Dear blog readers – it has been a while. The reason for this is not that we didn’t travel but it was compare to the journey further south not as eventful. Last week we finished the first 10,000 km in south America and reached Buenos Aires. We needed to get a yellow fever vaccination before we travel further north and Siri had to get a visa for Bolivia. We passed some amazing places on the way here though. Our first stop after the last blog update was Bariloche and the Rio Negro province of Argentina. It felt a bit like getting thrown into Switzerland with its mountains and the wooden cottages. The only thing missing was the grassing purple Milka cow – we made up for that though by eating loads of chocolate, which is a speciality of the area. We camped for a few nights at Nahuel Huapi Lake and had another taste of the incredible friendliness of the Argentinian people. Next to our spot was a group of taxi drivers from Buenos Aires and before we could say no we were invited to a classic Argentinian “Asado” – the local version of barbeque. We took the bike for a spin around the lakes with its many turns. One of our stops led us to a small restaurant called Punto Panoramico. The owner, Claudio is a biker himself and next to the amazing view we got one of the best “Spaetzle” this side of the globe.
We met up with 2 fellow bikers – Andres and Vasilisa who we met further south on the Carretera Austral. Andres knows South America like no one else and we got some very valuable tips. Luckily he also discovered that the crank set we got in Punta Arenas wasn’t the best material and needed to be exchanged – along with the chain – AGAIN!
So plans changed and instead going from Lago Alumine to Buenos Aires we took a detour to Santiago to get spare parts – which are much cheaper than in Argentina. While we were at it we also got an oil change done and a new front tire. Now The Penguin is ready for the next big adventure. When we set course to Buenos Aires we needed to cross the Andes. We looked at the distance and thought that 240km plus border crossing is no big deal. We forgot the Andes! Our border crossing took us up to 3,700m altitude (we started at sea level the same day!) and countless turns. At the end we got greeted in Argentina with a thunderstorm and hailstones big as golf balls! Needless to say the first hotel was ours. The day after we started our 1,000 km long journey to Buenos Aires through the Pampas. 1,000 km with not a single noticeable turn. Now we are looking forward to new adventures further north. Stay tuned for the next update
some impressions from the road