In a land of fjords, frost and lifelong friends, Roothy discovers that the farther you ride, the closer you get
“Patagonia?” Matt’s still talking, I’m desperately Googling. I had some idea Patagonia was down in South America. I knew his company Nevermind Adventures had pioneered motorcycle tours through Patagonia, but details? Yeah, nah.
Turns out Patagonia is a region, not a country. The Andes mountain range runs right down the western side of South America and at the bottom you’ve got Chile to the left and Argentina to the right. Just as most of our population here in Australia is concentrated on the coast, in South America the cities are north where conditions favour civilisation. Patagonia is the regional name for one of the wildest and least populated places on earth.
Why? Because geographically it’s an insane jumble of fjords, glaciers, snow-capped mountains, deserts, tablelands and grassy steppes. The Spanish ‘discovered’ it, but quickly realised it lacked the riches of the Aztec cities farther north, so they concentrated their efforts on keeping other European nations out. Once Chile and Argentina gained their independence from Spain in the 19th century, their peoples began immigrating south and decimating the indigenous hunter gatherer population along the way. There’s lots of similarities with Australia’s colonial history right there, and to this day the region – like our outback – is very sparsely populated. Unlike the outback, though, it’s also very cold because most of Patagonia sits well below Tasmanian latitudes.
It is, however, one of the world’s most awe-inspiring landscapes and an incredible place to ride a motorbike. Mother Nature rules here, with breathtaking beauty amidst big distances of totally untamed wilderness.
I flew into Buenos Aires in Argentina and took a local Aerolineas flight to El Calafate, a budding tourist town that’s the doorway to the incredible Southern Patagonian ice fields.
MEETING THE GANG
On the flight I met Wayne, Dan and Adrian. In an airport full of Spanish-speaking tourists, three other Aussies toting helmets stuck out. They were on the last leg of their flights over from Perth and by the time the Nevermind van pulled in to pick us up, we were mates.
This is the weird thing about a trip like this; you start out strangers and wind up tighter than old school pals. Especially somewhere like Patagonia where you’re sharing an amazing adventure in a foreign land, looking after each other, getting drunk together, dancing – well, especially Dan – together and generally carrying on like a boatload of Vikings on the other side of the world. It all starts with having motorcycles and adventure in common, a really solid base, and grows from there.
By the time we’d got to the outskirts of El Calafate, I knew Daniel Lenane was a metallurgist who parked his restored Kombi in the GM’s space at one of Australia’s biggest foundries, on the days he didn’t ride the Guzzi to work anyway. Dan started as a boilermaker and worked his way up. Similarly, Adrian Slater kicked off as a clerk in a bank before he and his wife built one of WA’s most successful mortgage brokerage businesses. Wayne didn’t mention what he did because, like he said, if you knew he’d have to kill you. All successful professionals who needed to trot their wild side occasionally to blow off some big steam. A couple of weeks doing the back blocks of Patagonia on bikes is about as hard as you can push the reset button.
At the lodge we met the rest of the crew. Matt Natters from Nevermind you probably know, a tough rough nut who started his career as an environmental engineer before gravitating to the world he loves – exploring the parts of the world least travelled on a motorcycle. He and Frankie built Nevermind Adventures and they must be good at it because, just like the last trip, half the people on this one were repeat customers. Matt’s approach to touring with a pack is inherently team building. Adrian ‘call me Slater’ is proof of that; he’s on a Nevermind Adventure at least once a year. That night we met Greg James, ex Navy and ex-pro rugby player, the sort of bloke it’s always good to have around. Speaking of ‘big’, the Big Honk was along too, a log trucker-come-diesel mechanic and absolute dynamite on a trail bike. Bill Savage I’d met before, an ex-army Ranger who might have been the smallest bloke height-wise but was definitely the fittest.
Nevermind tours feature the best available local accommodation, figuring that after a hard day riding back tracks on a motorcycle, riders need somewhere comfortable with a good bar and a feed handy too. Trips like these, especially Patagonia, aren’t for wimps – but tough days make for great nights too. Our lodge was super plush, which was perfect given we’d spent the night getting to know each other in a brewery just up the road. Soft pillows for a bunch of hardened heads.
Despite a late night leveraging kegs, we kicked off early the next day by picking a ride from Nevermind’s pack of Royal Enfield Scrams. I hadn’t ridden the smaller-wheeled, more road bike version of the Himalayan 410cc single but by the end of day one I knew it’d be the perfect ride for a trip like this. It’s also one of the few bikes that can survive in country where anything too complicated or heavy is likely to break.
HITTING THE ROAD
Our first stop was the Perito Moreno Glacier which, in a world where the ice is supposed to be receding, is still growing. Seeing a real glacier was a first for me and so awe inspiring I found myself laughing and crying at the same time. It’s about 170m of thick ice some 30km long and sits above the river, with huge slabs occasionally breaking off and flowing downstream. The crack when the ice splits is like a sonic boom and the aqua blue chunks floating away are larger than houses. It’s suddenly very easy to see how most of the world’s geology was knocked into shape by the ice age.
That first day was spent mostly on sealed roads as good as any here in Australia but with a couple of tracks to get us used to the loose stone roads we’d be seeing so much of later. It was a good chance to get used to the cold, too, best dealt with by plenty of layers. I had long johns, two warm shirts, kevlar riding jeans and my waterproofs over the top to keep the wind out. It’d be a few days of slowly heading north before the outer layers got peeled.
We took off up Ruta 40, the main north-south drag in Argentina, heading for El Chalten, an alpine village that’s a base for trekkers and skiers. Mostly it was the long dry straights of desert we’re used to here in Australia where you can see for miles but the snow-capped mountains in the distance made it feel surreal.
Ruta 40 might be a main route, but it’s not all sealed by a long way. It’s that lack of people thing again. And that’s pretty obvious with the traffic too, or rather the lack of it. The occasional truck or bus, a couple of tourist four wheel drives and the beaten-up F100s and Chevy utes that local farmers keep going with lots of wire and tape. In one little mud brick town, one of the lads suggested it’d be a great place to open a windscreen franchise because almost every vehicle needed one. But then we looked around and figured spending money on windows might be the last thing they’d worry about. There’s not a lot of coin outside the tourist areas.
MEALS ON WHEELS
By day four we were heading into Gaucho country, the tundra-like grasslands where cowboys are still rounding up cattle on horseback. Lunch stops were often just side-of-the road barbecues cooked up by our local back-up crew, mechanic Seb and rider/translator Lucia, who were following with a ute and trailer for our luggage and spares for the bikes; but whenever possible we stopped at local eateries too. It’s pretty common to see an old bus or two gutted to put in a kitchen and benches and someone’s mum cooking up a storm.
I’d figured the food would be spicy like Mexican or something but for the most part it’s pretty plain. The locals have a pork mince stuffed pastry that’s always good, and another favourite was a plate of chicken, beef and onions covered with hot chips and a couple of fried eggs. At dinner the steaks were some of the best I’ve eaten anywhere in the world, and the salmon definitely the best. Sorry, mates, I know we like to think we’ve got the best of everything right here in good old Aussie. I used to as well. Pretty much everything was
carb-heavy, which makes sense in the cold. The beer was excellent too and not a night went past where we weren’t having a few brews to wash down the dust of the day’s ride. One to be avoided was Bomba, at 9 per cent alcohol and in a 700ml can, it tasted great – but after two you’d fall over.
ADVENTURES LIVE ON
Two weeks that felt like two months given all the miles and stops and swims and bars and conversations on the side of the track and then suddenly we were in the last days. We’d crossed the Chile/Argentine border a few times, taken single lane back tracks carved into hillsides, ridden for days alongside lakes that winked a blue azure colour in the sun, and all along felt dwarfed by the massive snow-capped peaks of the Andes. Every night there was somewhere very special to stay. I remember saying to Matt way back at that first glacier, “Wow, it can’t get any better than this!” It did; it just got better and better.
After a big last night where everyone got to share their favourite parts of the ride, we took turns ferrying out to the airport in San Carlos de Bariloche for our various flights home. It felt really awkward, like we were breaking up the team or something. Like the best adventure we’d ever had was over.
Maybe, but the memories will live on. And if Nevermind’s track record of repeat riders is anything to go by, there’ll be plenty of reunions.
Life’s definitely too short to miss out on any of those.
