The Cruise Is Off... for me at least

Looks like the cruise has gone down with the ship! Turns out there are no single rooms on board the Cruise Ship, so unless I want to pay twice the price, I've decided not to go on the cruise. I will instead meet the group on their return and ride the Argentina portion of the trip with them. Sharon and I are planning to do this cruise together next year instead!

Cuise To The Glaciers

Mountains and Ice

Looks like there's room at the bar!

The vessel "Mare Australis"

January 21, 2011 will be the departure date for nine of us to leave Santiago, Chile and ride south to the town of Castro on the big island of Chiloe in southern Chile. There, the group will board the cruise ship "Mare Australis" for a five day cruise to the southern ice fields of Chile, specifically Laguna San Rafael. The equivilant of an Alaskan inside passage cruise. Upon returning to Castro we will again mount our bikes and head into Argentina to the resort city of San Carlos de Bariloche. After leaving Bariloche, we will ride north to the city of Mendoza before returning to Santiago once again. This should be quite the trip!!

Mountains And Ice

I'm very much looking forward to this year’s trip to Chile for a number of reasons. First, I have very short layovers (two hours, average) between flights and a much more direct flight as well. I will fly from Buffalo, NY to Atlanta, GA and then direct to summer, I mean Santiago! Second, the trip to the ice fields in southern Chile. At the invitation of my friend Guillermo, who if you remember, saved me from the Atacama Desert last year, I have accepted an invitation to join him and a group of his friends on a motorcycle trip from Santiago to the southern ice fields of Chile. This is an area of mountains, fjords, lakes and glaciers in some of the most remote reaches of southern Chile. Some of the most impressive scenery in the world can be found there. We estimate the trip will last eleven days.

I will arrive in Santiago, Chile on January 4th, and the trip south will begin January 20th and last until the 31st. The days before we head south will be busy ones, as I will have to renew the registration of my motorcycle as well as have it inspected this year. I also want to put “Crash Bars” on the bike to avoid repeating the damage to the engine that occurred last year in the Atacama Desert. I also have to repair the right side luggage box that was damaged in last year’s incident. I have all the necessary repair parts and will be taking them to Chile with me.

Thank You To All Who Participated In This Rescue!

Luis Urzua, the last miner recued from the mine in Chile stands with Chilean President Sebastián Piñera


Chile, a sliver of land on the western shores of South America between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes Mountains, has lived a difficult year 2010, beginning with a devastating earthquake in February and then a mine collapse in August that left 33 miners trapped more than 2000 feet below ground for more than two months. Today, under the glare of the world media, Chile has shown the world what it is capable of. Never before, and hopefully never again, has such a feat been successfully planned and executed to find and then rescue so many trapped miners with such success. Today is a good day for Chile! VIVA CHILE!!

The Next Adventure

January 3, 2011 is the date for the start of the next adventure to South America. I plan to be there for two months and as of now don't have any real plans, although I do want to travel around Chile to visit some of the hardest hit areas of the earthquake that I missed by only 48 hours last February. I'm interested to see how much progress has been made since the quake on Feb. 27, 2010.

The Long Drive Home

February 24, 2010
Wednesday
The time has come to put the bike away until next year. This is always hard to do because the riding here in Chile is so spectacular and here in Santiago you hardly ever have to think about rain gear. But, all good things come to an end and tonight I will be on a Boeing 767 headed back to the good old USA, and the cold of western New York. As a coming home present, the weather man has found nothing better than to forecast heavy snow and 61 mph winds gusts for the Buffalo, New York area just about the time I was to land there, so…. I’m getting off in Boston and driving home. I’ve never landed in driving snow and 61 mile an hour winds before, and I don’t want to start now! The six hour layover in Boston had something to do with my decision too! Hey….see ya all at home!

An Afternoon In Wine Coutry

Main house and summer home of Don Melchor Concha y Toro

Our Guide

Barrels full of wine

Aging cellars

Cabernet Sauvignon vines

Yes, you can take it with you!

February 21
Sunday
Wandering around Santiago on the bike with no real destination, I remembered that last year I rode by the Concha y Toro vineyards on the outskirts of Santiago. Concha y Toro is the largest winery in Chile and the 10th largest in the world as well as being the largest wine producer in Latin America. It was established in 1883 by Don Melchor Concha y Toro and his father-in-law, Don Ramón Subercaseaux Mercado. This sounded like a good place to spend the afternoon, so I headed south toward the Maipo river and over to Concha y Toro vineyards. Arriving at the main gate, I was greeted by a beautifully maintained gated entrance manned by two security guards. I asked where I could go to take the tour, and they advised me and allowed me thru the gates. Once on the property it was evident that this is a very large operation that spends a great deal of money in the upkeep of their property. The grounds where impeccably maintained and the buildings where very attractive with their Spanish styling. Once I had my pass for the tour, I went into the main building where the tours originate. The tours are given in English or Spanish. In the main building is a restaurant open to the public, a small room where you watch an informative video of the history of Concha y Toro before starting the tour, and a very nice store where you can buy wines and souvenirs. After watching the video our group, which consisted of myself and another couple, was escorted out into the main square, by our tour guide, where one can sit and enjoy the sunshine and maybe a bottle of wine. Continuing on we headed to the main house that was once the summer home of Don Melchor Concha y Toro and has now been converted to offices and event center. The gardens surrounding the main house where of French design and as would be expected, meticulously maintained. Next, we went to the nearby vineyards where the grapes of the Cabernet Sauvignon are grown. Our guide explained that although most vines will produce grapes for about a hundred years or so, Conch y Toro replaces it’s vines after forty years to maintain the high quality of its wine. Another interesting fact was that while other wine producing countries have to worry about insects that attack the vines, Chile is in a rather unique position. Since Chile is bordered by the Atacama Desert to the north, the Andes Mountains to the east, the Antarctic to the south and the Pacific Ocean to the west, Chile has almost no native insects that threaten the wine industry. This is one reason that the Customs agents are so careful to screen for any fruits, vegetables or other contaminants that could enter the country.
Next we where, escorted by a guard, to the buildings housing the wine barrels that where aging in the cellars. There were thousands of barrels of wine in the cellars aging and waiting to fill the bottles that would be exported to all corners of the globe. Each barrel holds enough wine to fill 300 bottles. After touring the new wine cellars as well as the original, it was off to the good stuff, the wine tasting. In a special room with wonderful mood lighting and beautiful old handmade Spanish furniture, we sampled both the white wine as well as the red that Concha Y Toro is so famous for. The nice surprise was that we were invited to keep the wine glasses with the Concha y Toro name etched in the glass. A very nice touch and a wonderful tour.
Key Dates:
1883: Concha y Toro establishes its first vineyard and winery.
1965: Company introduces its first premium wine, Casillero del Diablo.
1987: Concha y Toro introduces Don Melchor, its most ambitious wine yet.
1994: Concha y Toro makes its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange.
1998: Company ranks second among wine exporters to the United States.

February 14
Sunday
I finally managed to contact my friend Guillermo Troncoso, who was responsible for recuing me front the Atacama Desert last month, and he invited me to his home in Rancagua, south of Santiago. The plan was to go from his home to the seaside town of Pichilemu for the day, so I got on the bike and in a little over an hour I was at his house. Guillermo, his wife Veronica and the kids Florencia and Luciano loaded up in the pickup truck and I followed on my bike as we headed to the Pacific Ocean for the day. On the way, we stopped at a little restaurant where they make old style Empanadas in real mud ovens. I’ve had a lot of Empanadas in my time, but nothing like these. The ovens give the Empanadas a whole different texture and I think they cook better that way as well. That must be the reason that this place is packed to capacity and they are only open on Sat, Sun and holidays. After the beer and Empanadas we continued thru some very picturesque countryside full of hills, winding road and wineries on all sides. Very pretty! Arriving in Pichilemu it was obvious that this is a very popular place, the town and the seashore was packed with people. It’s a popular surfing beach where in the winter they hold national surfing competitions. Arriving in Pichilemu we headed to the beach house of Veronica’s Mother’s friend, where I was welcomed as one of the family, as usual. I was invited to have lunch with all the family and friends, and afterwards Guillermo and his immediate family took me to see the sights along the seashore, this time though, the bike was not in the back of the pickup! Pichilemu has a beautiful beach that stretches for miles before becoming very rocky and with high cliffs. From up on the cliffs there is a fantastic view of the entire area, where you can watch the surfers descend the cliffs to reach the best waves. As we where watching the waves, Guillermo pointed out what he thought was a surfer in the waves down below, but as I watched, the “surfer” never resurfaced. It was no surfer, it was some other large animal of the sea. Who knows what? All I know is after seeing that, I think I would stay onshore. It was pretty good size! After watching the sun set over the Pacific, we headed back to the beach house before the entire group went out to eat at a local seafood restaurant that Guillermo likes. This is where I was able to properly thank Guillermo for recuing me, by allowing me to pay for everyone’s meal. After dinner Guillermo and Veronica and the kids took off in the pickup and I jumped on my bike and we headed back home, it was 11:00pm and by the time I arrived in Santiago it was 2:30am. This has to have been the nicest day of my entire trip!

Asado a la Chilena

February 12
Friday
Tomorrow, Saturday Feb. 13, I will be heading back to the capital city of Santiago, and as a going away surprise, Eduardo my good friend and my Aunt’s driver, put on a very nice cookout Chilean style out in the garden of the main house. Here no cookout is complete without some nice steaks, salads and some very good Chilean wine. We enjoyed a great meal until we couldn’t see any more. No, not because of the wine, but because we continued until way after dark. Gracias Eduardo!

Back In Chufquen

February 6, 2010
Saturday
I have been back at my Aunt’s ranch for a couple of days now and not much has gone on lately as far as motorcycle rides are concerned. I do have a family crisis back in the States. Hopefully all will be well there, but there is the chance I may have to cut this trip short and return home early. Let’s hope all goes well.

Bariloche, Argentina

Town square in Bariloche

Just some of the knives

The view from my room

February 3, 2010
Wednesday
I'm in San Carlos De Bariloche, Argentina at the moment having breakfast and plan to do some shopping in this tourist town where they have many beautiful hand made things from here in Argentina. It’s quite cold, windy and overcast at the moment which isn’t too conducive to shopping outdoors. Last night while I was at my favorite restaurant, enjoying a great steak dinner, here in Bariloche, I noticed a sign on the window advertising a concert on Thursday night of my favorite Spanish singer, Julio Iglesias, so I think I’m going to see if I can get a ticket for the concert.
UPDATE: Julio is all sold out! Oh well. Turned out to be a pretty nice day even though very windy. Did a bunch of shopping and bought a bunch of beautiful handmade knived with all kinds of exotic handles, even one set for cooking steak, a knife and fork set hand made of German Stainless and with a sheath to store them both.

Tunel Las Raices

Tunnel entrance

Area map

Inside the tunnel

January 31, 2010
Sunday
This morning I was up at the crack of 10:00 o’clock and decided to take a bike ride to a place I’ve been to before, but not on the bike. I’m talking about the “Tunel Las Raices”, that is about two to two and a half hours away from the Farm by bike. The sky dawned clear as a bell yet it was just a little cool at ten in the morning, so I put on the jacket and gloves and headed out. When I reached the town of Victoria, I stopped for gas since I only had half a tank and I like to fill it up whenever it reaches half empty because you never know when you’ll be in an area that has no gas stations and you’ll run low on fuel. Continuing toward the tunnel you come to the town of Curacautin, but there is no real reason to stop there and I drove right thru. Between Curacautin and the Tunnel there are a few stretches of very tight turns and you have to be very careful in these areas. It’s also very scenic in that stretch of the trip, as you drive on you can see quite a few volcanoes in the distance. As I reached the tunnel, I expected to have to pay before I entered, but I was told by a person there that now you had to pay at the other end. It wasn’t long before the barrier went up and the vehicles were allowed to enter the tunnel. It’s been quite a few years since I last drove thru the tunnel, and back then it was just gravel placed over the railroad tracks because this used to be a railroad tunnel that was converted to a tunnel for vehicles to use. I was very pleasantly surprised, as I entered the tunnel, to find that it has now been completely paved and lighted as well. In the early days it was an experience to drive thru the tunnel with water raining down thru the rocks inside and no lighting what so ever. This tunnel is nearly three miles long and only wide enough for one way traffic, as it is only 11.5 feet wide at its widest point and the width of the road is less than that. On the other side of the tunnel there is a very scenic valley with a mountain at one end that is perpetually covered with deep snow. It makes for a very nice place to take pictures, and that’s exactly what I did before heading back thru the tunnel and back to the Ranch. Total time was about five hours.

Life At The Ranch

Main entrance

Dining room

January 30, 2010
Saturday
Since being at the ranch in Chufquen, I’ve eased into the routine here. The atmosphere at meal time is very formal. When it comes to meal time, we sit down in the large formal dining room, the table set with real silverware in the way of a five star restaurant. Knives and forks for the Entre, others for the main dish and yet others for desert. Glass for wine, others for water or other beverage. My Aunt has a full time cook that has worked for her for more than forty years. Elena (Nena as we call her) has worked here almost a life time, and is the best cook I’ve ever met, she’s more like one of the family. She would have no problem being top chef in any top restaurant in the world. Once at the table, you are waited on by the housekeeper, Rodrigo, who serves all the meals, sometimes in formal white jacket. It’s just something you have to get used to when you’re here; it’s always been this way. Kinda like home, right Sharon?
The rest of the day is one of finding something to keep you entertained. Since we are far from any city or town, you don’t just jump on the bike and head to the mall. You take walks around the main house or you go down to watch the workers unload the wheat in the warehouses, since this is harvest time and the busiest time of the year. We have WiFi here, but I find that my little Netbook will not pick up a signal up here at the main house. I have to go to the office 500 feet away to log on. The computer though is a good thing to have to pass the time processing pictures or writing my blog in Word and later uploading it to the Internet.

In The South Of Chile

January 29, 2010
Friday
I have arrived in Chufquen, my Aunt’s ranch, the ride from Los Angeles this morning took about two hours as I expected, putting me here at around 10:30am. When you are here, you need to learn to slow down. It’s not like the big city where there’s all kinds of things to do. Here you are far from almost everything except peace and quiet, save the occasional rooster crow. It’s a very laid back atmosphere. The grounds surrounding the house resemble a well manicured park with a rose garden and too many other kinds of flowering plants to mention, mostly because I have no idea of their names. As soon as the battery on this computer is fully charged, I’m going to go to the other side of the house to see if I can capture the WiFi signal coming from the office a few hundred feet away. Until then!

Motel HELL!!

The Pacific Ocean town of Constitucion

January 29, 2010
Friday
After leaving Santiago at about 11:00am yesterday, I headed south on the Pan American Highway, Route 5 in Chile. I rode about four hours before turning off Rt. 5 and heading west toward the Pacific Ocean town of Constitucion. Constitucion has some very nice beaches with black sand a jagged shoreline. After leaving there, I rode along the shore until in the town of Chanco the road headed back east and eventually back onto Rt. 5 once again. By the time I started back south on Rt. 5 it was quite late in the afternoon, and it was a tossup whether I could make it to my Aunt’s ranch at a reasonable hour or not. They tend to close up shop there around nine at night, so I chose to find a place for the night in the city of Los Angeles, even though I was only about two hours away. The Motel looked nice enough, a safe place to park my bike, a good size clean room, nice bathroom, and WiFi, always a plus! Now comes the “good part”. What I wasn’t aware of was that there was a small window left open in the room with no screen on it. Now, I’ve been going to Chile for many, many years now, and I had never seen a New York size mosquito let alone any Mosquito here in Chile because it’s generally a rather dry climate for the most part. But this hotel room was full of Mosquitoes. They had the market cornered, and I think they were all in my room. Well, after spending a considerable amount of time killing these nuisance critters, I figured I was home free and could get a good night’s sleep. Boy, was I wrong! There must have been a little Mosquito Commander in charge of this squadron of menacing marauders , that was sending them my way, one at a time, because as soon as I killed one, there soon would appear one more, and it went on this way all night long. Now, if the Skeeters weren’t enough to keep you awake all night, there was some kind of infernal whistle that kept going off every five minutes, like clockwork. As soon as you ducked your head under the sheet to keep that last Mosquito from attacking, and you started to drift off to sleep, TOOOOOOT! This damn whistle would go off and jolt you from your sleep, and it continued until at 4:30 in the morning when I woke someone up in reception and complained. Soon after, the whistle was gone! But I still have to ask, why the hell do they have to have a whistle going off every five minutes when you pay so that you can have a place to SLEEP? Guess I should have bitched sooner!

What Do You Mean It's Closed?

The whole restaurant to myself




January 27, 2010
Wednesday
It’s looking like tomorrow I am going to start heading south to my Aunt’s ranch about seven hours away. I’m planning on taking the scenic route along the Pacific Ocean, so I figure it will take me all of tomorrow and part of Friday. If you’ve read my Blogs from past years, you know that I can’t leave Santiago without enjoying a great Argentine steak at one of my favorite places to eat. I’m talking about “El Rancho Del Che” in the foot hills of the Andes, not far from Santiago. Last year I took Sharon there for the first time, and she talks about that experience ‘til this day. At El Rancho Del Che they specialize in meat, all kinds of meat and let me tell you, it’s worth the drive. It seems though, that the last couple of times I’ve been there, I’ve hit their slow time. They told me today that January is typically their slow month, and today when I arrived the doors were locked, but there were two people working in the dining room. As the door opened, I asked Arturo if they were open and he indicated that they were not and I think he must have felt my disappointment, because he told me that if I wanted to eat, he would prepare me a nice meal. Now, let me ask you, has anyone ever opened a restaurant just for you, so you wouldn’t go away disappointed? I didn’t think so! This is the kind of hospitality you can expect here in Chile. I’m sure that if you’ve been reading this blog for the last few weeks, you’ve picked up on the fact that people here in Chile will go out of their way to help you. That is the way it is here.
Arturo let me in and led me to the dining room where I had my pick of the tables. Since it had to be close to 90 degrees today, he suggested I sit in the area where the fan was, and he turned it on producing a gentle breeze that made it quite comfortable in there. Arturo took my order and promptly set a cold Cristal Lager in front of me for starters. Not long after, he appeared at my table with a Chilean salad and shortly after that arrived the Steak cooked just the way I like it. I had a nice conversation with Arturo while I enjoyed the meal talking about his brother who also works there and of all the times I’ve been to the Restaurant. I assured him I would be back before I return to the USA in February.

What To Do?

The Nikon S-570

January 26, 2010
Tuesday
Ever since the “Disaster in the Desert” I’ve been trying to come up with a good solution to the loss of the lens that was on my Nikon D-300 digital SLR camera. I have a second lens with me, but it's a Macro lens best used for very close up photography, like taking pictures of bugs and flowers. It doesn’t work well for the kind of photos I generally take. Since losing my lens in the Desert, I’ve ordered and received a new Nikon lens to replace the broken one. Problem is, I’m in South America and the new lens is in western New York USA. I looked into having the new lens shipped to me, but found it would be a bit pricy, between $200 and $300, not to mention the pissiblility of having something happen to the new lens in transit. What to do? I still have about a month and a half here in Chile. That’s when the lights came on, take the money I would spend shipping the lens and buy a good Point and Shoot camera for the time being, so off to the Mall I went. In one of the camera stores in the Mall Alto Las Condes, I found a small, compact Nikon S-570 12 Mega Pixel Point and Shoot camera. My big expensive Nikon D-300 has 12.1 Mega Pixels. Just what I wanted, so I walked out the proud owner of yet another Nikon. I spent a day or so familiarizing myself with the camera, and yesterday rode the bike into the Andes Mountains to take some serious pictures with the new little Nikon. I took multiple pictures to later join them together into Panoramas. I took pictures from nealy half a mile away of rafters in the River Maipo, using the Telephoto Zoom. I took pictures of mountain flowers in Macro mode. I took regular snap shots, and when I say this little camera is fantastic, I’m not kidding! The pictures that you see in the post titled "Embalse El Yeso", are all taken with this impressive little camera, and although they are reduced in size for ease of uploading, they still look great. There are more shots taken with the S-570 if you look in “My Photo Gallery” Chile 2010 gallery, taken on yesterdays trip to the Andes.

Embalse El Yeso

Reservoir El Yeso



Mountain flowers in the Andes

Rafting on the Rio Maipo


January 25, 2010
Monday
First of all....A very Happy Birthday to my son Tom!!
Embalse El Yeso was my destination today. This is a reservoir to the east of Santiago up in the Andes Mountains. If you’re on the short list to receive my S.P.O.T. check in messages, then today you received an email showing exactly where the reservoir is located. (Lat: 33°38'55.03"S, Lon: 70° 4'24.65"W) It took me about an hour and a half to two hours to get there, as once you leave the blacktop there’s about twenty four kilometers of dirt road to contend with. I found myself a little gun shy on the dirt road today given the experience I had in the Atacama Desert a week or so ago. The road was good and I noticed the bike temperature raising the higher up into the mountains I went. I attributed it to a couple of things, first the wind was to my back on the way in, and I kept the speed down to keep from falling on my ass again! I would stop every once in a while to let the bike cool down before moving on. I took the new Nikon S-570 camera with me today, and after reviewing the pictures this evening, I must say, and you can quote me on this, The S-570 is one hell of a little camera! I uploaded quite a few of the pictures to my SmugMug gallery (that you can get to from this blog) at a reduced size and I have to say they still look fantastic. They rival the pictures from my Nikon D-300 12.1 Mega Pixel camera. I’ll be interested to see how the new Nikon lens I have waiting for me back home will compare. Back to the story, it was a totally clear sunny day as usual, and the road leading to the reservoir offered many opportunities for great picture taking. The reservoir is quite large, and with the mountains as a backdrop, it’s breathtaking. Crystal clear blue water surrounded by some very rugged mountains. Just beautiful!

What To Do In Santiago

LAN Chile DC-3

Cessna 195

Beech 18

Grumman Albatros

January 23, 2010
Saturday
This morning I was sitting here trying to figure out where to go, so I decided to go to the top of San Cristobal Hill here in Santiago. Santiago has grown in all directions and now San Cristobal sits almost in the middle of the city, so if you go to the top you get a spectacular view of the city in all directions. While I wandered around looking at all the little tourist shops, I glanced out to the south and spotted the now closed Los Cerrillos Airport, and it was then that I remembered there was an Air and Space Museum there. Well, some of you that know me, know that if there is an aircraft anywhere in the vicinity, I want to see it! Off to Los Cerrillos I went, working my way thru the busy city streets not knowing exactly how to find the Airport. But with a little dead reckoning and the GPS unit, we where there in about an hour or less. The museum has some very old and some not so very old aircraft on display, one of my favorites was the LAN Chile Douglas DC-3, dating back to the early 50’s I’m sure. For all I know, it might have been the plane LAN Chile started out with. LAN Chile Airlines is my favorite airline. On no other airline that I’ve flown, do you get such wonderful service, good food and real knives and forks. You don’t pay extra for the wine or the beer and LAN has probably the most modern fleet of planes in the world. OK, the commercial is over! Back to the Museum. There where planes from all over the world in the collection and from almost every manufacturer as well. I saw a Grumman Albatros as well as a Beechcraft T-34 Mentor, a Beechcraft 18, a Cessna 195, a Consolidated PBY Catalina, just to mention a few. All in all, it was a great way to spend the warm sunny afternoon in Santiago.

Don Carlos Restaurant

January 22, 2010
Friday

I’ve been in Chile now two weeks, and I thought it was high time I went for an Argentine steak dinner, so tonight I headed down the block and across the street to the “Don Carlos”. This is a high end restaurant in the Argentine tradition. Waiters in white jackets, décor that gives the feel of a Hacienda in Argentina, and top notch service. I ordered a Bife Chorizo, which is a good size juicy Rib Eye steak, accompanied by a Ensalada a la Chilena, a very traditional Chilean salad consisting of sliced tomatoes and thinly sliced onions dressed with Olive Oil, Lemon Juice and a touch of Balsamic Vinegar. Throw in an Escudo, a Chilean beer, and we have a meal!
I asked for the meat “well done” and I have learned that it will arrive at your table a little pink in the middle, something I have learned to live with, because the meat here tastes so good! The meat in the USA has NO taste compared to the meat in this part of the world! It’s always one of the highlights of my trip, and to top off a wonderful meal….an Espreso Coffee. I can’t wait to get to Argentina!

What Can I Say?

If you click on the picture, it makes the 93 degrees even bigger! Warmer tomorrow!

Back On Two Wheels

January 19, 2010
Monday

After a marathon 21 hour drive, my bike and I are back in Santiago. Johan Schulin and I left Calama, Chile, yesterday morning, just after 10:00am and arrived in Santiago at the BMW motorcycle dealer at 7:00 am this morning, an hour before they opened. I was a bit shocked when I was told by Claudio, the service manager, that I would have the bike back by 3:00pm the same day. I guess my good friend and General Manager of the dealership, Mauricio Vergara, had suggested to his people that they get right on my bike. Mauricio takes good care of me whenever I need something there. Mauricio has invited me to go along on a motorcycle ride, to the Pacific Ocean, with him and some representatives from the BMW motorcycle factory in Germany while they are here visiting in Chile, in a few weeks. Sounds like a good time to me.
By 4:00pm I was at the dealership picking up the bike, but as I was about to leave, I found that the battery had died, and the bike would not start. Turns out the battery had an internal short in it and had to be replaced. I had some suspicions about that battery last year, because I had problems with it on my trip to Ushuaia. I even mentioned to Mauricio one day last week that I thought the battery was a bit weak, and I had Mauricio listen to the bike as I started it, but he thought it sounded normal. Looks like I might have been right after all! Anyway, we have a brandee new battery in the bike now and it starts just fine. The adventure continues.

It's All Part Of The Adventure

Guillermo

Isabel and Johan

January 17, 2010
Sunday

I’ve been replaying the events of the past few days in my head, and thinking that as bad as things could have been, I couldn’t have been rescued by nicer people. First off, I met Guillermo Troncoso who rescued me from the Desert, drove me and my bike all the back to San Pedro De Atacama. He then took the time to find me a way to get me back to Santiago using all his connection. He found a friend of his, Johan Schulin, who happened to be heading to Santiago tomorrow and was willing to take me and all my baggage along. Johan drove all the way from Calama to San Pedro De Atacama, a two hour round trip, on Saturday to pick me up and take me to a hotel in Calama, and we will be leaving Calama in the morning heading to Santiago. A 1000 mile trip. This afternoon, Johan invited me to his house for coffee and Empanadas, and to meet Isabel. Empanadas are a very Chilean food, like a turnover filled with ground beef with spices, an olive, a piece of egg (I take that out first thing!!) and raisins, Baked in the oven. Very good!
I could have done without getting so up close and personal with the Desert, but I have met some of the nicest, kindest people ever, due to this event. I now have two new friends in Chile. It’s all part of the adventure!