Living the Dream

Today was all I had hoped for from the trip.

Left the hotel with a bill for two nights that will please Tom & the girls (£76). I also made a difficult decision to leave my golf shoes behind. Having studied the route the night before i knew i had to dump some gear & I am afraid they had to go! I rather like the idea of a Gaucho picking them up & getting into a fight in town whilst wearing white & brown brogue Footjoys.

There are several possible routes from San Martin to Bariloche but everyone said this is the one not to miss BUT whilst being the most scenic route it also has a long section of gravel road. It was just what i had come here to do; towering mountains, huge blue lakes and ripping along on unmade roads. I could have taken a hundred pictures of the lakes and views but when i look at them they just dont show it how it is in reality. but here are a few anyway. The route goes past 7 lakes, so if you dont like lakes, look away now.

I got to the gravel roads the riding was fine and i was really enjoying being up on the pegs (standing up, as you do on such roads). The weekend in Wales was worth every penny and I knew the bike was capapble of much more than this.

The trouble started when i came to some road works. They have alot of men with red flags at such scenes, so i came to a halt, lost my footing and promptly fell over. All rather embarassing as i wasn't actually moving at the time! The flag man kindly helped me lift the bike up & Jeez is it heavy? In Wales we had knocked them over & picked them up but they didn't have all the clobber (they did tell us that we may need to remove the panniers etc before trying to lift in such circumstances). No sooner had i got back on that two guys appeared on their 250cc trail bikes offering me the chance to go first. Well the bloody digger had done a pretty good job of recreating the Somme. Luckily, a bit of grunt from the Beamer and i was through, the other two guys then hared off in to the distance with a choking cloud of dust. i caught them up again as they had stopped for a drink (or perhaps had a wager on how long it would take the Gingo to get that far). We had a nice chat (pretending we knew what each other was saying). They were on there way to the border with Chile. Lots of handshakes and "suertes" and off I went. 

Then I came to the far end of the gravel road and another work crew. At this end they appear to be extending the tarmac, I suspect in another year or so, it will all be paved (which will be a shame but progress). Exactly the same thing happened, came to a halt and fell over. A guy helped me up, i looked over my shoulder to make sure no one had seen me do it again and off I went.

The road was fantastic, sweeping curves along the edge of lakes and i was in heaven. I then came to an army sentry guard and he looked at my number plate, made a note & gave me 2 pieces of paper. Strange i thought but i tucked them in my pocket and of i went. Well another 200 yds and there was a long queue of cars. I noitced a couple of bikes parked nearby, so I parked next to them to find out what was going on. Just when the two Trail riders turnned up. So I hadn't been too slow (even allowing for another fall). Perhaps they couldnt start their bikes for laughing. The were a bit puzzled - wasn't i going to Bariloche? Si. Well this is the Border crossing with Chile. Ahhh. There was a junction about 20kms back but there was no sign post. I think I made their day! I was quite glad to have to go back up the road as it really was great fun & I didn't need to go as far as the road works.

This is nearing Bariloche & you can see how deep the Volanic ash is here. It even sits on the lakes, blown into drifts like the cocoa powder on a capuccino.

The Sat Nav did its usual job of getting lost within 1 mile of the destination. I did evenutally find the hotel but it is so new they havent put up a bloody sign yet.

This is the view from my room - without Ash cloud:

With ash cloud, if i had waited longer it is even worse.

Just waiting to hear from a local ghilly to see if we can go fishing tomorrow for big beasties and then I can use my new rod!

Oh go on then just one more lake photo: