I started to write this in Santiago  (CHILE) on the way back to the UK, The long road now behind us. I will post this in portions as I find the time to type it all up. But fear not as I have made notes of the whole trip, so you will get the story.

El Toro and I are back in civilization, with our ride behind us.

This has been a very intensive, almost brutal experience. One with numerous highs and a number of lows on the road. I am not sure I could have made it with ET to support me and will me on when my strength and endurance was flagging.

Of all the motorbike trips I have done, this has, by far, been the toughest. Why?

• Very long distances almost every day.
• Weather which varied but near the end was appalling and very cold.
• Strong head and cross winds (for which Patagonia is renowned) making riding extremely tiring.
• Tough dirt roads with very bad surfaces.
• Wet dirt roads near the end on the way to “Fin del Mondo”
• Poor hotels in a few of our overnight points with inadequate breakfasts and in these conditions the body needs fuel.
• Virtually no good coffee anywhere.
• Nightmare border crossing with few easy transits and massive doses of officialdom everywhere. An empty passport is now full of stamps.
• Problems with my rented bikes front tire. This had been repaired before and resulted in a day of flats and hassles.

Nevertheless, a fantastic experience and a trip of a lifetime.

The scenery was fantastic. Our tour leaders were great and the people in our tour group outstanding to spend time with. Great sense of humor and ready to help the “old man” being “me” at at the drop of a hat.

I will try to summarise each day (Days 1 through 5) in as brief a description as possible.

1. Day 1 (Wednesday 22.11)

   Arrive in Santiago, met by ET and transited through domestic departures for Puerto Montt.
   Pretty flight with spectacular views of the Andes and the Fjord area out of my window. At Puerto Montt met by the Motorrad- Tour people and taken to our hotel at Puerto Varas, the adventure capital of Chile on Lago Llanquihue with beautiful views of the Osomo volcano out of our hotel. This towers over everything.
   Found a great steak restaurant near the hotel and ate there two nights in a row.

2. Day 2 (Thursday 23.11)

   ET and I mozy about town in the morning. Find a good coffee. This generally proves to be more difficult than expected in South America!
   Motorbikes delivered in the afternoon.
   Mine is a blue GS 1200 Adventure and Simon’s a grey GS 1200.
   Mine has about 19,800 km on the clock and Simon’s about 12,000 km.
   They are both a bit shagged and the evidence of the roads to come clearly visible. However the tires are in good shape, or so we think until mine start failing two days later.
   Dinner with the entire team at the self-same steak restaurant on this evening and early to bed.
   For the first time I figure I have brought far too much kit with me!! I have a onc
   e-off opportunity to send some ahead to Punta Arenas to await our arrival at the end and I stupidly fail to take this. I will regret this decision for the next three weeks.

3. Day 3 (Friday 24.11)

   First day of riding.
   320 Kms of easy tar along the lake. The only instruction we have is “Keep the Lake on your left and the Volcano on your right”
   This is not difficult and soon we crest the side of the volcano and ride through the Nahuel Huapi National Park to arrive in Bariloche, the ski and chocolate capital of Argentina. Simply described it is totally over rated and a shit hole of epic proportions.
   The chocolate shops are of no use to me on my diet and our hotel is awful. A requirement for hotels on a motorbike trip is secure parking. This hotel has secure parking but not much else going for it. It is however centrally situated. My room is stinking hot on check in but cools down quite quickly once the windows are opened.
   All looks up when we go out to a highly recommended steak restaurant where we a re advised to be before 20h00 as they do not take bookings and apparently the queues can be lengthy. We get there at 19h50 and there is already a queue. However we do not have to wait long and our table is ready – for 12 people. We walk past the grilling fire, which is as with all Argentinian Assado’s charcoal burning with huge slabs of meat on it.
   This is not vegetarian country.
   I order Biefe de Chorizo (Sirloin) cooked “A Punto” or well done knowing that it will be medium at best. Huge salads and various varieties of Papas arrive (Papa Fritas, Papa Pure, Papa Naturel) All the different cooked potatoes and great salads.
   The meal is epically good and devoured by all plus copious bottles of Malbec and beer for the Brits.
   ET and I are out early as we have a lot of riding the next day and our first dirt roads.

4. Day 4 (Sat 25.11)

   295 kms from Bariloche to Esquel
   We are both up early and down for breakfast – which is miserable. Sliced cheese and ham. Bread and rolls. Shitty coffee.
   We leave and follow the tour leader who takes us up a dead-end dirt road. We all turn around and go back to a round about some 4 kms back on our tracks. We head off again and find the correct dirt road which winds its way along one of the lakes in the area. We stop in a little village El Boison for coffee. Highly recommended which, as we are to find out more regularly, means nothing in Argentina. This is however the Hippy capital of Argentina and there is an Ice Cream Parlour that is famous. Does not help me and my sugar policeman will not let me near it when he sees that I am wavering.
   We are introduced the large number of stray dogs that populate every Argentinian city. They are all amazingly well behaved and generally sleep on the sidewalks minding their own business. They are not all like the Friedman pack at Bread and Wine on Môreson.
   Along this road there is apparently a hut in which Butch Cassidy hid out for a time when he was in Argentina. ET and I cannot find it. We push on. Along the way my warning light comes on. I have a puncture in my front wheel. The pressure is dropping slowly. This is odd because virtually 100% of motorbike punctures occur in the rear tire. We stop and inspect the tire and locate a hole in sidewall. Even more unusual as we have not been on any roads that would be likely to cause this.
   We decide to ride on and find a spot to repair it. This is a disused Petrol station in a hovel called La Cholila, which is literally a two-horse town from which the horses had fled years ago. But it offers us a hard surface on which to work. I start getting the repair kit out. A sidewall repair is much more difficult than a normal hole in the rear wheel. At that point some of the other bikes arrive and tell us that the support vehicle is not far behind, so we stop working on it and wait.
   Soon the VW Amarok with Mark the Magician arrives. In a flash he is out and on the job. He reams the hole out and inserts a plug, then pumps the tire up. We set off again along the lake on a tough dirt road. The tire repair does not hold and within 20 km the pressure is dropping again. We wait for Mark. He arrives and once again pumps up the tire. We try again and the saga repeats itself. Eventually after about four goes we decide to abandon the bike and I will drive into Esquel with Mark. Then he and Rob (Our tour leader) will return and load up the bike and bring it back to Esquel for more substantial repair. It is a Sunday which means nothing will be open.
   Along the way we see one of the other bikes standing. This bike is a “two upper” Husband and wife (Andy and Marie Searle) . Also has a puncture. There is no room in the bakkie so I offer my place and say I will ride on the back of Simon’s bike to Esquel.
   So there we are, the two biggest guys in the group, on one bike! We ride the remaining 30 kms to Esquel like this. As we enter town we have to go over some speed bumps and my nackers get pinched in my riding trousers causing me major discomfort. The only way around this is to get myself off the saddle before every bump. We stop at a garage to fill up and pump up ET’s tires. The air does not work and I see the input pipe has been stolen or is not there.
   At the hotel we meet Pablo, the owner and the best fly fishing guide in Patagonia (At least according to Pablo). He speaks excellent English, a rarity in Argentina. He rides a KTM motorbike but cannot help us with the flat tire as his bike has a different size tire front tire.
   Mark and Rob recover the bike and have it back at the hotel before dinner. Mark takes the tire off the rim and discovers that the supposedly new tire already has a patch in it, meaning it has been repaired before. So, Mark put a tube in the tire and this repair held out for the remainder of the trip, although I did not enjoy riding without the tire pressure sensor working on that wheel as this has to removed if and when a tube is used.
   ET and I did not like the dinner choice of a Pizzeria as it was virtually certain that there would not be a low carb Cauliflower base option, so it was steak again.

5. Day 5 (Sunday 26.11)

   285 Km all dirt other than first 10 kms to Chilean Border.
   Searles (both father and son) ride straight through the border post because barrier is up and conditioned by years of travelling in Europe where there are no barriers they just carry on. But this is South America and this behavior does not work. They are turned back at the Chilean border because they do not have the required multitude of stamps and come back. The Argie customs official has a knack attack and they have to endure a ferocious crapping out in Spanish, which is lost on them, and then unpack their bikes and take all their luggage to be scanned. This is not lost on them!
   We were delighted that they were taking the heat as we had “tong and nuts etc” in our luggage.
   It is tar to another town called Fuetalefu, a tiny dump, with a supposedly great coffee shop, which we find. It is being run by the owners two daughters, aged about 12 and 10. Knowing that they are about to be overwhelmed we order the last two empanada’s and another crappy instant coffee.
   Gapping it out of there to stay ahead of the pack we immediately hit dirt again, this time not so nice but magnificent scenery running along an aquamarine river straight out of the glaciers.
   ET and I come hurtling down the road onto a bridge and stop for a Pee. I nearly drop the bike as I put it on the side stand. It takes me another ten days to find out why as I repeat this basic error about four times during this period.
   We pass a young group recently out of the river rafting, all changing on the side of the road, the girls self-consciously trying to hide their assets. ET is transfixed! I nearly drop my bike again!
   We ride on into La Junta for lunch. At the recommended restaurant, all we find is 3 dudes sleeping on the chairs. We continue along to the Carretera Austral road sign for the mandatory photo opportunity and then find a small place further along with some bikes parked outside. They are closing up but make a plan for us with some salads and mineral water. The bikers are from Puerto Montt and are headed on the same route as we are. They tell us that Puyuhapai, where we are going, is a shithole but offer no alternative suggestions!
   So the intrepid adventurers set off again. Initially good tar and then 50 Clicks on horrible marbled dirt being part of road construction works. This is my very worst surface to ride on and we both nearly loose it a couple of times. My heart is in my mouth and we ride along Lago Yelcho, at the other end of which is the luxury fishing lodge owned by our friend Michael Pavlowski (formerly of Franschhoek).
   Eventually we hit the Pacific Ocean and slide into town. Town is a nothing and the fuel station is something out of a western movie, part of the general dealer in town. We nearly loose our bikes in the potholes, but soon fill up and ride onto to Casa Ludwig, a large B and B near the end of town. This is on the only portion of tar road in town and the road marking team which has been busy will not let us cross the newly painted lines on the side of the road into the establishment. We have to go back and ride on the pavement so as to not cross the line. I am exhausted so I ask ET to do it for me, which he does effortlessly. We meet Luisa the owner. She speaks impeccable English with a German accent, so I converse with her in my broken Deutch. Her parents came to Chile in 1936 to build the local sawmill and she was born in Puyuhapai. After a stint at university in Santiago she returned to this small village and has been living there ever since.
   ET and I had been forewarned that we would be sharing in casa Ludwig. I grab the big bed and he gets a single. Luisa kept on telling us that she would come and show up how the heater works – so we know it is going to be cold!
   We have a great evening at a tiny restaurant – Mi Sur- on the Pacific. I have a fantastic Octopus stew and soup. Exhausted I leave early and by the time ET gets back I am locked up under the blankets and fast asleep.

   

   Pacific out of Casa Ludwig Lounge

   

   Casa Ludwig

   Days 6 through 19 to follow.

   ©Bigplatcool 2017.