posted February 08, 2005 03:33 PM
Old dog, new trick Well we made it to Ushuaia, the most southern city in the world and let me tell ya folks its no big deal! Something like the journey is more important than the destination.
After leaving the Mt. Fitzroy region we headed across, on a diagonal to Rio Gallegos to start the final push for the end of the road. Rio Gallegos is the town were the Argentineans launched their Falkland island war. There are lots of war memorabilia here and lots of propaganda stating that the Maldives islands belong to Argentina witch I would tend to agree with. Funny thing about this town: there are no stop signs anywhere and people scream into the unmarked intersection like the Mother Mary is stopping all traffic for them! This is the only place in our entire journey were we saw an accident and you guessed it it was a t-bone. Needless to say we were extra careful in this town.
The next section was downright stupid. It seems Chile wants their piece of the Patagonian pie so somehow they have a big bite of Tierra Del Fuego. This means that you have to cross no less than 8 frikin borders to get to Ushuaia and back!!! Out of Argentina, Into Chile - ride 125 KM - out of Chile, into Argentina. On the way back do it again! Dumb.
Ushuaia is actually a tourist town, witch I dislike, so we took a quick look around, did some landry, got the obligatory end of the world picture and got ready to head north.
One important side note: We hand drilled a couple of hilti bolts and put up a plaque for Pam's brother who was lost in the Rutherford creek disaster and who's KLR 650 she is riding. He had wanted to do this ride so she is riding it for him.
The ride out was great. Beautiful mountains, lakes, moss covered trees and other assorted eye candy that temps you to ride off the road and join it. Our rear tires are toasted so I'm getting these great rear wheel drifts on the ripio (gravel) roads. It makes me think that I almost know what I'm doing.
After we got back thru the border crossings (groan) and on to ruta 3 things got a little dull. Straight road for 1000 KM. You just sit there and watch the 100´s km go by till we got to the town of Trelew where we decided to buy new rear tires and a chain for my bike. As it turns out, I don't know everything about motorcycle maintenance! It seems that it not so
important what chain lube you use as how you use it. Pam had said to spray at the side plates as well but I had learned to just spray the inside 20 years ago. So when I actually read the instructions on the can of lube and it said to spray the side plates it all came crashing down around me. Its my guess that this keeps the o-rings lubed. Oh my God! All that chain mileage that I could have saved!!!
Anyway I flipped the sprockets around (yay Suzuki!), installed the new, non o-ring chain, lubed it good and we are off to Futaleufu the kayaking and river rafting center of South America...
posted February 08, 2005 03:58 PM
great post as always sagot.
not too surprising that Ushuaia would be a tourist town i guess. very sorry to hear about Pam's brother. just rode over the new bridge a coupel days ago and saw they had (finally) installed a washout warning system. was he one of the Moe Joe's staff? definitely a wonderful gesture to do the ride for him.
may the tail end of your journey remain safe!
posted February 08, 2005 06:49 PM
Yeah, Ed was one of the MoeJoes guys. We were sent a pic of the new washout signs they recently posted. Unfortunately, that is probably the last bridge that needs a bridge washout warning system on it with all the work they´ve done on it- the rest of BCs bridges ALSO need them for everyone to be safe from such an accident in future.
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posted February 08, 2005 09:46 PM
Man, another great read as usual! I wish I had known my brother better before I lost him. He was 13 and I was 11 when he died, and I miss him to this day. It's great that Pam is doing this for herself, and her brother. I know that wherever he is, he's cheering you guys on!
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posted February 08, 2005 03:33 PM
