A New Direction

Days 185 – 187

Our last act before leaving Ushuaia was to throw a stone that we collected from the Arctic Ocean back in to the sea. Actually we think Ric may have missed the sea, but reckon it'll get washed in at high tide! Then began the long journey north on Ruta 3 – quite possibly the most boring road. In the world.

As well as being very boring, we knew Ruta 3 would also be fast, and that we'd be covering a lot of miles in a short time – a task that Emily's rear tyre was certainly not up to. We'd looked for a new one before we got to Ushuaia in the Chilean city of Punta Arenas and, after trekking round about ten shops, each one recommending the next, had come across a mechanic that we'd heard of on our travels who knew how to get hold of tyres for big bikes (though he doesn't keep any in stock). He told us that we could get one in Rio Gallegos on our way back up through Argentina, and so, after riding through Chile for the fifth and final time to get out of Tierra del Fuego we arrived in the city with high hopes. We found the motorbike shop and indeed they even had a selection of tyres for us to choose from. As it was so well stocked we also asked about a new rear sprocket. We had sprockets waiting for us in Buenes Aires which Jacquie kindly brought back from England for us, but the old one was really on its last legs. We guessed they wouldn't have the right one for Emily's bike as not even BMW has that one, but thought it was worth a try. They didn't, and we were ready to drop the matter, but then they took a look at the bike and realised the gravity of the situation. They were very concerned that the sprocket wouldn't make it to BA and didn't want to let us continue as we were, so they started searching their sprocket pile all over again, this time to find something that could be machined to fit. It was a tricky decision – the sprocket had done 24,000 miles and had only 2,000 miles to go, but we decided that the risk of having an accident and being stranded in the middle of nowhere was too high, so when they found something that would work we went for it. The new sprocket has a couple more teeth which means Emily's bike has 5% better acceleration – woohoo! – but uses a bit more fuel (though still not as much as Ric's bike...).

Days 188 – 192

To get an idea of Ruta 3, picture a long straight road over flat terrain. Imagine just shrubs and grasses on either side, as far as you can see, without a tree, river, lake, hill or any other landmark in sight. Now add a 40-60mph constant crosswind. Apart from a few more guanacos and nandus there is really nothing to break the tedium on the road as you're motoring along at a raked angle to fend off the wind. So to give ourselves a few breaks we made some diversions off the highway, figuring the extra few hundred miles was worth it.

We took a boat trip from Puerto Deseado to nearby “Penguin Island” – the only place outside the Falkland Islands (or Islas Malvinas to all Argentinians; a topic of conversation we tried to avoid) where you can see the very funky Rockhopper penguins, along with the usual Magellanic penguins, sea lions, elephant seals (enormous blubbery things weighing up to 5 tons!) and lots of sea birds that can be seen all along the Patagonian coastline. Ric also spotted some Commerson's dolphins (black and white ones) from the boat (Emily just saw a splash) and we were both lucky enough to spot a whale despite it being totally out of season for them.

The next side trip was to see a petrified forest. We'd passed signs to a few of these along the way but this was the first we actually managed to visit. It was a bit unusual in that it wasn't a standing forest but a whole load of washed up tree trunks: the rivers that washed them up were long gone, and the wood had since been petrified. Of course we didn't even consider putting any petrified wood chips in our pockets, so we weren't at all concerned when the park ranger made us empty them out at the end. (!)

The final detour was to Peninsular Valdez to see a bit more wildlife. Again we were lucky enough to see a rare sight for the time of year – Orcas! They swam by just past the shore full of sea lions that we were watching from. Much to Ric's disappointment, though, we didn't see any beach themselves to try to catch the sea lion pups.

Days 193-195

The push north continued to Buenos Aires with a couple of beach stops, one to view masses of parrots, the other to view masses (and we mean masses) of people in Argentina's favourite beach destination Mar del Plata. Think Brighton on the hottest day of the year in England, then triple it and you're still not even starting to get close.

Our journey up from Ushuaia has taken us from cold and rainy to hot and sunny – a change we like. We've also suddenly got lots of time for the rest of our trip up to Rio, since we haven't needed too much of our 'emergency time' thus far, so we're looking forward to a relaxed next few weeks!