Full speed ahead

---

Well monotony and the fact that I wanted to see a friend got me to Viedma where I also met Claudio and his collection of motorcycles and his generosity.

So after Viedma it was still going south that was the thing south south and further south, well I got as far as Puerto Madryn when I decided to call it a day, I had one crappy lunch and a very nice dinner, here's a peninsula outside Madryn that's sorta famous for whales(WALES?) and stuff but it's not whale season so I did not really feel like going there to see a few penguins and some seals.

Hence I set firth with grim determination but now going west as I'd been told that it is much nicer inland than on the coast, well easy peasy, it can't be worse..

I thought that i might leave the wind behind on the coast but no such luck, and the patagonian wind is a bastard because it it changes direction as it wants.

'Tis hard work to drive under these conditions, makes a stint at the gym a piece of cake, my shoulders feel as I've been lifting weights all day.

As always in this country petrol stations are few and far between and there's always a queue, everybody goes by the idea better to fill up now than later so people queue for 15 litres.

My range is about 300 km so I try to get petrol every 200 or so because fill it when you can, I am learning and pushing 300 kgs of KTM is not my idea of fun.

So what do you do in the middle of the Argie hinterlands, look for roadkills, well there are some live ones as well, and listen to music and fight the damned wind.

There are Guanacos, a llama cousin, some kind of little falcon that also looks for road kills, easy supper for them. I took evasive action for an armadillo, would like to kill one of those.

I actually have a stuffed one at home from when my father went to Argie, in the days when it was ok to kill animals for no other reason than to sell them as souvenirs and an armadillo run over by a motorbike is not much of a souvenir and besides which they're quite cute.

Very few cows and not very many cows, that and the blue skies.

My goal was to hit Ruta 40, the famous road that goes from northern Argie almost all the way to the south, it used to be all grave but now it's mostly paved.

It's very macho to have done gravel on the "Cuarenta" so most people who go down south hit the cuarenta, so now do I feel more masculine?

Not really but there are more bikes on the cuarenta than on he coastal road, so then you can wave at people and getting waved at and chat in the lines waiting for petrol.

Had a nice chat with a Swedish German couple on two little 250 cc they had bought for 2200 Euros in Chile, it was a clear case of" You gets what you pays for".

Well we had a nice chat and then I went south on the cuarenta, no gravel yet, in search of a humble abode to lay down my weary bones.

Gobernador Costas was the place

---

Photos

in line
Argie petro station queue

20150114_095047 (3)
The great wide open

20150114_170048 (3)
Eloi and Raul my new traveling mates

20150115_092753
Gravel