Riding to Patagonia

[ungeheuer]

Patagonia.  I'm sure it's a native south american word meaning.... bleak. 

Give the place my regards.

[1.21GW]

Patagonia.  I'm sure it's a native south american word meaning.... bleak.  

Give the place my regards.

It's actually means land of bigfeet.  The Spanish conquistados were impressed by how tall the native Tehuelches were. "Pata" is paw. Patagón is a variation that would translate as big paw or big foot.

That's your history lesson.


So, yeah the wind really sucks but when it calms down you get scenes like this sunrise I had from my camp spot on Christmas morning:

[koko64]

That's a harsh, rugged and glorious view all at once. Plenty of that mix down here too. Nice pic.

[1.21GW]

Ok, after the marble caves I headed south to Cochrane, passing back through Bahía Murta.  It looks very different under sunny skies than the gray soup through which I rode the day before.  Compare:










The route to Cochrane follows Rio Baker, a river so turquoise that is looks fake, as if it were painted by an amateur who had not yet mastered the ability to effectively mix oil and so just applied cobalt teal right from the tube.



















In Cochrane I did a guided snorkel trip down one of Rio Baker's tributaries.  Full wetsuit, booties, hood, gloves, everything.  The water was cold as an ice bath.  But the views were otherworldly.  The water was crystal clear and the colors of plant life were psychedelic.  Drifting along with the lazy current was transcendental, like meditating and hallucinating at the same time.  Not a variety of fish---only trout---but they were as big as basset hounds.  I have no waterproof camera so I can't share pics, but I took this photo of a photo in a local restaurant that night.  I saw at least a half-dozen that size in my sixty minutes on the river.








From Cochrane I did a ride 'n hike for the day in nearby Parque Patagonia.  It's relatively new (it's a combination of two existing parks with recently acquired private lands) and is full of guanacos but empty of people.  They only people I saw were the folks working at the reception.  After a few hours on the trail I returned to my bike and a setting sun which provided amazing scenery on the return home.

[1.21GW]

On my last day in Cochrane I rode the bike to Caleta Tortel for the day, a bayside hamlet near the southern end of the Carretera Austral.  It is, in fact, the second to last town on the Austral.  O'Higgins is the last, but there is no border crossing for vehicles there (you can cross over to El Chalten by foot or bicycle), so I made Tortel my last stop before returning north to cross back into Argentina.













Developed in the 1950s to take advantage of abundant timber resources in the region, Tortel had been inaccessible by road until just 2003.  The wooded hills that cradle the gray-green bay make for difficult construction so residents have had to be creative in their methods, employing a generous use of stilts and, most notably, building a series of wooden walkways that serve as the city's streets.  This is the village's defining feature.  Even the opens spaces are constructed of wood: playgrounds and plazas as in effect wood-planked gazebos, something that doesn't quite invite free play or friendly loitering.


























Tortel's other defining feature is its graveyard of abandoned boats along its shoreline.  I asked a local woman why there were not removed or simply pushed into the bay to sink, and she said that ever since it was nominated as a National Monument in 2001 residents are prohibited from tampering with major structural aspects of the village.  This prohibition extends to the boat carcasses.


















Meanwhile, the rest of the town is similarly derelict, as if constructed entirely of flotsum and jetsum washed ashore from ships lost somewhere out in the fog.  Binnacles and cutlery and child's toys and small-block engines lie rusting about the town waiting for owners that will never return.  Tortel's crew of stray dogs, each with the salty scruff and devil-may-care posture of a Nantucket seaman, slink through the marshy shore sniffing out bits of dried fish or edible garbage cast overboard from the wooden walkways above.  Cats pass through the dense brush dunnage between houses to mewl and protest the invasion of strangers.  The whole place feels like you're trespassing in some private limbo where everything is abandoned to a gray eternity.

[1.21GW]

In my 14th month of traveling my jacket started having zipper problems.  Within a month, enough teeth had fallen off that it no longer functions.  This is my MadMax-style solution:





Let's hope it doesn't rain for the next two months.

[ducpainter]

That's a big ask.

[Howie]

Duct tape?

[1.21GW]

Tried duct tape but it didn't work.  It kept opening.

[DuciD03]

Tried duct tape but it didn't work.  It kept opening.

the specialist you need isn't a mechanic; nore a set designer for mad max ...

there called a taylors; seamstress; can replace a sipper in a flash common fix 

on second thought ... might be hard to find a zipper in the middle of no where ...

[Speeddog]

Wear it backwards, everything will be fine. 

[Howie]

Wear it backwards, everything will be fine. 

 

[1.21GW]

Wear it backwards, everything will be fine.  

Good idea.  All the pretty parts are in the front anyway.

[1.21GW]

At this point I had to return to Argentina since the Carretera Austral ends at O'Higgins and the only way to reach southern Patagonia is back across the border and down RN40.  The way to the border was a dirt road snaking along Lago General Carretera, now transformed into a muted blue under gray skies.  The rain was light and the road empty so it was pleasant riding in spite of the weather.  But I did pass a handful of motos laden with panniers and camping gear with whom I shared a subtle but knowing ADV nod.




















When you cross into Argentina the landscape experiences a sea change.  Gone are the mountains and the greenery and the sinuous lakeside roads and now comes the barren, the brown, and the ominpotent wind.  Towns are so far apart you have to plan your gas stops properly or you can be left out the side of the road with nothing to protect you from 60kph winds while you desperately try to wave down passing cars.

Guanacos are the only life out on the plains, although even some of them succumb to the inclemency of nature: I saw one carcass that had miscalculated its fence jump and lay tangled in the barbed wire forever, it's fatal error suspended in eternity for all to see.  RN40 is miserable riding, not just because of the barren scenery but also because with steady 40-60kpm crosswinds you literally ride at a 10* angle, occasionally thrown by a 100kpm gust to the centerline.  Needless to say, it's exhausting riding.

I hoped to grind it out all the way to Tres Lagos, but a massive storm rose from the horizon and when I was about 20km from its dark maw a GS750 rode out of the gray and pulled over to chat.  He was a brazilian coming back from a patagonia ride and told me it was not a storm I would want to ride in.  So I sat and played a game of chicken with myself before deciding to turn back and head to the last outpost I passed, a ghost town whose only redeeming feature was a functional gas station.























The next day I continued on south through the wind and occasional rain.  This section included 60km of ripio, where I met a pair of stranded Argentine woman who had a busted fuel filter.  I was the third or forth person they flagged down, but the first to have the lifesaving balm of Poxilino, a common brand of JB Weld-like substance.  We made a Darkar-style emergency repair and they were on their way.  Karma blessed me that afternoon with clear skies and a perfect view of the famous Fitz Roy massif as I rode into El Chalten.

[GK]

Massive contrast in landscape for sure.

Your posts often have me hitting the net to look up things.

Today it was Poxilina (orange box - 10 minute cure time) and Guanacos.

They apparently have 4 times the red blood cells of humans!

How’s the jacket situation going?