04-10-04
From Bariloche we headed, in somewhat of a hurry, back to Buenos Aires. What quickened our steps was the fact that we were to meet my sister in Ecuador in May. A feat I did not expect to be able to complete given the amount of distance that we had to cover.

The trip back to Buenos Aires was mainly punctuated by a pit stop on route forty.

While in Bariloche we had service done on the bikes. The guy changed oil, cleaned the chains, and checked other things. We didn't think much of it at the time, but when Aldé's chain fell off multiple times after we left the province of Neuquen we remembered that the chain seemed loose after his service. The crossing from the province of Neuquen into the province of Mendoza was quite dramatic as we went from a nicely paved two lane highway (Route 40) to a foot bridge (also Route 40). The route was sporadically paved very nicely for 1 or 2 km stints. Then it would trail off into gravel or a gravel/used-to-be-paved-big-ass-holes-in-the-middle hybrid. The latter is worse by far, as it baits one into cruising at a higher velocity only to come across a hole that spans the entire width of the road.

After the fifth time that Aldé's chain fell off, it was bent, broken, and useless. Not having a spare with us, we decided to camp for the night. The plan was that the next morning I would leave Aldé with our stuff and head north to the closest large town. Judging from the map that appeared to be Malargüe (some 98 km away by my calculations), for replacement parts. I took off at 7:30 am and rode. I was very low on gas. Luckily I came across a sign informing me that there was another town about half way to Malargüe, about 85km away, called Bardas Blancas. I was also informed of my miscalculation of the distance to Malargüe which was in fact 160km away. After about forty kilometers the road became relatively nicely paved and continued all the way to Bardas Blancas. When I pulled into the town and asked where the gas station was I was told by this old guy, compulsively uttering "señor," that there were no cars in this town and thus no gas station. I felt an illogical urge to argue the point, but instead just thanked the old gentleman easily 60 years my senior, suffixing it with "señor."

Calculating that it would be close, I had no choice but to keep trucking. I rolled for a while on the route that again began to break up. About 30 minutes later I took a curve, seeing to late a very large rock the size of my leg directly in my path. Without the time to safely swerve around it, I just went over it with both tires. Not even coming close to falling, I congratulated myself for being such a talented driver. The self congratulation was quickly smothered when I realized that my tire was spewing self sealing liquid. I looked down, thought to myself, glad I bought a Honda and kept on rolling. Honda is the only company that puts self sealing liquid in bikes as small as the CG titan 125cc.

I got into town on fumes and filled the tank with a whopping 26 pesos (almost 9 bucks)! The usual fill-up for my bike is around 20 pesos (seven dollars). Shit was close! I had to dip way into the reserve. "Dip" is an euphemism; I pretty much used the whole reserve. I rolled about 50-70km on that mess.

The replacement parts for Aldé's bike had to be shipped in from another store and would arrive that evening at 5:30pm-ish. I read and studied for five hours and then went to an internet café.

The parts finally came in. I grabbed the stuff and split town at five-something.

About 90km down the road my tire bubbled out. It stopped me dead in the road. These guys in a pickup truck helped me out and pulled the bike to the side of the road. I didn't know what it was until we got it into the headlights of their truck because it was very dark. We let some air out and I was able to go again. They recommended I head to a gomeria (tire shop) in Bardas Blancas. I asked "will it be open now?" "Of course!" They replied in unison. And why wouldn't it be it is 8:45pm I thought. I am in Argentina where everything save the government and banks closes for four hours during the day, for lunch and siesta, but in return they are open until 11pm. The government and banks are usually open from eight or nine in the morning until three-ish in the afternoon and don't close for lunch.

It turned out that my friends from the truck were correct and the gomeria was open. Unfortunately the tire guy told me he didn't "do motorcycles" and couldn't help me. However, after chatting a little with him he said he could do a motorcycle "for me," but that I would have to leave it there and wait like two to three days. Since it would be such a long wait, he encouraged me to ride on the bulb. I knew it was dangerous, but thought I might be able to make it. I drove until the pavement ended at which point I hit the first pothole and the whole tire had had it. I calmly brought the failing, wobbling bike to a stop, turned it off, and thought.

I carried it up the sandy incline and hid it from the road as best I could and locked it up. Then I put all my clothes on and started walking. I knew I had like 30-40km left but that was my best option as I had the parts that could get Aldé's bike moving again. I walked in the dark for 2 and a half hours when a truck picked me up and dropped me off at the tent around 1:30am. I recounted to Aldé my adventure and went to sleep.

Today we fixed his bike putting only the chain on because we couldn't get the bolts off the sprocket. It is not good to replace just the chain or just the sprocket because if either of the old parts is damaged they could damage the new part, but we didn't have much of a choice.

Tomorrow we will head to town, get a new tire and inner tube and fix my bike, then get the hell on to BA.

When the sun rose this morning I saw what Aldé had told me about the night before. During his hours alone he had hiked up the road to pump drinking water. On his way he came across the freshly dead wild cat (Geoffry's cat) that we had seen the day before on the road. He skinned that bad boy. It was now drying in our camp. He plans to make "something" out of it. The original plan was gloves, but there is only enough skin for ONE glove! Vamos a ver.