We had the best intentions to cross from Argentina to Chile at Paso Agua Negra but we woke up to this view of the mountains….
Dang.. an online check of the pass conditions verified that the pass was closed. With the help of the hotel front desk we made a call and were informed the pass “might” open the next day or it might be closed for the rest of the season. Well, once again off to plan B.
We didn’t mind, we took an excellent road south from Las Flores, highway 149 that was recommended to us. It started out with excellent pavement.
Before turning into a nice gravel road with excellent views. The weather was cool but dry. We were having fun.
A couple of rougher sections but the colors in the hills took our minds off the challenges.
After 221 miles of nice riding we arrived in Uspallata and found a nice cabana right in the center of the small town. How can we have so much stuff on two motorcycles?
At this point we could have turned west and crossed into Chile using the well traveled paso between Mendoza and Santiago. We’ve been over there in the past and decided to stay in Argentina just a little longer and ride south taking advantage of excellent weather with clear skies. We rode just under 250 miles of high speed nice roads in excellent but cool weather. We were noticing more and more the changes in the season, fall was really in the air. Something really strange for April.
Yikes, we needed to really think about how far we could push this trip. Every day we got up and if it was sunny we would decide to keep going south!
We were ready to jump into Chile and according to the map there was a pass we hadn’t explored in previous trips – Paso Pehuenche. Once again the road was fantastic, paved the whole way and the pass over the Andes was a relatively low 8,000 feet.
Once we made it into Chile at a really easy border crossing we were seeing signs for Condor viewing places. Huh? Suddenly I looked up and saw huge condors flying on the side of the cliffs! Wow. We stopped and tried to take some pictures which is really hard to do with an iPhone.
This was the highlight of the day for sure.
It seems at this point of the trip we were making things up as we went along. We would try to find somewhere that was about a 6 to 8 hour ride away and then look for an interesting place to stop. Along our route a place called Saltos del Laja. Or, the waterfalls of Laja. I quick Google search came up with somewhere called Hotel Salto del Laja. I hit the book button and we were on our way. Then I did something I almost never do on this trip, for good reason… I used Google Maps to navigate to the hotel. Of course, it was hopelessly lost. What does this screen even mean???
We finally found our way to the vintage 70’s style Hotel Salto del Laja. A guard let us in a gate and we rode uphill on a long dirt driveway. The place looked abandoned and we were starting to wonder what we were getting ourselves into. We finally found the officina and someone was inside to start the long check-in procedure. We were given keys and told to ride back down another road to a casa blanca, room 7.
I have to say, the classic style room was more like a cabin with a deck and one of the best views of anywhere we’ve ever stayed. The waterfall was right outside our window!
We walked back down the road and went to visit the other side of the falls where most tourists go.
I think we had the best view from our room….
The next day the sun was shining and we decided to press south.. how far could we go? Would the weather hold? Could we make it the length of the famous Carretera Austral? We were going to try. Another fast day of riding on Chile’s modern highway system brought us 250 miles closer. We ended up at a really nice hotel on Ranco lake, Hotel y Cabanas Lago Ranco. For sure we wanted to spend two nights at the fantastic botique hotel and although it was getting cooler the rain was holding off. We continued south!
The goal for the day was a 200 mile run past Puerto Montt, the official start of the Carretera Austral and continue to the small village of Hornopiren where we would catch a four hour long ferry south.
We checked into the Quelen Austral cabins a few blocks from the center of town. A funky place that we had stayed before with Michael. This time it was cold and we were told it would be up to us to get a fire going in the old woodstove to keep warm at night. It took a few trips to the woodpile to gather enough wood and a trip to the tienda to buy a lighter and beer. Both good for keeping us warm.
In the morning it was dry but cold as we made our way to the ferry for an early departure. Check out the temperature on the bottom left of the display… burrr.
The snow line was dropping on the surrounding mountains.
We were starting to realize how we were pushing it with the weather but were really looking forward to this ferry ride through the inlets of Chile.
We were rewarded for our effort with more amazing views. Yes, we could tell winter was approaching. The tourist level was down and there was a chill in the air for sure.
The boat docked in Chaiten in mid afternoon but we decided to skip the somewhat run down port town and look for some Cabanas further south.
We had a long gravel section through thick vegetation, you could tell we were on the wet side of the mountain range….
We lucked out and found ourselves at a place called Yelcho in la Patagonia. It’s worth clicking on the link to look at pictures. We had a great cabin on the lake shore with a beautiful view. We were almost the only people there but lucked out that the chef was there and made us some fantastic meals.
Here is Deby admiring the huge Gunnera plants on the property.
Nice views of the surrounding mountains from the deck of the cabin.
The other couple at the hotel met us for some wine tasting with their little friend who felt right at home.
It was here that our luck ran out, we woke to cold rain. Continue on in the rain?? Turn back north?? Do nothing? We decided on the latter and booked another night.
After a day of checking the weather apps and maps and looking at options we decided this would be our most southern point in Chile. Too bad, but we’ve had a fantastic time exploring the country and it was time to move East.
The next day was a break in the weather so we jumped on the bikes and decided to take the gravel road to Futaleufu pass over the Andes. This was another low pass so there would be no chance of snow but we were really glad it wasn’t raining because the dirt road would have been slippery mud.
It was another fun road but challenging. My helmet cam finally mostly quit working unless I plug in the power cord which I’m reluctant to have the wire hanging while I’m riding. So, not many pictures.
We made it over the pass and found ourselves in pretty much nowhere land in this part of Argentina. Towards the end of the day we lucked out and found a hotel at the YPF gas station in Tecka, a small town along the famous ruta 40.
It wasn’t as bad as we thought but the only restaurant was at the gas station so that’s were we enjoyed(?) both our dinner and breakfast. You can see it was clear but you can’t see the cold… burrrr. Winter was on it’s way.
We had a plan… blast East to the coast and make plans to head home. According to the map it was 325 miles almost due East to the touristy beach town of Puerto Madryn along highway 25.
The first part of the morning was COLD, just a few degrees above freezing. We blasted out at high speed with all warm riding gear and heated grips on high. I had my heated liner on high and even flipped on the seat warmer (ok, I admit it…). Deby only had the handlebar warmers to keep her warm. After 100 miles of chill we came to a gas station to top off and try to get warm. There was a restaurant that was closed but they let us sit there with some warm drinks from the store part of the building. Clearly cold, we sat warming our hands with the hot cups of coffee. After a few minutes a woman came out who looked like the Madre of the operation and brought us some snacks for munch on. She stood and chatted for a while in Spanish, interested in our trip and what we were doing. Nice.
We thought it would be a boring straight road through the pampas of Argentina. We were wrong. After our lunch stop it started to warm a little as we rode through more great rock formations. For some reason on this part of the trip we started to see a bunch of Rhea Birds, a first for this trip.
I didn’t get a picture but the above is from Wikipedia with permission: By Adrian Pingstone (Arpingstone) – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5074712
They are awesome flightless big birds, one ran in front of me on the road and I nearly got a better view than intended. Yikes.
By the time we reached the coast the temperatures had warmed into the 60’s and we were greeted with bright sun and some typical Patagonia wind. We checked into the Rayentray Puerto Madryn hotel and settled in for a few days of planning our next steps.
We looked out the balcony of the high rise hotel and saw pink flamingos in the water! What? Immediately we had to go for a walk along the shore to see these amazing birds. It was a huge flock. Awesome.
Not a bad place to spend a few days as we make arrangements to get home…..
Yep, time to wrap up this series of blog posts about this trip. We have a couple more days of logistics and shipping the bikes back to the US. It’s been an amazing journey for us and we really enjoyed having our friends and relatives following along. I don’t have the exact mileage count but my oil change light came on for the second time on this trip so I know it’s been at least 12,000 miles. Probably more.
So, what’s next??? Not sure, we are making this up as we go that’s for sure. We look forward to getting home and seeing everyone.
Thanks for following!!!
Donn and Deby
