Feb 4 2020
Breakfast was excellent, the best I’d had on the trip so far. Ham and cheese, in addition to the normal bread with dulce de leche (basically caramelised condensed milk) and jam. I even had yoghurt. Then a quick stop to buy another sticker and a fridge magnet before setting off for the 359 km to Gobernador Costa. I’d found Perito Merino overall a strange place. On the street, people said hello; In the shops, they seemed a bit surly. Apparently, they get tourists turning up all the time, thinking they are at the Perito Morino glacier, which is miles away. One of the waiters told me at breakfast that sometimes they even try and blame the residents of the town for daring to live in a place with the same name. Before I left, I went through my regular bolt-tightening procedure. I’ve not really mentioned the basic maintenance I carried out on the bike during the trip. The Himalayan, has a long-stroke thumper engine, and I’m sure most big singles (in common with the big twins I normally ride) are subject to vibration. I was always finding things that needed tightening on the trip. Every time I camped, I got the spanners out and checked bolts all over the bike. It was often surprising what was loose; one day a sprocket bolt, another a bolt holding a pannier rack on. The bolts holding my USB port on the handlebars were a regular. Yet, strangely, the chain hardly ever needed adjustment. Later in the trip, a missed bolt would cause me some delay….
Ruta 40 was tarmac, all the way to Gobernador Costa. It was deja-vu. Long straights, riding suspended between two vanishing points on opposite horizons. After some initial hills, it became the familiar slog through a semi-arid plan with few corners, albeit without the heat I experienced on the northern section; temperature varied between 13 and 8 degrees. The heated grips were working, so I was plenty warm enough, with thermals and my down jacket under my bike gear. The wind was still a factor, but a constant lean of about 10 degrees to the left was all that was needed. It was severely affecting fuel consumption though. It also got me idly wondering about whether I was wearing out the left side of my tyres.
As I rode, the sky got darker. I could see thunderstorms ahead, and I seemed to be heading for the worst of them, so I put my rain jacket and trousers on. Every time I thought I was about to get wet, a rare serendipitous corner would veer me away from the rain. Quite a bit of the road was wet, so I evidently timed it perfectly, if accidentally. I got a few drops once.
A sign warned warned of pothole for the next 50km, and there were plenty. Some of them were of bike-wrecking proportions at the speed I was riding, so I had to take care. I didn’t slow down, in fact I ended up giving the bike a bit more head. the road a bit more attention, weaving all over the road, picking the best lines. It brought some fun to an otherwise fairly monotonous road. The Andes were barely visible on the horizon, but it really didn’t matter, the road was all.
Suddenly the plain dropped into a gorge with a large river; the Rio Mayo gives the small town I found there I found there it’s name. At the fuel station I met three other bikers, a young guy on his own, and two older guys, all heading for Ushaia. A quick coffee, fill up, and then back to the road, which, with the heavy cloud and dull light, reminded me of bits of the Yorkshire moors. With 232 km to go, and a full tank, fuel wouldn’t be an issue, without even considering the spare 3 litres I had. But, back on the road, fuel was dropping quicker than expected. Although I was cruising at I guess (from the revs) about 60 mph, I watched with alarm as the fuel guage headed steadily for E. Not much I could do about it, unless I stumbled across a gas station. Soon afterwards, I did in fact come across a service station, but it had evidently been out of business for some time.
The garage was covered in really crap graffiti, very incongruous in the middle of nowhere. I stopped for a break, and took some pictures. I wondered why a service station miles from anywhere would attract graffiti. Did the “artists” specifically drive out here to daub it’s walls, or was it perhaps a group of graffiti artists on there way somewhere else, who hadn’t been able to resist stopping for a bit of vandalism?
I carried on, the wind now quite gusty, with always the never fulfilled promise of rain driving me onwards. An hour later, I found I was on reserve, and the last sign I had seen said it was 71 km to go. It also looked once again like I was about to ride into a huge thunderstorm. Surely my luck wasn’t go to hold out all day? I stopped to empty 
the Jerry can of fuel into the tank. It was only when I stopped that I realised quite how windy it actually was. The same wind, from the north-west, that I had had the day before. I accidentally dropped the inner part of the fuel can cap, and the wind snatched it away, to oblivion. I looked for it in vain for about 20 minutes, dropping bits of dead plant in an effort to work out which way it would have been blown. Eventually I gave up, and, finding a piece of shredded truck tyre that I could probably cut a replacement from. I jammed it into the spout of the can and carried on.
The next sign I saw said 71km, again. I had seen distances actually increase on signs as you head towards somewhere on RN40, so I wasn’t overly surprised. Once again I was on reserve. Without an odometer or speedometer, and few signs, it’s easy to end up with no idea how far I have gone, as I can’t always see the phone in my tank bag, or if I can, it’s often gone into hibernation. Stopping to check the map would have just used more fuel as I accelerated back to cruising speed, so I just reverted to my old trick of pretending nothing was wrong, and carried on. Gradually the landscape became populated, with more Estancias, and got a bit greener. The previous sign must have actually said 21 km, because suddenly I arrived. I had not got wet. The wind had drastically reduced my range, with an extra 3 litres of fuel giving less range than just the tank on a calm day. Gobernador Costa is a small place, and all Wikipedia has to say about it is “Gobernador Costa (Chubut) is a village and municipality in Chubut Province in southern Argentina” I filled up with fuel at the YPF, then went on iOverlander to find somewhere to stay. With the municipal campsite apparently being a bit crap, it being cold, and with thunderstorms still lurking, I liked the idea of being indoors, so I ended up at an excellent little hostel with apartments.
The price was per room, with it being a 3 bed room, but I managed to knock 25% off. It was still very expensive, but the room was excellent, with a big duvet on the bed and a kettle. Shortly after I arrived, another biker, Tim, from Germany, turned up. Tim was on on a KTM, and he had just ridden from El Chalten, 590km south of here, including a particularly nasty 70km section of deep gravel. He is on a six week trip and shipped his bike from Germany. I suspect he rides very fast on dirt. In Germany he races a CBR600.
We decided to go and look for a restaurant. One seemed uninviting. Then we found a restaurant, mentioned on iOverlander, that was apparently a bit strange. It looked the part. Wooden, inside and out, and a fire, which was also the barbecue. An old guy came out of the kitchen and shouted at us in Spanish. Neither of us could speak it. I thought he was saying 9 O’clock. He seemed to be shooing us towards the door, but, still shouting, he pointed us to a table. We asked for Cerveja, and a litre and two glasses were brought. There was no offer, or indeed sign of, a menu. About ten minutes later, a waiter brought over a tureen of vegetable soup, and two bowls. OK. We ate the soup. It was very nice indeed. I had 3 helpings before the waiter whisked it away.
Next thing to arrive was two massive steaks, on the bone, with two eggs on each. Somehow he knew I liked it medium rare. In a separate bowl, a green salad. It was excellent, in fact, the best meal I have had in Argentina. In a restaurant with no menu, where you eat what you get given. I loved it. Tim told me more about his trip. He was trying to get in as many miles as he could in his 6 weeks. He wore loads of gear, leg braces, a neck brace, expensive jacket and trousers. He also wore motocross boots. He said it gave him a feeling of invincibility, and, as a consequence, he said he tended to ride much faster than he thought he probably should. After dinner, we walked back to the hostel. It had been a great day.
Tim was off to Bariloche in the morning. I thought of heading for Esquel, where a bunch of enterprising enthusiasts run a steam railway that apparently has 18 working locomotives. However, I was now more than halfway to Bariloche, and I wasn’t meeting Jackie for another week. Should I instead head across country to Trelew? Or slow it all down, and go to Trevelin, and the Parque Nacional los Alerces, which I’d heard was very beautiful, and had dirt roads? I’d decide in the morning.
