Gloves on, damn i forgot to put on me helmet. Gloves off again, helmet on, gloves on, engine started and.... "Sorry guys, were not actually leaving for another half hour.." Crap. I made the best of it, if not for anything rather than commedic relief i tried to go to the toilet in my riding gear. After falling off the toilet three times and scaring the hell out of the made who came in to find a very safety concious toilet goer i gave up. Coming outside to find everyone gone and us again being the last to leave... completely in the wrong direction. After much searching and forgetting of which way side to ride on we finally pointed ourselves in the right direction riding past the search party who were completely pissing themselves.
Paved roads, oh how i missed you! 38kms to the ferry, which upon further investigation looked to be piloted by an argentinian madman with a navigation problem. We saw a red ferry, then we diddnt, then we did going a different direction, then we didnt, then we did going again a completely differnt direction. After much thought and careful deliberation we figured he was not a madman at all, but a genius who's seamanship could only be thwarted by colombus himself! The waves were huge and the poor sod was doing the best he could to give his fifty scared passengering vehicle inhabitants a less than death defying crossing.
Safely on the otherside, and again suffering from "cant get my gloves on - itus" we were underway. Into hell. Roaring 90km an hour winds at 120km per hour speeds is like going to the moon. With a lean angle of close to fifty degrees, it looked like the whole motorcycle group were going around an ever tightening bend on the straightest road known to man. Feet? Forgot they were there as i had lost feeling in the brief spats of rain and windchill equivelant of -7 degrees. Hands? Smart choice on the 'flow-through' option, as they were working marvelously and flowing artic temperatures without a blink completely through my hands. Jacket? The size of a biggest loser contestant after sven layers of clothing effectively made me a parachute flapping in the wind. Pants? Perfect after i used dads bright fluro virgin blue wet weather pants, except for the fact that people either thought i was a cop or a deranged raver who had stolen a motorbike.
What am i doing here? Why more so, did i pay to be here?? I was not a happy camper on arrival at what could only be described as a shack from a clint eastwood film. There was a tumbleweed, yes thats right a tumbleweed as i pulled up to an apparently abandoned gas pump with 3km's left in the tank. Either they calculate fuel down to the nearest ants width or i ride in first gear the whole way. Either way i was glad to seek shelter with the other eight equally unimpressed riders. After some charades when trying to order a hot chocolate, and some of chilleans famous chocolate (Megan, you would looooove this) we were again leaning forward on our boots on all fours trying to cross the ten meters to the bikes. Running through dreams of hollidaying in the bahamas for ever after this things started to get better, or i was reaching the first stage of deleria assosiated with hypothermia.
The roads opened up, the wind was on our backs and the temperature started increasing. 4....4.5......5.............5.5.............6. Fantastic! Even though it is the last week of summer, this is the norm for patagonia. With megans full suite of mariah carey blasting through my eardrums and me yelling a chorus line to hero through the wind my spirits were lifting. Warming up the body was now just a case of a serries of calasthetics whilst at speed, doing squats and standing up at 120km per hour is apparently flash worthy for passing mororists.
Approaching puerto nautalis for lunch we had a brief five seccond window of sun, which all eight riders raised both their arms in an incan like mexican wave worship of the first sun in our three days riding. After a quick convo we were off in search of food....and we found it. The chilleans know how to eat hambuger styling. A hamburger with the lot with a garlic seasoned thin fillet of beef was like feeding peanuts to a bulimic elephant. It was gone in seconds. Paying an extremely expensive 7 dollars for our meal we were off in search of drugs. No, no, we werent seeking those drugs! Although many people in my yellow pants just assumed i was, but more the fixing the three colds we had developed from riding through siberia.
"No habla espanol, ehhhhhhh do you speak english??"
"No"
Much more charades....
After being instructed to buy alcahol and snacks in town as the national park we would be staying in is expensive, we sought the nearest "supermarchete" as david so eloquently asked of a corner stallsman. Which to my suprise he pointed us in the direction of. Im sure "stupid tourists" was muttered once or twice through his curtain of beef. Appearing in the stall we got a trolley and went in search of beer. Now, we have been very impressed with the patagonian local beer so far so sought out more of this delecacy. Getting two six packs of heinekan and budweiser as safety beers we filled the rest of the trolley with local beers to the tune of such names as Escudo (Shit in spanish) and Brava 5.8 (The need to put the alcahol on the label could only spell disaster). Running into the guides, Leo, Mauricio and Danny we were met with much pointing and laughter at our trolleyfull of obviously crap local beer.
On the road again we met some of the best riding i have ever seen or heard of in my life. 2 Hours worth of loose gravel road (Fun!) snaking its way between the most sheer cliff faces i have ever seen. The views were just spectacular and i could probably use numerous stupid analogies to describe it but will let you see for yourself. Arriving at camp after another 12 hour day we were strangely in the mood for still more riding, but beer prevailed. Appearing at our campsite we were met with the wierdest looking structures since the igloo. Because thats what they were, raised white tent dome igloos with comfy full size beds inside. Things were again looking up! We had three days in this paradise and werent going to waste it. After a long days ride and in need of a shower we came accross the shower block which apparently had not been used in sometime. The water after twenty minutes of pouring out of the taps was still the equivilant of a norweigic ice bath. It was freezing, and to make matters worse i had apparently skipped over the section of the what to bring items that contained the part about the towel. Much to a chillean cleaning mans disgust, i was not the prettiest australian to visit this park running past in a near naked flash of screaming and cursing.
Now i shall all leave you for now, if you have read this far then you must be bored or wasting your companies time on the net. Well done!
Also check out Steve's blog @ http://shortwayup.omega-prime.co.uk
and,
Mauricio and Dani's blog @ http://ushuaia2cusco.blogspot.com/
Midgets in the land of the Giants??????
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