RUST magazine: Rust#8

Adventure
road, and as we depart Argentina we start to think that we are finally
underway. Volker’s Sportster doesn’t think so: it slides to a halt, two
spokes have broken and punctured the tyre, but the flat is quickly fixed
and an hour later we move off again. Leaving Viedma we face nothing.
Okay, there is a road under our wheels but to the left and right there is
nothing but featureless plain. Cow skins are drying over fences, the
relentless heat blow-dries our faces and scorches the skin, the bikes
rumble along. So in San Antonio we decide to hang a left to the coast.
Las Grutas, a little resort town promises refreshment. Not refreshing is
the hand-soldered internet connection.
No photos get sent again today.
All next day we cruise across a lot of
‘The 40 is in a hopeles
howls along it as if fro
sounds like fun, we did
South America to g
nothing, until we get to the Valdez
peninsula a kind of island shaped chunk
of rock sticking out into the South Atlantic:
alpacas, ostriches and armadillos line the
road, which are a strange sight to our
European eyes. Today we stop in Puerto
Pirámides for the night – and some minor
surgery: Tommy drops the hand pump in Volker’s gas tank while pumping
fuel from one tank to the other. Guess who gets to extract it, again. To
end the day, we chow down in full view of the ocean: sensational!
Penguins & Peninsula (Valdés Peninsula to Esquel)
A fun little tour around the peninsula, and we get the full Monty: deep,
treacherous gravel, killer winds and evil dust obscuring the gravel track.
A short break in Punta Norte where we get to see penguins, sea lions,
sea elephants, many of them with newborns – cute! Two wheeled
reality is back soon: Paul’s primary chain needs adjustment, wind and
dust or not. A little later black smoke splurges from his bike’s tailpipe.
This low-revving gravel-travel is fouling the plugs. New plugs in and
VRRROOOOM, the bike’s 74 cubic inches breathe freely again.
Back in Puerto Pirámides we do a major service on the bikes, tomorrow