Patagonia surely is one of the holy grails of adventure traveling, only really enjoyable in the summer of the Southern Hemisphere, and it should mark the start of exploring South America. As I mostly travel by myself and enjoy it a lot to fully immerse in a landscape, a thought, or plain silence, it would be nice for a change to share such an experience for a while.
It so was that Sebastian, a friend of mine from university times, told me that he currently was in between jobs. When both of us lived back in Munich, we had been motorcycle touring in the Alps, and traveling Patagonia together started as a vague idea but should turn reality quickly.
We started looking for a motorcycle for Sebastian, specifically in buying one as rentals were staggeringly expensive, and we expected a fair bit of bureaucracy involved. Simultaneously and having spent the first kilometres in Chile, I noticed that the gearbox on the R would need some attention including a special seal that I could only find to be ordered from Germany. We had a few thousand kilometres ahead of us and in just short of four weeks time, Sebastian would start a new job in Germany, so there was no time to lose. Fate has its own ways and by a lucky coincidence, we met a Chilean motorcyclist owning a couple of motorcycles and would just lend us two of them — trusty thumpers — a 2009 and a 2014 Kawasaki KLR 650, for the following weeks. A few hours of TLC and two poders (powers of attourney) later, in order to get the Japanese ladies ready for the trip and to be able to cross borders , we were sitting on the highway south from Santiago de Chile.
When traveling Patagonia, one has to choose between the Carretera Austral on the Chilean side and the Ruta 40 (“Ruta cuarenta”) on the Argentine side, both equally beautiful but quite different in terms of landscape. Chile and Argentina are bordered by the Cordillera de los Andes alias Andes mountain range, and Chile gets a fair bit of precipitation from the Pacific, which means that this side is a lot greener and gets a bit scattered with lakes and sea pockets serviced by ferries.
We decided to take a two-hour ferry across serene Lago Pirihueico, the same lake that Ernesto Guevara, his companion Alberto and La Poderosa are crossing in The Motorcycle Diaries, in order to head straight into San Martin de los Andes. Once again, it struck us how a geographical border or a mountain range would make culture, people, climate and the whole feeling change in an instant.
Feeling Blue
Chile might be the most expensive country of South America, and we saw better (or, lighter-on-the-travel-budget) times ahead for Argentina. We had heard about Argentinas Blue Dollar, an inofficial exchange rate that applies whenever you bring a foreign currency in cash, while the official exchange rates can’t quite keep up with Argentina’s soaring inflation. In that sense, withdrawing cash from the ATM becomes a no-no unless one doesn’t mind paying double, in that sense one either has enough US dollars in cash to exchange or would draw pesos at blue rate at money exchange services like Western Union.
We spent our first evening in San Martin de los Andes in front of an money exchange just to find out that they had run out of cash for the day, a usual occurrence as it seemed, but we were more lucky the next morning and could walk away with a decent bunch of notes. Another result of the inflation is that the largest bill, 1000 pesos, equals to around 2.5 dollars, which made us literally feel cashed up for the next days in Argentina.
The Ruta-40 stretch between San Martin de los Andes and San Carlos de Bariloche is known as the seven-lakes route and it basically means endless twisties, mostly perfect tarmac and epic views along lakes and through pine forests. Seeing a native Araucanía or “monkey puzzle tree” was literally quite puzzling or wondrous, if you will. Everything looked so colourful and beautiful and we began to understand why Patagonia has the reputation it has.
Do you need a license plate to cross a border?
Further south of Bariloche, we crossed the border back into Chile and some rain would greet us on the Carretera Austral. It wouldn’t be long though until the sun came back and the scenery did feel more lush and with steeper mountains all around, much like I’d imagine New Zealand to be. At this point, we had gotten pretty remote. From Villa Cerro Castillo southwards, it was mostly gravel road with some washboard at times that would shake the bike a fair bit. When pulling into a campsite one evening, I had a look around the bike to see if nothing had come loose, finding that the roads had taken their toll.
One of the KLRs license plate had gone missing and only a tiny, valiant corner had remained. Given the amount of gravel roads we had traveled on that day, going back to find it seemed impossible. We had one more border to cross to get back into Argentina, where we wanted to explore some national parks and a glacier and then head back up north that side. Would any official let a German on a Chilean bike with no license plate cross into Argentina? Surely they would mind. At this point, it looked like we would have to finish the route early and head back the same way.
Unless we would venture one tiny possibility. We had heard about Paso Rodolfo Roballos, a less-frequented pass of the Andes and an according deserted border crossing. Being so remote already, we decided to give it a try.
Passo Roballos has easily been the most epic pass I ever took. It started out with smooth gravel road winding its way through dreamy hills and occasional herds of guanacos, the wild brothers of llamas. As the road got a bit more rough, the scenery got even more epic. Sharp hills around a rocky river bed and the road right next to it. Everything was so vast but felt so familiar. About one-and-a-half hours off of the Carretera Austral, there was it — the Chilean border house. Stepping inside, we found one friendly guy handling both immigration and customs and after some chat and a number of stamps, the paperwork was sorted. He came outside with us to open the gate, and didn’t seem to even look at the bikes. So far so good… The deal was that Sebastian who still had a license plate would go ahead. I saw the official turn his head to the back of Sebastian’s bike. I waited two seconds and smoothly, but not hesitantly crossed the gate, waving at the man. Would he come after us? Probably not. The Argentina side quite similarly was a one-man show in a tiny wooden house. The house smelled like smoked sausage and the guard even seemed surprised to see us. He wrote down our details in a giant book, stamped our passports (the only place where Argentina still gives stamps, it seems) and we repeated the before procedure. We had made it — we were back in Argentina! At this point, the scenery became just unreal. Monument-valley style hills, blue ponds, all kinds of birds including condors and flamingos flying about. We had the sun and quite a sharp wind right in our back — riding high.
The End of the Road
In the very south of Argentina, things got pretty remote too. After lots of highways, an awe-inspiring hike to the foot of Mount Fitz Roy and witnessing stunning glaciers, our alloted time window came to an end. At this point, Tierra del Fuego (country of fire) and Ushuaia only were a few days away. So was Sebastians plane back home. We thus decided to split up and I head to the end of the road as our, say, representative. After traversing mostly flat while leaning the bike against the strongest side wind I have experienced so far, the mountains came back just before Ushuaia. Arriving there felt strangely familiar, almost like coming home. The end of the road. Or was it the beginning?
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