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Wind. Holy shitballs.

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‘well i’ve never turned left while leaning right before ‘ says Ben in his Johan Zarco frenchy accent.

It’s true, and I haven’t either.

We’re riding between the frontiers en route back to Chile, the road is loose gravel and all of us are leaning hard to the right while going more or less straight.

This has me wondering at what point the front will tuck. Geez. Sally is understandably freaking out a bit, but at least the wind is consistent (not gusting much), and the road is not terrible so it all goes without issue.

We stop after the Chilean frontier in one of many places plastered with overlanders stickers to take refuge from the wind, and empty a fuel bladder into the tanks.

The forecast is for lower wind speed as the day rolls on, so we decide to do the famous loop through the Torres del Paine NP, 175km of mostly gravel road with some of the most breathtaking scenery I’ve witnessed.

Once up in the mountains though it changed into wind like I’ve never experienced before, gusts out of nowhere, whirly winds taking dust up into the sky with such force you felt they’d take you up too.

At one point I’m following Sally and one of them passes close to her, holy shitballs, I wonder how that would feel if it went through you…

Shortly after that we found out.

I hear a “woooohhhh ahhhhhhhh” through the intercom as I crest a hill and see Sally riding slowly ahead of me.

“oh my god oh my god I need to stop I need to stop” she sounds manic, I’m confused as I didn’t see anything happening and she was still upright on the bike!?

I find somewhere to park and run over to her, grab the bike as she dismounts.

“what’s going on, what happened?”

“I don’t know I don’t know I hit the barrier oh my god”

It’s not making sense yet, but eventually I get it. The wind was coming from the right pretty hard so you lean right to counter it, but in an instant it switched and blew TO the right, and so already leaning that way it shot Sal into the Armco barrier. The crash bars and her MX boots took the hit and she wobbled to a stop, in more than a bit of shock.

I saw the scrape on Sally’s right boot and put it all together. Lucky there was a barrier, there was a steep drop maybe 30m into a freezing lake otherwise.

‘yeah you would have got wet’ says Ben dryly.

Sally is a bit too freaked out to see any positives just yet.

Are you hurt? No I’m fine. Nothing at all? No she says, just as surprised as me.

Bet you’re glad you bought those boots!

Off to Argentina…?

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Today has been fun.

We set off from Cochrane this morning with Ben, ready to cross the border into Argentina. With fuel bladders full, paperwork printed for the remote border crossing and dreams of bife de chorizo and red wine for dinner.

Fuel is hard to get in Argentina, especially in remote towns, and if there is a petrol station, it doesn’t mean it has petrol. We identified a town that had a petrol station with a reliable supply and made that our destination. 423 kms. As our bikes only do around 230-250, we had to take extra.

I was expecting the road to the Paso Robalo pass to be a bit rocky so I was prepared for a challenging day. The weather was beautiful and the scenery stunning and thankfully the road wasn’t too bad in the end.

As this border post is remote, we had to apply for a permit (a Salvoconductor) online ahead of time and specify the date of entry. It said on the website that you needed to allow 5 days to receive approval and if you indicated a date less than 5 days it would be an instant refusal. We also read on numerous posts that the date you specify doesn’t matter and you can pass at any time as long as you have the approval.

There is clearly a reason I am telling this story.

We applied for the permit 4 days ago but specified tomorrow’s date, thinking we could pass whenever we were ready. After riding to Tortel (dont bother) and Villa O’Higgins (end of the Carretera Austral), we were ready to cross the Paso Robalo border.

After riding 80 kms we arrived at the border post and presented our documents.

‘The date on your permit is tomorrow, you can’t cross today’

I won’t go into the pleading in bad Spanish we did and reasoning we gave them. They were not going to budge.

‘Can we sleep here?’ I asked, already knowing the answer but trying to portray how desperate we were to cross

‘no’

The thought of doing the ride again, despite its beauty, and spending another night in Cochrane was super disappointing for all or us. It’s one thing to mentally prepare for a hard road once but to have to do it three times was a little overwhelming.

We eventually left with the plan to try to get wifi back close to town and reapply with today’s date as the guard advised.

‘but it says it will be immediately rejected if we specify a date within 5 days’ Dean said in his Italian/Spanish.

They assured us it would be fine.

So, we head back, all pretty deflated and in disbelief. Around 10 kms in, Ben saw a caravan parked a little way off the road and went to ask them if they had internet.

Bingo.

A lovely couple from Holland were happy to share it with us. So, we reapplied with today’s date.

The approval came through in 10 minutes! So happy, we all headed back to the border post and processed customs with no problem.Next Argentina.

Once the guard had finished his lunch, he processed us one at a time and before long we were on our way.

The road on the Argentinian side was a lot more rocky than the Chilean side but just as beautiful, maybe even more. Less green but with blue lakes with pink flamingos. Well worth the stress!

Ben went off ahead while Dean patiently rode behind me as usual. About half an hour ago, around half way through the rocky road towards to Ruta 40, Dean realised that he was missing his backpack.

‘I have to go back to the border post, it’s the only place it can be. Find a shady place and wait for me’

First of all, there is no shade. Second, we already have limited fuel so I’m not sure where this is going to leave us, and third…what if he left it in Chile and not Argentina? Or with the Dutch couple? The papers for the bike are with me so crossing into Chile is going to be impossible

Its at least an hour each way (it took us/me about 2 to get this far) and it’s 4 pm. We still have 300 kms to ride to get to our destination/fuel. I just hope he doesn’t try to go too fast.

Ben has come back to find us and is now sitting with me under a ‘tree’ to wait for him…

Dean retuned at 5.30.

After contemplating what we would do if dean didn’t appear after two hours, Ben heard the motorcycle over the mountains.

He had left his bag at the Chilean border post and after some pleading with the Argentinian guard, he was allowed to cross back into Chile by leaving his passport with him. The guard in Chile handed him his bag and gave him some petro to get him through! How kind. They weren’t so bad in the end.

We ended up arriving into town at 10 pm, just as the sun was going down, totally exhausted. Thankfully, restaurants in Argentina are open until 1 am so we found a place to eat some meat (not bife de chorizo) and drink some wine before crashing.

Rider v Pillion

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The scenery is getting better every day. Waterfalls everywhere you look, amazing snow capped mountains, spring flowers of purple, pink, blue and yellow and crystal clear streams, rivers and lakes. Photos just don’t do it justice. 

Riding my own bike makes for a very different trip to being a pillion. There were several concerns I had and still have about riding on this trip, which mostly centre around off road riding….narrow roads with oncoming traffic that don’t move over….over taking on dusty roads…insane winds the push you over into oncoming traffic…riding on the wrong side of the road (I feel I have mastered this one!) and falling off a cliff etc.  So far the roads haven’t been so bad….mainly hard packed gravel with the odd bit of loose stones. The journey has only just started though so I’m not cheering yet!  

I don’t love riding off road and am not confident pulling over suddenly to take photos, and as I can’t take my eyes off the road, I am probably missing out on some of the sights….luckily I have my own personal photographer who can take photos for me.

‘that looks amazing’ I say as I quickly look to my left ‘would make a great photo’

‘no worries babe, I’ll stop and take one and will catch up with you’

Poor Dean has to spend all day riding in my dust so he can keep sight of me.

While I love being on my own bike, I do miss the connection of being on the bike with Dean, and sharing experiences. Little ‘wake up Dean’ squeeze of my legs at traffic lights, holding his sunglasses when it starts to rain, reminding him to drink water by bumping him on the helmet with the water tube…..the odd power nap here and there…

But, riding is so much more engaging. Even the off-road bits, despite not loving them, are a lot more enjoyable on my own bike compared to  hanging onto the back with Dean’s bum in my face and my eyes closed whilst being smashed around everywhere. Funny that.

Riding with other bikes has also been a concern of mine. Knowing how many riders do this trip, I was worried about feeling pressure of having other riders behind me, and feeling as if I am holding them up.

Yesterday we had to take a ferry and despite still being early in the season, there were about 50 other bikes on the ferry – I’d hate to see it when it’s high season!

Leaving the ferry, I knew we had a bit of off road to ride so I was worried about holding up other riders and had plans to wave them all ahead. We all rode out of the ferry up the steep ramp and approached the gravel road. Everyone took off and continued to ride slowly…I wasn’t sure why everyone was going so slowly so I followed them for a while….then I overtook a couple…then a couple more… Before long we were ahead of them all.  Phew! The complete opposite to what I expected! They all had such big heavy bikes with so much luggage. It was almost comical.

There are always those riders who don’t want to be overtaken, especially by a girl. Yesterday we caught up to a couple of guys who would not let me pass them. It was one thing for Dean to pass them but I, was too much. On the straights they sped up (well done guys, you have bikes over 700 cc and mine is 300) but when I caught them on the turns, they wouldn’t move over or let me through. It was pretty frustrating and dangerous. These guys obviously have very small penises.  

Today was a beautiful day and the roads were great. We rode from Puyuhuapi to Villa Cerro Castillo with Ben, who we’ve met from France and it was the best riding day yet with amazing weather! 

Tomorrow we are planning on walking up to Cerro Castillo and then heading on to Puerto Rio Tranquilo. We are making the most of the beautiful weather and trying to time our journey to sit out any rain so we don’t miss out on any of the stunning scenery.

Oh, and the food? Still very average.

Into the Andes

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After a couple of nights at Viracay national Park, we decided to head up to the frontier with Argentina at the Pechuente pass, with a yet to be decided plan thereafter.

The options were to cross into Argentina, ride a bit of the route 40 and return to Chile, or just turn around at the border and come back down the same way.

There were a few things at play… We had no mandatory Argentinian third-party insurance, but could possibly buy it at the border (cost penalty unknown). We also had no Argentinian pesos, which would usually not be any sort of problem. However, there’s a currency crisis in Argentina which means it’s actually quite hard to get cash. You can withdraw cash from an ATM but the maximum withdrawal is $50 and the ATM fee for doing this is $10. Not really the way we roll.

Alternatively, we have some US dollars on us which we could have possibly changed on the black market, and the last option was to do what all the other travelers here do and transfer money to ourselves via Western Union and go pick it up in a Western Union office, which surprisingly ends up being one of the most cost-effective ways of doing it.

You just need to find a Western Union office. In the Andes. That has cash. Seems easy enough.

The last problem was that our new bikes only have 11 lt fuel tanks and we weren’t really sure where the next petrol station was going to be….

On the way up to the pass I was feeling quite nervous. It’s been 7 or 8 years since we last did this stuff, would we still remember the ins and outs?

The road wound its way up higher and higher from forest Forest into open mountains, snow covered peaks around us, mountain lakes and snow melt rivers coursing down along the roadside.

We only got as high as 2,500 m, which is moderate for the Andes, further north we saw 4,900 m on Betsy! But the scenery was magnificent nonetheless. Just the scale of the view is like nothing else, it’s vast.

And a bit scary when you’re alone and unsure about fuel range. Predictably we arrived at the border and decided to cross over and work the rest out as we went. The insurance was a non-event, no one asked for it, and there was a guy selling fuel at the back of a restaurant behind the Argentinian customs post. This time I filled a fuel bladder as well just in case.

Then I got talking to some Argentinian bikers at the same restaurant to get the lowdown on the currency rates, and managed to change 100 USD with one of them!

Win 3

Killing it babe, we have fuel, food, dodged the insurance, and now have cash. It’s no longer no cash here.

Next was to get to a town with a Western Union office and get loaded up on pesos. This part of the Andes is extremely remote, road conditions very wildly and you can’t really trust anything anyone tells you about the road, including the info on the maps we have.

We suspected the road to the next town included some non-paved sections, which from what people had told us we guessed might be about 70 or 170 km worth, but the description of that section varied from, it’s excellent dirt, it’s volcanic rock, to its deep sand the whole way.

Okay, let’s head out for a look, if it turns to snot, we can just go back to Chile. Sally seemed good with this plan.

In the end it was just a normal gravel road, with some sections of vaguely loose small stones, which on Betsy would have been comfortable at 120 km an hour with my eyes closed, but on these Chinese bikes was not so comfy even at 80. Anyway, we got there.

The bikes are actually not horrible, particularly for what they cost, we’re just used to something better. It’s going to take some adjustment.

We made our destination late in the day and quickly (Not really) found a nice Posada to sleep in, with a little restaurant just next door. Perfect.

Next days mission was to get pesos. This was an important task for us because we think that the further south we go the towns will get smaller and the task of getting cash might get harder and harder. Compounded by most places not taking credit card payment.

We had two waypoints for Western Union agents in subsequent towns 100 km apart or so. The first was a no-go, a place selling knick-knacks with no cash here. But the next looked more promising, there was a line of locals with bundles of cash in hand paying their bills.

Is there any cash here? (This is not even a joke)

Yes we have a lot, really a lot.

We connect to their Wi-Fi, download the Western Union app, register, go through the two-factor authentification which is a total pain in the ass, transfer myself 1000 AUD, show the girl behind the counter the code and get the cash. F*** yeah. Mission accomplished.

It’s not Cuba but still… I now have significantly more stuff in my jacket pockets. AUD 1000 is 10 bills. The Argentinian equivalent is a wad 2 in thick! Geez.

With that, we rode another 100 km to the final destination for the day, filled with fuel and decided to go another 100 km to a town higher up by a lake, it was only 4:00 p.m. so this seemed reasonable..

30 km into this section we turn into a small dirt road and a storm comes to meet us. Balls.

This was a terrible idea

Cue sheltering in a border post for a few minutes to get our wets on and off we went.

Apart from the rain and cold at 4°, it was a spectacular ride that took us through high mountain Forest with weird shaped pine trees, rivers and long valleys in succession.

Most significantly though it was incident free!

Sal had found an apartment that was hugely discounted for off season, so we avoided the riding around and looking endlessly for a place to stay, went straight to a supermarket to buy dinner and wine, and settled into a warm clean room, put on some music, cooked some dinner and defragged.

That takes me to yesterday…. Time dilation… So hard to believe yesterday was only yesterday and last week was only last week, so much has happened.

Got to run now, bikes are getting their first oil change to maintain the warranty which will be finished in a bit so I have to go

Xoxo