Today is the day, the last push to get to the end of Ruta 3. We have to ride another 30km on dirt road. To make it easier we left all the side panniers at the hotel but we took the crutches.
The dirt road had nearly the same quality as a paved road, hardly any loose gravel; the only uneasy bit was the wet clay soil, which was slippery. After a short while we arrived at the park entrance.
We didn’t need to pay a park entrance fee, great! I even got a map and an explanation in Spanish why… I’ve still got no idea.
A few more kilometres later we arrived at the end of Ruta 3! We really made it J.
We were over the moon. We really made it to this point, against all odds, and when we arrived the sun was shining which is not so common here at this time of the year. We had a stroll to the nearby lake. The landscape with all the different colours looked fantastic.
When we got back onto the bike we saw a fox in the parking lot.
They are not really afraid of humans here, later we saw another one on the road following a bush walker. On the way back we rode to the train station of the End of the World Train. In its initiation this train was used to transport convicts and fell into neglect after the closure of the prison. In the early 1990’s it was converted to a tourist attraction.
The next train would leave in thirty minutes, so we decided to stick around and take a train ride.
We had a short stop at a waterfall, where Sigrid kept sitting in the train and I walked up the track.
The view from the waterfall platform was fantastic.
We continued our ride to the final station in the national park and then returned. It was an awesome way to travel, really relaxing and with enough time to reflect on the day. After the train ride we returned to the city. We had a look at some souvenir shops–
Sigrid posed as a fishermanJ. And since I did it, but didn’t have the t-shirt. I got one 😀
What a day, so we decided to celebrate our achievement with a dinner in the world’s southernmost Irish pubJ, the Dublin in Ushuaia.
Apparently they have some nice self-brewed beer, so we had to sample it. I prefer the negro, where Sigrid prefers the rocho. Well we enjoyed the night.
And when we left I stumbled over R2-D2 J
What a day. Now we can go only north, so our next destiny will be back to the mainland and then to El Calafate, the town closest to the Glacier Perito Moreno.
Date: 01/05
City: Rio Grande, Argentina
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 42342
Street: N/A
Weather: sunny, warm/freezing
After breakfast, Sigrid hopped into a taxi and I finished packing and left as well.
I would have liked to leave earlier, but multiple people warned me about ice on the road, and advised that I should not starting riding before the sun was out. Well, 9:15 seemed to be the right time to me. Just after leaving Rio Gallegos I passed a lake with plenty of flamingos in it. I couldn’t believe it, I thought flamingos like the warmth, maybe these one got trapped when the lake froze ;).
Well the lake didn’t freeze over, even if the ambient temperature suggested that it should.
I continued to the border with my heated liner cranked up. After doing all the paperwork, I got to the agriculture check point (people looking for fruit and other stuff) and it was here that I got caught with my Salami. Salami is not cooked so I can’t bring it into Chile. Back to the paperwork, so I had to tick yes to one question and hand the paperwork over so the officer had paper to put my salami onto :P.
During that time Sigrids bus arrived, they had a slight delay and started a bit later. Sigrid took a picture of my bike from the bus.
The bus got searched by a friendly sniffer dog; Sigrid took some pictures of him. She didn’t have any problems (well I had the SalamiJ)
So after the thing with the salami was solved I couldn’t get my heated gloves on again. They are water tight, and if you pull the hand out too quickly, the inner liner becomes undone and it is a nightmare to get the fingers back in place. I tried for more than 15 minutes to get the gloves on, with no success. I could have sworn that the inner liner had lost one finger… Anyway, after all that frustration I decided to get my not heated gloves out and continue with them instead. At this time of the day it was a bit warmer, so my hands were not too cold when I arrived at the ferry.
Even though it was just a shot ride I wasn’t sure if we would really reach the other side J
After the ferry ride I had finally arrived at Tierra del Fuego. I was excited!
Not long after the tarmac stopped and the gravel started. The road here is shared by trucks, bikes, pedestrians, sheep, Llamas and cows.
The dirt road got better and better and by the end it was nearly as good as tarmec – except for the potholes. I arrived at the second border much earlier than I expected.
The formalities were optimised, so that all border crossings didn’t take longer than 1.5 hours. The tarmac started just after the Argentinian border and I had only 80km to go. The sun started to get lower which allowed for a nice picture of my shadow.
I arrived at the accommodation and settled, and tried to send Sigrid an SMS. Well, that didn’t work, no message could be sent and no call could be made… strange. Around the time that Sigrid should arrive I connected to Skype, and Sigrid was online. She couldn’t SMS either AND she had lost the address of the hotel as well, so she didn’t know where to go…She was sitting in the bus terminal with a cup of tea and was using the WiFi to find the hotel. After I gave her the address, she hopped in a taxi and arrived in the hotel, just before sunset.
Tomorrow we will see how it goes with Sigrid as a pillion passenger, and if we get all our gear onto one bike.
Date: 02/05
City: Rio Grande, Argentina
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 42342
Street: N/A
Weather: sunny, cloudy/raining, stormy, freezing
In the morning I hopped onto my bike to find a Moviestar shop (our telephone service provider) in town. It was fun with my perfect Spanish to explain the problem that we had. In the end I succeeded and to cut the story short, after removing the battery and restarting the phone everything worked again ….hmmm, no comment…
But I also found that there was no petrol available in the whole town! Well, except at one petrol station and the queues there were so long that I had my doubts that there would be petrol left when it was my turn. And, to top it all off, the weather started to get foul, the horizon looked black and we got strong wind blasts. So back at the hotel we decided to stay a day longer .I guess without petrol it wasn’t really a choice 😉
This was the first time that we got trapped. Fellow motorcycle riders had said it before: in Tierra del Fuego, if you see a petrol station, fill up, but did I listen? Noooo… So I had some time to create a plug for Sigrid’s heated vest for her to use when it gets too cold.
In the evening we had another great sunset.
So if everything works well, we leave for the final destination, Ushuaia, tomorrow.
Date: 03/05
City: Ushuaia, Argentina
Kilometres ridden: 212
Cumulative kilometre: 42554
Street: One land highway
Weather: sunny/cold
Every time I’m amazed that all that stuff fits onto the bike.
I packed the bike slowly, since we only had 200km to go. I also wanted to avoid any ice on the road. So we figured a good time to leave would be around 12:00. I managed to fit everything onto the bike, including Sigrid crutches, and eventually Sigrid as well.
The ride was great and the landscape started to change from plains to a more hilly landscape with lakes and mountains in the distance.
And finally we arrived in Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world, our destiny.
It took us a while before we found an accommodation; most hostels are closed for renovation. We found something nice and close to the city centre. Tomorrow we will have a look at the end of Ruta 3, which it the most southern point that you reach by road. What a great day, we were so lucky that we didn’t have any rain or strong winds today, hope we stay that lucky 😀
Today we went back to the hospital to see the doc and get the stiches removed. After a cleaning the wound and having a look at it, Juan said the he would like to give it another couple of days, so we agreed to Monday. But Sigrid got her new fashion item fitted – the ultra-modern super-cool air boot lite.
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In the afternoon we got a mail from Hua – a friend we meet on the Stahlratte – and he might be interested in riding our ‘spare’ bike from Esquel to Buenos Aires. Suma and he had an accident and their bike was damaged as was as Sumas Thumb – more on that in their blog: http://whyweroam.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/road-trippin/
They decided to stay in Buenos Aires until Suma’s hand healed but the bike will be fixed in the US where the BMW spare parts are more reasonable priced. So Hua was looking for an oportunity to ride a motorcycle again and was thinking of coming to Esquel and bringing Sigrid’s bike to Buenos Aires.
The next evening Negro picked us up for a farewell Asado, which is what the Argentinans call their BBQ. Negro’s house has two open fireplaces, one inside the kitchen and one outside in the garden, so he can have an Asdao in summer or winter. We prefered to use the inside one, since it got realy cold in the evening. Negros son, Jenaro, was there as well and he once more had the terrible task of translating between Negro and us.
The Asado was fantastic, the meat was very tender and the sausages tasted great. Negro was frying a particular type of sausages (Black pudding) which we know from Germany. We usually only boil these sausages, so putting them onto a BBQ was a new idea to us. Maybe we ‘ll try that at home as well 😀
We really enjoyed the farewell dinner and the amzing hospitality that Negro showed us again. We are really lucky to meet people like him.
Before leaving for Rio Gallego I still had to figure out how to fit Sigrid’s crutches to the bike. When I was playing with it, Pedro came outside and we had a look together. In the end we found two possible places where to fit the crutches. And to hold the crutches in place I used cable ties. Cable ties are your friend 😀
Date: 27/04
City: Caleta Olivia, Argentina
Kilometres ridden: 635
Cumulative kilometre: 41635
Street: one lane highway
Weather: sunny, warm/freezing
After saying good bye to our hosts and to Sigrid, I climbed on my noble steed and rode away – you know, the man has to go into the dangerous world type of thing 😀.
The weather was ok, but a bit crisp for my taste. After a while I got used to it …to be honest I turned the heat on the Gerbings jacket up and forgot that it was cold 😛
I enjoyed riding so much that I arrived at my destination after 450km without a stop. It was too early to stop for the day, so I decided to continue for a bit and see how far I can get today. Not long after I was at the Atlantic Ocean, the first time since we arrived in South America.
It was a bit ‘fresh’ for swimming, and I wasn’t about to take my vest off. So I continued for another 150km and arrived in Caleta Olivia. The whole area benefits from the oil fields around, so they put a big monument of a petroleum industry worker in the middle of the town.
I got some accommodation there and had an early evening.
Date: 28/04
City: Rio Gallegos, Argentina
Kilometres ridden: 707
Cumulative kilometre: 42342
Street: one lane highway
Weather: sunny, windy, freezing
Got a nice breakfast, and particularly good coffee. I packed the bike just after sunrise as I wanted to make it to Rio Gallegos, just over 700km from here. The weather was a bit overcast but it was not as freezing as yesterday. The landscape started to get really flat and I started to see more and more Llamas on the side of the road. When I didn’t stop they ignored me, but as soon I started to slow down they jumped over the fence and disappeared. As I was having a look around, I spotted some emus like birds, but much smaller. Later I found out that they are called Rhea, but they were even more nervous than the Llamas and I couldn’t get a good picture of them – the one on the right will have to do – in the middle of the picture are two of Rheas.
The landscape was really flat by now but I still enjoyed it.
When I arrived in Rio Gallegos, I started to search for accommodation. All of the places I found initially were quiet pricey, so it took some driving around before I found one reasonable one. As I was riding around a car bumped into me -actually the bike- while I stopped to do a left turn. Luckily not much happened except some yelling, them in Spanish and me in English. The guy expected me to move when I turned, but I stopped for some pedestrians. Anyway, only my secret stash compartment that holds the number plate was broken. To be honest, I was quite happy when the guy took off. I don’t believe he saw his car from the front – didn’t look cheap to fix -and I don’t have too much knowledge about the Argentinean justice system.
I refitted the number plate with cable ties…. did I mention that cable ties are my friends?
When I settled into the accommodation and after organising something to eat I noticed that the internet was not working. Darn…after some back and forward, the guy on the front desk admitted that a technician tried to fix it a couple days before and left frustrated without coming back. Great, I did ask if WiFi is available in the room, and the previous guy said yes. So tomorrow I will have to find other accommodation. When Sigrid arrives we would like to have a look at the latest weather forecast and potentially storm warnings in Terra del Fuego.
Date: 29/04
City: Rio Gallegos, Argentina
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 41000
Street: N/A
Weather: sunny, warm/freezing
Today was more interesting for Sigrid. She had to go to the hospital to get the stiches removed and 30 minutes later to catch the bus from Esquel to there. We were not sure if the tight planning would work, but in the end it did. Sigrid reached the bus 15 minutes before it was leaving and, to her relief, there were still places available! I went to all hotels/hostels in town mentioned in Lonely Planet. Eventually I found one just around the corner which was really nice and affordable with functional WIFI. That was my task for the day done 😀
If everything goes well Sigrid will arrive in Rio Gallegos tomorrow morning at 9AM.
Date: 30/04
City: Rio Gallegos, Argentina
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 42342
Street: N/A
Weather: sunny, warm/freezing
When I left the hotel to pick Sigrid up from the bus, I noticed a BMW 1200GS with an overlander setup and with a Spanish numberplate parked in front of our hotel. Hmm, maybe we can have a chat to the rider later in the day. So I went to the bus terminal and picked Sigrid up from the bus. Everything went well and the bus arrived in time.
When we arrived at the hotel, we meet Jorge again; he was the rider of the BMW. We know him as the spaniard from our Panama crossing on the Stahlratte. What a surprise!
So we exchanged stories and had some welcome beverages in the morning, live can be hard 😛
His BMW had clutch problems and had to be shipped back to Buenos Aires, not a cheap exercise. In the afternoon we went to a travel agent to book the bus trip for Sigrid and also got an address for a hotel in Rio Grande. That should make it easier for us, since we will meet there regardless of who arrived first in town. So tomorrow will be interesting for me, 350km riding or which 150km is dirt road, one ferry crossing and two border crossings. With previous information from other riders and talking to Jorge, we’re assuming the border crossings are optimised and the gravel is all right. So I should be able to get there before it gets dark. Sigrids bus will arrive in Rio Grande at 6PM and the plan for the day after is with her riding pillion on my bike for the last 200km to Ushuaia.
Date: 20/04
City: Bariloche, Argentina
Kilometres ridden: 275
Cumulative kilometre: 40725
Street: Single lane bitumen road
Weather: sunny/cloudy, warm/freezing
After we had breakfast I moved the bike out of the hostel room. For that we had to move the tables around so I could push the bike through the dining area.
It’s really amazing what people do to accommodate our wish for secure bike parking. Anyway, after the bike was packed, I went off and bought Sigrid’s bus ticket and then started toward Bariloche. I followed the GPS out of the city and promptly took a turn too early. I thought I turn on the next corner to get back on track, right? The GPS recalculated and I followed. There was no other road to turn close by and the paved road ended and dirt started. Then the GPS guided me to turn into a lane way, just wide enough for one car which was full of sand and gravel… Uuurgh… I couldn’t believe that this lane has a name and the GPS knows about it.
Anyway, I finally I the highway. The landscape was really bare, no trees, just some ground cover and the mountain in the background. Then some pine trees appeared on the side of the road and I was finally riding through pine forest with cloud covered mountains.
It started to get overcast, and as soon the sun was covered, it got freezing cold. I had to stop and get my Gerbings jacket out- I love this jacket! After cranking the heat up it was toasty warm. After an hour the sun came out again and the colour of the trees looked even more impressive.
Not long after the road started to follow a lake. I guess this is what motorcycle riding is all about: Riding on a beautiful sunny day along a stunning landscape. The landscape reminded me of Canada, with the mountains, the lakes and the pine trees.
I arrived in Bariloche early in the afternoon. Straight away I had to change our booked hostel. There was no way that Sigrid would be able to get up the narrow stairs without a handrail to reach our room. It didn’t take long to find another hostel, and our room had a great view over the lake.
At 9PM I picked Sigrid up from the bus. She managed the bus ride well.
Sigrid is traveling in a bus with light luggage and crutches seems to work ok. We only need some minor adjustments for a longer trip.
Date: 21/04
City: Bariloche, Argentina
Kilometres ridden: 275
Cumulative kilometre: 40725
Street: N/A
Weather: sunny/cloudy, temperature, not sure didn’t leave the room J
We had a holiday from our holiday, a day of….. doing nothing, watching the clouds passing by,
Re-evaluating our travel plans and just enjoying the day. A day like this was really fun, so it can’t be healthy! 😛
So for tomorrow we planned to do something.
Today we decided to tour a bit. After talking to our host we went to a revolving restaurant on Cerro Otto via sky rail, the view was fantastic. When we arrived at the top we were greeted by an eight month old St Bernard – Paris 😀 soo cute.
We went to the revolving restaurant which does a full circle in twenty minutes. So we ordered some coffee and cake and enjoyed the ride.
The view was fantastic.
Well, we were sitting there for many turns, I didn’t want to leave. On our way out I had a look at the museum which had some replica of some famous sculptures. Unfortunately there were too many steps for Sigird to get there. :/
I had a short walk around the building and found some nice wood carvings.
When we finally went back down it was nearly six PM, so the sun was pretty low. That gave me the opportunity to take a picture of the shadow of the gondola (right picture).
When we tried to call our cab driver we realised that couldn’t reach him with our mobile and the number that he gave us. Apparently some prefix was missing. So we hopped on the local bus which dropped us off in the city cente. We limped and walked around for a bit and looked at some wood carvings.
Then we took a cab from there back to the hostel. When we arrived our host had just finished painting one wall with a white circle. The day before we had discussed different options of how to do it, in the end doing it by hand seemed to be the best option.
Date: 23/04
City: Esquel, Argentina
Kilometres ridden: 275
Cumulative kilometre: 41000
Street: Single lane bitumen road
Weather: sunny, warm/freezing
Today I packed the bike and went back to Esquel, starting around lunch time. It got freezing cold again at the same spot as the last time. This time I wore my Gerbings and long johns so I was better prepared. I arrived in Esquel around 4:30 without any problem. I found this guy at the entrance of Esquel.
Sigrid arrived earlier as planned, so she grabbed a taxi and came to the hostel. After meeting up again, we walked to the pub/pizza place around the corner. To our surprise there was a live band playing, which was really great.
Our trial run was successful, Sigrid can travel with light luggage in a bus and I can carry all the rest on the bike. Tomorrow we will see Juan, the doctor, and see what he has to say after removing Sigrids stitches. 😀
Today I planned to bring Sigrid’s bike back, which shouldn’t be a problem with the paper work from the notary. So I took the bus to Fualeufu in the morning to where I returned the crutches to the hospital and got Sigrid bike ready. To my surprise the bike wouldn’t start, the battery was flat!
Great! And I had all the tools and my jumper lead on my bike in Argentina!
Betina wasn’t going to be back for another three hours, so I removed the side cover and the seat and walked to the next car workshop. I told them about my problem. Imagine this: Asking for a jump start with my low level of spanish language mastery. We managed to communicate with a lot of gestures and laughing on both sides and the mechanics told me that they would come to my rescue in five minutes. When they arrived, we started the bike and I turned the idle up so the bike wouldn’t stop running. On the right are my heroes; the guys from the workshop.
Now I rode to the border, which was only a couple of minutes from the hostel, so I had to let the bike idle when I was doing the paper work for migration and customs. Some of the guys looked at me a bit strange, leaving my bike running. But when I attempted to explain that the battery was flat, it resulted in nearly the same amount of laughing as at the workshop. But they understood. I guess I have to improve on my sign language 😛
Anyway, what they did not understand was that I was moving Sigrid’s bike over the border and that the number plate didn’t had any numbers – it is SIGRID. It all threw them completely and it took quite a while before everything got resolved. The gravel road started from the Argentinian border, this time it was not raining and the views were great.
Back in Esquel I went straight to the trucking company and tried to find out if they can ship the bike to Buenos Aires to Dakar Moto instead of their warehouse. Had I mentioned my skill level of Spanish? It started with me talking to only one girl and by the end there were three people involved… I must admit they were very patient :D.
All three where smiling at the end, I’m not sure if it was smiling at my leaving, or being happy 😛
Then I organized a new fashion item for Sigrid which she can’t live without. That is to say I got hold of Sigrid’s air boot, which will make it possible to ride as a pillion a bit later on.
Then we started to reorganize our luggage to consolidate everything that we need onto one bike. So all the camping gear will stay with Sigrids bike, but after the experience with the flat battery I’ll keep all the tools and most of the spare parts for the bike. Then we parked Sigrid’s bike at Negros place and we all went out for a pizza. Negros son, Jenaro, came as well, he had the terrible task to translate between Negro and us. He was very patient and did a marvelous job, so we had a great evening.
Tomorrow we will start our trial run, me on my Motorbike and Sigrid on the bus to Bariloche.
Not much happened the next couple of days – Still trying to find the best way to get to Ushuaia, having a look at the Perito Moreno Glacier, then get to Buenos Aires to visit the Izagu falls with Sigrid on crutches. Slowly all things start to line up, including getting a new Visa for the US and finding ways for Sigrid to travel. On Saturday Negro took me back to Futaleufu in Chile were our bikes were still standing. I brought mine back to Esquel in Argentina. I didn’t pick the best day, the days highest temperature was +7C and it started to rain as soon I hopped on the bike. Regardless, I enjoyed being back on the bike again.
As I found out on the border, getting Sigrid’s bike exported from Chile and imported into Argentina requires a statutory declaration signed by a lawyer saying that I’m allowed to do it. But where does one find a lawyer in Esquel?!?
Turns out it’s not as difficult as we first thought. We asked our host and they pointed us in the right direction. We gave it a shot and asked there. Yes, sure they can. For about 300 pesos.
Sigrid thought we might be able to get it cheaper if we go to the town hall and find something like a justice of the peace. After some limping around, we found out that there is nothing like that in Argentina. So back to the notary, Anna, to get it organised. She was really helpful and spoke English as well, which made the process of describing what we need so much easier.
Sigrid started to get a bit restless from lying around most of the time, so we went out and had a short walk through the park nearby. Sigrid improved her technique and started to move rather quickly on the crutches. So when the next doctor’s appointment was due, Sigrid decided to walk to the hospital, which was a fair distance away. We stopped at a small shop and had some ice cream.
Juan, the doctor, brought along a friend called Pia, just to translate for us! I thought that was amazing. He had a look at Sigrid’s wound, I was surprised by the size, but the 7 screws had to fit somewhereJ. He was happy with everything and with Pia’s help we made sure that we now have a good idea about the upcoming time line.
The upshot was that Sigrid can travel on a bus with crutches and next week she gets an air cast. After 6 weeks the large screw should be removed but that can be done in Buenos Aires. After that, it might take another two weeks before Sigrid’s leg is strong enough to hold the bike again. He didn’t recommend being pillion in the next week, but with the air cast it might be possible. That is, if Sigrid doesn’t put any weight on it, which effectively means no gravel road with Sigrid as pillion. Well, I’m not too sad about that, gravel roads are not our favourite at the best of times.
After talking to Juan and getting some more information we planned out the rest of the journey. We will go to Ushuaia, Sigrid in a bus and I on a motorcycle. We have to fit everything that we need onto one bike, as bag-snatching on busses is quite common and Sigrid is likely to be a prime target seeing that she wouldn’t be able to move very quickly.
Now that will be a challenge. To see if it works at all, we will make a trial run to Bariloche, a beautiful town in the Argentinean Lake District, 300km north from us. But first I had to bring Sigrid’s bike from Chile to Argentina so that we have all of our stuff together in one place.
Today was the day; Sigrid got her spare parts fitted :P.
Negro picked us up in the morning and guided us to the OP preparation in the hospital. Not long after that Sigrid got a bed assigned and the doctor, Juan, came to talk to us before the operation. We presented him with our prepared questions. It looks like the order is, after 1 week; the doc has a look at the leg, after two weeks the stiches get removed and a new cast put on. Then we can travel by bus and crutches. Sigrid got into surgery and came out an hour and a half later and slept for another three hours. The picture below shows Sigrid after taking the happy pills. She was actually in pain, but after taking the pills she didn’t care about it 😀
In the evening the doctor came back, talked to us again, showed us the folder with the X-rays. Some additional information became clear now. It seems that Sigrid needs another operation in 6 weeks to remove the large screw and the rest of the screws come out earliest in one year.
The comments below made with a tongue in cheek, the hospital looked a bit worse for wear but it was always clean.
After a while Sigrid visited the toilet
A closer look at the wiring which was dangling out of the wall, we just hoped that the blank wires were not the active ones.
And to flush the toilet -just grab into the hole in the wall and pull on the yellow pipe, easy.
To be honest, the other toilet looked better, but it was too small for Sigrid’s crutches and IV dropper. But at least the window was kept open J
During the night Sigrid couldn’t sleep well, the pain was strong. In the morning the doc visited and asked for another X-ray just to confirm that everything is in place. Below are Juan (the surgeon), Sigrid and her X-rays and the happy pills.
After the X-rays were done we were ready to leave the hospital….but before we could leave we got the bill for the operation.
It was only 700$ all up! That was a great relief for us. It meant that we can continue our trip – at least from the financial side – regardless of the insurance.
Then Negro appeared all out of the blue, Juan must have called him. He drove us home and even organized crutches for Sigrid, since we need to return the others back to the hospital in Futaleufu (Chile). At night he passed by again to see if we were ok and we made an arrangement for dinner Friday night. He’ll also take me to Futaleufu on Saturday afternoon, so I can bring my bike to Argentina.
Date: 04/04
City: Esquel, Argentina
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 40450
Street: single lane dirt
Weather: sunny/cloudy, warm
Betina and Negro picked us up and brought us to the hospital. We saw the doctor, he found two problems, first the broken bone, which is obvious, but there is some damage to the ligament as well, which can take up to six weeks before it is healed. After talking to him, the whole surgery and continuing our trip doesn’t look as good anymore. Three weeks after the operation the bone should be fine, but the ligament can take up to 6 weeks, depending on the damage. That would bring us into mid-May when we continue and it would be end of May when we arrive in Ushuaia, which might be too late.
To add to the frustration: the internet at our accommodation doesn’t work, and we feel unable to work on a solution without internet. Anyway, we will work on that later. We ordered Sigrid’s spare parts – the parts for the operation – screws and a plate apparently made in Switzerland, so that it would be there when there is a time slot in the theatre. For the operation we have the choice of two hospitals, one in the public hospital, cheaper but takes longer to get the operation, the second is a private hospital, faster but more expensive. Negro passes our accommodation tonight and gives us all the facts and we can make a decision. The doctor was puzzled why Sigrid cast covered the whole knee, so he suggested cutting the top part of to make it easier for Sigrid. When the nurse came with the circular saw, Sigrid started to look concerned. I remember that feeling from eight Months ago 😛.
Right picture, Sigrid is happy that the leg is still attached after the cutting exercise 🙂
To get Sigrid ready for the operation she needs to get an EKG done, and some blood samples just to make sure that she is fit enough for the operation. After three hours the EKG doctor send us home and told us we don’t need a blood test, so we went home. In the evening Negro came
He told us that we needed the money for the operation in the private hospital in advance in cash; we told him that we wouldn’t get as much money out of an ATM but we will have a look tomorrow. Negro also asked what happens to the blood sample, the doctor was surprised that they were not ready at night. Great, so first thing tomorrow morning we’ll be going back to the hospital and getting the blood samples done and talk to the bank to see what our options are.
Date:05/04
City: Esquel , Argentina
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 40450
Street: single lane dirt
Weather: sunny/cloudy, warm
Got to the hospital in the morning, and Sigrid got here blood samples done. Meanwhile I took the picture without looking, blood is not my thing and I didn’t want to add stiches in my head 😉
Then we went to the bank and we were lucky to meet Negro again, he helped us by the translating and we noticed that there is no way to get the money from the teller, only from the ATM, where the fees would be very high and most likely we wouldn’t be able to get the money in time. So we departed and Negro told us that he would be at our place around lunch time with more details about the operation in the public hospital. At lunch, it was raining cats and dogs and we were happy to sit here warm and dry. When Negro came he told us that for the public hospital we need only the money for the spare parts and can organize the other payment later, maybe even with credit card (TBD) and that Sigrid could be operated on Tuesday. That’s all great news. In the afternoon I went to the city centre, got the first lot of money from the ATM and organized a new accommodation with internet for tomorrow. When I came back I notice the first snow in the mountains around us, hmmm, it’s not bad as long the snow stays up high.
At night the internet in our accommodation started to work partially, Skype and receiving mails, sending mails and no browser would work, so we called our family in Australia to update them with the latest events.
Date: 06/04 – 08/04
City: Esquel, Argentina
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 40450
Street: single lane dirt
Weather: sunny/cloudy, warm
Moved into the new hotel which has working internet, hello world we are back! We started to investigate some options for the rest of the trip and at night we went (or should I say hobbled?) out for dinner in a nice restaurant. For Sigrid it was a long trip, it was 6 blocks from our accommodation and it was hard work for her to get there. As a treat, we got some very nice food. I got a nice trout meal and Sigrid some duck leg.
On the way back we got a taxi….
The next couple of days we were busy with organizing things and trying to find out what would happen after the operation. We got a rough idea but have to talk to the surgeon to get something more tensible. So we prepared some question with help from Google translate. Then our host had a look at them and made sure that the translations made sense in Spanish, and finally Negros nephew gave them the final polish. We will see, tomorrow morning Negro picks us up to show us where to check in for Sigrids operation.
Today we thought we have breakfast in the eating area, so Sigrid crawled down the spiral stairs.
We had a nice breakfast and Betina drove us to the hospital where Sigrid got her x-rays done. When Sigrid was limping into the hospital, the staff put her straight into a wheel chair.
It took a while to get the x-rays, but when it was done even we could see it… Sigrid had a cracked bone and it was even a bit apart, so it needs surgery.
This was bad news which could mean the end of our trip. So we talked to the doctor and explained our position and tried to find a way to continue our trip without being in the middle of winter in Ushuaia. One thing was for sure, the leg needed to be stabilized to avoid further damage and that meant to put it into plaster. The doctor explained that he had to put the plaster above the knee.
To get Sigrid going we got some crutches as well and a physio showed Sigrid how to use them.
The most feasible solution for us was to get the operation done in Puerto Montt (the town where we just came from), which would mean a bus journey from at least 15 hours – not something Sigrid did look forward to… When we came back to the hostel, Betina, our host, came up with an alternative. She was suggesting that she could take us to the next larger town in Argentina, just 70 km up the road. In Esquel she had a friend of a friend who is a trauma surgeon. She actually called him and he agreed to have a look at Sigrid foot. To make it even better Betina was driving to Esquel today. From there she wanted to catch a bus to Buenos Aires, where she would visit her family for two weeks. So we took her up on her offer, packed everything that we needed for a couple of days and left for Argentina. We passed the border without any problems; I would have expected some questions on the Chilean border, since we left the Country without our motos. Anyway, all went well and passed in no time the Argentina migration and were on our way to Esquel.
When we arrived in Esquel, we meet Negro, a friend of Betina who lives here and knows the trauma surgeon well. Both were incredible nice. We have experienced it when I had my accident back in the US, when you need people they will go out of their way to help. So Betina and Negro helped us to find accommodation, get Argentinean money so I could buy some food and pay for the accommodation and Negro went even off and organize beacon and eggs for us since they were sold out in the super marcado. After all that, we had dinner together, Pizza and some well-deserved beer.
When we were sitting in the restaurant a guy approached us and said: ” Haven’t you recently been in Chaiten?” It was Diego who we meet in our accommodation in Chaiten after riding in the rain for two hours. He mentioned that he was from Argentina and on his way back, but we didn’t know that he was living in Esquel -small world. Anyway we had a great evening. Tomorrow Betina and Negro will pick us up from our accommodation and bring us to the surgeon where Betina will translate for us before she hops on the bus to Buenos Aires, how nice is that? What a crazy day.
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