The never ending Ruta 3 north

Firstly, apologies for the lenth of time it has taken to get this blog published. We now find ourselves in the Capitol of Argentina in this wondeful city called Buenos Aires, waiting for our flight home.


But I´m getting ahead of myself a bit. I last left you crossing the last border from Chile into Argentina and believing that was about that. It´s all a breeze from here on in I thought. This was to be a very wrong assumption on my part. We had the small task of traveling the whole length of Ruta 3. Whilst almost a fully paved road, this 3000Km length of black stuff takes you from Ushuaia to Benous Aries through some of the most boring countryside you could imagine. Long straight stretches and when I say long, we are talking eight days long. We started to feel the pain almost as soon as we started. Patagonia is noted for its fierce winds and we were not to be spared any of its anger.


The ride north from Rio Gregarros started of quiet enough but as the morning went on the winds picked up hinting at what lay ahead of us. We were buffeted from side to side as we battled the winds. Mile after mile was spent trying to hold the bike steady and this started to tell across my shoulders. Anyway it was only a matter of time and some heart stopping moments that we arrived in Puerto San Julian. The weather was at least warm and dry and after we found our hotel and got settled in we decided to explore the town. Puerto San Julian, as far as we can tell, is a small holiday coastal town. It seemed very quiet to us but we decided to have a ride around the town and it turned out to be very interesting indeed. It had a tourist cartoon galleon ship which you could pay a fortune to look around,




so we didn’t, and a memorial to the galliant men who lost there lives fighting in the Malvinas (Falklands) war. We stopped for a short while and paid our respects.


We often thought that the issue with this small group of islands would have been a greater focus with people we had met in Argentina on our trip, but this is not the case. No one has ever mentioned this to us at all. We have always been greatly welcomed by everyone we have met in this country, which we both were beginning to become very attached too. The town also had a little waterfall and a very very good restaurant, so fully watered (wine) and fed we trooped off back to our hotel for a good nights sleep.


The next morning was New Years Eve and we set of again as early as we could to avoid the winds, which really did not work. Super strong gusts would actually push the tyres across the tarmac either into the oncoming traffic or into the verge, I am not sure which I disliked more, but no matter which direction you are riding in the wind ALWAYS seemed to be a cross wind and it was becoming very hard work indeed. More endless straight roads and endless miles saw us in Comodoro Rivadavia, a rather big town/City, but it was new years eve, Party time


Now Sandra’s and my idea of a party after seven months of traveling is a quick drink then bed. New Years Eve was to be no exception. We did try and find some signs of life in the town but just like Christmas day in Ushuaia everything was closed. However the hotel we stayed in had its fair share of bikers. Ruta 3 is an iconic road and Argentineans and Brazilians will often travel its length. We met a bunch of Brazilians who where heading south and full of excitement about their trip. We had been given a couple of miniatures Irish whiskeys from Mark, the crazy Northern Irish bar owner from the Shamrock in Canoa, Ecuador. We had carried these two small bottles of Irish golden wonder all this way and we had promised Mark they would be drunk on a special occasion. A new decade seemed special enough to us. So our crazy party antics consisted of telephoning the families at nine o’clock (midnight UK time) downing the whisky and hitting the sack.

It should be noted now that both Sandra and I had some serious fatigue issues. Traveling for seven months was taking it´s toll and we where both feeling it badly. The goal had been reached and we where heading home. This had allowed us to relax a bit, but with this came a deep weariness, something that’s hard to explain. Anyway the next morning the Brazilians wished us a happy new year in English and off we set.


We had seen on the map that just west of a town called Trelew was a Welsh settlement called Gaiman. Our plan was to ride to Trelew, park up for a few days and visit Gaiman. The ride was the now familiar beating from the Patagonia winds, my shoulders now very painful from trying to steady the shed, but the weather was still dry and we made it to Trelew which turned out to be a big disappointment. Still very quiet (new years day) and it seemed somewhat unwelcoming. We decided to press on straight to Gaiman. Only one thing prevented this, which way? We have now learned that as soon as we are lost we stop at a garage and ask directions. This we did.


In front of us was a rather large oldish chap on a moped who, having heard our plight, insisted that we follow him to the right road. It’s hard keeping a fully loaded shed at something less than walking pace, but this kind chap took this odd looking convoy to the correct road. It’s just incredible what people will do for you. We shook hands and were on our way.

Gaiman is both bonkers and wonderful. Hot and sticky when we arrived, the town seemed almost deserted. This is normal in most South American towns in the afternoon. Now Gaiman has a wonderful history. Founded by the Welsh in the late eighteen hundreds this South American town has all kinds of sights and sounds that echo its Welsh heritage. The people for one thing are not typical looking, light skinned and hair, blue eyes and some very non South American surnames, like Davis and Jones, Evens and Griffiths. The town itself still retains it’s welsh architecture and the shop names are in Welsh as well as spanish. We were told the kids all learn Welsh in school too.


We had a meal at a local tavern and the proprietor was very proud of his welsh ancestry and showed us a scrap book of all the past families and events of the town. In the evening we walked in the square and it was great watching the families come out and socializes together and seeing dads playing with kids in the evening sunshine. All in all it was a great place to visit. Our Hostel was a bit basic...... err very basic, but our host made us feel very welcome even saying that I looked like a very famous rock star. Modesty prevents me for saying who this is but it made Sandra and I laugh. He also went to the trouble of getting some stickers for the shed, something we had trouble finding.

An early start saw more straight roads and more wind, it was really beginning to tell on us. But we made it to San Antonio Ouste, again a disappointing town full of dust from construction so we pressed on to Viedma. Now the lonely planets book gives this town the thumbs down, but we found it to be a really nice place. A large wide river with people enjoying the sunshine along its banks, a great hotel with secure parking for the Shed meant we had a great evening and night.

The next morning saw an even earlier start with good weather at first. The winds picked up almost straight away and steadily got stronger and stronger. Then we noticed SAND being blown across the road. Given that we were being thrown from one side of the road to the other the addition of sand made me feel very uncomfortable about the whole affair. Then to add insult to injury the rain threatened to pour. As we rode on we could see mist in the distance, but as we approached this mist turned out to be a wall of sand being blown around. It was like entering a sand blasting chamber.

Any exposed skin got stung by this combination of wind and sand. The bike stated to gleam as the months of grime and dirt peeled away under the onslaught. Even the nasty old stains left be the goo on the Dalton Highway back in June was cleaned up; proving every cloud has a silver lining, except for the big rain clouds that constantly threatened us with a soaking.


We were lucky and only got a mild wetting and the day suddenly got better weather wise so we pressed on. We reached Bahia Blanca, a biggish town, and started the usual trawl for a hotel. It was very hot by now and the hotels did not have great parking for the shed. As we discussed our options a cab pulled up and basically told us to follow him. We knew he did not know what we wanted but like sheep we followed him anyway; he led us out of town to Ruta 3 north thinking we were leaving instead of arriving. Still this meant we could visit the sea side town of Punta Alta and stay there the night.

From there it was an uneventful ride to Azul, our final stop before Buenos Aires. A road side hotel and a meal had us ready for the City.

Our very last fuel stop of our adventure.