Ruta 40 - Should I give it another chance?
After the excitment of Bariloche, we start heading north again. Taking a detour off the Ruta 40 through the Siete Lagos. All very pretty and even the ripio was good. But if you don't think there is such a thing as karma, try being me and riding the KLR.
We make it to San Martin de Andes, set in a rather beautiful landscape, by, you guessed it, one of the seven lakes. Stopping for the night at the ACA campsite, which I din't think was too bad, a little noisy but Viedma was worse. When no one is bothered to collect any money off us for the site in the morning, Mike (He'll kill me for blaming this on him but I did warn him about bad karma) decides we should just leave. Apparently the male showers were a lot worse than the girls.
Nothing eventful happens the next day except a siting of a 'wannabe' Mighty Boosh meets Miami Vice hairdresser in an out-of-the-way, nothing happening kind of town. (I lead an exciting life!)
That is until we meet the night caretaker and a little boy in another out-of-the-way little town called Chos Malal.
I can't even begin to describe the weird conversations and events that take place that night, but needless to say, we didn't sleep well. Having the caretaker warn you to lock the bikes together because he is the problem (as far as we could make out) was weird enough, but having the sound of Mike's bike alarm being set, mimicked from the bushes, after dark, was just plain weird. And we were the only ones camping there - again!
So your thinking, bad karma, what bad karma! Well we head back on to Ruta 40. It's not too bad to start with. There's a road, which is always a good sign. And its not raining. What can possibly go wrong. After passing some signs that appeared to mark where towns may have been (and where we were hoping to get fuel and have some lunch) the road quickly disintegrates. There are sand drifts blown across what is left of the road and it all starts looking a bit like Morroco.
Of course I stop to take a photo. It's about 1pm and not a cloud in the sky. So yep, it's very very very hot. The bike doesn't start again. I can smell petrol and of course I can see there is petrol leaking everywhere, but being the kind of girl I am, I have absolutely no idea what to do about it. So I do the only thing I can, wait for Mike to come back and find me and work out what is wrong. So it's a blocked carburetor. Not a problem, except being the KLR, the float chamber screw that would normally drain it, is seized. It is now so bad there is petrol in the air filter. Honestly, I did do two bike maintenance courses, it's not my fault we didn't get past learning what an allen key was! So after an hour or so, we're sunburnt and hungry and we've been windblasted again by the mini tornedoes that like to hit you at inappropriate times, but we manage to get the bike going again. So its annoying but not too bad until I burn my knuckles putting all the tools away in a hurry before the bike stalls again. Just not my day!
Ruta 40 had completely deteriorated by this stage and I wonder why they have allowed a road that was obvioulsy a road, deteriorate into something as bad, if not worse, than the gravel we had been riding on further south.
We eventually got lunch at 7:30pm that evening. I now make sure we pay our campsite fees.
We make it to San Martin de Andes, set in a rather beautiful landscape, by, you guessed it, one of the seven lakes. Stopping for the night at the ACA campsite, which I din't think was too bad, a little noisy but Viedma was worse. When no one is bothered to collect any money off us for the site in the morning, Mike (He'll kill me for blaming this on him but I did warn him about bad karma) decides we should just leave. Apparently the male showers were a lot worse than the girls.
Nothing eventful happens the next day except a siting of a 'wannabe' Mighty Boosh meets Miami Vice hairdresser in an out-of-the-way, nothing happening kind of town. (I lead an exciting life!)
That is until we meet the night caretaker and a little boy in another out-of-the-way little town called Chos Malal.
I can't even begin to describe the weird conversations and events that take place that night, but needless to say, we didn't sleep well. Having the caretaker warn you to lock the bikes together because he is the problem (as far as we could make out) was weird enough, but having the sound of Mike's bike alarm being set, mimicked from the bushes, after dark, was just plain weird. And we were the only ones camping there - again!
So your thinking, bad karma, what bad karma! Well we head back on to Ruta 40. It's not too bad to start with. There's a road, which is always a good sign. And its not raining. What can possibly go wrong. After passing some signs that appeared to mark where towns may have been (and where we were hoping to get fuel and have some lunch) the road quickly disintegrates. There are sand drifts blown across what is left of the road and it all starts looking a bit like Morroco.
Of course I stop to take a photo. It's about 1pm and not a cloud in the sky. So yep, it's very very very hot. The bike doesn't start again. I can smell petrol and of course I can see there is petrol leaking everywhere, but being the kind of girl I am, I have absolutely no idea what to do about it. So I do the only thing I can, wait for Mike to come back and find me and work out what is wrong. So it's a blocked carburetor. Not a problem, except being the KLR, the float chamber screw that would normally drain it, is seized. It is now so bad there is petrol in the air filter. Honestly, I did do two bike maintenance courses, it's not my fault we didn't get past learning what an allen key was! So after an hour or so, we're sunburnt and hungry and we've been windblasted again by the mini tornedoes that like to hit you at inappropriate times, but we manage to get the bike going again. So its annoying but not too bad until I burn my knuckles putting all the tools away in a hurry before the bike stalls again. Just not my day!
Ruta 40 had completely deteriorated by this stage and I wonder why they have allowed a road that was obvioulsy a road, deteriorate into something as bad, if not worse, than the gravel we had been riding on further south.
We eventually got lunch at 7:30pm that evening. I now make sure we pay our campsite fees.
posted by Michelle at 11:23 pm
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