Steel Horses for Sale

Hello Everyone,
It has been 1700 Kilometers, two rear wheels, one rack, a tire, two flats, 5 spokes, 6 broken paniers, and a partridge and a pear tree since first jumping on our bikes back in January. Today marks the end of our bike journey and the day where we try to sell these bikes. It has been quite the trip! After leaving the Fitz Roy range around 7 Pm Wednesday night we set off on pavement for the first time in forever. The wind was at our backs and the view back to the andes is one that we will all never forget. We spent two nights basically camped in a few farmers fields and then rolled into this town that sort of looks like the las vegas of Patagonia, called El Calafate. We figuerd this would be the best place to sell our bikes.
Yesterday, we went out to the Perito moreno glacier which you can see in the photos above. It was insane! It is one of the world´s only advancing glaciers, and a true inspiration for anyone who visits. A welcoming piece of news is that it actually growing 40 meters a year. We watched this thing in awe for 7 hours yesterday. Massive chunks of ice as high as 80 feet would crash into the lake below making it sound like a thunderstorm was rolling in. The place was truly remarkable and we all feel very lucky to have seen it.

So from here (El calafate argentina) we head down to torres del paine to check out another beautiful section of the andes and then we need to push it north to bariloche or Buenos Aires to fly out on Thursday. It looks like we have about 40 hours of bus riding ahead of us. I am sure the 6 foot 5 Ray should really love cramming himself into one of these seats for that amount of time. Hope that the Maple trees are thinking about spring. See many of you fine folks soon!

Hasta Luego,

Ruta Siete See Ya

It was Sunshine in Tortel and we rode like bandits out of town to catch the fairy. We rode through the mountains the more sun and beauty. And we rode down the mountain roads into Puerto Yunguay. And we rode the Ferry Gently across calm waters in the sun with a half box of wine and thought perhaps the luck is now up on our side. Glory days.
We passed a Gaucho ( a cowboy) and he let us bed down in his field. And it was clear out and we caught a nice fire. Slept like children and on to Villa O´Higgins. The end of the road. Through just a touch of rain but it was sunny when we finished. It felt good.

It was Esquel forever ago. And tough weathers for a good portion. Tough to mark a halfway point but the last week has given us the best of times and views. Hard to summarize the people and food and music of Chile while it is still soaking in. Hard as well to try and figure out a country when you only traveled such a small portion of it.

To the people of Chile who helped us on our journey, to the folks who went out of their way to get us shelter or push us down the road, The fist pumps from oncoming truck or the thumbs up from passing by cars, The road workers who worked to carve this road out or the ones who contine to maintain. All the hospedaje workers who cleaned up after us and fed us. We thank you all with the kindest of Gratitude and we bid adieu to Region 11 and Aysen. Much love

Bad Luck and Good Weather

Hello again to all of our friends in internetland!
It´s been a week since you d from us last and it will probably be another until you hear from us again. Our past week has been filed with the best weather of the trip and the most issues we´ve had with our bikes yet.
The morning after we last wrote we were all fired up to hit the road and head for Bertrand when I notice my brakes rubbing. When we flipped the bike we realized that I had an inch long cut in my tire and the tube was sticking out like an evisceration. Rio Tranquilo was a very small town with no bike shop or way of getting a new tire so we went door to door and asked folksif they could sell us one of theirs. We ven put out an APB on the local radio but still found no luck. So I hopped a bus for Cochrane with the hopes I´d see the boys again.
Fortunately two days later there they were sitting in the park with new sun tans after to days of glorious riding weather. By that time I had my tire and was ready to roll.
Unfortunately they had some problems of there own. Part of Bob´s rack had snapped to the point of not being usable and Ray´s rear wheel was out of true (we ended up making it worse). So our next obvious move was to find the only hostel in town with dish tv, gather up a heard of beers and greasy food and watch the super bowl (bad ass game by the way).
The following day we met this German fellow who was an excellent mechanic and doing a similar trip to us. He trued up Ray´s wheel no problem and even gave us a very helpful lesson in how to do it while warning us the rim was weak and didn´t trust it. Then we had great fortune in finding a local car mechanic who was able to machine the part for Robin´s rack from a piece of rebar. It was unbelievable how pricisely it match the crappy aluminum one he had before.
After hitting the road again for about 25km our last piece of bad luck hit. Ray cracked his rim exactly the same way as I had. Ray hitched a ride and Robin and I turned back for another night in Cochrane. We luckily found a new wheel that was functional but not ideal in the grocery store on Monday and headed out again. After one more dilemma 5 km out of town we turned back got it fixed and finally left Cochrane for good.
Now we are in Tortel. It´s an awesome little fishing town on the coast with no roads. The only footpaths are cyprus boardwalks. It´s a really cool little town. We headed over to a restaurant last night and the woman there was playing the documentary that Pete´s friend had made which was pretty cool to see. We asked her how many days a year that it rained here and she replied by saying 365. Fingers crossed though. We´ve been lucky. It´s even sunny today. Ray´s off to take some amazing photos. This morningwe asked a woman how often the weather wsa like this and she flatly said ¨nunca¨(never). We we´re planning on staying an extra day but have to take advantage of this weathre for riding.
We´ve got a big adventure ahead of us over the next week three boats, 20km of hiking through mud and plenty of riding. Next post should come from El Calafate, Argentina.

We miss you all very much and look forward to seeing you soon! Be assured that we are all healthy, happy and well and are taking good care of eachother.
Ciao!
Chris

Cerro Castillo Festival and More

A week has Passed...

So, it has been a little while sine the last blog but so much much has hapened that needs to be reported. After we left the comfort of Peter Logan´s house in Coyhaique we headed out going south back on the road. After hanging out for a week with Pete and company it felt reallt great to be back on the bikes again, but his hospitality was amazing. The funny part about leaving Coyhaique was that we had about a full week to go only about 70 miles. We road through the mountains to the second largest lake in South America. This lake was insane. Not only was it huge and beautiful, but it was the windiest place any of has ever seen. We have all spent days on top of mt. Washington with less wind than this god forsaken place. It was a great place but the non stop wind drove us a into the loony bin. We did get to see some insane rapids which were totally worth the trip into the head wind. The wind was so heavy it took us almost an hour to ride 2.5 miles on a flat road. Enough said about the wind, I think everyone gets it...

After a few days in the windy town we needed to head back north to the Patagonian cultural festival. This was about 40 miles up hill into that aforementioned wind, so we jumped in the back of some guys truck and took the wind on like a few champions; eatin cookies and avacodo sandwiches. Times were good let me tell you. After we got to the town where this festival was to happen, which was so beautiful, (pics in a few days should sum it up) we set up camp and made a classic man camp type supper. It felt good to be out the wind and to have the sun shining again.

So this festival was amazing. It seems like the entire Patagonian region floods this tiny town for three days. I think we agree that this festival was worth the week of hanging in the wind. Maybe the best part were the horse races. These crazy chilean people would race their horses straight down this dirt road hauling ballz full steam ahead. We were right there in the action getting dust and rocks kicked up on us. Ray was temporarily injured by a rock that flew up from the track. It was pretty exctiting to say the least. This event was followed by a parade through town that might even put the Plainfield 4th of July parade to shame. Lots of people showcasing their stuff right on the main street. After the parade we cooked up a pile of feed, and then headed out with our dancing shoes for a night of tearing up the town and dance floor with the locals. We all were a bit slow the next day for sure. The following day was mostly cowboy style rodeo type events. We saw bulls being castrated, roped, branded and sent back to where started. A little bizarre at first, but that is what they do down here. They even castrate animals with their teeth. A very interesting technique. Oh ya during all of this craziness they also feed the whole town with what they call an asado. This is a big fire with goats and sheep on stakes that cook for almost 6 hours. It was delicious but as they handed out the food to the public it was somewhat reminiscent of a rewandan food reief program. People were pretty agressive pushing and shoveing their way to the free food. The festival finished out with a buckin´bronco match where they let the locals and mostly anyone including the intoxicated people jump on whatever wound up horse they wanted. This was pretty wild and entertaining to watch these inexpereinced people jump onto a few angry horses. We saw the old meat wagon haul off a few unfortunate injured souls from this event. Ater this, it was time to leave the festival. We are now headed up to stay at a spot that is claimed to be the most beautiful spot in the world. We will let you all know if that is true very soon. Headin south...

The boys in Chile

Broke down in Coyaique

We have spent three of our least finest days in this town. Our experience here has been summarized by sickness and laze. The first night we went through a small tunnel to our beds in a poorly ventilated room that had been recently painted. This room aka headache city had low ceilings. We rose in the morning to throbbing heads and on top of that Chris and Robin both smashed their heads on the way out of the room. This was not a good place so we had Pete Logan find us a better place. We moved from headache city right over to the swamp pit. For the last three days we have all been sick. We have been couped up in a room with snowy screened tv and a lot of blankets we have sweated out gallons of sickness, spentquick adrenaline filled minutes in the bathroom, watched countless movies and commiserated. But now we are better. Glad to have left that room and the smells that lingered behind we will hopefully spend a few days enjoying this town now with our good friend Pete

A Nice Little break Before Mr.farrell Cracked his wheel yes the sun was shinin.

Coyhaique... with a little help

Hello everyone back in the US of A!
The three bandits have arrived in the bustling city of Coyhaique, Chile, home of the famous Peter Logan. A lot has happened on the way to getting here so let me catch you up. The day after Robin posted in La Junta was our most epic day yet (and hopefully the most for the trip)
We left that day after repairing my pannier and organizing food and fuel and stuff a little after noon and hit the open road. The weather was decent and we were rolling through some pretty scenic temperate rainforest and nothing was breaking. Everything was great. At about 3 we stopped in for a massive lunch in the town of Puyuahape filled with chicken, soup and a bunch of cake. We hung out there until about 4:30 with the intention of hitting the road for about another 20-25 km. Since the lanscape was so sheer and wet it was not really feasible to set up camp so we were gunning for this hospedaje we saw on the map. We rolled in around 6 or so feeling good and asked the man how much he wanted for one of the cabins he had. This old turd burgler wanted $280 and wouldn´t budge on any alternative option. Worse, the next spot was 50 km away. So we left.
What we didn´t know was that half of the ride was over the biggest pass any of us had ever gone up. We climbed for over an hour straight. Robin places the climb at two Ascutneys. Then it started raining...hard. Then, eventually, it got dark. We were riding until about 11 when we decided to finally give up and settle down in the stone dust for the night in some near hypothermic conditions. Fortunately before we pulled out the tent we flagged down this big rig who told us of a cabin 3 km up the road. Even cooler was the fact that he slowed down and led us with his flashers on so that we wouldn´t get lost. That guy was an absolute hero.
The cabin was $30 had it´s own woodstove, 3 beds and a hot shower.
Two days ago, we got up in the cabin and hit the road for our first sunny day. It was unbelieveable country. About 10 km in I realized, like an idiot I had left my wallet and passport but was able to hitch back and forth no problem. 20 km later my rim cracked beyond repair. We were screwed but the day was beautiful and no one was hurt so we were happy. Within a half hour this big truck with an empty bed and room for four more in the cab pulled over and drove us all the way here, over 100 km.
The people on the road here are unlike anyone in the US. Everyone is friendly and willing to help. We frequently get the excited horn honk/double fist pump from people as the drive by.
Gotta run. Sorry for the lack of pictures we forgot to bring our camera stuff.
We´ll be here for about a week!
Chris

Breakin´ down but still movin´ on

Today was the best day of the trip thus far! After arctic weather in Northern Patagonia, we started to move further south on the Caraterra Austral. Last nght we stayed in a little town in Patagonia, Chile, called Santa Lucia, which contained almost nothing in it at all except for a few wild awful looking dawgs. The interesting thing about this town was the fact that there was a weird house in the middle of it that allows bikers and wanderers like ourselves to camp for free. So we just set up the big tent right in the middle of town where everyone was walking. It would be like if some hippies set up a tent in the middle of Corey Tabor Park in Plainfield and acted like it was fine.

The weather has been really tough. Temps have not been out of the 50s and the wind has been howling so hard that it has been hard to move some days. Today however, was a different story. We jumped out of town and took off the long sleaves and jackets, and rolled south with the sun on our faces and the wind at our backs. What a day it was. It was all going perfectly well until about 1 kilometer left when Chris hit a pot hole and his panier broke right off his rack. It looks though, after a trip to the `fraterria´, (the chilaean harware strore) he will be ok. He got it all fixed up. This has been the theme thus far. We have constantly been breaking things. Our bikes have been holding up very well on the rough roads but the pnaiers and luggage has all taken a rough full beating. Each of us has broken almost every piece of gear we brought down here. This land is beautiful and rugged. It is packed with friendly people, emerald green rivers, enormous mountains and good food. We are happy, healthy, fed, and having the time of our lives.
Hope all freinds and loved ones are well all over the country.

The Southern Highway or Just About

It is hard to tell just what is in store for us on this very special bike trip. Probably the last news you heard from us was that we were all set up and ready to go. We left Sheldanny and the rest of the Israeli community and headed off to the bus station. We tied up and loaded our bikes and headed from Bariloche to Esquel. Not too bad after 12 games of cribbage and five hours on an extremely comfortable bus we freighted down our bikes and rode off to find some camping. We set up shop then went down to The town of Esquel for a big Beef and Rock chicken dinner. Simple easy and nice.

But the next day the cold rains of summer fell upon us and the first break we got we rode. We hammered along the pavement for the first 35 kms and then we hit dirt roads. This was all expected and is why we chose mountain style bike. A bit more rugged and a bit more slow. We traveled through the hills into Chile. We saw another bike tourer kind of smirk as he passed us and I think he knew what we know a bit earlier. We just got soaked the rest of the day. Remisnicent of the summer of New Hampshires past 50 degrees and windy. I told Robin if this is to continue He can meet me on the Argentine coast where it is 95. By the time we got to the Border I am not so sure he did not want to join me. One of his panniers had broken off his rack was disconnected on one side and he had no feeling in his feet.

He was trying to shake the blood back in to his feet in the border crossing that they sent us back outside ¨for it was not a bathroom for cleaning¨ We cleared the borders and headed in to the little mountain town of Futaleflu. There we found shelter with a nice man by the name of Gregorio who heated our shoes above the fire while cooking us a meal. Chris and Robin told him that there was hunger in our bellies the size of tigers: He told us he could kill that tiger and did. We slept like babies, warm and dry:

Today we have been all over this town to the bike store to the laundy mat back and forth and back again in a town no bigger than the inside of the racetrack. But tommorow with the help of a good meal from gregorio we will ride tres caball€ros. perfecto