Pucon: Gateway to the Cordillera de los Andes….

After a quick breakfast, Michel and I were ready to leave Santiago, albeit in opposite directions…

Ready to start the next leg of our respective journeys...

Sitting in the early morning traffic of Santiago de Chile...

We made tentative arrangements to meet up again in either Peru, Ecuador or Bolivia, and I had to turn down Michel’s offer to Photoshop his photos of Ushuaia, cutting and pasting pics of the Big Fella to make it look like we were there…!! He really was keen for me to ride north with him…!!

Michel in the Mirror...!!

We rode through the early morning traffic of Santiago together until we came to a point where he turned right and I had to turn left…!!

“We should be riding together…!!” we agreed, and then Michel’s final words were, “Let’s pick a destination and make it happen one day…!!”

I have set myself the goal of being in Buenos Aires by the 20th of January, and I have almost 8 000 km to cover before I get there…!!

Why the rush you may ask…?? Let’s just say that just as much as I am feeding my soul on this ride, a large chunk of my heart lies far to the north of where I am, and I need to treat my heart as kindly as I am my soul…!!

(P..S. I miss you…!!)

Rather than take the slower and granted, more picturesque route along the coast, I opted to bomb down Ruta 5, as far as Freire, before heading east towards Pucon and the Argentine border… I had initially planned to ride only as far as Temuco, but the ride went so smoothly, that I arrived there with more than four hours of daylight to spare…!!

The areas I had ridden through must equate to the “Bread basket of Chile”…!! On either side of the highway, there was either vineyards stretching to the horizon, or huge farms planted with maize, alfalfa, wheat and many other vegetables…

Chile has a growing reputation for producing quality wines....

Grain silos and packing house stood tall above the houses of the smaller villages that the motorway skirted…

We passed through Rancagua, San Fernando, Curico and Talca, before stopping at a wayside fuel station to fill up… While I was there, I decided to fill two of my four bottles as well… Just in case…!!

"Still planning on cutting things fine, are you...??" grumbled the Big Fella...

Not the one that first comes to mind...!! Hollywood is a long way off...!!

Chile's timber industry is an important source of foreign revenue, after their biggest export, copper...!!

Shortly thereafter I began seeing flatbed trucks carrying logs heading north to the few sawmills I had seen from the roadside…

By the time we reached the area south of Los Angeles, we were in amongst extensive plantation of Pine and a scattering of Eucalyptus trees as well…

The sawmills became larger and on one occasion there were twelve long trailers in a row, all trundling down the highway, fully loaded with logs…

I stopped to take a break at one of those mega service stations, and while I stood sipping water and fiddling with my GPS, a young couple pulled up next to the Big Fella and in passable English, asked if they could take a photo of the bike and I… I reciprocated by taking a photo of them and promising to put it on the blog…!! Here it is guys…!! Nice meeting you…!!

Big Fella adds to his list of admirers...!! No shame whatsoever...!!

After refueling at Temuco, I sat munching a sandwich while I considered my options…

Checking with Gi-Gi, I discovered that Pucon was only 100 km to the east, and decided there and then to take another small bite out of the long road to Ushuaia…!!

I swung back into the saddle and headed further down the highway before turning south east towards Villaricca, and the huge lake on whose shore the town nestles… I had read about a Swiss B&B there, but after our dealings with the Swiss owner of Patio Suizo in Santiago, Michel and I had made a pact to avoid Swiss establishments altogether…!!

Pucon lay close to this volcano, so I headed over to seek a place to stay closer to it...

With Pucon only 30 km from Villaricca, and the sun still high in the sky, I rode on and then crusied around this small resort town, seeing hundreds of places to stay at, but finally deciding for a quieter hostel in one of the side streets close to the lake… While I was idling there, I met a young South African who was touring South America, and he directed me to the “German place” around the corner…

Good place to base yourself while in Pucon...!!

ATV's return from a day out in the mountains... Pucon is an adventure seekers paradise...!!

Pucon is only 65 km from the border, and I was planning to ride to San Carlos de Bariloche the following morning, or maybe even further, if time and weather permitted…

I have been told that I will spend most of the ride, ploughing through volcanic ash…!!

1st leg done....!! Santiago to Pucon...

Mount Puyehue has been spewing ash into Argentina for the past six or eight months, and one of the towns I will be riding through has apparently been abandoned, according to the guy who runs the Hostal donne German where I am staying…

“Ze place is wun metre deep wiz ash…!!” he told me this evening… “Nobody can live zere anymore…!!”

“What about the road…??” I asked, a sinking feeling coming over me…!!

“Vel…. Maybe you are lucky and zey have  scrapped ze road…!! Maybe not…!!” he replied with a grin… “But you have BMW, ja…!!” he said looking over my shoulder…  “So it vil not be a problem for you, ja…!! Ha-ha…!! Just ride slowly… Ze ash is very slippery…!!”

I am beginning to see why most over-landers have taken the “safer” route further down in Chile, and crossed over into Argentina, east of Orsono…!! Whose bloody idea was this…!!

“Micheeeeeellllllllllllll….!! You have some ‘splaining to do…!!”

Ah, well…. In for a penny, in for a couple of hundred thousand….!!

After 780 km and nine hours in the saddle, I was a little tired… Especially since this was the first proper ride I have made since December the 16th…!!

I tramped around the corner and back into the main road, and looked for a place to eat…

I asked for a “small salad” and a plate of pasta, and the sweet young waitress indicated that she knew exactly what I meant…

When the dishes arrived, I nearly fell off my chair…!! The salad on it’s own was more than enough to sustain two people…!!

I struggled bravely through both plates of food, and then called for a wheelbarrow to take me home…!! Walking on such a full stomach would have been inviting disaster of one kind or another…!!

©GBWT 2012