The
Patagonian wind has blown us into the ditch and has knocked us down. It has
damaged our motorcycles and has injured our bodies. It has tried to demoralize
us. It has justified its reputation. Wind has our respect.
We were
in the “middle of nowhere” for Isabelle’s recovery. There is nothing for 200 km
in any direction from the town called Gobernador Gregores. We couldn’t get cash
because the bank wouldn’t accept our card. Fortunately, our Visa card was
accepted at all the important places. We found a small house. It was modern and
comfortable. We paid for only one week, to see if we liked it. The owner, a
lawyer named Daniel drove Isa and some of our things to the house on the extreme
north side of town while I brought over the bikes.
Steppe Lands in Patagonia
The wind
on the edge of town was savage and it rained that first night. I walked into
town for groceries the next morning. Leaning into the cold wind, I weaved
through puddles and glue-like clay on the unpaved roads. My boots grew in size
and weight with each step. This location would clearly be impossible
for someone on crutches. We would move back to the 16-room hotel at the
end of the week.
Big Skies in Patagonia
The
“Hosteria” was a spacious, self-contained world for Isabelle’s recovery. She
didn’t need to leave the building for anything. There was a restaurant as well
as maid and laundry services. There was a steady stream of travellers through
the large and vaulted lobby to provide conversation, to help fill the days. They also accepted Visa.
Pedro is
a young lawyer, working in family law, who lives at the hotel while his house
is being renovated. The house and the hotel bill are paid for by his employer,
the state. He is a “full service” guest at the hotel and is in no hurry to
leave. Pedro came to our aid from the first minute we met in the hotel lobby. Offering
to translate for us at the hospital he both accompanied us and paid the cab
fare. In the weeks that followed, he became a friend, teaching us much about
Argentina’s culture. Pedro, “Muchas gracias por tu ayuda y amistad. Nos
ensenaste mucho. Buena suerte en la future!”
Finally,
it was time to leave Gobernador Gregores and head north on Argentina’s famous
Ruta 40. Our ultimate goal was the Chilean capital city, Santiago. It lay
almost 3,000 Km to the north. Cousin Murray and his wife, Carmen live there.
Murray’s sister Ellen and her husband Mel were visiting from Canada. We hoped
to make it in time to visit with everyone before Ellen and Mel returned home.
Ruta 40
is sometimes called Argentina’s Route 66. It is over 5,000 Km long and
bridges more than 30 degrees of latitude. It joins diverse and remote
communities from Patagonia to the Bolivian border. Riding or driving Ruta 40 is
an important part of any overland traveller’s route through South America.
A Daily Stop at the Grocery Store
We spent
the following week working our way to Mendoza, then crossing into Chile to
arrive in Santiago on the 26th of February. Isabelle did a great job
overcoming natural trepidation during her first day “back on the horse”. The
Patagonian wind stayed with us for the first few days and then mercifully
diminished. After almost two months in beautiful Patagonia the one thing we do
not miss is the wind.
We passed
through little places like Bajo Caricoles, Perito Moreno, Rio Mayo, Tecka, Esquel
and Las Lejas. In the beautiful lakes region of Bariloche Isa had tire trouble.
A “Gomeria” made a second repair to a hole put in the tire by a spike in
Ecuador 28,000 kilometers ago. In Chos Malal we waited in a line for gas that
was two blocks long. It was the first of many line-ups for gas. Fuel stations in
Patagonia are far apart and sometimes they have no fuel. You never pass a
chance to gas up along Ruta 40. We made use of the fuel in our reserve bottles
a few times that week.
The
windswept steppe slowly gave way to undulating hills and small mountains that
were sometimes multicoloured. Only the fertile valleys were treed in arid
Patagonia. Moving northward, trees began to appear on the hills. Farms with grazing lands
became more common. In step with the diminishing winds, roadside sightings of wild guanaco faded to nothing. Electrical
power lines became evident along the roadside. There would be no more need for
noisy diesel generators to give power to each pueblo. The number of other
travelers we encountered during the next week grew smaller as the first of
March and “back to school” approached.
No Vegetation to Hide the Colours
Minerals and Flora
Tilted Rock
Near
Bariloche we rode for three days through rain and low double-digit
temperatures. The rain cleared enough for us to see “Los Dedos de Dios” (The
fingers of God). The wind slowly diminished as we moved northward. The “Camping
Municipal” in Las Lejas was clean and new and very well maintained. It was one
of the best campgrounds we have seen in Argentina.
Los Dedos de Dios
Los Dedos de Dios
Darkness
was coming one day and we still had a couple of hours of ripio to finish. There
was not a fence in sight, so we spent the night, in the quiet starlight. Nearby stood a long abandoned one-room farmhouse. There were two small corrals,
the walls made using ubiquitous black lava stones from the area. The original
dwelling was also made of volcanic stones. Fragments of the collapsed roof
framing and thatch remained. They had fallen inward to the hearth of the tiny
field-stone fireplace. A second house was built beside the first. It featured a more sophisticated structure, being made from cut sandstone. Mud plaster on the walls created a more pleasant interior. A window and a hinged door brought modernity to
this house and its roof was less deteriorated.
The area
was arid. There were no grasses, only small prickly bushes. Where soil existed,
it was hard-packed red dust. It was peppered with chunks of black, porous
volcanic rock. Rain would turn the area into a gluey swamp. We found a gravely
spot for the tent that was hidden from the road by some of the scraggly bushes.
The covered motos had no exposed reflectors to give us away. The sparse traffic
all but ceased after dark. We settled in among the stars and the silence. The
memory of this magical night stays with us.
The next
day’s ripio was straight forward, ending at a tiny bridge over a pretty little
canyon. Eighty-five kilometers of construction followed the bridge through the
town of Barrancas where we met a Swiss rider on a sport bike. We chatted while
I aired the tires up after all the ripio. Joe was a pleasant fellow and we had
lunch with him a few hours later, after the construction zone. We continued
across huge valleys and open plains to San Rafael for the night.
Hills on Ruta 40
The next
night was spent at altitude in Upsallata near the Chilean border. Upsallata is
a busy little tourist town and we had a pleasant dinner on “the strip” that
evening. The town’s location allowed us to time our arrival at the border for
11 o’clock the next morning. The ride to the border winds its way through the
spectacular Rio Mendoza valley with its many tunnels.
Through
trial and error, we have found late morning to be the best time to arrive at a
land border. The line-ups caused by early-bird keeners have usually been cleared
by then (we naively were among those keeners a few times) and the staff has not
yet been cut in half for lunch-time. Again, we were caught this way earlier in
the trip. This border has a reputation for long waits but we made it through in
45 minutes. There was time to chat in line with another group of Argentinian
riders. We met them again a few days later at the BMW dealership in Santiago.
Chatting on the Edge of Chile
The
actual border is crossed underground and is announced by a subterranean sign
saying, “Welcome to Chile”. A many cornered “switchback” descent follows
the border into Chile. The photo below was taken from about a third of the way down. Getting off the bike and walking to the edge gave the best angle for a shot. It was a fun ride that caused us to lose well over a
thousand meters of elevation, all at once. Part way down, I gave a bottle of
water to a motorist whose SUV overheated trying to climb the huge staircase.
Casa
Matte, in downtown Santiago, is well known in the moto-overlanding community.
It is run by Christian whose warm personality we immediately felt. There are
numerous bedrooms in the beautiful old house. Motorcyclists come to socialize with
other moto travellers and to work on their bikes in the fully equipped workshop.
Christian’s friend, Julio has a good reputation as an agent for air shipping
motorcycles. We met Justin from Kenora, Ontario who rides a KLR. He installed
new tires he bought in Santiago. We also met riders from Colombia, Argentina,
Germany, England and Ireland at Casa Matte.
We stayed
at the Hostel for three nights. I banged out my bent aluminium panniers with a
big mallet. They close properly and may even be waterproof again. Isabelle’s
seem to be OK since the last time I gave them some gentle persuasion. One night we went up the block to a Peruvian restaurant
that Christian recommended. The food was well known to us and enjoyable though
not as good as the real thing, in Peru! It was fun to chat with the waiter, who
was clearly proud of his home country. We noticed him change his speech to a familiar
and for us, easier to understand highlands accent when he talked about home. We
had spent 6 months in the northern highlands between Quito and Sucre. Most of
our language study had been there. The slower speed and careful pronunciation
of his speech were refreshing and recognizable.
During
that time, we had the bikes serviced at the BMW dealership and some repairs
made. Isabelle’s bike needed some welding and new tires, mine had windshield
and mirror damage. We went through with the welding because it was unavoidable
but bungie cords and duct tape had to do for the other things until getting
home. The prices on the parts estimate were ludicrous! The overall bill was gigantic,
easily the most we have paid to a dealership on the trip. We went to “MotoAventura”
the next day for a much better price on an installed rear tire for my bike.
Relief
had struck when Isabelle’s doctor prescribed only 25 days of recovery before
she could ride again, after fracturing her ankle in Patagonia. Doing the math proved that we could still make it to Santiago in time. We had raced from Isa’s
recovery in Gobernador Gregores to Santiago. We sped past beautiful lakes and
parks along the way, especially near Bariloche. We had planned to spend time
enjoying them. Isabelle had completely missed the “Carretera Austral”, a
stunning, wild ride through remote parts of southern Chile. The Carretera
Austral solo trip will be featured in blog post 27a.
We were
especially looking forward to visiting with my cousins and their families in
Santiago. Cousin Ellen had flown with her husband Mel from British Columbia to
Santiago. They were visiting her brother Murray, Murray's wife Carmen and little ones Fernanda
and Bruno. We arrived on the first of March to the peaceful oasis that is
Murray and Carmen’s home in a beautiful Santiago neighborhood.
Slowing the Pace at Murray's
The next
five days were filled with hours of pleasant conversation as we got to know
each other again. Decades had passed since Murray and his family had stayed
with Isabelle and I and our young children in Ottawa during the celebration of
my parents 45th wedding anniversary. I had not seen Ellen since the
1960’s and had never met Mel.
Coffee Break from Shopping
Food was
central to this visit. Monica served baked
salmon for lunch and everyone gathered in a Chinese restaurant for dinner that first
evening. The salmon was wonderfully prepared and reminded the Canadians of
home. At the restaurant, subtle differences in seasonings and presentation
contrasted with the food of Chinese restaurants in Canada. Everything is a
little different in Chile, it seems. Asian and Latin cultures fused in dishes
we later ate in the food court at a downtown mall. Pacific influences as well
as ones from the northern Andean highlands combined at the Bali Hai where we
went for dinner and a show.
Great Food and Family Time
The show
was professional from the start. The live orchestra was well practiced and
precise, easily changing instruments and styles as required by the progression
of the show. The theme was Chilean dance. It featured costumes, music and dance
from each of the major regions beginning with the (southern) Austral. Polynesian
influences were evident in dances from northern Chile. The hot climate costumes
were minimal. They featured grass skirts and loin cloths. Exaggerated hip
movements from the women and masculine posturing were encouraged by music from conch
horns, carved flutes and ukulele accompanied by tuned drum pairs, tenor and
alto. A woman who sang with a creamy smooth voice in many styles also played a
beautifully bound and skinned, horizontally held bass drum. The drummers were
superb as they gave well timed transition signals to the dancers in one medley that
featured numerous style and costume changes.
Chilean Dances, Polynesian Influences
Dance
sequences from the extreme northern part of Chile were especially fun for Isa
and me to watch. The costumes and masks were evidence of strong Peruvian
influences. Gestures and moves mixed with, for us, familiar rhythms, melodies
and instruments. We were transported back to Puno, Peru that sits on the
northern shores of Lake Titicaca. There we enjoyed much music and dance and
even witnessed the filming of a Peruvian rock video. Rock band members wore
similar masks and costumes to the ones we were seeing and used similar gestures
and postures. The Chilean dance show was a wonderfully entertaining evening.
We also
visited Santa Cruz to sample some excellent Chilean wines at the Colchagua
Valley harvest festival. The children were much more interested in the
locomotives, weapons and farm machinery so we spent most of the afternoon visiting
a museum that celebrates all that is Chilean. It features human interaction
with the land from the first humans to the present day. The displays were eclectic
and fascinating at once.
There was a multi-room display of artifacts and dioramas that outlined the mine collapse and eventual rescue of "The 33”, miners in 2010 who were pulled from the ground in northern Chile. Murray, who is a mining executive, enthusiastically fleshed out details for us and answered questions. He pointed out photos of colleagues who were involved in the life and death decisions that led to the eventual rescue of the mine workers.
The Wine Festival
The Museum
There was a multi-room display of artifacts and dioramas that outlined the mine collapse and eventual rescue of "The 33”, miners in 2010 who were pulled from the ground in northern Chile. Murray, who is a mining executive, enthusiastically fleshed out details for us and answered questions. He pointed out photos of colleagues who were involved in the life and death decisions that led to the eventual rescue of the mine workers.
Lunch Stop on the Road to Santa Cruz
At the Chilean Museum
Capsule that rescued "The 33"
One room centred on the Mapuche of present day southern Chile. This area remained independent from complete Spanish conquest during colonial times. "Pacification" of the Mapuche was carried out by Chilean forces in the late 19th century, 50 years after the country's independence from Spain. The desire to link numerous remote communities in Chilean Patagonia with the north prompted Presidente Pinochet to build the "Carratera Austral". It is a 1,200 Km road from O'Higgins, in the south to Puerto Montt in the north. It is a wild ride through remote and mountainous country. Even though parts of it are now paved or at least improved, riding Carretera Austral is still on South American adventure riders' "must do" lists. Read more about this area in the next chapter.
Photos of Mapuche People from the Austral Region
Typical Foods of the Mapuche, in the South of Chile
Working on the Blog in Santiago
Relaxing in the garden or on shopping trips to several malls rounded out our time in sunny Santiago. The children had been delightful. We experienced several chances to learn about Chilean culture. Five star food, at home and in restaurants, perfect weather and warm conversation created the ideal environment for re-connecting with family.
Easy Conversation
Mel and Bruno
Terry and Isa, we enjoyed our time and conversation and reconnection. We loved hearing more stories of your journey. We look forward to reading the rest of your blog entries and we wish you bon voyage.
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