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Published: April 4th 2014
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Mendoza, Argentina to Vina del Mar, Chile.....
We were to spend two nights here in Mendoza and take in the cultural and winery scene, well some of us stayed for three nights and really enjoyed the city. We went to Lopez Winery for lunch on our last day and we were in for a treat, this will now become part of our next Tarmac Tour.
Gerardo, along with Bob and Mary, went onto Uspallata for the last night in Argentina, while we, D Duke and D Nurse stayed the last night in Mendoza, we made an early start, getting away by 8.00 am the next day and made a run for Chile...After a refuel and a coffee for us in Uspillata, a quick look at the Puente del Inca, we caught up with the advance party at the Argentine/Chile Border.
The Border process finished up taking us 2 hours. Bones and I were last and as the others were all ready to go, so they moved on. Once we were free to go, we headed down the hill and checked out the lake at Portillo for a photo opportunity.
We headed down hill again only to run
into a 'Stop and NOT Go' man. The others had made it through on the run, but we were now stopped here for 1 hour and 25 minutes in the sun and on a slope, so I could not put the bike on the centre stand, you may remember that I broke the side stand spring some weeks ago.....so it was a pretty long wait!!
Finally on our way, we had the down hill run to ourselves, it seemed they were painting the yellow lines on the new sections of the road and wouldn't let us go until it was dry!!
We eventually caught up with the others at the Copec, where we needed to top up with fresh fuel and I needed a 1/4 chicken and chips....
We all arrived back at the Ankara, after riding 5734 kilometres of tar sealed roads, through diverse scenery, including the Atacama Desert and Rain Forests and high altiplano to complete our inaugural Tarmac Tour.
The next day, we took the motos to our washing place and they all came back in showroom condition.
The farewell dinner was a bit subdued, as Bob and Mary went off to
celebrate their 39th wedding anniversary on their own, but we had an excellent meal and reflected the highs and lows of our adventure with Ross and Christine.
So, next morning we set off to load the motos into the container, but for some reason, unknown to us, we had shipped into a different agency and the road in was a dirt road. That would have been ok, but they sent the bloody water truck along to wet it down, which turned it into unavoidable MUD.
We could not find a hose or water supply to clean the tyres that were now caked in mud. A bright fellow, went off with a bucket and returned some ten minutes later with it half full of water, well it didn't take much time to use that up and off he went again...turned out he was getting it from the bloody staff shower!!!!
This whole process took us much longer than planned, so Bob, Mary and Ross went back to the hotel with the pre booked taxi, as they were all going in a pre booked taxi to Santiago at 1.00 pm.
That left me and Gerardo to pack the
container, we finalised the packing and loading of the container, then I rode 'Pillion Bitch' with him back to the hotel, with only my bandana on my head for protection, as I had packed my helmet and gloves in the bike.
We just missed the others as they drove off to Santiago. Gerardo and I spent the rest of the day sorting details for our Patagonia Expedition in late October.
The next day Gerardo got away early as he had to get to Puerto Montt to get his bike shipped home, Bones and I did the last of our packing and rested up before our taxi arrived to take us to Santiago Airport. We met up with D Duke and D Nurse at the airport, during which time, Iquique in the far North of Chile, was shaken by an 8.0 Terramoto (Earthquake) with the best part of the coast being evacuated. We were unaware of this event until our arrival at Auckland just before 4.00am.
We can now confirm we have another great adventure with our Tarmac Tour and look forward another one next year.
Please check out our web site at www.roscosrockyroad.com and of course,
'Like' us on our Face Book page.
I hope you have enjoyed our Blog and I will follow up in a few months with out trip to Luxembourg and tour to the Isle of Man TT Racing.
un abrazo, Rosco
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