Punta Arenas (I loved this town from way back in early grade school. We used to call it “point to your anus”).
Punta Arenas, wow, it really does exist!!! We rode down the highway in some of the heaviest wind I have ever experienced. Jim started off in front as he usually does when we are on pavement. I ride in front on gravel but I have him in front on his KLR since it is somewhat limited in power and figure he can set the pace. Well, the wind was terrible and he was going along at 45-50 mph and was getting thrown all over the road. I was getting beat up with the wind too and I blasted by him so I could get my speed up to 65-70+ where my bike seems to like it much better. I guess the wheels act as gyros and make it more stable. I was still getting pushed around but I don’t think more than two feet or so off my line. I was staying in my lane at least and felt much better going faster. I noticed that he was keeping up with me some times, so maybe he was getting the same effect or got over his fear of the wind blowing him off the road. He has his bike very heavy loaded and I don’t think there is much difference in the weight of our bikes. My big yellow dog is sure a good road bike. I twist its tail and off it goes……….
I talked with Jim later and he said his bike was max-ed out and he couldn’t go any faster. I had heard this before from John who rode down with Bill, he said that he couldn’t keep up with Bill in the heavy wind. Well, the wind was sure heavy. My windshield fix held up fine even with the windshield being blow back and down at a 45 degree angle. I have no idea how fast the wind was blowing, but I would guess that is was over 50mph. When I was headed into the wind it would blow my helmet back against my face and it was like having my nose pressed against a glass window. When it came from the side like 45 degrees or so, it would lift my helmet and darn near strangle me with the strap that goes under my chin. I had to finally put my face shield down and ride that way. I always ride with my face shield up but the wind was so strong that it made my eyes water and tear so bad that it would get the glasses wet, and when it dried out, it left a white film on the glasses. I would have to stop and lick them clean every so often and it was like licking a saltshaker.
We made it down to the turn off to Punta Arenas and I chose that we go on down and check it out. We were following along the water and the chop out there was pretty fierce too. Jim has good eyes and found that on the map it is called the ‘Straights of Magellan’. Wow, can you believe it? Just like in the old school books, here it is and I am riding my motorcycle beside it. I remember that it was very dangerous and my friends Ken mentioned in an email that it is still recommended that sailors do not go this way because of the wind and strong currents. I hopefully will not have to deal with the currents, but will have to wait until tomorrow when we get on the boat that will carry us across the Straights. It will only cost us about 14 bucks for the 20 minute trip and it sounded like a good deal rather than ride about 150 miles or so by backtracking and heading south.
We gassed up and headed into town to look for a hotel or hostel. The first one we looked at was a tiny room and dirty in an old house. Jim thought that maybe we could find something down by the water and we headed off in that direction. We found a nice place but the rooms were pretty high, like 36 bucks each. I talked with the girls and asked for the econimo rate and she finally came up with 20 bucks which is still high but this is Chile and everything is high here. We ended up with a really nice room and there is a computer in the office/lobby and hot water and TV in the room. Jim found that is has CNN world news in English, which is the first we have had that on TV in a month or more. Something about Iran in the news and the Stock market is down. Same old sh*t that was on the news last time I watched. It also has a plug right by the bed so I can plug in the computer and write this.
I got an email from a friend who is along for the ride, letting me know that there is a whorehouse here that has a history going back to 1750’s. I doubt if we will make it there to check it out, but nice to know that in far off place like this, there are facilities to satisfy any hunger.
We saw quite a few sheep on the way down here. We had to cross the border again and are back in Chile. When I stepped out of the border building, I saw a guy unloading a sled being pulled by a couple of oxen. I got my camera and went down and asked him if I could take a photo. He motioned that it was fine, so here is his team all lashed up and ready to pull. I have seen a lot of this same type of hook up but never had the chance to take a photo.
Oxen X
Ah, some yarrow, I think it is, blooming along the trail to the oxen.
Yarrow X
We were in mostly sheep country and went by some rather large estanica’s as they call the ranches here. I stopped to take a photo of one of the little ones. I have seen a few of these along the way down here but this one lent itself to my camera. Yah, it is small but easy to heat I’ll bet.
Estancia X
I stopped at a nice sheltered place so Jim could have a smoke. I stop every hundred kilometers or miles so he can have one. This place had one of the high tensile fences along side it so I finally got a chance to get a photo of one of these. They seem to be able to keep sheep in with them.
Sheep fence X
When we were back in Moreno I talked with that guy who told me to go to the grocery store to get my bolt. He ran a tour service as well as owned a sheep ranch down the road. He was telling me that in 91 I think it was, one of the volcanos blew up and deposited several inches of ash over the snow in his ranch area. He said they had 10,000 sheep but after the ordeal was over, he only had 3,000 sheep. He said that he was trying to build up the quality of his wool by bringing in Marino sheep. one thing that was interesting that he said was that the guys down at the ocean could grow higher priced wool than he could and I had to ask him why. He said that he could grow a lot of grass and the guys down by the ocean could not. It is one of those things where if you starve a sheep, you get very fine grade of wool and if they have a lot to eat, they grow coarse wool. I gave him Susan’s website address www.icelandicsheep.com in case he wanted to try to import some Icelandic’s. I asked him about what happened several years ago when the money was devalued. He said yah, they really were tough on the money. He said that if you had money in the bank, they wouldn’t give you any for a long time and if you had dollars in it they paid you back in pesos. It was one peso to the dollar but now it is three pesos for a dollar, so, you got back one-third the money you had in the bank. He said the government does this sort of thing all the time and nobody uses the bank much. I said it must be rather uncomfortable sleeping with all that money under the mattress and he just laughed.