Argentina from -2 to +24 deg Celsius

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Here we are all in Pourto Madryn on Argentina's Atlantic Coast.

In the past few days we have ridden our motos through snow and sleet at -4 deg and now basking in the sun at 24 deg on the beach - Life is good!! We will be here for two nights before heading South

We finally made it to San Carlos de Bariloche, a day late but as we had planed two nights here, we were back on schedule.

I will include a few more photos of our ride through the snow and sleet, some from my GoPro and some from Melean as she followed us in the chase truck

Poor Eric (my BMW) was castrated by Rippa a couple of days ago, but I only noticed this barbarc act yesterday, it appears that he wanted his KTM called 'Nancy' to have more BALLS......but really speaking a KTM called Nancy does not suit a pair of balls, it seams that some reconstructive surgery will take place shortly so Eric can 'feel himsef' again for the ride South.

Thanks to David, he has written up some blog, so here are his observation from Bariloche.....

We had a relaxed start today, not needing to leave till noon. This is a tourist town so everybody did a good walk around and took in the many shops. It seemed one out of five was a chocolate shop, very hard to resist. The souvenir t-shirts were bought and some other items before packing up and heading dew south to Esquel.

A straight 3 hour run down Ruta 40. We were going to take a diversion halfway down through a national park and get some use of our adventure tires on 70km of gravel roads. The report however said it had had 1m of snow recently and was barely passable with 4 wheel drive vehicles. Most of us took this advice. Except Rippa and Jack who had decided to take the lead out of town.

Whether it was a conscious decision, or they just took the wrong road will never be clear but with the syphoning of fuel along the way they turned up a couple of hours later at the hotel…(and where are the photo's??Rosco)

The landscape was initially running along the lake with snow-capped mountain peaks on each side. This moved onto open plans with the snowed mountains always in the vista.

With the open roads came the crosswinds that Ruta 40 is renowned for. Pushing you across half a lane in an instant as you lean in and out of the wind. Quite tense riding that can be tiring. Started out with 6 degs and up to 18 so a relatively comfortable day.

Melean in the chase truck has been taking some absolutely stunning photos along the way some of which have already been put up, eg in the snow. So I will speak nicely to her publicist and get some more soon.

5-11-2014

The ride from Esquel to Puerto Madryn was one of the longer planned for the trip, 670km. It was pretty much a straight run due east across the pampas. Fuel stops were unpredictable, some were out of gas, so we topped up when we could to be on the safe side.

The roads were very straight and the vast majority in good condition with the winds mostly on our backs the ride was not as demanding as it could have been. About 8 hours to get there including stops. There were very few cars on the road going in either direction. The challenge was to stay focussed as the roads can be completely unpredictable with large pot holes and metal showing up when least expected. Not a lot of variety in the scenery, very little livestock, just the odd horse , goat or sheep.

Initially we travelled through large eroded rock formations then onto the flat pampas that stretched forever. The houses in the middle of nowhere all had small wind turbines taking advantage of the abundant wind.

The Atlantic was a welcome sight as we came over the rise above Puerto Madryn. Down to our seafront hotel, where the view from the 4^th floor is nothing but coast and ocean. A rest day next for some r & r.

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Photos

How COOL is this?
Trust me it's -4 deg !!

Still cold out there
Thanks to Melean for these photos.

Tiny and Rippa
What no SNOW!! and it's 23deg.

Time to relax a bit.
Gerardo taking it easy.

Comments

[Zane]

I bet you've had enough of that. Hopefully the weather will improve for you and you'll see some native wildlife, guanaco (impressive) etc. Zane

[D MJ Binkley]

Too cold
I would hate riding in those temperatures. It is not fit for man nor beast. Great photos but they make me want to grab a hot toddy. Stay safe.