Crossing from Chile to Argentina with My Motorcycle
Update 4 (December 2022)
Coyhaique to El Calafate, Argentina
Coyhaique was a good chance to have a rest and do some preparation. The front shocks had the oil leak repaired and I did some prep to get into Argentina. It seemed like it would be pretty straight forward. Australian tourists can enter Argentina without a visa, for 6 months from memory. (Update – it seems to vary depending on the official at entry, sometimes I have had 3 months, sometimes 6. One time my bike had 9 months). Unlike Chile where I had to pay for a visa and get the multi entry version.
Getting the motorbike in seemed straight forward also. Just apply for a Temporary Vehicle Import Permit at the border. No fee to pay. And I already had my SOAP, third party vehicle insurance for foreigners. Which I also had to do in Chile but its called SOAPEX there.
The Chile Argentina Huemules border crossing was very well organised. You leave your vehicle and head inside to do the paperwork. This crossing was actually a shared building with Chile and Argentina. So in my case I did the exit with Chile and then walked to the other side of the office and did the Argentina entry.
Having your own vehicle brings an added responsibility to get the paperwork right. When you do a Temporary vehicle Import you are allowed to bring the vehicle into the country, without paying import duties or taxes. So you need to make sure you exit the vehicle correctly, otherwise if they think you have sold the vehicle and avoided the taxes, they will come after you.
Parking at the Chile Argentina Huemules Border. It was pretty quiet but I still just ride up as close to the building as I think I can get away with.
After crossing into Argentina the road was unsealed. And the terrain changed as I moved away from the Andes mountain range.
I was basically heading east at this point and getting further away from the green of the mountains.
After a while I reached the town of Perito Moreno (not to be confused with the glaciar of the same name). My first task was to find an Argentine SIM card or “chip”, as they call it. I ended up spotting a Claro agent which is one of the big phone providers. In Chile I just bought a tourist SIM card and moved on. I knew Argentina was different and they want your passport details as part of the process. But this guy wouldn’t quote me until I handed over my details which I was pretty suspect of. Anyway I went through with the sale and got connected again. Everything has gone fine since.
One thing I hadn’t understood was the Argentine exchange rate. Upon entering the country I just paid for things on my card and looked online for the ARS/AUD conversion to know how much I was paying. But then I noticed the amounts on my bank statement were coming through as considerably less than I expected. It turns out that there is an official and unofficial (Blue dollar) exchange rate. And in the last few months the banks have adopted the Blue, unofficial rate. So this means I am actually paying almost half of what I initially thought.
I found a cabana just out of town, nothing flash but the lady was genuine.
Old mate just wants to come in.
These are Guanaco, the common Llama is their domesticated version. I would liken them to Kangaroos in their prevalence, although they do seem to avoid getting hit by cars better than a Kangaroo. They do have trouble though, with the fences along the roadside, sadly there were a few that had perished when they got stuck halfway through trying to leap the fences.
One thing I haven’t talked about in Patagonia is the travelling cyclists. Towards the bottom they are a regular sight, it is obviously a thing to do, and it would be hard. I always give them a wave and get it returned.
It was about now that I almost had tumble number two (number one was a harmless low speed mishap in Chile before I got my sea legs). This could have gone much worse.
I was on an unsealed road with loose washy gravel in places. I spotted some cyclists up ahead, sitting on an embankment and having a rest. I was in a thick gravel stretch and knew I had to be careful, my instinct was to give them a nod of the head, but these guys had a trailer of sorts and looked pretty hard core. I decided to give them a quick wave. Bad decision, I strayed a few centimetres off my line and was in a thick gravel patch. The front tyre swept out and the bike wanted to go down. I was in third or fourth gear and gunned it to get some stability but the bike was swerving back and forth still in the grips of the gravel.
At this point I was convinced I was going down. I was probably doing about 60kmh, so it would have been bad. Right or wrong I still put the power on. Eventually, the bike started to get some stability and my aim for a clean surface of the road came good.
I don’t know what the cyclists thought of the show, but I imagine both of us were happy there wasn’t some medical episode to deal with a 100km from the nearest town.
A Pampas Grey Fox, maybe, near Viedma Lake. He was just hanging around near a view of the lake, waiting for someone to feed him something I suspect.
My next stop was El Calafate, a small tourist town. This was the view out of my hotel window.
Coyhaique to Cochrane, Chile
Update 3 (mid December 2022)
El Calafate Celebrations, Argentina
Update 5 (mid December 2022)