this looks like it will have to be a photoless dog log or limited photos anyway. the link up is so slow it takes several minutes to download one photo and i am hungry and need to feed myself. this is a tourist town and there are lots of places to eat. much different than some little towns we have been in.
1-29-06

Here we are in Perito Moreno. We only made it about 350 klicks today. We finally hit the Ruta 40 gravel road. I really don’t like to travel gravel roads slow as it seems to just beat me and the yellow dog, so I got out in front and pushed it up to around 70 mph. Jim doesn’t like the gravel and said he has a tough time going 55 mph. I guess that must be the difference in the bikes more than anything. He is a good rider. We saw a few cars on the road as well as this guy from England who was heading north and stopped to chat. He gave us pretty good info on the roads on down south.
England BMW

He said he was ridding with a gal from not sure where when he hit a soft spot and got up on his pegs and gave it some gas. She hit the same spot and I guess she was afraid of it as she had gone down last year and broke her shoulder and some ribs. He said she went down pretty hard and had to be taken off in an ambulance. Nothing was broken but she is hurt pretty bad. He said that had taken some time dealing with that as well as taking side trips so he had been a week coming up from Ushuaia. By the way he described the road, it will take us a few days of riding to get there. The wind and the really bad gravel are a combination that is really dangerous and keeps the speed down.
Open countryX

This is wide open country here and this country really reminds me of parts of the west. I didn’t see many cattle but I did notice that the roadsides are mostly fenced with high tensile wire fencing. In one area where there was no fence I jumped one of the birds that look like a small ostrich. They are about the size of a big turkey with very long legs. It was in the road but I couldn’t catch it by the neck and so we will have to have something else for supper. Not far from the bird ordeal I jumped a small group of something that looks like a llama or Alpaca but man can these things run. They didn’t run like a llama but more like deer. They can really move. They are about the size of deer too and they looked like they were in very good shape. I have seen some squished rabbits but not a live one so far. I have seen a few hawk type birds and maybe a couple of other kinds of birds, but birds are way down on my list of things to look at.

We went by this what? Memorial to sheep shear dudes. I have to put these photos in here for Ralph or sheep sheerer.
Sheep X

Sheep2 X

It wasn’t long after we met that guy from England that I must have hit a sharp rock and soon I noticed that my front tire was going flat. I really like these tubless tire rims, they keep the tire from flopping around and I was able to pull over and out of the way to the top of a little hill. When Jim showed up and asked what he could do, I told him to time me. Dang if he didn’t…. it took an hour from start unpacking to finished and ready to ride. this tire was a new one and when I pulled out the tube, it had a slice of about ¾” in it. I couldn’t find any problem with the tire so I just patched it and off we went. We didn’t have to go far to the next town of Perito Moreno where we pulled into a service station and found a guy from Alaska riding a African Twin. I asked how the hell he got that in Alaska and he said that he hadn’t, but had rented it in Buenos Aires. It seems that they rent them for $80 bucks a day but there were four of them and they got them for sixty bucks a day. They had ridden down the coast and he said it was three days of nothing to get to Ushuaia. He split off from them and was going back up ruta 40. he and his partners run a motorcycle touring company out of Anchorage. He was full of info on the route too.
Alaskan X

As we were just about to head on down the road going south I noticed my front tire was very low. Dang…. I sent Jim on into town, where they are holding a big bicycle race, to get us a hotel. It seems that the hotel rooms go fast in these little towns. When he came back I told him the story of the tire. it seems that that rock evidently did cut the tire and the motion of ridding it into town was enough to damage the patch I put on it and it leaked. I didn’t want to put a tire boot in it unless I have to so I just went back to the old tubless tire that I have been carrying since I bought the new tire. I may see about getting a vulcanization on it or I may just boot it if I need it. it will be best to get a new tire if I can and will start looking now. It was nice to be at a gas station with an air hose to put that tubless tire on. If I didn’t have that air I would have had to try the co2 trick or go and put a tube in it to get it pumped up. Dang, two tires in one day.
When I got to the hotel and started unpacking I found that one of my saddle bags was looking sort of weird. I found that the bolts that hold the racks to the bike were gone!!!!!
So it looks like we will be here in town in the morning looking for some replacement bolts. They are Allen headed cap screws that had self-locking nuts on them. So much for self locking, eh?

We have both noticed that there are a lot of very large breasted women down here. They really like to show them off too, not that they run around topless, but they like to expose the cleft or wear things that really leave nothing to the imagination. Neither Jim or I are opposed to it, it is just a different country and that is the way they do it down here. Actually most of the Latin women seem to like to show them off. Life is good down here.

1-30-06
We walked around our part of town and found a internet shop with much asking around. It seems that they don’t need to put out a sign since everybody knows what they do. We actually found two stores with no sign to give you a hint of what they do. When we went in the woman gave me a card that explained that their service was slow and I may not be albe to use yahoo or goggle. Humm. Well, I tried anyway and both Jim and I found that it was extremely slow. In fact it took about five minutes to download an email and sometimes it would time out and I would have to try again. wow, back to the early days with a phone line. Yikes, I guess that is what I get for coming down to the end of the earth.
We met a guy who runs a tour company on the street and I asked him about where I could get one of the allen headed cap screws and he told me to go to the grocery store just down the street as it is the oldest business in town. It seems that they also have a hardware store in the back and when we went in, we found a really cool little hardware store ‘manned’ by two women that really knew their hardware. Come to find out from them, there was nothing like what I had in town but they did line me out with some nice metric bolts, washers, nuts and self locking nuts.
When we got back to the bike Jim suggested I high-grade other allen bolts and replace them with the new ones, which I did. Thanks Jim, I hadn’t even thought to look elsewhere. The repair went smoothly and it wasn’t long before we were back out on the road headed down Ruta 40. It was a fine gravel road and we were making good time.
It wasn’t long before we met a bike coming at us and we stopped to chat. It turns out that he is the owner of Alaska Rider or www.akrider.com. He rents a dozen Harleys, a dozen KLR’s and this year they are going to rent BMW’s for the European adventure riders. He says they get a lot of Japanese riders and he speaks Japanese as well as several other languages. He was really a nice guy and he gave us more info on the road.
Alaska Rider owner X

On down the road I came up on this truck just pulling to the top of a little hill. I have been seeing a few sheep along the way but this is the first I got to see them up close.
Sheep truck X

We were ridding thorugh some really beautiful country and all of a sudden an armirillo crossed the road in front of me. Or at least I think that is what it was. I stopped and gave chase up the hill but it must have gone in a hole so I never did get to look at it good. I have never seen one alive before, just dead on the road in Texas. I took this panamora of the little valley where I stopped.
Big valley X

We found another couple of bikers just leaving this little store out on the road. He is from England and has about 300 K on this Yamaha and she is from Germany and has 70 K on hers. We didn’t talk long as they were in a hurry to get but we went in a had a quick cup of coffee. Good coffee…..
England X

German X

We were making pretty good time and I stopped to get a photo of the nice gravel road.
Good gravel X

We made it down the road to a place that the English guy recommended. It is a ranch house on one side of the road and some ruins on the other. We stopped and asked the ower of the ranchhouse if we could camp across the street. He really wanted us to camp in his yard but the English guy said he had yard lights and I didn’t want to be under yard lights. We found some pretty good protection from the wind. Did I mention wind? Well, it is here and it was blowing pretty hard.
Jim got to looking at his bike and found that one of his saddle bags had spit off the bag support that was pop riveted to the bag and it had slipped down and was just hanging by a prayer. He was so lucky to not have lost the dang thing. (by the way, I have had to clean up my language on the blog because some of the computers have child safety programs and my log wont come up because I have used some bad language in the past dog logs, so I am trying to clean up my act and use socially acceptable language. Weird but I will try to climb out of the gutter and not use my normal language.)
It was missing the piece that was riveted on so we went out in the pampas and looked for what ever we could to somehow fix it or at least get it down the road to someplace where we could get it fixed. Jim ended up using a little piece of wood and some of the high tensile wire I found. It was really good wire but hard to work with for sure. Jim got it wired on but left the bag empty to keep the stress on the wire job down.
Bag repair X

It was a windy and somewhat cold night out there and I was really glad we had stopped and found the problem with Jims bike and got a emergency repair on it before he lost it.

1-31-06
We got a pretty early start and I sure have been enjoying this Ruta 40 gravel road.
Gravel road X

As I was out in front since I go faster than Jim, I ran across several groups of the Guanaco’s as they were scared off the road. They can run like the wind but these didn’t run that far an I was able to get this photo of them which is as good as I could do without a telephoto lense.
Guanaco X

We rode for a couple of hours and came to a sign that said that the farm just off the road was a restaurant. Jim didn’t have any breakfast (I had granola and milk and coffee) but did have a cup of coffee that he made on my little stove. When I pulled in and got off my bike this beautiful little girl came over to me and grabbed me by the little finger and led me away to meet her two dogs. She then led me out and made me get down on my knee and climbed on my back and spurring and talking a blue streak in Spanish, we headed up the hill to see her baby guanacos and a few sheep that were up there. When I wanted to go back to the restaurant she was positive we shouldn’t go back. She was just so cute and when I did carry her back piggyback she changed her plan and took me out to what I thought was the dog pen again but when I went in she closed the gate. She wanted me to stay and be her friend!!! She tried locking me in several places as well as blocking the door so I couldn’t get out of the restaurant. I finally just grabbed her up and told her I was going to take her with me on the motorcycle. She seemed happy with that and when I put her in the seat she was totally happy. She has her bat in a glass jar with her here that she wanted to show me. It is really funny because she didn’t show any attraction to Jim at all. I showed her that I had a granola bar in my tank bag and I gave it to her. I guess it was true love at first sight for both of us. Jim said if I was fifty five years younger, who knows what would happen. I said, what if she were fifty five years older?
My Love X

I have to put this photo of an old one cylinder four head Lister shearing machine that they had out in they yard.
Lister shearing machine X

We went on down the road and finally made it to this really nice pull off where we could get photos of the lake and mountains in the rear. I think this is where we are headed tomorrow, up to see the glacier.
The Ruta 40 will be paved soon and when we got to sections that were being paved, it made me somewhat sad to see this fine route finally going under oil.
Pavement X

Dog at lake X

We pulled into El Calafate and looked up a hostel for the night. We were just going to get a room and then make a quick run out the road and check it out but then decided to take it easy and hang out for the rest of the day. I needed to write some on this road log as well as I wanted to take a nice hot shower after all the dust and wind we have been dealing with. We took a quick walk up to an Internet shop and I did a fast check on emails. I then came back and took that hot shower. I let it beat on my shoulder, as it still seems to need work. I hope I can get it worked on some time but will probably have to wait until I get back to the states. This Ruta 40 is gravel but it is a really nice road. We both have been told many scare stories about the road and I am sure they are or were true. I think we have been very fortunate that the wind hasn’t been vicious as it can be. we have had wind but not the furious kind like we had several days ago when we were still on pavement. I did notice that one of the brackets on my Parabellem windscreen has metal fatigued and needs to be replaced or somehow beefed up and I am sure it is from the constant wind buffeting. Jim was saying that when he left Canada he figured that when he got back his outfit would look the same. I guess I figured that I would move some of my gear around and pack it different but the road makes changes in its own ways and cant be foreseen.