Riders: Gareth Morgan, Jo Morgan, Dave Wallance, Tony Armstrong,Brendan Keogh, Chris Stephens
Motorcycles: BMW F800GS
Distance: 16,856km
Countries: Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil
Trip description: A ride from the Alto Plano of Bolivia and Peru to the frozen tip of Patagonia; on the world’s most dangerous road, where the stakes are high, on to Argentina’s fabled Ruta 40, where the steaks are large and cheap.
Across salt pans, into mud holes, up the Andes and down again; past the ruins of the ruins of Macchu Pichu, and finding themselves on the edge of the epicentre of the Chilean earthquak
Or Chile’s Ruta 7 as this 1200 km road from Puerto Monte to Villa O’Higgins is otherwise known took 10 years and cost 11 lives to build. It only serves 100,000 people and the country it runs through must have been hell to build a road through. But the General Pinochet regime – and the […]
45 degrees latitude isn’t much really, about Dunedin but in Chile you have a big effect from the Polar region. The town of Puerto Aisen that we are in and the newer port of Chacabuco 20 km down the road have very predictable weather, it rains 400 days of the year, according to locals . […]
The square of Peurto Aisen had a stage set up and a few speakers playing piped music to the teenage audience during the afternoon, looked like a non-event. We continued on to the only eating establishment not serving burgers, but after at 10 pm ther was some action. A huge truck parked in front of […]
Until now we have had sections of riding challenge but it is changing to the tough ride we wanted. We were warned that there is a climate change at Bariloche, and as we headed towards this lakeside town we were in disbelief as the temperature dropped 10 degrees and the wind got up, to maybe […]
We left later than usual to do a back road passed 10 scenic lakes and had to do a double take as the scenery was so New Zealand. What was it, the lakes Central Otago like, the mountains Westland like? Then we got it. It was the beech forest,,,, we felt as if we had […]
Araucaria araucana commonly called the monkey puzzle tree is a long lived native of the Chile and Argentina area we have been passing through. This tree was the main contributor to the carbon deposits of the Carboniferous period 300m years ago and now only has remnants of forest left. This is in part due to […]
The gravel wasn’t even worth a mention (in the last post), so I mustn’t listen to these stories as I only get a nervous tummy. Another puncture yesterday, a nail in Tony’s rear, his second, the third overall. Gomeria shops everywhere so got the tube fixed. We had last night in Las Lajos after a […]
We are now on a slightly different schedule due to the “terremoto” (earthquake). We are traveling down Ruta 40 (mainly) in Argentina and loving this place. The sophistication of Chile seemed to bring with it higher prices, worse service, and it seemed harder to interact with the locals especially in the cities. Anyway back to […]
Today I was booked on a winery tour in Mendoza. The lure of the grapes had started in the north of Argentina with my visit to Cafayete. 160kms north of Mendoza once again I was tempted as we drove through the fertile San Juan region. Today’s tour was about trying the flagship grape varietal of […]
We have come into Santiago to hopefully continue south through Chile but the earthquake has caused roading and infrastructure issues that are likely to cause us to go back into Argentina. This probably means more unpaved roads and generally bigger and harder days. So, I decided to do another gear clear out and leave surplus […]
