Today I made it to the end of the road as far as going south, but first I need to catch up with what has happened since arriving in Buenos Aires.
Dec 3:
I had to make a decision on whether to buy a new rear tire or not. I estimated that I had at least 2000-2500 miles left on my rear tire. I had a ride of 2000 miles down and 2000 back ahead of me, so obviously somewhere I was going to have to buy a tire to complete my trip. I hate to waste good miles on a tire, but my choices were to buy the tire from Javier at Dakar Motos – where I was staying – and have him mount the tire or buy the tire there and take it with me and mount it myself once the other tire was gone. I decided on the safe and easy solution – let Javier mount the tire.
In the process of removing the old tire, Javier pinched my tube and broke off the valve stem. He announced to me that I needed a new tube. No problem we’ll use the tube I have been hauling around since Africa in 2003. The tire was mounted and I said my goodbyes to Roger and departed at 10:30 a.m. With a couple of missed turns and traffic congestion rivaling Los Angeles, it took me two hours to get the 30 miles out of town. After that I rode another 300 miles before stopping in Tres Arroyo – about 100 miles further than I was told that I could expect to travel that day. Out in the country I passed lots of big farms with wheat crops that may have covered that more than 1 million acres. This is a big country and is sparsely populated expect for about 10 medium-to-large cities.
Dec 4
The ride further south took me into Patagonia. Patagonia is famous for its strong winds and wide open pampas. The crop land gave way to range grasses and then scrub bush similar to western Texas. This is mainly sheep farming country with lots of wild guanacos and some emus. The guanacos are similar looking to the vicunas we saw in Peru and Chile, but the guanacos are larger. They are about the size of a horse and have a long neck like a llama. They were constantly crossing the road in front of me and would jump the six foot high roadway fences from a standing start.
I rode 550 miles today. Searching for a hotel in Trelew, I noticed my drive chain was skipping over the sprockets when I would start from a stop. I had tightened the chain about a week earlier so obviously it was stretching and nearing the end of its life. I decided that I would wait until the next morning to tighten the chain – it was already after kick-off time for the Auburn-South Carolina game and I wanted to catch the game trax on the internet (gotta have your priorities.) Did Auburn kick their butt or what – now on to Oregon?
Dec 5
I began to experience the famous Patagonian winds. Today I would guess the winds were anywhere between 30-45 mph. I was in a constant right lean of about 20 degrees just to maintain a straight tract. About mid-morning I noticed the drive chain was excessive loose again, so again I tightened it and noticed the worn chain was beginning to round the teeth on the drive sprockets. I knew then that at the end of the day I would have to replace the chain and possibly the sprockets. I have the old chain and sprockets, which I replaced just before starting the trip, with me. At 38 miles from this service station I lost drive power and knew that the chain had either broken, jumped off, or the sprocket teeth had given way. My immediate concern was to get to the shoulder of the road and get stopped before the chain had a chance of locking up the rear wheel – I had that happen on my old Honda 150 when I was a teenager and did not want to experience that pain again. After stopping and looking things over, the chain had jumped off the rear sprocket and in the process had broken the master link with its retaining clip gone. When I had ordered this chain, the company graciously included an extra master link for connecting the two ends of the chain – now where did I haven it stored? I pulled my old chain from the bottom of the saddle bag and took it from a wrapper – thankfully, I had placed the master link in the same wrapper. I had to loosen the wheel to replace the chain, but the whole operation took only 30-45 minutes. I decided the sprocket would be fine for a while but would bear some watching. By the time I reached Puerto San Julian, I was beat. The winds had increased to about 50 mph at steady state and with gusts increasing that. I decided I would leave early the next morning and try to get some mileage under my belt before the winds picked up very much.
Puerto San Julian is the safe harbor that Ferdinand Magellan took refuge in for the winter of 1520.
The next summer he discovered the Straits as a passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans without having to go around Cape Horn. The Straits are named for Magellan and today belong to Chile. Tomorrow I will catch a ferry across the Straits of Magellan.
Dec 6,
Happy Birthday to my daughter April. I love you.
Guess I underestimated these Patagonia winds. I was up at 0530 and on the road by 0630. The winds were just as strong in this morning as they had been the evening before. I am 600 miles from Ushuaia and in hopes I might make it today but doubt it. The winds have been brutal for two days, but today they are nothing short of hellish.
I have to exit Argentina and enter Chile as Chile owns the northern half and western half of the Terra del Fuego Island. At the Argentine border station, I park where a female soldier told me to park. I was in the customs building for about five minutes when the soldier came in and sheepishly told me that my bike had blown over. I left my place in line and went out to check on the motorcycle. She was lying full on her side and leaking fuel. I noticed the handlebars were against the curb – not good! I picked the bike up and inspected for damages. The only thing broken was the homemade wind guard I had attached to the hand guards. There goes $1.88 worth of Lexan and about 30 minutes worth of work –not to mention soon good redneck engineering. Back in the building to process out of Argentina and then the couple of hundred yards to process into Chile.
I arrived at the ferry crossing of the Magellan Straits just as the ferry was docking. Within twenty minutes we were on our way for a rough fifteen minutes of crossing. About ten miles south of the straits the pavement ended.
For the next four hours, I endured what may be the most challenging time of my life and I do not say this lightly. I rode 100 miles of the roughest road I have ever ridden and this was not helped by the fact I missed a turn and went 20 miles out of the way and had to back track that section. Most of the road was hard packed gravel about the size of golf ball to baseball size. This section was bone jarring washboard, but it was better than the 1/3 which freshly graded. The graded section left the entire road way with large loose stones. Normally, neither of these conditions present a problem but with winds that I later found out were clocking a constant 115 km per hour (folks that is 70 mph.) Most of the time, I was leaning anywhere between 30 and 45 degrees and would still be blown clean across the road. Every time a met another vehicle, I could only pray that I would not be blown into its path. Several times I nearly went down and once was certain I was crashing. By instinct I put my foot down and miraculously it righted the bike with a few wobbles. When riding gravel one has to make a compromise between having enough speed to get on top of the gravel and let gyroscopic effects help, or going too fast and losing control and suffering a high speed crash. One gets the feel for what is right, but I have never had to experience the compromise in 70 mph winds. One does not stop or slow down too much in these conditions because to do so will certainly result in being blown over. Along the way, my engine sputtered and I knew my main tank was out of gas. I was able to switch to reserve without stopping and taking the chance of being blown over.
When I reached San Sebastian on the Chile side of the Chilean side of the border, I saw a sign for a hotel. I pulled in. The owner told me the price was $54 US and that the next place was 60 miles away and that it was 7 more miles of gravel till the Argentina border station. I just didn’t have 7 more miles of gravel and a border crossing in me much less 60 more miles. I took his room at robbery prices for a room with a bathroom down the hallway, no hot water, no internet, and electricity that would not be turned on until 7:00 p.m. I poured in one of my two spare gallons of gas to make sure I would get to the Argentine gas station the next morning. I took a shot of rum to cut the tension and fixed myself two peanut butter and crackers – man has this jar of Peter Pan stood the test of time. Then I went to bed with my clothes on. I was thankful to still be in one piece, but knowing I had to travel back over this same section of road in the next day or so. Later, I noticed the lights on and I got up and removed my outer clothes and went back to bed. I had the best night of sleep I had had in a week.
Dec 7
Got up early to try and beat some of the wind. It was 300 yards to the border station and while in there it began a light rain. The temperature was 39 degrees with a wind of about 40 mph. I have no idea what the wind chill was, but it was cold. The 7 miles to the Argentine border station was easy gravel. After getting processed through I stopped for fuel at a station that adjoined a hostel on the Argentine side – the Chilean hotel owner had lied about the nearest place to spend the night.
About 30 miles down the road, I stopped and put on two more layers of upper clothing – now 7 layers. I also plugged in my electrical gloves which kept my hands warm. It was 188 miles to Ushuaia and it went without incident except for the bitter cold. About 50 miles north of Ushuaia I noticed most of the mountains had snow on their slopes and the slopes were basically at the same altitude I was riding – maybe that was why I was cold. In Ushuaia I went straight to the National Park and paid my $15 to get in so I could ride to the end of the park and take my photo at the end of the road sign.
Why go to Ushuaia? It is promoted as the most southern city in the world. In fact, Puerto William in Chile is a little further south, but it is a military base and inaccessible by road. Therefore, Ushuaia is the destination for all the nuts like me who want to say they went there. Kind of like riding to Prudhoe Bay in Alaska. Anyway, I made my goal which was stated before I left home.
Back in the city of Ushuaia, I checked out an ATM and then bought a few souvenirs and decided I could make it part of the way back to Buenos Aires. Nothing to keep me in Ushuaia since I am not much of a guy just to hang around for the purpose of hanging around. Guess I’m more of the “get the job done and move” type.
I rode 120 miles back to Rio Grande where I am paying $65 for a room, but hey it has internet, hot water and electricity. One of the first things one notices about Terra del Fuego is that everything is more expensive here except gasoline which is about $1.00 a gallon cheaper. Guess everything is like Alaska – it is at the end of the food chain.
I will post pictures to this item later when I get a better internet connection. To use this internet, I am standing in the hotel’s instrument closet and holding the computer in my hand while being hardwired to the router.
Gary
Dec 3:
I had to make a decision on whether to buy a new rear tire or not. I estimated that I had at least 2000-2500 miles left on my rear tire. I had a ride of 2000 miles down and 2000 back ahead of me, so obviously somewhere I was going to have to buy a tire to complete my trip. I hate to waste good miles on a tire, but my choices were to buy the tire from Javier at Dakar Motos – where I was staying – and have him mount the tire or buy the tire there and take it with me and mount it myself once the other tire was gone. I decided on the safe and easy solution – let Javier mount the tire.
In the process of removing the old tire, Javier pinched my tube and broke off the valve stem. He announced to me that I needed a new tube. No problem we’ll use the tube I have been hauling around since Africa in 2003. The tire was mounted and I said my goodbyes to Roger and departed at 10:30 a.m. With a couple of missed turns and traffic congestion rivaling Los Angeles, it took me two hours to get the 30 miles out of town. After that I rode another 300 miles before stopping in Tres Arroyo – about 100 miles further than I was told that I could expect to travel that day. Out in the country I passed lots of big farms with wheat crops that may have covered that more than 1 million acres. This is a big country and is sparsely populated expect for about 10 medium-to-large cities.
Dec 4
The ride further south took me into Patagonia. Patagonia is famous for its strong winds and wide open pampas. The crop land gave way to range grasses and then scrub bush similar to western Texas. This is mainly sheep farming country with lots of wild guanacos and some emus. The guanacos are similar looking to the vicunas we saw in Peru and Chile, but the guanacos are larger. They are about the size of a horse and have a long neck like a llama. They were constantly crossing the road in front of me and would jump the six foot high roadway fences from a standing start.
I rode 550 miles today. Searching for a hotel in Trelew, I noticed my drive chain was skipping over the sprockets when I would start from a stop. I had tightened the chain about a week earlier so obviously it was stretching and nearing the end of its life. I decided that I would wait until the next morning to tighten the chain – it was already after kick-off time for the Auburn-South Carolina game and I wanted to catch the game trax on the internet (gotta have your priorities.) Did Auburn kick their butt or what – now on to Oregon?
Dec 5
I began to experience the famous Patagonian winds. Today I would guess the winds were anywhere between 30-45 mph. I was in a constant right lean of about 20 degrees just to maintain a straight tract. About mid-morning I noticed the drive chain was excessive loose again, so again I tightened it and noticed the worn chain was beginning to round the teeth on the drive sprockets. I knew then that at the end of the day I would have to replace the chain and possibly the sprockets. I have the old chain and sprockets, which I replaced just before starting the trip, with me. At 38 miles from this service station I lost drive power and knew that the chain had either broken, jumped off, or the sprocket teeth had given way. My immediate concern was to get to the shoulder of the road and get stopped before the chain had a chance of locking up the rear wheel – I had that happen on my old Honda 150 when I was a teenager and did not want to experience that pain again. After stopping and looking things over, the chain had jumped off the rear sprocket and in the process had broken the master link with its retaining clip gone. When I had ordered this chain, the company graciously included an extra master link for connecting the two ends of the chain – now where did I haven it stored? I pulled my old chain from the bottom of the saddle bag and took it from a wrapper – thankfully, I had placed the master link in the same wrapper. I had to loosen the wheel to replace the chain, but the whole operation took only 30-45 minutes. I decided the sprocket would be fine for a while but would bear some watching. By the time I reached Puerto San Julian, I was beat. The winds had increased to about 50 mph at steady state and with gusts increasing that. I decided I would leave early the next morning and try to get some mileage under my belt before the winds picked up very much.
Puerto San Julian is the safe harbor that Ferdinand Magellan took refuge in for the winter of 1520.
The next summer he discovered the Straits as a passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans without having to go around Cape Horn. The Straits are named for Magellan and today belong to Chile. Tomorrow I will catch a ferry across the Straits of Magellan.
Dec 6,
Happy Birthday to my daughter April. I love you.
Guess I underestimated these Patagonia winds. I was up at 0530 and on the road by 0630. The winds were just as strong in this morning as they had been the evening before. I am 600 miles from Ushuaia and in hopes I might make it today but doubt it. The winds have been brutal for two days, but today they are nothing short of hellish.
I have to exit Argentina and enter Chile as Chile owns the northern half and western half of the Terra del Fuego Island. At the Argentine border station, I park where a female soldier told me to park. I was in the customs building for about five minutes when the soldier came in and sheepishly told me that my bike had blown over. I left my place in line and went out to check on the motorcycle. She was lying full on her side and leaking fuel. I noticed the handlebars were against the curb – not good! I picked the bike up and inspected for damages. The only thing broken was the homemade wind guard I had attached to the hand guards. There goes $1.88 worth of Lexan and about 30 minutes worth of work –not to mention soon good redneck engineering. Back in the building to process out of Argentina and then the couple of hundred yards to process into Chile.
I arrived at the ferry crossing of the Magellan Straits just as the ferry was docking. Within twenty minutes we were on our way for a rough fifteen minutes of crossing. About ten miles south of the straits the pavement ended.
For the next four hours, I endured what may be the most challenging time of my life and I do not say this lightly. I rode 100 miles of the roughest road I have ever ridden and this was not helped by the fact I missed a turn and went 20 miles out of the way and had to back track that section. Most of the road was hard packed gravel about the size of golf ball to baseball size. This section was bone jarring washboard, but it was better than the 1/3 which freshly graded. The graded section left the entire road way with large loose stones. Normally, neither of these conditions present a problem but with winds that I later found out were clocking a constant 115 km per hour (folks that is 70 mph.) Most of the time, I was leaning anywhere between 30 and 45 degrees and would still be blown clean across the road. Every time a met another vehicle, I could only pray that I would not be blown into its path. Several times I nearly went down and once was certain I was crashing. By instinct I put my foot down and miraculously it righted the bike with a few wobbles. When riding gravel one has to make a compromise between having enough speed to get on top of the gravel and let gyroscopic effects help, or going too fast and losing control and suffering a high speed crash. One gets the feel for what is right, but I have never had to experience the compromise in 70 mph winds. One does not stop or slow down too much in these conditions because to do so will certainly result in being blown over. Along the way, my engine sputtered and I knew my main tank was out of gas. I was able to switch to reserve without stopping and taking the chance of being blown over.
When I reached San Sebastian on the Chile side of the Chilean side of the border, I saw a sign for a hotel. I pulled in. The owner told me the price was $54 US and that the next place was 60 miles away and that it was 7 more miles of gravel till the Argentina border station. I just didn’t have 7 more miles of gravel and a border crossing in me much less 60 more miles. I took his room at robbery prices for a room with a bathroom down the hallway, no hot water, no internet, and electricity that would not be turned on until 7:00 p.m. I poured in one of my two spare gallons of gas to make sure I would get to the Argentine gas station the next morning. I took a shot of rum to cut the tension and fixed myself two peanut butter and crackers – man has this jar of Peter Pan stood the test of time. Then I went to bed with my clothes on. I was thankful to still be in one piece, but knowing I had to travel back over this same section of road in the next day or so. Later, I noticed the lights on and I got up and removed my outer clothes and went back to bed. I had the best night of sleep I had had in a week.
Dec 7
Got up early to try and beat some of the wind. It was 300 yards to the border station and while in there it began a light rain. The temperature was 39 degrees with a wind of about 40 mph. I have no idea what the wind chill was, but it was cold. The 7 miles to the Argentine border station was easy gravel. After getting processed through I stopped for fuel at a station that adjoined a hostel on the Argentine side – the Chilean hotel owner had lied about the nearest place to spend the night.
About 30 miles down the road, I stopped and put on two more layers of upper clothing – now 7 layers. I also plugged in my electrical gloves which kept my hands warm. It was 188 miles to Ushuaia and it went without incident except for the bitter cold. About 50 miles north of Ushuaia I noticed most of the mountains had snow on their slopes and the slopes were basically at the same altitude I was riding – maybe that was why I was cold. In Ushuaia I went straight to the National Park and paid my $15 to get in so I could ride to the end of the park and take my photo at the end of the road sign.
Why go to Ushuaia? It is promoted as the most southern city in the world. In fact, Puerto William in Chile is a little further south, but it is a military base and inaccessible by road. Therefore, Ushuaia is the destination for all the nuts like me who want to say they went there. Kind of like riding to Prudhoe Bay in Alaska. Anyway, I made my goal which was stated before I left home.
Back in the city of Ushuaia, I checked out an ATM and then bought a few souvenirs and decided I could make it part of the way back to Buenos Aires. Nothing to keep me in Ushuaia since I am not much of a guy just to hang around for the purpose of hanging around. Guess I’m more of the “get the job done and move” type.
I rode 120 miles back to Rio Grande where I am paying $65 for a room, but hey it has internet, hot water and electricity. One of the first things one notices about Terra del Fuego is that everything is more expensive here except gasoline which is about $1.00 a gallon cheaper. Guess everything is like Alaska – it is at the end of the food chain.
I will post pictures to this item later when I get a better internet connection. To use this internet, I am standing in the hotel’s instrument closet and holding the computer in my hand while being hardwired to the router.
Gary
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