Ruta 40

They told us we could drink the water in Los Glaciares NP. We headed off on our our two-day hike with only our 1.5L waterbottle, filling it from the streams that we regularly crossed. In town, however, we filtered our water, as our campsite was downstream of town. It was only on the last night after a few drinks with Ken, Carol and Penny that I got complacent and decided to drink straight from the river.

Not a good move. I woke on the morning we were to begin our ride on the the notorious Ruta 40 (which begins with over 500 km of dirt) wracked with stomach cramps. Hours later, after Andy had completed our tasks in town, I gingerly left our tent and we set off into the afternoon.

Riding dirt means for us frequently shifting from a sitting position to standing on the footpegs. Paticularly dirt such as this, which is unpredictable, and offers hundreds of kilometres of loose gravel, golf-ball size stones, and regular sand wash-outs. My stomach gave me increasing grief as I heaved myself off the seat behind Andy (usually a fluid movement for us), but he kept the bike under control, and our first 100 kms or so passed without incident.

We stopped in the sunset outside Estancia La Siberia (a former cattle station, aptly named, no different from the endless miles of sandy pampas around it), congratulated ourselves on our progress, and spoke hopefully of reaching Perito Moreno township (still 370 km up the road) for lunch the next day.

No such luck. It was then that we realised our rear tyre was hissing, on the way to being completely flat.

We pushed the bike towards the homestead, encouraged by the workshop symbol on the station sign. It was a pleasant surprise to be greeted by a fellow biker, Uschi (from Germany) who we had met earlier on the road. Uschi had been hoping for petrol at the station and company for the rest of the road. Her wishes were granted, and we hoped we would have a similiar sucess by nightfall.

It turned our the tyre levers offered in the workshop were a rusty crowbar and a hammer. No worries though, Andy pulled out Tyrepliers kit we had been carrying since it was given to us by the manufacturer in Australia, and set about getting the tyre off the rim. (tyrepliers.com.au were the first of our two sponsors, and the kit provides an easy way of breaking a tubeless tyre bead to get the tyre off the rim.)
Meanwhile, I set about making camp in the windy dusty paddock available, and cooking dinner (to date our worst yet). We finally fell into bed about midnight, the tyre patched but not on the bike, and my stomach still horrible.

We woke in the dry-heat, the dust and the wind to discover there was actually another hole in the tyre. Somewhat deflated, but determined to get us out of there, Andy prized the tyre off again, made another patch, and convinced the station owner to turn the generator on for a third time so we could use the compressor to pump up the tyre again. (The tyrepliers include gas bottles, patches and a pump, but we kept these a little secret just in case we needed them further up the road!)

Meanwhile, Uschi had set off in the morning, expecting us to catch her down the road. It wasn't until mid-arvo that we did, stopped on the road for a break.

As we rode on through the endless pampass with the sun beating down on us, standing and sitting and standing and sitting, Andy concentrating heavily on the road and me in pain, I decided this was definitely a low point of our trip. We maintained our hopes that we would reach Baja Caracoles (an outback township near the end of the dirt - we'd long given up on Perito Moreno) before evening.

Some time in the afternoon we realised the tyre was going down again - one of the puncture sites had two holes, as it turned out.

This time there was no chance of a workshop, or even of shade. Luckily Andy was able to patch it while the tyre was on the bike, and we all had a go hand-pumping it with Uschi's pump (slightly bigger than ours) before I fell asleep in the shade of the bike. I felt rather lame, Andy and Uschi were skilfully navigating this paticularly treacherous part of the road, and I didn't even have the energy to chat with them while they fixed the tyre!


After about an hour, we headed off again, our hopes of reaching BC before nightfall sinking with the sun.

As sunset approached, I started looking for somewhere to camp amongst the pampas (which was too spiky to put the tents on). Finally, just as the sun was beginning to set (sometime around 11) I spied a track which led, miraculously, to a concrete slab in a pleasant spot at the base of a line of hills. We set about with the business of making camp and me of making a meal (using Uschi's ingredients, as by this time Andy and I had run out) and enjoyed the lightshow put on by a storm on the horizon in the sunset as we ate.

The next day, determined to reach BC for lunch, we set out in convoy.

Luckily we hadn't been putting too much hope into it, there wasn't much there when we did get there. No petrol (Uschi had almost gone through her small tank and her collection of coke bottles by this time) or a gomeria (tyre repair shop) that would be any help to us. With a resigned sigh, Andy took out Uschi's pump and hand-pumped the tyre outside the only one in town - which was closed for a (very long) siesta.

Back on the road, the landscape started to change, and the endless pampas gave way to low ranges of hills of red, yellow and grey, and every colour in between.

Our first sign of civislization was a beautiful clear river snaking through a valley between the hilss, and, after three days of dust, we ignored the law against nudity in Argentina, and splashed around in the cold water until we saw a truck approaching in the distance.

Dressed and refreshed, we headed towards the bikes, looking forward to covering the last 40kms of dirt and reaching the bright lights of Perito Moreno. However, when we got back to the bike, we discovered an ominous patch of oil under ours!!

The rear suspension second was now leaking the rest of it's oil, finally giving up the ghost, and we watched as oil spilled out, and the stain on the road got bigger. Andy put a sock around it to soak up the oil, and we gingerly started out.

I have been making people laugh by telling them it was like riding a kangaroo (any Australian's limited Spanish vocab should include the word 'kangaroo', which is very similiar to the English version). It was true. We pogoed down the dirt, Andy controlling the bike under circumstances which had just been made much more difficult.

When we reached the ashphalt, about an hour later, we we so happy we bent down and kissed it! (Uschi and I did, anyway, Andy was busy checking the bike).

It was ony 60km by this time to Perito Merino, which we covered relatively quickly. We arrived during siesta (not hard to do, siesta takes up half the day), and had to content ourselves with ham and cheese toasted sandwiches and (almost cold) beer. We were later joined by Peter and Carol, who had also just covered the road, with their own stories to tell.

We had made the remote part of Ruta 40.

Not much more to report, except that my cramps (still as strong as ever) changed form (somewhat convienantly) the moment I spied the clean porcelin in the campground, and I spent more time in there than in the tent that night. Also, I jumped on a bus to Bariloche (over 1200 km up the road - the closest hope of fixing the bike) and Andy made the bouncy trip solo to meet me a day later.

Ushi filled her bike with petrol (which was by this time running on fumes) and went back down the road to visit the Cave of Hands the next day.