Day 67-68

42,867 – 43,303  436 Miles today (20,603 Miles Overall)

Perito Moreno, Argentina – El Calafate, Argentina

I got up quite early today to beat the high winds. Today was supposed to be the worst and most windy day to ride and the noise outside already woke me up at 6. I took a nice hot shower and loaded up the bike. I said bye to Lars and hopefully we would get to meet up again soon. I hit the road road and I had 5 hours to get to the Gobernador town to get fuel before I got on this dirt road which was infamous for hurting people. This road has 75 kilometers of deep gravel with some of the strongest winds in Argentina. People are waiting in this town for weeks to cross and downloading an app called Windy to check the winds. They leave at 5am to get through at the lowest winds for the day. I think three people on a Facebook group crashed in the last few weeks and broke their legs. These guys got me all jacked up for this ride. I’ve been worried about it for months.

So I was on the road and thank god I took my sun visor off because it was blowing even harder now. But I barely felt anything on my head which was great. I was surprised to not see any towns or gas stations for a while but this was the first time I didn’t do any research because I’m getting cocky with my big fuel tank and how far I can go on it. at one point I had a 50mph tailwind I assume. I was doing 90-95 and it felt like a 30mph wind or so on my helmet. It was really freaky to be going that fast and not hear and feel what I normally do. I stopped to pee and at one point and my bike almost blew over with how windy it was. I kept on riding and realized I fucked up. I’m about to run out of fuel. I slowed down from my 70-90mph run and started doing 40mph to save my fuel. I was probably gonna run out if I hit a headwind from this crosswind. I tucked down real low and was pretty nervous because I saw one car this whole morning. I also shaved down the ride from 5 houses to 3 with how fast I was going. I eventually made it into town.

I filled up my 24 Liter tank with 23.5 liters. That’s how close I was to running out. I drank the rest of my water from my 2 liter bottle and filled that up with fuel as well. Not taking anymore chances I don’t need this anxiety anymore nor do I want anymore stories to tell. I had to make a decision here on what to do. I don’t want to be that cocky asshole to get hurt and be stuck out there with a broken leg after what I’ve heard about this ride. Of course I realize half the people out there in this world are a bunch of idiots and don’t belong out here on this trip anyway. I’m gonna go for it.

10:30am I was leaving the town with a 50 mile paved section and then I would get to the dirt. So now I’m doing the ride at the worst time of the day. Smart. Sounds like I might have a story to tell. I got on the road and told Lars my plan. I hauled ass on the straight boring paved road and then I hit the dirt. It was hard packed dirt with some gravel for the first 35kms and it was a bit sketchy. The winds were probably 40mph from the right and blowing hard. It was blowing me all over the place. After 35kms of packed dirt I hit the deep, deep gravel. My bike felt weird yet again as soon as I hit the dirt, My tires felt like shit but I got my confidence back after a few miles. On the gravel I decided I would nail the throttle and keep my avg speed at 60mph. I kept the tires in a small rut made from cars about 6″ wide. I couldn’t come out of this rut because the gravel was super deep and with the wind I’d probably crash. I was hauling ass. Yak would be proud. I’m even proud of myself. I’ve come a long way with my riding skills on stuff like this since the beginning. I ended up seeing some other adventure bikes up front and decided to push my luck. I want to blow past these guys doing 70 and then stop for lunch and the next town to see what they would say to me. The winds hit me twice and pushed me out of the rut and scared the shit out of me. I thought I was going down but just let the bike do its thing and didn’t fight it. I got it back in the rut and blew past these adventure bikes and boy was I laughing my ass off under my helmet. These guys were doing about 10-15mph standing up. Two of the bikes were from Germany and one from Chile. I blew past a bunch of bikes and cars coming head on and they were all going 10-15 as well. I was really wishing that I had my go pro on the handlebars to film me passing these guys but unfortunately I didn’t think I’d have anything good to film today.

One guy on a 1200 was either cheering me on for going so fast when I passed him in oncoming traffic or was pissed at me and probably calling me dumb for going so fast. I don’t know which one it was nor do I give a shit. I ripped through this section so fast it was awesome. These guys are gonna be on it for 3 hours at the pace they were riding. At the end of the section I hit the strongest winds I’ve ever ridden in my life. It was absolutely a steady 50mph crosswind. My bike was on a serious angle and I was nervous of the front tire getting swiped out from under me but I kept riding pretty fast. I was all over the road in both lanes and after a little while it calmed back down to 40mph of a crosswind. I passed the first town where I was hoping to get food and see these guys I passed but nothing was open.

Onwards we go. I had about another 1.5-2 hours to El Calafate. It was a beautiful ride. Glacial lakes everywhere with glacial rivers. The water was incredibly turquoise. I couldn’t believe this color. I’ve never seen anything like it. I wonder why it’s so dark and no see through at all. It looks like someone dyed the water this color. I eventually made it into El Calafate and checked into my hostel. I was beat. I went to Patagonia Brewing co for a beer and a burger and walked around town a bit. I dropped off some laundry and then had some ice cream. I couldn’t do much in this town because Sameera is finally arriving in two days and was supposed to come back here to go see the glacier 50 miles west of here and then head up to El Chalten to see Fitz Roy. So I just am kind of sitting around at this point killing time until she gets here.

I rode around town looking for oil with no luck. I got some dinner at a steakhouse and it was delicious as usual. Back to my hostel to crash for the night.

Day 68

I was on a mission to find oil and with luck I found it quite quick at another car shop. While I was changing my oil I remembered that yesterday I noticed some oil around the oil pan. I took a better look and noticed my front shaft seal was leaking. I officially hate this bike. This is some pretty shitty timing as Sameera is leaving today and there’s no way she can get her hands on the part to bring it down. I ordered some parts for the bike to a guy’s house in Az who will be flying down to Santiago on December 28th so I’ll have to figure out how to get it from him. I’m hoping it even lasts till then. After I changed the oil I took another look over the bike and everything was fine for now.

I met up with another rider from Australia who broke his spark plug a few days ago and will probably be stuck here for two weeks. We watched the game and thank god Argentina won. These guys in town were losing their shit. The after party wasn’t nearly as big as it was in Bariloche but it was still cool to watch. I didn’t do much the rest of the day except work on my blog and walk around a bit more. I went to a crossfit class at 8 pm which was nice to get back into and then got back home and watched some movies and passed out at 1:30am because this shithead next to me was snoring like the world was about to end. I was tempted to punch him in the mouth and pretend like nothing happened. I can’t wait to share a private room with Sameera for ten days.