When we awoke this morning every muscle in our bodies ached from the hard riding of the past two days. We made the decision to skip the mostly gravel Ruta 40 and the Perito Moreno Glacier west of El Calafate, and head east to glorious pavement.Our first stop this morning was the border crossing. OK, so we screwed up! Apparently we were in Chile illegally. It seems we didn’t check our bikes into Aduanas properly when we entered the country last time (in the snow storm – I guess we were thinking of other things!). That could have been really bad as we might have spent Christmas in a Chilean jail!! Although the Aduanas officer made it very clear (in Spanish of course) that we could have been in serious trouble, he closed his eyes to our lack of documentation for the motos and let us carry on. Whewww! Let’s not make that mistake again!
For the first time in our trip, the hotel did not include desayuno (breakfast), so we stopped in Los Antiguos at a nice new restaurant to eat. It was much better than some of the “free” breakfasts we had been getting.
Today we discovered that southern Argentina produces more than just wool. There were miles of oil pumps and some towns were obviously company towns, with rows of identical new homes.
Las Heras was even complete with its own dinosaur made of used oil drums. We finished the day in the port town of San Julian.
Sidenote: We have noticed a few wind farms (power-generating windmills) in Chile and Argentina. They are obviously concerned about energy and natural resource conservation. This was certainly not the case in Bolivia and other areas further north. When we were in Northern Chile it was shocking to see the waste of water, even when we were in the middle of the Atacama Desert. Our hotel didn’t have hot water recirc lines. They just let the water run down the drain waiting for hot water to travel all the way from the central heater to the room. We recently heard a documentary about Bolivia that said by the year 2009 (only about 1 year from now!) the demand for water will exceed the supply. The glaciers are receding that fast. It’s a very sad situation.
Sidenote: We have noticed a few wind farms (power-generating windmills) in Chile and Argentina. They are obviously concerned about energy and natural resource conservation. This was certainly not the case in Bolivia and other areas further north. When we were in Northern Chile it was shocking to see the waste of water, even when we were in the middle of the Atacama Desert. Our hotel didn’t have hot water recirc lines. They just let the water run down the drain waiting for hot water to travel all the way from the central heater to the room. We recently heard a documentary about Bolivia that said by the year 2009 (only about 1 year from now!) the demand for water will exceed the supply. The glaciers are receding that fast. It’s a very sad situation.
