Ripio vs Tarmac, 8th November

I learned in Wales that as soon as my bike sees a blade of wet grass, next to some mud, it will fall over.
So what the hell, we decide to go off the tarmac and ride 189km around the Peninsula anyways. Fortunately for me, it´s dry and there is very little grass. Still, I´m very nervous. First we hit sand. Funnily enough my bike doesn´t like this either, so the feet go down (rather than the bike and me) and I wait for Iain and Mike to realise that I´m not behind them. Mike´s bike isn´t too keen on the sand either so it´s u-turns back on to the gravel. I´m in front, just so the guys can help me pick up the bike when I fall over. 40km/hour seems way to fast but the tour buses fly past as do the hire cars. We do 79km to Puerto Delgado, only to be told when we pull up in the car park that as we´re not guests at the hotel, we´re not welcome. I´m exhausted by this stage and aching. It´s been hard work. And the landscape is flat and monotonous.
Iain gives me some pointers about the gravel and I am soon chanting to myself, ´Speed is my friend, speed is my friend´. We head off again and this time I actually hit 50km/hr. Things seem a little easier. By about 2:30pm, I´m starving and shattered. I notice as the road veers towards to the coast that there is a rather nice view. Maybe we should stop for lunch. We pull off the road, squeeze past a fence and nearly run over a strip of nails. That would have been fun all three of us with no puncture repair kits or spare inner tubes, miles from nowhere. What we should have realised is that we weren´t supposed to be there. However, in this National Park, it meant that there was something fantastic there that the tourists weren´t allowed to see. We stop above a cliff and when we (carefully) peer over, we are treated to a sight of thousands of seals sunbathing below. The beaches stretch on for miles and there are seals for as far as the eye can see. A perfect place for lunch. And it made the nerve racking ride there worth it.

'I´m not in a bad mood, I'm just tired and it's lunch time'

Lunch over we head up to Calafeta Valdez. I´m getting better at the gravel and I reach 60km/hour. The mantra is working and I´m feeling more confident.
At Calafeta Valdez, we are pulled aside by the National Park officer and are told off for stopping by the road. A tour bus operator had dobbed us in, seeing the bikes parked off the road by the cliff. Snitch. It didn´t matter though, the view was worth it.
Amongst all of the tourists (you are allowed to stop at Calafeta Valdez) we hear an English lady say ´Look, over there, whales´. We figure she is lying as we can´t see anything but more seals. But after following her and her tour group down the path to a look out, sure enough, there is a pod of about 5 Orca whales, seeming to cruise very close to the coast, sussing out the situation with what´s on the menu for dinner. Apparently these are the whales that jump out of the water and take seals off the beach.
5km up the road, we see penguins. We´re looking over a cliff edge again, thinking not a particualry close view. Then we realise there a few right by our feet. Friendly folk.
Deciding we won´t make it up to Puerto Norte, we cut back across the Peninsula. Despite being nearly taken out by a llama, I´m doing really well on the gravel road and make it back home in one piece, completely and utterly shattered, but very happy with the wildlife watching and riding. Good call on this one Mike!

'The llama I nearly ran over'

Peninsula Valdes

It was Mike´s idea to head to the Peninsula for some wildlife watching. I hadn´t really taken any notice, still pre-occupied with the exoctic Patagonia.
We arrive in Puerto Piramides and the local campsite looks slightly worse, if that is at all possible, than the one in Viedma. We´re tired and cold from the wind so we opt for a cabaña instead. What I didn´t expect to see from our window was whales frolicking in the bay. I´m dubious about paying $120 (this is pesos rather than American dollars, so about 20 British Pound) for a 2 hour boat trip when I have this view (And I was also fortunate enough to swim with Minki whales on the Great Barrier Reef two years ago, which I didn´t think could be topped) but I don´t want to be a stick in the mud so go along with it all.
2pm the next day we head out on a large zodiac. There are 13 of us all with cameras at the ready. For the next two hours I take over 300 photographs but don´t worry, I wouldn´t bore you with all of them. Most of them are either splashes as I´ve just missed the whale jumping, or black blobs in the water, slightly Lochness Monsteresc. But I did get a few that I will hopefully get uploaded in the near future.

'Mum and bub in tail fin sequence'

For the entire trip, we zipped around the bay, stopping near enough to the whales not to scare them but close enough to get a great view, and watched mothers and their offspring frollicking, bull whales trying it on with the mothers, who just weren´t having any part of it, and curious calves who wondered what the zodiac was. There were so many. It was amazing. And although these weren´t the prettiest whales, barnacles everywhere, they were so beautiful to watch. I highly recommend a visit to Peninsula Valdes, Argentina, in November.

Mucho Viento, 6th November

Now we´re getting somewhere. Heading into the exotic Patagonia. The wind has started and within minutes my neck aches from being buffeted around by a cross wind. By 11sies, I´ve got all my thermal linings on and unpacked my winter gloves. I´m very grateful for the last minute decission to bring them along.
Stopping for lunch in a Parrilla by a truck stop, we get the usual, ´Where are you from, where are you going?´The waitress, who has started to chuckle, walks over to the other table of customers, and relays them our story. They look over and burst out laughing. Apparently the wind is much worse further south and the truck driver thinks we´re ´loco´. They settle down and carry on with their own discussion. About 10 minutes later, the truck driver looks over at us again and burst into histerics. ´Mucho mas viento´, he says again. You can almost see the tears of laughter in his eyes.
I´m starting to get nervous about the wind.

Police escort and the worst toilet block in the world, 5th November

We´re back on tarmac and get to Viedma late in the afternoon. We´re looking for the municipal campsite and pull in to the Tourist Office to ask directions. When she kept suggesting the campsites 50km down the road, I should have taken notice. But it is late and we want to get set up before sunset.
After 15 minutes of trying to squeeze past the locals cruising up and down the waterfront esplanade, as seems to be the thing to do on a Sunday afternoon in Argentina, I get a bit lost and can´t seem to find the left, then right then left again turnings that I was told. We end up on the entry to the bridge across to Carmen de Patagones, not where we want go, so we pull over. There is a policeman doing policeman things standing in the middle of the road who approaches us. I´m a little warry, still thinking about those ´fines´that other travellers had to pay. We tell him in ´un poco espanol´ that we are lost and are looking for the local camp site. He points to us a road in the opposite direction, thinks about it then indicates that we should do a u-turn across four lanes of traffic cut across through his barriers and follow him. He very slowly drives down a gravel road and it´s not until we´ve pitched our tents, paid $4 each and Iain decides to use the gents, that we realise why the tourist office girl and the policeman seemed very reluctant about the campsite. Iain´s face says it all when he returns from his business. Apparently we´re camping in what used to be the utopian campsite - in the 70´s - but a place that hasn´t been maintained at all since then. So after trying to kills us with what Iain´s faced described as worse than a public toilet in China, (He suggested that I not got near them no matter how depserate I was) the caretaker turns up and also indicates that the chica should not use the ammenities but instead use the shower and banos in his administration block. So off I head, towel, razor and shampoo (It´s been a while since a hot shower) to a safety officer´s nightmare. I always thought to wear rubber flip flops in the shower for the health of your feet, but it seems that it may also save your life when using showers in Argentina.
Now as an Interior Designer and aware of EU regulations, I know that there should be no power outlet within a metre of a water. And definitely not in a bathroom. This shower had electrical cables draped all around the room, the electrical hot water unit wasn´t hardwired but plugged into a socket about 10cm away from where the shower rose was. The caretaker very carefully unplugged it for me, not wanting me to come to any harm, but if the guys wanted hot water, they´d have to risk electricucian. It´s not too bad to be a chica when camping sometimes.

Free Camping, 4th November

After the police incident, we hit our first bit of dirt road. It´s all a bit scary at first for me but my training in Wales pays off and I get to the dam in once piece. It´s a full moon and we arrive just in time to get the tents set up and dinner cooked before sunset. There is a storm far off in the distance, seeming to move in the opposite direction so we get a lightening show to boot. There is no place I´d rather have been. And once again, all is good with the world.
That´s until about 2am when the tent has seemd to turn itself inside out and upside down. For about two or three hours the wind batters us and I expect to be blown across to the other side of the dam. But the new tent holds up very well, I awake in the morning rather tired but in once piece, the tent in once piece and the bike still standing. At least the wind kept the midges away.

'Not a bad view from the tent, even if the bike is in the way'

In trouble with the law, already. 4th November

Back to the story about the one way grid system.
We´ve left Azul with our bellies full, Iain has a new side stand in an effort to stop his bike falling over, and wanting to get on with some riding.
Travelling along Ruta 3 hasn´t been too bad, but Sami (Crazy Fin riding an Africa Twin) had given us some advice on a nice dam that was worth a look. So off we head.
After hours of straight roads again, we see the mountains in the distance. It´s not too long before we reach a small, 3 horse town called Salundgary. Now I say 3 horse town because that´s exactly what I saw being riden down the road. The first gauchos I have seen.
We´ve done the obligatory stopping to ask directions from the guy mowing his front lawn (this seemed to develop into a theme later on) and he sends us two blocks down and to the left. The local policeman has already driven by twice to check us out but the guys take no notice and follow the directions given regardless of the big arrow on the street sign indicating the direction of traffic. Now I´ve heard loads of stories about getting ´fined´for minor traffic offenses and don´t want any part, so I go to the next street at which I can turn left, and head down there. Once around the block and Iain and I find Mike and the supermercado. Iain parks up next to Mike, once again, facing the wrong direction on a one way street and I of course park correctly. They think I´m being overly cautious but it´s me who gets to laugh when the policeman comes into the supermercado and asks them to move their bikes to face the correct way down the street. And as usual, it seems the whole town is squeezed into the rather small shop, to watch the óut of towners´ get busted. All this in a town where there a tumble weeds blowing across the steet and the only other motorvehicle we have seen was being driven by the very friendly policeman.
As a side note, the guys do get the last laugh when I get bitten by the smallest dog as I walk out of the shop. He nearly got his mouth around my pinkie. I think Mike must have pinched him when he walked past first.

The Asado, 3rd November

'Lamb anyone'

About 20 friends and family of Jorge and Monica, whose birthday we are celebrating, although it was a few days ago, have gathered. It seems they´ll take any any excuse to put a whole lamb over the coals (apologies to the vegetarians) and cook up a feast. There was more chorizo, lamb and wine then any of us could eat. And Mike and I made the mistake of finishing our plates which seemed to mean that we wanted more. We handn´t quite worked out that we should have said was ´Sufficiente´.
P.S. I have to apologize to my father and Mark Ogston, but it was the best BBQ I have ever tasted.

On the road, finally. 2nd November

'It's a green Shepperton'

Most of you have an Aunty or an Uncle who live in Shepperton, Victoria or there near abouts, so it seems. So you´ll know what I´m talking about when I say that that is what the road to Azul looks like. They´ve planted loads of gun trees as they are fast growing and are used for timber, unfortunately they also soak up the marsh lands which sometimes isn´t a great idea, but that´s another story. There are loads of sheep and cattle. And it is flat, very flat. The only difference is that it´s green, much greener. What Shep would look like when not in a drought.
So after about three hours of driving in a straight line I almost forget what a corner looks like and am a bit stumped when we come across a large round-a-about. Fortunately I pull myself together just in time and get through it.
We pull into Azul mid-afternoon. The guys are having trouble with the one way grid system. Being an Aussie, it makes much more sense to me than the London one way systems so I tend to go down the roads in the correct direction. But more on this later.
We arrive safely at La Posta del Viajero en Moto. A small motorcycle shop/hostel/camping ground. These places are a great source of information and you meet all kinds of people, mostly on two wheels of the pedal and motorised variety.
After about two minutes, we´re invited to stay for an asado (BBQ to the rest of us) to be held on the following night. You´ve got to love the hospitality of the Argentinians. We didn´t even have to cook dinner that night as there was a large pot of Spaghetti Bolognese being thrown together my Mike (Anderson), another Scot on a BMW. All´s good with the world.

Buenos Aires

'Javier and Sandra, our very helpful friends at Dakarmotos'

In Buenos Aires, there a two suburbs called Florida, our taxi driver took us to the wrong one. Three hours (should have been an hour) of driving around some rather dodgy looking industrial estates, thinking ´God is this where we´re supposed to be staying for the next few days´ and the taxi driver waving his hands around repeating ´Mama mia´. We were like children at Christmas time when we saw an orange Africa Twin (this is a dual purpose motorbike for those of you who aren´t too sure what I´m talking about) whose rider was actually wearing a helmet (in Argentina you have to have a helmet on your body, not necessarily on your head, although most people don´t even bother with this law) and shouted at the driver, ´Follow that guy´. Fortunately it was Javier of Dakarmotos, and not some other overlander on his way to Rio or somewhere else. Five blocks in the right direction and we arrive at Dakarmotos.

Just to fill you in, Dakarmotos is a small motorcyle workshop whose owners, Javier and Sandra, have set up a small hostel also with camping facilities, or you can just roll out your sleeping mat amongst the KLRs, Africa Twins, BMWs and a KTM being stored there - gets you right into the spirit of things although I admit, I had a bed. Predominantly overlanders stay there at the beginning or end of their travels so it´s a great place to meet people doing a similar thing and get up-to-date information on the roads, police and general travel conditions. A lot of people also pass through as Javier is rather handy at welding and fixing all the bits and pieces that have rattled loose, fallen off or just plain worn out. He was also fantastic at making my pannier rack a lot lore ´leg´friendly and quite a few kilos lighter for which I am rather grateful. And also gavce me a hand (actually he showed me how to take my front wheel off, and the front forks and a few other useful bits and pieces). By the time we left my KLR was finally prepared to travel.
Sandra also offers an invaulable service of helping clear the bikes out of customs. And considering between the three of us, we know un poco espanol, she was a blessing. Plus we never would have found the customs house or the warehouse where our bikes were being stored without her help. Mucho gracias to both Sandra and Javier for getting us sorted and on our way.

So Buenos Aires is quite a large city, and as everyone says, rather European. The people are friendly though, which makes for a nice change. And they weren´t laughing at our attempts at Spanish. Not to our face at least.
We did the usual, San Telmo, home of the Tango although we didn´t partake. Motorcyle boots aren´t the best things for gliding around a dance floor or the outdoor pavements. La Boca, the working class area with colourful houses. Palermo, nice outdoor markets and cafes, cheap but not cheap enough for us on our meagre budget. And to Cementario de la Recoleta, where Iain, our ever useful tour guide, informs us that Eva Peron used to be buried here until quite recently but has since been relocated. We later find out that she is still there but her hubby was relocated. Oh well, it´s all a bit morbid taking photographs of dead peoples tombs.

After a week of the best steak sandwiches, it is time to leave and on the Friday we get up early, Javier and Sandra come to the workshop early to unlock and let our bikes out, and finally, after a few hours of faffing (I´m sure I will get the hang of this getting going quickly thing, although Katie might remember, after 6 weeks on the road cycling around Ireland, I still couldn´t manage it) we´re out the front of the shop ready to go. Another 1/2 hour of checking and rechecking that everything is strapped on properly and hasta luegos to Sandra, Javier, Tom and Christina (German travelling on Africa Twins) our hostel companions, we get going.

'Mount up lads, it's time to get going'

Two hours later and three times past the turn off to Dakarmotos, we finally find the correct ruta and start our adventure down south. Next stop Azul.

Leaving the UK

So after a rather tame leaving drinks session (For once almost everyone else was amuzingly drunk rather than me) on the Friday evening, I had a weekend of little sleep, rain and tears on the loungeroom floor trying to pack. Fortunately, after a few phone calls, Griff assured me he would look after the mess in his living room and I managed to get myself together enough to get to LHR T2 only half an hour late. Iain was already checked in so it was straight through to wait for Mike on his way from Scotland. I thought I had it bad but his plane was delayed, then there was a fire evactuation at Edinburgh airport, then he had to wait for 15 kids in wheelchairs to get off the flight before he could board. But we all made it.
So after a two hour flight to Madrid, and the most expensive G&T I think I have ever paid for (got to love Iberia I don´t recomend them) we get on our 16 hour flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina. I am almost relaxed, down a bottle of red wine and am asleep before you know it.

Essex

With the rain and traffic past Clapham Common at 10am on a Monday morning, it was reassuring to know that the bikes were leaving for a better place, and that we would soon be following. Mike and I made it to Rainham (the crating company) in once piece, after being rather touristy and riding across Tower Bridge, (not quite the same as leaving from Trafalgar Square and riding all the way to Australia as I had first imagined years ago, but the Atlantic can´t be crossed by a ferry or trian like the English Channel). Iain met us there, just, on his lovely shiny new XT that he´d picked up only a few days earlier, we stood around for a bit, the bikes got measured, we said good bye and crating them to Buenos Aires was as simple as that. The bill came later.