| Location: | Perito Moreno |
It can´t get any worse. Surely. Around the next hill, I could only shake my head in disbelief again. The road seemed to widen out, but there was truly no road in any conventional sense of the word. It was wave after wave of deep rutted soft mud. The bottom of the 4x4 ground into it, spinning around. I began to wonder whether even we would make it. I could not even begin to think of what Kevin was going to have to do to get the bike through. I wasn´t even sure it could be done. How good was the bike, with an almost bald back tyre? I knew Kevin had not tackled road this bad before. And then there was the weather. There was no easing up in the snow and so it was only going to get wetter and worse.
I slumped myself into a large armchair in the hotel cafe, which overlooked the only road into town from Ruta 40. There was a tight knot in my chest. The snow was swirling across the road even here, where we were lower - the only consolation was it was not settling. I could not bring myself to think about how bad it was getting up there.
Half of me wanted to just get a truck out now, bugger the ride, just go and rescue Kev and the bike. The other half knew what Kev was like. He would relish the challenge and would want the opportunity to make it through without an over wraught wife sending out the cavelery. Even Marcio had said to me, don't worry he will get through - which in a way I read as don't insult his masculinity by going to fetch him!
Still I was sat there, with two hours of waiting before our time limit was reached and two hours is alot of time to worry about what could happen and whether Kev and the bike would succumb to some freak incident, beaten by the atrocious conditions. I would waiver between almost tears and then a confident determination that Kev and the bike were invincible. Minutes crawled by. I could not move from my seat, glued to the road. Every light, movement had me sat bolt upright. I am not a religious person in a conventional sense, but I was drawing on every ounce of spirituality and positive energy to will them both safely down the road.
As the clock crawled to five, I was there but not there. Keeping the what if question at bay was becoming harder and harder. I dragged myself back to the room collecting my jacket and fleece to prepare to head back out into the cold. Back in the cafe, I looked around for the hotel owner who had promised to take me out in his truck. He had disappeared, and I edgily paced back and forth.
I saw a bright headlight appear down the road. It wasn´t just a mirage. A huge black bike followed the light. They were there! I let out a bit of a girlie shreek and raced out out of the door and into the road, flagging him down to me. I was smiling the biggest smile and leaping around like a mad person. As Kev drew up, his face bright red and covered in melting snow, I flung my arms around him with almost enough force to knock the bike sideways. "I'm so happy to see you" I managed to get out.
It is not often that Kev and I travel separately, but Kev certainly had an amazing experience riding on his own. "I knew you´d be worried" he said, "but I just had to stop when I saw a herd of guanaco in the snow. They look so different in the snow. I had to stop for ten minutes, switch of the engine, so I didn´t spook them and watch".
Part of our ride back north was to take roads we had never been on before. To explore more of the remote roads for our tours next year. Part of this experience is knowing which roads NOT to bring people down!
We settled down to a well earned Quilmes beer that night and re-adjusted the route we were riding the next day. We had talked to an Argentinian business man, who had come south on Ruta 40. It is terrible he said, not paved and deep with snow . . . . .
