Wow! Twice now I’ve missed a day. This vacation stuff is rough business. Leaving El Calafate was a breeze – literally. The roads were sweeping and clean but windy
till we got to the turn off point to the park.
This was another gravel road that was very typical of all the previous
“ripio” we’ve been on before. What
wasn’t typical was the wind. My gosh –
how do these people even walk in a straight line? I’ve never been in winds like this before,
and to make matters worse – I’m on a motorcycle! There were occasions that I thought I was
really gonna get blown right off the road.
One time I did go down after taking a picture of some gauchos herding
cattle across the road. What was I
thinking!? It was tough enough keeping
the bike from blowing over even when I had the kickstand down, but as soon as I
righted the bike to take off – the wind just kept blowing me over. At least I can say that with all the
motorcycle gear I had on, nothing got hurt other than my ego. Fortunately, the support vehicle was right
behind to help me right it, cause the two guys that were next to me couldn’t
help for fear the same thing would happen to them. Crossing the border was just short of
comical. We got caught behind a tour bus
that had about 30 people on board and all the passports had to be checked. Fortunately, we were ahead of about 3 other
tour busses. At the Argentine border we
were told that the Chile border guards were on strike and would be there for
another 20 minutes, so we all took off like a bat out of hell, but it turns out
they were on strike and would be back in about 20 minutes. These guys obviously weren’t organized by the
UAW cause their idea of a strike and my idea of a strike are 2 different
strikes. Anyway, the Chilean border was
inundated with about 6 tour busses, a dozen or so cars, and our bikes along
with a couple others that showed up. It
was a rather long ordeal but it all got handled eventually. The rest of the trip consisted of numerous
herds of guanacos and various mountains vistas that we just HAD to stop to take
pictures of. The rest of the road was
the worst washboard effect I’ve had since riding in the back of my dad’s pickup
4o+ years ago on Sperry Rd. Some of it
was annoying and some of it I took as a challenge going up and down hills and
around sharp curves. In the end, I was
glad we finally reached our camp. Once
we parked the bikes and had a chance to see the twin spires that everyone comes
here for – it was like the first time I saw the Grand Canyon. All you can do is gasp in disbelief over
something this magnificent. You could
even hear the clicks of the cameras going on around you over the noise of the
wind.
Our
tents are geodesic in shape on hard wood floors with carpeting and nice soft
beds – so we aren’t exactly roughing it, but it is camping and there is no
heat. Lucky for us that it never got
down to much below 40ish. When we woke
up this morning it sounded a lot worse than it was. The wind always adds some drama to whatever
it is you’re doing I guess and when I woke up about 5:30 to snap some pictures,
it was actually quite pleasant – maybe as warm as mid 40’s. Weez and I got up
and took a quick walk before everyone else woke, and then came back and went
back to sleep for ½ hour or so.
Breakfast,
shower, another hike and lunch.
Another
nap – another hike, and here I am trying to finish this before my battery
dies. I still can’t post for a few days,
but this is done – for now.
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