Our entry into
Argentina was our easiest border crossing yet.
We woke up early from our campsite in Chile and quickly packed our gear. We
were excited to enter a new country, and headed into the Puyehue National Park
for our border crossing. The park was filled with mountains, trees, and lakes.
A beautiful change from the mostly flat riding we had been doing. The border
crossing was surprisingly easy, and we made it into Argentina within an hour.
We rode through some fancy ski-resort towns before reaching San Carlos de Bariloche, where we struggled to find an affordable place to stay. Despite there being a ton of options, they all charged an insane amount. We finally found a place that was acceptable (but still too high) and took some time to explore the nice but very touristy town.
When we hit the road
again we headed North East, into some of the most intense wind we have ever
encountered. At times we were riding through a tornado of sand, and could not
see the vehicle in front of us. Eventually we found a sand road running along a
river and found a spot to set up our tents. The wind continued and made cooking
dinner a real challenge. We ate more sand than pasta. But it was at least a
quiet evening.
The next morning we were on the road again, riding for a long time through flat, straight, boring roads filled with construction zones. We found a campsite along a different river on ioverlander, which said someone would be by to collect our camping fee. Nobody ever did so we got another night of free camping.
The day after was more of the same, and we were realizing that the section of
Argentina we had entered was just going to be unexciting, flat roads. Like
Kansas. We had found a place on ioverlander listed as a motorcycle refuge, so
we decided to give it a shot. As we pulled off the highway into the tiny town
of Argerich, we wondered if we had the right coordinates. There wasn't much of
anything here, but we eventually found the heavily marked building. Within
minutes the owner Adalberto appeared from his home nearby and let us in. The
property was like a giant clubhouse, and we ended up staying there for 3 days,
with different bikers showing up every night to take advantage of this refuge
in the middle of nowhere. Our days were spent doing minor repairs, and our
nights were spent enjoying some cheap boxed wine in the makeshift hot tub in
the backyard, fed by a natural hot spring piped in from underground.
Finally we were on
our way again and continued toward the main city of Argentina, Buenos Aires,
having to camp one more time along the way. But finally we made it. Arriving on
a Sunday, we learned that everything is basically shut down that day. We finally
found the Kilca Hostel, which offered us a terrible room for $50, but it was
sadly the best we could find on such short notice. The room was filthy and we
had to make them clean it, then the toilet stopped working. It was a truly
terrible experience, but we managed to use their mediocre wifi connection to
book a nice apartment a few miles away through Airbnb.
We had such a great
time at the Airbnb that we stayed there multiple times, only leaving because it
was already reserved for certain dates. This gave us the chance to head East
and camp along the coast. While there we visited a Parilla and were fed more types
of grilled meats than we could ever finish. We also spent 3 days on a tiny
sailboat, which caused us to bang our heads enough times that we realized the
boating life is not for us.
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| We had to say goodbye to our buddy George. We had a great time riding with him, and hope to see him again someday. |
Finally the day came
to drop our bikes off with Dakar Motos at the airport cargo terminal. We rode
them there with barely any gas, but it was still determined that was too much,
so it had to be siphoned out. Josh then disconnected the batteries, deflated
the tires, and pulled off the mirrors. After that they were wrapped heavily in
plastic. They were weighed and scanned for contraband, and then we said goodbye
to them, hoping we'd see them again in the US. After that we had a week of
being lazy in Buenos Aires before our long overnight flight to a place we
thought we'd never return: Texas.
