I replied, they quickly lost interest. Added to that I had noticed it was possible to buy stickers or badges with the flag of more or less everywhere in Calafate - even Belgium for goodness sake - but not the UK. No hotels had the Union Flag outside either, but had most other nations. I thought about the Falklands war that was all over the TV when I was a kid and guessed that some grudges die hard.

Having adjusted the chain as far as it would go on the bike, it was still slack and I reluctantly left Calafate next morning, knowing there was little chance it would survive the 550Km to Punta Arenas but not having much of a choice other than to try. If I was lucky it might just keep jumping the sprocket, but the worse case scenario was the chain snapping or jumping and mangling the engine at 60mph, causing untold damage to the bike and more importantly me, maybe in the middle of nowhere. It was going to be a tense day.

I resolved to try to slow down or stop as little as possible, as slower speeds meant more slack chain. Against that I had to weigh up the fuel situation, and I knew I would need to stop as often as possible to fuel the bike as it was going through fuel so fast. I also needed to stop at the border as I was crossing back into Chile to get to Punta Arenas.

The first 150Km or so went ok, but as I slowed down to make my first fuel top-up I could hear the chain rattling even with my earplugs in and the fierce wind. In the petrol station I got off the bike and had a look. The chain was the same shape as a capital D, or a big cheesy mocking grin. Chains aren't meant to look like that. It didn't do anything much for my confidence, so I sat next to the bike on the forecourt steps and ate an ice cream while I pondered my options. I pressed on.

I crossed the border at a dull looking industrial town called Rio Turbio. I was a little upset that I was going to miss out on Torres Del Paine, one of the planned highlights of the trip, but it was up a gravel road and there was simply no way I could risk going there with the chain in the state it was. A little before Rio Turbio however, I got a view of Torres Del Paine in the distance and the peaks were all covered by low cloud, so I didn't feel quite so bad.

Leaving Argentina was no problem, in fact they probably couldn't wait to get rid of me judging by most folks I've met ;) but entering Chile, I was stopped by SAG customs officials because I had a couple of gallons of fuel strapped to the back of the bike. I politely pointed out that there were also 5 gallons IN the bike, but they weren't concerned about that. They told me that a few years ago a car carrying a plastic can of fuel crashed, and everybody died in a fire because of the split fuel can. Now it is illegal to carry fuel in a plastic can. Unusually for me, I resolved to argue the toss on the point. I needed the fuel, there was nothing between the border and Punta Arenas 200 plus km away, and I think I was a bit stressed about the chain. I got off the bike to pursue the matter, but at that point an official came over and in very good English told me that they understood I was on a long remote trip, and they would waive the issue for me. I like Chile ;)

So it was I found myself riding the entire way to Punta Arenas head down watching the mileage fall, almost completely ignoring everything around me but the wind, which was starting to reach simply unbelievable levels. I've always known that Punta Arenas was about as far south on the mainland Americas as you can go, but what I wasn't prepared for was how bleak and remote the peninsula it sits on is. There is simply nothing there, except wind. When Shackleton failed to reach Antarctica in 1914 and survived two winters on the ice floes, the rescue finally came from Punta Arenas. Judging by the bleakness of this place in summer, I cannot comprehend what Shackleton and his men went through further south.

I rolled into town hugely relieved that I had made it, and found an hotel for the night. The staff helped me track down a couple of bike shops, but no one had a chain in the size I needed. One of them however pointed me to a bike mechanic, so I figured on Saturday morning I would take the bike for him to have a look at. I got three blocks from the hotel before there was a thump, the clutch lever went slack and the bike died. Looking down there was a gathering pool of oil and engine parts. Oh.

My first thought was actually relief - I was glad it didn't happen out in the wilds of Patagonia. I was also glad I was barely crawling along at the time. As I pushed the bike up the long hill to the mechanic I figured that worst case, the engine was damaged and that would probably mean the end of the trip, and me flying home from Punta Arenas without the bike, unless I wanted a long wait in South America while the repairs were carried out.

Arriving at the garage I started trying to explain what had happened with the chain and the resulting damage. The mechanic looked at me and asked if I spoke English. It turned out that Gonzalo, the mechanic, spoke really good English which was helpful since I have enough trouble ordering lunch, let alone bike parts ;) He took one look at the chain and told me the problem was that the chain was a cheap one with no O rings, and he showed me how loose all the links were. Hmmm, thanks Promoto. In fairness, I had bought the chain on recommendation from a different shop, but it would have been nice if Promoto Suzuki had told me I needed an O ring chain when they fitted it. Some VStrom experts they turned out to be!

Gonzalo said I had snapped the clutch pin, and the crankcase around it which would be easy to fix, but that ordering the chain would take time I didn't have. He thought Thursday 18th maybe I could have the bike back, fixed. My chances of Christmas at home just evaporated.

So - the bike is dead but appears to be in the hands of a decent mechanic. I am stuck in Punta Arenas, which to be fair is not New York City. There isn't much to see or do. If I really do have to wait here until Thursday I may try to get a coach tour back up to Torres Del Paine, or over to see the penguin colony at Seno Otway.

When I find out more about the bike, I'll post it here.

Frase.

Shapes in the wide Patagonian sky

I was a bit hasty when I said I had seen the most beautiful sunset I'll ever see, way back in Arizona. The last two evenings in Patagonia have definitely rivalled the Painted Desert. The immensely strong winds here paint the clouds into strange elongated shapes, unlike any artist could imagine.

I'd managed to get the ferry from Puerto Ibanez at the second attempt, I turned up half an hour before sailing, paid a uniformed official and rode on board. The ferry was like a military landing craft, so I ended up sitting on the bike on deck for the two and a half hour crossing, as it wasn't tied down, fretting about the official having taken my money and not given me a ticket. Or any change. As the ferry docked in Chile Chico, like the shopkeeper from Mr Ben the official magically appeared again and gave me a ticket, and my change. Um, thanks.

I rode out of town and almost immediately came on the Chilean side of the border, which was straightforward enough, but between Chile and the Argentinian post was a stretch of gravel road. As I rode onto it, there was a clunk and the bike ceased forward motion. It was in gear, I was revving, and nothing was happening. Oh @%$&, I thought, I've snapped the chain. I'd been aware the chain was a weak point in my armour ever since Alaska. I had no spare chain, no chain rivetting tool, and was therefore completely reliant on the chain holding up - which was why I had got it replaced in Santiago. Should have thought a bit harder about it really ;) Plucking up the courage I looked down, and saw to my relief that the chain had jumped off the rear sprocket, but was otherwise ok.

A few minutes fiddling and the chain was replaced, I was covered in grease, and I made a mental note to adjust the chain at some point as it was too slack. At Argentinian customs I tried not to look at the officials as I smeared black all over their important-looking forms. Oops.

In order to make up some time I had decided to hammer down the paved Atlantic coast road rather than take gravel roads, then I would turn inland and head towards El Calafate to see the glaciers near Mount Fitzroy. In order to get to the coast road, I had to cross mile after mile of pampa. Tufty clumps of grass as far as the eye can see, completely flat in all directions, for hours on end. The only living thing I saw outside of the occasional car was a small armadillo which I almost ran over.

After turning onto the coast road, I left the last big town there would be for several hundred kilometers and realised I would be riding after dark unless I got a move on. The bike seemed to be going through fuel a little quickly so at a tiny town called Fitzroy I pulled into a petrol station, and as I pulled back out up a gravel slope there was a clunk, a bang, and the rear wheel locked up. I was lucky to stay on.

Why - WHY do I always put off stuff that needs doing immediately??

This time the chain had jumped off the rear sprocket and coiled itself around the axle, locking the rear wheel up. About half an hour was required to extricate the chain and finally loop it onto the sprocket. Firing the bike up to see if all was well I was rewarded with a whirring noise and not much else. My first thought was that I had mangled the gearbox, but on closer inspection the chain had jumped the front sprocket too. That was harder to sort, but having got the chain back where it should be, I took all the luggage off, got the tools out and adjusted the chain there on the side of the road. I noticed there was a small garage nearby and a guy was standing patiently in the doorway watching me, like a vulture watches rabbits trying to cross a road ;)

I put the bike in gear and was rewarded with something approximating final drive once more. Looking west the sun was not far from the horizon, and I realised I was still two hundred kilometers from Puerto San Julian, where I was going to spend the night. It would be dark soon. I figured I had the tent, and if I was going to pitch that it would need to be in the light, so as I rode along I looked for likely spots to camp. It was all so flat... I didn't want to be visible from the road.

Sunset seemed to last forever. Riding through it was an experience that will stay with me for the rest of my life. As the sun sank beneath the western horizon and the moon rose behind me, the perfectly cloudless sky became orange and purple in the east, and brilliant orange in the west. Overhead was a magnificent deep blue, with the brightest stars and the planet Venus becoming visible gradually. As I looked up the road, a large meteor plunged through the sky and broke up right before my eyes.

In the deepening gloom I could see shapes moving out in the pampa, they could have been sheep for all I know but all thoughts of camping vanished from my head ;) After a time I passed a small hill with two Guanacos silhouetted on the top, maybe they were the mystery shapes. It had been dark for some time when I reached San Julian, so cold that I didn't care where I stayed as long as it had blankets! The chain, worryingly, appeared to be very slack again.

In the morning after another adjusting session, I headed south before turning west towards El Calafate. The bike appeared to be going through petrol way too rapidly, and as there were no fuel stations I started to fret I was going to run out of fuel. With fifty kilometers still to go to Esperanza, where I hoped there was a garage, the fuel light started blinking at me. The furthest I had ever been on a blinking gauge was about thirty five km, in Canada. I was going to run out of fuel. The last twenty km into Esperanza were spent waiting for the bike to cut out and leave me with a long push across the Patagonian steppe.

Finally, cresting a rise I saw the telltale blue sign of a fuel station and whooped that I was going to make it. The garage didn't take credit cards and I only had enough cash for about ten litres, but it would get me to Calafate. Just. I adjusted the chain again, worried that one more adjustment would be all I could manage if the chain kept stretching. When I finally made El Calafate in the early evening, as I pulled up I could hear the chain rattling on the swingarm, it was so loose again :(



I ate dinner in the hotel and sat next to a huge window overlooking the Andes behind Lake Argentino. The sun was setting behind the mountains and the tortured, stretched shapes of clouds slowly danced in the sky. Several were edged with fine rainbow colours, all looked like the brush strokes of some giant master artist. I was happy that tomorrow, at least, I would be off the bike as I was going to see the Perito Moreno glacier. I could worry about what was for lunch for a change :)

Frase.

The hardest part

After the events of the previous day I wasn't sure I would be leaving La Junta at all :) But at least the bike was fixed. Leaving was made harder because Connie and Alan, the couple that ran the hotel, had been so kind to me and the hotel was lovely too. In English the name meant "Space and time", and it was a small oasis away from the dusty Carretera Austral. But I needed to get a move on, and wanted to try to complete the remaining gravel highway between me and Argentina.

Connie had mentioned a little about the road north and south of La Junta, and I was disappointed to hear that actually I could have ridden through Chaiten, instead of diverting through Argentina. Although there was nothing there since the eruption, ferries and the road were in operation. South towards Coyhaique I was told there were many beautiful wildflowers.

What I didn't know was that the roadworks I had encountered the previous day were just the very start of a long, long section of works between La Junta and Puyuguapi, the next town. The Carretera Austral was a pretty demanding gravel road, and I'd been averaging maybe 30mph over most of it to La Junta. The Carretera Austral with roadworks, however, was another beast. Most of the roadworks sections were either dirt, or more commonly very deep gravel/rocks. I found myself at a complete crawl over those parts of the road, and I frequently had to stop altogether as trucks came barrelling past in the opposite direction, amid huge clouds of choking dust. Hmmm, I thought. This is definitely the hardest part of the ride so far. It makes the Dalton Highway look like Disneyland.

It got worse. My map showed that there was a long section of paved road down to Coyhaique from Villa Amengual, but a little before I got there the road climbed away from the river valley I'd been following, and hairpinned it's way up to a pass across the mountains. The bends were deep dust and rock, and at every one the bike would slide alarmingly, at one point almost firing me off when I got on the throttle too enthusiastically. I kept thanking Matias back in Vina Del Mar for recommending the trail tyres I'd put on, the road tyres I'd been using would have been impossible on the Carretera Austral. Having made it to the top of the pass, just for fun the descent was all hairpin bends and as bad as the ascent in every way.

Having assumed that the hardest part was over with, the road started to follow the river again and there were more roadworks. By this time I was stiflingly hot, my legs hurt from all the standing on the pegs and there was a big knot between my shoulder blades from fighting with the bars. Added to that I was suffering severe sense of humour failure, so you can imagine how I thanked the roadworks team when I rode into a long stretch of deep sand mixed with pebbles, kind of like the ballast you put in concrete. The bike would slew sideways if I went more than a walking pace, and I thought I was off more times than I could count. I found that I could go for maybe a hundred metres, then I would have to stop, rest, look for a line ahead, and then do the next hundred metres. I passed a cycling couple pushing their bikes. It looked like very hard work. As I slewed past, too worried about colliding with them to risk a wave, the
girl looked over and raising her finger to her temple, shot herself in the head. I nodded agreement. This was definitely the hardest part ;)

But oh boy was it ever worth it. When the paved section started I was throwing the bike into bends at 60mph, really enjoying the ride. There were lupinos as they call them in Chile lining both sides of the road with purple for more than a hundred kilometers, the smell alone made it worth all the aggravation. Plus the scenery was outstanding - sometimes Alpine, sometimes more rural, always in bloom. Approaching Coyhaique there were entire islands covered in wildflowers out in the river. I have never seen so many flowers.

As the road from Coyhaique was paved, there were a few tourists about and it was no longer a rare event to pass a car, but it was still very quiet. Coyhaique itself was a surprise when I got there, it looked big on my map but I rode in one side and out the other in a few minutes and had to turn around, as I was planning to stay the night.

The following morning I was planning to catch the ferry from Puerto Ibanez on the north shore of Lake Buenos Aires, to Chile Chico on the south shore, before crossing into Argentina again. I thought about asking the hotel manager what times the ferry ran but didn't, so it should have come as no surprise that after the hundred or so kilometer ride to get there, there were no ferries as it was some sort of public holiday Monday. See you tomorrow Indiana Jones ;)

Frase.