Tierra Del Fuego

Ushuaia, Argentina We spent three days hanging around Ushuaia taking side trips and preparing to ship our bikes back to the US—a lengthy process that involves assembling the customs papers for exportation and getting the packing materials.

Torres del Paine, Chile to Cerro Sombrero, Chile to Ushuaia, Argentina Correction to previous blog 3-11-10:Helge and Roger were blown off their bikes by the wind and Vincent nearly fell off laughing at the spectacle. Relative to the judging of the Palomo award, of course transparency is the rule in all of South America –…

El Calafate, Argentina to Torres del Paine, Chile We left our nice hotel in El Calafate on Lake Argentino in the early morning. I had my warm gloves in the panniers and didn’t close them securely enough. While riding around town, my gloves blew out – so now I’m riding with no warm gloves. The…

Puyugapi, Chile to Perito Moreno, Argentina to El Chalten, Argentina to El Calafate, Argentina March 5We pulled out of Puyugapi early in the morning and caught a view of the clouds partially obscuring the mountains:

Osorno, Chile to San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina to Los Alerces National Park, Argentina to Puyugapi, Chile March 1We got a late start out of Osorno and headed to Moto Aventura, the tour operator Helge had arranged to have our tires changed. We started the trip with knobby tires for Baja Mexico, changed to road…

Santiago, Chile to Los Angeles, Chile to Osorno, Chile February 25-26We arrived in Santiago on Wednesday, February 24 and had planned to stay for one day but ended up staying for two. Our choice of one extra day allowed us to experience the 7th largest earthquake in recorded history, which struck in the very early…

Marge spoke briefly with Dan this evening via satellite phone and also spoke with Helge’s wife, Karen, to provide the following update.

Dan’s wife, Marge, received a phone call from a relative in Hong Kong @ 4:00 a.m. this morning with news of the earthquake that centered about 200 miles south of Santiago, Chile this morning.

Day 45 – February 18 Potosi, Bolivia to Tupiza, BoliviaWe spent the morning in Potosi at a museum whose name translates to “The House of Money.” It was a mint used by the early Spaniards to coin silver before sending it back to Spain (after extracting it from the poor Incas). The museum’s collection—which was…

Cuzco, Peru to Puno, Peru to La Paz, Bolivia to Uyuni, Bolivia to Potosi, Bolivia Helge once again forced us up early, and we headed out of Cuzco in time to beat the Saturday morning market traffic.