New Age nightriding and more

Since leaving Buenos Aires 23 days ago, I have covered just over 6000 miles and am now in the small frontier town of La Quaica, on the Argentine-Bolivian border. In the past week I´ve discovered the perils and promise of night riding, visited a ´new age´ centre in the mountains, crossed the Andes twice, been transported back in time three years, and felt a bit foolish on April 1st.

The perils and promise of night riding
As my riding colleagues will attest, riding at night (particularly in foreign countries on bad roads) is rarely a good idea. Despite that, and despite the obvious risks, I´ve found myself on the road after dusk three times this past week.

The first occasion was shortly after leaving Bariloche. I had taken it easy the day before, getting an expensive new rear tyre fitted to the bike. So to make up for lost ground I set myself a target of 500 miles for the day. I´d managed about 400 of those by the time the sun began to slip behind the mountains. The sunset sparked a debate in my head - should I push on to Malargue and try to make the remaining miles, or bush camp here and enjoy the scenery? I dawdled with my decision and it soon became too dark to identify a suitable camping spot, leaving me with only one option.

With the daylight fading there was only my headlight to guide the way. And, as Tyson and Jerry will both confirm, the light on the KLR is woefully inadequate - it barely reaches fifty feet in front of the bike, and that´s on high beam. So to keep on the right side of safe, I trimmed my cruising speed from sixty to forty and pushed on. If I can maintain this pace, I thought, then I´ll be in Malargue in about two hours. Not bad, not bad at all.

But, as is often the way with these things, the dastardly god´s of motorbiking conspired with Ruta 40 to make the riding more difficult as the night drew in. First they threw in a few unexpected twisty curves. Then they took away the pavement and replaced it with dirt. Then they added a few heavy trucks to throw the dirt in my face. And finally, they chucked in a few hidden potholes. After two hours I was knackered, riding at barely 20mph and still an hour away from Malargue. But, just as I thought all hope was lost, the riding god´s took pity on me, they returned the pavement and turned the dirt swilling trucks into a guiding line of brake lights leading all the way to Malargue. Maybe this nightriding isn´t so bad after all.

The following day I headed into the Andes towards the border with Chile. But before crossing over I wanted to visit the small town of Villavicentio just north of Mendoza. I had heard of a road of a thousand curves that winds its way up into the clouds. Such a road sounded like the thing of adventure rider dreams, but it exists - I have ridden it.


The downside of taking such a splendid route though, is that it takes a surprisingly long time to navigate. And so, for the second night in a row, darkness began closing in around me just as the Andean scenery was turning spectacular.

I stayed in a deserted border hostel that night and woke up in the midst of the Andes, just a short walk from the imposing mass of Mount Aconcagua. At 6962m above sea level it is the tallest mountain in the world outside the Himalayas.




Back on the road, I soon found myself heading north in Chile along the surprisingly cool Pacific coastal road. Catching the first glimpse of the ocean is always a splendid moment - reminiscent of all those seaside holidays as a child. But the dull Chilean motorway only offered a few brief ocean vistas before turning inland.

The going was dull and expensive - Chilean motorways charge a five pound toll every 100 miles. I was keen for a change of scenery and even more keen to stop the deluge of cash flowing from my wallet, so I turned off the main road and headed into the mountains toward the Elqui Valley. According to my guidebook, the clear skies of the Elqui Valley offer some of the best stargazing on the planet.

Glancing at my GPS I only had 50 miles to go before reaching Vicuna - centre of the valley. Perfect I thought. But, my previously faultless GPS, which indicated it would only take an hour to get there, was being far too optimistic. Contrary to what it thought, the Ruta Antakari from Ovalle to Vicuna is not a long straight tarmac road that can be ridden at 60mph. Instead it is a much more interesting rough road that winds its way up through countless tight turns into the mountains. Needless to say, it didn´t take me an hour.


As the sun was setting I snapped a quick shot of the surrounding scenery, then pushed on up the mountain. For two hours I barely got above 20mph, riding only in first and second gear. By dusk I had reached the top of the pass and I was back nightriding again.


With two successful nights already under my belt I was riding confidently and enjoying the steep descent. Then, a bright light glinted in my mirror. Surely no one else is driving around up here at this time, I thought. Glancing behind me, I saw a dazzling full moon creeping above the mountains. The air was so clear that all the luna mare and many of the larger craters were visible.

Distracted by the celestial sideshow, I turned back to find a fork in the road right in front of me. Since I was only able to see 50 feet ahead, I couldn´t tell which was the right way, so I skidded to a halt to take a closer look. But, such was the steep incline and the loose surface that my front brake couldn´t hold the bike and the wheel slipped sideways down the hill, sending the bike down for the second drop of the trip. Happily there was no damage (to the bike at least), but the steep slope made it difficult to get her back upright again. After ten minutes of dragging and heaving I had done it, but managed to wrench my back in the process. That´ll teach me for riding at night.

A New Age
The following morning, after a pleasant stay in the Valle Hermosa Hostal in Vicuna(Beautiful Valley B&B), I wanted to get something done about my back. Fortunately, as well as being a stargazing mecca, the Elqui Valley is also known as a ´high energy centre´. It is home to several hippie settlements with many practioners of ´new age´ therapies and the like. I´m not sure if there was any difference in the ´energy´ of the place but it certainly was beautiful.



Curious about the new age aspect, I figured it couldn´t hurt to find a hippy and see what they recommended as a fix for my back. I found just such a chap along with a large St Bernard in the small picturesque town of Pisco Elqui.



The hippie and his wife, both of whom had ´qualifications´ in new age therapy suggested I get a massage. Based on unsatisfactory past experiences of Thai, Swedish and sports massages, I was sceptical of the ´metamorphic´massage that was on offer. But I went along with it anyway, and somewhat surprisingly did find myself feeling better.

With my back back in order, I decided to head to the border and cross the Andes again. But by the time I arrived at the Chilean frontier it had already closed for the day. Miles from anywhere, I didn´t fancy backtracking to a town, nor sleeping at the border post. Instead, I found myself a side track and rode up 2800m into the mountains to camp for the night. This was the view from my tent. Splendid. Just splendid.





Crossing the Andes (again)
The following morning, with the Chilean border formalities quickly dispensed with, I found myself in-between countries. The Argentinian border was a full 120 miles away over the Agua Negra Pass. I spent three hours riding my bike in no-man´s land between countries with scenery out of this world. Steep mountains of all colours - lunar greys, martian reds, and even some pinks and purples.



At the summit of the pass I was 4800m above sea level - by far the highest I´ve been with my bike. The air was thin and cold and the side of the road was lined with otherworldly ice sculptures.




An April Fool
Having crossed back into Argentina for the fifth time I awoke the following day to the sound of a demented rooster clucking away at 4am. It being April 1st, I considered this a poor attempt at an ornithological April fool. I think the rooster was either mad or confused by the bright light from the full moon. Either way I wasn´t best pleased.

I was on the road at a staggeringly early hour that morning and was feeling drowsy. So drowsy that it felt like my common sense glands had been temporarily removed. At least that´s the only explanation I can offer for why I followed my (now fallible) GPS off the main highway directly into a dried river bed full of choppy sand. My reactions weren´t what they should have been and after the obligatory 50 metres of fishtailing I went down for the third time of this trip. Again no damage, but damn foolish.

But that was only the tip of the iceberg. An hour later, back on the tarmac I felt a sudden sharp stinging pain on my inner thigh. Startled by the shock and how close to home it was, I looked down to see what kind of bug was on my trousers. But then I remembered - no bug could pierce through my kevlar armoured riding trousers unless... unless they were inside my trousers. With that terrifying thought rushing through my mind I slammed on the brakes, leapt off the bike and yanked down my trousers in broad daylight in the middle of the road. Expecting to see a scorpion, spider, or at least a bumble bee I could see nothing. Unfortunately the same couldn´t be said for the bus full of locals that sailed by smiling and waving as they caught sight of my union jack underpants. I offered a blushing British salute back and feeling utterly ridiculous pulled up my trousers. I never did find out what bit me, but it certainly had a sense of humour.

Back in time
Fortunately, April Fool´s are only allowed to be played before midday, and that afternoon with the humour out of the way I approached Cafayate in northwest Argentina. This is wine lovers country with pallatial wine bodegas all over the place.


Maybe in a few years time when my taste buds have matured I´ll come back and do the Ruta del Vino. But for now, I was more than happy with Ruta 68, which connects Cafayate with Salta. It is home to some of the best riding in the world, with perfect twisty roads winding their way through a sandstone canyon. The scenery reminded me of Monument Valley in Utah - one of the sights of the first team Canuk adventure three years ago. For a moment I was transported back in time - on the same bike, in the same scenery, with the same feeling of wonder. Absolutely unforgettable.





And now, with Bolivia just a stone´s throw away, it´s time to leave the hospitable lands of Argentina and Chile and enter wilderness country. With any luck I´ll be back this way in just over a month´s time. But for now, there´s some serious adventure riding to be done.