9. The Gateaway to Patagonia
DAY 173
I had a really good nights sleep at Villa Rica. I didn't wake up until my alarm went off at seven, which is rare. I wanted to catch only five more minutes of sleep. I woke up at 8:30. Oh well, I guess I needed it. There's nothing strenuous or difficult ahead of me today. Planning on 350 km to Osorno. But it is all on pavement.
It is a nice day, partly cloudy skies and temperature mid 20s. The road is good and I am just enjoying the scenery. The road today is around more lakes. I think the route name is seven lakes. The lakes look pretty large on the map, but they are absolutely massive when you see them. You can hardly see the other side. There are mountains all around, so they must be very deep as well. Lot of vacation houses, cabins, and hotels. There is a huge volcano I am riding around, but it is all in clouds. There are lot of forests and trees around. It looks like most of the traffic goes to the first lake and after that, there's hardly anybody on the road. The other good thing is, there's virtually no commercial vehicles, no trucks.
The weather is getting more cloudy and I see some rain in the distance. I haven't seen rain in a while and I would dearly like to avoid it today as well. I'm skirting on the edge of rain showers. The road is wet and there are a few raindrops in the air. That scares me enough to put on my rain jacket. Fortunately, this is the worst it got today. The road is going around the lakes with nice views, but most of the hills are still covered in clouds. But it is beautiful and relaxing ride. The second part of the day I am leaving the mountains behind and I'm riding through rolling hills. It can easily be anywhere in Europe. Lots of small fields and farms. No big towns over here.
There is a police checkpoint in one of the small villages. I'm not in the mood to deal with regular police checkpoint for no reason. All of a sudden, I “forgot” all my Spanish and I told them that I don't speak any Spanish. And because they speak no English they just look at my drivers license. They realized that there won't be any conversation and let me go. I regain my Spanish language abilities soon after that.
It is overcast skies and temperature is just below 20°. The last part of the ride today I is about 30 km of freeway. Of course I have to pay the tolls unlike anywhere else in the south America. It is not much, usually not much more than a dollar. It is more annoying than anything else. Every time I have to dig out small change from my wallet. A few days ago, I went through about 20 of those tolls and it ends up pretty expensive even if you have to pay only $1.50 each time. It is the price of doing business I guess.
I felt like having a coffee, so stopped for the gas just before the town. There's small bistro so I had a sandwich, coffee and a Red Bull. There are six big Harleys with Brazilian license plates parked in front of the bistro. Bunch of guys got out of bistro, and on their bikes and they were leaving. But it was a comedy show. They needed three lanes to make 180 turn. I hope they stay on the freeway for their own good and everybody else’s.
Finding my place was easy. I plan to do maintenance the next day so I picked it so it's close to the shop. I rode to the shop first to see where it is, and then head to my place. It is a small coach house, brand new, more like B&B. It has full kitchen and a washing machine. That's perfect and it's all I need. I did all my laundry right away, including my riding jackets and pants which started to look little bit filthy. Didn't feel like doing any blogging or working on my pictures. It's a “me" day. I was watching videos from Dakar rally and cross country skiing and biathlon World Cup.
And that was the day..
DAY 174
Today is a maintenance day. Osorno is a gateway to Patagonia. This is the last proper shop where you can get your bike fixed and get new tires. There's nothing else between here and Ushuaia.
The shop here is a certified BMW dealer and also a Triumph dealer. I wanted to change my engine oil and filter and also look at my rear tire. The problem in place like this is that you have to think ahead. You might have to do some maintenance ahead of the cycle or change the tires before you really need to change it. And this is exactly my issue here. My oil and filter is still good but I won't be able to make it down to Ushuaia and back. So I change it here and I'll have a peace of mind. And the same thing with my rear tire. Is only half worn but I won't be able to make it down and back. It pains me to get rid of a good tire but there is not too much I can do about it if I want to have a good tire. A lot of the route now will be on dirt roads so I do need good tires. It is best not to think about it.
The people in the shop are awesome. I was there right at 9 o'clock in the morning when they were opening the shop. I picked the tire and the maintenance guys dropped everything else and start working on my bike. It is not a big job, but it is nice to know that they take care of transient bikers. It should be done in two hours, perfect. I have the whole day so there's no need to rush.
I let them do it and head for a coffee and breakfast. 10 minutes later I get a message from my friend Kathleen. I met her in Ecuador, and since then we were crossing path all the way down. She rides all the way from Alaska and she's on her way around the world on her Triumph Tiger. She was in Argentina and beelined it over here to get new tires. She made it all the way here to Osorno and she was only a few minutes behind me. So we met for a coffee and hung around while our bikes were being fixed. That didn't take too long. Our both bikes were fixed with new tires. Kathleen didn't waste any time start riding south. I have one more night over here so I'm having a lazy afternoon. I'm catching up on my pictures and my blog and copying my pictures to different hard drives just in case something happens.
The laundry is done and I am ready to leave the first thing in the morning. But meantime, I'm having bottle of nice red Chilean wine and watching more cross country races.
There are not too many towns from now on. Also, I plan to do a lot of camping. I'm not sure how the Internet connection will be in the next little while. You may not hear from me for few days, but I will write the report every day and will upload everything when I have a chance.