the Kamloops "motorcycle riding fools" south american adventure

04klr

04klr

Well-known member
Buenos noches desde rio gallenas. After spending the big bucks for a real live breakfast this morning, we headed for the Moreno glacier arriving just in time to watch an massive piece of ice took a plunge into the lake beside it, nice timing. After listening to the ice crack and bang away for awhile we moved along. The ride today was a different kind of challenge, real wind, after yesterdays hundreds of km of deep loose gravel and high side winds, today was even stronger winds ripping over barren land. Its a terrific hands on way to learn about aerodynamics because when you've got the bike cranked over into to the wind at a seeming large lean angle, and then you pass a little hill and the wind suddenly becomes a low pressure back-eddy and you almost ride straight into the ditch, or try passing apwind semi in he same direction of travel, as you pass beside the truck the blocked wind launches the overlaoded klr forward like a slingshot straight into the wall of a bow wave the truck is pushing, damn near stopping the bike. it's a pay full attention ride across a fairly barren land to get here to within reach of Ushuia and the end of the road(in this direction) passed heaps of Ryeas (big emu like bird) and a llama like critter called a "guanaco " and some big rabbits and a fox or two the reality is setting in that we've almost run out of land.
I now i'm repeating myself but, wow.
and the burgers we had tonite, awesome and huge, terrific chunk of carne burger, ham, huevo, tomato, queso, lettuce, real fries, quilmes cerveza. yum


interesting stat: we've had darn near 21000 views and we're almost 21000kms, a 1 to 1 ratio, keep those views coming!
 
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Big Boar

Big Boar

New member
interesti g stat: we've had darn near 21000 views and we're almost 21000kms, a 1 to 1 ratio, keep those views coming![/QUOTE]

You guys are Legends! It feels like i have done this ride now. Thanks for the ride along the way!
Big
 
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cactusreid

Active member
wayne I know your always keeping track of the "ga-zintas" in your head as you travel, so here's a post to hopefully put you one ahead of what you NEED!
The kamloops baja bus is heading south at 0900 am thurs morning,and for the first time in about 10 years,I won't be on it!! DAMN!! But I'm heading to san jose baja at the end of the month with my wife and our friends, gary and shelly for a 12 day jeep style tour around the southern cape area. You boys stay safe and be careful for this last leg of your adventure,ok?
Ride like your a long way from help boy's,enjoy yourselves and bring er home safe! send us a picture of a penguin KK??
 
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Zuki

New member
I'm curious, is the feeling starting to be, we are almost done and regret its coming to that end or are you guys looking forward to home?
 
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mugs

New member
We made it to Ushuiai today, after 3 days of intense wind and 80 % of it cross winds which Wayne had stated push you right across the road at times. This isn't so bad on ashphalt but the gravel can make thr KLR do some nasty stuff, like front end plows over the loose high gravel berms from the vehicle tracks. we all kind of wonder why would anyone want to live here ? The last 70 kilos into Ushuaia on the other hand are quite spectacular starting with rolling hills and slowly getting covered with trees , then the mountains start and lakes , Wayne says it reminds him of the coast of Alaska. weather got cold and we pulled out all the cold weather gear and turned on the heated vest and grips today. Oh ya Wayne those big llama like creatures are Guanacos the wild cousin . Lots of other bike riders down here from all parts of the world , it seems to be a destination for many to see the most southerly city in the world . It looks like Mark will take the ferry from Natales to Puerto Mont and the rest of us will back track a bit then cut over to meet him in about 6 days. The feeling of missing home comes and goes , i guess it depends on how things are going , right now everyone seems to be in good spirits and enjoying the adventure and yes we know its getting close to the end but there is still lots ahead. We're going to try and get out on a boat tomorrow and see some penguins, buenas noches.
 
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cactusreid

Active member
nice going guy's! your spot say's you are still a ways up the continent, so it's cool to hear that you made it! are you planning on going any farther south, or is this the turnaround point? I'm thinking it's pretty cold down there,being that close to antarticia? just think about sailing a ship around that area of the world,no wonder they built the panama canal?
 
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cactusreid

Active member
"we'd go farther south, but there is no more land left to ride on."

Now there is a signature line if I ever saw one! That's kind of what i thought, but knowing you boy's are all offroad capable even with the klr's, I thought you maybe bushwacking a little closer to the antartic ocean? What's the temps like down there? Penguins??
 
04klr

04klr

Well-known member
the temps are kind of arctic like, but ar the opposite end, kind of an anti arctic, yea thats it antarctic. yesterday was the coldest day of the trip, layers and electrics were the requirements for the day.
hmm a loose screw slide show, ya never know, but you realize there is only one shot of a welder, excuse me a transformer with exposed taps. sum totaled there are lots of pics for sure. going to be tourists tomorrow and go penguin hunting apparently you can shoot as many as you want, even shoot whole groups of em, I'm planning on taking my camera.
 
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MaryC

New member
I think maybe you guys are looking at Mark's last Spot message but it was from a few days ago. They are in Ushuaia now.
 
04klr

04klr

Well-known member
buenos tardes desde ushuia, we went and saw the penguins today, they look just like the ones you see on tv. (only bigger)
terrific weather today and in an hour we will go to the official end of the road for some pics and a cerveza and will meet up with some fellas one from toronto (left home early nov and rode all the way) and two from columbia and an aussie who purchased a klR in alaska then rode to here.
couple of pics for you. Mud, the first real venture into it, deep gloppy oozing mud, we quickly learned that road construction was bad news!

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oh sure he´s smilin, but,,

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guess the others arent loaded yet, later with those.
When someone has a bad day on the road here (here meaning starting in mexico and going south) there is generally a roadside memorial erected at the site and usually with some artifact of what went wrong, sometimes there is a pair of memorials, this picture here is perched on the edge of an extremely high cliff taken in bolivia, clearly, a very dangerous spot.

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a ways further someone with way too much time on their hands placed miles of little cairns along the roadside.

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the road on the way to uyuni, is the one that turned the klr´s into subs. and yes one into a glubbed sub. this shot is from when the road was just plain rough before it starts to get wet, real wet.

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Robin lead the way, Floyd following, the rest took that nice big dry bridge on the left. That is a fairly zoomed in shot, the crossing was an easy 3 or 4 hundred feet.

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fortunately for me there are no pics loaded of my little swim (ok there might be). bummer. at the end of a rather deep river crossing my Klr dropped into a hole launched out then down, on its side, fortunately landing on shore. This pic is the last of the offroad-ish water as we enter the town itself, where there was an equal amount of water everywhere!

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there are two reasons why people go to uyuni, and I´m not sure either is a good reason and one for sure is not. There is a graveyard of old trains rusting away there, some actually may well have been robbed by butch cassidy and the sundance kid, at least we said so to make it seem a little more worthwhile and may well be true.

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the other reason is the salt lake which is massive, the biggest in s america, it,s a medium length very bumpy wet drive in a 4x4 to the lake itself where the trucks all happily drive through shin deep salt water to get to the salt hotel 5k from shore (no you dont want to stay there) quite surprisingly the trucks are not all rusted hulks, perhaps the many wet crossings just to get to the lake wash them off enuf, just glad it´s not my truck.

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this pic is from where the hotel is and where we had our provided lunch.

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the last two shots for today are a pictoral description of our opinion of bolivia and the fact that they would flatly (in some cases by law!) refuse to sell us gas, after sometimes just ignoring us for way too long then just shake their heads, nope nada, go away. The experience was enuf for a siskel/ebert 4 thumbs down giving us reason to now refer to the place as, bumlivia. The first is in the 1.5hr line up for the privlege to buy gas. gee thanks.

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the next is of our very much appreciated and enthusiastic gasolina bootlegger who bailed us out after three stations refused us and the fourth he took us to and tried to smooth talk them into the sale all failed he took us to his home where his mother provided chairs and drinks, friends arrived and a toyota drove away and returned with fuel (filling a container via the cars electric fuel pump) took hours but was muy appreciated.

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thats it. mark just told me we are gearing up for our end of road ride, more later, after we start heading NORTH.
Wayne.
 
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motoged

New member
Bueno suerte , amigos on your return north....that "turn-around" point always brings a tear to my eye and a little heaviness to my heart....but as you say....there is still a lot ahead of you.

Sounds like Bolivia is a good place to avoid....but full of stories.....and those are the treasures you are collecting along the way.

I am off to find a bank and then .....well....I dunno.....maybe work on my tan....

I am currently on the beach north of Zihuatanejo....just reading your "cold" stories is kinda like having a cool breeze pass by for a moment.....kinda....

With you in spirit....a la KLR :eek:
 
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mugs

New member
Well we are back in chile in the town of chile chico . The past three days have been a combination of riding through sweet f all and nothing highway three and across patagonia to chile . The winds are strong and relentless with the highway litter with dead guanacos, at first i thought they maybe were the victoms of deer in the headlight syndrome but later found out they are committing suiced after being born into such a crappy place. Hell i considered steering my bike into a oncoming semi myself more than once ! Had to do a little patch job on my windsheild and lost some storage space in the left panier after zigging instead of the zag i should have done at the end of the road in ushuaia . ( thats what three beer, darkness and a winding dirt road can do to ya ) lesson learned? We´re heasing through the mountains through chile now , back to some scenery at last. The adventure continues
 
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Ann Vandrick

New member
Just returned from 5 days up at the cabin (OMG do we have snow up there) and the first thing I did was log in to catch up on your adventures. You continue to take my breath away. You’ve had an unbelievable week – I was holding my breath as I read your updates and pondered the pictures. I’m pretty sure that we’re gonna have to come up with ‘super hero’ names for each of you – you are no longer mere mortals…
 
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Zuki

New member
I am happy for your fun trip but glad your nearing the return. Time to start working on the sidekick Mark! Spring has sprung here!!
 
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motoged

New member
Well, after two weeks on a KLR, I can attest to it being a good plunker for slow roads....with enough huevos for the big boy roads. My last four days of riding has been some of the best I have done in 38 years of riding....I can imagine you guys are cooing over some of your routes.

The KLR needs a better seat, some suspension work, but it gets the job done...you guys seem to have been experiencing few if any mechanical issues...

Are you guys camping as much as you thought you would? I know that at the end of a long hot day in Mexico a bed and shower are a bonus....but some of the beds are like box springs with no padding....

Hope you are all well.

Ged
 
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