TravellingStrom

Sunday – San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina

Another border crossing today and possibly my last new country of the trip

Well, after waking up and doing a quick blog entry or two, I did have a think about staying but I figured I would at least head off and do the border today and maybe have an early day and do some more catching up. I was still in two minds about which way to go south, but if I got as far as Ville La Angastora that would be fine with me. Chris was staying here to get his oil problem fixed, fair enough, so I said bye and headed off around 10.30am, a late start but I was not really worried.

The first problem was getting out of the damm town, this is always a drama, and eventually I was on the highway, now I needed fuel. This was a small problem because I had to go down the highway to find it, but as I was getting off the highway, I had to go through a toll booth. I ended up riding through it without paying as I was not going to be on it for more than 2 kms, of course I rode to the clamor of alarm bells and headed north for fuel before turning around and heading back south and the turnoff to the east, that was not fun and if it sounds confusing, it was to me too. I am going to make sure I fuel up on entering a town from now on, that was a painful process. If anyone else was riding north today with full gear, they may get asked a few questions by the toll police 😉 The ride east was quite pleasant through some lake districts and some nice twisties as well.

Then I arrived at the Chile border, this process involved getting a small ticket at a small booth with my license plate number on it before proceeding to the immigration area.

Immigration was easy, they stamp me out and stamp the ticket in the process, then it is onto step two which is Aduana, here they stamp the ticket again and stamp the TVIP I had been given on entry, that is all there is to it. Then when leaving I hand in the stamped little ticket at the exit booth, all in all about 20 minutes.

After that I am officially out of Chile, but I am now in no mans land because for the next 26km I have negotiate the Andes before arriving at the Argentine border! It was a very pleasant ride up through here and some nice views as well 🙂

I nearly crashed up here and it was mostly my fault. I was pushing hard uphill when I came to a two lane section and a semitrailer in the left of the two lanes, when he should have been on the right. I did not slow down but passed him on the right, that was OK but the road turned right and the semi now moved over into my lane, I ended up riding and passing him in the ditch as he did not spot me until I was already committed. Oh well, I got away with that one, but he should have been in the slow lane to start with. After some more twisties I get to the Argentine border, this is a repeat of the Chile one, with a ticket being given to me after I showed them my bike title. Then into immigration for the passport stamp, next door to the Aduana for the bike papers and out through the exit booth with the ticket stamped all over it, another easy passage and another 30 minutes of the day used up 🙂 At no stage did anyone bother to look at the bike, I could have been riding a tractor and they would not have known.

I had some more nice scenic riding on the way to Ville La Angastora where I planned to have lunch, past some lovely lakes, although they did look cold 🙂

When I got to the village I wanted to change my Chile money but it is Sunday and the banks are closed, DOH! Oh well, I grabbed a cash advance and bought some ham and cheese thingies, quite tasty 🙂

I then found out the hassle of trying to find accommodation in a tourist area during peak season, in fact there was no hassle, in fact there was no accommodation either, so there was no choice after an hour of fruitless looking, but to head on to the next biggish town. I had heard it was not much of a town, but now I was committed to stopping, I could see it may take all day to find a place to sleep! It was only an hour or so past some more lakes and stuff, and I arrived around 4pm in San Carlos de Bariloche.

It seemed a nice town actually, parked on a lake. I did find a hotel that had parking and was not too expensive, so that was lucky and I even had a Fawlty Towers view of the lake, you know, it is the blue bit between the sky and the land 🙂 Well, actually it is the blue bit between the buildings 🙂

Once I had checked email I headed down and around for a beer, nothing unusual in that and found one at an Irish Pub, but it was not that good, so I did not stay for long, even though it was pleasant sitting by the street 🙂

I actually wanted a bit of chook to eat and found some at a fast food joint, before I headed back with some take away beer and got stuck into some blog stuff for the rest of the evening. I had looked at the map and decided to make a run south but I did not know what exact route to follow. I had in my mind now that I needed to get to Ushuaia and to do it fast, because I also had other things rolling around in my brain, mainly what to do with the bike, sell it here, ship it to the states, keep it and ship it home, my brain hurts! Oh well, tomorrow is another day, something will turn up 🙂

Day – 137 miles and 220 km
Trip – 50,462 miles and 81,211 km

Salud
TravellingStrom

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