The alarm dominates the morning and I dominate the alarm! It got switched from 6.00 to 7.00 then off completely. It was raining and heavily, I wasn’t going riding in this, we would miss what remained of our ride on the Carretera and what an anticlimax that would be. We had breakfast and went to the only reported place to have wifi to confer with the weather web site. Having ordered a coffee and a hot chocolate we were disappointed to discover that the connection didn’t work in my case and barely in Pauls. I asked a woman in a small eatery if she new what the forecast would be and she was quite sure that the next day would be OK so it was settled, we would leave tomorrow. Paul spent the day painting and doing photography and I writing and trying to get over this terrible cold I have. It is actually good to have a rest day! Not only did we get a lot done but we had the best meal for awhile, we went the “Almuerzo completo” at La Cabinita the Hosteria we were staying at. The hostess also runs the restaurant and is a sensational cook. We got a hot meat broth full of veggies, then a main meal of carne, mashed potatoes and salad then desert and coffee for about $10. Oh yes and Paul went off to do some late afternoon photography and I went for a Nanna nap. Paul came back and discovered that whilst engaged in his photography he had lost his dry sack!! Not a happy camper!
March 24th
What a day we had! The weather today was sensational, luckily we waited for the rain to clear. In sensational I mean it did not rain but the entire day the sky looked menacing which made the environment we rode through so much more dramatic and fantastic for taking photographs. So much so that taking photographs was hampering our progress and we had to keep reminding ourselves that we needed to make the border.
Anyway, we rode about ½ km then had to stop for a photograph (town limits), this was the order of the day. We rode around the lake and through mountains to get to Chile Chico and the border post. On one of the photographic stops I got off the bike and began to walk away and the bike went over with a crash! With the bike fully loaded the stand tends to hold the bike upright as with the suspension compressed it is now too long, usually I’m very careful that it has a bit of a lean. As it came down Paul was turning around to go back up a short hill to take photos and didn’t see the accident. I tried to lift the bike but it was too heavy and fuel was pouring out the breather and the carby, I think! I tried to call Paul on the intercom but it had gone off due to the distance between the bikes earlier on, I tried to turn it on whilst holding the bike a little more horizontal as it was leaning sideways down hill. I couldn’t raise him so just yelled and managed to get him over that bloody noisy exhaust he has. He came back and we righted the bike, damn heavy with all the gear! Everything looked ok except for a few scratches on the pannier, I was pretty happy about that as I was expecting some major damage.
We finally made Chile Chico and decided we should have some lunch. We went to a restaurant that was advertising the Almuerzo Completo expecting the same deal as the Hosteria but ended up with meat and tomato, and lettuce salad for $13 this is all American dollars I am talking here! When you can get a very large meat egg etc. Empanada for a $1.00 this was a rip off and we left very unhappy.
We headed for the border. We pulled up, got out the required papers so we thought and proceeded to immigration. The official at immigration told us we couldn’t leave the country until we had paid the Argentinian reciprocity fee and could only o this on line back at Chile Chico. This was new, thank you Australia, now we have to pay $100US to get into Argentina because that is what Australia makes everyone do, it was $117 to get into Chile! Back we went to find an internet café with a printer. Went through the process which wasn’t that straight forward and got the paperwork required and back we went to the border post and immigration, no problem, through we went to the Adouana (customs). No problem off to Argentina we went. Through immigration then to customs, all good except…… the guy made a mess of copying down the numbers for both our bikes and had to do it again and reprint the info. Important as all must match or they think you are trying to export another bike not the one you imported.
You can see the quality of the camp site by the amount of graffiti. Paul tried to burn it down with the MSR.
We then headed into Los Antiguos for a municipal campsite. This cost $30 for each person, $100 for each tent and $50 for each bike (Argentinian Pesos that is)! Why they can’t just bill you for a camp site I have no idea! Bloody expensive, about 5 times what we had been paying in Chile. The campsite was crap, soft powdered dirt with a light in the middle of it that stayed on all night and made it feel like daylight, the shower was hot but had a hole the size of a dinner plate in the wall, families everywhere with kids running amuck till about 12.00, a guy who idled his car for about 2hrs for no apparent reason, then about 5 car loads of young people rolled up and full on partied till about 4.00am. About 10.00am they all get up and leave, purpose… to party at the camp site, WTF!!!! The next morning the guy gets up and starts his car again and idles it for another couple of hours. NO MORE MUNICIPAL CAMP SITES!!!!!
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