Aus meiner Satteltasche...

Going South

Magellanes was always a magic name to me. At a time, Aug. 10. 1519, when still many people thought the earth is a disk, he sailed westward, into the unknown. What kind of “GPS” might he have had? A couple of compasses? And he knew the stars.

He had faith and courage, more than we have in these days. So on Jan 1st 2008 I set out to find the Magellan strait my way. I send my motorcycle to Chile and headed south to Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. If you see the Magellan strait, it’s a coule de sac, Lord knows how he found his way there.

 I made it on a ferry and all the way down South “al final del mapa” as they say, to Ushuaia. It sure has some magic, like the magic light in tierra del fuego.  Ushuaia? That’s not much of a difference than any other habor. Its just the most southern city, so every biker wants to reach it. To do so, forget about blacktop. There are rough passages of unpaved road, called “ripio”, in Argentina and Chile. Did I have in mind to go all the way to Central/North America? No, not really, but when it became winter in the South, I headed North thru muddy roads in Argentina, over 5000m (16500ft) high passes between Argentina and Chile, along salt flats, to Peru and Ecuador, always keeping one idea: gone this far, might as well see what’s next. After that I felt I needed some days to relax at the warm waters of the equatorial Pacific in Ecuador. The whales do the same, so we greeted each other. What came next? An expensive repair on my motorcycle: the bearing of the rearwheel was gone. They fixed it at the BMW dealer in Cali/Colombia for a sum shy to 700$. Than Central America. Nicaragua is a good hang out, especially the colonial town of Granada.