Argentina Day 1
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The Argentinian border was the easiest yet, note to anyone on the road coming this way you have to do the customs exit routine for Chile in San Pedro.
The Argies are a great bunch, really friendly, and cant help you enough. I was through in about twenty minutes all told and I was off down the road heading for the Ruta 40. I was trying to get confirmation from the cops and from the customs guys where exactly does it start...it gets easier to follow down south but up here with all the mountain roads its a nightmare to figure out which one is and isn't the 40.
Quick recap, the plan is to head east, then loop up to towards the border with Bolivia, and then head due west and south on the Ruta 40. I actually passed a turn off for it today but the gobshite in me doesn't want to drive over any road twice unless i'm absolutely forced to, that way every single mile is an adventure....or at least new and different.... yep... like i said I'm a gobshite.
This road via Paso Jama is one of the best motorcycle roads anywhere in the world. I've done a few of them at this stage, the cabot trail, the Dalton, beartooth, transcanada, top of the world highway, tallaght bypass.....and this tops anything I've done so far, you can see in the pictures above how bendy and twisty it is, it was a pure joy to drive. The passes are so high if you get off the bike your breathless with any exertion at all.
With the amount of passes and valleys I've driven through over the last two days I think it acts like a compressor pumping in your alimentary canal, without being rude lets just say you can expect to be falling off the top of your craps for the first two days here.
On the way I passed flocks of llama's, a salt lake and some of the most fantastic looking cliffs and rock formations anywhere. By 4pm my internal scenery bucket was completely full and I pulled off the road in a gorgeous little town in the mountains called purmamarca which used to be part of the Inca trail.
I've been trying to psyche myself up all day for the "40", and have been doing a pretty bad job...
"what the fuck are you doing this for?"
"If you come off the bike in the middle of nowhere on your own you are dead"
"No one is going to give a fuck one way or the other whether you do this or not"
"Almost no **** has even heard of the Ruta 40, so why have you got such a hard on to do it"
"The bike has been acting the bollix a lot, if it breaks down...your fucked, no one to call out on the 40"
"Mobile phone wont work out there"
"Its at least 2500km of gravel, 2500km of other shit, and 2800km back to Buenos Aires, will the tires hold up?"
"Even if you do complete it you'll be fucked for a month after it, and the only person who'll feel good about it is you, no one else"
Those are the sorts of stuff I battled through in the helmet today, and in case you didn't notice I managed to refer to myself in the first, second and third person... I reckon the boys in the white coats will be coming for me pretty soon!!!!
How I got my head round it was with the following Quote:
You are capable of more than you know. Choose a goal that seems right for you and strive to be the best, however hard the path. Aim high. Behave honorably. Prepare to be alone at times, and to endure failure. Persist!
So this is it!... the 40 begins tomorrow... as motorcycling goes it doesn't get any tougher...
Woe to you of earth and sea
for the Devil sends his road with wrath
Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the road
For it is a human number
Its number is 40.
Over and out
Oisin
