May 11th, 2007, 10:40pm Santiago time
Approximately 72 hours into the record
Osorno, Chile
GPS: S40 57.422, W073 13.236

We crossed a timezone today, so it really feels like it's almost midnight. 

What a day, though – bested yesterday's total, coming in at 980 kms.  We got a late start, too – Rob, Justin and gofer Dad were up late – 1 or 2 in the morning and we all slept in.  I wrote a bit on the computer and then went to bed at eleven last night, so i'm feeling better than they are.  Yay for being a nerd who finds changing oil a monumental mechanical challenge.

I forgot to mention we had ourselves a chat about the rules of the road.  Justin was feeling very frustrated (and as he does, he let us know) hanging at the rear of the train.  His point is that it's everyone's job to keep the guy in the rearview mirror in sight.  Putting the fastest rider behind the slowest (that would be me) makes the fast rider tailgate and the slow rider angry.  

Anyways, we decided to try Justin in the front, where he wouldn't feel constrained by having to follow someone, but where he'd be able to stretch his legs a little bit.  I like being in the back, too – i don't have to worry about watching anyone behind me, and if i pull over to take a pee, Justin has a five minute turnaround time to get back.

We continue to fight with our gasoline.  We purchased some containers yesterday, and I believe I mentioned that we had to macguyver a seal so they wouldn't let.  This gas station had two sizes of containers – 5L and 10L varieties.  Dad and I figured we'd be able to stick two small ones in our side cases, while Rob &amp; Justin with the Givi luggage would strap a large one to their back seat.

Turns out the smaller containers are made of thinner plastic, and they crumple under the pressure of being strapped to a bike.  All my luggage just reeks of gasoline (fortunately, it's all waterproof and so my clothes still just smell of BO).  I also developed a hole in one of these lousy containers, and had to use up my water bottle to wash it off my bike.

But as for how the trip went – today was by far the best riding we've had yet.  Clear blue sky (literally – I don't think i saw a cloud all day), temperature between four degrees C in the morning and 12 degrees at night.  We stopped shortly after we left, too – Sean called CKGY for the KG Morning Show, and Rob decided to take the centre stands off his and Sean's bikes.  Apparently when Rob hit a bridge with his motorcycle, he popped some bolts on it, and stretched some others.  They noticed while changing the oil and stuff last night that his centre stand was barely hanging on.

Our gas station stops are getting more and more streamlined.  We all pull up to one pump and line up behind it, and explain in our broken spanish (here's where Sean's extensive experience at charades comes in handy) that we all want to be on the same pump.  Rob and I yell at Justin when he starts taking articles of clothing off – seriously, the dude rips everything off every chance he gets, and takes twenty minutes to get ready to go again – so he's stopped doing that, and is usually ready shortly after everyone else is on the road.

The terrain has really varied today, as well.  We started out in a bit of a flat desert, kinda like yesterday, but moved quickly into foothills terrain – slight hills, slight turns, and were able to really rocket across Argentina.  At 2:20pm (i'm not even kidding) my odometer rolled over 2000kms, and about that time we hit the Andes.  Gorgeous mountains with snowcapped peaks.  Rob had to stop us and run ahead so that he could film us all coming in.  I think that secretly he wants to be Claudio from the Long Way Round.  One thing about the mountains struck me as wrong, though, and I couldn't put my finger on it for a while.  None of them (at the beginning, anyways) had any trees on them.  It was all scrub brush and grass, even up the the snowcapped peak.  This changed as the day wore on, until at the end we were riding through thick mixed forests.

This changed the roads, and we were able to get into some of what I think is every motorcyclist's dream terrain – winding roads passing lakes and rivers and other things.  One thing that really sucks about mountain riding is that it's easy to get stuck behind a giant semi 'cause you can't see around the next bend to see if it's safe to jump into the other lane to pass.  Fortunately, our bikes are pretty fast, and we were able to get round the road whales without too much hassle.  Rob did almost clip a car with his luggage case, though, and we all gave him crap for it later.

Rob and Justin continue to have major, major problems with keys.  Justin lost his key again last night after i wrote up the blog entry, and ended up using tools to pull apart the zipper on his permanently-jammed-and-i-mean-this-ain't-ever-coming-off waterproof breast pocket... shortly before he found his regular key in his regular jacket pocket.  Then again this morning Rob was frantically trying to find his key, tearing apart the room and getting all teary.  Then Sean found it in his (Sean's) pants.  Weird.

I would like to mention, for the record, that neither I nor Sean have had any problems locating our keys when we need them.  Although last night I did tell Rob and Justin that they need to get a keychain on theirs like I have (it's a nice one i picked up in Ushuaia, with a penguin) and whipped out my keys to show them.  Unfortunately, sometime during the day, my keychain had fallen off.

Oh yeah, for those of you who are fans of Napoleon Dynamite, here's a story for you.  The 'hotel' we stayed at last night had only one item on their menu, apparently: steak with fries.  I kid you not, the steak we got looked queasingly similar to the steaks Uncle Rico would always cook up and occasionally throw at Napoleon.  But we were so hungry it was awesome, anyways.

Just before sunset we finally made it to the Argentinian/Chilean border.  Unlike the Canadian/US border, where you go through just one set of customs, down here you have to exit through customs for Argentina before entering into Chile through their own customs peeps.  Usually, this process takes about half an hour.  Today, for some reason, we had to get special papers stamped for our bikes (even though we have the carnets, and we've been into and out of Chile twice before, on our second day, and didn't need these papers).  Anyways, it took a lot longer than we'd anticipated just to leave Argentina, and we didn't get back on the road until full dark had fallen.  The Chilean border was also distressingly far, over yet another mountain pass.  In the dark.  At least this time there wasn't snow actually on the road, just piled on the sides occasionally.  It was, however, wet and icy in spots, forcing us to move through the pass at a slow 40 km/h.

The Chilean border was brutal.  We got The Worst Customs Agent In The World, Ever, I'm Not Even Kidding.  When we'd gone into Chile before, the customs agent was awesome – he filled out the forms for us, stamped 'em bang bang bang and we were on our way.  This guy wouldn't help us out at all, and acted like he'd never seen a carnet before.  I'd brought along two pens in separate pockets in my jacket, but sometime throughout the trip everyone else has lost them.  I should've known better than to lend them to my family.  Anyways, we had to fill out all these forms ourselves, and nobody had a pen.  And this guy wouldn't give us one.

Justin managed to charm a pen out of the cute International Policia girls at the other end of the building, just before the irritating customs agent folded and started filling out our forms.  It took forever, and apparently he did it wrong, 'cause two guys in suits eventually came over and did it all again.  Then they searched our bags, and made us dig out more papers and then – GAH it took an hour, and it was very very cold by the time we finally got back on the road.

We rolled into town about 10:00pm local time and managed to find a hotel WITH INTERWEB pretty soon after.  South Americans sure do love their one-ways.  Everywhere we go, everything's a one-way street.  Which would be fine.  Except the roads don't alternate traffic – you'll get two, three, sometimes even four one-ways in a row, all heading the same direction.  Turning around requires a detour of like sixteen blocks!

We're finally out of Argentina, and it's time to say goodbye.  Today was our last bit in Argentina, and Rob anticipates we'll be into Santiago (capital of Chile) tomorrow, and on into Peru by Monday.

Justin and Sean just got back with food, and i'm starving, so i'll cut this off.  Wanted to try to embarrass Natalie, so – I love you, and miss you a whole bunch.  <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="Very Happy" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D -->

Ryan Noble
Osorno, Chile