South on Ruta 3

I head south on Ruta 3, down the East coast of Patagonia. Fortunately, though Ruta 3 does not improve much South of Caleta Olivia, the traffic dies away to almost nothing, making it much safer for me. The girl in the tourist office at Fitzroy makes me a cup of coffee and some pastries, that is great service ! Unfortunately I find out from her that Ruta 288, that I was depending on being apshalto (to get across to the West Side of Patagonia), is in fact ripio, this is going to add 600km to my trip and is a bit of a blow, I´ll have to go all the way South to Rio Gallegos and up again (on the West side).

All day I head South but this time hit some serious weather. For 2 hours it rains hard (rain storm hard) until I make it to an Oasis (a Petrol station !) where I inhabit a table and try and dry out my stuff, including my "foot bags", supermarket carrier bags tied around me feet, to keep them dry. I get some curious looks from motorists but I´m  too cold to care.

When I set off again I ride more or less straight into another rain storm. After this one is over I realise I won´t make it to Puerto San Julian by the evening as I´m too wet and cold. I realise I have no choice but to camp by the roadside, this is not an attractive prospect !! everything is wet and I have very little food.  Eventually I find a lovely spot right by a drainage ditch ! At least it can´t be seen from the road. It´s a horrible night and in the morning everything is covered in mud, including the bike chain, somehow mud has got right under the chain cover.

It´s another 130km to Puerto San Julian and it seems to take ages. At another Oasis (YPF petrol station) I meet two crazy  Brazilians, one of them with a completely over-loaded 150 (pic right). They are from Sao Paulo and he has got a job in Ushuaia. Instead of moving in a sane manner, he and 3 of his mates are moving all his stuff using 4 motorbikes !! It´s taken them 18 days from Sao Paulo doing 500-600km in a day, double what I´m managing. It makes my bike look completely normal....

Puerto San Julian reminds me of pictures of the Falkland Islands, temporary looking buildings in a bleak landscape. Riding around town I´m stopped by 3 different local people, there is a big "biker meet" the next day and they assume I´m the first one to arrive. I find a cheap hotel, dry out and clean up. In the evening I explore the town and find a monument to the "Heroes de Malvinas", there is an old "Mirage" on a stick with the painted silouhettes of British ships hit during the conflict, very strange to see, and a plaque to the 32 Argentine pilots killed from this town alone (there is a naval airbase here and we are in one of the closest positions in Argentina to the Falklands).

This reminds me that on every Argentine map of the Falklands / Malvinas that I´ve seen here there is no mention of UK sovereignty !. Port Stanley is "Puerto Argentino" and most every other feature has a Spanish name, the Argentine flag is usually somewhere about. This problem is not going to solve itself !!  Now that oil is involved (this year....) surely a diplomatic solution is needed quick.....before it all kicks-off again....






I had to get up at 5 the next morning to speak (via Skype) to Barclaycard to get my credit card unblocked, the hotel has an ancient laptop for this. Later on I decide to attend the bike meet which is being held in the municiple campsite, but almost no-one else is there, so I put up my tent and go and do the local "tourist circuit". 27km of "bueno ripio" track down the coast, past abandoned fish "tinning plants" and tidal rips, it´s very enjoyable as the weather is really good. I return to the campsite, more people have arrived, and I get a friendly welcome. The next 15 hours or so demonstrate to me that I´m not a proper biker. I don´t like heavy metal music or motorbike engines reverberating off their rev-limiters or 2 wheel doughnuts etc...etc.... which goes on all night.... When I pack up my bike in the morning the party is still going strong !!

122km down the road, the wind picks up and then it really PICKS UP !! "Nuclear" strength blasts are knocking me right across the carriageway, fortunately there is almost no traffic, but I still realise I have to stop. So I stop at the only town available, Luis Piedrabuena. I find a tiny urban campsite that has a decent wind break, I´m the only one there. Back in town I´m enquiring about internet café's in a local shop and I find that there are none here, the guy next to me at the counter (another customer) invites me back to his house to use his computer, for free !!  Incredible !  So I use his family ´s computer while his 3 teenage daughters run about making a lot of noise. He seems to want to chat and tell´s me that he too was in the Falklands !! Yet another one....  I manage to buy another travel insurance policy on-line as my old one is about to run out, shockingly (for me) it´s now nearly a year since I left the UK. The camp site owner tells me definitively that Ruta 288 is "malo ripio", I cannot go that way on my bike, so at least I now know, I have to go the long way around.

In the morning the weather looks OK and the wind has dropped, it literally "screamed" overnight, so I pack up as fast as I can and head South again. The first 100km are fine but it starts to rain heavily just 3km short of the half way point where there is a nice hotel, so, frustratingly,  I have to stop and don waterproofs for just a 5 minute ride...I stay there 2 hours but the rain shows no sign of abating, I have to go. The next 140km to Rio Gallegos are horrendous, blisteringly wet and cold and no shelter at all, rain and pampas, I just can´t get warm at all. Fortunately there is a steady stream of bikers returning from the "meet" who wave and beep. It´s like an insurance policy, if I break down I will definitely get help ! A completely soaked bike and stuff does not really come through in a photo, but I took it anyway....

Much relieved I arrive at Rio Gallegos, whilst recovering at yet another YPF petrol station I talk to a largish group of bikers (who had all passed me earlier). Only one of them speaks English and a remarkable coincidence occurs. Whilst at PSF (Pisco Sin Fronteras) in Pisco, Peru I was told of an Irish girl who had a bike, just a 125, and had left PSF intending to do the same trip as me, only 2 years previously. I was told that at the end of her trip she had left her bike (an old 1970´s Honda that she had bought in Columbia, with no paperwork at all....) in someone´s garage in Ushuaia and flown home. Well the very first person I meet from Ushuaia tells me that he has an Irish girl´s bike in his garage from 2 years ago !!! It´s the very same !!

Afterwards I find that Rio Gallegos is in Lonely Planet, so I can hopefully find a hostel. As it is, there is one there and it´s cheap and very comfortable.