Once again the alarm sounded at 6.00am and once again I thought no thanks and reset for 7.00, the excuse was I heard rain begin to hit the tent. It was dark and I felt really knackered and just did not wish to extricate myself from my cosy warm sleeping bag or the tent. We had to get a fair distance down Ruta 7 today and onto the Rippio that was being worked on as that section of the road would be shut from 1.30 to 5.00. Not knowing exactly where the shut down point would be didn’t exactly help! At seven I called out to Paul and we began the process of packing, I must admit I now have a system worked out and it went quite smoothly. Getting out of the tent I put the coffee on and the porridge in the pot shortly after, Paul busy with his preparations. We managed to hit the road by about 9:15, even though I sat on the bike for quite a while as Paul continued to faff around.
After a quick fuel stop in Coyhaique we motored on down the highway, the asphalt living up to expectations. Before too long we began to experience the legendary Patagonian winds with the bikes being hit from all angles as we made our way toward Cerro Castille. It was a little unnerving at times as the bikes would veer toward the centre of the road unexpectantly or worse toward the edge of the road, a railing or steep drop. When the wind was from behind it was bliss as it became quiet in the helmet and the music being Bluetoothed to the headset could be heard perfectly adding to the enjoyment of the twisting road through the mountains.
The rest of the day was spent riding in an air of expectant rain that didn’t eventuate. There was a lot of menacing cloud interspersed with brilliant sunshine which created an amazing palette of colour throughout the mountain and lake landscape we travelled. Both Paul and I indicated via the headsets to stop on numerous occasions to take advantage of the landscape and conditions to take photographs. The vistas were so awe inspiring and continuous that stopping at construction road blocks for short periods of time was not onerous, with time spent absorbing the environment and taking the odd photograph. At times I become conscious that I was looking at this beautiful area via the screen of my camera a little too often and ensured that after I had recorded the moment that I took time to breath the fresh air and enjoy what I was seeing and experiencing.
I hadn’t realised the altitude we were riding at and when we rounded a bend and looked down toward Cerro Castille once again I was dumbfounded with what I saw. As far as the eye could see the hills rolled on and in the centre was what appear to be an ancient eroded volcano Cerro Castille was nestled in amongst the hills with the concrete road we were following snaking it’s way in a plethora of switchbacks down to the pueblo (village). Off to the right were what I presumed the town gained it’s name from, eroded mountains that took on the form of castles with the peaks and troughs between resembling the crenelated walls of those medieval structures. Finally we left the mirador and took the snaking road down into the valley and reached the Rippio just outside the town to discover we had plenty of time to spare. I was now glad I had taken the opportunity to stop and take a couple of photos that Paul had tried to hurry me on for fear of missing the road closure dead line.
Not even a kilometre in to the gravel road we came to our first road block which allowed us to take in more of the surrounding mountains and river. Shortly after we moved to another and then another road block, at least we were on our way and would not be forced to wait four hours at one. The last we encountered was once again at a location that one could only be elated to be at. We were stopped looking into a valley where the blue waters of a glacial melt had created a flat plain with a line of rounded hills down one side that faded into the overhanging mist. The predominant feature was a large eroded volcano with it’s crown topped with an icing of cloud.. Whilst parked in an area to the side of the roadblock admiring the view a couple of buses and quite a few cars joined a conga line and at it’s head stood a man with a small red and green lolly pop paddle that controlled it’s movement. I indicated to Paul that we pull out and move to the front, Paul was reluctant. I stuck the nose of the DR around from the back of a white pickup and the man with the the paddle motioned me forward to the front of the line and did the same with Paul. Once again we felt the eyes of disapproval upon us, we had become queue jumpers, which I justified by saying well what’s the point of a motorcycle if you can’t cut lanes or queue jump, we're smaller and quicker.
After this point the road works dominated, fortunately for us there was little action with the big machines inactive on the side of the road, it must have been lunch time. We did come across one machine perched precariously high above the road side and below a cliff face busily hammering away with a hydraulic chisel attempting to dislodge great chunks of rock to enable the road to be widened. Not long after this the road split and a truck was coming down the left hand side, I chose the right then realised that the surface was quite soft, I stood up on the pegs and the bike wobbled a little as it hit the volcanic sand. I was forced to take a line which took me into one of the deep dual tracks left by a truck and new instantly this was a very bad line, and it was!! My front wheel caught on the side of the wheel track and threw me off to one side, the bike bucked a little out of control and I found myself heading for the raised section of road on the left and the on coming truck. It happened so quickly I instinctively gave it a a hard twist of the throttle and turned the bike back down the bank and along the original route, thankfully I managed to stay on and kept the power on until I was free of that section of road. Paul was very close behind me and seeing what was happening backed off then also began to wobble with his immediate reaction to put his feet down. This caused his foot to catch and flick his leg under the aluminium pannier. He managed to drag it out and gain control of his bike then work his way out of the soft section. The adrenaline kicked in and there was a sense of euphoria at having survived a near fall.
The Rippio continued all the way to Pto Rio Tranquillo and produced many opportunities for Paul and I to stop and take in the scenery and of course get out the cameras. I doubt that we can actually do justice to what we have seen in the pictures we have taken. It was 4.30, we had taken 7 hours to travel the 230km to our present location. We scouted what appeared to be a town set up for adventurers with glacier walking, boat trips to caves on the lake, ice climbing trekking and skiing, for accommodation. The first couple of places were 55,000 and 85,000 respectively and stuck of the list of possibilities. The next took one look at us and the bikes and pointed us down the road to La Cabanita which offers secure parking and rooms for 20,000. It was spotless, had aguascalientes (hot water) and a clean decent bathroom. As far as we were concerned it was another action packed day and definitely one to be remembered.
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