SOUTH AMERICA ON TWO WHEELS: TEMUCO, CHILE TO SAN CAROLOS DE BARILOCHE, ARGENTINA

Editor’s Note: Day two of our motorcycle adventure continues for guest writer, Tim Darrin.

South America on Two Wheels: 
Off I go.  I’ve met the other riders, and our guide (pick-up truck driver and man in charge) Andres Bunout Puchi, a regular Chilean whose specialty is TV news production. He’s also an internet techie as well as being an exceptional motorcycle guide, rider and translator. I wished he was riding with us on this trip, but he follows and is there to facilitate the group’s needs.  Four of the five of us work for Google; two in Los Angeles and two in Paris.  There is Eric and Jerome from France and I have hit it off well with Jerome, brothers from a different mother kind of thing. He speaks great English and when pushed, he knows how to pull the cork out and twist the throttle. Suzanna and Rob are from LA seem like regular blokes. You don’t want to get in Suzanna’s way, as she can get a bit short, yet still very pleasant.  She rides very well and was first to arrive at tonight’s destination.

The Motorcycle Riders

Somehow, we start together, then separate, take photos, get a little lost, and then at the last curve or intersection miraculously arrive together following inline to town after a full day’s ride.

Snowcapped peaks

Tonight, it’s San Carlos de Bariloche.  An amazingly beautiful Argentinian lake side town with tall, sharp mountains surrounding the lake. The word “craggy” became my word of the moment as I was riding south on Route 40.

Patagonian Cliff

Each day while you ride there is a stream of consciousness that bangs around in your helmet. Today’s were that this is an incredibly beautiful country. When you grow up in upstate New York, with those mountains, and lakes and all that natural beauty you tend to have that as a basis to compare to anywhere else, and this place looks like upstate New York… on STEROIDS!  The trees, the granite mountains, the lakes are just larger, grander.  It is now very green, unlike Santiago’s climate.  I am in Patagonia!

Southern Hemisphere summer flowers