Feb 3 2020
Well, today turned out a bit different than expected.
Kurt snores very loudly, though Sergio said I had a concert going with Kurt most of the night. We were all up around 7am, and grabbed some crappy breakfast in the bar; stale croissants and sugary jam. Kurt and Sergio headed off about 8:30, me an hour later.
I’d decided to visit Cuevo de los Manos, which is an cave where people left imprints of their hands on the cave walls thousands of years ago. It’s only 15km off Ruta 40. However, strong winds were forecast, so I decided to play it by ear, or, more accurately, by ability to ride in the wind if it became really strong. Just as I left, the first gusts arrived. By the time I reached the hills just north of Baracoles, the wind was reaching insane speeds. For much of the time, I had about 25 degrees of left lean on to stay straight. The wind was from the front left, or NW. Passing trucks going the other way was pretty dodgy, so I slowed down, although I rarely got out of 4th gear and much of the ride was spent in 3rd. I reached the turn-off for Cuevo de los Manos, and decided that the wind was too strong to head off down a dirt road that probably had no traffic on it. I was having trouble on tarmac. I was also wondering how the wind would affect my fuel consumption: I’d filled up the bike and jerry cans in Cochrane, and now had just under half a tank, plus one jerry can of 3 litres, after giving Sergio the contents of one of the cans. Perito Morino was 130km from Baja Caracoles. I carried on, and the wind got worse. At one point I thought how bizarre it was to be going round a steep, downhill, right hand bend, with the throttle pinned in 3rd gear, and the bike leaning to the left. Huge swirls of blown sand kept blasting me and twice I thought I was going to get blown off the road by gusts. It was difficult staying in my lane. Now I understood the stories of people being driven mad by the Patagonian wind, or being blown completely off the road. I was glad I hadn’t acted on the tentative idea of trying to finish Ruta 40. At one point, I stopped in the lee of some hills for a while, but I knew it wasn’t going to get any better. As soon as I set off again, the wind got even stronger, and, for the first time on the trip, I was shitting myself. It’s the first time I’d ever ridden in wind that made a motorcycle almost uncontrollable.
After the hills, the road wound across a plain, where at least the wind was more constant in speed and direction. I hunched behind the screen, getting into 4th gear for a while, once even trying 5th, but ended up having to change back down. I was still leaned over at about 25 degrees, hoping the wind didn’t suddenly stop, or I would be crashing. The wind seemed almost malevolent. I could hardly hear the engine over the howling around my helmet. Huge clouds of sand would billow onto the road in front of me, reducing visibility to about 50 metres. It was by far the most unpleasant and scary day on the trip so far.
I arrived in Perito Morino 3 hours later: it should have taken me less than half that time. I decided to call it a day. Recent horror stories from these parts, including one of 6 German riders all being blown off the road as group, and another of a rider being blown into a truck a few days earlier, made me decide it was too dangerous to continue. I don’t mind a challenge, but I draw the line at stupidity.
Being far too windy to pitch a tent, I decided to find an hotel.The first hotel I tried was full, the second too expensive. The American Hotel was actually quite nice, and had a restaurant that opened at 7:30 pm instead of the normal for Argentina of 10pm. I parked the bike right outside the room, checked the oil, and lubed the chain. I then had a shower, washed some clothes in the sink, and put them on the radiator I was quite cold, 8 degrees when I arrived. I decided to get an early night and continue north before the wind started again in the morning. I wandered around the town, a very odd place. It was very quiet, and the shops were amily expensive clothes shops and places selling tat. In a little shop run by a very strange looking old lady, I bought a sticker advertising how windy the town was, which seemed quite appropriate. I also changed some dollars at a really bad rate (for the black market) with the seedy proprietor of a run-down hotel in the centre of town. Perito Morino looked like a bit of a shit-hole, save for the stretch of street full of touristy craft shops. The wind had actually died down quite a bit by now, just the occasional savage gust making me duck into a doorway.
In the restaurant that evening, I met a 63 year old English guy, Sebastian, who was riding a BMW. I knew that before he told me, as he turned up for dinner in a BMW jacket. He joined me at my table, and we chatted about our respective journeys. He was heading south, to Ushaia, that Mecca of overland adventurers that for some reason had never grabbed my imagination. Bizarrely, Sebastian knew my brother Nick, through a company Nick had worked for when his green credentials didn’t stop him working for evil multinationals in the oil business. The food was excellent, the best meal I had had for weeks. As I’ve mentioned before, so far I had found the food in Argentina underwhelming, but, when they get a steak right, it’s really good. Dinner was even better when Sebastian insisted on paying for my dinner, and the two litres of beer I had drunk.
After dinner, I retired to my room to write up my blog on Facebook, phoned Jackie, and vainly searched for some news in English on the TV. Jackie had told me about a new virus that had just emerged in China, and was worried it would cause problems in Europe, or even affect my trip. I didn’t really take it seriously at the time. I had a look at the forecast, thinking I could backtrack the next day and visit Cuevo de los Manos. The forecast was showing 70kph winds after 10am, with gust up to 100kph…. I would head north. After an abortive attempt at reading, I went to sleep, hoping I could get far enough north in the morning to be out of the worst of the wind before it really picked up.
