Lost at Last

El Calafate is full of “adventure” tourists in brand new outdoor gear milling about with carbon fiber trekking poles. They arrive in giant “overland” transports – Mercedes and Man trucks kitted out like Dakar support vehicles to disguise their role as tour buses. We talked to no one, saw the glacier and dusted off. (I did have to give a nod to a kid with a ¨Buenos Fucking Aires¨ t-shirt.  Respect.)  The glacier is a bit Disney. They stick you up for USD 20 pp going in (3x the locals price), there is one road in, a wildly overpriced souvenir shop/cafeteria at the end and a set of walkways for viewing the glacier. It´s a managed and packaged experience and might as well be on rails, but the glacier itself is worth the irritation.

From El Calafate we headed into Chile to see Parque Nacionale Torres del Paine which is a much different experience. I have to give a shout out to some fellow riders who steered us this way – Spench for first turning me on long ago back in San Francisco, Taco for a timely reminder when we met in Bolivia, and finally Horatio for cluing me in to Camping Pehoé.

The approach to the park is more classic remote Patagonia gravel, punctuated every 100 or so miles by sticker covered gas stations where they have to go fire up a generator to pump you a tank full.

While filling out entry paperwork in the Chilean aduana´s office my bike blew over off the kickstand in the parking lot. That´s pretty much the extent of our wind trouble. I´m sure karma will have me paying later for saying this, but the wind just isn’t that bad. Sure, there’s wind and yes, it’s strong, but it never pushed me down and took my lunch money. Pretty soon I didn’t notice the wind at all because the mountains came in to view.

Also there were animals.

Nina likes animals.

“Why won´t you be my friend?”

The vistas just got more and more stunning. These mountains are only about 6000 feet high, but for drama, they rival anything I have seen in the Alps, Andes, or Rockies.

Rolling in to Lago Pehoé we passed up the USD 200 / night lodges and headed straight to Camping Pehoé. The helpful folks there offered to rent us a very reasonably priced tent but I had inside information and demanded…a DOME!

Now some people might say paying USD 75 to sleep in a plastic igloo is stupid. You say “tomato”, I say “fuck you”. Here´s the view from our carpeted, air-mattress-equipped dome:

Simply breathtaking. A definite trip highlight.  Torres del Fucking Paine.

Bajo Caracoles is a two bit town in the middle of nowhere with nothing much to offer and less to see. The southern sun somehow made it beautiful anyway.

The next morning we discovered once again, you guessed it…”No hay gasolina”. The owner of the station took pity on me and sold me 8 liters from various jugs and containers he had stashed about the place. Just in time too, as no sooner had I finished pouring it in then cars started to show up desperate for fuel. It was over 100 miles to the closest gas in either direction. We snuck out before a fuel riot erupted. Once underway, we discovered it was balaclava time.

The weather was threatening all the way to Gobernador Gregores where we found fuel and lunch. Steak again. (A little known fact: there isn’t much chicken on the menu in Patagonia. You can’t raise them here, the wind blows them away. Now and then you’ll get some when it blows in from Chile.)

During lunch it started to rain and after lunch we had our first encounter with Patagonia roads in the wet. With predictable results.

The mud slowed our progress considerably, but it just meant we had more time to wonder at the natural beauty around us.

Gradually the weather improved and the scenery just kept going.

Eventually we reached La Leona and called it quits for the night at an extremely comfortable roadhouse which was once host to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. All in all, it was a 300 mile day, only about 50 of which was paved. Not bad. Which brings me to something I wanted to note – they are paving Route 40. This is probably the road most associated with “adventure motorcycling”. It isn’t even mostly paved yet, but it is in the mail. Some small sections are complete and many many more are in progress. So if you had been putting off a trip through Patagonia, you might reconsider before the strip malls and Starbucks start popping up. Alternatively, if you had been avoiding Patagonia due to the dearth of pavement and Frappaccino, you might start planning for 5 years from now or so.

We left Mendoza and headed south for the natural splendor of Patagonia.

But not before fortifying ourselves.

We rode through increasingly remote and unpopulated areas.

Some time around dusk, on a dirt road miles from anywhere, we discovered an amazing canyon carved into the rock by a river.

I also discovered the downside of having a tag-along photographer always at the ready.

We continued into the night to find a hotel.

The next morning we rode to the next town for gas, but discovered “No Hay Gasolina”. Unlike Bolivia where you could always find someone with a can (for a price) there really was no gas. It was about noon and they told us they would have gas at 2 pm, so we went for lunch. At 2 pm they still didn’t have gas, but reassured us it would there within the hour. We went and found a shady place near a river to relax.

When we checked again there was a line several blocks long outside the gas station and still no truck. We got in line to wait. Five and a half hours after we first checked we finally got gas and were on our way.

The scenery continued to impress, but having lost most of our day to the gas fiasco we had to find a pit stop and lay up early. We had our reservations about the town of Zapala, but we found an acceptable hotel and went for dinner at Restaurant Don Quixote. At the end of the meal I spied a bottle of J&B on the shelf next to the wine and ordered an after-dinner drink. I began to suspect something was amiss when the owner brought the bottle and a glass over and motioned to indicate I should pour for myself. My suspicions were confirmed when the bill came and there was no charge for the whisky – it was his personal bottle and not part of the bar. We invited Juan Humberto Pratis to sit down and thanked him very much for his kindness. It turns out he is the sub-secretary of transportation for Zapala and frequently gets gifts in that role, often whisky. He enjoys whisky and keeps a bottle around the restaurant for himself and occasionally others, but he doesn’t have a liquor license and cannot sell it. We tipped big.

San Pedro de Atacama is sort of like Santa Fe for the adventure travel/backpacker set.  In other words it’s an overpriced, dusty, desert no-place full of pretentious students with poor hygiene and bad facial piercings.

We had taken a pretty good kicking in Bolivia.  Me from the crash and the bike from the hundreds of miles of bad dirt roads.  After a good night’s rest, we assessed the damage.  I was feeling better – still not great, but not worse as I had feared.  The bike needed a little attention, having sheared one of two upper subframe mounting bolts.  The tires had also taken a fair bit of damage from sharp rocks, but the ultra heavy duty tubes had held.  San Pedro had a lot to offer in the way of ugly bead jewelry, but little to offer in the way of mechanics.  I eventually found a couple but they were all closed for their 3+ hour lunch break, so we moved on.

We rode through the vast Atacama Desert to the coast and Antofagasta where we found help at Makina Choppers.  The friendly employees at this shop (and some of their neighbors and friends) extracted the remains of my sheared bolt and provided a replacement.  They even had a go at straightening my hopeless front rim.

After the bike was repaired we checked into a hotel and went out to an excellent dinner at a strange German/Austrian themed restaurant.  The next day was desert, desert and more desert.

It was a 700+ mile burner that ended somewhere after midnight at American Motel in Los Vilos.  A quant little establishment that actually somehow did remind me very much of America.  Chile is actually extremely similar to California.  Landscape, malls, climate.  We passed through areas that could stand in for Death Valley, Palm Springs, Mendocino, Carmel, Los Angeles.  It really is a striking resemblance.

In Santiago we headed to the KTM dealer for a full service.  Carlos Burgos, the service manager hooked us up and made things happen in record time.  The mechanics were great, but most of the other staff at the shop including the boss (Patricio Sepulverda) were less than helpful. Carlos shone, though, and made up for the rest of the dim bulbs.

That evening we went out to enjoy Santiago and Nina even found a special treat – the first Indian restaurant of the trip.  In a Best Western of all places.  It did not disappoint.

The next morning after a long wait at the KTM dealer we headed over to Motouring Chile.  A tire/accessory/misc shop that Carlos Ramirez and his wife run out of their home in an upscale suburb of Santiago.  Very highly recommended – good prices, amazing selection and top notch work.

Carlos got us sorted out with new tires and we were off to Argentina over Paso Libertadores (also called Cristo Redentor) – a fantastic pass reminiscent of the Italian Alps.

We got a little warning climbing the Chilean side when we encountered a miles-long line of cars waiting for entry.

Then, after the pass, we got stuck in border hell entering Argentina.  The actual entry is painless, but there are hundreds and hundreds of people driving over this border at any given time and so the lines are very long.  The crossing is still high in the mountains and it was freezing.  We got cold and cut up to the front.  The police directing traffic there were not impressed but they eventually let us in.

Crossing in to Bolivia, I was prepared for the worst.  The Bolivians aren’t too happy with the US currently due to our persistent meddling with their economy and government as part of our “war on drugs”.  A few months ago they expelled the DEA and instituted a mandatory travel visa for Americans entering the country.  I had even heard reports of Americans being refused entry outright.

Reality was, as usual, far less dire than predictions.  Yes, there is an entry visa required for Americans. Yes, it costs USD 135.  They also want photocopies of your passport and your yellow fever inoculation and a passport photo.  I had all these things (they are all things that are documented as possible requirements for this trip) and I got through the border in far less time than most other borders we have crossed.  Nina, as a British citizen, needed none of these.  Her presence wasn’t even required in the migracion office.  I handed in her passport and told the official she was watching the bike and he stamped her in without further ado.

The visa is ludicrously expensive and a pain, but for the most part the officials were OK.  The migracion officials were all visibly extremely drunk (they had to be summoned from a back room where they could be heard joking and yelling and drinking) and the police politely asked for a “tip” after they registered my entry, but they were all friendly and helpful.  The policeman actually seemed apologetic after I told him how much my entry visa cost and that I certainly didn’t have any more to spare for his “tip”.

Bolivia, unlike Peru (where public urination is a competitive sport), is very big on making sure visitors know their options for relief.

Once inside the country we continued to skirt beautiful Lago Titicaca (12,600 ft above sea level) to the picturesque lakeside town of Copacabana.  Copacabana was what I expected of Puno and didn’t get – cute lakeside restaurants and hotels making the most of the natural splendor.

We had to buy gas from a drum at a shop because at the station – “no hay”.

Leaving Copacabana, we got stopped at another police checkpoint and shaken down for a dollar or two.  Mostly because I didn’t have correct change for the 80 cents they wanted (probably an invented and illegal charge anyway) and couldn’t be bothered to go across the street for it.  In return I got another stamp on my import paper and a “Bienviendos a Bolivia”.

Up ahead I had noted on my map that the road appeared to end on a point separated by a tiny bit of lake from the adjacent shore.  The maps showed no continuous road or bridge and indicated no official ferry.  When we got there, we found a fleet of small, decrepit, home-built ferries shuttling vehicles back and forth one by one and two by two.  Excellent!

Outside of La Paz we caught a stunning sunset.

La Paz is a hateful, ugly, traffic-clogged, armpit.  Seriously I can’t recommend anything about this place to a motorcycle traveler.  It is a nightmare to ride through and none of the hotels have parking.  After two hours of driving around looking, we found a place that would allow us to pull in to their lobby (Estrella Andina if you are taking notes for your own journey).  The next morning we again fought the tide of collectivos (private mini-busses running set routes, immune to traffic regulation) and escaped back on to the altiplano.

The beautiful, beautiful altiplano.

Only marred by the occasional gas station that charges almost triple the standard rate for foreigners. (Perhaps this is why the military monitor most gas stations?)

Or by police officials at toll booths who make up tolls. (Motos pass free at toll booths in Bolivia.)

To his credit, he didn’t press the issue when I protested and then he started cracking jokes when Nina started taking pictures.  Regrettably she didn’t get one of him making devil horns on the sides his head with his fingers and laughing.  (Seriously.)

We again dodged the rain all around us and continued south past the pavement and in to the middle of nowhere.

A few hours later, we had one of those moments that make all the corrupt cops, byzantine borders, and mechanical difficulties worth it.  Sunset on an endless plain at 12,000 feet, hundreds of miles from anything that could be considered “civilization”.

An hour or so after that, our damaged sidecase snapped its zip-tie bonds and jumped free.  Luckily Nina frequently holds on to the case handles for support and noticed its absence quickly – we had to backtrack less than a mile to recover it. 12 inches of bailing wire and a few choice swear words got us in to Uyuni.