Part way through some assembly on pickup at the freight forwarders warehouse. It gave all the truckers and drivers something to look at while they waited for their goods. Got plenty of thumbs ups.
I have brought my own bike from Australia. Getting the bike here was mainly about the financial pain, rather than the logistics. The final price was double a pre-covid estimate. The bike was picked up about a week before my departure and trucked to Sydney for crating, clearance and loading with Latam Airlines.
I ended up flying to Auckland with Qantas and having a 15 hour stopover before getting on the Latam flight from Sydney on it’s stopover. Then 11 hours to Santiago, Chile. As it turned out my motorbike was on the same flight. I stayed in a nearby airport hotel and picked up the bike the next day.
I had trouble working out where the bike was at the Cargo Terminal but eventually tracked it down with the help of a friendly worker. Organising the Temporary Import with Customs was relatively easy. I had to pay the cargo facility a modest storage fee and then I was done.
Getting out of Santiago was a little nerve racking. I was pretty rusty on the bike, riding on the opposite side of the road, rusty with my navigation and the overtaking is more frantic than Australia. Eventually I found the southern motorway and was underway.
I stayed two nights at my first stop of Curico, in a grape growing region. I was using booking.com to find accommodation, at the last minute on a Saturday. It didn’t get off to a good start. The first three places (some 20km apart at times), I booked online were failures, with no room actually available once I arrived. One place was more an Airbnb style place an old bloke ran. He eventually explained through Google translate that his normal accommodation was full, but he did offer me a room. It turned out to be a used unmade bed in his house. I don’t really know what he was offering, I’m sure he was trying to help me, but I kept looking and found a nice hotel on my fourth try.
Since then I have been working my way south. For the first week I was pretty much wandering aimlessly. After a while I picked up more information and have now got somewhat of a plan. I must admit I did zero planning about what to do in South America. Packing up my life in Australia took up my time and I was happy to just take it as it came in Chile.
I stopped for lunch in Curanipe one day. That was another example of Chilean kindness. I was having trouble working out what to order, so a customer insisted he would ring his Spanish speaking American wife who acted as my interpreter and ordered me a nice local fish dish.
My accommodation later on was in a cabaña in Pelehue. The dogs in Chile remind me of dogs in Australia in the 1970’s. They just wander the streets, chase cars and motorbikes, and just have a fun time together. Some look like strays while others look well kept. No collars. Of course it means you also have to watch where you walk. The ones loose on the street are the friendly ones generally, even when they roam in packs at times. Actually that’s only if you are walking. If you are on a motorbike you are fair game. Luckily I have solid knee high motorcycle boots. I’ve felt one dog make contact so far. It’s actually the ones behind the fences protecting their home that get scary.
From Pellehue I started in land for a while. I did my normal method of choosing a destination and then setting my Locus Maps (GPS navigation app on my phone) to “Touring Cycling” mode which keeps me off highways and often finds some interesting back roads.
Some of the roads were good, like the one below but many were just harsh, jarring farm roads that didn’t have much scenery.
Near Los Ruiles.
I meandered south, at times on country roads, at times on the main southern tollway. Chile has toll booths that take cash in most places. It’s a bit of a pain trying to find as little as 200 pesos (about 35c AUD) on a motorbike with the queue building behind you but my technique improved over time. I did ride through some automatic only ones in Santiago, I tried to work out how to pay but gave up and I’m trusting the foreign number plate will cut me some slack. The manual tolls are always colourful with people selling all sorts of things as you stop to pay.
Hiking The Heysen Trail Quorn to Murray Town
Week 3 – October 2020
Puerto Varas to Coyhaique, Chile
Update 2 (early December 2022)