20th January 2020
Today I only left Mendoza at 12:15. I bought a foot-pump to replace the highly rated but good for only two inflations Motopressor pump. In fact I feel a bit guilty for the Swiss guys tyre woes a few days ago, as my pump probably didn’t help matters.. So I bought a small foot-pump from a motorcycle dealers this morning.
As it was late, and was forecast to be 40 degrees today, I decided to keep it a fairly short day. Plus I spent an hour talking to Matias, proprietor of the Chill Inn where I stayed last night. Our chat just confirmed something that, to be honest, I have been thinking about for a few days.
First, though, today’s ride. The first bit was motorway. And very hot, 40 degrees, as advertised. I really needed to get further south, to better climes. My new phone kept shutting down due to overheating. But I could see a thunderstorm on the horizon, and, although I didn’t hit any rain, a cooling blast cooled me and the bike down for a while. Temperature dropped to 33. Then it got hot again. The bike seemed to prefer 5000 rpm instead of it’s normal 5200, so I let it cruise how it wanted. I guess around 55mph? All the while, for 80km or so, a car kept station behind me.
Another straight 80km or so through a scrubland landscape, and then I could see 2 huge storms ahead.
A long way to nowhere-after the storm
At first I though I would go between them, but then the road veered 30 degrees and I was heading straight into blackness. I got hit with really hard rain just as I approached the most interesting scenery for miles (not forgetting the constant movie of the Andes on the right). It was the Rio Diamante, and lots of very wet curves, the first curves I had seen since leaving Mendoza. The rain was so hard it stung through my riding suit. And then, back up onto the plain, and back into sunshine. .A few minutes later, the car behind me whooshed past and shrunk into the vanishing point, with a wave from both of us. I had had the feeling this car was acting as some sort of shepherd, and him accelerating past me after the storms confirmed this in my mind. Thanks dude, whoever you are!
I decided to stay at El Sosneado, renting a cabin at Cabina Veronica, recommended by a traveller on iOverlander. It is a wonderful little place. It’s run by a farmer and his wife. The guy was in full Gaucho dress, working on a battered truck in the front garden. They couldn’t speak any English, but by now I was getting pretty fluent with Google Translate, ie, I could type fast, and then hand my phone over for reply. They showed me to the cabin, which was pretty basic, but had a bed, a stove and a shower. I took a walk into the village to buy some supplies from the only shop, chatting briefly with some climbers on their way to climb something. For the first time on the trip, I cooked my own dinner.
Cabin Veronica
KM 3000
Back to the trip. The bike is suffering, I think. As mentioned earlier, cruising revs have dropped. She is using a fair bit of oil: I put half a litre in her this evening, almost finishing the litre I picked up in Buenos Aires. I don’t think this bike is built for thrashing at constant high revs, day in, day out. Twice today I pulled over in rare shade to let her cool down. I am not sure I am built for it either, tbh. To finish Ruta 40 and get back to Bariloche, where Jackie is meeting me on the 12th of next month, was perhaps asking too much. If I could cruise at 85mph it would be a different matter. I have only taken maybe 50 photos on the trip; most days seem to be about making miles, or running from weather. While I can and have ground out miles, I had started by this stage to wonder what I was doing. Why did I need to finish Ruta 40? For a tick in a box? As far as I knew, thee was only another 70km of dirt left. Apparently it is very tough dirt, but most of the trip will be spent with the throttle pinned, on tarmac, with the Andes movie playing on the right. This bike likes dirt, and so do I. So I am heading for Las Lajas tomorrow, still on Ruta 40, but then I am bailing out. Since I have been in Argentina, and people asked where I was going, all the local bikers have told me of is of great detours to explore along it’s length. I’ve missed several already, driven by a ticking clock. Their eyes glaze over when talk of going the entire road is mentioned. In the end, I guess Ruta 40 is just a line drawn on a map by a road planner in 1936; it is just a number, albeit one that has acquired an almost mythical status. But the fridge magnet shops are here already, and the majority of it has already been paved. Most of the tarmac I have been on today is brand new. Sosneado has a huge tat shop, just because it is 3000km up Ruta 40. I just bought my second fridge magnet of the trip. The northen, dirt end of Ruta 40 was completely unspoiled, challenging, a true adventure. The long desert tarmac stretches were actually very intimidating, so quite an adventure too., in it’s own way. Ruta 40 must have been very challenging when it was nearly all dirt; the northern part certainly was. But this is a once in a lifetime trip, so I want the most from it.
Matias summed it up best by saying Ruta 40 is the best road in the world to take you into close proximity to some of the best roads in the world. So that is where I am headed. Back to the dirt. No more need for 10 hour days every day; time to enjoy the landscape, take some pics, camp in some beautiful spots. The Carreterra Austral beckons, another great road, albeit without as much history (General Peron, the famous Eva’s husband, commissioned it).
I guess I would have been the first person to do the length of Ruta 40 on a Himalayan. I will leave that to someone else. Las Lajas will not actually be the end of Ruta 40 for me though. I will still have to visit it periodically on my revised plan. I just will not be tied to it anymore.
