South America
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Argentina and Uruguay
Well, it has been a curious time on the long road for this hardcore adventurer. After yet another dramatic conquering of the Andes and the many perils that this entails, your correspondent cut the ride short in central Argentina in order to get to Buenos Aires and also avoid the drudgery of a boring road…
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North West Argentina (Bolivian border to Salta)
Oh the ignominy! 30km into a long 40km rise between Atocha and Tupiza and my left pedal just seized. It’s buggered. 10km from the top and the bike is stuck. Decided to roll back to Atocha and put the bike on a van and fix the pedal on the other side in Tupiza. Heartbreaking to…
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Salar de Coipasa and Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia
Pisiga town is a hectic land crossing between Chile and Bolivia and has that border town feel that everyone wants to be somewhere else. And rightly so. Trucks, more trucks and squalid little hotel rooms and to put not too fine a point on it, it just pongs a bit. Bolivia has taken to insisting…
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Ruta Andina in Chile
Oh the humanity! Sensing an opportunity for immortality, Buff3y unpacks the bike and sets off up the A-135 desert road near the Peruvian border up towards the village of Putre (a 3,700 metre climb). Two days of climbing up this ugly little road and he is down to the last four litres of water and…
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Fin del Mundo, Ushuaia Argentina
Buff3y the Hard Core Adventure Cycling rolled into Ushuaia yesterday, thus completing the bicycle trip through the Americas. Now as I stand by the water of the Strait of Magellan and turn my gaze to the north, there is not one latitude between this point (54 degrees 48′ 47″ South) and Dead Horse Alaska (70…
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Tierra Del Fuego
. . . . . . . . . Buff3y The Hardcore Adventure Cyclist, having just conquered all of the South American mainland is now forging his way across Tierra Del Fuego towards this ride’s end point at the southern most city in the world, Ushuaia. Now with only a few days until I arrive…
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Southern Patagonia
Just south of the tiny hamlet of Bajo Caracoles in central Patagonia there is a 50km stretch of road, that, for want of a better name, we will here call, ‘That-stinking-bastard-piece-of-frickin-crap’ road. It’s paved and runs straight as the proverbial arrow and flat as the equally proverbial pancake in a west-sou-westerly direction. If you should…
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Carratera Austral, Northern Patagonia
The Carretera Austral or Route 7 [formerly Carretera General Augusto Pinochet], is the road/highway running north/south through Chilean Patagonia. It is part dirt and part sealed but all beauty. Being the well-traveled and weller-experienced adventure cyclist that I am, of course, I have always considered the Karakorum Highway running from far western China south into…
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The Lakes District, Argentina
Dear Readers, know that your long-suffering correspondent is still on the long road heading south and has made it to the charming provincial city of San Carlos de Bariloche in Patagonia. Nestled on the banks of the Lago de something-or-other this is a heavily touristed resting spot before one heads towards the Chilean border to…
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Patagonia
Well it’s certainly an interesting sensation to finally be pedaling through Patagonia. The land is flattening out towards the pampas as I have left the last of the high mountains behind me. Am tempted to think of this as the final leg of the journey but even a cursory glance at the map reveals that…