sagot
Zone Head
Posts: 779
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posted February 20, 2005 03:51 PM
 Edited By: editor on 21 Feb 2005 04:05
The end of the road!
 February 20, 2005
For the last installment, again I am too slow of a typer so Pam writes...
Over the bridge from Neuquen province, entering the Mendoza province, Ruta 40 reverts back to Patagonia-like quality instantaneously. It was paved at one point but the province is not keeping it up at all. The road looks abandoned and not much traffic on it as a result. But really, the road was quite fun on the bikes and a few cloud bursts made the road even more fun. It was no problem for us to cross the streams flowing over the road and avoid the gigantic potholes but it would not be so great in a car. We arrived that evening in a town called Malargue, and while driving all over town trying to find a non-festering place to stay, we met a family of 4 from Gibsons travelling for 2 months in a rented car. They suggested that we detour through the Atuel Canyon the next day on our way to San Rafeal and beyond. Great suggestion!
The river flowing through the Atuel canyon was dammed in the 50´s sometime and the company who built the dam put a dirt road in through the canyon that passes all the hydroelectric plants and the deep canyon is very scenic and pretty. It is kind of hard to imagine how the area was before the dam, but it is quite beautiful in most places now. We popped out in San Rafeal and made a dash for Mendoza. Unfortunately, just 50 km outside of Mendoza, after a sunny clear and hot day, the sky all of a sudden turned purple and rained as hard as it could so we had to turn around and go back to another "off the boat" town of Tunuyan where we magically found a great room for a good price right off the bat and they even let us park the bikes in the lobby. This actually worked out well because we then arrived in Mendoza early enough the next day to get a room in a cute Spanish-style hosteria where we chilled out for a couple of days before heading back to Chile. Reading the paper later, it turns out that the freak storm dumped one third of the average annual rainfall in 20 minutes and caused several accidents and a town outside of Mendoza had to be evacuated.
The ride to Chile was pretty nice. The pass between the countries is at a pretty high altitude, something like 3000 m or so-the scenery is great but you would not believe the road!! The very top is a 4 km long tunnel (yikes) that starts in Argentina and ends in Chile and looking back once you get to the other side, you can look back and see the suicide road, with all of its switch backs, that this fairly recent tunnel bypasses. This is the busiest border crossing between Chile and Argentina and for once, they had both country´s migration and customs in the same location and everything was drive through. This actually confused us more than streamlined the process but eventually we figured it out and began the incredible road down the other side. I had seen a picture of this road before but thought that it was trick photography so I couldn´t believe when I looked down and saw the road looking pretty much as it did in the pic we saw on John Welburns website, which I have attached for your viewing pleasure.
We arrived that night in Vina and checked back into the place we stayed at when we were here at Christmas. Next day we met up with the tour group we are shipping back with (at their much more expensive hotel), washed bikes, changed oil and made arrangements to hook up with them again the next day to load the bikes into the container. We had a good time talking with the guys who took the tour. They were on a 1 month tour which cost them as much as we had spent in 3 months, but their bikes were delayed by 5 days so the itinerary changed. A couple of the guys didn´t like the new route (which skipped Ruta 40) and took off on their own. Several (expensive) bikes were tipped over inside the container because they had apparently been loaded and tied down by customs people in the US who obviously knew nothing about tying bikes. The container had also been broken into during transit and one guys riding gear was stolen and he had to ride in jeans the whole trip (hard to find replacement gear like that here on short notice). The only woman on the trip crashed 100 km into the trip at 140 km/hr while passing a semi- she walked away only by grace of God. Another guy lost his passport. Really, they had a lot of problems for such a short period of time. It made Scott and I really happy to have done things the way we did. We just hope they won´t have as many problems with shipping home. To be safe, we all tied down our own bikes inside the container while customs checked them and the paperwork out and we removed everything that could be stolen- what else can you do??
So now we are just chilling in Vina. The weather is nowhere near as nice as it was at Christmas so we haven´t been to the beach, just scurrying around getting the bikes ready and packing our bike luggage into bags that can go on the airplane and arranging a bus ride to the airport - thank goodness we didn´t have to take the bus all over the past 3 months- it requires a lot more organization and punctuality. We had originally booked our flight home to give us a weekend at the beach to relax before we left and it is too bad that didn´t really work out that way, but not too bad since we have decided to join my dad and stepmom for a week in Hawaii a couple of days after we arrive home. Since we can´t get into Scotts apartment until March and since we don´t have jobs and since Scott has never been to Hawaii and since I missed Christmas at home, we decided to go, even though we don´t deserve it and can´t really afford it. Ah well, whats another week after 3 months on the road?
Thanks to all our sponsers...
Bikeland.org
Pathway Design
Lil'M Enterprises
Hein and Ana
And our banks, for the lines of credit
Worn out!
Here's a list of stuff that we went though in 15,800 KM over aprox. 60 days of riding in three months...this is for the both of us...
-6 tires
-3 chains
-4 sprockets (2 fronts, 2 rears+one set flipped)
-3 inner tubes
-6 oil filters
-aprox. 16 liters of oil
-3 sparkplugs
-one clutch lever
-one set rear wheel bearings (DR 600)
-2 visors
-one pair of Joe Rocket pants
-one pair of riding boots
-2 pairs of gloves
-3 pairs of sunglasses
and lots of other stuff that is ½ worn out!
Also...
Scott(sagot)
- 10 tip overs, two bad crashes with one knee injury and one badly sprained ankle.
Pam
- 3 tip overs and one riped off finger nail.
Source: www.bikeland.org
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editor
Administrator
Posts: 914
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posted February 20, 2005 09:48 PM
Edited By: editor on 21 Feb 2005 04:02
Glad you two had an awesome trip! Look forward to seeing you arrive home safe and sound! Thanks for sharing your wonderful stories with all of us!
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ozzy
Needs a job
need guberment cheese
Posts: 3172
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posted February 22, 2005 05:10 PM
Wish this trip hadn't come to an end. Best reading on the website! Thanks for thaking the time to let us be with you!
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sagot
Zone Head
Posts: 779
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posted February 26, 2005 08:25 AM
The trip never ends. It's just delayed a little by goin to work.
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